The Shadow Writer

by Maxwell, Eliza

  She hates the familiarity of that sensation.

  And even if her personal ghosts, both living and dead, left her in peace for once, Graye wouldn’t risk oversleeping and letting Laura down.

  She settles for stretching out on one of the hotel’s beach chairs beneath an umbrella for a few moments instead.

  The little bruised patch of sky has grown slightly larger, darker, but perspective on the coastal horizon is tricky, making the storm look closer than it is. Supposedly, they have hours yet before it will reach them.

  Graye closes her eyes and focuses on the wind caressing her cheeks and pulling at her hair. If third-date guy had felt half as good, there might have been a fourth.

  She wishes the wind could carry her worries away.

  Nick and what he wants with her is a problem she can’t escape.

  Does he mean her physical harm? Or worse?

  If she’s exposed as Grace Thacker now, when she’s so close to her dreams she can feel the shape of them brushing her hand, it will ruin any chance to earn respect as a writer. If the truth comes out before she’s published, no one will ever take her seriously. She’ll forever wear the stain of tabloid trash. Worse, trash with delusions of grandeur.

  They’ll laugh. They’ll all laugh at her, getting ideas above herself, grasping for a brass ring she has no chance of reaching. Her opportunities will wither on the vine, leaving nothing within her reach except potentially a stint on a B-list celebrity dance show.

  And Graye is a terrible dancer.

  After she’s published, things will be different. After, she’ll have a career established as a successful novelist to wave as a white flag. Once that happens, her past is nothing but a tragic backstory.

  This is the mountain she’s been climbing her entire life. She’s so close to the peak now, she can feel the air growing thin.

  Only Nick stands between Graye and the future she’s meant to have.

  But she has faith in Laura. Nothing Nick could say will change anything if Laura has already seen she has talent. But first, Laura has to fall in love with the book.

  By tomorrow, the guests will be packing up and checking out of the hotel with enough time to catch the afternoon ferry and return to their homes. There will be nothing left to get in the way of a long discussion with Laura about the merits of “Fiona Boyd’s” work.

  Graye imagines the pleasure that will fill Laura’s face when she reveals her secret. She’ll be thrilled for her assistant. Her friend. She’ll forgive the small untruths, and understand why Graye had no choice.

  Of course she will.

  Truth, lies, it won’t matter what Nick says after that.

  Her work will speak for itself.

  “You’re a fool,” a familiar mocking voice whispers in her head. “You’ve always been a fool.”

  Graye’s brow furrows as she squeezes her eyes shut tighter.

  “Haven’t you learned anything? People only love you for what you can give them, Gracie. You have nothing to offer.”

  She gives a small shake of her head, denying the voice, denying the words.

  Lost in a maze of insecurities, Graye gives a shriek when a voice, a real voice, speaks at her side.

  “Tell me something, Miss Templeton,” David West says. He seats himself on the lounge chair next to Graye, sitting upright and studying her profile. “What is it you hope to gain out of your association with my wife?”

  He holds two glasses in his hands, both cheery and garish with bright paper umbrellas perched at the rim. They’re a stark contrast to his colorless features.

  David thrusts one of the drinks at her, but she shifts away from his outstretched hand and eyes him warily.

  “A little early for me, thanks,” she says.

  “It’s a smoothie. Nonalcoholic.”

  Slowly, she takes it from him and watches as he takes a long sip from a fat straw.

  “Supposed to be good for you,” he says with a shrug. “It would be better with a few shots of rum.”

  “What do you want?” Graye asks. David West and all he represents has fallen far and fast down her list of concerns.

  He raises an eyebrow and takes another sip. “I asked you first.”

  “Nothing,” she says, inwardly cringing at the defensiveness in the word. “To do my job, that’s all.”

  He doesn’t reply, but the doubt is clear on his face.

  There’s too much perception in those eyes, the only part of him that looks alive. The rest a wax imitation of a man who’s been left in the sun too long and has woken to find himself in an unwanted state of sobriety.

