Hollow City by Ransom Riggs Read Free Book Online Page A

peered into its open mouth.
    “Well?” I called. “What do you see?”
    “Don’t know!” she replied. “Looks like it goes down a long way, though. I’d better get a closer look!”
    Emma hoisted herself into the giant’s stone mouth.
    “You’d better come down from there before you get hurt!” shouted Horace. “You’re making everyone anxious!”
    “Everything makes you anxious,” Hugh said.
    Emma tossed a rock down the giant’s throat, listening for whatever sound came back. She started to say “I think it might be a …” but then slipped on loose gravel, and her last word was lost as she scrambled and caught herself before she could fall.
    “Be careful!” I shouted, my heart racing. “Wait, I’m coming, too!”
    I splashed into the lake after her.
    “It might be a what?” called Enoch.
    “Only one way to find out!” Emma said excitedly, and climbed farther into the giant’s mouth.
    “Oh, Lord,” said Horace. “There she goes …”
    “Wait!” I shouted again—but she was gone already, disappeared down the giant’s throat.
    *   *   *
    The giant appeared even larger up close than it had from the shore, and peering down into its dark throat, I swore I could almost hear old Cuthbert breathing. I cupped my hands and called Emma’s name. My own voice came echoing back. The others were wading into the lake now, too, but I couldn’t wait for them—what if she was in trouble down there?—so I gritted my teeth, lowered my legs into the dark, and let go.
    I fell for a long time. A full second. Then splash —a plunge into water so cold it made me gasp, all my muscles constricting at once. I had to remind myself to tread water or sink. I was in a dim, narrow chamber filled with water, with no way back up the giant’s long, smooth throat; no rope, no ladder, no footholds. I shouted for Emma, but she was nowhere around.
    Oh God , I thought. She’s drowned!
    But then something tickled my arms, and bubbles began breaking all around me, and a moment later Emma broke the surface, gasping for breath.
    She looked okay by the pale light. “What are you waiting for?” she said slapping the water with her hand like she wanted me to dive down with her. “Come on!”
    “Are you insane?” I said. “We’re trapped in here!”
    “Of course we’re not!” she said.
    Bronwyn’s voice called from above. “Hellooooo, I hear you down there! What have you found?”
    “I think it’s a loop entrance!” Emma called back. “Tell everyone to jump in and don’t be afraid—Jacob and I will meet you on the other side!”
    And then she took my hand, and though I didn’t quite understand what was going on, I drew a deep breath and let her pull me underwater. We flipped and scissor-kicked downward toward a person-sized hole in the rock through which a gleam of daylight was visible. She pushed me inside and then came after, and we swam through a shaft about ten feet long and then out into the lake. Aboveus I could see its rippling surface, and above that the blue, refracted sky, and as we rose toward it the water warmed dramatically. Then we broke into the air and gasped for breath, and instantly I could feel that the weather had changed: it was hot and muggy now, and the light had changed to that of a golden afternoon. The depth of the lake had changed, too—now it came all the way to the giant’s chin.
    “See?” Emma said, grinning. “We’re somewhen else!”
    And just like that, we’d entered a loop—abandoned a mild morning in 1940 for a hot afternoon in some other, older year, though it was difficult to tell just how much older, here in the forest, away from the easily datable cues of civilization.
    One by one, the other children surfaced around us, and seeing how much things had changed, had their own realizations.
    “Do you realize what this means ?” Millard squealed. He was splashing around, turning in circles, out of breath with excitement. “It means there’s secret knowledge