Listening to Nathaniel Elisabeth Newton · Newton-Listening to Nathaniel-2 1 For now, Adrienne scrawls the notes where they should have stayed. On a network of storyboard index cards

Newton-Listening to Nathaniel-1

Listening to Nathaniel

Elisabeth Newton


1

For now, Adrienne scrawls the notes where they should have

stayed. On a network of storyboard index cards. It took

Nathaniel for the pen to find its way to the white-washed

apartment walls. And maybe Nathaniel isn’t to blame. Maybe he

was just one cog of many in synchronized motion, moving that pen

from paper to plaster. But Adrienne believes that if that cog

was missing, the walls would still be white.

The mid-day sun casts patterned squares of light onto the

carpet and blank walls. The apartment smells of coffee.

Adrienne Rhodes swivels her black leather chair around to face

her old hickory desk, bouncing a black pen on her lower lip.

Lights dance across the screen of her banged-up laptop as it

comes to life. She drops her pen on the network of index cards


lining the top of the desk and drums her sparkly-pink

fingernails against the glossy wood.

Adrienne sips from a Styrofoam coffee cup, turning the

chair slowly back and forth. The home screen is fully loaded.

She sets the coffee cup down and pulls up a blank Word document.

Then she pauses.

Adrienne stares at the blank screen for a long time. The

only sounds are the small clock on the corner of her desk, the

cat purring against the windowsill, and cars passing by outside.

The black cursor in the top corner of the screen blinks until

the screen darkens and the computer falls asleep. She turns

back to her index cards, leafing through them with a finger.

“I thought of everything up to this point,” she mutters.

“Now I can’t even begin.” She moves her finger on the touchpad

of the laptop and the blank document appears again.

“Once upon a time…”

She smiles. She knows she won’t keep the cliché

introduction, but it feels good to have four words written.

Adrienne continues to write. Her fingers hesitate at

first, but gain speed. She turns to the index cards on occasion

to reorient herself. Beside her, the cat stretches against the

window, expanding himself to his full length, and watches her

with mild interest. Adrienne taps a period on the keyboard and

leans back in the swivel chair with a sigh of satisfaction. She


looks over the page and smiles. She did it. The first

paragraph.

Adrienne bites her lower lip in thought, turning back-and-

forth in the chair. Clicking back to the first sentence, she

erases “Once upon a time.” And somehow, the story has a form.

“It’s amazing,” she mutters to herself, “How the little

things bring out so much.” She feels like it could be

happening. Like he could be standing in the room. That he

should be. That he already is.

A footstep sounds out behind her; the rubber sole of a

tennis shoe squeaking into place on the hardwood floor.

Adrienne looks over in the direction and smiles. “So.” She

turns the swivel chair around and looks at an empty kitchen

chair. “Nathaniel Moore. I like that name.”

“You gave it to me,” Nathaniel replies, coming around,

sitting in the chair and crossing his arms. He didn’t have

large arms, but they weren’t skinny either. “I suppose,” he

says, “I should get to know you too, Adrienne Rhodes.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Adrienne folds her arms, looking the

man up-and-down. “You’re not quite as I expected you to be.”

He smiles, a look of surprise on his face. “Well? What

did you expect?”

She shrugs one shoulder and smirks. “Someone more

attractive, I suppose.”


“Of course you did.” He snorts and looks down at his long

legs crossed in front of him. “I suppose you’d appreciate me

more if I was cute.”

Adrienne smirks. “Hm. Yeah, probably.”

“Well, I’ll just have to do. You can’t get rid of me now.”

“I can if I want to.” Adrienne swivels the chair back

around, her straight brown hair twirling about and collecting on

one shoulder.

“You can’t whether you want to or not. I’m too well

developed now.” He pauses. The chair creaks as he leans

forward. “And you know that.”

“I’m only making you more attractive so I don’t have to

suffer with your appearance any longer.” Adrienne delivers a

coquettish grin, slaps the last letter in place and swivels back

around. The wooden chair is empty. She blinks at the

unexpectedness of his disappearance and glances around the room.

The room is empty. As always. But today, it doesn’t feel

empty. It feels comfortable. Friendly.

Adrienne shrugs and turns back around to face the computer

screen, highlights and deletes her idyllic Nathaniel Moore,

sighing to herself. Okay, so his eyes don’t make her heart

thump. His nose is too long, his frame is ganglier than she

wishes, and his chin is enormous. But he will have to do. He


is fully developed and real in her mind. And he will probably

be more real as he is now than he would be if she alters him.

“Thanks,” says Nathaniel’s voice from somewhere beside her.

Adrienne smiles. “Fine. You win.” She moves the mouse

across the pad, pushing past crinkling index cards, and the

arrow moves in sync across the screen to save the document. Her

fingers hover over the black keys for a moment as she considers

a file name to save it. She finally types Nathaniel Moore and

saves the document. She clicks the red X in the top corner and

a background photo of her cat fills the home screen as she moves

away.

“So what’s my favorite color?”

Adrienne strolls past him to a kitchen cupboard and pulls

down a cardboard box of cereal. “Blue,” she says as she pours

the contents of the box into a ceramic bowl. “Sky blue.”

“Wrong,” he says. “It’s lime green. And I mean the

sickliest shade ever. Everyone else hates it, and I can’t

understand why. There’s something exciting in that color.”

“Really? I don’t understand that at all. Sky blue is

nice.”

“I don’t like nice.”

“And I don’t care.” Adrienne pours milk into a swirling

mass of cereal, and pauses as she watches the flow. “Yeah, I


guess it makes sense that you like lime green. It just wouldn’t

look right if you wore it or anything.”

“You don’t have to wear it to like it. You’re not wearing

sky blue right now.”

Adrienne can’t resist looking down at her red-and-grey

striped sweater, the sleeves pulled up to her elbows, and her

blue jeans with fraying holes in the knees. She ignores the

comment and sits at the counter with her cereal. She jumps when

Nathaniel appears beside her and inspects her cereal. “That’s

gross,” he says. “Soaking food in milk like that. That is

really nasty.”

“Have you ever tried it before?”

“I don’t know. Have I? You haven’t developed me that far

yet. For that matter, all I have is a name and a personality.

Do I have a family?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“No. I don’t.”

“If you say so.”

“I mean that I don’t have one yet. You haven’t given me

one, and if I did have one you haven’t really put a lot of

effort into making one for me and making me one for them.” He

leans down and looks in her face as she swallows spoonfuls of

cereal. “You’ve got a lot of work to do before you think I’m


finished. And most certainly before you continue writing that

Chick-flick.”

Adrienne doesn’t look at him. “Look,” she says. “I have

written and published three novels the last two years. Over all

that time and all those stories and scenes and characters, this

is the story I want to write.”

Nathaniel rolled his eyes. “Then write it. Don’t hold

back.”

“Hear me out. I’ve been creating you and what will happen

to you for the last twenty-four months, and I didn’t do it so

that you could show up and hassle me about it.” She stands

suddenly and stares at him, the milk-stained spoon clatters to

the floor. “You showed up. Why am I talking to you? How can

I? I made you up!”

“But you can see me awful clearly, can’t you?”

“No. Go away, you can’t come here anymore! I must be

sick. I must…”

“You must have had too much caffeine. Why not? It’s a

good excuse. You’ve used it before; you’re starting to believe

it.”

“No, shut up, it’s just that…I must be…”

Nathaniel looks at her evenly. “Yes? You must be what?”

he asks.

Adrienne sighs. “Don’t you know already?”


“I want to hear you say it.”

She clamps her mouth shut and glares at Nathaniel Moore.

The man, arm draped casually over the granite countertop, simply

looks at her. Then he is gone. He was there, and then he

wasn’t.

And somehow it isn’t weird that he’s not there. Because

she also somehow knows that he never had been there. It’s like

coming from a dream. Except that the bowl of soggy cereal still

sits where she left it and the cat licks the spoon on the floor.

And the room still doesn’t feel empty.

“Not again,” she groans. “No, please, not again!”


2

“It’s something really new,” Adrienne says, twirling the

telephone cord around her finger. “I’ve never tried it before.

But it’s good. Trust me. I’ll get a pitch for you as soon as I

can.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “What is it; another

chick-flick?”

“A variation…sort-of…I’ve got some neat scenes that make it

really different. Trust me.”

“Oh, I believe you honey, I really do,” said the nasal

female voice on the other end. “At least that’s what’s selling

right now. Get that pitch up for me as soon as you can. I’ve

got to hurry you along; if anything changes, I’ll stick you with

another project. You know how I work, hon! The demand is high,

we need this stuff now. Got it?”


“I hear you.”

“Thank you so much sweetie. Talk to you later!”

The phone clicks and beeps on her agent’s line before

Adrienne can respond. She sets the phone down on the receiver

and turns to the living room, her fuzzy striped socks slipping

on the kitchen tile floor. She plops cross-legged on the living

room carpet and looks expectantly at her brother. The man rubs

some stubble on his chin and crosses his legs, propped up on the

small coffee table.

“This is good,” Randy says.

“Really? You really think so?” Adrienne chews her

thumbnail.

“Yes, I’m serious.” Randy takes off his glasses and holds

the manuscript back, examining it as a whole. “It’s too bad

there aren’t any explosions or firearms, but for a chick-flick

it’s pretty good.”

Adrienne jerks her thumbnail away and fidgets with the

sleeves of her oversized pullover. “You’re sure it’s good?

You’re not just being nice because you’re my brother or

anything?”

“Even if I wasn’t your brother I’d think it remarkable.”

Randy adjusts his glasses. “This character…what’s his name,

Nathaniel Moore? He’s incredibly well developed. You made him


so real as I read that I felt like he could be sitting next to

me. I’m serious.”

Adrienne glances at Nathaniel Moore, reclining on the sofa

beside her brother. Nathaniel puts a finger to his lips and she

looks away. “What about the plot? Do you think I could go

somewhere with it?”

“Well, I’m not a writer, but I guess I can’t see it going

anywhere else.”

“Anywhere else but…?”

“But what is obvious. You’ve got a neat setting—I like the

cathedral. It’s got a different feel, but the story seems

predictable. You know what, I want a surprise in here

somewhere. An unexpected twist to make this story something

different.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. I just like to read something worth my

time. Add something like...not letting him get the girl. You

decide why.”

Nathaniel makes a face and pretends to smack Randy, who

doesn’t look up. “I like her,” Nathaniel says.

“I like her,” Adrienne says. “And Nat does too.”

Nathaniel makes a face. “Don’t you ever call me Nat. It’s

Nathaniel.”


“Nathaniel,” she corrects herself. Randy flips through the

pages and Adrienne chews on her fingernail again. She glances

down at the peeling nail polish on her finger and sits on her

hands. “Um…you know, I do have a few surprises at the end, I

think.”

“Really? Does the bad guy die?”

“I’ve thought about it, but I don’t know if he should.”

“Oh.”

“Well…” Adrienne pauses, wondering now which would be

best.

Nathaniel raises his eyebrows, looking at Adrienne. “Don’t

make me kill him. I’m not a killer; you know that. The villain

should die from some tropical disease. No one would see it

coming.”

Adrienne tosses her head, looking away from Nathaniel. “I

think Nathaniel should kill him.”

Randy makes a face. “Nathaniel doesn’t seem like that kind

of guy.”

“He’s right,” Nathaniel says.

“That’s the thing.” Adrienne leans forward, smiling

excitedly. “It’ll make it all the more devastating if he

actually does have to kill him. More…emotional. Don’t you

see?”

“No,” Nathaniel and Randy say at the same time.


“You’re not a killer either,” Nathaniel says. “You don’t

want to kill anyone in this book. You’re just talking.”

“Oh, you stay out of it!” Adrienne yells at Nathaniel.

Randy frowns and glances across the couch. Nathaniel isn’t

to be seen by either of them.

“Sorry,” Adrienne sighs. “I…I didn’t mean to yell. It all

sounded better before you made me say it out loud. Maybe you

should read the whole thing when I’m done. Then it should make

sense.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Randy shuffles the papers evenly

together and attaches the paperclip on the top corner. Adrienne

grimaces at his stern look. She can only hope that he’s not

thinking what she’s afraid he’s thinking.

“It really is good,” Randy says. “Nathaniel seems like a

great guy, you really do him well.”

“What about Hans? I mean, the villain? What do you think

of him so far?”

“I like the feel you have about him.” Randy drops the

papers onto the coffee table beside the sofa. “He’s creepy.

But if Nathaniel can’t even kill him, I don’t see what his point

is. Especially not in this story.”

“Oh…” Adrienne shifts. “I have an idea. Still working it

out.” The truth is that she hasn’t figured out what to do with

the villain character that keeps popping up in the story and in


her head. She just has to write him down. She doesn’t know

why.

Her brother nods. “I’m sure you’ll get there. Well, with

the way you described him I felt like he was going to come

creeping up behind me during the entire story.”

Adrienne stares behind her brother, her eyes growing wide.

“Adrienne?”

She doesn’t respond.

“…Adrienne?”

Randy’s voice barely penetrates through the strange

humming, throbbing sound in her ears. She stares at the black

dress coat, the tight cheekbones, the matted grey hair. And the

phantom is gone in an instant.

“Adrienne?”

Adrienne jolts and blinks. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

Adrienne shudders, jolting away from the strange moment.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine! Sorry, I zoned out there for a moment.”

“You sure did. You’re acting really weird. Are you okay?

You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Oh…uh, yeah.”

Randy squints an eye in suspicion. “Yeah you’re alright,

or yeah you just saw a ghost?”


Adrienne glances at her brother. An intent, concerned look

corrodes his normally casual face. She wishes she could tell

him about Nathaniel. He probably already has an idea about

what’s going on. “I’m fine,” she says.

“Come on Adrienne, stop playing games! Something is

definitely wrong. Have you been seeing things?”

“I’m fine! Really, I’m fine! I’m just tired, I guess.”

Adrienne jumps up and grabs the plate of cookies on the living

room floor. They had guiltily devoured the majority of them.

“Or I had too much sugar…it sort of went to my head.”

“Adrienne.” Randy’s voice is stern, and an old quailing,

guilty feeling arises in Adrienne’s gut that she hasn’t felt in

a long time. She presses the cold edges of the plate harder.

“Are you seeing things again?” he asks. “I don’t like the

look of this. Dad won’t either.”

“Dad doesn’t have to know.”

“Doesn’t mean he won’t find out.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“With the way you’re acting, I may not need to.”

“It’s really nothing. I’m fine.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“Last time, last time! Last time was sixteen years ago!

Get over it! No matter what I do, no matter how normal, you’ll

think I’m going crazy. I’m perfectly fine.”


“Are you taking your meds?”

“Of course I am! I have been for 16 years!” Adrienne

huffs and turns away to the kitchen. Randy stands and grabs his

backpack, shrugging it onto one shoulder. “I need to get home

to Carol. I’ll see you later.” He stops with his hand on the

doorknob and turns to look at her. “It’s not good that you’re

always so lonely. You know what happened last time. You need

someone. All you do is sit here with your cat and your word

processor—and now what, a ghost?”