  Graye likes him better drunk.

  His hands shake as he raises the straw to his mouth again and pulls in the blended fruit concoction like it might cure his tremors.

  It doesn’t.

  Graye takes a drink of her own smoothie and watches from the corner of her eye as he swings his legs around to stretch out on the lounger. He lays his head back, closing his eyes against whatever tug-of-war rages inside of him.

  He doesn’t seem to notice or care that he’s intruded on the only moment of solitude she’s likely to find today.

  Grudgingly, she accepts his presence and his peace offering, though she much prefers the frozen drink to his company.

  With her eyes closed and his silence, she can almost forget he’s there. At least until he speaks again.

  “Laura has a soft heart,” he says without opening his eyes.

  Whatever Graye might have expected him to say, that isn’t it.

  “It makes her easy to take advantage of. I should know, I’ve been doing it for years.”

  Graye gapes at him.

  He tilts his head toward her and opens his eyes for just a moment.

  “Why so shocked? You think I don’t know what I’ve done?”

  He shakes his head and closes his eyes again.

  “I didn’t set out to use her, but she made it easy.”

  Somehow, he manages to make it sound like it’s Laura’s fault he’s an asshole.

  “Laura and I have our problems, none of which I feel the need to justify to you, but her happiness is entangled with mine. We’ve decided, together, to put new effort into making our marriage work.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because frankly, you’re in the way. You’ve overstayed your welcome and it’s time to move along.”

  Graye’s jaw falls, the sweetness of the drink curdling on her tongue. The breathtaking gall of the man.

  “You’ll have my recommendation and hers as well, I’m sure. I don’t expect you to go away empty-handed, but I do expect you to go away.”

  “You’re serious,” Graye says.

  He meets her shocked expression directly.

  “Do yourself a favor and accept this gracefully. Laura’s loyalty was spoken for long before you came along. If you attempt to put that to the test, you’ll only humiliate yourself.”

  He moves back into a sitting position and finishes off his drink with the same finality he finishes the conversation.

  “No hard feelings, Graye. I’m doing you a favor, really.”

  He stands. There are things she could say, things she should say, but her words are lodged behind a seething ball of revulsion that fills her throat.

  He pats her on the shoulder, once, then twice. Fatherly, almost, if one’s father happens to be an arrogant prick. Then he walks away.

  Stone-faced, Graye stares at the waves that crash just yards away. Moments ago, she’d taken solace in them, but not anymore. Now they’re as unstoppable, as unforgiving, as her rage.

  David West would dismiss her with a wave of his hand, just as she’s been dismissed by everyone she’s ever known.

  Not this time. Not when she’s so close.

  Nick DiMarco and David West can both go to hell.

  Graye stands suddenly, so suddenly she has to steady herself with a hand around the pole of the large beach umbrella. The combination of exhaustion and determin
ation is wreaking havoc on her equilibrium.

  She marches up the sand, away from the beach and surf.

  She won’t give in.

  Graye stares at her feet, forcing them forward, and nearly collides with a figure crossing her path. The blonde waitress who carries a tray of drinks sidesteps her and manages not to spill her tray, but a wave of dizziness sweeps over Graye at the sight of the woman.

  The past and present overlap, confusing her in her sleep-deprived state.

  It happened a lot when she was younger, after Alex was gone. She’d see a stranger with the vaguest resemblance and think of her sister. It hasn’t happened in years. Not while she’s awake, at least.

  She has been dreaming of her sister lately, though. It’s one reason she fights so hard against closing her eyes. Once sleep has claimed her, she has no control over where her mind and her memories go.

  She shakes her head, grasping for the real, for the now. Her eyes seek out the waitress, now handing the drinks to a pair of guests in beach chairs, but she looks nothing like Alex. They never do. Not really.

  Get it together, she thinks, rubbing her fingertips along her temple.

