“It’s me,” she said. “Hi.”
He took a deep breath. “It worked, I see.”
“It worked.”
He reached across the small space and held out his hand.
“Pleasure to finally meet you,” he said. “The other woman.”
She laughed and shook his hand.
“She loved you more,” Rainy said.
“How do you know?”
“Her last thoughts were of you.”
“Were they?” He sounded doubtful.
“I was there,” Rainy said. “You were her happy ever after.”
He laughed softly and sat back in his seat.
Something almost like a smile passed across his face.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“I arrived right before the funeral started.”
“The first character to ever attend her author’s funeral,” he said. “I assume.”
He laughed again, but quickly the laugh turned to a single sob.
“Sorry,” he whispered, coughing.
“Don’t be,” Rainy said. “I’m glad I came. It was wonderful to see how loved she was. To me, all this time, she’s been this invisible tormentor. I might want to smack her around, but her readers obviously loved her.”
“There were a few dozen people in that entire place who’d actually met Maxine in person, only five or six who could call her a friend. You understand that, don’t you? All those people weren’t there because they loved Maxine, Rainy. They wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a police lineup. It’syouthey love.”
—
As they droveto the cemetery, Rainy watched the world pass outside. She didn’t want to intrude on Anthony’s grief, though she still had a thousand questions to ask him. Lost as he was in his own suffering, she was shocked when he spoke up again.
“It’s very strange,” he said, “not knowing what you’re thinking.”
“What do you mean?” Rainy asked.
“I know you only in the first person. Thirty-six Book Witch novels times three hundred pages each equals…”
“Don’t ask me to do math.”
“Over ten thousand pages of your thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears. Now you’re…a blank page,” he said.
“Imagine how I feel,” she said.
“How do you feel?”
“Warm and dry, for starters. There’s so much sunlight here. Do you ever get used to it?”
