Chapter 11

Farley:

It felt like heaven, the pillow under my head. The blankets had been pulled up to my shoulders, and I couldn’t feel the boots on my feet anymore. Half asleep, I didn’t know what happened, but I went with it. This bed felt like a heaven I had never known before, and probably would never know again. I had slept on a wooden floor for most of my life, and had no reason to believe I would upgrade from the half-broken cot I had now.

I stretched, and reached my arm out. When I found an empty side of the bed, I felt disappointment I couldn’t understand. Who had I been expecting? Then I remembered why the bed felt so soft. It belonged to a prince, and must have been made of the most expensive materials in all of the land. I shouldn’t have been there. More importantly… why wasn’t Hollow?

I lounged, remembering why my face still felt warm. I hadn’t been expecting the king to hit me, but it didn’t surprise me. I could only imagine how my calling Hollow by another name must have felt. It didn’t make what he did right, but I understood it. Hollow had looked so angry, and then he looked like something else when he picked me up. The name I put to it did not make sense, so I ignored it, and let him carry me away.

Now that he had left, it made me grouchy. How dare he not be there when I woke up, with a crooked smile and rude comment waiting for me? Maybe he had some regrets over what he had said to me before. Being too personal with the little witch who lived under his stairs.

I opened my eyes, ready to go back to my hovel, but something stopped me from moving. I saw a figure in the darkness, and it stood by Hollow’s dresser. When I squinted, it looked like a woman. Not any woman, but the maid who’d beaten me senseless.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I got out of the bed. The sun had set, and it made things hard to see. She must have missed me entirely when she came in.

The woman ripped her hands from the dresser, and her eyes went wide. “Nothing. What are you doing in here?!”

“This isn’t about me. I have permission to be here. I assume you don’t, or you wouldn’t look so scared right now.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “What are you accusing me of, you little whore? I told you to stay away from the prince, and now I find you in his bed. I’m sure the king will be very interested to hear that his peasant girl is trying to bed his son. What are you hoping for? That he’ll get you pregnant and have some obligation to take care of you?”

Her words didn’t insult me, because I had no intentions of harming the royal family. Hollow knew that as well, and his father would have believed him if he told the truth. This woman was frightened, and clutched at straws to throw the blame somewhere else. I wouldn’t take it.

“You were stealing,” I said. “I saw you put something in your apron. What did you take?”

She started walking backward to the door. “Shut your mouth. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do. Show me what you took.”

Her hand wrapped around a lamp, and she held it in the air. “One step closer, and I bash your brains in. Everyone would thank me for it. Don’t think for a second that it would go any other way. The villagers would throw me a party, and we would burn your body to ashes.”

The door opened, and Hollow entered before the woman could assault me. His eyes went to her, then me, then the lamp before he took it out of her hands. “Someone explain this. Now.”

“She snuck in here!” the maid accused. “She snuck into your bed, hoping to seduce you. I caught her in the act.”

Hollow rolled his eyes. “I brought her up here. However, I didn’t bring you, so what are you in here for?”

“I heard noise,” she lied. “I came to check, and the witch tried to attack me.”

Hollow looked in my direction. “What happened, Farley?”

The maid’s jaw dropped, but I ignored her to explain. “I woke up, and she was digging through your drawer. I saw her put something in her apron.”

Hollow didn’t hesitate to remove it from her, even with the woman protesting. He pulled out a hairbrush with a silver handle, and stared at the woman. “Well this doesn’t look good for you.”

She straightened out her clothes, looking utterly put out. “I was going to clean it. The witch is a liar, and I cannot believe you would take her word over mine. She’s trying to seduce you for your money. Can you not see that?”

I gagged, and Hollow smiled at me. “Somehow, I doubt she wants to be in the same bed as I am. Leave, and do not enter this room again, for any reason, for the rest of the time you live here.”

She hung her head, and went.

I had a smirk on my face as I approached Hollow, putting away his brush. In the most dramatic voice I could muster, I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “She found out my plan. Now I’ll never have you.”

Hollow cleared his throat. “Oh, I wouldn’t say never. Maybe I like being stupid.”

He surprised me, picking me up by my waist and pulling my legs around him. I held his shoulders for balance, laughing when Hollow pinned me against the wall. “The door isn’t even locked,” I said.

Hollow shrugged. “I prefer to live dangerously.”

“Well you will be, because any man that has sex with me will be cursed.”

