Eyes of the Forest

by April Henry

  Derrick pointed up at the ceiling. “You really think I’d leave you alone?”

  Bob followed his finger. And then he spotted it. Black, round, not much bigger than a car fob. It blended in with the knotholes, but it was a tiny spy camera.

  Pointed at him.

  DERRICK

  Non-Player Character

  Sitting in the back row of Introduction to Economics, Derrick surreptitiously checked his phone for the dozenth time. On it was the video feed of what he now thought of as the Haldon Cam. Bob was typing steadily, as he had been every time Derrick checked. It was such a temptation to ditch school, drive back to the cabin, and immediately read what he’d written. To finally return to Derrick’s beloved world of Swords and Shadows.

  But he forced himself to wait. Reading only a few hundred words would just whet his appetite. Would remind him of how long he’d been starving.

  Away from school, Derrick was usually at a LARP or preparing for one: sewing new garb, crafting weapons, and working on plotlines. Mostly in his room, because his mom was not a big fan. Joanne thought fantasy in general and LARPing in particular was a waste of time, a way to avoid real life, and a time suck. And that was when she was being charitable.

  Earlier in the year, his mom had unexpectedly found herself out of a job. Her then-employer, a model turned actress, had impulsively shaved her head and jetted off to the Himalayas, planning to meditate for a year.

  In Portland, openings for full-time personal assistants were rare. Then his mom got lucky. Her agency got a new client, an author who was finding it increasingly taxing to venture out in public. It would be easy work—simple cooking, cleaning, and errand running. The author never entertained and liked to make his own travel arrangements. His mom was warned that he did have lots of overzealous fans, but she was used to them from previous jobs.

  But when she learned it was R. M. Haldon, his mom almost turned it down. She blamed two men for her divorce. One was Derrick’s dad, Curtis. The other was Haldon. Over two decades ago, Curtis had been one of the first fans of King of Swords, a new fantasy by an unknown local author. He became so obsessed he started a LARP inspired by it.

  In Joanne’s view, both Curtis and Bob were pathetic. Grown men who cared about unicorns and magic, when the real world had neither.

  After his mom finally told Derrick the name of her new employer, she refused to introduce him, no matter how much he begged. To appease him, she eventually gave him one of Bob’s many fantasy con T-shirts.

  Derrick delighted in owning something that had belonged to his idol. And then econ class gave him an idea. Why not take advantage of his mom’s access to Bob, or more precisely, Bob’s stuff? From class, he knew that demand was either elastic—increasing if something was cheap, and decreasing if it was expensive—or inelastic, meaning price had little effect on demand.

  And the demand for memorabilia was very much inelastic. Fans would pay a lot for something a star had touched. Enterprising folks had sold Justin Timberlake’s unfinished French toast, Scarlett Johannson’s used tissue, William Shatner’s kidney stone, Britney Spears’s chewed gum. One quick thinker who happened upon Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had even sold a jar he’d opened and closed in their vicinity. The eBay listing claimed it probably contained a molecule of air that had made direct contact with at least one of them. It sold for more than $525.

  R. M. Haldon memorabilia was a popular search term on Google, but all Derrick could find were various types of paper Bob had signed: books, scripts, the odd poster. A signed first edition was easily worth a thousand.

  If only there was something more for fans to buy.

  So Derrick decided to give it to them. But not on eBay, where questions might be raised. Instead, he turned to the dark web, the internet’s evil twin, a place he’d already done some exploring. With enough Bitcoin, you could buy anything there. Netflix accounts. Uranium. Credit card numbers. Grenade launchers. Fake passports. Usernames and passwords. Even a hit man.

  Derrick began with one of Bob’s signature black T-shirts that his mom diverted from the wash to her purse. He put it up for sale, complete with a photo Joanne had surreptitiously taken of Bob wearing it. The same distinctive tomato sauce stain was on the chest in both. Listed at the equivalent of five hundred dollars in Bitcoin, it sold in less than three hours. After that, every few days Derrick posted something else his mom had brought home. A toothbrush. A pillowcase. Even Bob’s hair clippings.

