It’s Wallace.
He bends down and starts loading notes into one big hand. He doesn’t try to put them back in the locker; instead he takes off his backpack and shoves them in there. I bottle my questions, my panic, and my tears, and go back to what I meant to do, which was get my textbooks for the first part of the day. Wallace slings his backpack over his shoulders and walks away, to homeroom.
I haven’t talked to him since he came to my house last week. What would I say to him? “I tried and I still can’t finish the comic and I’m sorry I ruined your life?”
I don’t know how my identity has impacted his involvement in the fandom, but it must’ve. People on the forums knew rainmaker had a thing with MirkerLurker, though we didn’t make it obvious. When it came out that LadyConstellation and MirkerLurker were the same person, did he have to convince them he had no idea who I was? Has anyone linked rainmaker with Wallace himself? My own anonymity stripped away is bad enough—I don’t know what I’ll do if I have Wallace’s on my conscience too.
I can’t begin to think about Cole, Leece, Chandra, and Megan. I missed their meet-up at Murphy’s last weekend. I couldn’t face them. I lied to them like I lied to Wallace, and they’re Wallace’s friends first. They’ll be as angry as he is—maybe angrier.
When I get to homeroom, Wallace’s expression is carved in stone. He doesn’t look at me.
A few heads do turn to look at me, but most mind their own business. Wallace pulls out a paper and starts writing. Mrs. Grier, at her desk, keeps her head down and her eyes focused on the book between her hands. The very tip of a tattoo pokes out of her right sleeve. If I didn’t know to look for it, I wouldn’t have seen it there.
I’d hoped it was a nightmare. The tattoo. Some messed-up vision I’d had because everything was so weird that day.
But no, it’s not. My homeroom teacher has the most popular phrase of Monstrous Sea tattooed on her arm in all capital letters, like a battle cry. THERE ARE MONSTERS IN THE SEA. Yes, Mrs. Grier. Yes, there are. You are one of them. You are one of the ones that was supposed to stay beneath the surface, but you didn’t. You came up to the top, and now I can never forget that I saw you. I can never forget that you exist.
I turn my attention to my desk and cup my hands around the back of my neck. Creators shouldn’t feel this way about their fans. I shouldn’t want them to disappear. They’re the reason I have . . . the reason I have anything. They’re the reason I can pay for college, for my pen display, the reason I can spend so much time doing what I love.
I hope Olivia Kane would never feel this way about me.
Olivia Kane.
I don’t know exactly what happened to her, but I know I don’t want it to happen to me.
I rip a notebook out of my backpack and open it to a blank page. Before all this I never would’ve attempted to contact Olivia Kane. My heart would’ve exploded with the effort, and I would’ve been too afraid of the answer I might have gotten.
But desperate times.
Mrs. Kane,
My name is Eliza Mirk. I’m not writing to you to talk about Children of Hypnos, though I am a fan of yours. I’m the creator of the webcomic Monstrous Sea, and recently my identity was revealed to my fans. The day this happened, I had a panic attack, tripped, and knocked myself out on a cafeteria table.
I’m pathetic, I know.
Since then, I have been contacted constantly and by any means possible, including online messages, emails, and even notes shoved into my locker at school. Some are very nice, and some are not. I feel like people are always watching me, always aware of me, even if I’m sitting alone in my bedroom. I haven’t been eating or sleeping well, and I don’t know what to do with myself.
After two weeks home, I’m back in school now, but my skin is constantly crawling and it feels like I’m teetering on the edge of breathless dizziness, like that panic could reach out and grab me at any second. I want to go home. I never want to leave my room.
I know this isn’t exactly the same as your situation, but the worst part of it all is I can’t finish Monstrous Sea. I was so close to the end, and now the motivation to do it is gone. Like a dried-up well. I don’t know how to refill it, and I don’t know if I want to, but I have to. There are so many reasons why I have to finish. I shouldn’t feel like this, should I? I shouldn’t feel so attacked. This is what public figures deal with. I’m afraid something’s wrong with me, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m scared I’m going to be like this forever. I’m so scared, all the time.
I don’t know if you can help me, or if you even know what I’m talking about, but you were the only person I could think of who might understand.
Thank you for your time.
Eliza Mirk
P.S. Sorry, I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about Children of Hypnos. You don’t have to answer this, and I’m sure you get this question all the time, so if it makes you uncomfortable, please ignore it. Do you know how you would have ended the series? I don’t need specifics; I was just curious if you knew and couldn’t finish it, like me, or if there was no end.
CHAPTER 39
I get through the rest of the school day with the letter to Olivia Kane folded carefully in thirds and clutched between my hands.
At lunch in the courtyard, Wallace hands his conversation paper to me over his loaded tray of food. At least someone’s appetite hasn’t been disturbed by all of this.
What is that?
They’re the first words he’s said to me, spoken or written, since my bedroom. Even after looking at his face, his body language, I have no idea of his tone. Is he upset? Curious? He couldn’t be worried, could he? I don’t even know why he’s sitting with me right now. Habit, probably.
A letter to Olivia Kane, I write back. There are other students in the courtyard today, and I don’t feel like speaking aloud.
Wallace frowns. Can I read it?
I run the folded letter between my fingers. It wasn’t meant for Wallace. He’s not waiting with his hand out or anything. It wouldn’t do any harm to let him read it. Maybe then he might understand what I was trying to explain to him before. He could even tell me if I could make it better—he’s the writer, after all.
No, it’s kind of just for her.
He reads this and says nothing else.
When I get home, I find an envelope and a stamp in Mom and Dad’s office and take the letter down to the mailbox. A few years back, the Children of Hypnos forums came up with an address for Olivia Kane’s publisher, where they were accepting mail on her behalf. I don’t know if they’re still collecting it for her, or if they send any of it her way. The odds of her reading my letter are slim to none, and the odds of her actually replying even slimmer. But I don’t care if she chases people off her property with a shotgun, screaming like a banshee.
I at least have to try this.
CHAPTER 40