“Wonderful, I was hoping.” He pressed me tighter to the wall, getting a sound out of me that I didn’t have to fake.

I nodded at him when he looked at me again. “Yes, Little Hollow will shrivel and fall right off.”

“Perfect. How have I not tried to take you before?”

“I guess you’re dumb. Oh!” I squeaked when he shoved the contents of the top of his dresser onto the floor. He sat me on it, pulled my legs around him again, and buried his face against my neck. He certainly took his playing seriously.

Hollow had my hips in his hands, holding me tightly when he looked into my eyes again. He held the gaze for a moment, not saying anything. I listened to him pant, and watched his eyes run with things he didn’t tell me. “Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

His fingers brushed my cheek, and I remembered before he said anything. “Does it still hurt?”

“No,” I said quietly. “How bad do I look?”

Hollow lightly shook his head. “You look perfect.”

I smiled. “Thank you for nursing me back to health, and letting the little peasant girl in your bed.”

Hollow picked me up, and set me on my feet. “Happy to do it. I expect you to pay me with your body. I’m going to go lay down. You may get on top of me any time you want.”

It made me giggle when he dropped onto his bed, and the feathers flew up into the air. Amazing that one pillow could have made such a mess, but it did. It surprised me to see that Hollow had still not made someone clean it for him.

“Well,” he said. “You are not on top of me.”

“Oh dear. How selfish of me.”

Hollow sat up. “Would you come with me somewhere?”

He wasn’t being an ass, so saying no to him would have been difficult. I nodded, and he rose up from the bed. Hollow took me by the wrist, and led me out of his room, down the tower, and out to the courtyard. Once we stepped outside, he let go of me and looked around. A few guards had been stationed outside, but I didn’t know if that he brought me out here to see that. If he found what he wanted, Hollow didn’t share.

“I thought you’d want to see the horses,” he said as we got to the stable. “Your last visit was interrupted with a beating. Didn’t seem right.”

We stopped in front of a pure white horse, and he handed me sugar cubes to give her. “Are you trying to make up for the fact that I got hit today?”

“Why would you say that?”

“You’ve been extra nice.”

He didn’t seem happy to hear that, and it made him walk a few steps away from me. He stopped in front of his horse, petting him while he spoke to me. “Nice isn’t really a word people use with me. To be fair, I kind of treat people poorly. So they don’t like me. Not really.”

“Does that upset you?”

“Them not liking me, or when they fake liking me?”

“Either.”

He patted his horse, and then went to sit on the bench a good few yards from me. “I don’t care if people like me, because I don’t like any of them. I can’t seem to muster up the will to feel much about anything. But I would prefer people not lie to me about how they feel.”

He wanted distance from me, but I felt like I shouldn’t have given him that. His whole life had been utter detachment, and a change of pace might have been good for him. Either way, I wanted to sit with Hollow.

“This might disturb you,” I started. “But you’re not as much of a jerk as you think you are. I haven’t been annoyed with you all day. If you ignore this morning.”

Hollow smiled at the ground. “Well there’s that. Maybe I won’t die alone after all.”

“Hey, you have that little princess who wants to have your babies, I think you’re going to be fine.”

Hollow made a sound of disgust. “I would rather bury myself alive than marry that girl. Can you picture my life? She would never stop talking, and I would have to keep myself from killing her.”

“That’s a fine basis for a marriage. Maybe you’ll eventually love her.”

“Wouldn’t have the time to see.”

“Seventy years not enough for you?”

Hollow went silent in a strange way. He normally had something witty to throw back at me, but his whole demeaner changed. I watched him drain of all emotion.

“Hollow,” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”

He cleared his throat, and I thought he might have brushed it off and walked away. I guess he wasn’t much for avoiding. “I won’t be around for seventy years. I’ve been told two is much more likely.”

I waited for him to tell me it was a joke, teasing me for how worried I knew I must have looked. Hollow said nothing, and his expression didn’t change back. “What?”

“Don’t feel too badly. I’m not worth mourning.”

My mind ran with the information he just gave me, trying to decide that it hadn’t been real. “But you look fine. How are you dying?”

He smiled. “Well thank you. I was born with a hole in my heart, if you must know. I didn’t know about it until a few years ago, but it answers why I couldn’t keep up with other children, and why sometimes, I can’t breathe. Most people with this get much longer than I have, but the doctor said that this is a unique case. It’s certainly unpleasant to hear things like that.”