“A cat,” Nathaniel corrects as he leans up against the

fridge, “a word processor, and two ghosts.”

“It just seems risky to me,” says Randy. “You know why.”

Adrienne stretches plastic wrap over the remaining cookies,

her back turned to Randy. “I’m fine. Thanks for dropping by.”

“We’ll arrange another time to get together. Carol wants

to get to know you better. I kind of hoped you felt the same.”

“We’ll talk about it later. Goodbye.”

The door shuts behind Randy and Adrienne bites her lip,

smoothing the plastic wrap over the remaining chocolate chip

cookies. Not wanting to look at anyone.

Normally, there wouldn’t be anyone to look at. But she

feels the young man’s presence behind her.

“Nathaniel?”

“What?” Nathaniel pops up next to her, arms crossed.


“Who was that? That man I saw?”

“You know who it was.”

“Yes…no—sort of. I don’t want to. It’s creepy.”

“You can handle a few creepy things. I mean, look at you.

Talking to some guy that pops up and disappears sporadically,

who no one else can see. You don’t seem surprised. And you

still haven’t figured out why I’m here!”

“All right then, Nathaniel Moore, why? You tell me.”

Nathaniel’s look became serious. “You really do need

someone.”

Adrienne turns away from the counter, slides onto one of

the stools and props her socked feet onto the rungs. “I guess

you’re right,” she whispers. “I am kind of lonely.”

“So here I am.” Nathaniel flings his arms out wide. “At

your service! You got lonely, so you made someone up. I’m a

total figment of your imagination. You conjured up someone you

needed. Congratulations, I think.”

“So who is the other guy? I’ve never seen him before.”

“Uh-huh. Think about it.”

“I have, haven’t I?”

“You have.”

“It’s Hans. Hans Guryev.”

Nathaniel waved his hands in mock fear. “Oooh, your

villain!”


“I knew it. This really is creepy.” Adrienne clasps her

hands together on the countertop, wringing them just a bit in

their grip. “Can’t you just tell him to go away? I didn’t need

a villain in my life. I just needed a friend… So apparently I

got you. I don’t need this guy too!”

“What is this sitting on your coffee table?” Nathaniel

appears in front of the table and points at the manuscript. “Is

this just a pile of paper, or is it a story that you have

developed and crafted and imagined?”

Adrienne sighs. “You’re saying I created him.”

“And now you can’t get rid of him. He’s like me. Fully

developed. He’s become too realistic. He might as well be real

to you.”

He appears across from her, leaning over the counter. “I’m

in your head. I’m answering what you won’t answer for

yourself.” He taps her forehead twice with a finger she can’t

feel. She lowers her eyes, but she knows that he can penetrate

through any of her thoughts.

“Hans Guryev will never go away. And you know that.”

Adrienne looks up. “What do I need to do?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what happens. In your story. What happens?”


He is on the stool next to her and she turns to look at

him. His brown eyes dart back and forth, and she feels like he

is scanning her face. Or maybe something behind her face. “You

are responsible for what happens to us. You’re the author of

our story. So.” He cocks his head and gives a grin where one

side of his mouth goes higher than the other. “What happens

next?”

Nathaniel’s gone. Did she blink him away? His absence

makes her little second-story apartment, with the rosy curtains

and comfortably sized rooms and pleasant lighting, seem big and

eerie and dark. But not empty. Not entirely. Not anymore.


3

“What happens next…?” Adrienne rubs her eyes as she

stumbles out of her room. Her hair is matted badly, she knows.

She tossed too much last night. But she doesn’t care. She

watches through bleary eyes as she pours coffee grounds into her

espresso-maker, which gurgles and gasps and begins to pour

coffee—into the air.

“No, no, no…” Adrienne flips open a cupboard door, which

opens harder than she wishes and hits her in the head. She

holds her forehead with one hand as she grabs a ceramic coffee

mug with her initials printed on the sides, and thrusts it under

the pouring coffee stream. Adrienne sighs and peers at her

reflection in the microwave, examining her head. It feels worse

than it looks. She wishes it was the other way around. She

doesn’t care so much how it looks. It just hurts.


Adrienne rubs her forehead and mutters, “What happens

next…” She grabs a rag and places it over the coffee spills on

the countertop, watching the brown soak through the rag. She

looks at her cat Rudolph, who rubs himself against the side of

the refrigerator, ignoring her. Adrienne bites her lower lip.

“What happens next?” She directs the question at the Rudolph,

who walks away. Adrienne turns and powers up her laptop. As

the lights begin to dance across the screen she returns to the

coffee-maker, the blue mug not as full as usual.

Adrienne opens another, smaller cabinet drawer and grabs a

little plastic bottle. Something rattles inside as she shakes

it. She grabs a large white pill from inside, places it on her

tongue, makes a face and tilts her head back as she swallows a

gulp of coffee. She sets her coffee on the desk and brings up

the document titled Nathaniel Moore.

“What happens next…” Adrienne looks at the last three

words she hammered out last night. Two are misspelled and the

third is on the wrong end of the phrase. She groans and drops

her head on the desk, which upsets her coffee all over her index

cards, around a jarful of pens, and under her landline phone

receiver. She starts and snatches her cards up, shaking off a

few brown drops and wiping them on the sleeves of her flannel

pajamas. She grabs a new rag from the kitchen and drops it over

the hickory desktop.


The rag soaks up more brown. Adrienne looks up at the

laptop screen. Her spell-check put red squiggly lines under

quite a bit of her work. She wonders why Nathaniel hasn’t shown

up yet. He would have something to say about her awful last

scene. Yesterday it seemed so perfect in her head. Even last

night it looked better than this. Seeing it now is awful.

Adrienne drops her damp index cards back on the desk and

sits in the swivel chair, crossing her arms and turning back-

and-forth. “You don’t need to write this,” Nathaniel’s voice

says.

“Ah, there you are,” says Adrienne. She turns around, but

he isn’t to be seen.

“You don’t need to write this,” says the voice in her head

again. “It’s not that important.”

“Yes I do. It’s extremely important.”

“You heard the voice message last night from your Mom.”

“Don’t mention it. Please.”

“I’m in your head. You’re the one that mentioned it.”

“Yeah, but if you don’t mind I’d rather you not force me to

think about it.”

“Your Mom’s worried. You haven’t been around your family a

whole lot.”

“See if I care.”


“You obviously do, seeing as I mentioned it. There are

things more important in life than this book.”

Adrienne shakes her head. “Why do you have to be so

complicated!?”

“Consciences are complicated.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, so now you’re my conscience?

Great. Just what I needed. A Jiminy Cricket.”

“That’s me.”

“Go away! Just go away! I don’t need you!”

“I’ll be back.”

The voice stops and Adrienne knows he’s gone. She looks at

the document, tapping her pen on the desk. “I need to write,”

she mutters. “It’s the only way I can get rid of him. I need

to finish this book!” She looks down in the bottom corner of

the screen. She has only thirty pages. Adrienne places her

fingers on the keys and begins typing. The story comes alive.

She can’t stop. It’s the only way she knows to forget

everything.

Adrienne stiffens. She clutches her hands into fists over

the keyboard. A tremor jolts down her spine. She turns her

head. Because he is standing right next to her.

She first sees his hand. Huge, calloused, and

somehow…sharp. She sees every pointed line of it, every crease

in the skin, every jagged hair. She looks up the black sleeve,


past the neat black collar, and up into the man’s face. The

harsh features of Hans Guryev stare down at her. He looks like

he’s daring her. Daring her to do something. Adrienne blinks,

and he’s gone. But she knows he’s still there. The illusion

lingers, like just coming from a dream that one still thinks is

real.

Adrienne turns from the spot, quickly, whispering, “It was

nothing. It was nothing.” She looks at the screen once more.

She glances from the phone on the desk, blinking with a new

voicemail message, to the computer screen, the little black

insertion marker pulsing with the expectation of more of the

story.

She knows who the message is from. She heard it recording

the night before. She doesn’t want to hear it again, or return

the call. She just wants to keep writing. To submerge in

another world, a separate reality, where anything can go the way

she wishes. Whether or not Nathaniel or Hans wanted it. She

opens her fists and stretches her fingers over the keys. Blood

pounds in her ears.

“You’re going to listen to your own villain?” Nathaniel

exclaims. His voice hardly penetrates the fog. Adrienne can

hear her Mom’s voice in the back of her mind, pleading with her

to answer the phone and talk. To come back. Asking what was

going on.


Adrienne sat on her bed in the other room that night,

listening to the recording voice message, her knees pulled up to

her chest, her face hardened.

“You can always go back.” The vibration of his voice

tickles her ear as he whispers the words. She feels his

agonizing suspense. She knows she should listen, and that she

doesn’t want to. She looks away from the computer screen and

over at him, his face still right by her ear. His eyes are wide

and serious.

“This isn’t my story you’re writing here,” he says. “It’s

yours. You need to choose. What happens next, Adrienne Rhodes?

How are you going to write this story?” He whispers again, “You

can always go back.”

Adrienne turns her head from side-to side, faster, faster.

“No. No. I’m not ready for that.” She reaches across the desk

and deletes the message on the phone. The little orange light

stops flashing. Adrienne Rhodes hunches over. And she writes.

She doesn’t stop. Nathaniel doesn’t return the rest of the day.


4

Adrienne’s eyes are rimmed red. She noticed this morning

when she paused in front of the mirror and decided that she

didn’t feel like brushing her teeth. She tied her hair back in

a sloppy ponytail and moved on to her story.

Nathaniel appears on the rocking chair that Adrienne pulled

up for her cat the day before. “Okay,” he shifts, trying to get

comfortable. “If you’re going to devote who-knows-how-long to

this senseless chick-flick of a book, you might as well do it

right.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Adrienne scrolls through fifty

pages of text on her laptop screen. “It looks good to me.”

“Did you see all those descriptions of flowers on page

twenty-three?” Nathaniel swats the air at a fly. “You went on

and on.”


“What…flowers? I never described flowers. Okay, I

mentioned one. Mostly I described other things.”

“Flowery descriptions of sunset colors and trees and

shadows—same thing. Boring. Everyone uses them. Cut it all

out.”

“How else am I to describe the setting? You were about to

propose to Jayne!”

“You can use great detail during the actual proposal, not

before. Your readers will tune out before the good stuff.”

Nathaniel cups his hands around the defenseless fly. “And

that’s another thing. I’m proposing on page twenty-five. That

seems way too early. I hardly know the girl.”

“Of course you know her! Remember? I described it all on

page ten—”

“Yeah, but I feel like I’m proposing to a stranger. You

haven’t developed her very well. She’s too perfect. I mean, in

every possible way. She isn’t real. Come here, look outside.”

Nathaniel released the distressed insect and stood to peek out

the window. “See that lady? The one with the ugly little white

dog and the Smart phone with the hideous purple cover? That’s

real. Have you seen that massive stack of DVDs next to your TV?

Yes, you’ve seen it. All that Hollywood stuff is fake. If I’ve

got to marry someone, I want someone real. I don’t want an

actor.” Nathaniel sat back down and smacked the fly, which had


come to rest for a moment on Adrienne’s desk to rub it’s legs.

He brushed the fly remains from his fingers to his jeans.

“But real people aren’t interesting!” Adrienne groans. “I

can’t make her that ordinary; no one would understand why you’d

want her. I don’t even understand.”

“Don’t you see?” Nathaniel leans forward, a light in his

friendly brown eyes. “That’s where the magic lies, doesn’t it?

The ordinary girl; and no one understands!”

“But some things have to make sense. This isn’t a

fairytale with no reasons. There isn’t magic to anything in

real life. I’m here to prove it.”

“Then you agree it’s reality?” Nathaniel leaned back in

the rocking chair and crossed his arms. “All right, then give

me a real girl. Not a TV princess.”

Adrienne sighs. “Okay, I think I see your point.” She

chews her lip and waves her hand at Nathaniel. “Go away.

You’ve got a date.”

“Now you’ve got it! What’d you do to her? Does she have a

gargantuan mole on her chin?”

Adrienne glares at him. “Can’t she be real without a

mole?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

Adrienne shakes her head and smiles as she clicks her

fingernails on the keys. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”


After a few moments of rapid typing, she remarks, “I think I’m

liking Jayne already.”

Nathaniel shrugs and slouches lower in the chair, propping

his foot up on the desk. “Apparently I liked her ten pages

ago.”

Adrienne pauses typing. “Do you want her to show up here?

To me? Like, the way you’re here?”

“Do you?” Nathaniel asks.

Adrienne shrugs. “I’m not sure that it would make any

difference if I tried or not. I mean, I can’t entirely control

it, can I? The character of your friend is pretty real, but I

haven’t seen him around here. And I’ve written a bunch of other

books—but I haven’t seen any one of them.”

Nathaniel cocks his head and squints an eye at her. “Since

when,” he murmurs, “Did you decide you didn’t need those meds?”

Adrienne presses her lips in a thin line. “Since they quit

working.”

“How about the therapy?”

“I got too busy.”

“Ah, I see. The meds were working fine. You weren’t.”

“I don’t want them anymore. Not that you’ve come. If I

start back up…” Adrienne trails off and bites her lower lip.

The words come out strained. “I don’t want you to leave.”

Nathaniel just looks at her.


“You don’t want to leave either, do you?” she asks.

“I never was here. It doesn’t make any difference.”

“Then how can I see you so clearly?” She reaches out to

poke the shoe he propped up on her desk, but Nathaniel moves his

foot away, his expression stalwart. Adrienne sighs. “I’ve

never heard of this happening to anyone else; making friends

with someone who obviously isn’t there. Besides, you make life

difficult. You pester me all day, and you can’t even help

around the house or say anything that I don’t

already…somehow…know.” She cocks her head. “Which means that

anyone walking in here wouldn’t be able to see or hear you.

Only me.”

“Awkward,” he sang.

“How can I hear you if you’re not really there? I know I

can hear you, I know it. I know what a quiet house sounds like,

and I know how it used to weigh in my ears. It drives a soul

insane. This house isn’t quiet anymore.”

“You’re right. It’s not quiet. It’s swarming with

ghosts.”

“You’re not a ghost, are you?”

“Am I?” He pauses. “We’ll see.”

And Nathaniel disappears. Adrienne stares at the empty

chair. The empty chair that never seems empty. Not entirely.


She stands, knocking a pile of papers from her desk.

What’s in that chair? Not Nathaniel. It doesn’t feel like

Nathaniel. She steps back, keeping her eye on the chair.

Her back bumps something. She shrieks and swivels around.

It’s only the lampstand, which topples and hits the floor with a

shatter. Glass propels across the wood and around Adrienne’s

feet. The silence after the smash is agonizing.

She looks around the empty room that never seems empty.

She hears music. Or…she thinks she hear music. Twinkling

piano, some light beat. Adrienne rushes to her bedroom door,

but is slower in pushing it open to peek in.