  He switched to auction-type sales. The money was better, and people tended to get competitive, especially for one-of-a-kind items.

  Selling bits and pieces of Bob’s ordinary, boring life hadn’t slaked Derrick’s desire to meet the great man himself. And finally his mom had asked to let Derrick come to the house.

  The night before, Derrick had been unable to sleep. Perhaps he could share some of the ideas he’d come up with while working on the plot committee for Mysts of Cascadia. Maybe Haldon would even offer a sneak peek at Eyes of the Forest.

  The next day, he trembled as he stepped into Haldon’s magnificent office. Derrick was thankful he’d thought to set his phone to record and put it in his shirt pocket, because it was impossible to take everything in. His mom had complained about how hard it was to dust, but her words hadn’t conveyed the wonder of it all. One wall was crowded with framed awards, antique illustrated maps, and wicked-looking swords. The other wall was dedicated to hundreds of shelves holding two-inch-high figurines.

  In the back right corner stood a full suit of armor that Derrick was pretty certain was actually from the Middle Ages. In the back left corner was a giant boxy silver robot, like from a 1950s sci-fi movie. Draped around its shoulders was a purple velvet cloak.

  Sandwiched between the armor and the robot was a huge battered wooden desk the size of a twin bed. Every inch of the desktop was covered. Derrick’s eyes skittered over a crystal ball, a feather quill, a stuffed raven, a jade figure of a dragon, and a two-foot-tall black rock cut in half to reveal purple and white crystals within.

  Dominating them all was a huge Mac desktop with a bigger display than their TV at home. On it was not a page of Eyes of the Forest, but a frozen image he recognized from a Jim Carrey movie. Not one of the good ones, either.

  And sitting in a leather overstuffed chair was the man himself. He looked just like the thousand pictures Derrick had seen. Black T-shirt, light jeans, old-school Nikes too broken down to be cool. And wrapped around his neck was his trademark violet scarf.

  With a movement of his chin, he indicated Derrick should approach.

  Closer to, Haldon’s face was flushed. Crumbs speckled the scarf and T-shirt.

  Derrick was trembling so hard he thought he might fly apart. How many times had he read Haldon’s books, looking for clues to his alter ego, Rowan/Rickard, the peasants’ leader? As Rowan grew from a boy to a man in the books, Derrick’s Rickard had also grown in importance. Thanks to them, in Cascadia Derrick had been able to re-create himself as everything he was not in real life. Derrick was book smart, but Rickard was clever. Derrick wasn’t brave, but Rickard was never afraid, even if he should be. And while Derrick was practically invisible, whenever he played Rickard, people looked to him for guidance.

  R. M. Haldon stuck out a big, square paw. Derrick was almost afraid to shake it. What if he squeezed too hard and somehow damaged his hand?

  “Oh, it’s so wonderful to meet you, Mr. Haldon,” he babbled, gently grasping the outstretched fingers, which seemed oddly gritty. “I’m your biggest fan.”

  Had Haldon rolled his eyes? Surely not.

  The other man pulled back his hand and stuck it in the open bag of Doritos on his lap. “Okay, kid, thanks, but you don’t need to say that stuff. And just call me Bob.”

  “But it’s true.” Derrick’s voice was weak. “I love your books.” The bright colors in the room were dimming.

  Haldon shrugged. “That’s what everyone says. No one is ever my number two fan, or my number one thousand fifty-thi
rd fan. And they always say it like I owe them something.” He shoved a handful of chips into his mouth.

  Shame washed over Derrick. He’d been stupid enough to think he would make an impression. Maybe even make a friend.

  Haldon listed a little to one side, then righted himself, leaving behind a ghostly orange handprint on the chair’s arm. Derrick refocused on the cluttered desk behind him. Among the detritus were at least a dozen crumpled silver cans.

  It all became clear. Derrick had seen his grandpa drunk often enough to recognize the signs. The slurred words. The swaying. The unfocused eyes. The meanness.

  Derrick found his own meanness. Instinctively, he knew how to hurt Haldon most.

