“Well, carry on then.” She strode toward her office. I hustled after her.
“Ms. Burlington-Duke? Could I have a bigger workspace?” I hated to ask, but it seemed that was the only way I’d move out of that silly student desk.
“Of course. Your office is right next to Flora’s. It contains everything you need,” she remarked while unlocking her door.
My own office! Soon I’d have a brass placard bearing my name, just like the rest of the agents. Striding past Flora’s office, I paused in front of my door, envisioning where the nameplate would be, and turned the knob.
The doorway revealed a small, dim cube, not much bigger than a utility closet. A tiny square window aimed a shaft of light onto an old-fashioned wooden chair and a large desk that took up most of the room. On its surface stood a lamp, a phone, a cup holder filled with pens, and two stacked desk trays. One was heaped with papers. More queries, no doubt. In the middle of the desk sat a laptop. I guess I must really have passed muster with Burlington-Duke, since I now had a computer, too.
Switching on the lamp, I put my coffee down and slung my bag onto the desk. The office was tiny, but I could pretty it up, make it my own. However, that would have to wait. Right now, I had a pile of queries to read.
I sat down, causing the chair to creak, and reached into my bag for the file folder of queries. I pulled it out, and Marlette’s journal slid onto the desk. I touched it and shifted my gaze from it to the queries, then back to the book. Picking it up, I slowly opened the cover.
Chapter 7
THE MOMENT I OPENED THE JOURNAL, A RUSH OF FOREST scents—fir trees and wood smoke and a trace of damp earth—escaped from between the pages.
Right away, I could see that this book did not contain orderly diary entries or a cohesive fictional narrative. The first page didn’t even have any writing. Instead, there was an exquisite pencil drawing of a cardinal perched on a birch branch. Marlette had also drawn a squirrel racing along the bottom of the page, an acorn awaiting him in the bottom right-hand corner.
“How wonderful,” I breathed, feeling as though I’d just discovered a folio belonging to Beatrix Potter. However, the next page didn’t feature mischievous rabbits, fastidious mice, or daft ducks, but what seemed like a textbook example of stream of consciousness.
No one knows what I’ve put into the story, and I won’t let her ruin my chances of seeing it published. All the nights I worked until the sun rose, in shades of pink grapefruit and tangerine beyond the window of my cabin, yet even now she would stop at nothing to punish me, to seek revenge for the imagined injury. I notice the worried looks from the corner of the eye from my colleagues when they think I’m not watching, and I can hear the words swirling in their minds silently wondering, “Did he do what she claims? Is he crazy? Will he end up in some kind of institution?” But I am not crazy or mentally ill or unstable. I just prefer my own company and that of my characters. I have lived in their world for so long now, have mapped out their lives from the cradle to the grave, that I cannot believe that their story is of no value. I won’t believe it. Everyone’s life is worth something, a great many things. If only the people who used to believe in me could see that I am more than I appear. I will prove it to them all. I will not let some spoiled little girl like that manipulative she-devil Sue Ann take this away, too. I want her to bear witness when someone else reads it. I want her to see that she hasn’t beat me. Notyetnotyetnotyet.
To hear Marlette’s voice, speaking from a page covered by splotches of ink from a bleeding pen, strengthened my connection to him. A few days ago, I thought of him as the sad, neglected figure who’d died my first day on the job, but now that I’d seen his cabin and was holding his journal in my hands, my sense of Marlette as an individual had deepened. He was an eccentric recluse before his death, but there had clearly been someone important in his life at one point. Who was this Sue Ann? A wife? A girlfriend? Where was she now?
I was about to examine the next page when there was a tapping on my door.
“Come in!” I called brightly, relishing the fact that I had my own space in which to invite people.
It was Jude. He held up a white paper bag and flashed me a smile that made my toes curl. This man was James Bond handsome. Setting the bag on my desk, his warm brown eyes met mine, and neither of us spoke for a moment. Desire crackled between us, as though we were tied by an invisible wire made of lightning.