The twist of a skirt and blonde hair; blue eyes and feet

beating in time. A young couple dance past, half-arm’s distance

apart, giggling as they turn. They’re barely there, and when

they disappear they’re barely not there. Adrienne blinks hard

and shakes her head. The music is still playing.

Water in the kitchen runs through the faucet and hits the

bottom of the metal sink with a hollow thud. Adrienne swivels

around to look.

A woman stands at her sink, washing dishes, singing softly

to the same music Adrienne hears. Then the woman is gone. The

dishes are still there, unwashed, the tap wasn’t running.

Laughter erupts from the living room. Adrienne rushes in

and stops. A little family sits in there, on her carpet,


playing a game, cards spread about on the floor. Then they’re

gone.

They have to be gone. She doesn’t want them here. The

music shifts to an organ tune.

A man sits in the middle of the room, his back to her,

playing an organ she’s never seen. He cuts the tune short. The

room is silent. The man heaves something that sounds like a sob

and puts his head in his hands. And he’s gone.

But she can still feel it. The presence of these people in

her house. Wanting so badly to be there. Maybe Adrienne was

letting them stay.

Adrienne turns around, looks about the room, turns a full

360 degree angle. Everything is silent. Too silent. Her hands

shake and a tremor shook her frame. Next, she felt that

something would jump out at her with claws extended…or a knife…

She stamps her foot and clutches her head. “Stop it!” She

cries. “Stop it now! Go away! I don’t want you here! I don’t

need you!”

“Then show me!” Nathaniel clutches her shoulders. She

sees him, but she can’t feel his hands.

Nathaniel looks into her eyes. “Show me that you don’t

need us. Prove that you’re fine all by yourself. Don’t you see

that these are images you’re creating of the family that you

always wanted? The ghosts of what you never had? You’re


lonely. Something in your mind is desperate. It’s making it

all up.”

“I don’t need you! Go away!” Adrienne exclaims in

desperation, hiding her face in her hands.

“Don’t tell me you don’t need us. We won’t go away unless

you let someone who cares come into your life.”

Adrienne shakes her head, still hiding her face. “No, I’ve

just got to finish the story. Once I’m finished with you, it’ll

get you out of my head.”

“Get me out of your head? Is that what you think this is

about?”

“It is for me! All my life, that’s what it’s been about.

I’ve been fighting to keep people out of my head!”

“You won’t let me out of your head, even if you do finish

the story. The only way you’ll really get rid of me is if you

kill me. And all the rest of us. In the story and in your

mind. You don’t want to kill me. I’m too real. You don’t even

want Hans to die. It would murder a part of yourself to do it.”

“There’s another way. There’s got to be.”

Nathaniel pauses and whispers, “No.”

Adrienne looks at any part of his face that would give.

Something to tell her that there is another way out.

Nathaniel’s jaw is firm and unrelenting, his face like a stone.


For the moment, she and him are the only people in the

house. And the house feels huge. Like it swallowed her and

won’t let her out unless she chooses.

Nathaniel sighs. “There isn’t any other way out. And you

know that. This isn’t about getting us out of your head

anymore. It never was. This is about your life. You have a

serious problem, and you need someone to help get you out of

it.”

“I know what you want, Jiminy Cricket,” Adrienne snaps.

“But I am not ready to go back to my family. You’re a part of

me. You know what they did to me.”

“Not all of them.”

“No one resisted. And they didn’t care.”

“They apologized. They want you back.”

“Because they’re sincere, or because they’re supposed to?”

Adrienne raises her eyebrows in question and lowers her voice.

“Are they real, or are they actors?”

“That’s the question now.” Nathaniel steps back. “I guess

that’s the question about all of us.”

He disappears. Adrienne’s lower lip quivers. She clenches

her teeth, refusing to give into tears. She hasn’t cried over

anything in several months. Why give in now? She turns away,

rushes into her tiny bathroom and shuts and locks the door as if


it might keep the ghosts out. She sits on the blue tile floor

against the bathtub, and can’t choke back the sobs any longer.

It isn’t despair. Not this time. This time, she’s scared.

And this time, she does wish that she had a shoulder to cry on.

Just to cry on.

But nothing more.

That’s when the pen first began to sketch figures on the

walls. Adrienne lifts the felt tip and wrote in patterns of

delirium. And she never noticed.


5

Adrienne opens her eyes. The room is as black as the

coffee she made yesterday morning. She blinks sleep from her

eyes and looks around the room at the barely distinguishable

objects in the dark. There is a stool that serves as a bedside

table, the slide-open closet doors, the sparse picture frames on

the wall, the chair loaded with books she hasn’t read and

laundry she hasn’t cleaned. She can see the outline of the

window and the plastic blinds, and the footboard of her bed.

The tiny red LED numbers on the alarm clock beside her read

4:57.

“Who’s there?” Adrienne whispers. She is surprised at the

tremor in her own voice. She merely wanted to ask, as though it

might be someone she knows. Or was, perhaps, expecting. She


knows someone besides the cat is here, she can feel it, and it

scares her.

There is no response. She sits up on her elbow and peers

into the darkness. The closet door is cracked open and a sleeve

of some shirt pokes out. She shudders, fighting the two sides

of her mind that tell her it’s just her own empty shirt, or that

it’s someone else coming after her.

Her head throbs. A shiver tremors down her spine. Then

she knows it. She knows who’s here and what the tall shadow on

the far side of the room is. She grabs a tiny flashlight and

twists the lens. A faint light emits and she shines it at the

shadow. It illuminates the face, and she can dimly see Han’s

crooked nose, thin mouth, his pallid skin, the stringy hair

outlining the thin face with the high cheekbones.

Adrienne shudders, keeping the light trained on Hans

Guryev’s face. There is a pause. A pause of tension and

silence. Painful, expectant, unnerving silence. “Why won’t you

talk to me?” she asks. “Why do I feel like there’s something

you want me to do? Just tell me! I’m sick and tired of these

games!”

He moves his head down slightly, keeping his gaze on

Adrienne. A crack of what may have been a smile angles at his

lips. And then nothing. The flashlight merely penetrates a

dark, faceless obscurity.


Arian keeps the little flashlight focused on the spot,

pulls her knees up close and huddles in the far corner of her

bed. Scared even to move, like a kid again. She stays there

until dawn shines a lighter shade of blue into the room and the

shadow diminishes. Until she is convinced that it hunts her no

more. For now.

---

Adrienne opens the cabinet and looks at the little bottle

with the pills. She makes a face and drops the pills in the

trash bin next to the counter. She closes the cabinet and

returns to her desk.

She sits at the old hickory desk, tapping her fingernails

on the wood. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“That is really irritating,” Nathaniel groans from the

kitchen.

Adrienne is silent for a moment, but continues to tap. “I

failed, didn’t I?”

“Failed what?”

“This scene.”

Nathaniel pauses rummaging through her cupboards to look at

her. “The one you just wrote? Yeah.”

“But what’s wrong with it? It felt right at first.”

“You have to rewrite the whole thing. Focus less on what

you want, and more on what you know is going to happen.”


Nathaniel stands, working a kink in his neck. “Has Hans said

anything to you yet?” He looks at his hand and cracks what

Adrienne thought must have been every possible knuckle.

Adrienne stops tapping, irritated with Nathaniel’s

questions and knuckle-popping. “Neither to me nor in the story.

I keep thinking that I should make him talk at some point—like,

in the story—but it doesn’t feel right. I just keep him

standing around in the background. Leering, sort of. I don’t

even know very much about him.”

“What is his point in the story?”

Adrienne hesitates and presses her lips together.

Nathaniel raises his eyebrows and coughs. “You mean you

haven’t worked it out yet?”

Adrienne clears her throat. “Well…”

“Adrienne!”

“Okay, I will, I will! Just give me time!”

“You don’t know who he is, he shows up sporadically in the

story, he has no point, and yet he’s been appearing to you.”

“Yeah… I don’t know. I’m starting to think that it might

be because the image that I got of him just sort-of stuck in my

head.”

Nathaniel leans against the counter, looks down at his

hands, and says as if in afterthought, “He looks sort of like

your Dad, doesn’t he?”


Adrienne pauses, a strange feeling coursing through her

skin. Hans has the same crooked nose. The same sallow skin

tone, the same even gaze. Maybe it was amplified to a more evil

typecast, but she knew it was him. Her Dad.

She had known all along. Somewhere she knew that she’d

known all along. She just didn’t want to think about it. She

shudders and her head jerks spasmodically to the side.

“That’s why he came to life,” she mutters. “I already knew

him.” She looks over at Nathaniel, sitting back in the chair

beside her.

“Okay,” he says in a low voice. “Let’s take a look at this

chapter.”

“Hold on.”

Nathaniel looks at her, eyebrows raised. Adrienne leans

back in the squeaky swivel chair. “Do you think I did wrong,

making him look like my Dad? I feel like Hans thinks so. He

just stands around and stares at me.”

“Well, I can’t say that I think you did right. It won’t

improve your situation with your family if your Dad looks like

your own personal villain.”

Adrienne groans. “I don’t know if that’s what I meant. I

mean, Hans just stands there and stares at me. He hasn’t spoken

a word.”


“Okay. If it’s bothering you, let’s look at the facts.

He’s a villain, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. He shows up in the story and outside of it. So who

do you think he’s after? Is he really after me in the story, or

maybe you over here?”

Adrienne jolts with the thought, dropping her pen. Several

of her index cards slide off the desk onto the ground. She

scrambles to pick them up, shuddering. “Shut up, Nathaniel.”

“Why? Because it isn’t nice to hear? Maybe he isn’t

saying anything in the story because that isn’t his place. He’s

going after you. Here. Now. Think about it.”

“I don’t want to!”

Nathaniel snorts. “Wow, Adrienne.” He shakes his head.

“Good luck. There really must be something wrong in there.” He

knocks on her head with the back of his knuckles good-naturedly,

and she is surprised when she doesn’t feel it. Then she’s

surprised that she was surprised. Of course she knew that she

wouldn’t feel it! Didn’t she?

“It’s like a dream,” she thinks. “I really think it’s

happening, I really think they’re here, I really think I feel

it…”

She forces a smile that doesn’t feel very reassuring.

Nathaniel is quiet. He knows what she’s thinking.


She hesitates. How much does this guy know? He comes from

her mind, she is imagining him standing there, so he must know

everything she does. Images and ideas flash through her mind;

all information that Nathaniel Moore now possessed. How

embarrassing! He can’t tell anyone, and probably couldn’t care

less about any of it. But it’s disturbing to know that this

apparition in front of her, who could be a bit cute, knows every

one of her thoughts and memories.

Okay, so he must also know about the feelings she hid in

the back of her mind. She tried not to pay heed to them until

now, for fear of having to admit it to herself. They aren’t

romantic. The feelings are more along the lines of admiration.

Loyalty, maybe; appreciation. For the only person who ever

listened to her and cared enough to help.

Of all the things that could go wrong now, she loves a man

who doesn’t exist.

And it hurts.

Why does it hurt so much? What is this? A broken heart?

She hasn’t had one of those in a long time. Or has she? She

can’t remember. She chokes up and tries swallowing. Nathaniel

looks at her quietly. Knowing. She shakes her head at him,

trying to get away from that whole issue.


“I’m sorry,” he whispers. That’s all he says. But in her

mind, he adds, “You know I can’t possibly fill the space. You

need another human being.”

“But you’ve come the closest,” Adrienne thinks. “It’s

okay,” she says aloud. She coughs and turns back around to the

screen. Trying to get her mind away on another channel of

thought and distract Nathaniel. “Uh, Chapter?”

Nathaniel coughs too. “I already told you how to fix it.

But don’t listen to me. Not that you ever did. That’s what got

you into this whole mess, wasn’t it?”

“What got me into this whole mess was that I sat down to

write a book. Why the blazes I ever decided to do it is beyond

me.”

“You’re a writer; it’s what you need to do. The same way a

painter just needs to paint sometimes.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t intend for my characters or my life to

come around and slap me back because of it. I was trying to

escape my life, you know that. You’ve made everything worse.

That’s all you’ve ever done.” She crosses her arms. “And the

only reason I’m telling you all this is because you know

already, and I’m actually screaming at an empty room.”

“I sat down to help you write this scene. Do you want it

or not?”

“Yes, I want it, I want it bad.”


“Then calm down and quit getting so emotional. Are all

women like this?”

Adrienne presses her lips together and glares at him.

Nathaniel shrugs in claim of his innocence and looks at the

page. “So here you tried to get morbid.”

“What? No I didn’t.”

“It involves blood.”

“I just described the stained glass picture in the

cathedral. I didn’t get graphic at all! You can’t change it.

I’m keeping that description. I’m proud of it.”

“Good, I thought you would. It fits the scene; if you keep

it up, it may also end up fitting into the story. So this creep

attacks me in a cathedral?” Nathaniel looks at her askance.

“Yeah, well…it sounded better when you didn’t say it out

loud. I thought it was sort of…oxymoronic. No, no, that’s not

the word…”

“Ah-ha. I see. My biggest problem with it is that the

priest-guy comes in and stops it. What, the attacker just walks

away?”

“What would you do if a priest caught you mugging someone

in his cathedral?”

“I don’t care about that, what bugs me is that the priest

has no other role in the story. He shows up, doesn’t even give

me a pep talk, and walks away. If Friar Tuck doesn’t have any


other point in the story, then please, I need to be the one to

fight off that guy. I’m in need of a good fight, really.” He

clapped his fist into his hand. “For the sake of me and your

readers, let me at him!”

“How do I write that? I can’t write a fighting scene!

They’re too complicated. And boring.”

“Maybe you should ask someone.”

“Like who?”

“Your Dad. He was in the military. Army, right? I’m sure

he could give you a few tips.”

“Don’t. Don’t start that. I can handle a fighting scene.”

“Suit yourself,” he mutters, leaning back. He watches with

a placid look as Adrienne slowly, hesitantly, begins typing

again. She glances at him from time-to-time, but his expression

doesn’t change. She finishes the scene an hour later and

scrolls backwards to re-read it. She comes to the end and

glares at Nathaniel Moore.

“Hm? What did I do?” Nathaniel asks with a shrug.

“You know what, I’ll find someone else to help me with that

scene.”

“Why? It’s fine. That last line is especially good.”

“Which one?” She looks over to adjust the screen and reads

aloud, “He kicks open the door, the iron toe of his boot

smashing against the red smears on the chapel door as he


leaves.” Adrienne shrugs. “Corny, I suppose, but it’s

tolerable.”

“Overall it’s only a tolerable chapter.”

She groans. “I can’t make anything sound the way I want it

to. And when you come along you make everything sound worse!”

“That’s my job,” he replies. “It always has been. I

thought you knew that.” And he disappears.


6

Adrienne brings up her email account. “Hey,” she composes

in a new message to her brother Randy, “What do you think so

far?” She attaches the file with the story and sends the

message. Then she brings the document back up, in all its glory

of fifty pages. And more to come. Her eyes are sore from the

glowing laptop screen, her fingers are sore from typing all day,

and her back is sore from sitting. She leans back and smiles,

taking a forkful of old soggy salad from a prepackaged mix,

smiling and plotting the next scene.

