Juniper Wiles, page 16
“So who wrote the manuscript that Ethan had—and how did he even get a copy?”
“I have the only copy,” Emma says. “It’s on my hard drive, but I printed off a single copy.”
Emma gets up and goes into another room but she returns empty-handed.
She sighs as she sits down again. “The manuscript’s gone. I had a break-in a few months ago, but the security guards were quick to respond and scared them off. They took a few things. My tablet. Some jewellery. I never thought to check my file cabinet.”
“You said you had no interest in books like The Rising Dark,” I say. “So why did you write it?”
Emma’s eyes close for a moment and she takes a deep breath. “Shannon got cancer. It was terminal. We worked on the manuscript in the time she had left, as a way to be closer. She would come up with ideas, I’d put them into the story and then read it back to her. At that point, I didn’t care how outrageous her ideas were. I incorporated them as best I could into the story. I couldn’t deny her wish to express her creativity, or myself the opportunity to distract her from what was happening. The book was never going to be published anyway.”
She shakes her head. “I still can’t believe any of it is real.”
“I’m very sorry your daughter had such a short time with you,” Joe says, and the rest of us echo his condolences.
“As for what’s real,” he continues, “I could bring you to the other Crescent Beach and show you, but I couldn’t guarantee your safety. It’s pretty grim.”
“This is awful,” Emma says, her eyes glassy with tears. “I’m an awful person.”
“You had no idea,” I tell her. “None of us did. Well, except for Gabi.”
Emma can’t look at her.
For a long moment nobody speaks.
“Emma, where is Nora?” I ask finally.
“Nora?”
“Partway through the book she heads out to interview someone, then you switch to a third person point of view, and we never hear from her again. You end the book with the monsters winning.”
“That’s not the end of the book. I just didn’t finish it. I stopped when Shannon…when she died. I haven’t looked at it since. I couldn’t.”
“Of course not,” I say. “But you must have planned for Nora to go somewhere—to do something. What would that have been?”
“I don’t know. There was no plan. I don’t write with an outline or know what’s going to happen next until I write it. And as I told you, Shannon and I were working on it together. It’s not a story that I would have chosen to write.”
“Then you have to finish the book,” I tell her.
“I don’t think I can.”
“If you don’t,” Jilly says, “that other Crescent Beach will be completely overrun and the monsters will spread to other towns and cities. A lot of people are going to die and get hurt.”
“People?” Emma says. “They’re not real people. They’re characters in a book. It’s not like you’re talking about actual flesh and blood.”
Gabi stiffens. “So what does that make me?”
Emma shakes her head. “You’re asking me questions I can’t answer.”
“Then maybe you should start to try,” I say.
“I can’t.”
“Before you wrote that last book,” Gabi says, “my Crescent Beach was a good place to live. Sure, bad things happened, but they were human bad things. We could deal with them. We could prevail. But we can’t deal with Charlie Midnight and his monsters. You made this happen and now people are dying.”
Gabi’s eyes are filled with tears, but Emma keeps closing her own and shaking her head.
I can’t help feeling that, even given the circumstances, Emma needs to take responsibility for what she created. I know what I read, and it was gruesome.
I look at Joe. “Maybe you should take her there so that she can see what’s happening firsthand.”
“I don’t think it’ll help,” he says. “And even if she could finish the book and put a positive spin on how it all turns out, I don’t think it’s going to make any difference. Just looking at her, I can tell she doesn’t have the juice for that kind of mojo anymore.”
“Not enough mojo? She made this happen all on her own with an unpublished manuscript.”
Joe nods. “Yeah, but it wasn’t all on her own, and it was fuelled by the power of a mother’s love. By the bond she and her daughter had. There’s no medicine in this world or the next that can duplicate that.”
“So the other Crescent Beach goes down, and once the monsters have finished with that world, we could have Charlie Midnight clawing his way into this one.”
“Unless we find a way to beat him,” Joe says.
Jilly reaches out a hand and touches Emma’s knee.
“Did you make any notes?” she asks. “You say you stopped writing after Shannon passed, but there must have been times when you couldn’t get everything she was telling you into the actual text.”
“I don’t know,” Emma tells her. “I haven’t looked at those files for a couple of years now.”
“Why don’t we go have a look?” Jilly says. She picks up the copy of her new book, helps Emma stand, and they head back to wherever Emma was looking for the manuscript earlier.
Gabi has resumed looking out the window, shoulders sagging. I cross the room and put an arm around her.
“I didn’t think it would,” she says, “but that really hurts. She’s looking right at me and refuses to accept that I’m real. That I’m actually here.”
“I know,” I say. “Does it help that she’s wrong?”
“Is she?”
I squeeze Gabi’s shoulders. “She is as far as I’m concerned.”
“She is as far as anyone’s concerned,” Joe says from behind us. “I know spirits and phantoms, Gabi, and you’re a far cry from either. Trust me on this.”
She turns to look at him. “You don’t even know me.”
He touches the side of his nose with a finger. “If you weren’t real, you wouldn’t have a scent.”
“Hey, I had a shower this morning.”
