“I thought I heard something.” She didn’t look back at me.

  “Come back to bed,” I said. “It’s nothing. Just the night. There are always noises, at night.”

  “Yes,” she said. “There’s always something happening in the night.”

  I glanced at my alarm clock, on the bedside table. “Getting on for ten o’clock. The night’s barely started. Come back to bed, Emma.”

  “In a minute.”

  She was still staring out through the crack in the curtains at the street below. I rolled over onto my side, thinking vaguely about getting out of bed to join her and that was when I saw her back reflected in the wardrobe mirror. She had no back. Seen from behind, in the mirror’s reflection, there was just a hollowed out shell. A concave depth, all ridges and whorls. As though something had reached in and scooped out everything that made her human. It was like looking into the husk of a dead insect or the hollow trunk of a diseased tree with all the insides eaten away.

  I cried out. I couldn’t help myself. And she spun round to look at me. She saw the truth in my face and I saw the truth in hers.

  She looked at my wardrobe mirror and then back at me. For a moment she seemed to shrink in on herself, and then she drew herself up again and faced me squarely. She seemed entirely human. As long as I looked at her from the front. But I couldn’t forget what I had seen. And what I had just done with something that only pretended to be human. She started towards me. I sat up sharply and put my back against the headboard. She stopped at the foot of the bed.

  “I’m sorry, Jason,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I was so happy I let my concentration slip, just for a moment. I never meant for you to know.”

  “You’re real,” I said. “They’re real. The Hollow Women. The ones who prey on men.”

  “Yes, Jason.”

  She reached out a hand to me, and I flinched back. She looked at me sadly and let her hand drop again.

  “I could have loved you, Jason. Don’t you know that?”

  “How long...?”

  “All my life. Hollow Women are born, not made. Just like you. I had no choice in the matter. That’s why I left home. Left my family and my own kind because I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to be what I wanted to be.” She smiled, briefly. “The name they gave me, that I never thought to change, should have been a clue. Emma Tee. Empty. I tried so hard, Jason! Trying to live as a human, among humans. I do care for you in my way.”

  “You can’t stay here,” I said.

  She looked at the curtained window behind her, and then back at me. She seemed scared.

  “Please, Jason. Don’t make me go. Don’t throw me out. It’s night, and there’s a fog, and I’m so scared about what might happen...”

  “Scared of what?” I said. “Why were you so determined to spend the night here with me?”

  “Because they’re out there. Looking for me. I know it. You’ve been asking too many questions, Jason. Getting too close to the truth. Despite everything I could do to distract you.”

  “What is the truth, Emma? Really?”

  “If I tell you everything, will you let me stay?”

  “Tell me everything,” I said. “Tell me all about the Hollow Women.”

  She turned her back on me and got dressed. It looked like a perfectly ordinary human back now. I got dressed too. And then we sat down on chairs a respectful distance apart, facing each other. And she told me what I needed to know in a calm, emotionless voice.

  “I saw something moving, down in the street,” she said. “Something in the fog. A human shape that didn’t move like anything human. In the fog, in the night, the only time when Hollow Women appear as themselves.”

  “How do they... pass, normally?” I said. “How can they, how can you walk among us, and not be seen for what you are?”

  “A glamour. A broadcast telepathic illusion. It can be undermined, seen through, if someone has more faith in their religion than they do in the illusions of the world. That’s why I was so nervous at the church, earlier. The vicar kept getting glimpses of me out of the corners of his eyes. That’s why he was so jumpy. Only his refusal to believe what he was seeing with his own eyes protected me.”

  “Where are you from?” I said. “I mean, you said you left your home and your family. A family of Hollow Women. Where are they?”

  “You don’t need to know, Jason. It’s safer for you if you don’t know.”

  “I need to know! This isn’t my story anymore. It’s my life!”

  “They’ll kill you to keep their secret safe.”

  “It was the old woman, wasn’t it?” I said. “Alicia Tiley. She was a Hollow Woman!”