“Proud, eh?” Nathaniel asks, sitting in his favorite

rocking chair and crossing his arms comfortably.

Adrienne smiles and looks up at him. “Wait,” she says

around a mouthful of salad, “did you just take a shower?”


“I don’t know. Did I? I’m sure I have at some point. Am

I more pleasant to the smell, your highness?”

“Your hair’s dripping water.”

He shrugs. “If you say so, then I suppose I did take a

shower. I show up however you conjure me. You must have

showers on your mind. Or I must be quite at home now to have

taken a shower. I’ll bet I had lunch and took the cat for a

walk as well, eh?”

“I sure hope you didn’t take Rudolph for a walk!”

“Why not?”

“He would never forgive me if I put him on a leash!”

“Have you ever tried him?”

“Stop it.” She takes a large forkful of salad and sets the

bowl down, speaking around her mouthful. “Let me focus. I’m

preparing for chapter six. And I’m going to make it your big

let-down.”

“Does Jayne dump me? You’re mean enough. It’d be so sad.

But…she’s spunky. She would definitely do it just to watch me

suffer. You know it.”

Adrienne pouted. “Don’t say that! I didn’t make her that

mean! You’re ruining her for me. And you’re blowing my focus.

This actually has nothing to do with Jayne. You lose your

temper at work, which makes you lose your job.”


“Oh, lovely. Do I really? I sure get around.” He ran a

hand through his hair and paused. “You’re right, my hair is

wet. Why is it wet, Adrienne Rhodes?”

“A glitch or something.” Adrienne taps her head. “I

thought you were the one who told me.”

“Look girl, don’t let me get too comfortable. You may not

let me leave.”

Adrienne snorts. “Yeah, you’re right! I may not ever,

ever let you leave!” She tosses her hair over her shoulder.

“Ever thought about that?”

“That would be so tragic. I won’t be getting any older,

and eventually you’ll tire of my company. You’ll be wanting

someone else.”

“No. Stop it. I’ll do what I wish. You’re in my head, so

you’ll have to put up with it.” She stops and puts a hand over

her mouth. “Oh goodness. What if I write more stories and have

a whole bunch of people running around in here? That would

really be catastrophic. And interesting…I’d have to write about

how interesting it is. And then what—would you all be doubled?”

“Oh stop it; you’re going all weird on me.”

“Just thinking.”

“Well stop thinking. It’s annoying.” He rubs his head.

“And it hurts.”


“But I’m serious.” Adrienne turns and looks at Nathaniel,

her eyes bright with excitement. “What if that really does

happen? What if all my characters from every story I ever write

come to life and start following me around my house? What if

someone—a neighbor or family member or something—finally decides

that I’ve lost my crackers and I get…I don’t know…confined to an

insane asylum?”

“I told you to stop thinking. You’re psyching yourself

out. None of that will happen. You’ll eventually get over it

all, I promise.”

“Yeah, and what if your promise doesn’t make anything

happen? I mean, what can you do about it?” She crosses her

arms and raises her eyebrows, begging him to answer.

Nathaniel sighs, nestling back in the rocking chair and

tightening his folded arms. “I’ll be honest. I’ve seen all of

that coming for a long time, and I have been trying to help you

ever since to prevent it from happening. You know that.”

Adrienne snorts. “I sure do know that! But why do you

care? My life doesn’t affect you or your story, so why keep

bothering me?”

“I’m part of you.”

“But your story,” she gestured to the laptop, “isn’t

affected by my family life, so why can’t you just stay out of

it?”


“My story will most certainly be affected by your family

life if you decide to get rid of me. I have been trying to help

you, but you have been such a stubborn little brat about your

family that it doesn’t really matter what I say anymore, does

it?”

“I told you,” she says through tight lips, “I cannot

forgive my family for what they did. I don’t care how much

guilt you weigh on me.”

“They were trying to help.”

“What help are we speaking of?”

“I am talking about the therapies.” Nathaniel’s face grows

hard and Adrienne can’t look away. “I am talking about the

probing, the questions, the looks, and everything that they

threw at you to prove that something was wrong and that you

needed help. And here I am to say that they were right.”

“They weren’t right! All they ever threw at me were lies.

I didn’t need help, I never did.”

“You never needed help?” Nathaniel raises his head and

looks at her skeptically. “And here you are, talking to an

empty rocking chair. Like I’m actually sitting here. Telling

me you don’t need help!” He laughs, and Adrienne wishes she

could slap him. It wouldn’t do any good if she tried.

Nathaniel stops and leans forward, his eyes darting back and

forth, looking in her face. “Lucy went too far, didn’t she?”


Adrienne looks away.

Nathaniel cocks his head. “What happened to Lucy?”

“I grew up.”

“Ah-ha. And she didn’t.”

Adrienne shakes her head and says with a crack in her

voice, “I guess I always knew she wasn’t real.”

“Who was she?”

“No one.” Adrienne crosses her arms. “A phantom.”

“But you loved her.”

“I did not.”

“She was your best friend. You were lonely. You made up

someone to play with.”

“Shut up!” She doesn’t look at him. She looks at her

laptop, the words of her story staring back at her but not

registering. She doesn’t want to think about Lucy or the story.

Nathaniel was such a pain.

Nathaniel sits back, slowly. “I’m sorry,” he mutters.

“But now that we’ve started…”

“I’m not going to hold this conversation any longer.”

“I want you to tell me when the therapies started.”

“You already know.”

“Pretend I don’t. Pretend, for once, I’m a real person.

Maye it’ll help you out. And tell me.”


Adrienne sighs, still looking straight ahead. “There’s

nothing to tell. I was a brat. I kept telling my parents so

obstinately that she was there. I should have just confessed

that I imagined her the whole time.”

“But…?”

“But she was always standing there. Watching as I threw

those tantrums. She played with me the way I wanted to play,

she had always been there with me when I went to sleep. After a

while my parents decided it wasn’t cute anymore.”

“And then the therapies.”

“…Yeah.” Adrienne is silent for a moment, but says in a

lower voice, “The doctors hypothesized schizophrenia. After I

abandoned Lucy, everyone thought I’d finally grown up. That the

therapy worked. I got through high school with few glitches.”

“But you never forgot Lucy,” says Nathaniel. “You never

made any friends in High School, afraid that one of them might

turn out to be another Lucy. I know that you used to take the

long way home from school. You would spend hours on the middle

school swing-set just so you could stay away from home and

anyone else. And now here you are. Do you think those choices

didn’t affect you at all today? Do you think that you’re better

off? Am I your distraction or your prison?”

“Just you try getting rid of a grudge you’ve had since you

were four!” Adrienne yells, standing up.


“Look at you!” Nathaniel yells back, standing as well.

“You formulated another Lucy so you can survive! You’ve been

holding the same grudge for the last sixteen years! Grow up!

Do something for once in your life that you won’t regret!”

Adrienne shakes her head. And she breaks down. She can’t

stop the hot tears that spill over. She turns her face away,

biting her lip, knowing Nathaniel can see it.

“Don’t hide again,” Nathaniel says, his voice grown soft.

He bends down by her face and brushes at a tear he can’t touch

with a finger she can’t feel. “I know it’s been tough. You’ve

just got to understand that you have to make it better before it

gets worse.”

Adrienne sniffs and nods. She knows. And she also knows

she won’t do it.

Nathaniel stands slowly and walks away, out of her view.

She sits there for a long time. The tears on her face dry

and leave salty marks around her red eyes. She moves up into a

typing position and looks through bleary eyes at the screen.

Her fingers lie rigid on the keys; her nail polish chipped and

her nails long uncared for. She begins a crawling pattern with

her fingers, forming words under their tips.

And she kills Jayne Schleicher.

---

“That was the best you could do?”


Nathaniel appears in front of Adrienne, arms crossed,

eyebrows raised. Adrienne tosses another Kleenex onto the pile

accumulating beside her and pulls another from the box on the

table. “I’m sorry,” she says through her cracking voice. “I

was so mad…or something. I didn’t think killing Jayne would

make me so upset. I thought you would be at least a little bit

sad—she was your fiancée, Nathaniel Moore!”

“So you killed her. Very tragic. Let me get the story

straight. She never told me she had some medical condition—you

didn’t even specify what it was!—and dies tragically in my arms

as I propose. Didn’t even hear me ask, I should think. So

sad.”

“Oh, must you be so heartless?” Adrienne sniffs. “Look at

me! I made myself cry. I didn’t want to kill Jayne, really. I

was just in such a mood and wanted a good cry.”

“Well, it looks like you’ve had one. Bravo, Adrienne.

You’re so emotional; is that one of those schizophrenia

symptoms? But here’s the news. Jayne isn’t dead.”

“Yes she is. I just killed her. Read the chapter. I

ranted about it for thirty whole pages. I’m plotting another 50

in which you are ridden with guilt and emotions.”

“Thank you so much. Listen; you killed her, but she isn’t

dead. Not yet.”


“How does that work? Have you lost your mind, or have I?”

She pauses. “You know what, don’t answer that.”

“Your chapter had no depth. Maybe the way it happened

could be the way of life, but as it’s a story, there needs to be

a driving reason for her death. If Jayne must die—and she’s

well on her way there, so at this point she might as well do it

and get it over with—then I beg of you, give her a purpose in

life and a purpose in death. Something beyond the reason of

making you cry. Okay? Then I think you will have written an

effective death.”

Nathaniel pauses. His placid face grows dark very suddenly

and he slams his fist on the living room coffee table. Adrienne

jumps, a sob catching in her throat with a strange sound.

Nathaniel leans forward and yells. “You worthless, thoughtless

girl! I was the one you were mad at! You just pitilessly

murdered an innocent girl! I sure hope you’re happy, Adrienne

Rhodes!”

Adrienne closes her eyes and buries her face in another

Kleenex. Nathaniel had tested her, she knows it. And she

failed. Nathaniel is silent for so long that Adrienne peeks up

at him. She stares.

Are his eyes misty? This stolid and unemotional man, the

apparition, sniffs and looks down at the ground, tightening his

balled fists. The veins on his forearms stand on end. He


snorts, opens his mouth, closes it, and looks away at the

window. It takes him a long time to finally speak. “Jayne was

special. You know…ordinary.” His voice cracks. “Bravo,

Adrienne. You’ve killed her. Hope you’re happy about it. I

think…I’ll miss Jayne Schleicher.” Nathaniel squeezes his eyes

shut and disappears.


7

“Merry Christmas!” Nathaniel appears, arms spread out

wide, a red Santa cap on his head.

Adrienne hums, looking away from him and back to her phone

book. “You’re a week early.”

“What of it? The stores were three months early, I’m not

doing too bad. You don’t have anything festive up. No tree, no

holly, no ornaments, no nativity. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Doing what? Wait, I can answer that. Writing, writing,

and more writing.”

“And Christmas shopping.”

“One outing. And all you got were cards and groceries.”

“At least I got those cards. I considered not sending

any.”


“Yeah. It was a guilt trip.”

Adrienne glares at him and points at a stack of opened

envelopes, Christmas stamps, flourishing handwriting, and

colorful cards. “Look at that. People I’ve never heard of are

sending me Christmas cards. I got to see their pictures, hear

about their entire year and how wonderful their children are,

and see little scribbled ‘Merry Christmas’ wishes inside. I

kind of have to do something, don’t I?”

“You should enjoy them! Some of these cards are cute…okay,

and some of them try too hard to be cute. But it shows they

actually thought of you!”

“Yeah. That’s what hurts. I know what they all remember

about me. Who could forget the crazy Rhodes girl who claimed

for years that she had a friend named Lucy that didn’t exist?

Who could forget the ruckus that worked up?”

“You should be enjoying all this a little more.” He

appears beside her, examining his faux-fur Santa hat between his

fingers.

“I have been,” Adrienne tries to assure him—and perhaps

herself. “The lights outside are nice. I like the snow.”

“It’s Christmas. You should be spending time with family!”

“You stop right there.” Adrienne grabs her phone, holding

her finger over a number in the phone book.


“No, you stop. Listen to me,” Nathaniel appears beside

her, leaning against the kitchen counter. “There’s more to this

time of year than you think.”

“I’m not a little kid anymore, Nathaniel,” Adrienne says as

she dials the number. “Christmas doesn’t mean anything anymore

but guilt trips and snow.”

“That’s what people have been trying to tell you.”

“Yeah? Well it’s true. Maybe some people have enough

money and family and friends around them to be able to enjoy it

without all the stress. But for the rest of us normal people,

it means nothing but stress and dinners and gifts and cards and

everything else. No one believes in perfect poster-board story-

book Christmases.”

“Trust me, girl. They want to believe it.”

Adrienne pauses and looks over at him, returning his even

gaze. “Not when they don’t exist.”

Nathaniel snorts. “Don’t exist? And here you are, talking

to me! I don’t exist either, and you pretty much thrive on my

presence.”

Adrienne ignores him. “Look, I know you mean well, but

things have changed. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, girl. I want you to go.”

“Go where?”


“Don’t act like that with me. You know where.” He taps a

card next to an opened envelope depicting a snowy scene of a

house and a red robin painted on the front.

“Don’t make me open that card.”

“But it’s from your family! They want you to spend

Christmas Eve with them!”

“I know what they want. I’m not opening that card because

it’s one of those irritating mechanical singing cards.”

“Endure it. Won’t you go, even for a little while, and show

them that you truly do care? Come on, go to the party.”

Nathaniel appears in front of her, looking into her eyes in

his normal way. “You want to go.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You know you should.” He raises his eyebrows. “Guilt

trip from your conscience. You had better go and spend

Christmas Eve with them. Just Christmas Eve. I won’t push

anything else.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Then let me make this phone call.” Adrienne looks down at

the number dialed in her phone, and forgot what she was going to

call her literary agent about.

Oh, well. Her agent will call eventually. Wanting that

story as soon as possible.


She’d just have to wait a little longer. Just until

Adrienne worked out a few glitches and Christmas Eve

celebrations.

---

“I can’t believe this!” Adrienne yells, slamming her car

door shut and starting the engine. She pauses and peers at the

snow-caked windshield. Her breath fogs in the cold air as she

huffs. “Banished from my own house by…nothing! A figment of my

imagination!” She turns on the windshield wipers and the snow

brushes away. She looks up at the black night, snowflakes

illuminated by her headlights falling silently to replace the

snow she brushed off. She leans back and opens the mirror on

her sun visor. She stares at her reflection for a moment,

chewing on her lower lip.

“I really should just go back,” she mutters. “Nathaniel

will leave me alone when he sees how stubborn I am. He’ll be

sore at me for a while, but who cares? He won’t leave, he’s

made that quite clear. But whether he does or not, I won’t let

myself be controlled by something that doesn’t even exist.” She

sighs. “I don’t need another Lucy telling me what to do.”