He smiles. “I’m canid on my mother’s side. I’ve got their sense of smell.”
“Canid?” I ask.
“Dog clan.”
“Is that why Sonora and Bobo are always falling over themselves to get to you?”
He shrugs. “Like recognizes like. I’m corbae on my father’s side, but that doesn’t seem to bother them.”
“Is that a Kickaha thing?” I ask. “Tribal clans?”
“They’re literal. My old man was a crow, my mother a rez dog—not when I was being conceived, obviously.”
This is going in a whole new direction of weird. Luckily, Jilly and Emma return at that moment.
“Find anything?” Joe asks.
Jilly holds up a thumb drive. “Everything Emma had on the last book is here. We’ll look at it back home.”
Joe nods. “So we’re done here. That’s good. I don’t care for people who shirk all responsibility they have in hurting others.” He looks right at Emma as he speaks.
“It’s not all black and white,” Jilly says.
“In my world it is,” Joe replies. He puts a hand on my shoulder and beckons to Jilly. “Let’s go.”
Emma has a frightened look.
“Don’t mind him,” Jilly tells her. “He’s just being protective. I hope your granddaughter enjoys the book.”
Joe puts his other hand on Jilly’s shoulder but he’s looking at Emma.
“Jilly’s wrong,” he says. “You should mind me. You lost your daughter and I’m sorry about that. But a lot of other mothers are losing their daughters and sons, and that, lady, that’s on you.”
Then he steps us away.
I expect us to appear on the mesa top again, but from that one step in Emma’s condo Joe takes us right back to the greenhouse, where we startle Wendy with our sudden appearance.
“Gah!” she says as she jumps up and drops the pages she’s reading.
The dogs start to bark but stop when they realize it’s us.
Wendy puts a hand on her chest. “You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
Joe grins at her. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, you don’t look sorry at all.” Wendy turns to us. “Did you have any luck?”
“Not much, but maybe some,” I say.
Gabi and I bend down to help collect the pages. I’m not much use since Sonora throws herself at me and almost bowls me over. I end up sitting on the floor, the dog squirming happily in my lap, while Gabi does all the work.
“Turned out I was right that Emma wrote that manuscript,” I say, pointing over Sonora’s head at the pages on the floor. I proceed to give Wendy a brief rundown on the circumstances that led to drafting the novel.
“Wow, that’s harsh,” she says. “So is the story, at least what I’ve read of it.”
“Yeah,” I go on, “but what’s frustrating is that she’s not willing to help us by writing a better ending—and Joe says it probably wouldn’t help anyway since she’s lost her mojo—so that’s a dead end. But we got a thumb drive with any notes Emma had on the book. Maybe something on it will prove useful.”
Jilly is still cuddling on the floor with Bobo. Now she hands the thumb drive to the little dog. He takes it daintily in his teeth and brings it over to Wendy.
“What was she like?” Wendy asks as she accepts the drive.
“Emma?” Gabi says. “A sad coward and a—what ‘ist’ would you use for someone who doesn’t like a person just because they don’t have a conventional origin?”
“A birthist?” Jilly tries. “Though I didn’t get the sense that she didn’t like you. It was more that she just shut down and wasn’t willing to try to make anything better.”
“Right. She was pretty much a cowardly dick,” Gabi says.
Joe nods at the same time as Wendy says, “Well, that must have been disappointing.”
“It was a challenging day for Emma on several fronts,” Jilly says. “She’s been through a lot, but in the end, Gabi’s right. The humanitarian you sense in her books sure wasn’t showing her face today.”
“Your friend Cody,” I say to Joe. “He’s a bit of a dick, too. I mean, he helped us and everything, but he’s so full of himself.”
“That’s kind of a tradition with him,” Joe says.
“Sucky tradition.”
“No question. But it goes back a long way, through a lot of lives. A lot of stories.”
“I’ve never heard of him before.”
“You might know him better as Coyote,” Joe says.
“You mean those stories?”
Joe nods. I remember the second time we were on the mesa, when we took Emma there.
“So that dog we saw by the campfire when we went back…”
“Wasn’t a dog. It was a coyote. The Coyote.”
“He’s still kind of a dick,” I say.
Joe laughs. “I’ll be sure to tell him that.”
Wendy offers to go through the thumb drive after she finishes the book, so we agree to meet up again here tomorrow. We commandeer Geordie to drive Christy’s car out to Gabi’s motel so that we can grab her stuff. Everything fits into a duffel bag, which I find sad. Geordie drops us off at my house. Jilly holds Bobo’s paw up in a wave as they drive off.
“You did well for yourself,” Gabi says, admiring the building.
It’s one of those old brick Crowsea two-stories, the kind you used to see everywhere in the city, with a front and back yard, big oak trees on either side of the walk. A lot of them are being bought up and torn down for condos, but not in Lower Crowsea.
“It was my grandparents’ house,” I say. “Tam and I used to rent it out for the income, but when I came back it made more sense for both of us to live here since there’s no mortgage and my residual cheques are enough to cover expenses.”
She gives a little shake of her head. “I keep having to remind myself that you grew up here, not in Southern California.”
