Bittersweet in the Hollow

by Kate Pearsall

Genres: YA Dark Fantasy; Science Fiction

Synopsis

In this beautifully dark and enthralling YA, four sisters with unusual talents investigate a mysterious disappearance in their secluded Appalachian town. For fans of House of Hollow and Wilder Girls!

In rural Caball Hollow, surrounded by the vast National Forest, the James women serve up more than fried green tomatoes at the Harvest Moon diner, where the family recipes are not the only secrets.

Like her sisters, Linden was born with an unusual ability. She can taste what others are feeling, but this so-called gift soured her relationship with the vexingly attractive Cole Spencer one fateful night a year ago . . . A night when Linden vanished into the depths of the Forest and returned with no memories of what happened, just a litany of questions—and a haze of nightmares that suggest there’s more to her story than simply getting lost.

Now, during the hottest summer on record, another girl in town is gone, and the similarities to last year’s events are striking. Except, this time the missing girl doesn’t make it home, and when her body is discovered, the scene unmistakably spells murder.

As tempers boil over, Linden enlists the help of her sisters to find what’s hiding in the forest . . . before it finds her. But as she starts digging for truth—about the Moth-Winged Man rumored to haunt the Hollow, about her bitter rift with Cole, and even about her family—she must question if some secrets are best left buried.

Release date: October 10, 2023

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 384

Reader says this book is...: dystopian/dark (1) emotionally riveting (1) great world-building (1) rich setting(s) (1) unexpected twists (1)

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

HERE’S WHAT I know for sure: A cast iron skillet must be seasoned with lard. Pickling and preserving are best done during a waning moon. And secrets buried deep never stay that way.

I plant myself in front of the box fan wedged into the window and lift the hem of my shirt so the air can move across my skin. The Harvest Moon was once a gristmill, and its thick old limestone walls help cool the inside. But we serve breakfast and lunch six days a week, and there’s no escaping the heat once it really gets cooking.

Gran eyes me from the opposite side of the small kitchen, where she’s prepping food for tomorrow night’s festival. She runs the blade of her knife between the ribs of a side of pork she was given for curing the Thompson baby of colic. Breaking through the bone, dismantling it piece by piece, her hands never pause, never falter, even with her gaze on me. She tosses strips of meat into a bowl of spicy marinade, her own secret recipe, and the bones into a roasting pan for broth. Nothing ever wasted.

My sisters and I grew up in this kitchen with its stainless steel tables, white walls, and faint scent of bleach. We’ve been rolling out biscuit dough, scrubbing salt into cast iron, and sneaking spoonfuls of strawberry moonshine jam from the time we could barely see over the counter. So I know what Gran is thinking: Standing here next to the fan could be construed as idleness, something she cannot abide, even if it’s only June and already ninety degrees in the shade.

A bead of sweat slides down the back of my neck, drawn out by the humidity that’s been hunkered down around the base of the mountains for weeks now. I once read that there’s a correlation between an increase in temperature and in brutality. That hotter summers are violent ones. I don’t know if that’s true, but with the way the air sits now, thick and heavy, everyone’s temper seems set to boil.

At the back of the kitchen, Rowan, my older sister by eleven months, lifts the metal handle of the commercial dishwasher, releasing a cloud of steam that plasters her dark hair against her pretty face. All four of us sisters have long dark hair, bright blue eyes, and rosy full lips, but Rowan has the darkest and the bluest and the fullest. Yet she wears her beauty like armor to keep others from getting too close. A rose with sharpened thorns.

Her shirt lifts as she reaches up to put some glasses away on a high shelf, just enough to expose a few lines of the black ink that slithers and curls

 along her hip. It was Mama’s discovery of the snake tattoo that relegated Rowan to dish duty all summer. And much as I’d like to avoid the dining room, I don’t envy her. It’s the hottest job in the kitchen.

Sorrel, our eldest sister, shoves through the swinging door, a tray piled high with dirty dishes on one shoulder. She rushes past me toward the dishwashing station as Rowan turns, likely unable to hear Sorrel’s approach over the rattle of the high-pressure wash cycle. They collide with a clatter, and the entire tray tips backward. Plates and glasses clang against each other, and all I can do is watch, waiting for everything to come crashing down. Yet somehow, at the last possible second, Sorrel manages to right it.

She lets out a slow breath of relief just as a single steak knife, teetering on the edge, topples over the side. It lands on its point with a sharp thunk, quivering as it sticks straight up from the floorboards.

“Knife fell,” Mama warns from her station, pausing in drawing her own serrated blade through the green skin of a tomato.

“Trouble’s comin’.” Gran finishes the old bit of folk wisdom with a glance toward the window. The skies have gone a sickly shade of green as storm clouds gather strength over the mountains.

