Chapter 37 End Matter
End Matter
Sam had, of course, never seen William’s screensaver. It turned out to be a photo of himself, laughing at the lectern of some
conference—or awards ceremony, or fundraiser? Whatever the occasion, it was a big one, because behind William there was another,
much larger William on a Jumbotron. In his seersucker. Mic in one hand, one of his books in the other.
Which interested Sam much more than his screen backdrop. William’s novels. Were they his? Whatever entity had summoned her to the basement somehow knew of Sam’s curiosity in this matter. This had much
larger and more disturbing implications, but Sam didn’t have time to think about them right now. Whoever had opened the laptop
probably didn’t mean to harm Sam, or it would have happened already. Even if it was the Rabbit. So Sam decided to think.
The important thing was that the passcode bar was gone, and Sam had full access. William’s desktop was, like his study, pathologically
neat. There were two folders: one marked The Clowder and the other labeled Books. Sam frowned. What the hell was a clowder? She clicked on that one first.
From the widow’s walk Mindy could see the tiny winks of anniversary candles, flashlights, and phone screens in the dark, like little sparks of souls released.
They processed along the base of Gallows Hill and moved out toward Proctor’s Ledge.
What made Mindy shudder was the knowledge of how in Margaret’s day, it would have been actual torches, flooding the Salem streets like a river as they paraded her toward her death: the good townsfolk rejoicing or at least enjoying the spectacle of the burning of Mindy’s own blood, her great-ancestor. Margaret Scott, the witch.**
** note to self: William, you dolt, don’t forget to change name!
That was the last document William had open.
“Oh God,” said Sam. “Oh no.”
William was writing Cyndi’s book.
But maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Sam was misinterpreting. She went into the subfolders: Research—more info than Sam had ever wanted to know about the Salem witch trials; Drafts—more pages, including from long-dead Margaret Scott’s POV; and End Matter.
What was end matter? Nonfiction had end matter: bibliographies, indices, author’s notes. Fiction did not. Sam opened this.
There was page after page after yellow-lined page of a detailed outline titled “The Clowder.” Penned in large neat female
cursive. Scanned into William’s computer.
Sam touched the fountain pen in her own braid. She remembered Cyndi commenting on it at the café, saying, I write by hand, too, on legal pads. Rookie move, I know, but after all those years of law school, I guess I never broke the
habit.
Sam dragged over William’s document and compared it side by side with the outline. Aside from his transposing the language
from Cyndi’s simple storyboard descriptions to William’s filigreed vocabulary, it was identical. Plot twist per plot twist.
Every point of character development tracked. All William was doing was fleshing out Cyndi’s story in his own prose.
Sam left the outline and went to the folder in End Matter labeled Kitten.
A survey from William’s Darlings group, also filled out in Cyndi’s handwriting.
That must have been how he’d found her. Correspondence between William and Cyndi, arranging to meet at the Blue Trees—“Oh yeah, I remember that,” said Sam through clenched teeth.
She read through it all: Please, allow me to walk with you.
But I do have one condition: You must call me William.
“She pursued him hotly, my ass,” Sam muttered.
And finally, an obituary.
Cyndi Pietorowski, 42, of Salem, MA, died suddenly at the Hawthorne Hotel on October 30. Pietorowski, a Salem native and descendant
of accused witch Margaret Scott, was an attorney at Gomez and Yountz and attended Suffolk Law School and Salem State University.
Pietorowski’s tenant says she had taken a hiatus from legal work to focus on creative pursuits. Pietorowski had no immediate
family, but her 19 cats now reside at the Popoki Sanctuary in Hawai’i. Her death has been ruled a suicide.
The headshot of Cyndi, smiling sweetly in an incongruous power suit against a powder-blue corporate background, was a gut
punch. It must have been her law firm photo. Sam kissed her fingers and touched it to the screen, then closed out of Kitten, End Matter, and The Clowder.
She went to the main folder on the desktop, the one labeled Books.
The Girl on the Mountain
You Never Said Goodbye
The Space Between Worlds
Medusa
All the Lambent Souls
Sam opened Lambent Souls, William’s most recent bestseller, and went straight to End Matter.
The original manuscript, which unlike Cyndi’s was a Word document, had been written by a woman William called Faerie and whose name was Marta O’Leary, according to her title page, dated three years ago.
There was a note from Marta to William attached: Thank you so much for reading this!
I can’t believe you’d take the time to help somebody like me. I’m honored!
“No,” Sam moaned.
Marta O’Leary, 37, died suddenly on January 7 in her home, of an apparent overdose. O’Leary, an adjunct English instructor
at Keystone Community College, had been taking medication for severe migraines and suffered from depression, according to
a colleague. O’Leary leaves no family but is survived by cousins in County Cork, Ireland . . .
Medusa’s original author was Eleni Panatagopulous, aka Goddess. She had died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
The Space Between Worlds had been written by a woman named Kaelynn Christianson, Stargazer, who had fallen off a roof. Presumably while stargazing . . .
perhaps at Orion the mighty hunter?
