The Hollow by Nora Roberts Page A

consideration shouldn’t have surprised her, and yet it did. “Do you keep Diet Sprite in there for Alice?”
    â€œSure. Why not?”
    â€œWhy not,” she murmured, then drank. “I was in the woods, too,” Layla began. “But it wasn’t just me. She was in my head, or I was in hers. It’s hard to tell. I felt her despair, her fear, like they were mine. I . . . I’ve never been pregnant, never had a child, but my body felt different.” She hesitated, then told herself she’d been able to give Cybil the details. She could give them to Fox. “My breasts were heavy, and I understood, I knew , I’d nursed. In the same way I’d experienced her rape. It was that same kind of awareness. I knew where I was going.”
    She paused again, shifted so she could look at his face. He had a way of listening, she thought, so that she knew he not only heard every word, but also understood what came behind them. “I don’t know those woods, have only been in them that one time, but I knew where I was, and I knew I was going to the pond. I knew why. I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go there, but I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop her. I was screaming inside because I didn’t want to die, but she did. She couldn’t stand it anymore.”
    â€œCouldn’t stand what?”
    â€œShe remembered. She remembered the rape, how it felt, what was in her. She remembered, Fox, the night in the clearing. He—it—controlled her so that she accused Giles Dent of her rape, denounced him and Ann Hawkins as witches, and she assumed they were dead. She couldn’t live with the guilt. He told her to run.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œDent. In the clearing, just before the fire, he looked at her—he pitied her, he forgave her. He told her to run. She ran. She was only sixteen. Everyone thought the child was Dent’s, and pitied her for that. She knew, but was afraid to recant. Afraid to speak.”
    It pierced her as she spoke of it. That fear, that horror and despair. “She was afraid all the time, Fox, and mad with that fear, that guilt, those memories by the time she delivered the child. I felt it all, it was all swimming inside her—and me. She wanted to end it. She wanted to take the child with her, and end that, too, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.”
    Those alert and compassionate eyes narrowed on Layla’s face. “She thought about killing the baby?”
    As she nodded, Layla drew air in slowly. “She feared it, and hated it, and still she loved it. It, not she. I mean—”
    â€œHester thought of the baby as ‘it.’ ”
    â€œYes. Yes. But still, she couldn’t kill the baby. If she had—I thought, when I understood that, if she had, I wouldn’t be here. She gave me life by sparing the child, and now she was going to kill me because I was trapped with her. We walked, and if she heard me she must’ve thought I was one of the voices driving her mad. I couldn’t make her listen, couldn’t make her understand. Then I saw you.”
    She paused to drink again, to steady herself. “I saw you, and I thought, Thank God. Thank God, he’s here. I could feel the stones in my hand when she picked them up, feel the weight of them dragging down the pockets of the dress we wore. There was nothing I could do, but I thought—”
    â€œYou thought I’d stop her.” So had he, Fox mused. Save the girl.
    â€œYou were calling out, telling her it wasn’t her fault. You ran to her—to me. And for an instant, I think she heard you. I think, I felt, she wanted to believe you. Then we were in the water, going down. I couldn’t tell if she fell or jumped, but we were under the water. I told myself not to panic. Don’t panic. I’m a good swimmer.”
    â€œCaptain of the swim team.”
    â€œI told you that?” She