“Just taking some notes.”
“Oh. Okay.”
While she picked up the thread of the story, in the back of her mind, Emmy felt like she was at a doctor’s office getting an evaluation. It was all very professional and clinical. That helped a great deal, as she was trying to keep her emotions out of it. Best to stay detached. She still had to get through a shift at work after this.
“It’s clear that you didn’t lose any time while you were in the book.” Lucy looked back at it, tapped the cover as she thought. “You didn’t read this version?”
“No. I almost did. I didn’t notice it had changed at first. I wanted to go back in, go back to Will, but I… I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been right. I just… closed the book. I left him.” Emmy blinked furiously as the guilt ate at her. “I told him I wouldn’t leave him.”
“I think you can forgive yourself for that one. You didn’t choose to leave him. He would have known that.”
The words were true enough, but Emmy felt like the worst kind of traitor.
Lucy picked up the book and flipped steadily through the pages. “If Will is mentioned in here, even as a side character, he doesn’t seem to come up a lot,” she said after a minute.“I see a lot of Jared, a lot of Bright. Maybe Will is here, but it would be very interesting if he weren’t.” She went back to the beginning, paused on one of the first couple pages. “Interesting dedication.”
“‘For you.’ Yeah. I read it.”
“It said ‘For you’?” Lucy asked, her eyes laser focused on Emmy’s face now.
“Yeah. I remember because I thought it was a little hokey. Why?”
“Read it again,” Lucy said, and slid the book across the table.
Emmy placed her fingers on the page to hold it open. She read the dedication. Blinked once, hard. Read it again.
For someone else
“What the fuck does that mean?” she demanded.
“I told you the book appeared to be used,” Lucy said slowly, like she was working out some answers on the spot. “I’d say you’re not the first one who took a trip through it.”
Now the tears that sprouted from Emmy’s eyes were angry. “So it just… what? Sucks random, helpless women into a romance universe, dangles their one true love in front of them, and then yanks them back? Why? What’s the point of that?” Emmy swiped at her eyes, then turned her glare on Lucy. “What is the goddamn point?”
Lucy didn’t flinch at Emmy’s ire. She simply drummed her fingers on the table, her head tick-tocking back and forth a little as she thought of how she wanted to respond.
“You’ll get frustrated if you keep asking questions and I keep telling you I don’t know,” she said after a while.“Especially since you’ve equated ‘psychic’ with ‘omniscient,’ which I am not. So let me hit you with all the I-don’t-knows at once.” She began to count on her fingers. “I don’t know who wrote this book. I don’t know if the book was ordinary once, and someone other than the author enchanted it. I don’t know if the book itself has taken on a kind of sentience of its own. I don’t know if the magic within the book is benevolent or malicious. Is that it?” She looked up at the ceiling, tilted her head. “I think so.”
“You’re saying someone did magic to the book. Like a spell. Abracadabra, wave the magic wand.”
Lucy looked back at Emmy with a perplexed expression. “Not ‘abracadabra’ necessarily, but words can have power. Not waving a magic wand, but certain gestures or actions can take on great meaning. There are forces and energies in this world that can be tapped. It takes a certain amount of belief. Or faith, you could say. With that, some people can manifest things. Can make their wishes a reality.” She raised a sardonic eyebrow, leaned her head on her fist. “You can’t tell me you’re still skeptical. Not after all you’ve been through. What did you think pulled you into the world of a novel? Too much salty food before bed?”
“Okay, yeah. Fair enough. It’s just… a lot to take in.”
“Let me ask you something. Did you really think there was only one psychic in the world, and that you happened to meet her? You didn’t wonder, not for one second, what else is out there that you’ve never thought to believe in before?”
She hadn’t, Emmy admitted to herself. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that the existence of one psychic definitely meant that there must be others out there. She wouldn’tadmit it, though. Her pride had taken plenty of hits lately, and it wasn’t ready to handle another one.
“There’s something else,” Lucy said quietly. “It’s not quite an I-don’t-know.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not sure why or how this book found you, or why it feels it is no longer for you, as the dedication indicates. But I find it interesting that Will doesn’t appear to be in it anymore.” She paused again, this time to let her words sink in. “If he’s not in the book, I’d be interested to know where he is.”
Hope felt more dangerous than heartbreak in that moment, but Emmy felt it swell inside her despite her attempts to remain neutral. “But he wasn’t there. When I woke up, he wasn’t there.”
“That’s true. You didn’t manage to get him out of the book. I guess I’m wondering if he was ever in the book to begin with. Or maybe it’s better to say the book character you fell in love with only existed because the book… took inspiration, we’ll say, from reality.”
“You’re saying… Will might be here… somewhere. The real Will.”
