Chapter Eleven
Sam
When I wake the next morning, it’s to the sound of birdsong and a fresh breeze drifting through my shoved-open window.
I know it won’t last for long. Heat wave set to continue, reads every article I can find, and I make it my new priority to find some sort of air-conditioning, even if I have to resort to making paper fans.
When the rain finally stopped, I insisted on walking Ciara the rest of the way home, but declined the invitation to crash on her couch. The journey back to Delaney’s was pretty miserable in wet clothes, but I felt I had to claw back some professionalism now that we’ve reached an understanding.
She was pretty talkative once she decided I wasn’t the enemy. Pretty funny too. Humor wasn’t exactly in Frank’s repertoire, but with Ciara…
I shuffle into my tiny bathroom as I go over our conversation from last night. It was a risk going after her like that but turned out all we needed was a little brutal honesty to cut through the bullshit.
She’s nervous.
Nervous is good. Nervous means she wants to do a good job. I can deal with nervous.
In fact, right here, right now, I feel as if I can deal with anything, and when I get a text from her an hour later, my confidence soars to record heights.
How do you feel about creepy churches?
I love them, I respond, and by the time I’m showered and dressed she’s pulled up outside.
“This must feel like the crack of dawn to you,” I say as I get into her car.
“I’m fine,” she dismisses. “Wide awake.”
“You just yawned.”
“That was me inhaling air to better fill my lungs.”
“That’s literally what a yawn…you know what, never mind. Sure.”
She waits until I’ve got my seat belt on and then expertly navigates the winding, narrow roads at a speed that shouldn’t be legal.
After about fifteen minutes of this near-death experience, we pull up to the church.
It’s surprisingly large for a small area, with forbidding gray stone and stained glass windows.
These might not necessarily be considered creepy themselves, but the overgrown graveyard next to it certainly would.
“Right?” she asks, catching me looking at it. “Maddie and I used to dare each other to go in there when we were kids.”
I follow her out, half-expecting tumbleweed to drift across our path. “Is it always this…vacant?” I ask, struggling to find the right word. Desolate seems harsh.
“Yep. Last time we had a priest full-time was in the nineties. Now we share one with five other parishes.”
“So what are we doing here?”
“Patience, grasshopper.” She takes out her phone, her thumb flying across the screen before she leans against the church wall, tilting her face to the sky. “This is the best kind of sunlight,” she says, closing her eyes. “Weak.”
“Not enjoying the heat wave?”
“Not when it lasts for four months. I’m a seasonal girl at heart.” She pats the stone beside her. “Come bask with me.”
I do, though the wall is still damp from the rain last night, and I rest my hands behind my back so the moss doesn’t rub off on my clothes.
Ciara keeps her eyes shut. I keep mine on her.
She’s dressed in more or less the same outfit I’ve seen her in every day.
Denim shorts. A plain T-shirt. A pair of scuffed tennis shoes.
I remember staring at the bottom of them as she climbed the tree ahead of me.
The curve of her calf and flash of bare thigh beneath her rain jacket.
I clear my throat, looking away. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Nothing good ever followed those words.”
“How did you get into crime?”
“As a writer or in general?” She cracks open an eye to peer at me. “I liked to read it, so it seemed natural to write it.”
“But you stopped writing it,” I point out. “Ever since you were—”
“Outed?” She grimaces. “Sorry. If I sound bitter, it’s because I am. I chose a pen name because I didn’t want that type of attention. But the journalist didn’t care. She wanted to write an article and go viral for a few hours.”
“How did she even find out?”
“I don’t know.” Ciara sighs. “I doubt it was a big conspiracy. It wasn’t a secret here. All my family and friends knew, so somebody probably said something and it kept traveling. It’s why I’ve only told Maddie this time around. I know she won’t breathe a word.”
“And you really just stopped?”
“I did. Didn’t sign another contract. Parted ways with my agent. That was that. The whole thing was ruined for me.”
“But your reviews were great.”
Her focus shifts sharply to me, and I shrug. “I looked them up.”
