And that’s how he learned that the island, and everything on it, had once belonged to Angus’s family. That the castle used to be a modest house, one of several dotting the island, but sea and salt and wind wear away at places, and it takes a lot of money to keep them up. They’d come on hard times and had to sell. And then along came Arthur Fletch, who bought the lot and let Angus stay on, as a groundskeeper, since no one knew the place like him.
Fletch had a fondness for the cranky old Scot, and the old Scot had a fondness for him, and the two struck up a kind of friendship—not the talking kind, more of a sit-by-the-fire-and-drink-in-silence kind, trading the occasional tale.
“Ah was the last o’ mine, an’ he was the last o’ his,” he said. “Would’a let me live in the grand hoose, but ah prefer mah wee cottage. So that’s where ah’ve been.”
“The agent—” said Kenzo, catching his breath. “She said the island was empty. She said—everyone left.”
Angus’s face went dark.
“Arthur was mah pal. Ah knew what he wanted. Ah knew what he said. Ah’m the one who called her, and she swooped in and said shoo, tried to scare me off, like ah was vermin.” His head shook, but his hands were steady. “Arthur gave me his word that he wouldnae sell. That if an when he wanted off this island, he’d gie it back tae me. We shook on it. Was going tae write it up, but never got around tae it.” He sighed. “Ye put things off. Ye think ye have time, and then—ah’m the one who found him, washed up like driftwood on the beach. Stupid eejit... swimmin’ on a day like that.”
But the old man’s eyes were wet. He cleared his throat.
“Carrion, that bloody woman,” he muttered. “Told me I had tae leave. Butahknow this place, all its cracks and crags, all its hidden turns, and as far as ah’m concerned, they can cart off mah bones. That said, ah’d a stayed away from yer lot, but he left me a note.”
Kenzo stiffened, half in pain and half in curiosity. “A note? What kind of note?”
“What kind? A puzzlin’ one, of course. Bloody Arthur an’ his games. Told me to go an’ find his gilded book, an’ here ah’m thinking, they won’ let me have mah hoose, so ah might as well. Course, he didn’t tell mewhereto find it.”
Kenzo’s head was spinning. “So it’s—real, then?”
“Oh aye. Daft thing to do, if ye ask me. But Arthur didnae. Nae taste—fur coat and nae knickers, as they say. An’ after all that, I couldnae find it. Couple a close calls, sure some of yous lot had spotted me.” He kept working, hands steady, as if stitching a sock and not a man’s stomach. “Didnae have a choice. Only found the note last week, tucked under a bottle of the guid stuff by the hearth. Poor Arthur, makes ye think he knew his time was up.” The old man finished, tying off the stitch. “I’m nae surgeon,” he said, “but it’ll hold ye.”
Kenzo looked down.
A little blood wept through the stitches, but it was no longer a river so much as a drip. As if Kenzo had sprung a leak. The thought made him chuckle, so maybe the Scotch was working after all.
Across the narrow room, the radio crackled.
A staticky voice announced that a boat had left the mainland, and help was on its way.
“There are others,” Kenzo said. “A girl—I don’t know where she is. But the rest are in the house. I don’t—know how many—but I think they’re all dead.”Dead—a word he’d written a hundred times, something he’d seen with his own eyes, surrounded by yellow tape, but now the thought rang through him like a bell, made his body start to shake, and he was stormed by the sudden fear that somehow it was too late, not just for them but for him as well, that the wound was worse he thought, and Angus was just trying to let him down easy, to make him think he had a chance—
“Steady,” said the old man, gripping his shoulder.
And Kenzo didn’t remember asking if he’d make it, but he must have, because Angus squeezed his arm, and nodded, and said, “Aye, laddie. It’s just a wee scratch. All ye’ll be left wi’ is a scar an’ a crackin’ story to tell over a dram.”
Now Kenzo settles the glasses back on the bridge of his nose, and the bookstore comes into focus. At the front, on a makeshift stage, the moderator, his moderator—an elegant bookseller with earrings shaped like drops of ink... or blood—is introducing him.
“Ready?” asks Eleanor, squeezing his shoulder. Eleanor Vandenberg, agent extraordinaire, in a perfectly tailored cream pantsuit. Eleanor, who paid off whoever Angus radioed for help, and kept the whole incident at the House That Petrarch Built out of the papers. Who struck a deal with the old Scot, his silence for the island. Who came to see Kenzo in the hospital and slipped him her business card before reminding him in no uncertain terms about the NDA he’d signed, adding brightly that she’d love to see what he wrote next.
Kenzo already had an agent, a middle-aged white guy who passed most of his emails off to his assistant, including the one where Kenzo fired him. And then he let Eleanor Vandenberg buy him an overpriced lunch while he told her about his new idea. It took some convincing—it was undeniably a risk—but Kenzo had to do it. Even if no one was willing to publish it, he needed to get it down on paper, to process what he’d seen, what he’d been through.
In the end, he convinced her the safest place to hide the truth was in plain sight.
Fact masquerading as fiction.
Now, as the audience applauds, Kenzo makes his way to the front of the room.
His parents beam up at him. His dad gives a little whoop, his mom a smile that’s equal parts pride and relief that he’s alive, given what he’s been through. As far as she—or any of his family—knows, he tripped and fell on a kitchen knife while emptying the dishwasher (which is a thing that can happen; he looked it up).
(He doesn’t actuallyowna dishwasher, but thankfully, no one seems to remember that.) He lets his gaze trail over the rest of the crowd, gathered for the book’s release.
The publisher went all out.
A massive lead-up. A pre-pub press tour. Bound manuscripts and galleys so fancy they look like finished copies instead of paperbacks meant to be read and thrown away.
Not that Kenzo blames them. There was too much buzznotto play it up.