It may sound like superstitious nonsense, but this is the true James family legacy. For as long as I can remember, in the evenings, long after the last customer had gone home, we’d write our wishes in white ink on bay leaves, crushing them between our fingers and releasing them to the wind over and over until all the air around us was scented with their bitter green bite. We learned special words, never to be written down, that must be said in one whispered breath. We watched as burns from hot pans disappeared clean off the skin with little more than Gran’s gentle murmur of a few of those words.

“Watch yourself,” Sorrel snaps at Rowan as she bends to slide the tray off her shoulder and onto the counter. Then she spins to glare at me. “And thanks for just standing there, Linden. As usual.” It’s snakebite quick, and by the time I feel the sting, she’s already turning away.

We’ve always been close; four sisters born in as many years meant we had to be. But now that Sorrel is back from college, everything feels different. The first James girl ever to go, it’s like she doesn’t quite fit in the same space she left behind.

Mama wipes her hands on the dish towel tucked into the apron strings around her waist, then sets two final plates on a large tray. “Order’s up,” she tells me

with a nod toward the dining room.

No amount of wishing on bay leaves will get me out of work. I glance once more at the knife in the floor before pushing past Sorrel and out of the kitchen.

When I reach my table, I set the tray on a stand, then slide each plate in front of the proper customer. Fried green tomato BLT for the man with the beard, buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy for the younger one with a tiny hole in his collar, skillet-fried chicken drizzled with honey and a side of soup beans for the woman with the glasses, and a slaw dog with thick-cut homemade potato chips for the little boy who keeps wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“Let me know if y’all need anything else,” I say, dropping an extra stack of paper napkins next to the boy as they tuck into their lunches.

I move to pick up the empty tray, and a taste like the candied jalapeños Gran makes at the end of the summer, sweet and hot, lights up my tongue. My head jerks in surprise, catching the younger man gazing toward the woman when the bearded man isn’t looking.

I turn toward the kitchen, eager to avoid secrets I shouldn’t know, only to collide with someone. Hard. The edge of the tray smashes into my chin and drives my teeth into my tongue. I stumble backward, tripping over my feet. Just as I’m about to end up ass over teakettle in front of everyone, a hand shoots out to grab my shoulder. When my gaze travels up the strong arm to an all-too-perfect face, it’s only my stomach that plummets to the floor.

Cole Spencer. The town’s golden boy, at least according to the gossip that fills the diner day in and day out. Class president, valedictorian, star quarterback, basically God’s blessed gift to Caball Hollow all wrapped up in a six-foot package of muscles and glowing skin. His sun-kissed hair might as well be a goddamn halo.

He drops my arm and slides his hands into his pockets. “Watch where you’re going, James.”

James, like he can’t tell me apart from my sisters. Like we’d never been close. Like none of it had ever happened.

He hasn’t been in here much since last year, but I heard he’s helping with football training camp this summer, and it’s tradition to come to the Harvest Moon after. A tradition Cole started back when his dad and mine still used to camp out at the corner table between shifts. Back when things were different.

“Sorry.” I nod slowly, sucking the sting out of my tongue. “Not all of us can float above the earth on angel wings.”

The corners of his eyes narrow, and his body tenses up underneath his worn gray T-shirt. A reaction so subtle, I might have missed it if I hadn't

been watching for it. While the entire town may revere the Spencer family, Cole has never been comfortable with the adoration or the pressure of keeping up appearances. Not when the Spencers have secrets of their own.

But my petty victory is short-lived, as a taste like raw ramps slides under my tongue, pungent and sharp with fear and disgust. My nose wrinkles reflexively, and I swallow hard against the invasion, struggling to push away any feelings that aren’t my own. The kind that seep in whenever I’m not careful, until I’m heavy and bloated with them.

It’s bad enough to be unwillingly privy to someone’s innermost feelings, but it’s gutting to have such a potent reminder of how differently Cole sees me now. And that he’s right to.

“So can we sit here, or . . . ?” Bryson Ivers, the kicker for the football team and Cole’s frequent shadow, slings an arm around Cole’s shoulders and gestures toward an empty table near the door. I startle at his sudden appearance. “Whoa, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt . . .” He waves his hand between Cole and me. “Whatever this is.”

My fingers tighten against the tray and my cheeks warm as Cole’s honey-colored eyes come back into focus. There’s something in his expression, gone too quick for me to name. A self-satisfied grin spreads across his lips in its place, and it dawns on me just how long I’ve been staring at him. I blink and look away.

“What was that all about?” Bryson asks as he pulls Cole toward the open table, not realizing or not caring that I’m still close enough to hear.

