Wake the Hollow Read online

  Everyone’s taking notes while I just sit back. I don’t know. I don’t buy it.

  “But as I discussed with some of you…” His eyes land squarely on me now. “Irving wrote everything down. His diaries were extremely detailed. Miss Burgos, why don’t you tell them? You’ve had an interesting perspective considering where you spent a lot of time growing up.”

  Ground, swallow me. The stares at me range from envy to genuine curiosity. If anyone had missed the return of Micaela Burgos earlier this week, they definitely caught it now. I clear my throat. “You pretty much hit on everything. But um…he wrote about things like music and language lessons, the friends who came to call each day, what he ate for supper…daily, boring stuff like that.”

  “Everything, exactly. Thanks.” He uncaps his marker again and writes on the board: 1825–1826. “Yet the year he spent with Ms. Shelley went undocumented. Only his recorded meals and visits with fellow authors take precedence during this time. No details about their relationship.”

  All is quiet, except for Bram, who nervously taps his foot against the floor.

  “Odd, right?” Dane cocks his head. “That Irving should so deliberately skip over the time he spent with Ms. Shelley? But then, the years that followed while he was in Spain spoke vaguely of something he brought with him from London. The double creation, he wrote.” Dane pauses for huge dramatic effect. “Twins maybe?”

  What? Oh my God, please, Dane, this is so silly. I never read anything about Irving bringing something from London, double creations, or any babies for that matter. What would make him say something like that?

  Bram raises his hand. “Wouldn’t people have known if she was pregnant with twins? That’s not exactly easy to hide.”

  Dane shrugs. “Depends. If you were Mary Shelley, a woman shunned by a society that already hated her, who spent all her time trying to have her husband’s works posthumously published, living with her only surviving child in a run-down apartment because she wasn’t making any cash from her books—not really. She wasn’t in the limelight like Irving was. In fact, she was considered crazy and a leech to rich and famous Washington Irving. Not the type of woman he would ever mention in his journal. I mean, God forbid anyone reads the embarrassing stuff about him.” He pauses. “Would you record it?”

  “I wouldn’t write anything,” Eric says.

  “But Irving couldn’t help it,” Dane says. “He left a paper trail everywhere he went, which means that somewhere, he must have written about his involvement with this young woman who was only nineteen when she wrote her most famous novel. And it’d be interesting to imagine what happened between them. I mean, we’re talking the authors of ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and Frankenstein having a romance together. That’s pretty freakin’ cool.”

  The class laughs, while I keep my eyes down before he calls on me again.

  “Two legendary characters of Gothic and post-Gothic literature, the brainchildren of two amazing people,” he says, his words lingering in silence. Doc Tanner is taking mental notes of all our reactions. “Anyway, just something you all might not have known about your town hero.”

  Bram leans back and stretches. “That would be one awesome monster movie right there. Spawn of the Headless Horseman and Frankenstein! Grrr!”

  I roll my eyes. “They’re both boys, stupid.”

  Our eyes meet, and he gives me a mock shocked look. “Stupid, huh?”

  How incredible would it be to prove Dane’s theory correct? The truth is, nobody will ever know. Any diaries of Irving’s not housed at the various universities around the country are at the Historic Hudson Library, the Engers’ library. And my mother read them all. She would’ve known about any kids the two authors might’ve had, and she didn’t.

  Dr. Tanner discusses something with Dane, but I can’t hear them since the rest of the class is talking about Bram’s suggested new horror movie. In the midst of this, Dane looks over at me protectively, as if I’m surrounded by wolves.

  As crazy as this idea sounds, I’m liking Dane Boracich for his creative theory. Dane and I are so much alike. He’s a mature man of Harvard, whereas I’ve applied to Yale, and he knows his history of literature, and I’m going to study literature as a precursor for law school. And lastly, whenever he’s around, he watches me like a hawk.

  Which is sexy, albeit borderline stalker-ish.

  But strangely reassuring.

