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Sometimes it seems like it is all one big fluke. The first three books became bestsellers in a whirlwind of boundless inspiration. And with that came success and money.
His fingers hover over the keypad, then backspace, and then hover again. He slumps back on his wooden chair with a wince.
Shit!
Sat there he thinks about back when he had the luxury of time, when he still had romantic notions about what being an author was. He remembers sitting in cafes on days when the world felt like it was something he didn?t want to get off from. A sweet, happy ride; time was plenty, inspiration was for granted.
He hovers once again, and thinks about his students and the lectures he gives part time at Roehampton University.
?Inspiration is bullshit?. He begins.
Some students nod, wide eyed and full of conviction (oh yes, he?s so right. Really deep). Others giggle (what a badass!)
?If you wait for inspiration to come so your pen can hit the paper, you?re going to be waiting for a long time. The time to write is right now. The crappiest things you?ve ever written keep them, do not throw them away, grow from them, and add to them. Who knows, they might be the beginnings of great stories. Everyone wants the glamorous side of writing. But they want it fast and easy. William Faulkner said ?Do not be a writer. Be writing?.
A moment of silence.
?I ask: do you want to work on your story? If you don?t, why are you here??
1998
There were a total of 22 windows in the house. She would have asked for more but something about the window, the one just before the steps to the attic converted into a study, stopped her. That window was more forlorn. She felt a kind of sadness every time she pressed her palm against the cold surface.
So she didn?t ask for more windows
In the afternoon, just as the sun turned golden against the calm oil-like surface of the sea, she stepped out on the stone porch in the front, and took her seat on one of the deckchairs. She closed her eyes. Free, that is how freedom felt. She was 38 years old, and for the first time in a long time, she was on her own; in her house on the sea with her windows.
She turned her head slightly to the right, and found the study window looking back. She shivered as a small chill from the sea trailed up her legs and body. Standing up, she flicked a strand of red hair from her eyes. She then flicked it again, but this time it fell like a mini curtain, obscuring the side of the window.
2008
At 10 pm sharp he hears the knock on the window. The author gets up from his wooden chair and makes his way to the hall way. He lingers for a while in the threshold, with his one hand on the wall for support before he steps out into the dimness with the plush carpeting on the oak floors, and the window at the end of it, where the moonlight always casts its magnetism. She?s there with her red hair, and the palm of her hand touches the window.
One word comes out of her mouth. His name.
Around 10:30 she is gone, and with it the moon?s glow. He is back in his seat, but this time his fingers do not hover like weights above the keypad, they come alive with renewed vigor.
It?s her red hair. Her red hair sparked the flame.
1998
She stepped back from the window. From somewhere distant thunder is heard, followed by a strip of lightning.
?There are cracks on your kitchen walls?. She turned around. Her mother is stood on the last step and her other hand is on the banister.
She turned back to the window.
?I like it that way. It?s vintage?
?You asked for them??
?Yes, mother. I asked for the cracks. I like the cracks, and they are staying put?.
?As you wish?.
1980
The sailboat glided along the crystal blue waters in front of her balcony. The wind coming from the Aegean rustled her curls, her sunflower hat by her feet. But Yvette didn?t notice. She changed position so that now she was in direct view of what captured her attention.
A figure or what she thought was a figure with one hand against the glass.
?There in that window. Do you see it??
?See what? What am I looking at??
?There was a figure. Of a woman or man; I can?t be sure??
?Yvette, stop that. You have always done this. You and your ghost stories??
?But what if it isn?t a ?ghost?, Kat?? Yvette looked at Kat with wide eyes. In turn, Kat narrowed her eyes, annoyed.
?What if someone is in the house??
Kat grabbed a towel from one of the deckchairs and wrapped it around her. There was a pool of water where she stood.
?If that is the case we should call someone, like the police??
?Great. How?s your Greek??
?You live in a house in Greece, and you don?t know Greek!? Kat looks at her younger sister, a part of her is surprised and another is angry.
Typical! Yvette was the sister who had the time, it seemed to Kat, and the arrogance of carelessness which her youth bestowed upon her; she never thought, she just jumped. And sometimes, most of the times, that made Kat?s body stiffen with irascibility.
It was around 3 in the afternoon when they decided to venture in the house, just as the sun swept along the stone walls of the house.
?Where did you see it??
?Upstairs, in the window before the attic steps?
The floorboards creaked slightly as they made their way to the last landing before the attic. There, facing the front of the house is the window. It?s empty. Yvette let out her breath in one big whoosh. Kat made a scoffing noise behind her and turned to walk away.
?Windows are empty. They hold nothing. They are empty stories. You must have imagined it with the sun and heat?
?It wasn?t that hot today?. Yvette said and she felt her cheeks flush. She hated getting angry. Before following her sister downstairs, she turned to look at the window once more.
