The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

when Yara entered a room. When she was displeased, I wanted to crawl into a dark corner and die.

If Thax felt a fraction of the same, I’d be hearing about it later.

“Also,” her word was clipped, “Yarrow has left you something in your rooms. A special gift from me. I hope it inspires you.”

I frowned, then caught myself. Thax tapped his toe at my side. I ignored him, eyes focusing on the little black bird as the folds of Yara’s elegant black-satin skirt swept by me. She smelled like rose water and peppermint, an odd olfactory mix, but one I found I was quickly coming to like.

I fell into the bench at Thax’s side as soon as the atrium door thudded closed behind Yara and her brother.

“What did you write about?”

“I couldn’t decide. It’s shit. She’s right. What about you?”

I sipped my espresso, hesitant to give many details. “I was inspired by Zara’s journal.”

He nodded, eyes still focusing on the bird. My answer seemed enough to satisfy him, and at any rate, if I kept up, I’d end up finishing the book before the program was over and tell him all about it anyway.

But while it was still fresh and new, I had to keep it to myself.

“Whaddya think she gave us?” I asked absentmindedly.

“God only knows.” There was a wry cut to his words.

“Well.” I stood, sensing his need to be alone. “I’m going to work on my next chapter. Holler if you need anything.”

“What would I need?” Thax’s words bit, and I wasn't sure why.

I averted my eyes to the exit before replying. “Later.”

I didn’t look back as I headed for the doors. Climbing the stairs quickly, I only stopped when I hit the third floor and the wretched stench that’d become synonymous with my closet hit my nostrils. It was strong, growing stronger, and had me curious enough to investigate beneath the floorboards of the closet or alert Yara and Yarrow to the unbearable smell.

Then I imagined Thax teasing me, or worse Yara thinking me ungrateful and asking me to leave the program.

The first thing my eyes landed on when I opened the door was a plainly-wrapped package sitting at the foot of my bed. I approached, wary that someone had been in here without my knowledge, then realized that Yarrow must have delivered the package and surely had smelled the awful rotten scent too.

I fingered the frayed edge of the string that held the brown wrapping paper in place. Swallowing, I sat at the side and began to unwrap, tension tightening my shoulders as I did.

What I found once the gift was unwrapped was a surprise entirely.

An antique wooden puzzle, a picture of what looked like a haunted house falling into ruin scattered into one-thousand tiny pieces for me to piece together. Flipping on the lamp light at the small writing desk in the corner, I opened the puzzle, shaking out the small pieces before propping the box against the wall.

The image was dark, yet familiar. My fingers worked the pieces together quickly, starting with the wall of a dark evergreen hedge and wrought-iron garden gates. The pieces clicked together with a satisfying snap, the sound driving me on obsessively as I worked to piece together the gift.

Time slipped away, the scent of rot long forgotten as I worked, back bent and eyes on the pieces. I paused to study the house again as I moved beyond the corner I’d started with. Pulling the box closer, I squinted at the picture. Layered behind fingers of blackened evergreen ivy, one large crack sliced the center of the house facade, like the tendrils of life had peeled the abandoned house apart by the seams.

My eyes tracked across the photo, searching for more clues of this house’s whereabouts and why Yara had thought to give me this puzzle. Rows and rows of deteriorating garden beds flanked the front yard of the old house, what once looked like brilliant shades of lilies were now falling down with death. My eyes zeroed in on a small plaque mounted along the fence: Usher House.

My blood chilled with the memory of the painting I’d come across in the hallway. The house that’d featured so prominently in the movie that’d defined Yara and Yarrow’s childhoods still played a prominent role in their lives even five decades later.

I went back to snapping the puzzle pieces together, working my way up from the foundation of the house, piecing together the ivy and black crack. Everything about this gift, this Usher House, drew me in and had my mind on fire with creative inspiration.

I pieced together the front facade of Usher until my eyes began to burn with so much of the same dark colors. Giving my vision a break, I moved to the pieces splattered with faded shades of flowers, snapping together the dead lilies and bringing the Usher garden to life before my eyes.

And then I saw it.

Etched into one wooden puzzle piece, where the iron garden gate met stone and rose thorns: the perfect slant of a Z. Two loopy lowercase a’s. One rushed r.

Zara was here.

I sucked in a quick breath, sure my eyes were deceiving me. Lifting the tiny wooden piece to my eyes, I flipped it around and over, running my fingertip over the etched edges and confirming that the writing wasn’t in the picture but scratched deeply onto the puzzle piece. The line of each of the four letters of her name followed the slant of the stone—awareness that whoever had marred this puzzle piece had done so with full intent, its location on the puzzle probably on purpose.

I continued working, obsessed by my discovery, and in search of new clues.

I paused only when my vision blurred, and even then I moved to another location on the puzzle until it began to fill in from the outer edges—just like the ivy encircling the house.

The clicking of the wooden pieces sucked me into a trance. When I stumbled with sections of