  And nothing to do with being two peas in a pod. But I like it.

  Chapter Eight

  “But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that succeeded.”

  After school, I check my messages, hoping the police department called me back, but only Emily did to see how I’m doing. I head to the townhouse to drop off my backpack and books, determined to scratch items off my to-do list. Nina is in her room on the phone, whiny voice rising and falling between what sounds like whimpers.

  I knock lightly on the door. “Nina? You okay?”

  The whimpering stops. “I’m fine, Mica. How was school?”

  “Same as always. I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back later.” I don’t know what’s going on with her, but I sneak out to give her privacy. Once outside, I focus on Item 1 on my list—Go back and get Coco.

  From the top of the hill, I gaze down on a rustling blanket of orange and gold. The air smells of matted leaves and browning foliage. Red brick buildings sit on gray country roads, and the whole thing makes me smile. Fine, maybe I did miss Sleepy Hollow a little.

  Though I used to hate the droves of tourists passing through to check out the changing leaves and the field trips full of kids learning about the area’s history and famous resident author, one thing I always loved were the Halloween decorations. On my walk, I note all the cool stuff on porches everywhere—stretchy webs, giant spiders, tombstones, carved pumpkins, painted pumpkins…more pumpkins than you can count.

  I make my way down the slope, opting for a shortcut to my old house through a row of yellow birch trees. It’s a quiet route I used to ride my bike on with Bram a long time ago, with a bubbling brook that parallels the foot-drawn path. As water glides over the smooth rocks, I don’t know what I love more, its bubbly sound or the biting cold air sending fresh puffs of leaves raining into the brook.

  One lands by my feet, beautifully intact and orange, and I bend to pick it up. I’ll take it back to show Emily. She was so envious I’d be seeing the change in seasons.

  Fallen branches crackle underneath my feet.

  Lela...

  A shape of a person to my left catches my eye. But when I look straight at it, it’s nothing more than some birch trees outside the barren backyard of an old house, its chain link fence sagging in the middle. Who the hell is talking to me?

  “Mami?” I call into the empty path.

  Nearby open windows emit fragments of conversations from within houses and other sounds filtering through the screens. Pots and pans clanking, clothes dryers running, even the smell of lavender static sheets in the musty air, but no one is here with me.

  To my right, I catch another glimpse of a grayish shape, but when I stare straight at it, it’s just the trunk of an old maple tree. “Jesus,” I mutter, keeping my eyes focused on the end of the path.

  I hurry toward it, almost there when another sound joins the hubbub that is my crazy mind, a sound completely unlike the din of domestic household noises. I stop and strain my ears. Rhythmic pulse of footsteps. Running? Coming down the shortcut? Leaves crunch somewhere behind me—choppy, in a hurry, and…headed in my direction. Human or animal, I’m not sure. I whirl around to face it, hoping it’s a dog trotting or a jogger charging through the woods.

  But there’s no one there.

  “Uh, okay…” My whisper forms a warm cloud in the chilly afternoon air. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead as my heart begins pounding hard. My hands turn clammy. I wipe them on my jeans.

  The golden path is as empty as when I walked through it. But something ran throug
h here, I know it did—I heard it. Turning back around, I break into a sprint. At the end of the shortcut, I push through an opening in the trees on the east end of Maple Street. Four older boys are there, circling on their bikes. Was one of them in the woods just now, and I just didn’t see him? One boy plants his feet on the ground to stop his bike and gapes at me openmouthed, as if he’s seen the headless horseman himself.

  I wave at him to show it’s only me, and he resumes riding. “I’m losing it,” I mutter.

  Collectively, the boys ride to the opposite end of the block. I’m alone again on the empty street. Panting, I hustle onto the sidewalk and make my way back to my old blue-gray house. When I finally arrive, I stop to catch my breath and take in the scene again. The house’s faded exterior, sagging front porch, and tall, thin, dry grass all around makes my heart ache.

  “Coco,” I call out. “Cocoooo.”