“You know how she is,” Cole says with a half shrug. His voice drops lower, and I can’t make out the rest of his words, but Bryson throws back his head and laughs.

I push through the swinging door to the kitchen, a bitter taste like chicory root in my mouth. I’m sure Cole will have forgotten all about me by the time he finishes his lunch, but I’ll be replaying this moment for a good long while and kicking myself for letting him get under my skin.

“What’s wrong?” Rowan asks when I scramble to the back of the kitchen.

“I can’t take the new table,” I urgently whisper with a glance toward Mama and Gran. “Sorrel, will you do it?”

“My section is chock-full, Linden.” Sorrel doesn’t even look up as she checks over a tray, waiting for the rest of the order. “I have enough of my own tables to worry about.”

“Who jerked a knot in your tail?” Rowan leans a hip against the counter next to Sorrel and crosses her arms. “You know Linden would do it for

you.”

Sorrel huffs and turns back to me. “There’s not always going to be someone here to fight your battles, Linden. The sooner you learn that, the better.” She shoots a dark look at Rowan. “That’s how I’m helping her.” As she shoves her order pad into the front pocket of her apron, she leans in and murmurs low so only I can hear her, “Good lord, quit being such a baby.”

I look down and study my hands. “It’s Cole,” I say softly, the words sticking in my throat like gristle. I hate that he can still get to me after all this time.

With a pointed sigh in Sorrel’s direction, Rowan pushes away from the counter and pulls off her dirty kitchen apron, the kind that’s plain white and easy to bleach, exchanging it for the pretty embroidered one on the hook by the door.

Sorrel is already shaking her head. “Mama said you’re pearl diving all month—no tables and no tips,” she tells Rowan. “She’ll be madder’n fire if you’re not back here washing dishes.”

I glance over to where Mama stands with her back to us, scribbling on a notepad with the phone squeezed between her ear and shoulder. She’s probably taking an order or placing one with a supplier. Either way, she won’t be distracted long.

Before I can muster the courage to stop her, Rowan squeezes past Sorrel and pushes through the swinging door. “Be back directly,” she tosses over her shoulder.

Sorrel watches her go, mouth set in a hard line. I hesitate for a moment more, then follow Rowan out of the kitchen, pausing behind the front counter. She’s already made it to the long table where Cole sits surrounded by his friends and is scribbling their orders down on her pad, flatly denying Bryson’s substitution request. As she passes me on her way back to the kitchen, she slides me the ticket with a wink. I’ll hang it on the order rail, and Mama will be none the wiser.

Just as I start to let myself relax, the Harvest Moon is plunged into darkness. A hush falls over the dining room as the sky outside turns black. I look toward the big front window as the long-distance bus turns on its headlights and pulls away from the stop at the corner. Summer storms can be sudden and powerful in Caball Hollow, but this one is blowing up especially quick.

In a burst of wind, the front door blows open so hard it bangs into the wall. I lift a hand to protect against the onslaught of dust and debris that gusts in on the draft, scented faintly with sweet asphodel blossoms and peppercorns, until the wind shifts again and the door swings shut.

When I open my eyes, a face I haven’t seen in a long while is looking back at me from the other side of the counter.

“Dahlia,” I force out as my mouth goes dry. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”

Dahlia Calhoun graduated with Sorrel, went off to college in the city, and never looked back. We’d been friends once, an unexpected pair perhaps, as she was outspoken and well-liked, and I was quiet and strange. I nearly didn’t recognize her because her hair, which had been the color of mouse fur, is now an improbable shade of red, like it’s been poured directly out of a Cheerwine bottle.

“Hi, Linden.” She leans across the laminate countertop to pull me into a quick hug, and the brightness of lemon bursts against the roof of my mouth. “You know how it goes. The reigning Moth Queen has to crown the new one, so here I am.” She shrugs, but then something sparks in her eyes. “You’re going to try for queen next year, right?”

Each year during the Moth Festival, senior girls complete projects that honor the history of Caball Hollow in the hopes of being crowned Moth Queen and earning a college scholarship. Dahlia’s project was a podcast about the legend of the Moth-Winged Man that inspired the festival. Now she’s majoring in broadcast journalism, which is no surprise, considering her voice, all smoky and buttery like sourwood honey, and her habit of never running out of questions. But the idea of me ever being the Moth Queen is laughable for all manner of reasons.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I hedge.

“Are you kidding? With your recipe collection project, you’d be a sure thing. You know my mamaw was so pleased when you wanted to learn her old recipes. She used to love to talk about the time she spent with you before she passed.”

Asking elderly neighbors to share their old family recipes was plain natural curiosity at first. I’d always liked to bake, but so often favorite dishes come with as many memories as ingredients, and I could tell it made folks happy to share their knowledge with someone who was keen to listen.

