Chapter 24 In The Hollow Hours
In The Hollow Hours
After rereading the message, I did what I always did when a problem threatened to overwhelm me: I made a list. A sticky note with CENTRAL PARK MEET went inside my phone case, out of sight.
Another one, MATEO SAFE-EMERGENCY PLAN, sat under my coffee mug on the kitchen table, a private to-do list for my eyes only.
Then I went to Mrs. White’s next. I told her about a late shift at the bar that one of the girls had called in sick and they needed me to cover a slot and asked if Mateo could stay with her.
She said yes, instantly; she always did.
Gratitude washed over me, knowing Mrs. White would keep an eye on us.
When the time came, I packed Mateo’s overnight bag. His favorite hoodie that he refused to outgrow, and his dog-eared copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which he’d reread a hundred times, were inside.
We ate dinner together, instant ramen with frozen peas, in the living room, even though it wasn’t allowed.
He shot me a quick look, like he understood this wasn’t about the rules, and let it slide.
We watched TV until just before his bedtime, and I sent him off with an extra-long hug and a reminder to call me for anything. No matter what.
The moment the apartment door closed, the walls seemed to breathe out all at once, leaving a hollow I hadn’t noticed until then.
The spiral on the windowsill danced in the soft lamplight.
Its curves and twists came alive, weaving an enchanting tapestry that turned the ordinary space into something otherworldly.
I wiped it away with my fist, but it left a darker streak as if something underneath had stained the wood.
I checked my phone again. No new messages.
At a quarter past ten, I showered and dressed in old jeans and a puffy parka that made me look twice my size.
I braided my hair tightly and tucked it under a beanie so no one could grab it if things went south.
Old habits. I pocketed my keys and MetroCard, left my wallet at home, and tucked a Swiss Army knife into the sleeve of my coat.
I needed to be ready for anything.
I needed to keep Mateo safe.
But more than anything, I needed the truth.
By eleven-thirty, I stood in Central Park, the air thick with August heat.
The park looked almost gentle in the moonlight.
That made it worse. Jasmine and damp earth hung low, threaded with distant laughter and the rasp of leaves.
The footpaths were nearly empty, except for an occasional dog walker and the faint cry of a saxophone under a bridge.
I stuck to one of the main paths, fighting the urge to look over my shoulder.
The city never slept, but tonight it felt like it was waiting.
Central Park at midnight was quieter than I expected.
Not peaceful, quiet like a haunted house just before something slams the door shut behind you.
My boots crunched softly over gravel as I stepped off the main path and into the deeper dark, where branches overhead twisted like skeletal fingers. I kept my phone in one hand, thumb hovering over the emergency button, the other hand clenched around pepper spray.
I arrived at Bethesda Terrace at five minutes to midnight.
I’d expected a crowd, but the space stretched out before me, vast and deserted under a full moon’s bright light.
Every sound was magnified: the tap of my boots on slick steps, a far-off echo of a cab horn, wind sighing through elms. I paced the wide stairs, hands burrowed deep in my jacket pockets.
The air was brisk, but beneath my skin I ran feverish. The city was a living thing all around me but tonight felt like an abandoned stage set between acts. Even the pigeons had vanished.
My senses were high and wild, every muscle taut.
I circled the terrace once, twice, drawing in all the details of the night like a map I might need to reference if things went sideways.
I scanned every shadow, every dip and fold in the landscape, searching for a sign that I wasn’t just talking myself into being afraid.
The statue of Bethesda loomed over the fountain at the end of the terrace. Its marble eyes were blind to everything, and I envied its calm. I hovered by the balustrade, counting my breaths, forcing each one deeper than the last.
A dog barked in the distance, and I flinched. A shadow flitted across the lower arch of the terrace, the movement so casual, so fluid, that my mind skipped a beat. My first thought was that I’d imagined it. My second thought was to run.
But I stood my ground.
If I were being honest, I was tired of running. Maybe that’s what brought me here, legs trembling, heart in my throat, but here all the same.
Midnight clicked over on my phone. A figure detached from the shadows of the terrace arcade. She stepped into the moonlight. Short, sturdy frame. Bomber jacket that I recognized instantly. Braids tucked beneath a Yankees cap.
My breath caught, relief tangling with confusion.
Rita.
Rita Farrow.
From the bar.