  “Do you think you’re going to still have fans if you never finish Eyes of the Forest? There’s a dozen writers now who write the same kind of books you do—and they’re publishing.”

  Haldon closed his eyes, and a long moment passed. “You think I don’t want to write it, kid?” His eyes were still closed. His voice was soft. “Do you think it’s easy sitting here day after day, trying to make the words appear? Do you think I like getting letters from fans threatening to chain me to a typewriter?”

  And suddenly Derrick knew how to help. Not for Haldon’s sake, but for the books’ sake. The books were bigger than Haldon. Bigger than anything.

  “Maybe that fan is right,” he said.

  Haldon snorted. Still, he opened his bleary eyes. “What?”

  “What if you really were chained to a typewriter? What if the only way to get free was to finish? But not here. Here you’ve got all your toys.” Derrick pointed at Jim Carrey, frozen mid-gape. “All your distractions. But I know the perfect place.”

  That was how it all began.

  BOB

  Added Up to Nothing

  Bob kept his fingers moving over the keys as he endlessly stepped forward. But just like his steps, his words added up to nothing. All they did was delay Derrick’s return. The spy camera would see Bob typing, but not the actual words.

  In front of me squats the typewriter. The empty page stares at me, unblinking. I need a shower. I slept poorly last night. I pleaded with Derrick for coffee, but he brought none. He demanded my email password in return for a visit to the toilet.

  Now I realize how shortsighted I was to give it up. Anyone who expresses concern will be met with a lie. People know I don’t answer my phone, so that won’t worry them. With email, Derrick will be like a Skin Changer, only via technology instead of magic. Although what is magic but that which we don’t yet understand?

  And who would even be concerned? Jamie would just think Bob was avoiding him, as he had for months. Frank, Bob’s agent, who had been with him from the beginning, knew he didn’t like to be bothered unless it was vital. As a result, Frank just sent him the occasional round-up of new foreign deals to increasingly smaller, more obscure countries.

  This morning had been humiliating, first the begging (Bob refused to poop in the chamber pot) and then shuffling down the hall, his chain clanking. The boy had allowed him to close the door. Inside, the only window was a glazed square too small for even a child to squeeze through. The medicine cabinet and drawers held just a tube of toothpaste and three toothbrushes, one still in its wrapper. In the shower, a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. Nothing Bob could repurpose. In movies, prisoners turned toothbrushes into shivs, but they had concrete to sharpen them on.

  After being shackled to the desk again, Bob had tried writing Eyes of the Forest as ordered but hadn’t been able to complete even a sentence. Now he was freewriting. There were few rules in freewriting, mostly just not stopping. Even if he only typed I don’t know what to write over and over, it would still be freewriting. No worries about grammar, word choice, subject-verb agreement, or even typos. He’d already had to let that last one go. No COMMAND-Z on a typewriter.

  At a minimum, freewriting might get out some of the sludge filling his head. Then with luck, he’d actually write something decent. Some of Bob’s best characters, his most surprising images had come from freewriting.

  But that had been when he was writing the first book or two. The pressure to make Eyes of the Forest perfect had paralyzed him. Freewriting no longer felt serious enough. Productive enough.

  The last time he’d tried to freewrite, Bob had given up after a few minutes, with no consequences. Now he couldn’t.

  Freewriting was like a singer warming up by singing scales. If Bob just kept typing, if he pushed back the weight of inertia and fear, then maybe he would find his way to the book. Or at least an indelible image. An unexpected character. A fresh simile.

  He’d been stuck long before he met Derrick. It had been painful, but at least it hadn’t been life threatening. The writer Samuel Johnson had said the prospect of hanging concentrated the mind wonderfully, but the prospect of being maimed did not seem to be having the same effect on Bob.

  There is too much of me. My thighs chafe from pushing past each other. My breaths leave my mouth like faint smoke. I wonder how many breaths I have left.

  Less thinking. More writing. I miss my characters. Or do I? Maybe I miss life.