  “No, you fool,” said Emma. “She was just an old woman. She didn’t know anything. I already knew everything. All the Hollow Women, all that are left, live together in one place now because they’re not human and when they’re alone, they don’t have to act human. You’ve already met them, Jason. At Barrow Farm. The Holy Sisters. Hole-y. Get it? What better disguise...”

  “Where do you come from originally?” I said. My throat was tight. It was getting hard to breathe. “I mean, if you’re not human, what are you? Mutations? Aliens? Supernatural? What?”

  “I don’t know,” said Emma. “If the sisters ever knew, they forgot long ago. We’re just predators. That’s all you need to know.”

  “How is it that you’re so... human?”

  “Television,” Emma said simply. “I’m the first generation of Hollow Women to be exposed to television. It really is a window on the world. A better world, a better way of living. And I wanted it.” She glanced back at the window. “They’ll know I’ve talked. They’ll come for me. And for you. I was only allowed to stay away as long as I kept my head down. Didn’t get noticed. I was doing so well. And then you came to Ms. Walsh with your idea for a story. I was the one who convinced her to go for it with me attached. So I could watch over you, steer you away from the truth. Towards a nice, safe historical interpretation that would help hide us. You can’t defend yourself from something you don’t believe in. But you wanted this so much and I...”

  “You need to leave town,” I said. I got to my feet. “Come on. You need to get away. Start over, somewhere else. I’ll see you safely away, and then later, I can come and join you. With both of us gone maybe the sisters won’t feel so threatened.”

  “You’d come with me?” said Emma, getting to her feet. She looked at me wonderingly. “You’d do that, for me? After... everything?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I care for you in my way.”

  I put out my hands to her, and she grasped them tightly, like a drowning woman.

  “It’s the human thing to do, Emma. I’m sorry I freaked out at first. It’s just… I never had one of my stories turn on me before.”

  “I’m sorry too,” said Emma. She didn’t say for what, though I didn’t realise that till later.

  “We can’t go by car,” I said. “They’ll be expecting that. Looking for that. No—I’ll take you to the railway station. It’s not far. There’s still time to catch the last train out of here and you’ll be safe among the other passengers. Just... keep going, keep changing trains until you’re far away. You can hide yourself properly in a big city. They’ll never find you.”

  “Will you come and find me if I call for you?” said Emma.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes. More than everything.”

  “Good. Because that’s what I want too.”

  We held each other for a long moment. In the end, she pushed me away.

  “I have to go, Jason. It’s not safe here. For either of us.”

  Outside in the street, the fog had come down hard. Thick, grey walls surrounded us on every side, cutting us off from the rest of the world. There was no one about. Not even a single passing car. As though everyone somehow knew it wasn’t safe to be out and about this night. Emma held tightly to my arm, staring frantically about her.

  “I’ve never seen a fog this thick,” I said.

  “I have,” said Emma. “It’s them. They’re here.”

  “It’s all right!” I said roughly. “I’ll get you to the station.”

  I set out confidently enough, but in the fog, all the streets looked the same, and without landmarks to guide me, I soon lost my way and all sense of direction. I kept going anyway, striding out, Emma clattering along beside me, still hanging tight to my arm. And then, one by one, they appeared. Just dark shadows at first, appearing and disappearing in the mists around me like sharks circling silently in murky waters. Bursting out of the mists in front of me just long enough to turn me aside, guiding me, herding me, closing in from all sides. I kept going, even broke into a run, but it did no good. They were everywhere. Moving faster than I could because they didn’t have human limitations. They never made a sound, just appearing and disappearing, until finally they all came out of the fog at once, forming a great circle around me and Emma. The Holy Sisters. The Hollow Women.

