He backs out and eases the door shut.
Nelle slides another volume of Lily’s poetry onto the shelf, the words ringing in her head, a welcome break from Quill’s moody, brilliant prose.
As she reads, the pieces of her family history begin to form an intricate conglomerate. Hints found in lines of Lily’s poetry:
My olive skin, obsidian eye, shining star
And you who walks alone, cursed with red, little moon
Two brothers. Wallace and Sam. The star and the moon. One favored by their mother, the other by their father.
Nelle reaches for another of Quill’s books. Leather, thick, with a buckle strap.Wallace Quillis carved into the cover in a slanted, professional script. Must have been expensive. The leather is worn but carries a cool, fresh aroma, and the spine crackles as she opens it to the first page.
The Cottage on the Hill, a novella by Wallace Quill.
The next page:For Mother and Sam.
Nelle sits and starts to read. The words resonate in her like the hum of a coming storm. These are not just words, they are the words of the man who wroteherinto existence. These stories, these characters, are her family. Her blood. The ink on the page in front of her is the same ink thrumming beneath her skin. Stories about a mother—Nelle’s mother—stories about brothers—Nelle’s brothers—stories about love—Nelle’s lovers.All written by Quill, including her.
She closes the book. Through the window, night has given way to the soft blue of early, early morning. Maybe 3:00 a.m. Her exhausted eyes burn. Her cheeks are sticky with tears.
A painful resolution settles into Nelle, as final yet infinite as a funeral.
Her quest is not yet complete. The truths revealed to her in this novella, in these stories and poems, fictional and autobiographical, have shown her that much. That magical rope tugs her from the inside.
Trust yourself.
“So you’re a writer.” Penelope bends over a chessboard on the coffee table. She moves her rook. “What are you writing?”
James sets aside his cup of tea and concentrates on the board. “Are you trying to distract me?”
“Not necessary,” Penelope says. “You don’t stand a chance.”
He finds a square for one of his knights. She laughs, and her rook takes the knight, swiping his piece onto the rug.
“So what are you working on?”
“The dreadful question.” He moves his queen. “Not much.”
“You’re lying. Writers write. So either you’re keeping whatever it is secret, or you’re not truly a writer.”
James locks his nervous fingers together. “I just finished a novel, actually. My first.The Summer Curse.”
“What’s it about?”
He scrutinizes Penelope’s eyes. They are a mug of tea on a rainy day, not the harsh ice of her grandson’s. He wants to trust her—helikesher—but how can he after what he overheard?
“The bones of the story are about our journey together,” James says. “Mine and Nelle’s, that is. But the meat is different. I guess I’d been marinating the idea for a while, then, when we went to New York, I was on fire, and I wrote it in, like, two weeks.”
“How honest were you?” Penelope asks. “Is your story more a memoir or a novel?”
James purses his lips. “It was closely based on us, until the characters arrive in New York, then the plot spirals off in a different direction, because I obviously didn’t know what would happen to us. The characters took on their own personalities. It all felt very natural.”
“And Nelle’s character is ... the same as she is?” Penelope asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m not a writer,” she admits, “but I was married to one, and raised another, so I know a thing or two. From what I’ve gathered, there are different types of writing: the kind that lets you breathe but should never be seen by anyone else, and the kind that is crafted to share with the world. Most of what’s in that room is the former. Which kind of story is yours?”
