BY RACHEL FEDER
Editor’s Note: This is part of a serial novel, THE TURN, which will be published in installments at Luna Luna. This is Part 12. Read the rest here.
29.
A memory from freshman year: I took a course on mystery writing from a grizzled old adjunct professor, a local writer. Jack was the teaching assistant; I didn’t know him yet. I watched the back of his head in the classroom, cold water pooling at the nape of my neck.
I was a child.
In office hours, he scanned my draft with a red pen, bit the cap. He barely knew my name. Something went through me then, my blood charting a course on the blue map of my veins. It would be years before I arrived at the destination, but from that moment—flecks of saliva on the red plastic—it was inevitable.
I get a little lost, Jack had said.
And then: here’s one way to write a page-turner, OK? You open a door, right? And the reader can’t see what’s behind that door. Until they turn the page.
I’ve opened a lot of doors.
Thebes is sleeping hard against my thigh, his saliva pooling on the fabric of my leggings. I’m holding a black Moleskine notebook I found in the top drawer of Alison’s desk, the pages blank. Strange moment of ephemeral triumph, realizing even a legitimate literary genius like Alison hesitates before messing up a new notebook.
I hadn’t rummaged around in her room before—seemed disrespectful and what was the point? But I needed pen and paper. I’ve found myself in the middle of a mystery and I have no choice but to find my way out.
I break the spine. Lick the tip of the pen. Nibble the dark chocolate Alison keeps hidden among her files.
Tooth, I write. Thebes looked like he had a sharp tooth in the moonlight. Later I found a sharp tooth on the ground, but I lost it?
What the fuck is up with that? I take another bite of chocolate. I should ration it, I know, but here we are.
Bruises, I write, shuddering. Bruises and scratches. No idea??
And then it all spills out.
I could swear I saw a light in the yard, in the windows of this house, but there was no sign of life when Thebes and I got here—just an abandoned construction site. And the door unlocked, swinging—somebody inside the house sneaking out through the door to the backyard? Or an intruder?
Who would intrude? Who would be sneaking into Alison and Seb’s house in the middle of a pandemic?
A thought rushes in on me like a gust of wind. The only intruder here is me.
I bite my lip, run my fingers through Thebes’s silky hair. I may be an intruder, but I sure don’t feel like one. I feel like a protector. I feel like exactly who he needs.
I shut my eyes tight, shake my head.
I need to make a page for each person involved, and write down what I remember. Jack insisting that he see me when he didn’t really need to, did he? Seb leaving in the night—sleeping around, according to Jack—Seb kissing me, or not kissing me, that must have been a dream? Quinn…
I turn the page, and there it is: Alison’s unmistakable script. A cryptic reminder, a dappling of numbers. A clue.
Remember to forget
9-1-1-7