“Yeah. Well.” She kicks at the ground, unearthing a daffodil. “That didn’t matter so much in the end. The fandom turned on me. Or part of them, anyway. The very vocal part.”
“They didn’t like that you hid your name?”
“They didn’t like me full stop. And before you ask, I don’t know why. Misogyny. Jealousy.” She purses her lips. “Comparison. I stopped trying to find a reason when someone sent me a thirty-minute YouTube video blasting my writing.”
I wince, and she turns her attention to the moss, picking small clumps off the wall.
“Eventually, I decided to just step away from it all. It was easier that way. That’s why I want this book to just be mine for as long as possible. At least until I know we’re on the right track with it.”
“We can do that,” I say firmly. “And if you’re worried about reaction to the announcement, we can deal with that too. You were taken by surprise last time, but we can manage this.”
“You make it sound like you have a war room.”
“You obviously haven’t met our publicity department.”
Her smile is faint. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Always.”
“Why’d you get into publishing? You don’t seem like the type.”
“There’s a type?”
“There is definitely a type, and don’t you dare pretend there isn’t.”
At that, I laugh. “Real answer or fake answer?”
“Fake answer.”
“The money.”
“Real answer.”
“Probably your dad,” I admit, and she falls quiet.
“Neither of my parents read that much, but my sister used to go to dance class after school, and I’d be dumped at the library to wait for her.
When I was done with homework, I’d read.
One of the librarians gave me the first Ravian book when I was thirteen, and I loved it.
But I didn’t know working in publishing was an actual job until I left college. And here I am.”
“Here you are,” she echoes, her gaze unfocused as she stares straight ahead. “You should have gone into finance,” she says after a beat. “Lots of money in finance.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“And do you have a real girlfriend back in New York? Boyfriend? Bedfriend?”
“You caught me reading alone in a bar on a Friday night,” I say dryly. “Does that answer your question?”
“It tells me you’re a man comfortable with his own company.”
“And with his own company he does stay.”
She scoffs. “Now that I understand.”
“You’re single?”
“In my tiny rural community where I’m related to half the population? Only by choice. Plus, there’s no way you could date properly here. Everybody knows everybody. But I’m not really looking to…” She trails off, pushing away from the wall as she pulls out her phone.
“Looking to what?” I ask, trying and failing to hide the curiosity in my voice.
“Nothing. Come on. Ronan told me where the key is.”
“To what?”
“The church,” she says as if it’s obvious, and starts toward the cemetery.
Oh God. “Please tell me it’s not in one of the graves.”
“Of course not. It’s in the birdhouse.”
“You keep saying things like they’re reasonable, but they’re not. You know that, right?”
“Where else would you keep a spare key?” She stops beneath a sycamore tree, and I follow her gaze to a small brown birdhouse hidden in the leaves.
“How are you— No, of course. You’ll climb.” I step back as she shakes out her hands and grabs hold of the nearest branch, lifting herself effortlessly as if she’s done it a thousand times before. Then again, growing up in a place like this, she probably has.
“What?” she asks, catching my expression as she glances down.
“Just thinking about your idyllic childhood,” I say as she peers into the box before digging out a rusty silver key. “Climbing trees. Digging holes. Summers must have been great here.”
“You haven’t been here in a normal summer,” she reminds me, landing on the ground. “And not really. Dad was usually writing so I was left alone. Practically feral for a few years.”
“Alone?”
She flashes me a quick smile. “Don’t worry, Child Services. He was a good dad. Just busy. Not like he could shut off his brain as easily as everyone else.”
“Right,” I say, feeling there’s more she’s not saying, but I drop it as she leads me back to the church.
She lets us in with the birdhouse key, and we bypass rows of old wooden pews until we reach a small room at the back.
This door is unlocked, but, when she opens it, we’re hit by a blast of stale air.
Ciara’s nose wrinkles. “Smells old.”
It does. And not in a nice way. It smells as if no one’s been in here for a while. But, other than that, it’s not exactly what I expected.
It looks like a storage room. Low ceiling, cheap wooden floors. It’s lined with tall filing cabinets and ancient-looking bureaus. Several tables are pushed together in the center of the room, and a handful of chairs are stacked in the corner.