  No kitty to be seen. She must be getting her food from somewhere else.

  I try the realtor again but get the same stupid voicemail beep. “Hello? Can someone please call me back?” I leave my number yet again then hang up. Then, I do the same with Officer Stanton’s information number and leave a message there, too, when no one answers. What is going on with these people? Exactly how hot is a hotline number that no one picks up?

  Taking slow, deliberate steps, I head up Mami’s steps and knock on the door. All is still. Even the trees have stopped moving. Slowly, I press down on the handle. Locked.

  “Coco?”

  Ambient sounds calm me—distant cars humming, a horn blasting on the river, squeaking of the porch planks. Every time I try calming myself through breathing, like Emily suggested, the action triggers a memory. I hear my parents—

  “How long has this been going on, Maria?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

  “Let go of my wrist, Jay. I swear, you’re more like your father every day, imagining things that aren’t there.”

  “You calling me stupid?”

  “I’m calling you delusional.”

  “Interesting, Maria, when you’re the one who talks to people who aren’t there. Maybe if you’d pay more attention to me—to her…” Though I was hiding in the pantry, I could tell he was pointing at me. So much for my secret location.

  A surge of sadness rises in my chest. I choke with the unexpectedness of it. Why couldn’t we make it as a family? Swallowing back tears, I fight the urge to leave. I must stick this out. The side yard is overgrown with weeds, and the crawl space lattice is broken, exposing the underside of the house and a spot matted with white fur. “So that’s where you’ve been sleeping, Coco?”

  Lela, go.

  I freeze then turn around slowly, straining to listen. As usual, nobody’s there. All I hear are birds chirping, a screen door slamming somewhere, and my own punctuated laugh. “Mami?”

  No answer. It must be my mom if she says Lela. Why is she telling me to go, though? I pinch the bridge of my nose. This is what it feels like to go crazy, isn’t it? When nothing makes sense, but everything feels so real.

  The windows and doors to the house are still locked. Though I checked all ways in last time I was here, I’ll try them again. When I crouch to the basement window, something’s changed. The window is broken now, the pane completely gone except for a few jagged edges. Someone broke in since I last came by. I hit the cold ground on my stomach and slide in. Hopefully, someone will suspect me of being another burglar and call the police. Then I’ll finally get to talk to them.

  Inside the basement, I choke on the pungent smell of dried urine. How could the realtor not do something about this? In the murkiness, I make out the old Berber carpet, the scratched walls in need of paint.

  Holy crap. Look at this place.

  Where sewing machines and craft tables used to stand. Where I colored and played with Barbies while Mami crafted dresses for each of her beloved creations. Why didn’t she ever take a break and sit on the floor to play with me?

  Heading up the stairs, I realize the basement door might be locked, but when I try it, it gives way. Quiet space looms ahead—

  ...not here...

  Not here? Who’s not here? Whispers flicker in my mind again, most of them indiscernible. And then I realize I have a choice—to either shut my brain against them or open myself up. Thing is, I know that once I do, I might unlock more voices. What if doing that starts a flood of voices and visions, opening a portal or something? Am I ready for that?

  Voices can’t hurt me, I tell myself. Just do it. Talk to them. “What was that?” I ask the emptiness bravely. “What do you mean ‘not here’?”

  Cold silence this time.

  My presence has stirred up the stagnant air. Vertical strips of light filter through the blinds like ghostly sheets hung up to dry. Illuminated dust vortices swirl between them. To my left is the office once used for paying bills and storing boxes of papers—articles my mother had researched, all by hand, never with a computer, books about the region, Irving, the Rockefellers, political histories of Spain and Portugal, whatever. Now it sits empty, two wire hangers in the closet.

  “Shh, stop shouting, Maria. She’ll hear you.”

  “She’s asleep!”

  “She’s not, she’s listening…you don’t even know your own daughter!”

  I fight back tears, picking up more of the argument, but I can’t tell anymore where my thoughts begin and end. The wind is back, softly rattling the living room window panes. I stop at the bottom of the stairs, foot poised on the first step, staring up into the darkness.

