The Kingdom - Clare B Dunkle - Hollow Kingdom 01 - The Hollow Kingdom

The Hollow Kingdom

Hollow Kingdom 01

Clare B Dunkle

Prologue

Part I—Starlight

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Part II—Lamplight

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Part III—Darkness

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Publication Info

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This book is respectfully dedicated to

Lloyd Alexander, who gave the world Eilonwy

and brought Gwydion back to life.

Prologue

She had never screamed before, not when she overturned the rowboat and almost drowned, not when the ivy broke and she crashed into the shrubbery below, not even when Lightfoot bucked her off and she felt her leg break underneath her with an agonizing crunch. She hadn’t even known that she could. Screaming was Lizzy’s job, and Lizzy was terribly good at it. But now she screamed, long and loud, with all her breath.

“My dear,” came a mild voice from beneath the black hood. “Do you mind? You’re hurting my ears, and I’m surprised at you. You’ve always been so brave.”

She hushed up then, her pride roused, and instead put all her efforts into breaking free, thrashing and writhing in the grip of the black-cloaked figure. It did no good. He carried her steadily and unhurriedly through the deep evening gloom of the woods, and she could see as she twisted about that those others, those bizarre things, were still all around them, following.

The strange crowd broke from the forest and stopped a few feet from the steep bluffs of the Hill. “This is what you’ve been looking for,” remarked the hooded one. “Our front door. You wanted to walk right in, as I recall, and here’s your chance.”

He set her on her feet, his arm still around her waist. She immediately tried to slide to the ground, her feet scrabbling on the loose dirt. Doubled over, kicking and clawing, she felt him drag her forward. “There, you’ve walked in, more or less.” She straightened up to find herself in a broad, dimly lit corridor of polished black stone. “You’re inside now. You don’t see anywhere to run, do you?” She shook her head. “So you’ll stop this scrambling around. You shouldn’t have come looking for us, my dear, if you didn’t want to find us.”

The tall figure released her and unfastened his cloak, stepping back a pace to study her gravely. She stared at him openmouthed, unable to look away. His eyes were beautiful, large and black, like the eyes of Christ on her father’s Greek icon. His face was broad, with high cheekbones, and his smooth skin shimmered in the lamplight with a strange silvery gray color. He had no hair on his head, no beard, not even eyebrows. His mouth was a little too wide, and his ears were long and narrow and rose to sharp points. She was tall for a girl, but he was half a head taller than she, and his broad shoulders and thick arms explained how he had been able to carry her away so effortlessly.

He saw a very young woman of sturdy, athletic build, her lean, pretty face very pale, black hair straggling about it rather wildly. Her green eyes glared desperately at him. No tears were on her cheeks yet, but the trembling lower lip indicated that they weren’t perhaps too far from falling. He gazed at her for a long moment and then gave her a smile.

“You see what a lucky girl you are,” he said in a low voice. “I’m very handsome for a goblin. And you were going to catch a goblin, weren’t you? With your bare hands.” He reached out and laid one of her trembling hands on his muscular silvery gray forearm. “You’ve caught a goblin, my dear, all for your very own.” The hand ended in what looked like well-kept dog claws, and she tried to pull away. He chuckled quietly, and she glanced up to discover that the teeth in that gray face were the color of dark, tarnished silver.

“Where’s your spirit of adventure gone?” he said encouragingly. “You wanted a goblin, remember? And you wanted to walk right in here, too, didn’t you? Is there anything else you’d like to do?”

“I want to go home,” she whispered, and the first tear escaped. He watched it thoughtfully. She was doing pretty well, all things considered.

“I’ll take you home,” he promised. “Come with me now.” Comforted, she let him keep the hand he held and lead her down the polished corridor. They came to a broad, high iron door, which swung open as they approached and then clanged shut behind them. She stopped and looked around in startled wonder.

“Here you are, my dear,” he said quietly. “My kingdom. And your home. It’s been a long wait, but it’s over at last.”

“No!” she gasped, her eyes searching that inhuman face for some other meaning. The monster smiled at her warmly.

“Indeed,” he assured her. “You haven’t seen me, but I’ve watched you since you were a baby. I’ve watched over you, too. I tightened your teeth back up when you knocked them loose tumbling out of the snow sled you’d tied to the pony’s tail. I fixed your knee after you fell from the ivy when you were eight, and I healed your leg the night you broke it getting thrown from the horse.” His smile broadened. “I was glad the doctor didn’t know about that, though. Eight weeks’ rest was something we all needed at that point.” She stared at him in bewilderment.

“It was good for you to grow up outside.” His voice was kind. “You certainly enjoyed it. But you were always intended for here, and now you’re finally old enough. Barely, but old enough.” He chuckled. “I’d have left you outside for another year or two, but you showed such a lively interest in us. You just couldn’t wait to meet goblins. So you’re home now. In all the years you live here, this door won’t ever open for you again. You’re underground with me until you die.”

“No!” she cried, jerking away from him and flinging herself at the door. “I want out! I want to go home!” She pounded on the iron with fists and forearms. She kicked the door and threw herself against it. The goblin watched all this with a fond forbearance, but when she tried to claw the door open, he intervened.

“Now, now,” he said gently, capturing her wrists and surveying her bruised hands. “Let’s not break off all those pretty nails, my dear. We’ll need at least three for the ceremony.” And arm around her waist, he led the sobbing, stumbling girl away.

Seventy years passed over the land, and they passed underneath it, too. Anguish and grief faded to a dull throb, and finally only the mysteries themselves remained, forgotten by all but a concerned few.

Part I

Starlight

Chapter 1

“It’s so nice to see new faces at Hallow Hill, isn’t it, Prim?”

Gracious and white haired, Celia Whitaker beamed across the dinner table at her great-nieces, and Kate and Emily Winslow smiled shyly back. The girls were grateful to find a smile at the end of their journey. It had been a hard two months. Their father had died suddenly. By scrupulously legal tradition, his house and lands near Coventry now belonged to his nephew, the next male relative, and this man had refused to become their guardian. The Hallow Hill estate belonged to Kate from her late mother, but she had never visited it. It had been rented to another branch of the family for generations. Now Kate and her younger sister were coming home to land and relatives they had never seen. Hugh Roberts, a bachelor cousin of their mother’s, had become their legal guardian, and the two great-aunts, Celia and Prim, had agreed to raise the sisters.

Excited and exhausted, Kate and Emily tried to eat their meal. They had arrived only minutes before. Days of bouncing along in a carriage, nervous and bored, had carried them from their father’s tame green meadows to this remote country. Last night they had stayed in a little village on the shore of Hollow Lake. The innkeeper had pointed across the great oval lake to the forested hills beyond. A high, bald promontory faced them on the other side, and cliffs and bluffs tumbled haphazardly down to the smooth surface of the water.