The Hollow Girl Read online

  “A riveting tale of pain and revenge, Hillary Monahan’s The Hollow Girl hits the horrifying notes—dread and darkness and grisly ends—yet somehow still feels full of heart. There is magic here, and power, and Monahan’s Romani background shines in every detail. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.”

  —Kendare Blake, New York Times bestselling author of Three Dark Crowns

  “A richly woven tapestry of magic, betrayal, and revenge told by a strong, spirited heroine who won my heart, broke it to pieces, and then healed it anew. Brava!”

  —Dawn Kurtagich, award-winning author of The Dead House

  “A dark tale of revenge and justice in which fighting back means pushing the boundaries of what it can mean to be female.”

  —Mindy McGinnis, Edgar Award–winning author of The Female of the Species

  “Hillary Monahan’s The Hollow Girl is tense and raw, an excellent novel of pain and intimate magic. There is ugly human darkness here, but there is also hope and love and family. Monahan is a natural-born storyteller whose words kept me reading long into the night. Terrific!”

  —Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Ararat and Snowblind

  “The Hollow Girl is required reading: a tour de force of female power, craft, and emotion.”

  —Sarah Gailey, author of River of Teeth

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Hillary Monahan

  Cover art copyright © 2017 by Lisa Marie Pompilio

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Monahan, Hillary, author.

  Title: The hollow girl / Hillary Monahan.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Delacorte Press, [2017]

  Summary: Bethan, apprentice to a Welsh Roma witch, is harassed by the son of the clan’s chieftan and then, after a brutal assault against her and a friend, must collect grisly objects to save her friend’s life.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016049837 (print) | LCCN 2017022964 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-5247-0187-1 (el) | ISBN 978-1-5247-0186-4 (hc)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Apprentices—Fiction. | Witchcraft—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Romanies—Fiction. | Disfigured persons—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M73655 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.M73655 Hol 2017 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524701871

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  FOR MY GRANDMOTHER,

  WHO SHOULD HAVE

  BEEN HERE TO SEE THIS

  Ten years ago, I sat in my grandmother’s basement listening to her talk about a story she intended to write. She was a wordsmith by trade, wrote with Charles Schulz (of Peanuts fame), and was one of the original writers of the Maxine cards for Hallmark. The story she’d crafted was of two Romani sisters, one who left her family’s caravan after her marriage and struggled to acclimate to a gadjo world. The other sister stayed with the caravan, on the moors of Wales, and studied under her sorceress grandmother.

  My grandmother never said she was Romani, but she had stories to tell, about her father from Pontypridd, her childhood, and her aunt Maude. The details of those stories have left far more questions than answers about customs, identity, and assimilation. I was too young and ignorant to know what to ask her about her people but hindsight is always twenty-twenty. I wish I knew then what I know now, etc., etc.

  My grandmother died unexpectedly not long after she told me about her Romani sisters. I started writing after that, as a therapy exercise to combat my grief, and came to find out I was the one in the family to take after her. I was the Other Writer. I simply didn’t acknowledge that until later. I published some horror and wrote some comedy, and I realized I wanted to write a story honoring my grandmother—the woman who meant so much to me, who was my best friend, who told such amazing tales. The obvious choice was her Romani sisters story, but I didn’t feel comfortable tackling the oppression of the Romani in the first scenario, the outsider in a gadjo world. I didn’t live it, wasn’t close enough to people who did, and my grandmother’s stories were incomplete at best. Reading about a subject is different from experiencing it firsthand. There’s a delicacy to stories of oppression, and I didn’t trust myself to do hers justice.

  The second sister, though, the witch—that was something I felt more comfortable playing with, though it, too, gave me some pause. Everyone has heard the trope of the Romani fortune-teller (usually called gypsies, but that word is problematic from a gadjo, and I discourage anyone from using it), but the reality was, among the Kale in particular, some people made their livings through curatives, portents, and spell work. Knowing that, I felt that my challenge was to craft a story that twisted the problematic trope into a story of empowerment while also honoring the Romani culture and my grandmother’s vision. I also wanted to make it my own story in some way, and I did that by incorporating the difficult subject of sexual assault from a survivor’s perspective. People should know before going into this book that a rape does happen and is a major plot point. It takes place “off-camera,” but it is there, and I wouldn’t spring that on anyone without fair warning.

  The Hollow Girl is a book close to my heart, not only because of my grandmother, but because it tackles subjects I’ve struggled with for a long time. Despite its dark points, I consider it a story of survival, and strength, and familial bonds—of women overcoming obstacles. It’s about a Romani girl coping with a taboo subject in a traditionally modest society. It’s about the choices we make and how they change us, for better and for worse, and I hope you can find some enjoyment in the reading.

