Page 7 of The Corruption of Hollis Brown

He knew it was probably proximity more than anything. He could have imprinted on Yulia just as much, if she wasn’t so out of his league and probably a lesbian.

Hollis still remembered what it felt like to be in elementary school and look at Annie with rose-colored glasses. To feel nervous when she put her grubby hands on him, to feel his heart jump when she giggled.

None of that happened anymore.

But there were Moments: When Annie fell asleep on his shoulder during a field trip bus ride. Or that one time they had to share an umbrella and she clung to him the whole walk home. When she said things like “I wish guys would—” and then described him perfectly. Which was so . . . stereotypical that it made him feel sick to even imagine volunteering.

Only the worst guys did that. Ones who lied about friendship so they could wait for a good time to pounce.

Hollis wasn’t like that. If Annie asked him out, he would have to ask her for time to think about it. Decide if it was worth destroying one of the best things he’s ever had. He might even say no, in spite of everything.

But Rose Town was . . . Hollis knew there would be a Moment.

Time

Every rural locality has legends and spooky circumstances. It comes with the territory.

Rumors get out of control; there’s never enough police presence to figure out mysterious deaths; farmers and churches often cook up lies to keep curious teenagers off their properties. There were lots of rotting houses, abandoned ranches, people building weird things in the woods.

But Rose Town was something else.

It was a settlement about two miles away. Half of it was ancient industrial-era buildings and tenements, the other half was aborted construction projects. It was a much bigger place than where everyone lived, with better land, closer to fresh water, and shady trees up and down the streets that grew fruit free for the taking.

The steel mill was there. Had been bought and paid for four times over since Rose Town had been abandoned back in the 1940s.

But no one could live in a place like that.

It takes a lot to get investors to agree that a location is haunted. Being afraid of ghosts and ghouls was for wary townspeople, not suits from the city. So it meant something for a place so valuable to sit uninhabited. For a mill full of machinery to lie coated in dust.

Roan

People joked about it and laughed in a way that didn’t exactly reach their eyes.

Everyone was too young to remember the many deaths in the 1930s. But enough of the adults were around during construction accidents through the 1950s, the disappearances in the 1970s, the terrible fire in the 1980s, and the group of kids sent to the madhouse in the 1990s.

You couldn’t just stay scared though—life blunted the edges. It was like the Sanderson sisters in Hocus Pocus, which Hollis’s ma made them all watch last Halloween.

No one would build in Rose Town or buy a house there, and everyone was poor because of Rose Town. But kids still went over to dare each other to cross the city line. Or went into the houses during the daytime and tried to stay until sundown without pissing their pants.

Occasionally, Hollis would sneak over in the morning and pick as much fruit as he could to save on grocery money. Nothing ever seemed to happen when it was bright outside. He didn’t go when it was overcast or too close to sundown.

Last year a group of popular kids went to stay overnight and managed to make it to 10:00 p.m. before someone got too freaked out hearing noises and they all fled.

Brandon Finnegan broke his leg, and Stephanie Moore got a concussion from falling down some stairs. But no one died, so they were doing it again this year.

In two days.

Dust

Hollis went home alone. Annie had band practice, and Yulia was in study club.

He swung by the market to pick up some baking powder and allspice for Yulia’s bread.

Everyone had a patch of land to work here and people were generous to their neighbors if the soil yielded. The previous year Hollis planted sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, peanuts, carrots, turnips, and ginger. In the summer he did zucchini, tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers. Stuff that was easy to plant and had a high yield. They dried the garlic, onions, basil, peanuts, and potatoes. Pickled the cucumbers and turnips; canned the zucchini, tomatoes, and ginger.

His pa dug out an underground cellar a while ago to keep everything. It would be a year before the family went hungry. Hollis wasn’t the main cook, his ma was, but it was the only skill he’d been able to pick up easily. He spent most of his time with her anyway.

Hollis made the batter extra sweet for Yulia, sprinkled it with a little of their precious stock of pecans, but left the one for him and his ma plain. She wouldn’t mind.