She looks closer into the mirror, examining her hair which

she had so carefully brushed and neatly arranged. She hasn’t

seen it so nice in such a long time. She is even wearing some

mascara today. She wears her formal black jacket, a pair of


dark jeans without holes, and a little silver necklace her Mom

gave her several years back. She has nearly chewed all the

color from her lip before she reaches up, removes the necklace,

and places it in the cup-holder beside her.

Then she puts the car into gear and rolls out onto the

road. She turns up the music on her radio just a bit, takes a

deep breath, and does all in her power to calm down.

“I really should have called to say I’d be coming,” she

mutters. “They’ll be shocked speechless. They won’t know what

to do with me. It’ll be awkward. I should turn around and tell

Nathaniel so.” She chews her lip as she considers it, but never

turns around.

Adrienne pulls into her Mom’s driveway twenty minutes later

and parks the car. She looks up through the windshield for a

few moments before she pulls the keys from the ignition. The

lights along the edges of the roof glow under a light blanket of

snow. A wreath hangs on the door and warm lights are on inside.

Adrienne remembers the little home too well. Too often had

she slipped up onto that porch, peeked in through the window to

see if anyone was there, shot up the stairs and slammed her

bedroom door. Too often had she come out in the middle of the

night and sat on the rickety old porch swing, swinging alone.

Fighting with the loneliness. Wishing she wasn’t lonely, afraid

to stop it.


She closes the car door behind her. She wishes now that

she brought some flowers for them or something. It would make

her seem more agreeable.

The house is quiet. Maybe no one is here. She slowly

steps up onto the porch and peeks into the orangey window.

Candles are lit. The home looks warm and festive. Welcoming.

But not for her.

She turns around and walks back off the porch. She hears

the door open and she stops with a grimace.

“Adrienne?” her Mom’s voice splits through the frozen

silence. “Adrienne? I saw you, it’s okay, honey.”

Adrienne bites her lip and steps back onto the porch, her

hands in her jacket pockets. “Um…I…”

“You made it!” Her Mom’s smile is enormous and she rushes

forward, giving Adrienne a huge hug. The emphatic greeting is a

plus. Adrienne considers hugging her back, but pretends that

her arms are caught too hard by her mom’s embrace.

Her Mom releases her and grabs her hand. “Come in! Come

in, it’s freezing out here! Get comfortable before the others

come! I didn’t know if you were coming or not. Everyone asked

if you would. They’ll be so glad to see you.”

Adrienne steps inside and stands for a moment, hands deep

in her black jacket pockets. She looks at her Mom, whose hands

are clasped together in front of her and who looks like she


wants to say something but can only smile. The smile stretches

across her face. It’s emotional. Her eyes are misty, and her

face is older than Adrienne remembers. There are more creases

everywhere, more silver in her hair. Adrienne looks down and

takes off her boots to hide her face.

It’s strange to be interacting with a person who is

actually there. She can only hope that Nathaniel won’t show up

and distract her, or that she won’t start talking with him and

draw attention to herself. Or that someone else from her head

won’t show up and start talking, and that she wouldn’t realize

it was from her head. She already would be known for the Lucy

incident. It’s all anyone would think about when they see her.

“How have you been?” her Mom asks when Adrienne straightens

and kicks her boots to the side.

“Oh, I’ve been okay.”

“Doing a lot of writing?”

“Yeah…yeah.”

“Well? How’s it going? Come sit and tell me.”

“No,” she thinks to herself. “I don’t want to sit and tell

you. Sitting makes it awkward, and I don’t want to tell you—

what do I tell you anyway that won’t have to do with Nathaniel?”

Adrienne sits in the massive couch in front of a gas

fireplace and squirms, leaning forward slightly as though she


might stand back up any moment. She rubs her gloved hands and

stares at them, waiting for her Mom to start the conversation.

“Well? How is writing? What’s your newest project?”

“Uh…well, I only have one project going. It’s good. I’m

about half-way done.”

“What’s it about?”

“A guy.”

“Oh. What does he do?”

Adrienne frowns. “I don’t know. Guy-ish things.”

“Oh, come on Adrienne, I really want to know!”

“And I really don’t want to talk about it.” She clears her

throat and doesn’t look at her Mom. “Who else is coming

tonight?”

Her Mom shifts in her seat and looks away from her,

pressing her lips together. “Randy and Carol and some

neighbors.”

“Is Dad coming?”

“No. He can’t make it; he’s on another business trip. He

can’t be here for Christmas this time. He sends his love.

He’ll be really sorry he missed you.”

Sure, Adrienne thinks, but only nods. Soon people begin to

drift in and Adrienne moves away toward the kitchen, relieved

that her Mom doesn’t try to make her talk. She stands by a bowl

of pistachios on the counter, cracking them, eating them,


brushing the shells off the counter into a small trashcan. Once

the group begins to move towards her, she slips around them and

runs upstairs, hugging her black jacket closely around her. She

feels perspiration building behind her neck and on her back, but

she won’t take the jacket off. She feels more secure with it.

Adrienne can still taste salt and pistachios in her mouth.

She licks some salt remains from her lips as she moves down the

hall, keeps the lights off so as not to draw attention to

herself. Besides, she likes the quiet darkness. She wanders

down the dark hall, peeking into familiar rooms. She looks into

her own old room. She doesn’t know what to expect, but part of

her hopes it hasn’t changed.

It has. The bed is moved to another part of the room, her

posters and pictures are either removed or adjusted, the desk is

empty but for a lamp, and all her old stuffed animals are gone.

The curtains are new, the carpet is new, the wall color is new.

It looks like it’s been arranged as an extra guest bedroom.

Of course, she knows she removed everything when she moved

out. But she wishes something were the same. Something to

remind her of who she had been. Not that she had been much

better before. She steps inside and touches the old desk, the

one she used to write her stories on.

That strange tremor jars her frame. She swivels around.


She half expects to see a phantom there, preparing to drive

a knife in her back. No…that wasn’t it. Not a criminal.

Something worse. She expected to see a little girl, in the same

crooked pink plaid dress she always wore, her brown hair cut

shoulder-length. Looking at her with big, haunting brown eyes

in the small white face. “They’re killing me,” she would say,

looking at her in fear instead of the usual trust. “You’re

killing me too! Go away from me, you’re scaring me!”

But there isn’t anything there but the room and her.

“Why?” Adrienne whispers aloud, her voice catching in her

throat. “Why that? What was I thinking? Of course no one’s

here!” The room is dark, and no one stands there. But she can

see it now—behind the closet doors, under the bed, moving the

curtains. There had to be something here. And if there isn’t,

her mind will conjure something up to jump out at her…

And for her, it really would be there. No one else could

see it. But she could.

She backs away to the door. Scared of it. Somehow feeling

like memories everywhere in here are trying to crowd in. Trying

to get her… She gets into the hallway and slams the door shut

behind her, leaning against it and closing her eyes with a sigh

of relief.

“There you are,” says a voice from down the hall. “Mom

said she thought she saw you slip up here.”


“Um, yeah.” She steps away from the door, sticking her

hands in her jacket pockets, feeling guilty. “Yeah, hi Randy.

How are you?”

Clean-shaven Randy in a clean-pressed suit crosses his arms

and raises his eyebrows at his little sister. “Good. But I want

to know how you’re doing. Mom sounded concerned when she said

you came up here. I hope you’ve been nice to her.”

“Oh, I’ve been nice…yeah…well…”

“Oh come on, Adrienne!” He slams his foot on the floor and

Adrienne jumps. “Grow up, will you? Show some respect for her.

She’s missed you.”

“What about me does she miss?” Adrienne raises her head in

defiance. “Does she miss the girl I was? You know what kind of

person I was growing up. No, I know she doesn’t. Tell me the

truth, what about me does she miss?”

“She misses the girl you could be.”

“What, she doesn’t appreciate me for who I am?”

“Do you?” Randy raises his eyebrows and Adrienne presses

her lips together. Randy sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I just

want to bring us all back together and…well…”

“…And I’m making things difficult.”

“Yeah, a little bit. Hey, why don’t you come on down and

say hi to everyone?”

“I don’t know any of them.”


“I’ll introduce you. They all want to meet you.”

“As the girl who went crazy? That’s it, isn’t it?”

“As Colleen Rhodes’ daughter, that’s who they want to

meet.” Randy’s face takes on a look of irritation, and Adrienne

lowers her gaze. That old quailing in her stomach starts back

up.

Randy sighs. “Can’t you put everything else behind you, if

just for tonight?” He asks. “Can’t you give them that much?

Give Mom that much?”

“I don’t know how.”

“Sure you do. You may need to warm up a bit, but you

should give it a try. I’ve seen the other side of you.

Remember it? The friendly, perky side? You should be able to

make friends easily if you tried.” Randy looks at her.

Adrienne keeps her eyes trained on his black shoes.

Randy shakes his head. “I don’t understand why you don’t

try anymore. You’re in a total withdraw. You haven’t done much

of anything that you used to love. Besides writing.”

Adrienne looks up at him sharply at the tone he used when

he said “writing.” “What; do you not like my writing?”

“No, I do!” Randy holds up his hands in surrender. “The

story you sent me is good. You’ve got a talent. But there

comes a point where secluding yourself the way you do will wear

you down. You’re here to show these people who you really are.


To give Mom someone to be proud of. It will really help you.

And all the rest of us.”

Adrienne refuses to respond. Randy looks into her averted

face.

“Come on down and see Carol. She’s been asking about you.

She hasn’t really seen you since you were our bridesmaid.

Please. If anything, do this for her.”

Adrienne crosses her arms, uncrosses them, reaches up to

touch her hair and adjust it in place, and crosses her arms

again. Restless. She glances past Randy and sees Nathaniel,

looking at her pleadingly behind him. He disappears.

“For you,” she whispers. “I’ll do it for you.”

She doesn’t know which of them she means.


8

Adrienne doesn’t bother to remove her coat and boots at

home. She drops a small collection of Christmas presents onto

the coffee table and lies down on the sofa, propping her feet

up. Melting snow and mud drip off her boots and soak into the

couch armrest. Adrienne doesn’t care.

“How did it go?” asks Nathaniel, seated on the sofa next to

her.

“You saw the whole thing.” Adrienne rubs her eyes. “I’m

exhausted. How many hands did I shake? I lost count. I forgot

it took so much energy to be friendly.”

“You did pretty well.”

“Did I? I couldn’t tell.”


“Of course you could tell—you saw that smile your Mom gave

you the whole time.”

“Yeah…”

“You’re getting there. Eventually it’ll come more

naturally.”

“I looked awkward, didn’t I?”

“I can’t say. Probably. At least you started to get

comfortable toward the end.”

“Yeah, after I got used to the fact that I was actually

talking to real people.” Adrienne tugs her gloves off and

tosses them on the floor. “I had to shake all their hands and

make sure I could feel them; make sure they were all really

there. It’s creepy, you know—doubting their reality. I never

have before.”

“You haven’t?”

Adrienne crosses her arms across her jacket and doesn’t

respond. She jolts in surprise when Nathaniel begins

verbalizing her thoughts.

“Yes, you have. Every single person who tried to be nice

to you in high school, remember? You shrank away from

everyone.”

“Shut up, Nathaniel—that’s just because I was shy, not

because I didn’t think they were real.”

“Really? You wondered about Owen Greene.”


Adrienne looks over at Nathaniel, a dark shadow in the dim

room. A bit of blue light comes in from the moon through the

window and outlines the man’s relaxed position. Sometimes she

loved the guy; sometimes she wished he’d shut up and leave her

alone. “I did not wonder about Owen! Everyone else confirmed

that he was there, they all knew him.”

“Interesting, isn’t it? This time, they all knew him and

you never did.”

“Of course I knew him! We were dating!”

“Uh-huh. And did he really turn out to be the person you

thought he was? Did you really know him?”

“Go away. Stop it. Shut up.”

“Calm down. You imagined Owen, too. You know it.”

“I don’t want to talk about Owen Greene.”

“It’s not my fault you’re thinking about him.”

“Quit saying it out loud.”

“No one else can hear. You’re the only one who has to hear

it anyway. You made him up, Adrienne. You coated his rough

spots with excuses. And what happened? The sugar coating wore

off, right? Everything you feared about him turned out to be

true, didn’t it? And tell me, did it really surprise you?”

Adrienne sniffs and crosses her arms, staring up at the

dark ceiling. “I wish you didn’t always have to do this,

Nathaniel. No. It didn’t surprise me. But somehow it still


left me reeling. I guess I thought that what I did see would

stay dormant or something. Look, I don’t want to talk about it

anymore. I haven’t heard from Owen since he quit talking to me,

and I don’t want to bring him back to mind. I’m tired, go

away.”

She sits in silence for a few moments.

“Merry Christmas,” Nathaniel mutters. Adrienne looks over

later to find Nathaniel has left. Finally. She closes her

eyes, and all the exhaustion and emotion that built up over the

day crashed down on her. She chokes on emotions as she falls

asleep.

---

Adrienne sits up, startled. She had slept the entire night

on the couch, in her coat and boots. And what had she been

dreaming? Or was it a dream? Was the entire party last night a

dream? It seems surreal now that she’s back in her apartment

where she’s comfortable.

Maybe it never happened. Maybe she can move on and pretend

like it never happened.

Pretend, pretend. Isn’t that the story of her life?

She sits up and pauses, slowly remembering where that pile

of presents on her coffee table came from. She got small

wrapped gifts the night before from her Mom, Randy, Carol, and

one of her Mom’s elderly neighbors who didn’t even think she’d


be there. She opens them slowly, one at a time, and sets them

on the table. They’re small. A homemade knit scarf, a couple

round tree ornaments, a little wooden plaque that says Live,

Laugh and Love. She doesn’t know how she’ll use them or where

she’ll put them, but somehow they make her feel good, just

seeing them sit there on her coffee table.

Nathaniel doesn’t appear for most of the day. After

changing into something more comfortable than her coat and boots

and deciding to put off doing the dishes again, she jogs in

place and rubs her hands together. She wished that the heat in

the apartment would kick in sooner as she tried to think through

a big “bang” for the end of a tense, emotion-racked chapter.

“Where have you been?” she asks Nathaniel as he appears,

reclined in the rocking chair. He had a large open book in his

lap and a pair of reading glasses on his nose. Adrienne didn’t

realize that he wore glasses. It gave the gangly man an

intellectual look, and she didn’t think she liked it.

“You’ve been busy thinking about last night,” he said, not

looking at her. “You didn’t need me.”

“Oh. Sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“I don’t mind. I thought it’s what you wanted. It’s

certainly what I wanted.”

Adrienne ignores that. “Okay, help me with this chapter.

I think I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. What do you think?”


He looks up at her over his book. “If you’re on the verge

of a breakthrough, write it. Go ahead. You don’t really need

me.”

“No, I need you to stand there and make sarcastic remarks

and tell me not to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because then I’ll probably do it.”

“You should be able to write without me yelling at you.

Millions of others writers have survived without me.”

“But I’m not millions of other writers.”

