House of Hollow

Awakening at midnight in her hospital chair, Iris hurries to the restroom. Her throat itches, then something moves beneath her skin. She panics, repeating she imagined the movement. Though Iris resists looking, her scar tissue is pushing up. She cries and wonders what’s happening to her, as she presses the lump and an ant crawls out, like those hidden behind the wallpaper in Grey’s apartment. Opening the wound with Grey’s knife, Iris finds a second layer of skin beneath the ants and blood.

Iris runs through the empty hospital hallways in a panic. Suddenly, Grey closes her hands over Iris’s mouth, holding a bloody scalpel. She escaped her room and tells Iris that he’s coming for her. Grey also killed the policeman outside her room, as he “was not what he seemed” and has carrion flowers growing out of his orifices (160). Iris thinks Grey has had a mental health crisis, as mental illness runs in their family.

The girls’ father, Gabe, once put them in the car and drove wildly, screaming at them about where his children were, what they did to them, and who they truly were. Grey touched his hand and told him to take them home, and soon after, Gabe died by suicide. The family found him hanging, but Grey didn’t scream like her sisters, instead grabbing his note that read “I didn’t want this” (162).

When the bull-man suddenly arrives, Grey leads Iris through the hospital. Broken memories plague Iris’s mind—those of a decomposing forest, a hand with a knife, three children with dark hair and blue eyes by a fireplace, and the man wearing a bull skull. The sisters wake Vivi and Tyler, sneaking through the hospital until the bull-man appears, fresh runes on his chest. They rush outside, Grey killing a rotting, black-toothed woman (like the policeman who wasn’t what he seemed) with her scalpel and the bull-man shooting bullets. They narrowly escape the bull-man, and Grey kisses a man in his car, urging him to drive them away. As the bull-man hits the back bumper, the manipulated driver drives them away.

Grey goes unconscious, with Tyler murmuring that she has explaining to do. She’s burning up with fever, eyes rolled back. The group finds water and a towel in the trunk, and mops her forehead. They can’t go to a hospital, and Tyler rattles on about their situation—until Vivi kisses him with her intoxicating power. He is unaffected, stating he’s not interested and that the sisters are “bonkers.” Vivi is surprised that he’s immune. Iris now understands that Grey dates Tyler because he isn’t prey to her intoxicating power, that he loves her without her making him.

Iris remembers her worst kiss, after one of Grey’s fashion shows—an older, male photographer who cornered her. He preyed upon her, possessed by her scent, overpowering her as she fought his kiss. Grey suddenly appeared and slammed the man against a mirror, using her power to demand he harm himself, slowly. Iris cried, begging Grey to have mercy and blaming herself for what happened. Grey acquiesced, telling the man not to touch anyone without consent, then told Iris she needed “to be stronger”—that she can’t “let lesser people push [her] around” or rely on Grey to protect her (175-76). At the time, Iris didn’t recognize Grey’s propensity for violence.

Iris looks down Grey’s throat, where carrion flowers, ants, rotten leaves, and mildew live. She lies to Tyler that Grey’s suffering from an infection. Finally, the group reaches an old house, where a small girl with a shotgun greets them. The driver says that the girl, Agnes Young, owes Grey, then walks away. Agnes reluctantly accepts the group.

Agnes makes a witch’s brew, which forces Grey to throw up rot. Tyler runs outside to vomit too. Grey’s wounds have carrion flowers growing from them, and Agnes explains that “It gets inside you,” and points to herself, Grey, Vivi, and Iris (184). Iris answers Agnes’s questions, stating that the bull-man cut Grey. Agnes replies that the group can’t stay because the bull-man will be able to use Grey’s blood to find her. Iris is confused, repeating that Agnes owes Grey, and the girl agrees that they can stay until Grey recovers.

While Grey recovers, Iris tells Tyler that she read about his sister, Rosie, who died drowning, and expresses her condolences. At the time, Tyler and Rosie were caught in a riptide; he had no heartbeat for three minutes but was revived, while Rosie passed away. Tyler says Grey thinks he went to the Halfway when he died, which may be why he’s immune to the sisters’ compulsion. He’s shocked that the Halfway isn’t a fairy tale.

Iris calls Cate, who is sobbing. She reassures her mother that she’s fine, but Cate wants to pick her up, stating she “never should have let [her] stay with that thing” (191). Iris promises that she’s safe and that the sisters will be gone for a while. Cate frantically tells her to run away from the “thing” (Grey). Iris hangs up. She turns off her location tracking so Cate can’t find them, disbelieving that she called Grey a thing.

The next day, Grey wakes up, and Iris pesters her with questions, reporting about the bull-man among other matters. Grey tells her that the bull-man isn’t the one who kidnapped them as children, but doesn’t explain more. She then asks for Tyler. Iris goes to the roof, where Agnes keeps watch. Agnes reveals that she once got stuck in the Halfway, but Grey rescued her decades later. Since she wasn’t dead, she could return to the world of the living with Grey’s help, using runes for death, passage, and life written in Grey’s blood. Agnes describes the Halfway as “a liminal place on the borders of the living and the dead” where everything that dies passes through (199). Those who can’t let go or are mourned too deeply by the living get stuck; some humans are lured by the dead when the veil between worlds is thin, during dawn, dusk, midnight, or between years.

Since the Halfway never truly lets souls go, Agnes is like a rotting tree inside, but she says Iris and her sisters are different. Agnes asks why the Hollow girls are so beautiful, always hungry, and able to bend others’ will—“like the death flowers [...] lovely to look at [...] but get too close and you will soon learn that there is something rank beneath,” like a disguise (200). However, the bull-man is dead and crossing the veil using Grey’s blood. Agnes calls Grey a wolf in sheep’s clothing, which Iris still doesn’t understand.

The bull-man surprises the group with an attack. After a battle in which Agnes shoots him, he grabs Vivi and Grey, knocks out Tyler, slams Agnes into the wall (killing her), and breaks Iris’s ribs. Iris races after her sisters, but the man vanishes.