  I also hope I’ve done my grandmother, wherever she may be, proud.

  HJM

  October 2016

  My chin rested in my palm. My eyelids were heavy. Gran’s arm darted out, her liver-spotted hand whacking the inside of my elbow to knock it off the table. It pulled me out of my stupor, but almos
t cost me my teeth.

  “I am not saying this twice.” She reached for a cluster of herbs hanging from a hook in the ceiling and snapped off two sprigs of green with dusky-purple flowers. “Dwayberry.”

  “Nightshade,” I said, fairly certain I had it right.

  She flipped over the stems, showing the shiny, dark berries on the underside. They were beautiful, fat and juicy, like they belonged in a pie. Gran jiggled them in front of my nose and they made a rustle, rustle, rustle. “Small doses numb pain, larger cause hallucinations. More than that is the pretty poison—it is sweet to the taste, so they smile before they die. Seven to kill a child, twenty to kill a man. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘Yes’ what?”

  “Yes, Gran. I understand.”

  Her left eye swept over my face, the pupil milky white and covered by what she called her ghost shroud. It was not a source of power, she told me once, even if people assumed otherwise.

  “My gift of sight has nothing to do with my blindness, nor does it have anything to do with our Romani blood,” she’d said. “I was born with a caul upon my face. Lifting it lifted the veil between worlds, sometimes allowing me glimpses of what will be. The eye is a theater prop—nothing more.”

  Her sight must not have shown her much at that moment, though, as she turned her head to set her brown eye upon me, searching for cheekiness I didn’t wear. I’d learned at a young age never to sass my grandmother. Other children had their hands slapped or their bottoms paddled when they were ill-mannered. I’d once lost the ability to speak for two days. Another time, she’d bound me to a chair for three hours without ever touching me with rope.

  “I’ve been studying herbs for five years.” I kept my voice even, neutral, so she wouldn’t accuse me of whining. Gran always punished whining with the worst chores, like gathering stinkgrass by the bucketful. “I’d like to study magic. You said anyone can do it with training.”

  She talked about it sometimes, about the hearth witches of Ireland granting powerful blessings and casting terrible curses. The English witches could hear the wind’s whispered secrets and control the weather. The Scottish witches had mastered fire and water, just as our Welsh kinsfolk could influence dreams. The magic Gran claimed—that I would one day claim—was vast and varied, picked up over generations of traveling.

  I hung from every story Gran told about it, mostly because she was never forthcoming with details about the spellcraft, always exiling me from the vardo when there was witchwork to do. My education was her rare offered snippet or fireside story hours with the other children.

  Both left me with more questions than answers.

  Gran snorted and tossed her head, locks of gray hair slithering past her shoulders. It had started off in a tight bun beneath her red scarf, but the hours had disintegrated it to a stringy, sloppy mess. “You barely pay attention to herbcraft.”

  “Because I know much of it already. I want to learn something new!” I’d already learned how herbal tonics saved lives under the best conditions, and under the worst, ended them. That was the part that interested me. She’d lost me when she droned on about the responsibilities of herbcraft.

  “I will be the one to determine when you are ready.” She pushed herself from the table, her back hunched as she hobbled through the vardo, past the window, and toward the cot in the corner. She reached for a basket of curatives and charm bags, riffling through the sacks to ensure everything was accounted for. The cures were real enough: some for sour stomach, others for a pained head or aching bones. I knew which was which by the colored yarns tied around the pouch tops. The charm bags sold better, but they were novelties—usually the refuse of the plants we’d used for the medicines. Gran would throw an animal bone or a shiny bead inside to make them look more legitimate, but there was no magic there. It was a pretend solution for a bargain price.

  She slid the basket my way. “Do not come back from town until you have coin in your pocket. And wear your scarf over your face. We do not want trouble.” I flinched at the reminder, but she ignored me, pulling a silky black scarf off her mirror, her fingers sliding along the silver-threaded edges. “Wear this one. It is pretty.”

  I took it with a muttered “thank you,” winding the scarf over my head and tucking it around my nose and mouth, over my birthmark. I’d been born with half my body painted wine, the other half so pale one wondered if I’d ever seen the sun. Gran called me her eclipse. I was dark on the left, light on the right, and some people—outsiders, the gadjos—recoiled, claiming I’d been touched by evil while in my mother’s womb. When I’d gone into Anwen’s Crossing for the first time the week before, a woman screeched at me, insisting I renounce the devil. I’d assured her that I and my people were Christians like her, but it hadn’t mattered. Only the pity of a local priest had kept her and her friends from jabbing me with pitchforks and flaming torches.