“Welcome to the crypt,” Ciara says as we step inside. “Or, by its official title, the room where we keep the village archives.”
“Feel like it could have a snappier name.”
“Hence ‘the crypt.’ ”
Our voices have dropped considerably, and I wonder if she was as well trained by librarians as I was as a child.
“Dad used to spend a lot of time in here when he wrote the first few books,” she explains, pulling out one of the drawers. “He got half his character names from here. Most of his locations too.”
She opens a bulky ledger, revealing a handwritten spreadsheet filled with names and ages.
“It’s a census?” I ask, leaning over to read it.
“It’s a cheat sheet.”
“Is…everyone a farmer?”
“Or a farmer’s son. Or look. A farmer’s daughter.”
I move nearer and get a sudden whiff of her shampoo, a hint of fruit and florals in the musty air.
“How were there six people called Thomas in this village alone?” she asks. “And four Ellens!”
She runs a finger down the columns and my focus strays from the ledger to her hands. No rings today. But there’s a bracelet of white beads around her wrist and two words written in faded red ink on the back of her hand. Call plumber.
“That’s too many Ellens,” she continues, and our arms brush as she turns the page.
Ciara falters, and I spy goose bumps rising on her skin.
“Cold in here,” she mumbles, and I nod, even though I don’t feel cold at all.
I actually feel a little warm, and I don’t stop even when I step back and move to the other end of the room.
“So is that why we’re here?” I ask. “Inspiration?”
“And to steal names and occupations.” She starts taking pictures of each page with her phone. “For a writer, I’m bad at making stuff up.”
“One of my authors gets his names from movie credits. Whatever works.”
“Hmm.” She falls quiet. It doesn’t last long. “Who’s the worst author you’ve ever worked with?”
I grin, saying nothing.
“Come on.”
“Nope.”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t gossip.”
“Bullshit. Everyone in publishing loves to gossip. It’s me, isn’t it?”
“By a mile.”
She mock-glares at me and goes back to the book as I peek into boxes to find something useful. I’m riffling through a pile of white candles when she calls me back to her side.
“All right, Number One Fan,” she says, showing me an old set of blueprints. “What’s that?”
“A city plan?” I guess, glancing at them.
“Or a village plan or whatever?” It must be over a hundred years old, and I look closer, recognizing the crop of buildings that make up Carrigwest and, further on, the church we’re in now.
“It’s interesting that the main road has more or less stayed the same this whole— No way. ”
She smirks as I take it from her.
“He based Ravian on Carrigwest?”
“An older version of it,” she says as I turn it on its side to get a different view.
“He never said that anywhere.”
“There’s a lot he never said. But you’re special, so you get to see it.”
I don’t mind her teasing, mentally reviewing the maps featured at the back of his first six books and comparing them with the one I’m looking at now. Instead of the church, we’ve got Finn’s house. Instead of the parking lot, the keep.
I get a sudden shot of adrenaline that I don’t bother to hide. “I can’t believe no one’s figured this out before.”
“Unless you knew where to look, how would you know? And the artist based all the drawings on Dad’s original sketch, which wasn’t great to begin with.”
“So you’re telling me that we’re where Maeve had her first meeting with the Druid?”
“No, because that happened in a book, and this is real life.”
“You’re not taking this from me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, watching me closely. “You really get a kick out of this stuff, don’t you?”
“Well, yeah. You grow up with something for so long and think you know everything; it’s nice to realize you don’t.”
“So, the hotshot has a soft side.”
“There aren’t a lot of authors that make me feel this way,” I admit.
“And the rest of us are just moneybags to you, are we?”
Her voice is light. But I wonder if I accidentally hit a nerve yesterday, and put the blueprints down, meeting her eye.
“I’m here to help you write the best book possible. You know that, right?”
“Sure.”
“And you also know that finding inspiration isn’t getting you out of writing me fifteen hundred words by Monday morning.”
She clicks her tongue off the roof of her mouth, but she looks pleased as she turns her back on me, pulling out another book.
“It’s all part of the process,” she says, setting it down with a thump. “Sometimes you’ll just have to trust me.”