Another memory of Janine flashes through my head. Her purple-and-black bloated body is slumped over in the corner of that shed, and I’m pacing the floor, talking to her. Yelling at her about my shitty reviews. No—that is a mirage because that cannot be a memory. Surely…
Dr. Roberts leans down to pick up a manila folder from the floor. She sifts through documents before pulling out a bundle of papers bound together. Exhaling, she flips through the pages, folds several back, then shoves the manuscript in front of my face, her finger hovering over a highlighted paragraph. My eyes scan the text.
It's late evening, and I'm alone at work. The best thing about this bookstore—the Little Novel Bookstore off Fifth and Main—is it's hidden away in a crappy part of town. Hardly anyone ever comes in here. There's only a single small window at the front, and once the sun goes down, the store becomes dim and gloomy, the perfect place for me to lose myself in my books. No people and a nice little reading retreat—well, it’s the perfect place to work, isn't it?
The bell over the front door dings, prompting me to bookmark my spot in Mercer's The Dark Deceit. It's the fourth time I've read it, and it still makes my heart race as much as it did the first time. I peer over the cramped shelves. I see no one, but I hear the soles of their shoes padding over the tile floor.
I nervously clear my throat, pushing a bit higher on my tiptoes. My heart slams against my ribs as I frantically glance around to see who walked in and why they're hiding. I have a habit of letting my imagination get the better of me, as I’m told most writers do—
I glance up from the paper. My stomach kinks and knots, bubbling with anxiety. “Where did you get that?”
“It was on your laptop. The one that was in the shed with you when Detective Peralta found you.”
I swallow hard and close my eyes. This cannot be true.
“From the files saved, it looks like it was around August when you started your novel featuring Miranda Cross, a creative writing student from Emory, and a male author-turned-serial-killer, a fictional man you named Edwin Allen Mercer.”
“No.” I shake my head. “He killed prostitutes. He fucked them… I couldn’t possibly…”
“Exactly. And how did you know that?”
My jaw hangs open as I fumble for a logical answer. Because there must be one. “I… well, I-I mean. I mean…”
Another barrage of images floods my mind. Chastity on the bed, facedown and bound. Me behind her, pulling her hair and fucking her like I was a man. The image skips like an old movie reel, and I see myself in the diner, that greasy, nasty diner, and I am alone, the men across the counter staring and whispering because I’m talking to myself, the night we went to dinner—only one plate of food was delivered because he wasn’t real. He wasn’t real….
“But it’s not the…”
Dr. Roberts takes a deep breath. “Elizabeth, you really have no recollection of these things? Of all the people you killed in that shed? The shed you built specifically to kill in? What do you think we should…”
Her voice fades into the background, just an annoying hum of noise within my cluttered mind. Did I kill all those people? Did I imagine all those things? Can I be that insane yet feel so sane?
I hear the latch of the door behind me open, then I feel fingers brush across my shoulders, my skin prickling.
“She doesn’t understand, Miranda,” Edwin whispers, his warm breath blowing across my neck.
I glance up at him, my pulse hammering in my temples and sending a jolt of adrenaline throughout my body. Slowly, I look back at Dr. Roberts, wondering if she notices him.
“What?” she asks. “What is it?”
I turn to face Edwin again, and he holds his finger over his lips. “Don’t tell her. We have to finish the book first. It’s almost done, but”—he nods toward Dr. Roberts, who is busy making notes—“she’s in the way. She’d never let us finish it, my dear Miranda. And they must read our words.” A devious smile crosses his lips. “They must read all of our wicked little words.”
But I smile even deeper than he does because I know a secret—they did just finish reading. Every. Last. Fucking. Sentence.
“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” –Stephen King
WHITE PAWN - Coming January 16th, 2017
At first you may think this is a story about love, well, it's not. It's not at all. It could have been. It had the potential to be, but he fucked all that up. I loved him. I loved him to the point of hate. With that said, maybe this is a love story of sorts, because surely to be obsessed with someone there must be a love story somewhere within the madness.
I haven't always been crazy...I swear. It's all his fault. Everything bad in my life is because of him. Justin fucking Wild...
1. Now that you have finished Wicked Little Words, how do you think the character’s interactions, or lack thereof, tied into the ending?
2. What role do you think Jax played in the unraveling of “Miranda’s” mental status?
3. Whose story do you believe you actually read? Miranda and Edwin’s? Elizabeth’s?