In the hollow underneath sit stacks upon stacks of paper.
Nelle reaches in and withdraws the top sheet. The paper is bluish in the moonlight, and she squints to read it. James shines his flashlight over her shoulder.
“This is Quill’s handwriting,” she says. “Twenty-first of September. Today, I will eat breakfast at nine o’clock, work on my novel on the porch until two o’clock, eat lunch in the kitchen with my mother, then read in my bedroom until five o’clock, when I will eat dinner with my family in the kitchen, and then I will read again in my room, and then go to sleep at nine o’clock. I will wake at eight tomorrow.”
“He kept daily logs?” James peers into the floor cavity. From what he can see, the papers all record daily itineraries, handwritten in lists.I will do this at this time, then this at this time, then this at this time.Over and over and over again, endless lines of instruction.
“No, no, this is more than that.” Nelle’s holding two pages, crinkled between her fingers. “Quill was likeme.”
James shakes his head, unsure what she means.
“He was created like me.” She points at the papers. “Look at all of these. Quill created me. Quill’s mother, Lily, createdhim. Penelope’s late husband, Samford, createdLily. Do you know what this means?”
“What?” James asks, trying to wrap his mind around the succession of writers. Did that make Nelle any more or less human? He shakes the thought away. Just his anxiety talking. She has proven to him—though she never had to—how much she can feel the weight of sadness, and stress, and fear, and guilt, and hope. However shebecamehuman doesn’t matter because sheis.
“I can write for myself.” A grin splits Nelle’s face. Her body seems ready to spring open. “I don’t need you to do it anymore, I can do it myself. I found Lily’s old journals. She wrote poems to dictate her life. It’s why everyone thought she was crazy, you see? All her mystic statements and rhymes, her distant stares, the irregular pauses Quill wrote about in his short stories. She was a poem, through and through. Quill wrote basic, daily instructions for himself, like he did for me. But I’m made of fucking ink, dammit, I can write my own story.”
The papers drift from her hands.
James offers up the journal and pen, but Nelle has already peeled a splinter from the old floorboard to prick her finger. A bead of ink settles at the tip. She brings it to the floor and writes:I run into the lake.
She shoots James a raw smile.
Then she takes off through the cottage and out the back door, across the stone patio, and into the night, howling like a wolf.
Once again, he is drawn to her like the tide to the moon.
When he emerges from the back door, Nelle is already halfway down the hill, her clothes strewn among the weeds. The pale curve of her back flashes before she crashes into the surface of the loch, then twists and slips backward, disappearing under bubbles and murk.
Like a lost cub chasing after his pack, James runs down the hill, kicking off his shoes, pulling off his socks, shimmying out of his clothes until he is naked and free and gaining momentum, the wind hitting his balls like ice—
He cannonballs into the water and plummets to the reedy floor. Freezing, electrified, rippling skin. A gong rung. His body undulates with feeling and sound.
It’s September, and he’s skinny-dipping in a small Scottish loch—what is life?
He kicks off the muddy bottom, breaks the surface, and slings water from his face. The cold racks his body with shivers. So far from the city, stars glitter like cinnamon on the water.
Nelle splashes at him. A freezing blast, startling him from his reverie.
He chases after her, but she paddles back toward the shore, a sea creature stroking on her back, exposing her breasts. Each sliver of skin James glimpses sends his blood rushing southward. Memories of the other night flash through his mind, fueling his desire.
Nelle walks to ankle-deep water, naked amid the reeds. She lifts her arms to wring out her hair, exposing the side of her breast, the outline of a pointed nipple, her back dimples.
James swears and averts his gaze to the cluster of gnats under the alder tree, whose branches twist over the water.
Out of his periphery, he sees Nelle staring at him.
“Look at me,” she says. Commands.
All he needed was permission.
“James,” she says, softly. An invitation. A plea.
For a few seconds, he studies her. Committing this to memory. Collarbone shadows, her nipples tight, her soft stomach curving into a V toward her thighs. He wants to feel every inch of her, first with his hands, then his tongue. Or vice versa.
He walks out of the waist-deep water, taking pleasure in her eyes roving down his chest. Lingering with the same magnetism he feels, the silvery force bouncing off their bodies, drawing them closer.
Nelle steps forward, rises on her toes, and kisses him. Her cold breasts brush his chest, her skin dripping.
