Eyes of the Forest Page 8

  “Bridget.” He covered her hand with his own, brown on top of her white. “I’m sure she lived as long as she could. For your sake, not a book’s.”

  It was the first time he’d deliberately touched her. He lifted his hand, but the tingle lingered.

  Still, if the book had come out when her mom was still alive, Bridget would have read as slowly as possible.

  Thinking of her mother and of Ajay’s touch, she began to read again.

  King Tristan grabbed Margarit’s chin in his hand. Instead of trying to wrench away, she regarded him steadily as she remembered the fateful night that had changed both of their lives. That had given her Jancy.

  As she read, Bridget snuck a sideways glance at Ajay. When he first suggested they sit next to each other, she’d wondered if he was hinting about wanting to be closer. With each lunch period, she’d become more aware of his body, just a couple of inches away. Whenever he shifted, some part of him would brush her. Each touch lasted less than a second, but she felt it for long moments after. The way the back of her hand now still felt the warmth of his.

  He dipped his head until they were nose to nose. The cell was quiet except for their exhalations echoing off the damp stone walls. Both breathing too loud, too fast.

  The king pulled his lips back as if preparing to bite her. Margarit thought it possible he really wanted to kiss her, as he had another lifetime ago. Maybe the truth was that it was a little of both.

  The back of Bridget’s neck got hot as she uttered the word kiss. Her mouth was saying the words, but the rest of her was aware of how close Ajay was.

  But what King Tristan wanted she couldn’t give him, even though it meant she would die. He wanted Jancy. He wanted to ensure the blind seer’s prophecy never came true.

  The word prophecy made her think of Bob. Eyes of the Forest was supposed to answer all the questions raised by the previous books. But he was even more behind schedule than he’d been with Mountains of the Moon.

  She had a fleeting memory of Derrick cornering her to talk about how eager he was for the final book. There were thousands of Derricks out there. Maybe millions. All that pressure must sometimes feel like an unbearable weight to Bob.

  It had been a couple of weeks since she’d heard from him, the longest gap in the years they had been working together. A few days ago, she’d sent him a list of new words, terms, and ideas she’d added to the database. She had expected a reply, if not right away, then in a day or so. But none had come.

  And now it occurred to her to wonder—should she be concerned? Even at twelve, she’d noticed Bob’s plumpness, heard how he grunted whenever he went from standing to sitting and back again. The intervening years had not improved things.

  Could something be wrong with Bob?

  DERRICK

  Mud and Moon

  Yesterday Derrick had posted teasers from Bob’s first amazing chapter on the dark web and then put the full chapter for sale. Afterward, he had sprinkled hints on Reddit, suggesting that the passages came from a copy leaked during the publishing process. Now as he sat in physics class, Derrick couldn’t stop wondering how many had sold. For once, the sight of Bridget was not enough to distract him. Not even watching her and Ajay walk out together after the bell rang could divert his thoughts. He had bigger things to pay attention to.

  At lunch Derrick checked the video feed of Bob, as he had between morning classes. The camera, powered by a rechargeable battery and running on cellular service, showed Bob typing away.

  Derrick resisted the urge to visit his Bitcoin account. He would wait until it had been twenty-four hours. That way the amount would be even more impressive than if he had watched it come in one sale at a time. Plus he needed to give the whole thing time to gain traction. Once it did, he would post the second chapter, which was even more action-packed than the first. The screenshots were ready to be uploaded, but the timing had to be right. Too soon, and the desire wouldn’t have a chance to build to a fever pitch. Too late, and it was possible it might have peaked.

  Although Eyes of the Forest promised to be Bob’s best book yet.

  His mom had basically washed her hands of Bob, putting Derrick in charge of his day-to-day care and feeding. Claiming that any change in her schedule might arouse suspicion, Joanne still went to Bob’s house every day. Only now instead of cleaning and cooking, her time was mostly spent watching Netflix and scrolling through Instagram.