  There’s too much on the line to begin losing track of what’s real and what isn’t.

  Not now.

  Not again.

  26

  Night has drawn its dark curtain over the cinder girl’s bright and beautiful sister.

  Where once there was sparkle to rim her eyes and jewels for her golden hair, a darkness has descended, unrepentant, as Sister gives herself to the lure of twilight and shadows.

  Mother rails against this new cloak of melancholy, but try as she might, her eldest daughter either cannot or will not spin gold from despair.

  Mother’s honeyed words do nothing. Threats and punishments yield the same. Further and further her golden sister retreats into the dark, unmoved by Mother’s machinations.

  “Refuse me if you dare,” Mother hisses, her voice as cold and deadly as a viper when she turns the lock on Sister’s chamber door. “But here you will stay until you come to see things my way.”

  There comes not a sound, not a whimper of protest from the chamber. With the thin key on a red ribbon around her neck, Mother stalks away.

  That night, the cinder girl creeps up the tower stairs to her sister’s locked chamber. She passes a tray of bread and gruel, her own supper, through a slit in the door.

  “Sister,” she whispers urgently, for she’s frightened and cold, alone in the dark. “Do as she asks and she’ll let you be free.”

  There is no reply.

  The cinder girl might have thought her sister asleep—or dead—had it not been for the sound of a soft, low whisper repeating a chant or a prayer.

  “Sister?”

  The shadows move on the stone walls, alive even without light. They encircle the cinder girl, reaching out their spindly dark arms to ensnare her.

  The chant grows louder, coming from everywhere and nowhere. From the shadows, from the stones, from the very air.

  Two words she hears in her sister’s hard new voice.

  “Come closer,” the words demand.

  She can’t do as her sister asks. Her legs are frozen in fear.

  “Come closer!” echoes inside her head.

  Afraid her heart will burst, or she’ll go mad, the cinder girl turns and runs.

  GRAYE

  Graye is seeing ghosts—a situation made more awkward by the fact that her ghosts aren’t the silent kind.

  Confusing a random waitress for Alex is bad enough, but when one of the retreat guests asks her in passing if the hotel has a gym, Graye sees only her mother’s face, judgmental and sneering.

  “Why would anyone care what you have to say?” are the words the innocuous question becomes in her mind.

  “Stop,” Graye whispers in response.

  “Excuse me?” This from the woman, coupled with a look of confusion, translates into “If you don’t learn to keep your mouth shut, I’ll just have to teach you,” followed by a familiar soul-crushing laugh.

  Graye puts her hands to her ears and squeezes her eyes shut, just as she did as a child.

  “Are you all right?” the woman asks, her face a picture of growing concern.

  “You’ve got a mighty high opinion of yourself, don’t you, Grace,” comes the snide version, delivered from the mouth of a dead woman.

  “Leave me alone,” Graye mumbles, backing away from the outstretched hand of a stranger who only wants to help. “Just leave me alone.”

  Graye retreats quickly, practically running from the woman, who looks more confused than ever.

  Something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

  An occasional voice from the past is nothing she hasn’t experienced before, but faces to go along with those voices are a new and disturbing twist.

  Graye stumbles down the hotel hallway, no specific destination in mind. She only knows she needs air, and there’s a door leading to sunlight at the end of the hall.

  But when she bursts through into the light, Graye finds herself surrounded by noise and more laughter. The hotel pool is filled with a small crowd of people. Their voices become the voices of the girls at St. Sebastian’s.

  “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue, little gray mouse?”

  “Come here, little mousey. We’re not going to hurt you,” the voices taunt. A memory of the stinging yank on a ponytail that doesn’t feel like a memory at all.

  Graye reaches up and rubs her scalp, gripping her hair between her fingers as she does.

  Breathe. Just breathe in and out. This isn’t happening. You’re delirious from worry and lack of sleep. That’s all.