“No no no,” Sam said.
The author of You Never Said Goodbye was Becky Bowman—William’s fiancée from grad school. His original Darling. She sure was. She had also been his Mouseketeer,
and she had overdosed.
And finally, in End Matter for The Girl on the Mountain, there was a folder simply marked Pen.
William’s sister.
“Oh please God no,” said Sam, even as she opened this. William’s sister. His own sister!
Penelope Corwyn, 16, died Tuesday at Mount Washington Hospital following fatal exposure to the January 14 blizzard.
According to her father, renowned neurosurgeon Archibald Corwyn, Penelope had left the house after a quarrel with her brother William and been caught in the storm.
“By the time I found her, it was too late to resuscitate her,” the senior Mr. Corwyn said.
Penelope is survived by her father and her younger brother.
Contributions may be made to the New Hampshire Humane Society.
On the last page of Pen’s scanned manuscript of The Girl on the Mountain—written in loopy cursive on what looked like three-ring binder paper—was a note from William. Sam recognized his handwriting,
tiny antlike all-caps script that was all but indecipherable unless you pressed your face right up next to the paper and squinted
hard:
DEAR PEN.
I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE GONE. I THOUGHT I’D SEE SIGNS OF YOU, THAT YOU MIGHT VISIT ME IN DREAMS, BUT YOU HAVE ABANDONED ME.
WHY? ARE YOU STILL ANGRY WITH ME? IT’S SO CRUEL.
I WANTED TO TELL YOU THAT I’VE DECIDED TO PUBLISH YOUR BOOK. THE STORY WILL ALWAYS BE PURE YOU. BUT I’LL HAVE TO DRESS UP
THE LANGUAGE. MY FINESSE WILL BE NECESSARY TO GET IT OVER THE PUBLISHING THRESHOLD.
I’M SURE IN TIME YOU’LL FORGIVE ME. PLEASE SEND ME A SIGN.
LOVE ALWAYS,
WILLIAM.
“She had a quarrel with her brother,” Sam said. “Yeah, I bet. I’m so sorry, Pen.”
She closed Pen’s file and was about to click out of Books when she noticed two more folders. Sam sucked in a sharp breath. One was labeled Wench, and in it, typed in bolded red on Amelie’s manuscript for The Pirate Queen, was the word discard.
The final folder was labeled Love. On their original correspondence, which was the only writing Sam had shared with William, he’d written Pending.
Sam closed all the folders. She was crying from rage and fear but only faintly aware of it.
She opened William’s email. Nothing happened, just the spinning wheel of death.
Of course. The power was out. The computer was functioning on its own battery, and there was no Wi-Fi.
Sam opened her phone to use it as a hot spot.
It was at 11 percent. “Fuck,” Sam said. But it worked.
She keyed in her phone network name and password, and William’s mailbox appeared on the screen, loading with agonizing slowness.
His computer was also running on fumes, 9 percent battery.
Sam addressed an email to Mireille and Patricia, cc’ing herself, and attached all the Books folders. “Come on, come on,” she said.
Her hands were shaking too hard to type, so she dictated a text to Drishti: COMING HOME SOONER THAN EXPECTED, LOL LOL LOL! The phone was unhappy about sending the message while it was also uploading William’s bulky files, but finally Sam heard the
little swish. “Thank God,” she said. All the Lambent Souls, Medusa, and The Space Between Worlds had uploaded; now You Never Said Goodbye was at bat. A warning popped up on the laptop screen: Your battery is at 5%! Charge now or your work will be lost!
“Come on,” Sam said. “You can do it.” She could practically feel the others standing around her in the dark, a ghostly phalanx.
Marta and Becky and Eleni and Kaelynn and Cyndi and Pen. A holy host of writers. The Darlings.
Your battery is at 2%! Place into charger immediately!
There was a sound from above like nothing Sam had ever heard before, a moan like the call of a mastodon, and then a CRASH!
that shook the house. She looked up, terrified—it must have been a tree, coming through one of the glass walls?—then back
at the screen. The Girl on the Mountain was uploading, with painful slowness.
“Simone?”
“No,” Sam said. “Please God no.”
William’s footsteps pounded overhead. “Simone, where are you? Are you all right?”
He would go to their bedroom first, look for her there. Now was Sam’s chance. She could slip up the basement steps to the
couch in the den, say she’d been too scared to sleep upstairs alone.
But her phone. Without the hot spot, the Wi-Fi would not work. Without the Wi-Fi, the books and proof of William’s murderous appropriation would not get out. And Sam didn’t dare hope the hot spot would work from upstairs. She couldn’t leave it to chance.
She heard William running back down. Descending.
“Simone,” he called. The basement door opened. “I know you’re down there. I know you’re in my study, Simone.”
“Please,” Sam said to the uploading file. “Please please please.”
Your power is at 1%!
Sam looked at her phone. It had died.
She turned to face the study door, terrified, trying to brace for whatever was coming at her. William had murdered all his
darlings and taken their books. Now it was Sam’s turn.