“I think I’m traveled out for a while. I’ll stay here and do the tromp.”
“No,” said William.
“No?” said Sam.
“Simone, I don’t want you out there by yourself. I’m sorry. I’m not being paternalistic. It’s just too dangerous. You don’t know the land as well as I do, and if that blizzard moves in, it’s no joke. People have gotten disoriented and died within feet of their doorsteps. Even the ones born here.”
Sam was about to tell him she knew this from the prairie research she’d done forThe Sodbuster’s Wifewhen William added, again: “Look what happened to Pen.”
There was a beat. “Whatdidhappen to Pen?” Sam asked. “I don’t think you ever told me.”
William looked startled. “Didn’t I?” he said. “Well. It’s a very sad story. She went out during a blizzard on the mountain where we lived. She was very headstrong and could not be argued out of it. And by the time we found her, it was too late.”
Sam looked at him sharply. He was staring across the other-planetary sweep of white beyond the window glass, rubbing one of his graying sideburns. “I’m so sorry, William,” she said. “Thank you for telling me.”
“You’re welcome. It pains me to talk about, and I do so only to emphasize how serious the situation can be. You’ll do what I say, then, sweetheart?”
“I promise,” Sam said.
She saw him off, waving and blowing kisses as his car disappeared at the end of the causeway. William was likely right; the day beyond the glass walls had darkened considerably, the light more like evening than midmorning. The wind was hooting under the eaves with a mournful sound like somebody blowing across the mouth of a bottle, something Sam had never heard before, and the pines on the far side of the lake were thrashing uneasily.
William would be quick on his errand. Since he wasn’t going to Augusta, Sam didn’t have much time. As she opened the door to the basement, the light dimmed further and the first snow hit the glass walls, sounding more like sprayed sand.
Sam eased down the steps in her sock feet, through the main area of the basement and past the storage room. It was silly to be quiet, she was the only person around for miles, and still she was furtive as a burglar. The door to William’s study was unlocked.Believe.Sam paused. This was such a violation of privacy, and not just because William had specifically requested Sam not come in here, had set a very clear boundary. Itwas an invasion of his creative space. Sam knew how this felt. Somebody reading your writing without your permission was a dealbreaker.
But Sam wasn’t going to read William’s work. She was looking for other people’s.
What if he had stolen his books from women?
What if he hadn’t?
Either way, Sam had to know. It was a matter of her future.
She opened the door and went in.
The room was shadowy and cold as a root cellar. Sam could see her breath. How could William write in here? But men always ran hotter, and William was no exception.I have an excellent bedwarmer, he said, when she asked him how he could sleep in their frigid room with all his limbs outside the covers.
Sam took a few steps forward and looked around in disbelief. She recalled William ribbing her in Boston for how disturbingly neat her study was, yet this room was monastic. On industrial carpet, there was only a chair and a desk. On the desk, three objects: an award, a banker’s lamp, and a laptop. No books, no shelves, no papers, no filing cabinets full of incriminating manuscripts.
Sam picked up the award. It was a heavy glass thing shaped like a mountain, with jagged edges and the inscriptionMr. William Corwyn, Mt. Washington Post Fiction Contest Winner, 1986.Sam smiled faintly; this must have been his first writing award. She rubbed it on her sleeve and set it down. She switched on the lamp and noticed a single Polaroid taped to the wall: young William with hair curling over the flipped-up collar of his pink Izod shirt, red flash eyes staring into the camera. Behind him, laughing, a pretty girl with long, straight cinnamon-colored hair held back from her face with a whale-covered headband. Sam remembered those headbands. She’d had one. Who was this laughing girl—in, Sam realized, the only photo in the entire house?Pen? Is that you?It had to be. Sam considered taking the photo down to see if there was anything on the back, but that would be even more disrespectful, and besides, she was running out of time.
There was a thud overhead and Sam flinched—the Rabbit? There was nobody behind her, and when the lights flickered Sam realized it was probably a branch blown against the house. The wind was cranking up to gale force now, shrieking like a teakettle, then leveling off. If Sam was going to do this, she had to hurry. She thought, Please, don’t let there be anything, and opened the laptop.
The screen glowed to life, showing a passcode bar against a gray background. “Fuck,” said Sam. Although what had she expected? Even her own laptop was protected. Sam set her hands on William’s keyboard and typed his birthday. The passcode bar shivered. She tried her own next, then theirs together, thenWilliamAndSam, thenWilliamAndSimoneCorwyn... Really, it was hopeless.WilliamCorwyn#1. WilliamCorwynNYTBestseller. KingCorwyn—
A gust of cold punched into the room. Sam turned, but it was not the door behind her that had blown open. It was the one beneath the bulkhead that led to outside. William stood there in his parka, plastered with snow, holding his axe.
“Simone,” he said. “It’s you.” Behind him, the square of daylight was as gray and staticky as a dead TV screen with snow.
“I came back,” William said softly. “The storm moved in even faster than I thought. It was too dangerous. So I drove home. I saw the light on in here, and I thought maybe there was an intruder. And I was right. There is.”
Sam opened her mouth to say she was sorry, but nothing came out. She stood shivering and shivering.
“What did I say, Simone?” William asked. “What was the one request I made of you? What did I say I would do if I caught you in my study?”
They stared at each other, snowmelt dripping from William’s nose and the blade of the axe. Outside the wind screamed like a hawk.
The Rabbit