  The drive to the cabin dragged by. When Derrick finally arrived and walked into the bedroom, Bob was plunking away, with a satisfyingly thick stack of pages next to the typewriter. When he realized Derrick was in the room, Bob’s shoulders jumped, but he didn’t turn off the treadmill.

  “Back from school already?” he asked without turning his head.

  “It’s after four.” The room was half in shadow. “I’ll heat up something for dinner soon.”

  “Okay,” Bob said absently, already resuming typing as Derrick went back to the living room.

  When Derrick sat on the couch, a broken spring poked through the worn cushion, but he barely felt it. What did it matter that the couch was falling apart? Soon they could afford to get a new one. Get a new everything. New cars, new TVs, new clothes, even a new house. He would no longer have to sew his own garb and make his own weapons.

  He still had about twenty minutes to kill before the twenty-four hours were up. He checked Bob’s email box, which had already lost its appeal. As usual, about half was spam. The remainder was people wanting to sell Bob more stuff to clutter up his office. Today it was dice made of real bones, a ship in a bottle that was also a whiskey decanter, and a dragon hourglass filled with black sand.

  There was also a list of terms from Bridget—words, terms, and concepts she had added to the Swords and Shadows database. Just looking at her email address gave him a secret thrill. He stroked his thumb across it.

  Aside from Bridget, the only other person who had written Bob was his agent. He had sent a bulleted list of new deals he had made for him. Countries so tiny Derrick had only a vague idea where they were, and for amounts that wouldn’t even buy a decent latex sword.

  Derrick checked the time on the top of his phone again. There. Exactly twenty-four hours. His trembling fingers made it hard to type the password into the Bitcoin account.

  But when he finally opened it, the balance was zero. Zero. Had they been hacked? But there were no records of transactions out—or in—since he’d last sold some of Bob’s ephemera. Which made no sense. People should be tripping over themselves. There were so many other Derricks out there. Fans who had either read the books from the beginning or heard about them early on through word of mouth or come to them later when the word of mouth became a roar. And since the TV show, even more had fallen down the rabbit hole. Realized Swords and Shadows was a much better place to spend your time than the real world.

  The sample on the dark web did not allow for comments. But that didn’t mean people didn’t have them, as Derrick discovered when he clicked on Reddit’s Swords and Shadows thread to gather clues as to what was happening.

  People were clearly interested. The reaction to the excerpt from Bob’s first chapter had been swift. And withering. Dozens of people, maybe even a hundred, had read the sample paragraphs Derrick had posted, the words that had thrilled him to the marrow, and then come back to Reddit to leave dismissive comments.

  What was that crap?

  I wouldn’t let anyone PAY me to read that.

  Talk about purple prose!

  It reads like a bad mashup of every Swords and Shadows cliche.

  R. M. Haldon wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.

  What did they do—hire someone on Craigslist or Fiverr?

  That’s simply bad fan fiction.

  Was that a joke?

  The more Derrick read, the angrier he got. What Bob had written was good. Better than good. Derrick was sure of it.

  The phone rang, startling him. His mom. Mud and moon, Derrick swore to him
self. “Hi, Mom!” He tried to add a lilt to his voice. If she didn’t know what was going on, he wasn’t going to tell her.

  That hope was dashed a second later. “I just checked the account. Why is there no money in it?”

  “These things probably take more time than a pair of socks.”

  “Where are all those so-called fans of yours? No one is buying. I don’t understand. People were willing to pay a hundred for a piece of used dental floss, but they won’t buy the book everyone’s been asking for?”

  Derrick had reached his own conclusions. “Yeah, but those things were different. We had pictures of him using the items. People seem worried that this is just fan fiction.” And it was true there was a lot of bad fan fiction out there. Half of what went on at Mysts of Cascadia was basically bad fanfic.

  The people who were looking and not buying must be viewing everything through the lens of suspicion. It was like those writers who tried releasing works under a pen name and found the reviews far less rapturous, at least until the true author was revealed.

