Page 63 of Enthralled

He’s coming now.

He’s going to find you.

He’s going to hurt you.

He’s coming, he’s coming . . .

I leap from the bed, my bare feet hitting icy floorboards. I’m a child—a young girl just on the brink of womanhood, all elbows and knees. And I’m so afraid. But Oscar is out there, and he’s crying. He needs me.

I hasten from my room out into the passage, a passage I both recognize and don’t. It isn’t the upstairs hall that I know, for it stretches on and on and on, with doors on either side. The only light source is the streetlamp shining dimly through the far window, casting the space in a dull reddish glow.

He’s coming.

He’s coming.

Dragging in a ragged breath, I leap to the first door, the one beside mine, the one that should lead to Oscar’s room. When I fling it open, there’s nothing but absolute blackness and . . . far head, as though at a distance but drawing nearer . . . two burning eyes. I slam the door shut.

He’s coming.

I dart to the next door, fling it open as well. More of that same blackness, only this time, the eyes are closer. Panic floods my limbs. I slam that door, turn, fling myself to the one on the opposite side of the hall. Each door I open reveals only more of the same, but Oscar’s weeping increases in frenzy until I can hear words among the sobs. “Clara! Clara, where are you?”

“I’m coming!”

He’s coming.

I spin in place, my hands in my hair. I have moments, mere moments, before it’s too late. Where is he? Where? I look back to the room I vacated. My own room, my bedroom. Feet pounding on the bare floorboards, I retrace my steps. The hall feels impossibly long, and a weird sluggishness weighs down my limbs. Somehow I reach the doorway, pull myself inside, and drop to my knees. I lift the edge of the bonnet lady quilt and there! There, under the bed—a tear-streaked face, a pair of enormous eyes, framed in floppy dark curls.

I reach under, grab Oscar by both hands, and drag him out. He sobs uncontrollably, his whole body trembling. “He’s coming! He’s coming!” he cries, joining his voice to the whispers in the walls.

“Hush.” I hold him close. Though he is a small, thin, bony little boy, I am no longer a child, but a woman. Myself. Clara Darlington as I have become, warrior and librarian. He pushes back from me, looks up at me with wondering eyes. I can’t tell if it’s his child’s face I see or the adult he’s become. He’s just Oscar. Oscar my darling, my beloved.

“It’s my fault!” he whimpers. “I shouldn’t have done it. It’s my fault, and now he’s coming. He’s going to punish me. He’s going to make me pay.”

“No.” My grip on him tightens. “I won’t let him touch you. Never again.”

A shadow falls across the floor. I twist in place, looking up. There in the doorway is that same darkness that lurked within all those chambers, and those twin pinpoints of red light, drawing nearer, nearer.

Something burns in my breast. “Get behind me, Oscar,” I say and push him gently from my lap before rising to my feet. I step in front of him as he clings to my skirts, shuddering with dread. But I’m not afraid. Not anymore. Somewhere, far away in another world, another lifetime, my physical body writes. Perhaps she has moments left to live. Perhaps Ivor’s sword even now descends upon her in a deadly arc.

But I will fight. Until the end.

I raise my hand. A burning sword appears in my grasp, lighting up the room, lighting up the darkness, lighting up the silhouette of the Hollow Man, who looms large in my doorway. He morphs reality around him, filling up that space but never contained by it. He’s an idea—terror given flesh and form but unbound by either limitation. He is as great as the emptiness inside him, a yawning hunger, an unfillable vastness. The gaping hole in his shattered chest could swallow worlds and still not be filled. The well of his soul is devouring and unsatiable and endless.

I know him. The only monster who could ever spring from Oscar’s mind and heart.

“Edgar,” I snarl.

The Hollow Man looks straight at me. In his gaze I feel the absolute smallness of myself, the worthlessness. A wave of contempt rolls out from that hollow center in a noxious cloud, and I know in his eyes I am nothing, less than nothing.

But I have Oscar to defend.

“You won’t have him!” I cry, leaping forward. “Not this time!” I swing my sword, a whistling arc of light and steel and hack straight for his head. The Hollow Man rears back, surprised. His head smashes through the ceiling, which splinters and falls all around us. The walls shiver and fall away too, disintegrating into darkness. I don’t pause. Not when my house crumbles, not when the ground underneath my feet breaks and plunges. I lunge again, swinging my sword, and the Hollow Man backs away three paces. With each retreating step, he grows, becoming more terrible, more horrible in my sight. The great looming vastness of Father, who cannot be fought, who can only be submitted to on bended knee. I feel the compulsion of my childhood, the compulsion to bend, to bow, to let him overwhelm and devour. It’s so great, this terror, this awe, this love, this need freezing my limbs.

“I’m not the child I once was!” I scream into the face of the nightmare. “I’m no longer at your mercy. And I will save him this time.”

The Hollow Man swings at me with one great arm. I bring my sword up with all my might and slice right through the wrist. Black blood spurts, hot and thick and rotten. I dodge the flood and swing at his leg, hewing clean through bone. The Noswraith roars and comes down hard on one knee.

His heavy head turns. His eyes focus on me.

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