The Hollow Places

The Hollow Places (2020) is a cosmic horror novel by T. Kingfisher, the pen name of the acclaimed author Ursula Vernon. Known for her award-winning work across multiple genres, including the Hugo-winning webcomic Digger and various children’s series, Kingfisher has also received praise for her horror, such as her previous novel The Twisted Ones. The Hollow Places is set within the unique cultural context of an American roadside museum. When Kara, a recently divorced woman, finds a hole in the wall of her uncle’s taxidermy museum, she uncovers a portal to an incomprehensible dimension of willows and terrifying entities. The narrative examines themes of The Fragility of Reality, Defining Home and Safety in the Bizarre, and Belief Systems as Frameworks for the Unknowable.

This guide refers to the 2020 Saga Press trade paperback edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain references to drugs, alcohol, and infidelity, as well as descriptions of graphic violence, animal death, human death, illness, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Thirty-four-year-old freelance graphic designer Kara, who goes by the nickname “Carrot,” finds herself homeless after a long, miserable marriage to her husband, Mark. After the divorce, she accepts an offer from her eccentric uncle Earl to live in the spare room of his storefront museum in Hog Chapel, North Carolina. The establishment, called the Glory to God Museum of Natural Wonders, Curiosities, and Taxidermy, is a chaotic collection of taxidermy, folk art, and oddities. Kara agrees to help run the museum in exchange for room and board, as her uncle is suffering from debilitating gout and back pain.

Kara settles into a new routine, helping with museum duties and beginning the monumental task of cataloging the collection. While there, she reconnects with Simon, the quirky barista at the Black Hen coffee shop next door. One day, a box of new items arrives from Woody, a friend of her uncle. Among the objects is a strange and unsettling wooden carving that appears as an otter from one side and a shrouded corpse from the other, described as a “corpse-otter.” Kara places it on a shelf in the room that houses the museum’s prize exhibit, a massive taxidermy Amazonian giant otter. Several weeks later, Uncle Earl’s health declines further, and he leaves for Charlotte to undergo surgery on both knees, leaving Kara in sole charge of the museum. Soon, Kara discovers a large, jagged hole in the drywall of the otter room, which she assumes was accidentally made by a tourist. Simon offers to help her patch it. Upon inspection, they realize the hole does not lead to the space between walls but opens into a dark, concrete corridor.

Driven by curiosity, Simon cuts a larger opening in the wall, and he and Kara step into a silent, impossible hallway that seems to extend far beyond the building’s physical dimensions. The corridor leads to a large, circular room with strange graffiti on the walls and a rusted, heavily bolted metal door. Unsettled, they decide not to open it and return to the museum. Back in the corridor, they make a shocking discovery: The hole is made of standard drywall on the museum side but is six inches of solid stone on the corridor side, confirming they have found a portal to another place. The next night, they explore the corridor in the opposite direction. They find another small room containing the skeletal body of a man on a bed. Simon has an old, outstanding, non-violent drug warrant from his youth in Florida, so they decide against calling the police. Instead, they cover the body with a sheet and resolve to investigate the mysterious bolted door.

Simon uses his tools to break the rusted bolts off the metal door. Beyond it, they find not another room but a strange, new world. The landscape is a bright, foggy expanse with a sluggish river dotted with dozens of identical, small, grassy islands. Each island has a concrete bunker with a metal door, just like the one they came through. They begin to explore, wading through the shallow water. They discover an abandoned, oddly orange-colored school bus from “Byricopa County” half-buried in the sand.

Taking shelter from a sudden downpour inside the bus, Kara and Simon are horrified to see ghostly figures of children moving and pressing against the inside of the green leather seats. They also sense a terrifying, invisible driver who seems to be made of empty space. They flee in terror back toward the river. The rain has caused the water to rise, washing away the landmarks they used to identify their bunker and leaving them lost. While searching for their way back, they encounter a skeletal, starving man named Martin Sturdivant trapped in a flooded bunker. He warns them about the malevolent, invisible beings of this world. He explains that “They” are drawn to thought and are either hungry or will “play” with their victims. Sturdivant then reveals his own horrific fate: They took him apart, leaving his lower half as a mass of unraveled organs floating in the water around him, though he remains conscious.

Kara and Simon flee and witness strange, spirit-like figures made of light and negative space rising from the willows at night. A more solid, invisible creature passes through the willows, which they believe to be one of Them. Lost and terrified, they take refuge in another bunker and find a soldier’s journal. The journal details how They hunt by sound and thought, and how They killed or transformed soldiers by leaving funnel-shaped holes in their bodies. The next day, while searching for their bunker, Kara and Simon are stalked by one of Them, which creates the same funnel-shaped holes in the water near them. They finally locate their bunker and flee through the corridor back into the Wonder Museum.

They patch the hole with drywall. However, Kara begins having nightmares and discovers she has been sleepwalking and trying to claw the hole open. Simon reveals he has been experiencing the same compulsion. When Kara  and Simon sleepwalk back into the willow world, they are attacked by a monstrous “boatman” with willow roots for feet. During the escape, Kara badly injures her knee before they manage to flee back to the museum again. This time, they cover the hole with a steel plate and block it with a heavy Bigfoot statue. The next day, Kara finds a display case smashed and a stuffed albino raccoon missing. Late that night, the museum cat, Beau, fights a large, pale creature in the dark, which turns out to be the reanimated raccoon. Kara finds the mauled, inanimate raccoon and realizes the corpse-otter carving was inside it, using it as a host. The carving, now free, unleashes a silvery “willowlight” throughout the museum, which brings all the taxidermy to life. The carving then possesses the giant Amazonian otter, creating a powerful, eight-foot-long monster.

The possessed otter monster easily shoves the Bigfoot statue aside and tears through the steel patch, reopening the hole to the willow world. As it moves, the other taxidermy in the museum, animated by the light and imbued with Uncle Earl’s kindness, turns against the otter; the mounted elk head, Prince, whom Kara loved as a child, impales the monster with its antlers, buying Kara time. Realizing the carving is trying to return home, Kara decides to lure it back through the portal to trap it there. In the ensuing chase, she is saved when she stumbles into Sturdivant’s bunker and he attacks the otter, sacrificing himself. The commotion attracts one of Them, which appears in the sky. Kara uses the agonizing pain from her leg to hide her thoughts, causing the creature to strike blindly and miss. She escapes back to the Wonder Museum, leaving the carving, the otter, and Sturdivant behind.

Simon builds a wall of quick-setting concrete bags just inside the portal. Following advice from Woody, Simon meticulously patches the hole by filling it in. This causes the wall on both sides of the portal to heal itself, closing the wormhole completely. Life returns to a new, traumatized normal. The taxidermy becomes inanimate again, though Prince’s head remains tilted as if listening. Kara’s knee is permanently damaged, but she accepts her new life and chooses to stay at the museum. She reflects that the museum’s inhabitants fought for her because they had been imbued with Uncle Earl’s love and kindness. She continues running the museum with her uncle after he returns, having found a sense of purpose and belonging.