  If he could just prove to people that Bob was the one really doing the writing, then he was sure they would love it.

  And suddenly Derrick got an idea. It was wonderful and awful at the same time.

  The Haldon Cam.

  All Derrick had to do was upload the footage of Bob typing away on his typewriter. That way would-be buyers would know it was real.

  And then it would sell like hotcakes.

  BRIDGET

  My Daughter Will Have

  “Good morning!”

  Her dad’s voice startled Bridget. She snapped the laptop closed. She hadn’t heard him get up—or come home in the first place. The only reason she’d known he was home was the suitcase sitting next to the front door.

  Now he stood behind the recliner, yawning. He was wearing boxers and a white T-shirt.

  How long had he been standing there? Long enough to see that Bridget hadn’t been answering emails, doing homework, or working on the database? Long enough to see that she’d been writing?

  “What time did you get in last night?” she asked. “I didn’t even hear you.”

  Her dad flew home every Friday night, but by the time he landed and took a Lyft home, it was often after midnight. And less than forty-eight hours from now, in the darkness of what barely qualified as Monday morning, he would get up and take a Lyft back to the airport. During the week, he traveled all over the US selling food-grade plastics for Portland Plastic Pack, otherwise known as Triple P.

  “Late. Our gate wasn’t ready for some reason, and we just sat on the tarmac forever.” He blew air through pursed lips. “It’s just good to be home. Ready for some Marco’s?”

  “Sure.” Breakfast on Saturday mornings at Marco’s was a tradition that had started before her mom even got sick. Later this afternoon, they would play Scrabble, another family tradition.

  “Let me just take a shower.” He ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair, making it stand straight up. “I’ll be ready in fifteen.” He shambled back down the hall.

  Once she heard the bathroom door close, Bridget opened up the laptop again. On it was—what exactly? It wasn’t fan fiction, although it was set in a world where readers of Swords and Shadows would have felt at home. It featured a girl who was a little bit like Jancy. And a lot more like Bridget, at least the Bridget she would like to be. While this girl didn’t have any magical powers, she did have courage, intelligence, and the ability to think on her feet. She managed to write a few more paragraphs before the shower stopped.

  Bob had finally responded to her additions to the database with a brief thank-you. Usually he was more chatty—they could go back and forth on heraldry for hours—and she hoped it was a sign that he was finally working.

  Thirty minutes later, Bridget and her Dad were seated at Marco’s. The air was filled with the comforting smell of pancakes, fried potatoes, and coffee. Overhead, dozens of colorful umbrellas hung upside down from the ceiling, the way they had for as long as Bridget could remember. Now she wondered if anyone ever dusted inside them.

  When the waitress came by, her dad said, “We’ll both have coffee. And I’ll have the chilaquiles. My daughter will have the breakfast skillet with cheddar and the eggs over easy, with whole wheat toast.” Since that was what Bridget ordered every Saturday, he didn’t even need to check in with her.

  “Actually, I want to try something else,” Bridget said, surprising herself, her dad, and even the waitress. She loved the breakfast skillet, which had potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, and lots and lots of garlic. Loved it so much that she never took the risk of trying anything else. What if it wasn’t as good? What if she made the wrong choice?

  But even though Ajay wasn’t here, he’d somehow taken up residence in her head, pushing at her corners, encouraging her to try new things. “I think I’ll have the pancakes with huckleberries and the huckleberry syrup.”

  “Okay, you heard the young lady,” her dad said with a grin. “Pancakes with huckleberries, and make it a double.” After the waitress left, he raised a quizzical eyebrow. “No breakfast skillet?”

  “I’ve started eating lunch with this guy at school. Ajay Kapoor. He makes his own lunches and shares them with me. He cooks all this Indian food. Some of it’s a little weird, but mostly it’s amazing. It’s made me think I should take more chances.”