Nathaniel disappears. “Wait a minute,” Adrienne says,

stopping her jogging. “Where did you go? You’re not supposed

to leave yet! You haven’t helped out at all!” She turns

around, looks for him to appear somewhere. He doesn’t. She

sighs in exasperation. “Why do I have to put up with these

things?” She mutters, rolling her chair back in front of the

computer screen. “He’s like a toddler sometimes.”

“I’ve been thinking about last night,” she mutters to

herself. “A bit too much. Nathaniel would ask what about last

night. Wouldn’t you?” She raises her voice and snaps at the

empty room. “Then he wouldn’t wait for me to answer. Because I

wouldn’t answer. And then he’d tell me what I’m thinking

about.”


She snorts and grins to herself. “I’m so clever.” She

drums her fingers on the keys twice, lightly, not actually

selecting keys. “I’m thinking about that cute guy, Nathaniel,

since you’re so curious. My Mom’s neighbor. I’m thinking about

how I might actually break away from here. Meet someone

sometime. Start a life apart from writing and you.” She pauses

for just a few seconds, watching the blinking insertion point.

Then she begins.

And she writes the best scene she has ever written. The

manuscript reaches page 400 and beyond. She leans back with a

short sigh of relief, stares at her work, her bright brown eyes

dance. The whole time she wrote, she could feel the emotions

play across the pages, smell the very room they were in, felt

rather than wrote or heard the conversations. The story became

real and genuine in the midst of fiction and pretending. She

smiles.

“I can do this,” she whispers. She sits back, smiles, and

twirls the chair about to face the other direction. She twists

her mouth into a smirk at Hans Guryev’s pallid, harsh face. “I

can do this,” she says. “I can do it by myself. I don’t need

you. Or Nathaniel. I don’t need any of them!”

And for one second, they all crowd into the room.

Everything appears and dances across her view. Hans Guryev

stands in the middle, hands behind his back, his face placid and


unreadable. A couple dances, a family plays chess, a woman

washes her dishes, a man in a long black coat pounds on organ

keys. Nathaniel appears, grins proudly, and disappears.

There is only a faint movement in Hans’ face. His eyebrows

raise just slightly, sarcastically.

Adrienne wavers. What is he saying this time? Nice try,

little girl; so petty. Now go back and keep playing. Keep

pretending.

Only then does he disappear.

And for a moment, the house is empty.

Completely empty.

For once, there is absolutely no one there.

Adrienne stops short, a gasp catches in her throat. Wait.

Did she do it? Are they gone forever? Her eyes widen in fear.

She didn’t mean for that to happen. She didn’t want this for

Christmas.

She still needed Nathaniel. He was the only one who cared

enough to help. She wanted him back—in all his gangly build,

spectacles, and blunt brutality.

She stands and yells. She doesn’t know what she yelled.

Something took hold of her. Panic grips her.

“What did you bring me back for?!” Nathaniel’s voice

exclaims behind her.


Relief and regret rack her frame. She closes her eyes.

Her throat tightens, and she tries to keep from crying as she

realizes it. She does need someone. And until she finds that

person, she can’t survive without the ghosts. Not anymore. Not

even for a second. She hides her face behind her hands.


9

Earlier in the morning, Adrienne decided to make it like

any other day. The fact that she replaced her old calendar with

a new didn’t break her flow. But it didn’t begin like any other

day. Because today, Adrienne had scrambled eggs and bagels

instead of cereal. She had a strange craving for something

other than Cheerios. Nathaniel agreed that her choice in

breakfast was much improved.

After breakfast, Adrienne brushes her hair and looks at

herself in the mirror for a full minute, turning her head from

side-to-side. Maybe it was vanity, but she really didn’t find

herself all that attractive. She put on a pair of nice jeans

instead of sweats with worn knees. She opens the blinds and

lets in more light than normal.


But even the extra light fails to show her the real state

of the room. The dejected chores, piling dishes, laundry, trash

and mail. The mingling words on the wall; blending in a

complete state of confusion trying to make sense of itself. A

reflection of her complete lack of motivation and excess

confusion.

Then, finally satisfied, she sits in front of her computer

screen. And instead of spending ten minutes considering what to

write, she begins immediately. She had it all planned out over

the hour she spent getting to sleep, the hour she spent before

getting out of bed, and the hour of coffee and breakfast.

“Perky today,” Nathaniel remarks.

“I suppose so,” she mutters, only half listening to him,

her fingers beating a steady and fast rhythm on the keyboard.

Nathaniel is silent and she supposes he has left, but she

doesn’t look to find out. She is again submerged in her world

of characters, emotion, drama and storyline twists. And it’s

good. As soon as she leans back and gives a contented sigh, the

phone rings. Adrienne scrambles to answer it, eager to tell her

agent about how far her story’s progressed…

“Hello?”

“Hey—is this Adrienne?”

“Yeah.”

“This is Randy.”


“Oh! Hi Randy.”

“Hi. You need to come up to the house immediately.”

She frowns. “Why?” She paid her visit to the house last

Christmas Eve. That box was checked for at least another month.

“Just come on up. Mom’s house. When she didn’t answer the

phone last night or this morning I got worried…”

Adrienne stands, her chair falls backwards with a loud

clatter. She knows the tone of voice Randy is using. She feels

like she swallowed a rock.

“What happened?” She doesn’t really want to know. She

wants to hang up and pretend like nothing could ever happen.

Disappear in her little story world again.

“She passed away sometime yesterday afternoon. I need you

to come down here.” He pauses. “Adrienne, please. She was

your Mom too.”

He makes a strange noise on the other end that she can’t

identify. Adrienne knows that he is trying to hold back his

feelings about it too. It takes her several minutes, but she

whispers, “Okay. I’m coming.”

She hangs up, mechanically sets her chair upright, and sits

back down. The story doesn’t appeal so much anymore. But she

puts her fingers on the keys and closes her eyes.

She can feel the pulsing under her fingertips. An urge.

An urge to write. She does. She writes, and writes, and can’t


stop. Her fingers move, she keeps her eyes closed, she knows

the keys. She doesn’t know what she’s writing or has written

when she opens her eyes, but something about it makes her feel

better. Makes her feel organized. Organized in a chaotic,

jumbled world where nothing could be predicted or patterned.

Her head throbs with a dull pain. She presses the large X

in the corner of her screen, and the document disappears. Her

home screen background is no longer her cat. It’s an old

picture she found and scanned. It’s her family. Her Dad.

Randy. Her. Her Mom. Why did she put that one up?

She drops her head on the desk. It takes her several

minutes to cry. But when she does she can’t stop. She bangs

her fist on the desk and sobs in loud, racking heaves. “Why?”

she sniffs once she’s calmed down. “Why now? I didn’t get a

chance to say good-bye! To tell her I was sorry, that I really

do love her…!” She leans back and presses her hands to her

eyes, taking deep shaky breaths.

“Go away, Nathaniel!” she yells without looking at him.

“Just go away! Leave me alone! I don’t need you anymore. I

hate you.” She slams her fists down on the desk and swears.

Nathaniel looks at her. His face is contorted and his eyes

are red. He’s been crying too.

He doesn’t say anything as Adrienne takes deep breaths and

tries to keep under control while fresh, hot tears fall. Her


lip quivers and she rubs away a few more tears. Her voice sinks

to a whisper and she says, “It’s New Years’ Day. I never

checked on her after the party. Never thanked her. Now here I

am. This is a story I can’t go back and edit to go the way I

want. I really blew it this time!”

She looks away from Nathaniel as she stands and grabs her

coat and boots. She doesn’t look at him at all as she buttons

the coat and ties her boot laces. She stands and gasps as she

runs into Hans Guryev.

He looks at her. She looks back and can’t hold in the

fear.

“What do you want me to do this time?” She yells at the

apparition. “What is that look? You’re daring me to do

something. What is it?”

He just looks at her. In the way they all seem to love

looking at her. Only this one, Hans, always has a dare behind

his dark grey eyes under the tight folds of skin.

Then his face warps. The cheek bones jut outward, his skin

melts away, his eyes harden and glitter, and it’s a skeleton

monster gazing at her. Adrienne gasps and stumbles backward,

grabbing at the wall for support. And the monster has

disappeared.


Adrienne runs past and out the door. She slides into the

driver’s seat of her Volvo and tries to put her keys in the

ignition, but her hands begin to shake too violently.

“Stop this!” she whispers at herself, taking deep, shaky

breaths. She looks up through her windshield. Hans, looking

normal once again, is standing right in front of the car.

Looking at her.

That’s a smirk. She swears it is, creasing his mouth and

cheek, barely noticeable.

She looks down, away from Han’s face. Fear and questions

cloud her thoughts. Why is he showing up so close now? Is she

doing something he wants?

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches a glimpse of the

little silver necklace her mom gave her years ago. The silver

heart glints up at her from where she left it among sticky cup

holder pennies on Christmas Eve. Somehow, it calms her. She

sniffs, lifts it from the cup holder, and attaches it around her

neck. A lump rises in her throat and she tries to choke it

back.

She puts the car into gear and backs away. Wondering if

she should. Hans disappears in a swirling wave of grey dust.

It wasn’t until she was away from her home and Han’s gaze that

she noticed how hard her heart had been beating.

---


Neighbors she only remembers from Christmas Eve hug each

other, hiding a few stray tears as they talk in her Mom’s living

room. So many people in her Mom’s house. In her house.

Intruders who really can’t understand or feel what she feels.

Adrienne disappears into her old bedroom, closes the door

and sits against it. The way she used to. She soon hears them

coming up the stairs, their words morphing into one hum. As

they get closer, she opens the door and bolts through them,

pushing past inquisitive stares, questions, and elderly ladies

attempting to calm her down. She thumps down the stairs and out

onto the porch, sweeping snow off of the swing and sitting on

it, rocking softly in the sudden silence. She closes her eyes

and listens. The chair creaks the way it always did. But the

snow has muffled all the other sounds she used to hear. The

grass rustling, the vines creeping up one balcony post, the

birds, the wind. Often, when she would come out at night, she

would hear crickets.

During her high school years, she would sometimes hear the

voice of Owen Greene. Just talking.

And, when she was about five, she used to hear a different

voice. A little girl’s voice, talking as they sat side-by-side.

She would swing her short, stubby legs with the frilly white

socks and cute little black shoes. Adrienne had seen a doll


wearing shoes just like them before, and used to love watching

them on this little girl’s feet.

Adrienne sighs, keeping her eyes closed. Lucy had been her

best friend. The girl did things she liked to do. She always

wore a cute pink plaid dress that drooped to one side, she owned

dolls like hers and played the way she liked.

Then they got in a fight. Adrienne had a fever, and was in

bed after school. Both girls were in Adrienne’s room, which at

the time had walls painted a frilly pink and contained an

overpopulation of stuffed animals. Lucy stood there in the

middle of the room and stared ahead at the wall behind Adrienne.

Her eyes were glazed and she rocked slightly, as though in a

daze.

She never blinked. Adrienne screamed at Lucy, who stood

and absorbed the toys thrown at her. Stuffed animals went right

through the apparition and landed on the other side. And Lucy

never moved. Her head slumped to the side at the same angle as

the pink plaid dress. Her glazed eyes didn’t move. Sometimes

she was there, and sometimes Adrienne would blink and she wasn’t

there. But still sort-of-there.

Adrienne screamed, her face red with anger. But the girl

knew she wasn’t really mad at her best friend. She screamed

more because, despite herself, she was suddenly afraid of Lucy.


Adrienne’s mom rushed in at the noises. The girl kept

throwing things at Lucy, screaming “Lucy won’t play with me!

Lucy won’t do anything!”

“Honey, it’s okay!” Her Mom sat next to her and pulled her

into her lap, trying to calm the screaming girl. “It’s okay,

honey, Lucy’s probably at school, she’ll play with you when you

go back.” She rocked Adrienne, pressing her head to her chest

and smoothing the rumpled brown hair. The little girl sniffed,

looking askance at Lucy, still standing there.

“No, mommy, Lucy’s right there.” She pointed.

And that was the beginning of it.

Adrienne, back on the porch at age twenty, sniffs again and

opens her eyes, looking ahead at the bleak white front yard.

Wishing for springtime. Winter is so dull. She closes her eyes

again. Lucy had stood there in that yard one morning, sixteen

years ago, and stared at 5-year-old Adrienne. Adrienne had

stuffed her dratted white pill deep in her pocket that morning

instead of swallowing it.

“I don’t see you anymore,” Adrienne complained to Lucy.

“They’re killing me,” Lucy said. Her eyes were wide in

fear as she looked at Adrienne. It hurt seeing the big, brown

eyes that were usually filled with playful trust. Lucy shook

her head. “You’re killing me too.”


“I’m not trying to!” Adrienne yelled. “I don’t know what’s

happening!”

“Get away from me!” Lucy yelled. “Get away, get away!”

“But why?” Adrienne’s lip quivered.

“Because you’re not my friend anymore!”

You’re not my friend anymore. You’re not my friend

anymore. Adrienne opens her eyes again. Lucy had told her in

childish simplicity that the pills were helping. They were

helping her get rid of pretend friends.

“It was their fault,” Adrienne whispers. She remembers

that once her Mom knelt down to her level and told her bluntly

that Lucy wasn’t really there, and to stop pretending.

But Adrienne wasn’t pretending. Lucy was the one

pretending to be there all along. Adrienne looked up from the

ground, twisting the hem of her shirt in one fist. “Maybe I’m

not here either,” she said. “And maybe you’re pretending.” Her

mom tried and tried, but it wasn’t until Lucy made clear that

she would never return that Adrienne submitted fully to the

giant white pills.

And she took them steadily and with a passion the next

sixteen years. Forgetting Lucy.

Until now.


Footsteps thump the boards next to her and Randy is

standing above her, brushing snow off the swing for himself to

sit.

They are silent, which is how they both would prefer it.

Their eyes are rimmed red, their faces solemn. The swing creaks

on its chains as it rocks back and forth.

Finally Randy pats her on the shoulder, leans down to look

into her averted face, and says, “Don’t disappear on us again.

Please. This is when we’ll need you most.”

Adrienne doesn’t answer as he stands.

“I’m guessing you would prefer that I call and tell Dad?

Or would you like to?”

She shakes her head. Randy sighs. “Just don’t disappear

again.” And he turns into the house.

Adrienne doesn’t know if her nose is running from the cold

or from crying. She goes home shortly after. She parks her

Volvo, locks it, hurries into her apartment and shuts, locks,

and bolts her door.

She turns to the empty, dark room and stands there for a

few minutes. Then she walks about, straightening pillows and

moving things to their rightful spots. She stands in front of

the sink and washes all the dishes that have piled up, cleans

off the counter, and makes her bed.


She does anything to keep from thinking too much. She

doesn’t want to write just yet. It hurts too much. When she

works she can think of anything, and yet nothing. It feels good

to be numbed. If she tries to write, thoughts will become more

alive. And she will have only one thought. She wants to stop

thinking.

