Ransom Riggs - Hollow City

We were halfway up the ridge. Up ahead of us, high in the distance, was a house that almost seemed to be balanced on a cloudbank. As we walked farther and crested the hill, the clouds parted and the house came into full view. It was very small, and perched not atop a cloud but on a very large tower constructed entirely from stacked-up railroad ties, the whole thing set smack in the middle of a grassy plateau. It was one of the strangest man-made structures I’d ever seen. Around it on the plateau were scattered a few shacks, and at the far end was a small patch of woods, but we paid no attention—our eyes were on the tower.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“A lookout tower?” guessed Emma.

“A place to launch airplanes from?” said Hugh.

But there were no airplanes anywhere, nor any evidence of a landing strip.

“Perhaps it’s a place to launch zeppelins from,” said Millard.

I remembered old footage of the ill-fated Hindenburg docking to the top of what looked like a radio tower—a structure not so different from this—and felt a cold wave of dread pass through me. What if the balloons that hunted us on the beach were based here, and we’d unwittingly stumbled into a nest of wights?

“Or maybe it’s the ymbryne’s house,” said Olive. “Why does everyone always leap to the awfullest conclusions right away?”

“I’m sure Olive’s right,” said Hugh. “There’s nothing to be afraid of here.”

He was answered right away by a loud, inhuman growl, which seemed to come from the shadows beneath the tower.

“What was that ?” said Emma. “Another hollow?”

“I don’t think so,” I said; the Feeling still fading in me.

“I don’t know and I don’t want to know,” said Horace, backing away.

But we didn’t have a choice; it wanted to meet us. The growl came again, prickling the hairs on my arms, and a moment later a furry face appeared between two of the lower railroad ties. It snarled at us like a rabid dog, reels of saliva dripping from its fang-toothed mouth.

“What in the name of the Elderfolk is that ?” muttered Emma.

“Capital idea, coming into this loop,” said Enoch. “Really working out well for us so far.”

The whatever-it-was crawled out from between the ties and into the sun, where it crouched on its haunches and leered at us with an unbalanced smile, as if imagining how our brains might taste. I couldn’t tell if it was human or animal; dressed in rags, it had the body of a man but carried itself like an ape, its hunched form like some long-lost ancestor of ours whose evolution had been arrested millions of years ago. Its eyes and teeth were a dull yellow, its skin pale and blotched with dark spots, its hair a long, matted nest.

“Someone make it die!” Horace said. “Or at least make it quit looking at me!”

Bronwyn set Claire down and assumed a fighting stance, while Emma held out her hands to make a flame—but she was too stunned, apparently, to summon more than a sputter of smoke. The man-thing tensed, snarled, and then took off like an Olympic sprinter—not toward us but around us, diving behind a pile of rocks and popping up again with a fang-bearing grin. It was toying with us, like a cat toys with its prey just before the kill.

It seemed about to make another run— at us this time—when a voice from behind commanded it to “Sit down and behave!” And the thing did, relaxing onto its hindquarters, tongue lolling from its mouth in a dopey grin.

We turned to see a dog trotting calmly in our direction. I looked past it to see who had spoken, but there was no one—and then the dog itself opened its mouth and said, “Don’t mind Grunt, he’s got no manners at all! That’s just his way of saying thank you. That hollowgast was most bothersome.”

The dog seemed to be talking to me, but I was too surprised to respond. Not only was it speaking in an almost-human voice—and a refined British one at that—but it held in its jowly mouth a pipe and on its face wore a pair of round, green-tinted glasses. “Oh dear, I hope you’re not too offended,” the dog continued, misinterpreting my silence. “Grunt means well, but you’ll have to excuse him. He was, quite literally, raised in a barn. I, on the other hand, was educated on a grand estate, the seventh pup of the seventh pup in an illustrious line of hunting dogs.” He bowed as well as a dog could, dipping his nose to the ground. “Addison MacHenry, at your humble service.”

“That’s a fancy name for a dog,” said Enoch, apparently unimpressed to meet a talking animal.

Addison peered over his glasses at Enoch and said, “And by what appellation, dare I ask, are you denominated?”

“Enoch O’Connor,” Enoch said proudly, sticking his chest out a little.

“That’s a fancy name for a grimy, pudge-faced boy,” Addison said, and then he stood up on his hind legs, rising nearly to Enoch’s height. “I am a dog, yes, but a peculiar one. Why, then, should I be saddled with a common dog’s name? My former master called me ‘Boxie’ and I despised it—an assault on my dignity!—so I bit him on the face and took his name. Addison: much more befitting an animal of my intellectual prowess, I think. That was just before Miss Wren discovered me and brought me here.”

Faces brightened at the mention of an ymbryne’s name, a pulse of hope firing through us.

“Miss Wren brought you?” said Olive. “But what about Cuthbert the giant?”

“Who?” Addison said, and then he shook his head. “Ah, right, the story. It’s just that, I’m afraid—a story , inspired long ago by that curious rock down below and Miss Wren’s peculiar menagerie.”

“Told you,” muttered Enoch.

“Where’s Miss Wren now?” Emma said. “We’ve got to speak to her!”

Addison looked up at the house atop the tower and said, “That’s her residence, but she isn’t home at the moment. She winged off some days ago to help her ymbryne sisters in London. There’s a war on, you see … I assume you’ve heard all about it? Which explains why you’re traveling in the degraded style of refugees?”

“Our loop was raided,” said Emma. “And then we lost our things at sea.”

“And nearly ourselves,” Millard added.

At the sound of Millard’s voice, the dog startled. “An invisible! What a rare surprise. And an American, too,” he said, nodding at me. “What a peculiar lot you are, even for peculiars.” He fell back onto all fours and turned toward the tower. “Come, I’ll introduce you to the others. They’ll be absolutely fascinated to meet you. And you must be famished from your journey, poor creatures. Nutrifying provender shall be forthcoming!”

“We need medicine, too,” said Bronwyn, kneeling to pick up Claire. “This little one is very ill!”

“We’ll do all we can for her,” the dog said. “We owe you that and more for solving our little hollowgast problem. Most bothersome, as I was saying.”

“Nutrifying what did he say?” said Olive.

“Sustenance, comestibles, rations!” the dog replied. “You’ll eat like royalty here.”

“But I don’t like dog food,” said Olive.

Addison laughed, the timbre surprisingly human. “Neither do I, miss.”