Page 93 of Hollow

He lets go of my hair.

I think he might just come right here.

But he staggers backward instead.

Turns away and starts marching toward the doors, his cloak flowing behind him as he goes, boots echoing with each hard step. He passes by the decapitated head and kicks it backward with his boot so it goes bouncing toward me.

Then he pushes the doors open and disappears into the night.

My legs threaten to give out, and I slide down to the floor, my hand at my chest as if to keep my heart in place.

I’ve never been so close to death before.

He had come here to kill me.

And yet I was able to reach him, enough to get him to stop, enough to even scare him. He’s scared of his own feelings for me, feelings for a man, sexual or otherwise.

But I know what it’s like to feel that way. How complicated it gets. How those complications lead to confusion and how that leads to anger and that anger can lead to violence.

I think about Marie.

I think about the night I found out she was having her affair with our neighbor, Ray.

About how for so long I had tried to bury my attraction to him. How angry I was that she was able to cheat on me with him.

I think about how I went to visit Ray, how I confronted him like any angry husband would.

And how that anger morphed and changed.

Because I wanted Marie. But I wanted Ray more.

And coming to terms with that meant tackling everything the church and my pastor father had taught me was wrong while growing up.

Sometimes you can’t face the fire until you’re pushed right into the flames.

I get to my feet quickly, panic taking hold of me.

Because I know how Brom feels, I know what he’s going to do.

I know who he’s going to seek out.

He’s going to go after Kat.

Unless he’s already seen her first.

Chapter 29

Kat

After the headless horseman came into my bedroom, I immediately went to find my mother, wondering why she never heard my scream. But she was nowhere to be found, and neither was Famke. It turns out that I hadn’t woken up in the middle of the night by the intruder. It was only eleven p.m., and they were probably heading back from the bonfire at any moment.

But I couldn’t just wait for them. I contemplated running over to Mary’s and telling them what I saw, but I didn’t want to risk leaving the house. When the fire burned out, I didn’t even want to head out to the woodshed to get more logs for the fire, so I went around lighting all the candles I could find with sparks from my fingers.

Then I got on my hands and knees and washed the blood out of the floor, trying not to be sick. The terror still has a hold on me, and if it wasn’t for the blood, I would think that I dreamed the whole thing.

But it was real. He came into the house, wanting me. Whether to defile me or kill me or both, I don’t know, but it was me this time that he wanted. It was only my pure luck that I was able to conjure that energy in time.

And yet, it’s not like he turned away and ran. He walked off like I had just asked him politely to leave. Which meant he might come back. So I decided to gather up all the salt in the house and start sprinkling it around all the entrances, hoping it might bar him.