She wants to disappear. Somewhere; the way Nathaniel

always does.

She forgot to turn on the heat in her apartment that night.

She pulled a blanket around her shoulders and hunched in front

of her laptop. Adrienne stays up late, writing. She can’t stop

her cold, numb fingers from dancing over those black keys. She

writes and writes until her eyes droop shut and her head rests

on the old hickory desk.

She dreams of her Mom’s strangely wrinkled face meeting her

at the door on Christmas Eve. She dreams of the pleading voice

mail messages she deleted. Of the days she ran past as her Mom

asked about her. The days she avoided, hid, lied. And she

dreams of the dark and dismal chapter she composed before she

fell asleep, hidden among patterns of words and phrases written

in delirium.


10

“You’re doing it again.”

“I will do as I please.”

“Yeah? You sure do. And how has that worked out for you?”

Adrienne closes her mouth tightly, fingers resting rigid

and unmoving on the keys.

“Snap out of this,” Nathaniel says in a cold, rigid tone

that Adrienne has never heard him use before. “You disappeared

again. It’s been a month since your mom passed away. You’ve

hardly left this place. Grow up. Move on. Respond to your

Dad’s calls. Now is when he needs you back.”

“It still hurts.”

“Sometimes things hurt. Welcome to earth. Listen to me,

Adrienne.” Nathaniel’s voice drops to a near whisper. “Go back

to your family.”


“I can’t. I have to finish this book. Maybe then I can

move on.”

“You don’t have to finish the book to get rid of us. It’s

all in your will. Besides, you’ll have to kill some of us off

to get rid of us.”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“Adrienne,” Nathaniel groaned her name, “for the love of

everything you are, don’t do it. You won’t just be killing a

fictional character in a story, you’ll be killing me.”

“You are a fictional character in a story.”

“I am a part of you.”

“You’re something I fabricated during a time of

depression.”

“And killing me off is supposed to make that all better?

Do you realize what that’ll do to you?”

“You merely represent my conscience, Nathaniel. I will

still have a conscience; I’m not hurting myself in that way.”

Nathaniel leans forward against the desk Adrienne is

sitting at and he flicks his glasses off his face, pointing them

at her. “Yes. But with every time you have ever lied or

cheated or did anything that you knew was wrong, it hurt your

conscience. You will slowly accept things that were wrong

before. You’ll become desensitized. Or you could come out

stronger for it. It all depends on you, and what you decide to


do about your faults. But the way you’ve been acting, I’m not

certain it will do you any good. It could slowly seep away your

humanity and innocence. You can’t just get rid of me like that.

I am too real to you. Kill me and you will become a murderer.

It won’t change your situation—and if it does, not for the

better.” Nathaniel sits back on the rocking chair with a bump,

setting his glasses back on his nose and watching her through

them.

“Nathaniel.” Adrienne pulls her hands off the keys and

leans back in the swivel chair. “There comes a point where

things just wear you down.”

“It’s your fault,” Nathaniel pointed out.

“It’s their fault,” Adrienne snapped.

“Your family was trying to help you. All those therapies,

the grueling questions, the strange looks and the treatments—it

was all there to help you. You have a better option than

murdering your characters. Your family is open to loving you—

why don’t you just accept it? Why do you cling to all your old

grudges? They’ve forgiven you and are ready to take you back!”

“Don’t you remember that every time my Dad came home, for

that one week a month he was home, he couldn’t simply love me?”

Adrienne slapped the top of her desk, and the sound reverberated

through the room. “Whenever he was around, he would drill me.

He would ask if I had given up my little game yet, if I’d grown


up yet. He wasted so much time focused on it that he never

bothered to realize that I just needed a Dad.”

“He was human too. Who’s the childish one not forgiving

him? He loved you. He wanted to help you. He just couldn’t

express his love the way you needed.”

Adrienne snorts. “Oh, so he thought that grinding me night

and day and yelling and telling me to grow up was an expression

of love? You’re saying I should just make excuses for that

behavior, put a mask on him too, turn him into a fantasy?”

“You know that’s not what I mean.” Nathaniel’s spectacled

gaze doesn’t break.

Adrienne shakes her head, refusing to look at him. “That

behavior was inexcusable. Do you want to know why I pretend

things? Now I think I know why. It’s because the truth hurts.

And this is one huge truth that hasn’t stopped hurting, and

there’s no way to cover it up.”

Nathaniel doesn’t respond. He sits there and watches her

intently. Adrienne grabs a Kleenex and presses it to her face,

trying not to cry again. She doesn’t have all the answers.

Nathaniel can’t answer everything for her. She has to get rid

of him. Maybe if she can get rid of the world that she created,

then she can move on and make a new, real life for herself. Get

a new job, meet new people, and make a whole new life. Maybe


even get married. Not return to the life she couldn’t forgive,

not return to the one she created in her head.

She thought that Nathaniel would be happier with her for

this new decision. He wasn’t happy. She couldn’t figure out

what was right and wrong, what he wanted her to do. She

couldn’t figure anything out.

Life was so complicated. But she had always been told to

take a shot at it. To go for it, to try, because life was so

short. Nathaniel wouldn’t really go away, would he? She had

tried to get rid of him before. He always came back. And if he

actually did go away, would she be able to handle it? Would she

cry over it?

Adrienne clenches her fists. What are a few tears compared

to this mess she could escape?

She hears movement in the other room. She stands and looks

in. Nathaniel is in there, packing things she had never seen

before in a suitcase she didn’t recognize. “I’m leaving you,

Adrienne!” he calls out without looking at her.

She crosses her arms and leans against the doorway. “Where

are you going?”

“I’m going away.” He turns and looks at her. “Just like

you wanted, right?”

Adrienne doesn’t respond. Nathaniel presses his lips in a

thin line, turns back around and zips his suitcase shut. He


pulls a stiff plaid beret onto his head, which catches his hair

at the back and makes it stick up. Adrienne can’t help but

smile, just a little bit. Then she can’t prevent the lump that

forms in her throat.

Nathaniel walks past her on his way out the door, but stops

right next to her and looks down at her over his shoulder. As

if asking if she was going to change her mind. Adrienne

swallows back the lump.

Nathaniel gives her the look he always gives her. The one

that she always ignores. Whose look did she always listen to?

She looks up into the bedroom, that strange creeping feeling

going up her spine.

Hans Guryev. In the room, standing in the corner. He

smirks at her and disappears. She turns back around to

Nathaniel, and feels sick to her stomach.

“Yes,” Nathaniel says, answering the question she never

asked, and doesn’t want to ask. “You have been listening to

your own villain.”

“No.”

“You know you have. Everything that has happened is

because of him.”

“He hasn’t even said a word to me!”

“Do you think that hinders him? You know what he’s asking,

he hasn’t had to say anything in the form of Hans.”


“Who is he? Tell me. You know, don’t you?”

“I think you do too. I’ll let you figure that one out.”

“I don’t want to figure it out.”

Nathaniel snorts and looks away. “Then good luck.”

“I mean that I want you to figure it out for me. I don’t

really…” She chokes up and has to force the rest of her words.

“I don’t really want you to go.”

“You do. You think it’s best for you. So, here I go.” He

gives a decisive nod and shifts the shoulder that holds the

weight of the suitcase. “This is a really bad novel, Adrienne.”

“I’ll fix it.”

“You can’t. You’ve gone too far. And listen…” He twists

his mouth in thought and puts his glasses back on. “I don’t

really want to go either.”

“Then don’t.” She reaches out her hand to grab him, but

her hand goes right through his arm. She pulls her hand back

into a fist, gasping sharply. Nathaniel’s face doesn’t change.

“Bravo, Adrienne Rhodes.” He marches to the door, opens

it, and pauses, taking a deep breath. He closes it behind him

with a light click.

Adrienne stands for a moment, staring after the door. She

crosses her arms, squeezing them tightly. Something is

happening out there. She can feel it, and she can’t stand back


any more. She runs to the door, flinging it open as though

eager to see what was on the other side.

The porch, the driveway, her car, the neighbors, the snow—

for a moment they’re not there. Everything warps into a new

scene. Several new scenes. And it all rushes by, as though

she’s standing in front of a fast-moving train. It is a train,

only for a moment. She hears the conductor call, smells the

diesel smoke.

Her hair whips into her face in the rushing wind. She

clutches the doorframe, and excitement is all she can feel. She

can see a rocky seashore one moment, the dark golden dunes of

the Sahara desert another moment, an Indian jungle the next

moment.

She sees alleyways, the sun glinting off skyscraper

windows, mountain ranges, fantasy-like panoramas and tiny ice

particles melting off dark pine needles.

She blinks. The wind stops suddenly and everything outside

her front door returns to normal. Her car is back, the

neighbor’s house, the smell of snow, the scraping of a snow

shovel.

Adrienne lets go of the doorframe and stands up straight,

breathing hard. She realizes she had been leaning out of the

door, enthralled with whatever she saw, and forgot to breathe.

She hopes none of the neighbors saw her.


She turns and closes the apartment door, pressing her back

against the hard wood. She doesn’t know what any of that was or

what it meant. She doesn’t care if she ever figures it out.

Nathaniel is out there, in that rush of excitement, somewhere.

And she is home. For once, she is home alone.

Adrienne doesn’t know, standing there with her heart

banging in her chest, if it’s guilt she feels, or if she’s numb,

or if she’s sad, or…what.

Adrienne stands there for a long time.


11

Adrienne sits at an empty café table, staring out the

window at passing traffic and lights on the wet, slushy

pavement. She curls her fingers around a paper coffee cup,

creasing the paper, then loosening her grip again.

The job Adrienne wanted flunked. That was not how it was

supposed to go; this whole forming-a-new-life thing. She

doesn’t remember the world being like this. They hate her.

What did she do to make them so adverse to her? Nothing! She

was crammed up in her apartment every day, writing for an

overbearing agent hungry for the profit, talking to the air.

And for some reason, they hate her. Is it her personality, or

her crummy résumé? One irritant in the back of her mind is that

she doesn’t know who to blame. Herself, her interviewer, or the

fact that Hans Guryev stood behind the interviewer’s squeaky


leather swivel chair and smirked the whole time. He is sitting

in front of her right now. She can feel it; the tingle up and

down her spine. His presence darkens the area of the room in

the folds of his long black jacket. She doesn’t look at him.

She stares down at the floor instead, reverting to an old habit

and looking at the shoes of passers-by and diners. Tennis

shoes, heels, clogs, flip-flops, knee-high boots…

She got rid of Nathaniel before he, as the hero of her

story, could kill Hans. Or before he had a great moment of

triumph over Hans. The story is stuck in the darkest moment

without a hero. She can’t bring him back now to finish the

story.

Her agent is going to explode when she hears the story

she’s been promoting won’t be released. But Adrienne can’t

submit it. No one will want to read it. It isn’t going

anywhere, and it certainly hasn’t helped her at all.

Come to think of it, was she really writing the story for

her readers or for herself?

“Why did things keep going on like normal?” she whispers,

wishing for a pen and paper to scribble her thoughts. “I wish I

could pause time. Or at least the progression of life. Just

stop it all and insert a book, written and completed, into a

world that needs to read it…”


She reaches into her purse, and her finger jams something

that rattles. She picks it up and looks at it. They’re her

pills. She hasn’t had one in several weeks. Or has it been

months? They slipped her mind after a few mornings of ignoring

the little plastic container. She opens it up and peeks in.

Han’s stare intensifies. She can feel it. The tingling

down her spine becomes a cramp. Adrienne looks up at Hans, a

black mass across the café table, seeming to spread darkness

through the room from the folds of his black jacket.

Adrienne winces, shudders, and closes the lid on the large

white pills. She drops the container back into her purse,

reaching back in for what she really wants. A pen. She doesn’t

understand her sudden intense craving for a pen, but she doesn’t

question it either.

She picks it up and starts writing on the café napkins

provided on the table. Her pen tears through the thin paper,

but she doesn’t care. She keeps writing; her pen skids off onto

the table. Her mind runs. She only catches little doses of

what she’s writing. She feels like it all should come together

and make sense. There’s a pattern to the thoughts; the muddled,

jumbled mess in her head. It would be clear. Soon…somehow…

“Ma’am?” She starts and looks up into the face of a man

who, she realizes, has been tapping her gently. She takes

shuddery breaths, blinking hard.


What was she doing?

“Are you alright?” he asks, looking at her with concern.

“You’ve written all over the table!”

Adrienne shivers and slowly looks down at what she had been

doing. The marks from her ballpoint pen are all over the table,

bits of penned napkin scattered across the top. What had she

written? The words were everywhere—mingling into each other,

written up and down the table. Some of the words are definable,

but they make no sense and sentences are unfinished.

Mothers New Year… Nathaniel… actors on a sta--…get out…go

away…Making up your mind…I left nothing behin…All the world’s a

stage…Lucy…Pausing time…churning, burning, learning…Nathaniel’s

gone…

Adrienne gasps something unintelligible and stands, her

chair grating on the tile floor. What is this? She grabs the

napkin pieces, the tipped packets of sugar, salt and pepper, and

pushes them across the table as though trying to cover the

marks. Her hand is shaking too much. She knocks a plate on the

floor.

The man standing there shyly tries to calm her down,

placing an uncertain hand on her shoulder. Adrienne coils away

under the touch and he frowns, pulling his hand back. “Ma’am,

do you need help? Can I call someone for you?”


“No. No, I’m fine…” Adrienne grabs her purse, swivels

around, and runs out of the café. Once in her car she drops her

forehead on the wheel and takes long, gasping breaths, trying to

fight merging back sobs. Her hands tremble. What is wrong with

her? What happened in there? She’d never done that before…she

doesn’t think she has, anyway…not that she can remember…

That had to have been a dream. Everything had to be a

dream. Maybe Nathaniel and Hans are the reality. What was

reality anyway? Was that defined by something tangible, too?

Did everyone else have to confirm something for it to be

real? Do you have to see it, feel it, for it to be real? Does

it have to be true, or couldn’t she make it up? Couldn’t she

say that nothing ever happened in the café? That the interview

never happened?

But there are still pen parks on her hands. Adrienne looks

down at them, blinks hard, but the marks are still there. Is

this the dream; one big hallucination? Will she wake up soon?

Will she ever wake up?

She drives home distractedly. She nearly runs a red light

and misses multiple stop signs. She parks her car in her

driveway and bursts into tears that have come too easily the

last week. She rubs at her face, her cotton gloves rough

against her cheeks. She heaves and opens the door, the cold air

biting at her wet cheeks.


Once inside, she kicks her boots off and sends them across

the floor. Dirt and melting snow from the boots hit the wall

with sharp, gritty sounds. She flings her purse and car keys

onto the counter, crosses her arms, and stares into Han’s face.

The wrinkles in his skin are horrifically amplified by the

sallow color of his skin and the way the light falls across his

face. His eyes are shrouded in shadow, but the grey of his iris

pierce through the darkness and stare at her.