  Her dad’s smile was replaced with a more anxious expression. “Is this someone you’re dating, Bridge?” When he’d started traveling more, he’d set down a long list of rules, including not having romantic partners over to the house. Which at the time had definitely been hypothetical.

  The waitress set down their coffees, and Bridget took advantage of the pause to gather her thoughts. Even though they ate lunch together every day, Ajay still kept the same distance from her. Close enough to feel his warmth and far enough away that they weren’t actually touching.

  “No—he’s just a friend, that’s all.” And she might have to accept that. “I’ve been reading Swords and Shadows to him at lunch. I’ve already finished King of Swords, and I just started Darkest Heart.”

  Her dad’s expression morphed again. Bridget wasn’t sure what it was exactly. It couldn’t be disappointment, could it? “That sounds like the Bridget I know.”

  “Ajay brings his lunch in these cloth bags saturated with beeswax. If you warm them up with your hands, you can fold them.”

  His mouth twisted. “I’ve heard about those. But you can buy dozens of plastic bags for the price of just one of those beeswax bags. Maybe even thousands of plastic bags.”

  “That might be the point, Dad. Maybe people don’t want to buy, use, and throw away thousands of plastic bags anymore.”

  He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Please, Bridget. I don’t want to argue.”

  But they weren’t arguing. Were they?

  BOB

  All That Crazy Stuff

  The boy was finally, finally asleep in his room at the far end of the hall. Moving quietly so his shackles wouldn’t jangle, Bob pulled the quilt off the bed and stuffed it into the crack under the door. With his foot tethered to the treadmill desk, he had to lean over and bear crawl to be able to finish snugging it into place.

  Was it his imagination, or was there a little less gut getting in the way? His clothes seemed looser, but that could also be chalked up to the fact that he’d been wearing them for nearly two weeks. He’d only been allowed three showers since Derrick kidnapped him. The soles of his socks were beginning to wear through.

  The first chapter he’d written for Derrick had been startling and fun. Bob had tried to keep the momentum going. Derrick’s version of Eyes of the Forest was letting Bob release every wild thought, to vomit it all out on the page, great splashes of purple prose, padded to the point of absurdity. In the most recent section Bob had written today, he had given Rowan a lover, albeit one bought and paid for:

  A crystalline sparkle in her eyes, the flame-haired
slender harlot let a smile steal across her face as she regarded her rugged paramour, now fast asleep. She knew not his name, and she guessed the coin he had paid her with had been stolen. Yet something about him inspired her to ponder leaving behind this house of ill repute and throwing her lot in with his.

  Bob had a feeling the unnamed prostitute might not last long. And that her loss would scar Rowan.

  Derrick would love the pages, but Bob could see it was all going a bit cliché. Familiar trope after familiar trope, strung together. The whore with a heart of gold. The beautiful girl who was not long for this world, who existed solely for the hero to sorrow over and then vow to revenge. In the TV show, the actress playing her would be expected to bare her breasts.

  But women could be more than Madonnas or whores or old ladies. They had their own agency. Lilly had taught him that. And so much else. He absently stroked the scarf around his neck. The last time he’d been allowed a shower, he had washed it and then put it back on wet.

  And while it was still great fun to write for Derrick, like a wild party, eventually you got tired of waking up on the living room floor with one of your shoes missing.

  To prove Bob really was the one who had written the first chapter, Derrick had started broadcasting what he called the Haldon Cam on the dark web. It was like Animal Planet’s Kitten Cam. Derrick’s idea was Bob’s fans would love to watch him typing away on his treadmill. Or as Derrick put it, “Watch his next bestseller being written in real time!” At night, he ran a loop of the day’s footage of Bob typing away, thinking he was giving him time to sleep. In reality, Bob waited until Derrick was asleep and then started in on his other, secret project.

  Bob was now writing two Eyes of the Forest, not one. One during the day, in full view of the Haldon Cam, and one secretly at night. One for Derrick and one for himself, like a parent making sure to divide things equally between two kids. Only in this case, one kid had no idea about the other.