  “Creepy little mouse, creeping to the church house.” The whispery singsong voice that drips with ugly derision makes the hairs stand up on the back of Graye’s neck.

  “No,” Graye moans. “Not this. Not now.”

  She misses the curious stares of a few of the guests who can’t help noticing her odd behavior. She’s lost inside her maze of memories, desperately searching for a way out.

  One thing Graye knows for sure, she has to get out of here. Laura can’t see her this way.

  She’s worked so hard to craft this persona, built her from the ground up, layer upon layer. Confident, chic, efficient, indispensable. Each a brick carefully created and settled into place, just so. If she loses that now, there will be nothing left but dust.

  Home, then. Home. She’ll lie down, combat the dizziness, the confusion. She’ll pull herself together.

  She will.

  Through the gates that lead away from the pool and the audience of prying eyes, Graye moves toward safety. A little peace and quiet, some privacy—that’s all she needs.

  A laughing man on the path turns and smiles.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you, Grace.” Nick’s face, his lips forming the words.

  She shakes her head. No. Not Nick.

  “This isn’t real,” Graye whispers again and again as she forces herself not to run down the street that leads to home. Once she makes it there, once she’s alone, she can find her center, stop this spiral before it spins further out of her control.

  A woman steps from a car parked in the hotel lot, a woman with Sister Margaret’s face.

  Graye veers away, ducking her head as she avoids looking at anyone else.

  She’s so close.

  She’s Graye. Not Grace. She’s real. She is, and she can prove it.

  Her book. The manuscript is her talisman.

  She’s written everything down, shaped and molded it, given it a new ending. She’s turned the tables on the truth. With the wave of a magic wand, Gracie’s reality has become Graye’s fiction.

  Her manuscript is all she needs. To hold its weight in her hands, see the words on the page, listen to the sentences sing in her head.

  Graye walks past her own door without pause, past the guesthouse that holds nothing more than an impersonal bed and a desk. She goes straigh
t to the Wests’ kitchen door. It’s unlocked and she doesn’t think twice about letting herself in.

  Laura is busy with Hugo for the time being, leaving Graye free to steal through her home like a thief.

  She isn’t a thief, though. She has no intention of taking anything. By rights, the manuscript is hers. She’s only placed it in Laura’s care for a time.

  Besides, Laura would understand.

  And if Dr. West comes home, she can deal with him. Think up some excuse, some forgotten thing she’s been sent to fetch, if necessary.

  Luck is on her side. She sees no sign of him. Not in the kitchen or the living room, not down the hallway that leads to the open doors of Laura’s office, the bathroom across from it, and Graye’s destination beckoning at the end.

  Laura’s bedroom. Laura and David’s, really, though Graye knows Dr. West spends most nights in his office at the other end of the house, as far from his wife as it’s possible to get and still be under the same roof.

  He may even be there now, home from the beach and attempting to write. Struggling to recapture something that’s long since abandoned him.

  Graye realizes she doesn’t care.

  She needs her manuscript, and nothing is going to stand in her way.

  “Graye.” Sister Margaret’s voice holds a note of disapproval.

  Graye leans her shoulder against the wall outside of the bedroom doorway.

  “Don’t, Sister,” she begs. “Please don’t. You don’t understand.”

  “You’re not thinking clearly, child,” Sister Margaret chides.

  And a child is exactly what she feels like. A child who is losing control, running away.

  The nun had calmed her when she was young. Cared for her. The first and only person who believed Graye was special. Until Laura.

  “You’re not here,” Graye says. “And I’m not a child.”

  Graye straightens from her slump and walks through the door into another woman’s bedroom.

  The space is light, airy, with a lingering scent. Clean sheets and Laura’s perfume. Graye closes her eyes and breathes deeply. It’s a hug when she desperately needs one.

  There, on the bedside table, the stack of pages Graye has come for sits waiting.

  She walks slowly to them and carefully removes a pair of reading glasses from where they’ve been placed on top. She lifts the manuscript, hugs it to her.