  I’d never been so afraid in my life. I’d run all the way back to the caravan, a mile from town, breathless and trembling and half expecting the angry faces to haunt my shadow. Gran had listened to my babbled excuses, nodded, and squeezed my shoulder in sympathy, but she wasn’t happy. We depended on the income from market sales, and now we’d need to make two weeks’ worth of sales instead of one to recover our losses.

  Gran peered at me a moment before tugging my braid from under the fabric, the dark coil interwoven with pretty ribbons.

  “Such beautiful hair.” She smiled faintly, letting me know she cared for me even if she was as demonstrative as stone. “Keep your wits about you. Stay sharp.”

  “I will. I’ll be home before dark.”

  “Of course you will. With coin in hand this time, no doubt.”

  “Yes, Gran.”

  “Good. Now shut your mouth and go.”

  As soon as I was out the door, I wished Gran were going in my stead. Until last season, I’d been the one assembling the herb bags while she hawked our goods at open market, but her legs had worsened over the winter. She needed a cane more often than not, and walking to town would cripple her. As I was a healthy young woman in her prime, it only made sense to have me take over sales duty.

  The real money was in spellcraft, of course, but Gran was very particular about who she’d work with. The gifts most outsiders expected of her were as shallow as their opinions of our people, so that was all she was willing to provide them—shallow magic. Fortune-telling and false charms, empty predictions about lackluster love lives. Gran used their biases against them—a blind eye that sometimes made her stumble on uneven ground or bump into furniture became a gateway to another world, granting her visions of what had been and what would be.

  But those who respected her and her craft—usually Roma and friends of Roma—could buy true magic in all its wonders and horrors. Saving a life, changing a fate, blessings, and scrying to see the future.

  As we’d only been parked in the area a week, no one had come looking for spellwork yet. Until they did, I would persevere and cover my face in hopes that it would keep me safe from superstitious ignorance. Maybe the priest would be there to help if things got out of hand again. And if not, I had strong legs. I could run like a colt if the need arose.

  I rounded the last of our vardos and tents and passed our grazing horses to approach the road, my eyes skipping to the great fire at the center of our caravan town. It was the designated meeting place for my people to talk, cook, and conduct business throughout the day. Everyone gathered there after hours, when the coffee flowed like water and fiddles and harps wailed their songs. I smiled, hoping I might get back in time to dance before bed, but then I caught sight of Silas and his band of horrible friends standing near the cookpots, and my smile went to the wind. I put my head down and walked faster, my fingers tugging the scarf higher on my face. Maybe it was enough of a disguise to keep me beneath his notice. Maybe he’d dismiss me as some other girl.

  Most of my clansmen treated me with respect. I was the adopted daughter of Drina�
�Gran—our wisewoman, who’d left her own caravan to stay with us after the last drabarni died birthing me. All I knew about my birth mother was that she’d been called Eira and had been as lovely as a rose bloom, with silky hair and fine teeth. My gadjo father abandoned me upon her death, too distraught to handle the loss of his beloved, and too afraid of his “strange-looking” daughter to raise her, and so I was given into Drina’s care.

  Silas Roberts never minded the birthmark that had scared off my own father. He even went so far as to give me special attention, propositioning me whenever Gran wasn’t nearby. It was the ultimate disrespect. He knew that our clan girls went to their wedding beds pure lest they be ostracized, yet he shrugged off propriety and chased me anyway. Perhaps he thought I would be grateful for his advances because I looked different, and other men might not want me. Neither of us had a marriage set up, so perhaps he thought we’d make a suitable pair. It was rare for young adults to not have an arrangement in place, but Silas’s intended had died when he was eleven, and Gran would not give me over to a betrothal knowing I was to be her heir.

  That alone should have stopped his pursuit—my relationship to Gran. Gran often said the chieftain was the mind of our people but the drabarni was the heart. She was trusted implicitly with our welfare and, as our healer, was the only one among us who wouldn’t be sullied by touching people’s most personal, impure fluids. Our kin honored her and her wisdoms and turned to her in their darkest hours.

  Yet Silas was ambivalent to her station. He lived as if free of consequence, which I supposed wasn’t completely untrue. The chieftain had a soft spot for his youngest child and rarely punished him. Once, after Silas had been caught closing in on another girl in the caravan, the chieftain called him “an unbridled stallion ready for a filly,” dismissing his wickedness as “boyish exuberance.”