Two giant placards of his book cover flank the stage, and he takes his seat between them, savoring the hush that falls over the crowd. He looks around, marveling at the variety of faces, like a swath cut from the latest census. Young and old, and everything between. For years he sat before an audience of five, ten, fifteen if he was lucky, half of them readers and half writers wanting to be where he was, waiting for the Q&A session just so they could ask for tips, or pitch their own ideas, as if he held the keys to publishing. They didn’t know—how could they know?—that making it inside the house didn’t mean you got to stay, didn’t keep you from getting kicked back out.
“Before we get started,” announces the moderator, “how about a little reading to give us a taste?”
She suggests this like it’s a spur-of-the-moment idea. Like every beat of this event hasn’t been carefully prepared, planned, tested for cracks. Like the hardcover on the little table beside him hasn’t already been flapped to the right page.
Kenzo smiles and nods, taking up the book and clearing his throat.
He takes a breath, deep enough to feel the scars tighten on his stomach and his lower back. Amazing, the doctors back in Scotland said, that the antler did so little damage. That it went right through. He was lucky, they told him again and again.
So incredibly lucky.
Kenzo looks down at the open book, takes a deep breath, and begins.
“When the boat pulled into the jetty, and Kai got his first sight of the castle on the hill, he knew his whole life was about to change. Maybe not thehowsandwhensandwhys. But thewhatwas clear.”
He looks up as he reads aloud.
Kenzo has read the passage a dozen times, first while writing, and then revising, and then in preparation for this very moment, that even though he’s holding the book open, the truth is, he can recite the words from memory.
“His future stretched ahead, weighted with hardship and buoyed by hope, and when he crossed from the water to the land, from the dock to the steps, from the polished oak door into the gleaming foyer of Patrick Gallows’s house, he was one step closer to the life he wanted...”
Here, the dramatic pause. A last, knowing look at the crowd.
“And Kai knew he would doanythingto get it...”
The audience draws in a breath, and Kenzo marvels, the way he always has, at the power of storytelling. Hearing people laugh when you want them to laugh, and gasp when you want them to gasp. Seeing the threads you’ve woven connecting you in real time to your readers.
It’s the only time in his life that he believes in magic.
AsKaienters the famous author’s house, as he meets the other desperate writers gathered in the sitting room, the whole group, so full of need, of hope, Kenzo sees them—not Bridget and George, Poppy, and Jasmine, and Cass, and Macks (get it,notwith an X), the thinly veiled avatars he’s concocted—no, he sees Sienna, lovely, and bright, and tired, and her husband, Malcolm, the distance like a crack between their bodies. He sees Priscilla, whose real identity he wouldn’t learn until after, and Millie, bubbling over like a too-full glass of champagne, and Cate, literally a wolf in sheep’s clothing, in her oversize cardigan, and Jaxon, hungry like they were all hungry, but unable to hide it.
“... little did they know as they stood, gathered at the bottom of the stairs, that this was a game of life and death, and only one of them would win.”
Kenzo closes the book, and a fresh wave of applause rolls through the room.
“Of course,” says the moderator, “if you want to find outwho, you’ll have to buy the book.”
A pat phrase, but it garners a ripple of laughter.
She starts off by asking a few softball questions, about his process, whether he’s a plotter or a pantser—someone who knows the end or finds it as he goes—whether he likes drafting or revising better, or if, like Dorothy Parker, he hates writing and prefers having written, early bird or night owl.
Kenzo has never understood why people care about these things—or rather, he does understand; they’re looking for a mirror, a way to say,See, I’m doing it right, or hoping he’ll spill the formula, the step-by-step way to get from where they are to where he is, when the truth is, there is no formula. No if P then Q. Still he runs through his answers—plotter, because he needs to see the end to work toward it; drafting, because so much of it is still potential; night owl (obviously).
The moderator nods and carries on. “How about your writing routine. Any rituals?”
At which point Kenzo pictures Jaxon, mocking the need for this coffee cup or that candle, declaring that rituals are just excuses. Jaxon, whose Moleskine was battered but blank, who found every excuse possible not to sit down and write.
Finally, when the moderator’s finished up with the easy round, she shifts in her seat and turns the page of her notes, and Kenzo knows it’s coming.
“Now, Mr. Gray,” she says, twisting toward him. “The elephant in the room, so to speak. There seem to be some pretty obvious parallels between Patrick Gallows, the author at the heart ofyourstory, and Arthur Fletch. Both extremely successful, and famously reclusive. Both tragically lost before their final book was finished. Was that intentional? Or simply a coincidence?”
The silence in the room is thick as smoke, everyone holding their breath.
Kenzo crosses his legs, arranges his face in a practiced smile.
“In writing,” he says, “it’s best to assume that everything is intentional.”
His gaze drifts past the crowd to the back of the room, where Eleanor stands, arms neatly folded, head tipped to one side, the way it is when she’s listening. At her side, his editor, Holden—though Kenzo still calls him Rufus sometimes, in his head; first impressions are hard to shake—dressed in a navy sweater vest, hands in his pockets as he rocks heel to toe, like a nervous kid.
