Chapter 49
Davian
The Mysterious Author
Professor Umbridge
Nicholas Hooper
“Who the hell is this Atrianima?!” Arnold's voice thundered out into the hallway.
I had barely entered the professors’ lounge when my whole body stiffened and I froze.
My gaze clawed itself into the dark blue hardcover book with the silver battery embossing. A sight that would haunt me in my nightmares.
How on earth had it found its way to this table?
“The author was not particularly well known until today,” remarked Thadd?us, who, like the other professors, was sitting at the large table because Arnold had called one of his crisis meetings. “This book is her only bestseller. An erotic novel about two authors, mind you.”
Never before had I wanted so desperately to be invisible. Never before had regret eaten away at me so relentlessly.
Arnold banged his fist on the table and I flinched, looked up and realized that everyone except Arnold was staring at me as if the truth were tattooed on my forehead. But no one knew anything. And that was how it should stay.
“How can it be that the entire campus is reading this trash?!” he growled, and Joseph next to him visibly tensed up, his gaze fixed on me, as he always did, because he wanted to get through to me, longing for the old peaceful days between us, which would certainly not come back out of nowhere. “Who’s behind this?!”
I forced myself out of my stupor and walked to my seat, where I put down my leather briefcase.
“Good morning, Rydell,” Troy greeted me condescendingly.
Ever since his golden boy had beaten Anthony’s, he had been acting as if he were something special, and his undeserved triumph was really pissing me off.
“Do you also have to deal with students who, instead of paying attention, pore over this book as if it would save them from learning?”
“His first lecture starts in fifteen minutes,” Joseph growled. “Let him get settled first, for God’s sake.”
Joseph had started acting as if nothing had happened between us, even though I was still successfully avoiding him and ignoring all his phone calls like a defiant teenager.
Never in my life, not even in my own teenage years, had I behaved so immaturely, which – it should be noted – wasn't difficult when you grew up without parents.
“The book club seems to have made it their current reading,” Thadd?us continued.
My eyes locked with Anthony's, who until today had been racking his brains over Feng and dealing with calls from the boy's parents and their lawyers. But for a moment, he seemed like a different person. There was worry and tension in his expression.
He was the only one who knew.
“The book club doesn't usually escalate like this,” Joseph commented with a serious look, as if he, like me, had a suspicion about who was behind it. But that couldn't be... It couldn't be.
“It will blow over and we shouldn't worry. In a few days, everything will be back to normal,” Tony said, taking a big sip of his whiskey.
I avoided his piercing gaze and sat down, unable to tear my eyes away from the book I should never have written, let alone published.
“How can it be that educated young people are reading this kind of literature on my campus?”
This wasn't his campus. He shared the directorship with three other stubborn men – those from the other departments. But he liked to forget that.
Trying to swallow the bitter aftertaste on my tongue, I began to play with the leather strap of my bag, fighting the urge to stop for Joseph.
I had always known what Arnold thought of fiction. Neither he nor anyone else at this table would succeed in making me feel inferior for a genre they all didn't understand. As much stomachache as this book caused me, I couldn't deny my pride in this publication.
“Every colleague has the authority to confiscate this book!”
Troy began to grin nastily.
Thadd?us raised his finger with a pained smile, as if he weren't sure whether his comment was appropriate, and Arnold gave him a withering look. Nevertheless, he dared to speak.
“It seems there aren't many copies. People are offering hundreds to thousands of dollars for them on the market, which makes them antiquarian collectibles. Confiscation could lead to lawsuits and...”
Arnold slammed his fist on the table, causing the chain of his pocket watch, which he always wore attached to his breast pocket, to swing wildly back and forth.
“Do you know how many students and parents have successfully sued Maplecrest Law School?”
Thadd?us looked sheepishly at his clasped hands on the table in front of him.
“No one...”
“No one! Good! End of discussion!” Arnold gestured toward the book in the middle of the table, which Joseph’s gaze was fixed on. “Get that filth out of my sight.”
Anthony immediately grabbed the book and let it disappear under the table into his lap.
I was eager to know who in this room had confiscated it from whom, so that I could at least return it to its owner.
“And if it turns out that this is not just some short-lived nonsense, and I find out who is behind this game, that person will be held accountable!”
Borgov III
Carlos Rafael Rivera
With the intention of getting out of the main building as quickly as possible, I hurried down the wide staircase.
“God, Davian.” Tony caught up with me, looked around, and lowered his voice. “What have you done?”
“Nothing,” I grumbled, ready to repress the fact that people on this campus seemed to be reading my book.
A phase. It's nothing more than a phase. Soon people will have a new book.
“Someone suggested your book in the literature forum, and I thought nothing would happen, but then suddenly everyone wanted to read it.”
Anthony was part of that forum. A forum I had almost joined once, but I had pulled myself together.
“Who suggested my book?”
“A user named... what was it... Heather? No... Feather!”
With a jolt, I stopped on the stairs leading outside, and two students almost bumped into us.
God damn me.
I should never have given her that book. Let alone that nickname.
With growing tension, I clenched my teeth.
Of course Quill managed to get an entire campus to read a book. And this time she hadn't even planned to stir up trouble.
“Calm down.” Anthony's voice grew even quieter, his gaze piercing. “People will read it and their lives will go on. What's the worst that could happen?”
What was the worst that could happen?
A phrase I tried to repeat to myself until I entered my lecture hall and discovered crowds of students gathered around a few students with copies of Batteries of Ink as if they were goddamn gold bars.
Quill might not know it, but she had finished me off.
You are so fascinated by a painting that every day
you run your fingers over the dried oil paint.
Realizing too late that the layer of paint
is beginning to crumble beneath your fingertips.
And it is only a matter of time
before that very layer comes to light,
which the artist had wanted to conceal.
The skeleton of his creation.
– Leaking Batteries Diary