The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

“Can you stop pretending like you love them?” I seethed, hauling my rucksack out of the back of the taxi. We were only two hours from the city and a long ferry ride away from my entire life.

“I do love them, Zara, just not in the same way I love you.”

“I don’t know if that’s more convenient for them or me.”

“You know a frown isn’t your most pleasant angle, maybe try smiling once in a while like your big sister.”

“She’s not my—”

“She is your sister, Zara.”

“Well, maybe if we’d been raised under the same circumstances.”

“You were under the same roof.”

“The bastard child of the caretaker and librarian isn’t exactly a wholesome upbringing.”

“Oh, you’re so dramatic. Look at this incredible estate, at least we’ve gotten our chance to fly the stacks. Isn’t the ocean air divine?”

I groaned. “Which room is mine?”

“Hm, I haven’t been here since I was your age, but I’m sure it hasn’t changed much. Would you like the widow’s walk room at the top? It’s got the best views of the gardens and cliffs. There’s a terrace, but it’s rotten so the door has been locked for as long as I can remember.”

“Wonderful.”

“Oh, look how absolutely perfect the lilies look this year, just think, Zara, we’ll finally be able to have a flower garden.” The hope crossing Mother’s features was apparent. I hated to say that the sea air did look good on at least one of us.

“Can’t wait.”

“I should check on those twins.” Mother passed a wad of bills to the waiting cab driver before he slipped behind the wheel of his checkered cab and drove away.

“All alone at Usher House.” I stood at the rusty iron gates, one of my hands curled around the thick wrought posts as I took in the hulking giant.

Tall, gothic transepts shot into the air like devil’s spires and gargoyles sat at the peaked window roof lines on all four corners. Ivy the shade of a deep black bruise crept around the entire northwest corner of the house.

The gray shiplap cedar shingles were weathered to a darkened brackish gray. The windows, like vacant eyes keeping watch over the estate. Fissures of black split the south-facing wall like spider veins. A thick crack shot directly down the center of the pitch-roofed double door entryway.

A double-headed gargoyle cast his gaze from the top spire.

“This place needs some work.”

“It’ll be fun fixing it up, don’t you think?” Mother hovered at the entrance of the overgrown formal gardens, evergreen hedges standing even taller than her. “Do you think those dirty little rats are lost in the rose-bush maze?”

“One can only hope.”

“Ssh,” Mother covered her lips with one elegant finger, “don’t scare them off yet, we just got here.”

“And this place looks so depressing I’m already shaking in my boots.”

Mother waved me off, the black satin lapel of her button-down dress caught the sunshine. She looked so out of place with her jet-black hair and olive features, dark berry lips, and black eyebrows framing her elegant face. While she was tall and common in every sense of the word, she was also small in frame and had a way of making anyone the center of attention, when she felt like it.

And other times, when she didn’t feel like it, she radiated her light elsewhere, leaving me alone all too often.

But not here. Usher House was our chance to reclaim our birthright, Mother had cooed into my ear last night while I’d sobbed.

“You’ll settle in just fine, honey. We’ll make Usher House our real home.”

I bristled at her words. Had we ever had one before? I didn’t think so.

“My lilies!” Mother called, waving at the twins lingering near the cliff’s edge in the distance. “Come choose your bedrooms.”

They began to run, faces twisted as they seemed to compete with who could reach the house first. “Tell me you’ll lock them in the darkest basement room this place has got.”

My mother’s beautiful features twisted. “Of course, dear,” she pressed a finger to her lips and winked, “what kind of mother do you think I am?”

FOUR

Ryn

Sheets of rain washed down the four-paned window as I curled closer into the pillow at my back and flipped the page on the last writer’s book.

With only a few pages to go before I reached the end and my tea from the buffet room long cold, it was safe to say it was a page-turner. I’d only left Thax in the hallway after the run-in with Yara what felt like a few minutes ago, but must have been more than three hours according to the digital clock at my bedside.

My eyes burned as I ate up the sentences, one page bleeding into another chapter and leaving me with a case of the whodunnits late into the night.

I’d had every intention of going to bed early and waking before dawn as Yara had suggested, until I began the last writer’s book. What had started out as an innocent story about a house-sitter in the city had turned into a heroine with a mental split from reality. The last writer had conjured a brilliant false-reality whereby the reader thought the heroine was being stalked by her ex-husband or a deranged stranger, but she’d conjured the coincidences all along to reveal a dark tale of psychological fragility.

I was enamored with the way the author had handled the sensitive subject matter—my brain was abuzz with new ideas and angles to tighten holes in my own future stories.

My fingers passed another deckled page when suddenly a crash came from the closet in the corner of the room. I shot out of bed, fear and adrenaline firing through my veins as I tossed the book at my side.

It echoed with a thunk and I half-hoped from far away somewhere Thax might've heard it and was coming to investigate the status of my safety right now. I tiptoed to the corner, hesitating when I reached the door before throwing it open in a