Like Nora did.
“Come on in,” I say. “We can make something for dinner and play catch up.”
I unclip Sonora and she runs to the door, then stands there on the porch with a what’s-taking-you-so-long look.
“I know everything’s new for you,” I tell Gabi, “but you’re not alone. I’ve had so much thrown at me this week it feels like I’m starting over, too.”
Gabi smiles, then asks, “Does Tam know about me?”
I shake my head. “And he doesn’t have to unless you tell him. Though I do have to warn you, he’s watched the show a lot.”
“Because big sis was in it?”
“That’s what he claims. But I think he got caught up in all the drama like the rest of our fans.”
She sighs.
“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “He texted me to let me know that he’s still hanging out with Lydia, this girl he reconnected with at FaerieFest. He won’t be back home until later tomorrow.”
8
Tuesday
I come down in the morning to find something different about Gabi, but I can’t put my finger on it. I think about it while I take Sonora out into the backyard. By the time she finishes her business I’ve figured it out. Most of Gabi’s piercings are gone—the lip ring, nose stud, earrings, eyebrow studs. All that’s left is the one in her right eyebrow and a couple of studs in her ears. She also had a go at my closet like I suggested, and instead of her usual black on black, she’s wearing blue jeans and a rose-toned cotton cardigan over a white tee. The spiky hair hasn’t changed.
“Coffee?” she asks.
“Please.”
I feed Sonora before I join Gabi at the table.
“Well, this is a new look,” I say.
She shifts self-consciously on the chair. “Are you sure it’s okay to borrow this stuff? Do I look dumb?”
“It’s all good. If I wasn’t afraid you’d whack me, I’d say it softens you—in a good way,” I add. “You still look strong.”
“But does it make me look less like a character from an episode of Nora Constantine?”
“It does. But that’s not a good reason to change things up.”
“I think it is. It’s past time I let go of Crescent Beach and the old Gabi. This world is my home now. For two years I’ve been skulking in the shadows, hanging on to the old Gabi. It was what kept me going while I looked for Nora and tried to stay off anybody’s radar. But now that I can stay with you, it’s like a weight has lifted and I get the chance to reinvent myself a little.”
“Just make sure you’re doing it for yourself, not for anybody else.”
“I am,” Gabi says. “Only don’t get married to this look. I could change it tomorrow.”
I smile. “Knock yourself out. But please don’t dye your hair blond. This world’s already got Allison in it.”
“And maybe two Noras.”
“Do you really think she’s here?”
“I don’t know anymore,” Gabi says. “I thought she was. I counted on it. But now…”
I give her a sympathetic smile. “Let’s go over to Jilly’s. Maybe Wendy’s found something or Jilly’s had one of her brilliant ideas.”
“In Crescent Beach, Nora was always the one who came up with the brilliant ideas.”
“Except we’re not in Crescent Beach anymore.”
She nods. “I know. And you’re not Nora.”
“But I will try to be brilliant for you.”
Only Sophie is up when we get to the house on Stanton Street. We find her in the greenhouse, slouched in a chair while she stares at the blank canvas on her easel. She perks up when we come in.
“How would you two like to be immortalized in a painting?” she says.
“That depends,” I tell her. “Will you mind that people will think it’s Nora Constantine fan art?”
She frowns. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’m Sophie, by the way,” she says to Gabi.
Gabi raises a hand in a half wave and introduces herself.
Sophie’s eyes brighten with interest. “You’re the girl from the parallel world version of Juniper’s TV show. Jilly and Wendy were talking about you last night.”
Gabi looks uncomfortable. “That’s me. Hot topic.”
“It was all complimentary,” Sophie says with a smile. “How are you fitting in? Do you need anything?”
I watch as Sophie’s kindness puts a smile on Gabi’s face.
“I’m good,” she says. “I’ve actually been here for a couple of years.”
Sophie nods. “Great, but remember, if something comes up all you have to do is ask.”
“Ask what?” Jilly says, coming into the room.
Bobo dashes out from behind her and races over to Sonora, dancing around in circles, bowing and licking at her face. Sonora is wonderfully tolerant with his antics.
Wendy follows Jilly into the room, carrying her laptop.
“I’m just making sure Gabi has everything she needs,” Sophie says.
“Do you need something?” Jilly asks Gabi. “Anything?”
Gabi smiles. “You guys are too generous, but Juniper’s got me covered. Literally,” she adds, plucking at the sleeve of her sweater.
“That’s a great colour on you,” Wendy says.
Gabi blushes and looks over at the dogs. I can tell she’d rather not be the center of attention. It’s weird, how I feel like I know her so much better than just as a character from the show. It’s as though we really did grow up together in SoCal and have been friends all our lives.
“Were you able to track down who sold Ethan the book?” Gabi asks.
Wendy shakes her head. “I can’t ID the email addy. Whoever sent it bounced from server to server all over the world until it got to Ethan. Do you want to give it a go?”
Gabi pulls her laptop out of her pack and the two of them take their computers over to one of the worktables. Moments later their heads are bent over the machines, talking to each other in what sounds like a foreign language, there’s so much jargon.
