“Let her go,” her brother said faintly. “Please let her go.”
They locked eyes; she’d never seen anyone look so afraid. It made her insides clench. She couldn’t help it; she started to shriek and scream, pull back against the man. But he was impossibly strong; she was a rag doll, no muscle or bone. Her movements were as ineffective as the flap of butterfly wings.
When she looked back, she couldn’t even see her daddy. And after a while, walking and walking with the man holding on to her arm, pulling her so roughly, talking so mean, it started to get dark. She had never been so far away from where she was supposed to be. Maybe it was a dream.
It couldn’t be happening, could it? Could it?
PART ONE
NEW PENNY
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
A girl, spindle thin, rode too fast atop a motorcycle with an electric-purple gas tank and fenders, shiny chrome exhaust pipes. The engine roared, scaring the birds from their perches and causing the animals in the woods to skitter into their burrows. The road before her was a black ribbon dropped carelessly on green velvet, a twisting, turning skein between the trees that had not yet started to turn color. She took the bends tight and in control, feeling the confidence that only youth allows, still blissfully ignorant to the hard fact that consequences can be as unforgiving as asphalt on bare flesh.
The Hollows watched as she flew, the tall pine trees reaching up all around her, the last breath of summer exhaled and the first chill of autumn hovering, not yet fallen. The girl was of this place; she belonged here, more than she knew. But she was a fox in a trap, more likely to chew off her own leg than stay and wait for the hunter to come find her. She was unpredictable and wild, powerful, foolish, stubborn, like many children The Hollows had known.
She rode past the woods, past the high school and the small graveyard with the dilapidated caretaker’s shack, past the small pasture. Then she turned onto Main Street, which would lead her into the heart of town. She slowed her speed. If she was seen driving too fast, then it would get back to her grandmother, who would then worry about her more than she already did, which by Finley Montgomery’s estimation was far too much.
She wound through town slowly, looping once around the square, lifting a hand at the light to the man who waved from the crosswalk. Then she parked near The Fluffy Muffin, took off her helmet, revealing a shocking head of hot pink and black hair. She hung the helmet on the handlebars, not worried about anybody taking it. That wouldn’t happen here, not in The Hollows. Mrs. Kramer, owner of the bakery, smiled indulgently at the girl from the shop window. Then Finley disappeared inside the shop, where she would buy some fresh croissants for her grandmother, which she would try to get home before they got cold.
Across the street, Miss Lovely cleaned out the annuals from in front of her bed-and-breakfast establishment while her daughter Peggy balanced the books inside, worrying about the financial health of their business, which was poor. Expenses far outstripped income, and Peggy wasn’t sure how to tell her mother, who never liked to talk about such things.
Around the square, shops were opening. Yogis lined up outside White Orchid, shouldering their mats in stylish bags and clutching water bottles as they stood, chatting. From the Java Stop the scent of roasted coffee beans drifted out, luring in passersby. Marion March, owner of Gentle as a Lamb, lay out on a wooden stand a beautifully crocheted blanket made from the lamb’s wool she sold in her boutique of handmade clothes and linens. She’d thought by this point in her life that she’d have been a famous fashion designer living in Manhattan. But instead, she’d never left The Hollows. Marion was born and raised here, married her childhood sweetheart, and raised two girls, one of whom was currently studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology, with aspirations of her own to design (inspired by her mother). If Marion was disappointed at the way her life had turned out, no one knew it, especially not her girls, who thought she was the most wonderful mother on the face of the earth.