My brain stalled, trying to reconcile the text’s urgency with Rita standing in front of me.
Had this all been a joke? Was she here to gloat or blackmail me?
“Jo,” she said, her voice low and easy.
“Rita?” I blurted, louder than I meant to.
She grinned, but it didn’t look particularly friendly. “You expecting someone else?”
I hesitated, trying to read her expression. “I thought…” I started, then stopped, because I had no idea what I thought.
“Didn’t think you’d come,” she said softly.
“You texted me from a blocked number and said you knew what happened to Ava. Why wouldn’t I come?”
She looked at me, really looked. She jerked her chin toward a bench half-hidden by overgrown rosebushes.
“Sit,” she said. “We shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves.”
I followed and braced myself for whatever was about to happen.
Rita waited until I settled, then perched herself neatly on the other side. She produced a pack of cigarettes from her jacket, shook one free, and ignited it with a flick of her fingers. The flame burned blue. She took a long drag, exhaled, and regarded me through the smoke.
“You look like shit,” she said, and for the first time all night, something like a smile threatened the edge of my mouth.
“So do you,” I shot back.
She shrugged and studied me with a new focus. Up close, I could see the bags under her eyes and the slight tremble in her hands as she tapped the cigarette. She looked like someone who hadn’t slept in days.
“So,” I said after a moment of silence. “Are you going to tell me why I’m here, or do I have to guess?”
Rita took another drag from her cigarette, exhaling slowly.
She looked older than I’d ever seen her, like she’d just come through a storm nobody else could see.
Her hands shook, but only when she moved the cigarette to her lips.
When she let her arms rest, they stilled into something like certainty.
“I was Ava’s friend,” Rita said at last. “More than that. We were… connected.”
I snorted. “You gonna tell me she was your girlfriend, or your fairy godmother?”
“Neither,” she said, deadpan.
A brief pause hung in the air.
“Ava was fae,” Rita said. “True fae. Seelie, to be exact. And you know I’m a sorcerer.”
I stared at her.
The silence between us carried the hum of city lights pushing at the edges of the park, the distant clatter of a subway car miles away. Somewhere nearby, a raccoon foraged in a trash bin, its paws scrabbling with mindless urgency.
I blinked.
For a second, I tried to picture Ava with pointed ears or wings, but I couldn’t, not really. The Ava I’d known had been human: fragile, contradictory, exasperatingly alive.
Then again, I’d seen enough in this city to know that every story had at least one detail the living forgot to mention.
I laughed once. It sounded wrong in my own ears. “I think I left my belief in faeries somewhere between vampires and full moons.”
Rita’s smile was small, but it cut deep. “You’ve seen too much to pretend none of this is real anymore.”
She was right.
The journal I’d found, the one that had whispered old names and older wounds.
Mateo’s nightmares, how sometimes he’d wake up with a scream so animal it didn’t even sound like his own.
Ulysses’s teeth were sharp behind his smile, and Aiden carried around a haunted look like a second skin.
I pretended not to notice these things, but pretending was just a softer way to lie.
“I thought you were just another bartender,” I muttered.
“Everyone’s just something until they’re not,” she replied.
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was desert-dry. “So what happened to her? Ava.”
For the first time, Rita hesitated. Her eyes flicked upward, scanning the terrace like she was running calculations, measuring how much to give and how much to hide. When she looked at me again, the whites of her eyes were enormous and wet, reflecting the moonlight in two perfect disks.
“She was chasing something,” Rita went on. “She called it the Source… or at least, that’s what she wrote in her notes. I don’t think that’s its real name.”
“What is it?”
“Old,” she said. “Older than any of us. And someone’s trying to wake it up.”
My stomach tightened. “Who?”
Rita looked away, the end of her cigarette glowing red. She didn’t answer right away.
“That’s the part she didn’t live long enough to tell me.”
The words hung there, heavy and waiting. I stood up so fast my knees cracked with the effort. “You think someone killed her to keep her quiet?”
“Or to keep the Source hidden.” Rita’s gaze met mine, unwavering. “And Josie… she left clues. She trusted you more than she let on.”
The world went sideways.
My mind tried to shuffle the new pieces into the old puzzle, but nothing fit. I remembered the night I’d met Ulysses, his shark-like grin and unbroken eye contact. Mateo’s feverish sleep, his muttered names in the dark that bit into my memory and held tight.