Read The Hollow Kingdom for Free Online Page A

Marak were quarreling a little, but I think that's really her fault because she was rude to him. What happened to you, Kate? You look like you've seen a ghost."
    Kate let out a quavering little laugh. I suppose I do, she thought. The memories of the bonfire and the journey whirled around in her head like fragments of a dream. She gulped the hot drink, feeling its warmth spread through her, and looked at the cozy room. Everything here was so real, so solid. Outside she could hear rain lashing the windows, thunder rolling and advancing, the wind howling in the trees. The storm had finally struck.
    "Emily," said Aunt Prim. "I want you to tell Celia and me everything that happened tonight. And, Kate, I want you just to listen. Start right at the beginning and go on till the end, and don't leave anything out."
    Emily had been waiting practically her whole life for such an invitation. She had a world-class story and a perfect audience, and her sister was not to say a word. Emily started at the beginning and went on till the end. She didn't omit a thing. She didn't even forget to tell them that their nephew was a pigheaded fool.
    "Well, Kate, I can certainly understand your being tired andupset," Celia said cautiously. "But--did anything else happen, dear? That Emily's left out?"
    "Yes," Kate said, taking a breath. "After Em left, Mr. Marak said good-bye to me. No--he said--he said until next time." She thought about that for a second, and her eyes grew large. "And then I wouldn't shake hands with him because he'd been so rude. So he laughed and said I was just upset because of his hood, that I'd been imagining all these horrors. And then"--she raised her frightened eyes to theirs--"then he pulled back his hood. And he said I might have imagined other horrors, but not this one. Because--because--he wasn't human. He just wasn't human! Oh, Em, you were on that horse with him! I can't believe you're still alive."
    The three listeners exchanged amazed glances. Emily was the most startled of all. She stared blankly at her sister.
    "I thought he was nice," she said.
    "Now, Kate," asked Prim, "when you say this Mr. Marak wasn't--human--what exactly do you mean? Do you mean he didn't look human?"
    "He, well..." Kate trailed off, looking around at their expectant faces.
    "Well, what?" prompted Emily. "Did he have three eyes?"
    "No, just two, but they were so strange," she answered. "Different colors. Light and dark."
    "Kate," said Aunt Celia kindly, "that is quite rare, but it's not unheard of."
    "I know," Kate replied, "but that wasn't all. His hair was all wrong, too. It was part white and part black, like a horse's mane, and it was long, and loose, and it wasn't like hair somehow." She looked helplessly at their puzzled faces.
    "For heaven's sake, Kate, he was an old man," snorted Emily. She had secretly been hoping for empty eye sockets or no head.
    "No, you're wrong, Em, he wasn't old. Oh, he must be old, buthe looked, well, not young, but ... not old. But so ugly and bony, and his skin was so pale! And his eyebrows were all thick and bushy, and his teeth--there was something awful about his teeth." Emily started to giggle. "Stop it, Em! I just can't explain it." She glared at her sister. "You wouldn't be laughing if you saw him, too. He was just--all wrong somehow."
    "Well, Kate," said Aunt Prim sympathetically, "he doesn't sound like a nice old man at all. He sounds like quite an eccentric all the way around. He certainly set you up for a shock, wearing a hood and talking about horrors and ghostly rides. I suppose if you saw him neatly trimmed and brushed by daylight, you would have thought he looked odd, but you were tired and unstrung, and he wanted to give you a scare. Your nerves weren't ready for it, that's all. You haven't been yourself these last several weeks."
    A short time later, Kate lay in bed listening to the rain against the windows and the ominous rumble of the thunder. Flashes of lightning lit the sky. She stared up