  Gripping the railing, I gradually edge my way up. Regret, like a thick, heavy fog, settles over me. The whole separation began as whispers behind closed doors when I was six or seven until finally one day, my parents were yelling right in front of me. I reach the landing and pause. “Hello?”

  Ridiculous. This house is nothing but musty and empty. I aim toward my old bedroom. The door is closed. I brace myself, hand on the doorknob. It’ll be completely painted over, I know it. Any mother who barely spoke to her daughter over the years would have removed all traces of the little girl who once lived here, the little girl who abandoned her. I’m going to find storage boxes, a bigger office, or worst of all—more dolls.

  I turn the knob and let the door fly open.

  Shiny silver stickers flicker at me, still stuck to the wall, which is still yellow, though more pale than I remembered. I cover my gasp with my hands, and the tears come. The mark on the wall from using my bed as a trampoline is there, too. In the closet, the board games are gone; clean white rectangles on dusty shelves remain. They sat there until recently. I move to the spot where my bed had been, where my little night table with the ballerina lamp used to be.

  “Night-night, Mami.”

  “Night-night, my little Lela.”

  Huge, fat tears slip out and fall. I make no effort to wipe them. This room is used to tears anyway. I back out into the hallway. To the left, my mother’s bedroom looms in the dark.

  ...was an accident...

  I stare at the master bedroom. Again, I try talking back to the voice instead of ignoring it. “What was an accident?” Or was that wasn’t an accident?

  The voices are muddled, or maybe I’m not letting them in right. I take two tentative steps toward the room. “What is it, Lela? Come in already,” my mother’s sniffling voice said to me one night, as I lurked just outside her door. All I’d wanted was to say good night to her.

  Now, I step into the master bedroom. Moss green walls, drab and dusty beige curtains surround me. I cross the vacant space, pausing outside the bathroom door, pulse pounding in my ears. The little orange tiles, still here, still old and dirty. I force my eyes toward the tub, cracked and rusted around the faucet, dull metal coated with soap residue. A cruel image flashes against my mind like the glint of silent lightning—brown hair streaked with gray, pale expressionless face pressed against porc
elain, blood running into the drain.

  My limbs begin shaking, but I can’t leave. Not until I know. “How did it happen, Mami? Tell me.” My voice shakes in my throat.

  Suddenly, a coppery taste laces my tongue. I swipe it with my thumb. Blood. In the rusted mirror, the girl staring back is almost not me, standing here so goddamn heartbroken. Is it me, or my mother? Something scuttles behind me. I spin around, dropping my leaf. “Hello?”

  The tree outside the window scratches against the pane.

  What are you doing here? Get out.

  “Mami? But you asked me to come…”

  No answer. Only my heartbeat pounding between my ears, the whoosh of blood flowing through the capillaries in my head. In the distance, the faraway sound of a boat’s horn blasting. “Mami? I’m not going. Not yet.”

  Silence.

  Six weeks. Six short weeks ago, Mami was still here, a living, breathing person—the woman who brought me into this world and loved me despite her obsessions, a woman I once loved, still love, even though she did nothing to stop me from leaving…gave me no reason to stay.

  Had she tried, had she told me how much she loved me, that she would change, pay more attention, I might’ve never left. Instead, I tested her. Because I was twelve and just as stubborn as she was. The blank space ahead of me feels crackly and charged with energy. I reach out my hand.

  Mami, my flesh and blood. No reason to be afraid of her, if she’s here. Even though I can tell. I can tell that I’m not alone.

  That she is here.

  Right now.

  Watching.

  LELA, GO!

  I bolt away, plummet down the stairs to the dining room, fleeing the voice, crystal clear and right in front of me. That one was not in my mind. It’s one thing to imagine you’re not alone and another to hear someone in the hanging stillness, a voice not your own and yet so familiar. Or was it me who spoke aloud?