Chapter Ten
After ten minutes of waiting for River to emerge, in which I take my temperature twice more and google ‘symptoms of stroke for fiction writers?’ I knock gently on the bathroom door.
While this is obviously insane for me – my own fictional character showing up at my apartment for some unknown reason – it must be even more bewildering for him.
And, frankly, fucking terrifying. Suddenly waking up in an unknown country and being met by a glum, sloppy-looking woman who is denying his entire reality?
His entire existence? No wonder he’s having trouble computing. I would be too.
‘River?’ I try in my most soothing voice. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I don’t drink tea,’ he replies gruffly. ‘And I’m not some character in a book.’
Okay, so I just have to prove it to him. The sooner I prove it to him, the sooner we can move forward and figure out where to go from here. I take a deep breath. I can handle this. I can handle this.
How the fuck do I handle this?
With a heavy sigh, I plop down and lay my head against the bathroom door.
‘I have evidence, River,’ I say eventually.
‘That you are a character in my book. That I did, in fact, write you. That scar on your cheek. Shaped like the letter S? You got that scar when you were eight years old. You were thrown off your first horse – Sundancer – and your dad got really mad at you. Said that if you didn’t quit your crying and remount right away, he wouldn’t let you ride again for six whole weeks.
How would I know that if we’ve never met?
The fact that I do is surely evidence that I’m right about this. ’
Silence.
‘You, uh. Your mother was, um, an alcoholic who died of liver failure when you were nineteen. And before she passed away, she told you that the only way to get any respect in this life was to be unrelentingly tough. To learn from her mistakes and never let your heart be available for breaking. There were only the two of you in the hospital room when she said that to you, right? So how could I possibly know her exact words?’
No response.
‘Um … Okay then … At Oakley Ranch, there’s a wooden hut in a hidden patch of trees right by the San Gabriel river.
Inside there’s this blue vintage record player and a small fire stove.
You like to burrow away in that hut and make evil plans to keep poor Cassidy away from the business, plot your revenge on her for being the result of your father’s affair. See? Evidence.’
‘That ain’t true,’ River shoots back.
Huh, he sounds like he’s close to the door. I put my eye to the keyhole and see those sulky lips a few centimetres away. He’s speaking through the keyhole too, just like Mrs Casablancas does. Is this a common thing people do?
‘Look,’ I sigh. ‘I know this is weird. Earth-shatteringly weird, and I don’t blame you for thinking I’m crazy.
Maybe I am. But if you are swearing that you are River Oakley from a Texan town called Bedlam Creek and that you woke up here with no knowledge of how that came to be; and I am showing you that I’m the author of a book series about a completely made-up town in Texas called Bedlam Creek with a thirty-year-old cowboy character called River Oakley who owns a ranch and has a half-sister called Cassidy, then, surely you are my fictional character come to life. There is no other explanation.’
The door unlocks with a snap. I scramble to my feet.
River stands in the doorway, his frame filling the space almost completely. ‘Give me your cell phone.’
I instinctively clutch my phone to my chest.
A flash of worry softens his eyes a touch. ‘Please. I need to look at a map.’
I open up the map app and hand over the phone, watching as River taps on the screen, zooming in over a map of Texas, down onto Burnet County, his eyes widening as he searches and searches, skimming his fingers over the screen to no avail.
‘What the hell?’ he mutters. ‘Where is it? Where’s Bedlam? Where’s my ranch?’ He looks up at me, face now fully panicked. ‘Where’s your search engine?’
‘It’s just Google. Right there.’ I point at the app.
‘Google?’ River says, wrapping his tongue around the word as if he’s never heard it before. ‘What the hell is Google? Where’s Skangle?’
‘Skangle? What’s that?’
‘The biggest tech company in the world? You don’t skangle things in England?’
‘I have never heard of Skangle.’ And I certainly never wrote it in my books.
He waves me away then types in ‘Bedlam Creek’. Immediately, images of my grinning ‘professional author’ face and the covers of the Bedlam Creek books pop up. He scrolls down and down and down, shaking his head as every single Bedlam Creek-related result on there is about me or my books.
Then he types in ‘River Oakley’ and ‘Oakley Ranch’, once more being directed to my website and then after that a Reddit thread entitled ‘My Top Ten Fictional Assholes’, then an Instagram page where one of my most loyal readers @NancyDrawsStories has posted her fan art renderings of the Bedlam Creek characters, including what I can now see is a pretty accurate representation of River smoking a cigarette in the moonlight.
He frantically dials a number. ‘I’m calling the ranch,’ he says. ‘This is bullshit.’
The operator’s voice sounds out in response. ‘This number does not exist.’
‘Huh. I’ll try Matty’s cell.’
Matty is one of the stable hands at Oakley Ranch. The closest thing River Oakley has to a friend.
‘This number does not exist.’
River drops my phone onto the couch, nostrils flaring.
‘I … I must be dreaming. That’s all this is.
Some fucked-up terrible dream. I’m still in Blue Egg Meadow, snoozing underneath the big old cedar.
’ He scratches his jaw. ‘I’ve been real tired lately, Cassidy’s been on my ass, and the developers are circling for the land auction.
I must be flat out. Stressed to high heaven.
This is a dream. England, romance novels, Googly.
’ He turns to me. ‘You need to slap me. Slap me right now and wake me up out of this nightmare.’
‘I don’t think you’re dreami—’
‘Slap me, goddammit.’
I shake my head. ‘Violence is not the answer. I’ve never slapped a person before and I won’t start now. If you’d just calm down and listen to me—’
‘This is a dream,’ he says again, peering over at my stack of books, utterly befuddled. ‘It has to be. I am not part of some crappy book series by some two-bit—’
He stops short as my hand connects with his cheek. Not hard enough to cause any damage, I’m sure, but swift enough to make an audible sound.
River puts his hand up to his face, eyes glinting with shock.
‘My books are excellent,’ I say, lifting my chin, heart pounding. ‘They have a 4.5 average on . 4.2 on Goodreads. They bring joy and happiness to the world.’
‘You slapped me,’ River mutters, rubbing his cheek.
‘You asked me to! Begged, actually. I didn’t do it that hard. There’s no mark. Your cheek hasn’t even gone red.’
‘You slapped me … and I didn’t wake up. I’m still here.’ He plonks down onto the sofa, shoulders slumping as if all the energy has left his body. ‘So this is not a dream.’
‘I guess not,’ I say apologetically. ‘I think this might actually be happening. But how? Bedlam Creek doesn’t even exist in the real world’
‘But Bedlam Creek is real. I am real.’ River runs both hands through his hair so the soft ash locks stick up at jaunty angles. ‘How did this happen? How could this possibly be happening?’
‘I don’t know, it’s like … magic …’
I trail off as my eyes snag on the periwinkle fabric folded on top of the washing machine. The kaftan Mrs Casablancas made me wear last night at the manifestation ceremony.
The manifestation ceremony.
Oh God.
It couldn’t be …
Could it?
No.
Oh fuck.