Adrienne steps past him, and with a few clicks of the mouse

her book is mounted on the screen. Still standing in her coat

and wet socks, she leans over the desk and scrolls up through

the document. She gives shaky sighs as she looks. Much of what

she’s written doesn’t make sense. They’re like the scribbles on

the table. She can’t remember having written any of it, and

only recognizes a few scenes that she must have written with a

clear mind on the dosage of a pill.

Adrienne scrambles into her chair, her fingers clamping

down on the keys, the jumbled words and phrases all crowding

into her mind. She had to get rid of them…No, she can’t, she

has to solve them. It’s a puzzle. Everything is one, big

puzzle, and there’s going to be one answer that will bring it

all together. There has to be.


But there is no way that she will be able to find it out.

The answer is too obscure. Too big. Too unreachable. She’ll

never find it. If there is one at all.

Hopeless. It’s all hopeless. There’s no truth. There’s

no reality. There aren’t any answers. She holds her throbbing

head in her hands, taking deep breaths, trying to calm down.

She closes her eyes, sits in the silence, lets her breathing

return to a steady pace. She opens her eyes and looks at the

page, slowly removes her coat and settles back in the desk

chair.

Adrienne highlights every single word, and has soon deleted

the entire manuscript. The word count shrinks to zero. The

page number goes from 679 to 0. Her work has been reduced to a

blank page 1 and a blinking black cursor, sitting expectantly.

She glances at the “undo” link. She could bring it all

back. It’s still there. …no. She cancels the program and

shuts off the computer. But it’s not satisfactory. All that

information is still there, somewhere in cyberspace; she can’t

get rid of it.

She turns to the sections of story she printed and tears

the pages to shreds. Every single one. She can feel Han’s

presence fade behind her. She did it. She got rid of him. She

brushes all the paper shreds into the trash bin beside her desk.


She won’t take it back. This time, she knows that this is

actually best for her. She isn’t lying to herself for once.

She sits down against the wall, picking up the cat and

curling her arms around him, stroking the greys and blacks and

whites that intermingle in its fur. She buries her face in the

softness.

She doesn’t know what she’s going to do. She doesn’t know

what she wants to do, and she doesn’t regret anything. Adrienne

doesn’t feel anything but the soft fur of the cat.

Then she hears it. The chuckle behind her. A deep chuckle

that doesn’t sound so much happy as victorious. And she knows

who it is. Her head starts to throb again and the hairs at the

back of her neck rise as she turns around and looks at Hans

Guryev. He is still here.

Somehow, she knew he would be. He was the great shadow

covering and obscuring the room. She knew it.

Adrienne drops the cat, stands, and turns around to look at

Hans. His smirk widens to a grin, revealing a display of grisly

dental issues that she hasn’t seen before. Adrienne winces and

backs away, daunted by the sudden change in her imaginary

villain.

“Go away!” She yells, waving her hand and backing into the

desk. “Go away! I’m telling you, you’d better get out of

here!”


“Or what?”

His first words. Adrienne stands transfixed by the man’s

deep voice. It’s an eerie deep. He cocks his head in question,

still smirking. “What are you going to do? Call the police?”

“Get out of here!”

“Why would I get out of here?” He advances a step and

Adrienne shudders, startled by the movement. He smiles again

and shows all his teeth. “I’ve won.”

“Won what? What’s there to win?”

He looks at her, in the way all her characters seem to

enjoy looking at her. As though to tell her something without

words. As though she’s supposed to figure it out.

Adrienne stomps her foot in frustration, still backed as

far away from Hans as she can. “I don’t know! For once, can’t

you see that I don’t know? I just don’t! Go away! Go away, go

away!”

“I defeated you. That’s what I won, Adrienne Rhodes. I

won the battle between you and me.”

“No, the battle was between you and Nathaniel.”

“Both of us inside of you.”

Adrienne shrinks away. His gaze makes her feel cold

inside. She scoots into the kitchen, grabbing a frying pan that

she points at Hans.


“Stay away. Stay away!” Her voice rises to a shriek as he

continues to advance. “What do you want with me? Why can’t you

just leave me alone?”

“No, no, Adrienne Rhodes, the question is what do you want

with me?”

“I don’t want you at all; shut up!”

“You got rid of everyone in your life.” He raises his

eyebrows. “Except me.” He leans forward and Adrienne angles

the frying pan higher at his chest. He smirks. “Why?”

“I did? I did…did I?” Adrienne backs into the counter and

holds the frying pan up higher. “Leave me alone. I didn’t mean

to.”

“You said you didn’t mean to get rid of Nathaniel Moore.

But you did. You know you meant to.”

“I wasn’t thinking!”

“Were you thinking when you scared Nathaniel away? Were

you thinking just now when you tried getting rid of that story?”

“I wasn’t trying to get rid of the story. I was trying to

get rid of you. You know what you’ve done, Hans Guryev, and I

don’t. I’m not going to let you stick around and gloat about

it.”

“And yet, here I am. You still don’t know who I am. So

here it is. This is what I’ve done to you, Adrienne Rhodes, and

I sure am going to stick around and gloat about it. I’ve


destroyed your family. I‘ve destroyed Nathaniel. I’ve

destroyed you. I’ve used up every resort you had until there

was nothing left. You’ve reached your limits; there’s nothing

you can destroy besides yourself. And now you’re here, at the

end of everything. You will never be rid of me.”

“No! No, go away!”

He continues to advance, right up to the front of

Adrienne’s frying pan. “I am going to follow you around the

rest of your life. You will try to run. But they will take you

back, Adrienne. You will go back to the therapies, the

questions, the looks, the whispers, the pills, the hate. Oh,”

he smirks wider and shakes his head condescendingly. “All that

hate.”

Adrienne backs out of the kitchen and into the living room,

running away from Hans, who continues to come forward.

“Come to think of it,” he said with a conversational air,

“you never really left that hate.”

“Oh, don’t act like Nathaniel—I don’t hate them!”

Hans snorts. “Then what do you call it? Love? No, that’s

not it. Indifference, perhaps?” He cocks his head. “What is

it you feel for your family? Resentment? Harboring old

grudges, are you?”

Adrienne heaves, tiring, backing further into the living

room. “I can get over it. I’ve still got a chance.”


Hans mocked a surprised expression. “Really? Because the

last time I looked you had no intention of taking that chance.

You were out of ideas. I had you checkmated.”

“Oh, go away! Please! I’ve got a chance, I know I do! I

have to believe it.”

Hans shakes his head. “You don’t believe it anymore.

That’s why we’re here. You and me.”

Adrienne’s hands begin to shake—both from the weight of the

frying pan and from her fear. “Who are you, anyway?” She asks

in a whisper. “Really?”

Hans places his hand on the top of the frying pan, and she

lowers it. He leans forward and looks in her face, that

incessant smirk still playing on his face. “I am everything you

have ever feared me to be.” He straightens. “Don’t tell me you

don’t know.”

“Nathaniel would know.”

“Perhaps. And Nathaniel could only know what you knew.”

“So why didn’t I know things before he did?”

“You did, Adrienne. You knew all along. The truths you

hid deep down. Nathaniel merely unburied them for you.”

Truths. Hans, the apparition, just said there were

actually truths. Adrienne hefts the frying pan in her hand,

still feeling safer with it angled at Hans. “What did he


unbury? Tell me. I have to know. He’s gone and I have to do

this on my own.”

“You’re right.” Hans smirked. “And we’ll see how long you

can handle it. You are in a total state of delirium, Adrienne.

Someone’s going to hear. You know it’s said that the very walls

have ears.”

“Tell me what I need to know, Hans!”

“Actually, your walls have more to say than to hear.” He

looks around. “Have you seen what you’ve done with your pen?”

Adrienne’s bangs stick to her forehead with the beads of

perspiration that have formed. She tries to blink the sweaty

strands of hair from her eyes, panicking. “Just tell me!”

“There’s not much you don’t already know. There were two

powerful things inside of you. Nathaniel embodied one. Your

conscience. And…well, perhaps something more even he didn’t

confess, but you must have known.”

“Was it…?”

“I think it’s love. You think so too. I? I embody your

hate.”

Adrienne shudders, still feeling cold inside. “So that’s

you as you stand here. But what about the Hans from my story?

Because that’s not how I made him. Hans Guryev didn’t run on

hate. There was some good in you; something else there, a

drive, a love, a…something. I know. I put it there.”


“Nathaniel was the only good. I was the great lie. There

was nothing about me that was good, nothing worth saving.” He

shakes his head. “There is nothing in you worth saving either.”

He comes a step closer. “Adrienne Rhodes, this is the end.”

Her lips tremble and she raises the frying pan again,

feeling safer with it pointed at Hans. The end of the frying

pan penetrates the chest of Han’s apparition, disappearing into

the black jacket and shirt. She stares at his cold, stone-grey

eyes, and her hands shake.

She can’t fight him off forever. When will this end?

“With the end of yourself,” Hans says, answering the

question she didn’t verbalize.

Her lips quiver. He wants her to see this as the end…the

depression, the anxiety, the medication. Something, a deep

darkness, settles over her mind and fogs her thoughts.

She closes her eyes, lowers the pan in her trembling hands,

almost lapses into one of her frenzies again. She wants to grab

a pen and write on the walls…

An opening in the fog. A thread in the curtain snaps;

light rends through. It’s as though someone rushed in and

inserted a thought, just in the nick of time.

Maybe Nathaniel did it. Adrienne doesn’t know. But there

it is.


A hope. Hope of a future that really is possible. She

just had to reach for it; to work towards it; to pray for it, to

accept the truth of it.

The truth.

Adrienne raises her eyebrows, slowly. Her face lifts and

she looks at Hans with a new intensity. And she utters one

word.

“Oh.”

Han’s face doesn’t move. Rather, it appears to freeze and

he grows rigid.

“Oh!” she says again, standing up straighter and lowering

the frying pan. “The great lie. That’s what you said!”

Hans’ face doesn’t change at all.

“I know how I created you as a fact, but you denied that

fact,” Adrienne exclaimed. Her eyes grow wider. “You said it

was a lie. You can lie. Hans Guryev, you can lie!” She utters

one loud laugh. “Nathaniel was part of my conscience and he

never could lie to me—that’s it!”

She holds up the frying pan, which had begun a descent to

the floor, and aims it at Hans Guryev. “You’re the hate. The

hate that Nathaniel kept warning me about. You play with my

conscience. You warp it. You told the lies. You are the lie.

Everything you’ve said is a great lie.”

“They’re the truth, Adrienne Rhodes.”


“That’s all you’ve got? You must be pretty desperate.

I’ve found you out, Hans Guryev. Nathaniel was right. He was

right the whole time.”

Adrienne drops the frying pan to the floor with a bang.

She raises her voice to a scream. “AND I AM NOT LISTENING TO

YOU EVER AGAIN!”

Hans Guryev stands for a few seconds, his grey eyes darting

back and forth. Staring. Daring her. Asking something.

Adrienne merely looks back. Refusing to fall ever again.

Han’s face warps the way it did once before. The skin

shrinks away and it’s a skeleton, a monster, with Han’s grey

eyes.

And Hans Guryev disappears in a cloud of grey dust—the dust

working up from his legs to his torso. His face remains, pallid

and harsh, until all that is left is the grey of his eyes. That

disappears in a burst of dust. And Hans Guryev is gone.

Adrienne knows it’s forever this time.

She stands in the room for a while, breathing hard. But

something is different now. Maybe it is the way the afternoon

light shines into the room, revealing the patterns of the dust

in the air and leaving warm square patches on the floor. Maybe

it’s the pen marks coating her walls. Maybe it’s the way she

clutched a little silver heart pendant around her neck. Maybe

it’s how empty the house is after so long.


But that’s not all. Somehow, something inside her is

different. Much, much different. Peaceful. Joyful. And she

knows that if it is to stay this way that she has to make it

stay. And to make it stay, she needed some changes. And to

make some changes, she needed her shoes.

Adrienne rushes into the kitchen and swallows a large white

pill with a large glass of water. As she rushes into the hall

to get her shoes, she stops short to stare at a picture frame on

the white-washed wall. It’s an old picture of a sandy beach

that she has had for years. But the two people in the picture

weren’t there before. She knows who they are. The man holds a

suitcase and wears a plaid beret, causing his hair to stick up

in the back. The chestnut-brown hair of the girl is

unmistakably Jayne Schleicher’s. Adrienne laughs. She can’t

help the sound or the tears that start behind her smile.

“I did it!” she exclaims to Nathaniel. She reaches to

touch the frame, affectionately. She smiles and her voice drops

to a whisper. “You were right. I listened! I listened,

Nathaniel! I’m never going back, and I’m actually moving

forward. Look at me! I’m different…!”

Nathaniel and Jayne walk off the edge of the picture frame

and disappear into the edge of the worn photograph. They never

looked at her, and Adrienne doesn’t look after them. She knows


they will all be all right now. She grabs her boots and car

keys and runs out the door.


12

Adrienne parks her car in the driveway, shuts off the

ignition and looks up at her Mom’s house. The Christmas lights

are gone. The windows are black. But she recognizes the old

Buick she parked beside. The house shouldn’t be empty.

She locks the car and steps onto the porch, peering into

the windows. It doesn’t look as cheerful inside as when her Mom

kept house. Three mornings worth of coffee mugs and several

nights worth of take-out pizza boxes sit on the table, the

decorations and tree and lights have all disappeared, things lie

about where they were dropped or knocked over.

She pauses on the porch, her boots deep in the accumulated

snow. Not sure if she’s ready to change everything, although

she knows she already has changed. Not sure if she’s ready for


her Dad’s response, not knowing what to expect. She only knows

what she hopes for.

Adrienne knocks on the door, softly, her hands hesitant.

She steps lightly from foot to foot, trying to keep warm, almost

hoping that her Dad isn’t home, hoping that he might be. She

glances at the wooden porch swing. The sun-and-wind beaten grey

color of the wood makes it look eerie and haunting. But also,

somehow, friendly.

The door opens. Adrienne looks up, and for a moment stares

at the strange face that meets hers. She knows the face. But

there’s something different about it. The creases are deeper.

The face is nearly as beaten and grey as the old swing.

Once, it did resemble Hans. But not anymore. There’s

something different there now. Something more worn and beat-

down than she remembers. The harsh, accusing look he used to

give is no more. It’s replaced by something aged, sedated, and

trodden. He leans on a wooden, glossy cane and stares at her in

return. Not believing, only hoping.

“Adrienne?”

“Hi, Dad.”

The old man stumbles forward with a sound that makes her

throat tighten to recognize as a sob. He takes her into a hug

she didn’t expect. His cane rattles to the ground. She holds

him tight in return. They stand there for a long time.


And for the first time in her life, Adrienne cries on her

Dad’s shoulder, tears soaking into his wool sweater. This is

what she needed.

And she knows that she’ll never go back.

That she won’t have to.

Documents

Listening to Nathaniel Elisabeth Newton · Newton-Listening to Nathaniel-2 1 For now, Adrienne scrawls the notes where they should have stayed. On a network of storyboard index cards