  The black and white of their disguising robes stood out starkly against the grey mists. They stood very still, inhumanly still, watching me with their cold, empty faces. Sister Joan loomed up suddenly before me. I struck out at her, but she was gone before the blow arrived, vanished back into the mists. She reappeared while I was still off balance, and her fist came flying at me impossibly fast. She hit me once, clubbing me down with sudden, vicious strength. I hit the ground hard, driven to my knees by the force of the blow, all the strength knocked out of me. I cried out in shock and pain. When I looked up, she was standing over me, studying me with cold predator’s eyes.

  Dark shapes rushed in from every side, and just like that they were all over me. Lashing out with large, hard fists driven by more than human strength. Blood flew from my battered face. I tried to defend myself, but I couldn’t even touch them. I ended up curled in a ball on the ground, hurting all over. And suddenly, they stopped. I slowly uncurled and looked up. Sister Joan was standing over me, her face entirely unmoved, unconcerned. She wasn’t even breathing hard.

  “Forget your story,” she said. “Forget her. Forget any of this ever happened. And we will let you live as a cautionary example.”

  “All right,” I said shakily, blood spilling from my mouth. “All right...”

  “He lies,” said another voice, from one of the Hollow Women looking on. Others took it up. He lies, he lies...

  “You can’t forget us because you won’t forget her,” said Sister Joan. “Such a pity... Say your prayers, Jason Grant. Your story has come to an end.”

  “No!”

  I turned my head, slowly, painfully, and there was Emma. Standing beside me, her hands clenched into fists, glaring defiantly at Sister Joan.

  “If you kill him, I’ll never forgive you! Never!”

  “You forget yourself, child,” said Sister Joan. “You forget what you are. When he is gone...”

  “No. I won’t let you kill him.”

  Sister Joan considered her thoughtfully. “How will you stop us?”

  “By giving you what you want. If you’ll let him live, I’ll come home again. I promise. I’ll come back to you, and I’ll never try to leave again. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Come home?” said Sister Joan. “No more arguments, no more running away?”

  “Yes,” said Emma. She didn’t look at me. “That’s what I want.”

  It was the bravest thing I ever saw. A Hollow Woman, demonstrating her humanity. Giving up her life for mine.

  Sister Joan looked at me, and then at Emma. “Did you...?”

  “Yes,” Emma said steadily. “I slept with him. And made a child with him.”

  I looked at her speechlessly. I had no doubt she was telling the truth. That she knew. It was, after all, what Hollow Women did.

  “Then come home, child,” said Sister Joan. “Your place is waiting for you.”

  Emma walked away from me, into the ranks of the waiting Hollow Women. And together, they turned sideways and disappeared, back into the fog. Only Sister Joan remained.

  “I could still tell the world all about you,” I said.

  “But you won’t,” said Sister Joan. “Not if you want Emma to stay safe. Silence and obscurity are the price of your survival, and hers.” She smiled, very briefly. “And anyway, who would believe you? A hack writer of so many wild stories? No one believes in the things you write. The world only likes its legends in stories these days. We have what we came for. Nothing else matters.”

  She walked away and left me. I caught a last brief glimpse of Emma standing alone in the mists. She looked at me and didn’t smile or wave good-bye. She took one last look at me and then walked away forever. As she turned away, I saw her back was empty. Just a hollow shell.

  And I was left alone, in the fog, and the night. Alone, with my hollowed out heart.

  On…The Foggy, Foggy Dew

  Roud #558 denotes the British ballad The Foggy, Foggy Dew (not to be confused with the

  Irish ballad The Foggy Dew). Reading through the nearly fifty late nineteenth/early twentieth century versions in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library as posted by The English Folk Dance and Song Society one finds that the plot of this ballad tends to go one of four ways.

  1) At night a girl is frightened by “the foggy dew” or a “bugaboo” and comes into a young man’s bed for comfort.

  2) A young man, a weaver, courted a girl who, frightened of the “foggy dew,” came into his bed. Part of the night they “sport and play.” In the morning she worries about being undone but he says she is not to worry since the foggy dew is gone. From then on whenever she gives him a wink or a smile he thinks of the foggy dew.