“They can fix that, can’t they? You have all the money in the world, is there not a doctor that can make this right?”

I watched Hollow start to unbutton his shirt, and he pulled the fabric apart to show a long, thin scar in the center of his chest. “They tried that, and I nearly died three times. My father decided he would rather me live long enough to make an heir, than let them try again.”

I didn’t ask first, but I failed to realize that before I actually touched him. My fingertips brushed the scar, traveling the length. I felt uneasy, hearing what he told me.

“Maybe I can do something,” I offered. “Have you tried magic? I’ve never done something like this, but—”

When my hand went flat over the scar, Hollow removed it, but held it tightly. “No, don’t do that. Some people shouldn’t be around, and I think I’m one of them. I’m not human enough to get that.”

“Don’t talk like that. You’re eighteen, you don’t deserve to die just because you’re jaded.”

“It’s more than that and you know it.”

“This isn’t right,” I said, taking my hand back from him. “You’re not even trying. You’ll let your father marry you off to a girl who doesn’t love you, and you’re going to lie down and die. What’s the point? What’s the point of anything at all if you just let life take you like that?”

“Farley,” Hollow said calmly, making me realize my own voice had gotten almost hysterical. “It’s all right. I’m not upset.”

“I’m upset. I’m upset, Hollow. I don’t want you to die.” It hit me as I said it, but I didn’t want him to die. It must have happened today, the switch from hating him, to caring. My timing had been terrible, obviously, since I headed for sadness Hollow didn’t want to help me avoid.

“It’s over,” he told me. “So don’t be upset. It’s a waste of time.”

And there it was, that coldness coming back as he spoke to me with nothing to his voice. I didn’t know if he tried to force it, or if he really didn’t care one way or another what happened to him. Then what had been the goal here? Why would he torture me, then decide to be nice just in time to let me care enough to be sad? It seemed cruel in its own right, but maybe that had been the point.

I stood, getting myself away from him. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I can’t be a part of this. I can’t let you do this to me.”

“Do what?”

“Play with me. You could have told me about this at any time, but you waited. You waited until you and I started becoming friends. But I’m just entertainment to you, aren’t I?”

Hollow stood too, but I backed up when he walked closer. “No, that’s not what this was.”

“Then do a damn good job explaining what it was to you, because from here, it looks crystal clear. What is it then? You can’t feel, so you play with other people’s emotions?”

It felt like evil coming from my lips, but I couldn’t stop it. Saying words that would have hurt him, if he could actually feel. He seemed convinced he couldn’t, so why should I have believed that changed in an afternoon? What a clever game this would have been, if this indeed had been the point of it all. Set me up to watch me fall down again.

No, I shouldn’t have been making this about myself. Hollow was dying, and he didn’t care. I cared enough for the both of us. But that didn’t erase the hurt I felt that there was a chance—however small or large—that this was one more thing he did only to get a rise out of me.

Hollow stared at me, and he made no move to get closer. “I don’t know what this was. I haven’t had a friend before, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be. I’ve never lied to you.”

“What am I supposed to think? You changed completely in such a short time, and then you want to tell me you’re sick. Every single person in my life hurts me. You know that. I’ve been beaten, hunted, and generally abused more than I could ever even tell you, but you knew that already. Then you made me think I could have a friend. Most people just hit me, but I guess I should give you points for creativity, killing me with kindness.”

I turned, and started hurrying out of the stable. I needed to be away from Hollow, and anyone else that might have wanted something from me. That story ran through my head again, and when he told me about his mother. The part of me that wanted to see the good in people, didn’t want to think he did that to trick me. That wasn’t cold; that would have been evil, and Hollow wasn’t evil. Then the other half of me remembered every hand used to hurt me, and every cruel word said to bring me down. Why I should have expected someone to meet me, and see something more than the witch who terrorized a village?

Hollow caught my wrist, and spun me around to face him. He panted hard, struggling to breathe. “Please, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“Nothing,” I told him. “I just want to be alone.”

He let go of me, and nodded. “I’ll see to it that no one bothers you.”

I might have lied when I said I wanted to be alone, but I left him anyway. This felt like overacting, but my chest stung from embarrassment. I showed my hand, letting Hollow know that I cared. If he wanted to, he could hurt me with the information I gave him. Then he would be just like everyone else.

I so desperately did not want him to be like everyone else.