How hard can it be?
The cursor blinks.
Arthur always said that starting was the hardest part, so she decides to break the seal, get the ball rolling—two metaphors in the same sentence, whispers her editorial side,redundant, cut one—but she hushes the voice and locks eyes with the screen.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the thought that rang through Petrarch’s head was this...
She retypes the last words Fletch ever wrote, as if to trick her brain into picking up right where he left off, but her fingers come to a stop, right where he did.
I should have known.
The line looms at the top of the page.
The cursor blinks, waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
The minutes turn to hours. Ava Paulson sits staring at the page, her mind gone strangely, maddeningly blank.
Ava Paulson left publishing shortly after.
She moved to upstate New York, and bought an old Victorian house, a fixer-upper with lots of light, a delightful porch, and excellent cell service.
Oh, and she accidentally fell in love with a ruggedly handsome beekeeper named Guy.
She has never been happier.
Word of Arthur Fletch’s death finally hit the news a few weeks after the events on Skelbrae.
Fans across the world mourned the loss of a beloved author. His house and private island have become a popular destination for fans of the series.
As for the final Petrarch novel, in what would prove to be a brilliant publishing gambit, Merriweather Press made the decision to release the last installment as Fletch left it—unfinished—allowing readers to debate the author’s intentions, and ultimately choose the ending for themselves. (T-shirts emblazoned with the phraseI SHOULD HAVE KNOWNwere the fashion item of the year among the literati.)
The decision to release the unfinished manuscript was, surprisingly, Holden’s idea.
He has since been promoted to senior editor.
The book has spent twenty-four weeks on theNew York Timesbestseller list.
So far.
Epilogue
Kenzo
IT’S A FULL HOUSE.
The bookstore ran out of chairs thirty people ago, but his parents got here early, his mom staking out front-row seats. Now a bunch of people—friends, sure, but plenty of strangers, too—crowd the store. They stand against the shelves, line the stairs; a few even sit cross-legged on the floor, like this is some kind of children’s read-along, and not the release party for a horror novel.
The publisher doesn’t market it that way, of course. They prefer terms likeLiterary thriller.Speculative suspense. Some quippy sales mash-up that’s shorthand for major cross-market appeal.
But to Kenzo Gray, it’s pure horror.
He meant what he said to Sienna when she asked why he’d chosen this genre.
Horror is about humans. What we’re capable of. And what we’re capable of surviving.