Dahlia’s grandmother, Parlee Wilkerson, agreed to teach me how to make her famous salt-rising bread. It had once been a tradition in Caball Hollow with nearly as many variations as there were families, but these days few have the time or inclination for such labor-intensive baking. Dahlia lived with her grandmother then, and we’d gotten to know each other during the two-day process. Afterward, Mrs. Wilkerson kept inviting me back to share more: the vinegar pie her great-aunt had perfected, the blackberry dumplings made from leftover biscuit dough that were a favorite of her mother’s, and the cinnamon apple cake that had a splash of her husband’s homemade moonshine. Through it all, Dahlia and I became closer, our friendship spilling out of the kitchen to school and

closer, our friendship spilling out of the kitchen to school and beyond.

But all that was before. Salt-rising bread is notoriously finicky dough, and tradition says a failed loaf is a sign of ill fortune. That day in the kitchen with Dahlia and her grandmother, the recipe worked, but it never has for me since.

“I’m not really doing that anymore.” My neck goes hot, but my fingertips feel cold. How is it possible to both long for something and dread it at the same time? My eyes slide away from Dahlia to the table where Cole sits with his friends. “Not since last summer.”

“Oh.” Her eyebrows draw together in sympathy, and I watch as she comes to the wrong conclusion. “If you’re worried the judges will hold what happened last year against you, don’t be. Everyone knows it was a terrible accident.”

“An accident, right.” I shrug and glance away. More like a scandal.

When I meet her eyes again, she gives me a sympathetic smile and leans closer. “You really can’t remember anything?”

A chill goes through my body like my blood has been switched for ice water, and I squeeze my eyes shut. This is why I avoid everyone who was there the night I went missing. I’ve spent the last twelve months trying to forget what little I remember, and now, with just a few words, I’m back in those woods. The darkness pressing in on me with an unnatural weight, unseen branches pulling at my hair and tearing at my skin as I run fast. Faster. Fast as I can. My chest heaves, the memory fragment stealing my breath even now. Dahlia doesn’t seem to notice.

“Only bits and pieces,” I finally answer. My hand trembles as I press it to my brow. “Nothing that makes any kinda sense. The doctors call it post-traumatic amnesia.”

A horn honks out front, and Dahlia turns to look. “I’ve got to go, but there’s something I want to talk to you about. You’ll be at the festival tomorrow, right?”

I swallow the tang of hot fear and manage a nod. She smiles wide and squeezes my hand, then hustles toward the door, pausing a moment to pat Cole’s shoulder and wave to Bryson across the table. A man I don’t recognize, in a Caball Hollow High School Athletics polo shirt, holds the door open for her, and then she’s gone.

When I can’t see her anymore, I let my mind press around the edges of that night last summer, like mapping the shape of a bruise. But all I have is the tattered edges of moth-eaten fabric.

The Appalachians are among the oldest mountains in the world, once connected to the same ancient range as the Scottish Highlands. These hills and hollows are where legends and lore thrive, alive and well. Mine

 is a story of being lost for a night in the vastness of the National Forest, of fearing the unknown and what may be hiding in shadows of the deepest dark. But make no mistake, it’s far from the only mystery held beneath these ancient peaks.

And as much as I want to forget, I know that sometimes secrets are seeds, just waiting for the right conditions to sprout. The deeper you bury them, the stronger they grow. CHAPTER TWO

SOMEWHERE WAY up in the middle of the night, I kick off the last stretch of tangled sheets and stare at the whorls and knots in the tongue-and-groove ceiling. The storm clouds never did deliver on their threat of rain, and now the humidity is so thick that the air feels heavy with it. The farmhouse itself seems to sag under the weight.

Bittersweet Farm doesn’t have air-conditioning. Gran claims the house is too old and temperamental to retrofit with central air, but I have my suspicions she just doesn’t want to give us any excuse to sleep in on summer mornings and shirk our chores.

I roll over, searching for a cool spot on my pillow, when a sound reverberates in the distance. Church bells. Not the dutiful call to Sunday service or the joyful chime of a wedding celebration. No, these bells mean something else entirely. Mournfully deep and slow, they toll death.

As the quiet starts to close back in, leaving only the even sound of my younger sister Juniper’s sleeping breath in the bed next to mine, a knock at the front door startles me back from the edge of sleep. Late-night visitors aren’t all that unusual at Bittersweet Farm. At the end of the day, long after the one streetlight in town switches to blinking yellow, those in need of our special skills seek us out.

They come when the sky is inky purple and moonlight limns the gravel path down to the old summer kitchen behind the farmhouse. Some have been up for hours, rocking babies with earaches or children with fevers, ...