The Last Writer by Adriane Leigh (books like harry potter .txt) 📕

good, I can tell when your eyes do that twinkle thing,” I accused.

He split into a laugh. Somehow, hearing Thax laugh had become my new favorite thing.

“I’m always up to no good, and it’s a little more fun when you’re around.”

I stumbled for words, surprised by his easy admission. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ve got enough inspiration upstairs.”

I stood, tucking my notebook under my arm.

“Suit yourself then.” He walked off in the opposite direction, already slipping a cigarette out of its pack and letting it teeter on his lips until he reached the outdoor exit.

I crossed the room, headed for the stairwell that would lead me into the main library and the private apartments beyond. My mind turned ideas over like a water wheel, searching for something more sinister, more scary, to share with Yara. Apparently, I’d only nicked the surface. Zara’s little red journal came back to me then, the hard slant of her Z in her handwritten name.

By the time I reached the third floor and the three short steps to my attic room, my mind was already conjuring a story of a little girl gone before her time. I didn’t know how or why, but at least I had a what. I’d only flipped through some of the pages of the journal, but so far it was typical of a young girl. Talk of books and toys were all I’d seen.

I entered the dim room, parting the wispy curtains that overlooked the busy street down below.

I pressed my lips together as I thought of different avenues for my budding new thriller. I turned, sitting down on the single bed. My eyes landed on the nightstand and the old cryptography book I’d taken from the stacks a few nights ago.

I began to imagine a girl with the same book leaving messages around the house to scare her siblings, or even worse, convince her parents the house was haunted. I flipped through the cryptography book as I considered the different messages she might send when the awful odor of rotten flesh filled my nostrils.

I jumped off the bed, eyes already zeroing in on the closet.

Without thinking, I crossed the room and flung the door wide. The odor was thick, almost rancid. I covered my nose and dropped to my knees, hands searching the floor. I couldn’t feel or find anything within arm’s reach, but I wasn’t able to get to the far back corner. I dove under the hems of the navy dresses all in a row, hands searching the corners until my fingertips found a small cold metal bar.

I yanked and fell back as a tiny trap door was revealed. Too curious to turn back now, I slid deeper into the closet, forced to feel with my hands in the total darkness. I fumbled at the edges of the square, probably no more than twelve by twelve inches if I had to guess. I felt through the dark air, one palm slipping along the bottom of the hidden cubby, unable to find walls that might indicate just how small, or large, this cubby was.

Big enough for a small child to hide in?

Probably.

Just as I was about to give up empty-handed, something cold and sharp cut the pad of my thumb.

“Ow.” I pulled my hand from the cubby and pressed my bleeding thumb and index finger together.

Determined beyond belief, I sank my other hand into the cubby and carefully grabbed whatever was in reach.

I had to contain the gasp when I opened my palm.

A tiny white bone, the size of a child’s finger, was the first thing I registered. The next was a silver antique letter opener. I sat still and stunned, wondering who had put these here, and if there was more that was left for finding in that dark, hidden space.

I sat back against the wall of the closet, turning the letter opener over in my palm before bringing it close to inspect the delicate engraving along one side. The name was rubbed to a dark patina, but the words “All My Love” were clearly engraved in elegant scrolls.

“This is beautiful,” I said out loud. “Someone must be missing it.”

I pushed one hand down onto the closet floor as I moved to stand, when familiar slashes of the letter Z caught my eye.

“Zara?” I hummed, tracing the name that was scratched into the wooden trim of the closet door.

ZARA ZARA ZARA ZARA ZARA was carved into the wood.

“Oh my God.” I backed away as something far darker than I’d ever imagined before came to mind.

I stumbled to the bed, setting the tiny bone and letter opener on the nightstand, and opened my notebook to begin scribbling.

The once-unbearable scent seemed to evaporate as the words for my new story flowed. I wrote feverishly about a girl whose name I didn’t know, that’d been buried alive in the walls of her own bedroom, scratching her name into the wood with an antique letter opener until her last breath.

I wondered if the last writer had found the same desperate scratches, or if she’d been the one to carve them into the soft wood. A tremor tore through me then. Maybe Thax was wrong, maybe the last writer hadn’t disappeared, maybe she’d escaped.

Maybe she wasn’t dead, maybe she’d lost her mind.

PAST

Zara - Summer 1964

“Who is this?” I demanded.

“Zara, please, your manners,” Mother reprimanded. “Say hello to Nate, Susie, and Billy; they’ll be helping you in the bulb cellar.”

“Great.” Yarrow looked Nate up and down, though they seemed near in age, Nate was more than a head taller and twice as broad. His skin was a warm copper, making Yarrow’s tissue-paper skin nearly translucent in comparison.

“Nice to meet you.” He thrust a hand out at Yarrow.

Yarrow growled, shook his hand, and then retreated down the basement stairs without another word.

“Hi, I’m Yara. Want me to show you where we work?” Yara smiled at Susie, pathetic hope for a new friend crossing all of her features.

“Sure.”

“I just knew the two