Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children

For a moment I jolted awake in the dark and knew I was dreaming, but I didn’t know where I was, only that I was not in bed anymore, not in the meeting hall with the others. I’d gone elsewhere and the room I was in was all black, with ice beneath me, my stomach writhing …

Jacob come here where are you

A voice from outside, down the hall—a real voice, not something from a dream.

And then I’m in the dream again, just outside the ropes of a boxing ring, and on the canvas, in the haze and lights, my grandfather faces off against a hollowgast.

They circle each other. My grandfather is young and nimble on his feet, stripped to the waist, a knife in one hand. The hollow is bent and twisted, its tongues waving in the air, open jaws dripping black on the mat. It whips out a tongue and my grandfather dodges it.

Don’t fight the pain, that’s the key, my grandfather says. It’s telling you something. Welcome it, let it speak to you. The pain says: Hello, I am not other than you; I am of the hollow, but I am you also.

The hollow whips at him again. My grandfather anticipates it, makes room in advance of the strike. Then the hollow strikes a third time, and my grandfather lashes out with his knife and the tip of the hollow’s black tongue falls to the mat, severed and jolting.

They are stupid creatures. Highly suggestible. Speak to them, Yakob. And my grandfather begins to speak, but not in English, nor Polish, nor any language I’ve heard outside my dreams. It’s like some guttural outgassing, the sounds made with something other than a throat or a mouth.

And the creature stops moving, merely swaying where it stands, seemingly hypnotized. Still speaking his frightening gibberish, my grandfather lowers his knife and creeps toward it. The closer he gets, the more docile the creature becomes, finally sinking down to the mat, on its knees. I think it’s about to close its eyes and go to sleep when suddenly the hollow breaks free of whatever spell my grandfather has cast over it, and it lashes out with all its tongues and impales my grandfather. As he falls, I leap over the ropes and run toward him, and the hollow slips away. My grandfather is on his back on the mat and I am kneeling by his side, my hand on his face, and he is whispering something to me, blood bubbling on his lips, so I bend closer to hear him. You are more than me, Yakob, he says. You are more than I ever was.

I can feel his heart slow. Hear it, somehow, until whole seconds elapse between beats. Then tens of seconds. And then …

Jacob where are you

I jolted awake again. Now there was light in the room. It was morning, just the blue beginning of it. I was kneeling on the ice in the half-filled room, and my hand wasn’t on my grandfather’s face but resting atop the trapped hollow’s skull, its slow, reptilian brain. Its eyes were open and looking at me, and I was looking right back.