  Even as a child, Bob had been odd and lonely. He had a freakish imagination and no ready outlet for it. His parents were always after him to “go outside and play with your friends,” when he had no friends or interest in the outdoors. Instead, he had collected Lego figures, giving them all names, elaborate backstories, and current conflicts. His first true friend had been Lilly, who he had met playing Dungeons and Dragons in college.

  This cabin is a prison, and this room a cell within it. Or have I been my own prison?

  When Bob started writing as an adult, he hadn’t known how to, but it hadn’t mattered. After Lilly left him, writing had been a way to fill up the empty evening and weekend hours. If his life was featureless and gray, then he would create a fantasy that was anything but. The first book had taken three years to write and two to sell, and then just for twelve thousand dollars. But before it was even published, the reviews were rapturous.

  The words won’t come. They are hiding. My fingers punch the keys anyway.

  The common wisdom was that writers were either planners or pantsers—people who wrote by the seat of their pants. Bob was a pantser. People refused to believe it. How could he have created all those different lands and people and magic without planning? They didn’t understand that thinking up details was effortless. It was keeping them straight later that was hard.

  In the beginning it had been easy to take Swords and Shadows in surprising new directions. Bob enjoyed choreographing elaborate fight scenes, coming up with grisly new ways for characters to die, and creating love triangles where each side seemed equally worthy. Whenever he got bored with existing characters and plotlines, he added new supernatural powers and creatures. For the most part, he invented his own mythology. It wasn’t like there was a flying unicorn he could interview. But the world he’d created was so big that Bob could no longer keep it all in his head.

  Then Bridget had shown up, the answer to all his problems.

  I can still see Bridget trembling at Powell’s. Just a skinny little kid with milk-pale skin and russet hair. But when she spoke about the books, it was clear she was a savant. She was a walking encyclopedia of the world I had created, effortlessly remembering details I had just thrown out there over the years.

  And then I learned about her dead mother. Such an echo of my own life. I know what it’s like to feel abandoned and alone.

  A muffled thump outside his window made Bob jerk, adrenaline running down his spine like an electric shock. But it was just a tree branch that had bent under the weight of falling flakes until it finally flexed far enough to spring back, shaking the snow free.

  Maybe he could learn from it. Derrick wanted a book, but who said it had to be the real Eyes of the Forest? Maybe all Bob needed to do was to write something, anything, and pretend it was the book. Then he would bide his time, looking for the right mome
nt to break free.

  BRIDGET

  Like in Real Life

  When Bridget walked into physics class, her heart gave a little leap at the sight of Ajay. He offered her a crooked smile as she slid into her seat.

  She took a deep breath, glad there was no one near them. “I brought you something.” Sliding her backpack off her shoulder, she unzipped it.

  “What?”

  Before Bridget could lose her courage, she handed over her copy of King of Swords. This would be the first time she had loaned it out. It wasn’t that she was a collector. Collectors prided themselves in owning books that hadn’t been read, but that certainly wasn’t true of her copy. It was far from pristine. Instead of being wrapped in clear protective plastic, the cover was faded and tattered. Inside, a couple of pages were spotted from an unfortunate incident involving peanut butter–chocolate chip cookie dough.

  Ajay took it gingerly, almost reverently. “This looks well loved.”

  Bridget’s shoulders loosened. “Just trying to get someone else to join the cult.”

  Looking uncomfortable, he extended the book back toward her. “I know how much it means to you. I don’t feel right taking it.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Oh, no, I just meant you could borrow it. You know, read and return. You’re right that I wouldn’t want to part with it. But I will loan it out.”

  Ajay turned the book on its side. “It’s not as thick as some of them.”

  “Yeah, each book has gotten a little bigger.”

  He tilted his head. “Can I ask you a favor?”

  “Sure.” Her heart was already beating faster.

  “Could you maybe read it to me?”

  Joy bloomed in her chest. The bell rang before she could answer. As Mr. Manning started to speak, she mouthed, “Yes.”

  Class passed in a blur. Last night, all she had been able to think about was her lunch with Ajay. What she’d said. What he’d said. How he’d looked when he asked questions or listened. The taste of the food, and the fact that he’d cooked it.