It was drizzling when he stepped outside. He grabbed the bike he’d rented for the month and cautiously pedaled down the street. The night was still, peaceful. Just the sound of his churning tires and the rain softly hitting the ground. It was during moments like this that Nick quietly marveled over the fact that he was in a foreign country, far from North Carolina, a state he’d never thought he’d leave. Now look at him. Riding a bike through the streets of Amsterdam, leaving a goodbye party that had been thrown in his honor. Him. Someone who’d never even had so much as a birthday party. It had been such a good night, one of the best he’d had in a long time.
So of course right when Nick was on the brink of forming an optimistic outlook, the chain popped on his bike and he went skidding across the wet street, losing control. He crashed into a pole and tumbled off the bike, falling flat on his back. He stared up at the sky, heaving for air, wincing at the pain he felt all over his body. He took several moments to get his bearings, then he slowly stood, wincing. He wheeled his bike down the street, and right on cue, it began to pour in heavy sheets. Even in pain, all Nick could do was laugh. Of course this was how his last night in Amsterdam would end. Something had to bring him back down to earth and remind him that good things, be they feelings or experiences, didn’t last very long in his life.
When he finally reached his Airbnb, he felt like he’d been run over by a wet truck. He stripped down to his underwear and examined his limbs. He couldn’t see any bruises on his brown skin, but they’d surely appear in a few hours. Grimacing, he sat on the couch and reached for his laptop, expecting to see an email from his boss, asking why he hadn’t sent in his piece about the Davidses yet, and Nick would have to say, Sorry, Thomas, I crashed my bike into a pole because 90 percent of the time, my life just sucks that way. Can I have an extension, please?
But when Nick opened his email, he didn’t see a message from Thomas. Instead, he had a notification that someone had contacted him through his website. Or rather, the website his best friend and newly self-appointed literary agent, Marcus, had created for him. Nick stared at the screen, perplexed. Had someone really discovered his website? Was there a person in the world who’d actually read his book? Get the fuck out of here. If anything, it was spam. Or someone had managed to find a copy of The Elves of Ceradon, read it, and hated it so much they felt the need to tell him so. No good could come from checking that email.
Nick pushed his laptop aside, wishing he had a frozen bag of vegetables to put on his aching knee. And he glanced at the laptop screen again. The subject of the person’s email was “You have a website!” Would a person who hated his book sound so optimistic?
Nick frowned, undecided.
Ah, fuck it. He’d let curiosity get the best of him.
He opened the message and braced himself for hate mail. Instead, to his surprise, he read the first line and felt himself smile.
PART ONE
THE EMAILS
1
FROM: Lily G. <[email protected]>
TO: N.R. Strickland <[email protected]>
DATE: May 9, 6:21pm
SUBJECT: You have a website!
Dear Mr. Strickland,
Have you ever been stuck on a subway train without air-conditioning on a 92-degree weather day? If not, count yourself lucky, because that’s what I’m experiencing right now and it’s absolute torture.
Okay, now that I have that off my chest, I want it to be clear that I never do stuff like this. And by stuff, I mean cold emailing a stranger. Chances are you probably won’t read this message, so my nerves might be for nothing. You did just create a website even though The Elves of Ceradon was published five years ago, so my assumption is that you don’t spend too much time online, which isn’t really a bad thing.
My name is Lily and I read your novel almost two years ago while working at a used bookstore. I’d never heard of your book and neither had my boss, so he told me to toss it. Mostly because this particular copy looked like a dog had chewed the bottom-right corner, which basically meant we couldn’t sell it. But the thought of throwing books away feels like a crime, and I was curious, so I started reading on my lunch break. Then I kept reading throughout the rest of my shift, on the bus ride home, all through dinner, and I stayed up until 3am to finish. Reading your book made me remember why I loved reading so much growing up. At the time, I’d been out of college for a year and hadn’t considered working with books outside of being a bookseller, but I realized maybe I could edit books like yours, but for children. Once I had that goal, everything changed. I work in book publishing now—not in the role I want, necessarily, but it’s a foot in the door. I think I have you and your book to thank, in a way. It got me through a tough and confusing time in my life.