I thought you had a story for me
2008
The author wakes up with a jolt. He?s in his wooden chair and his bones creak and moan as he straightens himself out. He looks at the screen. He leans in closer and pushes his glasses in place.
?What the??
For some reason, they always knew she would let them in. And for some reason, she always did.
They would turn up with the face of someone who looked familiar, but not, like a memory distorted. They smelled of fresh leaves and musty fungus. They had glittering obsidian eyes, and ragged, patchy hair.
They always wore red.
They would come to Eve?s home, and once they were installed she almost never saw them. Merely upon waking she would notice a lamp had disappeared or a rug replaced by woven winter moss. Dozens of smaller changes she only wondered about. (Had the aloe been turned, just so?)
One night she returned home to find the fridge unplugged and in the direct center of the kitchen. The next day, her sink was filled to the brim with ice, which she chose to take as an apology.
Certainly, everything was as she chose to take it. These silent creatures, often unseen but felt, never speaking a word. How to take it when her mirrors were all covered with thin, rough sheets? What was meant when her books were all turned spine in, or when her apartment had smelled like apples for four days?
Then abruptly one day she would wake and again the birds would be singing, and the air would be light and free. She knew when she opened the door to the spare room, a mound of sticks and twigs in the bed would be all that remained of her elusive guest. And she would tidy it and then close the door again, to await the next visit.
Today, she heard the knock on her front door once again, a soft little pat-pat-pat against the door. She opened it and there stood someone new looking like someone else, in a berry-red cloak like Little Red Riding Hood. Its eyes shined a deep black, peeking through brown straw hair. Eve stood aside and the creature crossed the threshold. A quiet stretched from it to engulf the whole of the house.
She led the way to the guest room and stood at the doorway as it advanced past her. The click of the door was inaudible.
Eve looked up. She was sitting on her couch, but the light had changed. It was almost evening. She remembered letting in her neighbour? no. But it had looked so much like her. Then, what next? She remembered the scent of old, rotting logs and petrichor.
She needed to clear her head.
She left her apartment, and immediately the noise of the world resumed. The hum of the lights, the distant clanking of the elevator. It was easy to forget how loud even a quiet hallway was in modern life. It was like stepping from the inside of a book out into a busy, bustling existence she couldn?t have guessed was out there. Not just any book, but a thick old tome that closed with a SLAP. That had always been the weight of the silence in her home while her guests remained, and if anything, this time she felt it all the more intensely.
Eve wandered over to the market and bought a container of prepared soup. She trailed through the streets near her home like a tourist, admiring the small park and its fountain, the little stores closed, but with colourful window displays. She idled, drinking her soup and staring at the moonless, starry sky.
Eventually she had to go home. She unlocked her door and stepped back into the pressure of the quiet. The old woman, for she was old, older than she had initially appeared, sat on the couch. She was still, so still and unmoving, like a shadow frozen and flat. The details of her hair and clothes were hard to discern, and after a moment Eve turned and went into her own room. She slept peacefully, deep and without dreams.
The days rolled past, similar but strange. The rest of the world knew to leave her alone during these times. Her phone ceased to ring, and her friends declined to visit. The world knew when her house was occupied, and knew better than to disturb her.
Eve left her home less and less, cocooning in her room, in part because time slipped away so quickly. She woke with the sun, but blinked and it seemed to be setting. She didn?t remember eating, but she never felt hungry. The only thing she missed was the sky, and sometimes this yearning drove her out from her den, to wander the dark streets as she stared at the stars.
One such night she came home to find another creature in her house, this one a tiny writhing infant set carefully upon her coffee table. The hush pressed against her ears, the force of it made her head hurt. The table itself seemed different, darker, a slab of rough grey stone. Eve?s vision blurred, and the infant doubled, tripled, then melded back into one. It had ceased its movement and stared back at her, black eyes wide and unblinking.
Eve backed away, the ground soft and giving beneath her feet. She returned to her room, the silence pulsing, the scent of rain and rot pervasive even in her bed. As she lay there, the covers themselves seemed to tighten around her, pulling her down, down through her bed and into a cavern of darkness she?d always known.
She closed her eyes, willing time to pass, waiting for that bright sunny morning, to hear the birds once more. This time when she slept, her dreams were full of shadows and the creaking of ancient trees, their deep roots fed by sacrifice. She was in the centre of the world, and the eternal tree stretched its limbs far past the limits of the sky, reaching to the heavens and beyond.
She was the centre, the roots speared her body and fed, fed, fed with an unquenched hunger. She heard a cry, the wail of an infant, and then she fell.
Eve opened her eyes. A robin twittered from her windowsill, and Eve could hear the faint, forgotten sound of traffic. She pushed back her rumpled covers, moving slowly, feeling an ache deep in her bones. She shuffled down the hallway, and rested her hand on the cool doorknob of the guest room. But, for the first time, she was afraid of what she would find there.
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