They were at the kitchen table now, with their teas, and Whit looked up from his.
“There are lots and lots of fan theories about Christabel and the story of Sleeping Beauty.”
“I thought elvesdidn’tsleep?”
“Correct,” Merritt said, with a faux-impressed nod. “But she’s half-human, so I suppose it’s possible. Anyway, there are all these little things that could be clues strewn throughout the books. Her elf father’s estate is called Briar House. The family crest has a rose on it. We know she’s cursed at the very end of book4, and some magic force is making her sluggish, and there’s a throwaway moment at the beginning of that book where she pricks her finger—”
“I don’t think so.”
Whit’s voice was so clipped, so direct, that she felt called up short.
“You don’t think what?”
Whit’s face was solemn and self-assured.
“I don’t think she would purposefully be doing a Sleeping Beauty thing.”
“What do you mean?” Merritt said, a little incredulous at this sudden snag in what had felt like a surefire discovery. She decided to defend herself. “It’s all there: Christabel can finally fall asleep somewhere around the midpoint of our book, which means Ursula and Rupert need to awaken her.”
Whit’s face was unmoved. She went on.
“Helen’s done this before, with the Robin Hood imagery in book2, and the arrow in the stone instead of a sword in the stone in book1. It’s exactly the kind of thing people look for.”
Merritt was right about this, she was sure, and yet here was Whit smiling with a sudden calm confidence.
He adjusted how he was sitting, pressed his hands together as if in prayer, then rubbed both index fingers across his mouth. He wasreallygiving his next words a good once-over before uttering them aloud.
Then he looked at Merritt, almost apologetic.
“It might be something people think Helen theauthorwould do, but it’s decidedlynotsomething Helen thepersonwould do.”
Oh.
“She hated those old princess-y fairy tales. She would let Annie watch the movies,Sleeping Beauty,Snow White,Cinderella, but she would explain the whole time what was wrong with them, how those boys shouldn’t have kissed sleeping girls without their permission, and how Cinderella really should’ve gotten to know Prince Charming a little better first.”
Though he was looking at the window, he was really looking at the memory, his lips still turned up at their corners.
“I agreed, but we would get in little arguments about it, because Annie was four or five, and couldn’t Helen just let her enjoy the movie, blah blah.”
He paused and thought and smiled again. Merritt nodded, ignoring a feeling akin to dread that had lodged in her stomach.
“Her whole thing was, why even give the bad stuff airtime when there were so many better stories for girls out there?”
Now Whit looked at Merritt like he was grateful for the memory.
“So,” he continued, “she might have been doing something like that unconsciously, but—” He laughed. “She wouldhateto be accused of that, and I can pretty much guarantee it wouldn’t be a major plot point in this book.”
“I’m sorry,” Merritt said immediately, feeling suddenly stupid. “I wasn’t trying toaccuseher of anything, I just—”
Whit waved his hands quickly, kindly. “Of course you weren’t! You were following a lead. It’s all we have, leads. We have to use them where we can.”
Merritt nodded, but inside, something felt wrong. Like a sweater twisted into a knot by the washing machine. She knew she should be compassionate toward this man who sat before her, remembering his wife with warmth and certainty. And of course Whit knew Helen better than she ever could. But what he’d said about Helen the writer and Helen the person... weren’t they concerning themselves explicitly with Helen the writer? Wasn’t that why Merritt was here? Becauseshewas the expert when it came to Helen’s work?
And she had worked on this idea, had been working on it for a long time, even before taking this job to help this man who didn’t know which way was up when it came to the Greenwood Castle books. But now Whit had summarily dismissed her idea—hergoodidea, she knew it was good—and he’d wrapped it in a bow of gentleness and understanding that made her feel like there was nothing she could do about it.
She wanted to speak up for herself and her instincts, to talk about how events in fiction aren’t necessarily always in keepingwith one’s moral compulsions—didn’t he, the mystery novelist,knowthis?—and she wanted to suggest that maybe Helen was going to do something subversive with this allusion, that they could be subversive, too. She sat there with the words forming between her teeth, and then Whit’s phone buzzed.
“Crap,” he said after reading a message. “That’s the nanny from the nanny share. She’s sick in bed.”