  3) This version is similar to #2 except later in life the now older man is with his son, with the inference being that the son was the result.

  4) Again this is similar to #2, except that afterwards the girl asks, what if they should have a child? They marry and are happy and forever more when he looks at her he thinks of the foggy, foggy dew. (1)

  Alan Lomax mentions on the sleeve notes for Shirley Collins’ 1958/1959 recording that this is one of the few “frankly erotic songs” that made its passage from Southern England to America more or less uncensored. (2)

  “The Foggy, Foggy Dew” has been sung by Burl Ives, Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy, A.L. Lloyd, and in countless pubs.

  1) Roud Folksong Index. 2013. 6 November, 2013. . English Folk Dance and Song Society.

  2) Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music. 2013. 6 November, 2013.

  English Folk Dance and Song Society.

  THE CONTRIBUTORS

  CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the award-winning, bestselling author of such novels as The Myth Hunters, Wildwood Road, The Boys Are Back in Town, The Ferryman, Strangewood, Of Saints and Shadows, and (with Tim Lebbon) The Map of Moments. He has also written books for teens and young adults, including Poison Ink, Soulless, and the thriller series Body of Evidence, honored by the New York Public Library and chosen as one of YALSA’s Best Books for Young Readers. Upcoming teen novels include a new series of hardcover YA fantasy novels co-authored with Tim Lebbon and entitled The Secret Journeys of Jack London. A lifelong fan of the “team-up,” Golden frequently collaborates with other writers on books, comics, and scripts. In addition to his recent work with Tim Lebbon, he co-wrote the lavishly illustrated novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire with Mike Mignola. With Thomas E. Sniegoski, he is the co-author of multiple novels, as well as comic book miniseries such as Talent and The Sisterhood, both currently in development as feature films. With Amber Benson, Golden co-created the online animated series Ghosts of Albion and co-wrote the book series of the same name. As an editor, he has worked on the short story anthologies The New Dead and British Invasion, among others, and has also written and co-written comic books, video games, screenplays, the online animated series Ghosts of Albion (with Amber Benson) and a network television pilot. The author is also known for his many media tie-in works, including novels, comics, and video games, in the worlds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hellboy, Angel, and X-Men, among others.

  DAVID LISS is the author of eight novels, most recently The Day of Atonement. His previous bestselling books include The Coffee Trader and The Ethical Assassin, both of which are being developed as films, and A Conspiracy of Paper, which is now being developed for television. Liss is the author of numerous comics, including Mystery Men, Sherlock Holmes: Moriarty Lives and Angelica Tomorrow.

  DEL HOWISON Along with his wife Sue, Del owns Dark Delicacies, “America’s Home of Horror.” He is a Bram Stoker Award winning editor and multi-nominee as well as having been nominated for a Shirley Jackson and the Black Quill awards. His short story “The Lost Herd” was retitled to Sacrifice and released as the premiere episode of the horror television series Fear Itself on NBC.

  GARY BRAUNBECK is the prolific author of 25 books, as well as nearly 250 short stories. He is a multiple Bram Stoker Award winner and as won the International Horror Guild Award. He is a past-president of the Horror Writers Association. His fiction has been translated into Japanese, French, Italian, Russian and German.

  GREGORY FROST is a writer of dark fantasy, SF, Young Adult, and historical thriller fiction. He has been a finalist for every major fantasy genre award. His latest novel-length work is the YA-crossover “Shadowbridge” duology; voted “one of the four best fantasy novels of the year” by the ALA. His historical thriller, Fitcher’s Brides, was a Best Novel finalist for both World Fantasy and International Horror Guild Awards. Other Frost short stories appear in Ellen Datlow’s Supernatural Noir anthology, and in V-Wars, edited by Jonathan Maberry. He directs the fiction writing program at Swarthmore College. He is the co-founder of the Liars Club.