House of Hollow

At a press conference a few days later, Cate and some detectives speak about Grey’s disappearance. They don’t have answers for the press, and Iris suppresses sobs, aware she and Vivi failed to find their sister.

When interviewed by the police, Iris and Vivi shared the more believable parts of their search—that Grey left a note, a corpse was in her apartment, a man broke in, set the place on fire, and shot Vivi. Back when the girls first vanished, Cate and Gabe were distraught, sobbing at press conferences and agreeing to die by suicide if their daughters weren’t found. They were broken, but their daughters returned. Now, Cate can barely find emotions for Grey at the press conference.

At home, Iris confronts her mother about why she doesn’t love Grey anymore and what Grey said the night she moved out. Cate says, “It would break my heart to tell you” and admits she wouldn’t care if Grey died, leaving Iris hurt and “alien” to Cate (115). Her mother goes to work her nursing night shift, while Vivi drinks at the local bar.

Tyler Yang arrives unexpectedly, drunk and stating that Grey is “Gone Girl-ing” him to punish him, that she’s faking her disappearance. Police searched his home, but he insists he’d never murder Grey. Iris calms him, asking for clues, but Tyler passes out. She checks on him throughout her sleepless night, finding information about Tyler’s past, including an article about his older sister, Rosie, dying from drowning at age seven. Tyler almost died from drowning too, but was resuscitated.

The next morning, Tyler bursts into the room shouting about Yulia Vasylyk, one of Grey’s old roommates. When they lived together, Yulia went missing for a week, then returned.

Iris, Vivi, and Tyler interrupt Yulia at her job as a makeup artist. She reports that she doesn’t know where Grey is and hasn’t talked to her in years. Vivi tries to convince her to share information by reaching for her face, but Yulia smacks her hand away, snapping to not try that “vile” method and that she’s just as manipulative as Grey. She grabs scissors, but Iris calmly asks what Grey was like when she knew her, promising they only want to find her.

Yulia describes Grey as beautiful, secretive, and weird. Grey didn’t go to parties like the other girls, but would be gone for days. Though drugs and lovers were suspected, Yulia sensed Grey had deeper secrets. She followed Grey until she slipped through some mysterious place; Grey returned, but Yulia didn’t, stating the place “ruined” her. Yulia doesn’t remember the place, but has nightmares about dead people whispering to her. When she came back, she was naked and covered in bloody runes—made of Grey’s blood.

With new clues, Iris, Vivi, and Tyler head to the apartment Grey shared with Yulia, thinking the bloody runes aren’t a coincidence, since the bull-man wore them too. They search the dark, empty apartment, feeling Grey’s unhappy energy. Iris follows a line of ants to a rotting wall. They peel the wallpaper off, revealing spongy plaster and the same white carrion flowers, which “smell like rotting flesh to attract flies and bugs”—hybrid pyrophytes adapted to tolerate fire (135).

Vivi shows a picture in Grey’s journal of a ruined stone wall covered in the same white flowers, telling the group that it’s a door that “used to lead somewhere” but “now leads somewhere else”—the Halfway, the place from Grey’s fairy tales (136). Iris dismisses the Halfway as a story, but Vivi insists the doors lead to a limbo of sorts, a gap people fall through and can’t escape. Vivi starts to believe that they fell through “a crack in the world” as children (138).

Iris, Vivi, and Tyler return to Grey’s apartment, which is covered in police tape and burned to near nothingness—but “growing on almost every surface” are the “death flowers, bursting from the ashes” (140). Always dramatic and humorous, Tyler curses about the strangeness. The carrion flowers lead the group to inspect Grey’s few belongings left, such as her bookshelves and kitchen. Iris and Vivi feel a beat of Grey’s energy, faint but alive. The sisters say, “It’s her,” and Tyler asks what they mean, but they don’t explain (143). They move a bookshelf, which hides a wooden door thick with carrion flowers. Iris feels Grey is “halfway” and speaks to her through the wall, telling her that they’re close but can’t find a way to her and need her to come toward them. Tyler calls the sisters “bonkers” and leaves, Vivi not far behind. Iris stays, hoping and praying against the doorframe.

In the hall, Iris spots a figure emerge from the warped doorway: It’s Grey, dressed in white, her fingertips dripping with blood. She yells at Iris to run because “he’s coming” (143).