The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

He dropped an envelope on the table addressed to: The Writers and then stumbled to the banquet table and poured a cup of tepid coffee.

He didn’t say a word, only shuffled back out, leaving a cloud of week-old stench in his wake.

“I have to say, this experience has been far lovelier than I anticipated.” I pinched my nose once the door had thunked closed.

Thax burst into a laugh. The way it filled up the room, so confident and self-assured, made me wish to be that kind of person. Instead, I made myself the wallflower, second-guessing every thought and action. Until it came to books. Talking to Thax felt about as natural as being with myself, and that I was grateful for.

I swiped the envelope off the table and tore it open. My eyes scanned the formal scrawl, not even a full sentence. “Atrium. 7:30. Notebooks.”

“She’s a woman of few words, ironically.”

“Crap, we have four minutes to get down there.”

Thax only shrugged, drinking the rest of his coffee and then tossing the disposable cup in the trash. “Day one, here we go.”

“I can’t imagine what treasures we’re in for. Can we stop by my room for a notebook?”

“Sure.” Thax sauntered along at my side.

We climbed the stairs quickly and I opened my bedroom door, stepping inside to grab one then calling out. “Want me to grab one for you too?”

“Nope,” he answered. “Poets don’t take notes, the magic happens all up here.” He tapped his temple and I rolled my eyes. “Elevator will get us to the ground floor faster.” Thax gestured and I followed him to the hidden elevator door. He punched the button and it slid open noisily. A moment later we were rushing down to the ground floor, before Thax kicked the solid iron doorstop and levered the heavy door open as we stepped into the public hallway of The New York Public Library.

I let him lead the way down the hall and through the main double doors that led into the public portion of the library building. White marble floors streaked with flecks of gold opened up before us, tall marble columns supporting the cathedral-like ceiling of the main space.

The room was quiet and peaceful, the light and airy way it made me feel was in stark contrast to the oppressive crimson disaster of the inner apartments. So much blood red decor gave me the feeling of stepping onto the set of a horror film like The Shining. I vowed then to spend more time in the public spaces of this building, maybe after Yara’s morning class I could do some wandering into the special reading rooms and browse the different private collections. The soft airy clouds painted into the ceiling of the Rose Reading Room called, but I had my own kind of research to do and it had nothing to do with genealogy and everything to do with launching myself into a writing career that might actually pay the bills someday.

“I think it’s this way.” Thax glanced at a sign on the wall with an arrow pointing down. I followed him down the wide marble stairwell, winding deeper into another layer of the library that I hadn’t known to exist before now.

We reached the final landing and Thax pushed through another set of wooden double doors. They opened into a bright and beautiful atrium, tiled in white and blue with creamy sandstone walls.

Paintings by some of the American masters hung on the wooden panels between floor to ceiling windows, airy landscapes and ocean breezes jumping off the canvases.

“Save the museum gazing for later, Weaver, we’re late.” Just as he said the words, the woman of the hour appeared like an apparition.

Folds of black satin curled around her, like a raven cocooning from the world. Her nearly jet-black hair was piled in a mound of plaits behind one ear in an almost old-fashioned, elegant way. As off-putting as her general aura was, I found myself still enthralled.

“Discipline is the defining hallmark of a successful writer. If you don’t have it, please leave now.”

Neither Thax nor I answered. She stood nearly a dozen feet away from us, but at the center of the domed atrium, she looked regal. Lush vines and trees grew out of pots anchoring the circumference, growing tall with the help of invisible trellises as their tendrils reached for the light at the ceiling.

The piercing cadence of songbirds in the vined canopy was nearly shrill, but it didn’t seem to faze Yara, her hands crossed firmly across her waist as she watched us with quiet intent.

“Art is a cocktail,” she breathed. Her eyes cast to the iron bench that sat at the outer edge of the domed atrium. We sat and I opened my notebook, pen perched studiously. “Reading, when done well, is a sensory experience, and fear the most stealth of bed companions.”

Thax groaned at my side and I had to stifle a giggle.

“I expect that you’ll use all of your experiences forthwith to elicit the most dangerous and exciting reactions from your reader. Measure your words wisely, convey emotion greatly, dance with the words you commit to the page and simmer in the magic that it creates. Spend the day inspired by your surroundings and write me a short piece by midnight. You can leave it outside my door.”

With that she averted her eyes and left as quickly as she’d come. Her dark skirts swished softer than a raven’s wings as she passed. By the time she’d exited the atrium, the door thunking closed behind her, Thax shot up from the bench. “She’s nuts.”

“She just believes her own hype.”

“Call it what you want, but the less I’m in the same room with her the better I feel.”

“She’s not so bad, especially now that I’ve read some of Lilies in the Cellar, if even a fraction of that book is nonfiction, I can’t imagine what kind of weird stuff she’s seen.”

“You say that,