Page 11 of Hollow
She takes me down the hall, a long stretch of stone walls adorned with paintings of animals in gold frames, just a single animal in each one—a horse, a frog, a butterfly, a cat—all done in the same vivid brushstrokes. Their eyes seem to watch me as I pass, making me feel unsettled.
Then she stops in front of a door with the name Ichabod Crane typed on a nameplate and raps on it with her knuckles.
Ichabod, I think to myself. What an unusual woman’s name.
And then the door opens with a blast of warm air, and on the other side stands an especially tall man who is staring at us quizzically. An especially tall and handsome man with smooth pale skin, floppy black hair, and dark grey eyes that remind me of the deepest thunderclouds.
“You’re a man,” I blurt out in surprise. I had been expecting a woman. I knew the school was progressive in every way, but I’d never had a male teacher before.
The man frowns at me. “That I am,” he says. “And you are terribly late.”
Chapter 4
Crane
Three Weeks Ago
I’m being followed. I’m sure of it.
The moment I stepped out of the building, a shadow moved off of the brick wall on Mott Street, lurching toward me out of the corner of my eye. I turned around to face my attacker, thinking it was a thief preying on those coming out of the opium joints, seeing an easy target to rob.
But there was no one there except a lone carriage going down the street and the sound of garbage bins rattling in a nearby alleyway. The rest of the city was sleeping.
I kept walking, the drug starting to leave my system. The August air was sticky even at night, but it felt fresh in my lungs, and I was taking gulps of it as I went, as if I hadn’t taken a breath in weeks. I knew it was a matter of time before the opium wore off completely and I would have to face the ruins of my life again, but for now, I was fine. I was an anonymous man with no future and no past, just footsteps echoing down the empty streets of New York City at three in the morning.
But then my footsteps were joined by another.
Coming closer, closer.
I whirled around and saw nothing there.
Nothing except the movement of a puddle, as if something had just splashed through it.
I walked faster after that, breaking a sweat, and I feel nearly sober now. I’m just a minute from my hotel room, and though I have this nasty feeling at the back of my neck that I’m being watched, I feel I might be safe once I’m inside. My room is just a dirty hole-in-the-wall, but at least I’m surrounded by other dirty holes-in-the-wall.
“Ichabod,” a female voice whispers from behind me. It’s like it reaches into my chest and grabs my heart, stopping me dead. It sounds so much like Marie…
“Ichabod Crane,” the voice says again, but now it sounds rough and low and vaguely sinister.
I slowly turn my head.
There’s a cloaked woman standing behind me.
She doesn’t have a face.
No eyes. No nose. Just a thin line for a mouth.
Lord Almighty.
“Ahh!” I cry out, trying to bury my scream and failing, raising my arm as if to shelter myself from the sight of her.
But with the pass of my arm, I see her again, and now she does have a face.
Of course she does. For heaven’s sake, I think I smoked too much tonight.
“Ichabod Crane,” she says once more, and now her voice changes yet again. It’s lighter, softer, and when she takes a step into the light of the gas lamp, I can see her more clearly. She’s old but of an indeterminate age, with smooth, even white skin with deep lines framing her eyes and mouth. Her lips are red and wet, like she just bit her lip, and her eyes are a bright green flecked with gold that seems to dance under the light. It’s her eyes that make her seem younger than she is.
She also has an aura about her that I can’t place. It’s constantly shifting in color, disappearing completely at times.