Epilogue
One year later
Thora was sick of looking at this manuscript. Working for Bryony, she’d never witnessed the part of the writer’s life before
they had the publisher and editor and agent. She was one of a million aspiring writers querying agent after agent with a manuscript
she’d poured her entire soul into.
Whenever she was starting to feel down about this demoralizing career path she’d chosen, it was time to go to Moonrise Manor.
She hadn’t written Summer Camp Cousins: the Haunted Automobile there; she wrote while it was under construction.
It was handy to be sleeping with an architect whose work on Woodhill House established him in the area; the construction team was ready-made.
While their work was underway, Thora found her year-round home.
It was on Woodhill Lake, half a mile down the road from Woodhill House.
Mack quit her job at AdironGas to run Woodhill House as an inn; Jade loved teaching music and attending Broadway shows too much to give it up just yet.
Now Thora and Mack could make mischief all year round, and it was giving herself everything she ever wanted in her girlhood.
Next summer, Lee wanted to renovate Thora’s new house as well while she enjoyed the season at Moonrise Manor. He and Denise
realized rattling around in a giant house was no good for them. And his renovations had made it worth a fortune. So they’d
be moving to Woodhill to live with Thora. She was still nervous that things were moving too fast, but she was facing her fear.
Meanwhile, Cody had a new girlfriend and a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship in California. Lee would visit him there for
camping trips while Thora wrote at Juniper; it was ideal.
Her journey to being an author, however, was not going ideally. Bryony’s last agent, Nnenna, was kind enough to take a call
from Thora. Who called from Juniper! Where Lee had somehow figured out how to acquire signal!
Nnenna now represented Bryony’s estate, which was a pretty lucrative gig, given the opportunities for reprints and film and
television rights. She didn’t work on children’s literature, which was why Thora hadn’t tried to get representation with her.
“I know Bryony got stuck sometimes. How did you encourage her?”
“She always had multiple projects going on that were in different stages, and I’d tell her to hop onto something else for
a while. Maybe you should start something new?”
“Isn’t the whole point seeing things through when they get tough?” Thora asked. Reconciling with Lee after the fire had been
the most profoundly rewarding experience of seeing things through. She was ready for this newfound persistence to yield more
rewards.
“Oftentimes yes, but in this case, you’ve finished this book. You’ve written it, you’ve revised it.”
“And revised it, and revised it,” Thora added.
“Keep querying it, but in the meantime, start something new. You have to keep writing,” Nnenna said, and Thora took her simple
command to heart.
She had plenty more ideas for entries in her Summer Camp Cousins series. She could start one of those. The kids are convinced that aliens invaded the attic until they learn that baby barn
owls look like that. They will, of course, be menaced by the mama owl.
“But don’t write the sequel to the first book,” Nnenna said, to Thora’s chagrin. “It’s like throwing good money after bad.”
Thora laughed heartily. This was why Bryony liked Nnenna. She didn’t pussyfoot around. Thora knew she needed to be tough to
handle all the rejection, and Nnenna likening her first manuscript to “bad money” was certainly good practice.
Nnenna needed to head to her next meeting, so they said their goodbyes shortly after. Thora opened the door to the writing
studio. The doorknob felt molded to her hand, because it was. Lee was intrepid enough to sift through Juniper’s ashes looking
for everything he could salvage. Miraculously, the basement doorknob had survived. He also found her lost skeleton key, which
was back around her neck where it belonged.
The doorknob’s survival, its mark on both her and Lee, made its desire for persistence known to her, and she had to honor it.
She didn’t have to understand it, and maybe she was a little frightened by it, but she also loved it.
She was beginning to be able to hold these beautiful complexities together.
After all, the idea of devoting herself to another person, as she had chosen to do with Lee, was scary.
She was taking it on faith that George wouldn’t steer her wrong.
She was oblivious to him for so long that George felt Lee needed a scar to show her that they were a match.
She vowed to be less clueless if George or anyone else was trying to tell her something important from the beyond.
She became overwhelmed with the need to write about this hard-won wisdom. Kids’ adventures were great, but the big, scary
process of falling in love with Lee while under attack from a confused and frustrated ghost was the ultimate inspiration.
She wanted to write what a crumbling Adirondack camp looked like to a full-grown adult. She wanted to write about fucking
under the moonlight to take control over a situation. She didn’t want to write; she needed to. Rather than making an outline or character profiles, she was going to write from the heart. She donned her favorite knit
hat, with gemstone beads for creativity. Flipping open her laptop, she typed the first sentence.
Receiving an outrageous inheritance from an eccentric old woman was like something straight out of a Bryony Brooks novel.
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