Amity had two birth days.
I read fast, flipping through pages like it’s my job. It is kind of my job. Whatever. The story unfolds slowly but smoothly, moving through parts of the narrative I wasn’t able to explore until later in the comic. I didn’t expect Wallace to get the feelings right—Amity’s feelings about Faren, the atmosphere of their home island, the scope of the story—but he did.
There were pictures of all this in the comic, one or two panels for atmosphere and sense of place, but he brings it alive in words. Maybe this is only because I know what it looks like. It’s too good. This is like eating cake you didn’t know you could have.
I made Monstrous Sea because it’s the story I wanted. I wanted a story like it, and I couldn’t find one, so I created it myself. And now someone else has remade it for me in a different medium—a medium I couldn’t do myself—and he’s letting me experience it. I am finally seeing the story I wanted, and even though I know how it unfolds, and I know exactly how all of these things look, it is new again.
This is more than I deserve. It’s perfect.
Chills course the length of my spine. Too late I realize I’m crying, and a few tears drip on the paper. I curse, push the papers away from me, and pull my sweatshirt up to quickly wipe my eyes. Davy moves his head to rest it on my thigh.
“I’m okay,” I say, but my voice shakes. I dab my sleeve on the page to try to dry the tears. Wallace will probably see those tomorrow.
I am laugh-crying alone in my bedroom. Wonderful.
Wallace has read my mind. He has divined the things I thought while drawing this comic and put them down on paper. I don’t understand it, and I don’t know how this chain of events happened. But Wallace Warland can do magic. Actual, real magic. With words.
And it’s not just that he read my mind. It’s that he knows the material. Wallace knows the constellation Faren drew on the ceiling above their bed is called Gyurhei. He knows its mythology—or close, anyway. I could correct him on the page, but it seems like a shame to mark up such careful writing when I can’t find anything else wrong, so I’ll tell him tomorrow. None of that—the name, the mythology—was laid out in the comics. It was one of those things I had to explain when someone asked on the forums.
There’s more. I flip the last page over.
It’s a quote from Doctor Faustus.
“This word ‘damnation’ terrifies not me,
For I confound Hell in Elysium.”
He remembers. Once, and I don’t know if this was on the forums or in chat, I said Monstrous Sea was a combination of the Final Fantasy video games and the Faust legend. Most of the fans didn’t know what Faust even was, they just knew it was Damien’s last name. That was so long ago. Back at the beginning of the website, the forums. That post is long buried now.
But Wallace remembers.
CHAPTER 9
I spend a careful ten minutes sketching a stylized Orcus and its three moons around Wallace’s Doctor Faustus quote. Then a serpentine sunset riser lifting out of the ocean on one side and a dread crow with wings spread on the other. I hope he doesn’t mind.
I grab the gifts I’ve been meaning to send Max and Emmy—a copy each of the newest Monstrous Sea graphic novel compilation and a pack of Twizzlers for Max and Starburst for Emmy—and pack them up. Max lives in Canada; Emmy goes to school in California. Max’s shipping is usually a killer, but whatever, I can write it off as business expense.
Then it’s on to finishing a page of Monstrous Sea and starting another. I know the colors are on a computer and they’re the same colors I always use, but today they seem brighter. The lines are darker, stronger. I already drew the character expressions in detail, but they look better too.
The forums are alive tonight. Rainmaker has posted another chapter of his latest Monstrous Sea fanfiction, Auburn Blue. I only know this because ninety percent of the people on the boards are looking at his fanfiction thread, and he’s nowhere in sight. I don’t think he ever sticks around to see what people say about his writing. A man after my own heart.
I ignore the thread. The only fanfiction I ever plan to read is what Wallace gives me. There’s a purity to it, in knowing that it’s so good and that I’m the only one who’s seen it, that I’ll never get from something published online. This is just for me. At least for now.
I stop and reread the chapter he wrote two more times. Then I check my messages.
Emmy and Max have advised. To put it lightly.
2:00 p.m. (emmersmacks has joined the message) emmersmacks: Wait
emmersmacks: So what happened with New Kid 2:30 p.m.
emmersmacks: But seriously
3:01 p.m.
emmersmacks: E!!
3:33 p.m.
emmersmacks: E I swear to God
3:59 p.m. (Apocalypse_Cow has joined the message) Apocalypse_Cow: e’s dealing with new kid again?
emmersmacks: Well I think so
emmersmacks: She isnt responding
emmersmacks: And Ive only been texting her every HALF-HOUR
emmersmacks: EEEEEEEE
Apocalypse_Cow: somehow I don’t think yelling will make her look at her phone faster.
Apocalypse_Cow: why were you messaging her at 2:30? Isn’t that like 11:30 your time? I thought you had that architecture class.
emmersmacks: Dropped it
emmersmacks: Architecture is stupid
Apocalypse_Cow: but you’re a civil engineering major . . .
emmersmacks: Whats your point
Apocalypse_Cow: never mind.
Apocalypse_Cow: ELIZA. WHAT IS UP WITH NEW KID.
4:12 p.m.
emmersmacks: Let me just go die and rot in my dorm room 4:40 p.m.
emmersmacks: ughhhh
Apocalypse_Cow: prepares funeral rites 4:46 p.m. (MirkerLurker has joined the message ) MirkerLurker: Whoa, okay.
MirkerLurker: Obviously I should have checked this sooner.
emmersmacks: -_-
MirkerLurker: I got your package! I really like Mr. Greatbody.
emmersmacks: NEW KID
emmersmacks: NOW
MirkerLurker: What if it had gone horribly and I didn’t want to talk about it? What if I found out he was a serial killer?
emmersmacks: For godsakes at least tell me what he looks like MirkerLurker: Max probably doesn’t want to hear about this stuff.
Apocalypse_Cow: actually, emmy built it up a lot and now i kind of want to know too.
MirkerLurker: Fine! Fine.
MirkerLurker: Dark hair, dark eyes. Taller than me. Built like a football player.
Apocalypse_Cow: a football player is writing fanfiction? remind me what world we live in.
emmersmacks: Im sure there are plenty of football players who also partake of the occasional fanfiction emmersmacks: Go on E
MirkerLurker: He found me in the courtyard during lunch and came out to eat with me. It’s kind of weird though—he only talks sometimes, I guess, so we wrote everything down.