Ding. I got another text and clicked on it, expecting it to be from Keira. But it was from a number I didn’t recognize. The text was long: a block of green. My pulse quickened as I started to read.
Hi darling, I read your book and I wanted to reach out and let you know that I loved the ending. I have to feel some sliver of pride, since you never would’ve written this story if not for the retreat. I would love to tell you these things in person, but of course that is not possible. Feel free to show this message to the police, as momentarily I will be dropping this “burner” phone into the ocean. （What ocean? The detectives scratch their burly heads.） I do wish that you were here with me. But I understand that you needed to go home. Your life will be less exciting, but perhaps that stability is what you seek. Just know: that wildness still exists inside you. Please protect it, foster it, keep it safe. And who knows, maybe you will prove the impossible: that you hold more than one masterpiece inside you. Know that I will be following you, cheering the ferocious creature in you, for the rest of my days. Kisses. R.
I could barely breathe. I jumped up and went to the window, scanning the street, as if she might be there looking up at me.
For a second, reading her words, she’d been right here, brushing back her auburn hair and fixing me with her emerald gaze. I could even smell her, that whiff of jasmine.
I called Larry immediately. He didn’t answer so I left a quick voicemail, distantly noting the calmness in my voice. （He’s thin, Roza, not burly.） It felt urgent, but it wasn’t, really.
She’d survived, yes. And she was gone.
I felt a shifting kaleidoscope of shock, outrage, and fear, mixed with other things, less appropriate things: elation that she’d taken the chance to reach out to me. Deep appreciation that she believed in me. An intense longing to speak with her. So many emotions that together formed a numbness, like all the colors of the rainbow combining into white.
I sat on the edge of the couch, staring into space. I looked without seeing at the half-eaten cupcake, the pink sprinkles covering the white plate.
Sheena’s teasing voice came to me: Tomorrow we’ll talk about what you’re going to write next.
Finishing my book had been easy, the final chapters flowing out like water, though I attributed that to Daphne’s help. I didn’t know if the connection between us was real or imagined, but something had happened in that final showdown with Roza. My therapist thought Daphne had been a coping mechanism, a calm voice that had risen from the depths of my unconscious to keep me sane on the verge of death. And that would make the most sense. But my therapist wasn’t a writer: she didn’t know how it felt to channel something from beyond. I wanted to respect that, and to respect Daphne.
Unfortunately, after finishing The Great Commission, I hadn’t been able to think of any other book ideas. My open laptop continued to feel like a brick wall. The most frustrating part was that I could sense something behind it, something pulsing with aliveness, with potential. But I wasn’t able to break through. It scared me, the thought that maybe the writer’s block had come back for good.
Now the wall was down. Shapes began to form out of the darkness.
I sat back on the couch and pulled my laptop onto my thighs.
I imagined Roza at an outdoor café wearing oversized sunglasses, lips pursed as she read from a book open in front of her. Her hair was chopped short and dyed black and tendrils flicked at her chin. A waiter came up to her and set down a coffee. （Slovakia: tea? Vietnam: juice?） She was so engrossed that it took the clatter of the glass to make her jump, look up, smile.
Roza was a psychopathic murderer. I could never, ever forgive her for the horrific things she’d done.
And yet…
She’d led me like a light in the darkness, ever since I’d opened the first page of Devil’s Tongue. At thirteen, I learned from Roza’s stolen book that girls didn’t have to be sweet little creatures, that they could in fact be angry and dark and sexual. She inspired me to start my own writing, scribbling in cheap notebooks as Mom and I sped from one town to the next. Years later, she welcomed me to Blackbriar. She urged me to stay. She showed me how I could take my deepest pain and use it to create something beautiful.
So. No one would ever know. No one could ever know.
But some small, secret part of me would keep writing for her.
Opening a new Google doc, I stared at the blank page.
Slowly, and then with increasing speed, I started to type.