A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.
—George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
“YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN Norma Stanton is Amanda Pilgrim?” I asked Brainert. “I mean the Amanda Pilgrim. The woman who was nominated for the Babbitt Award for Arts and Letters?”
“She lost that one, Pen,” Seymour said. “She was beaten by lyricist Billie Eilish.”
“She was robbed!” Brainert cried.
“Never mind that,” I said. “You’re telling us that Norma— our Norma—is a bestselling author?”
“There is no doubt.”
Brainert pointed to a flowery wallpaper-covered cardboard box on the trailer floor. “Aside from this brilliant novel with her nom de plume at the top of every typewritten page, I found that box, which contains all the communication from her agent, her editor at Salient House, someone from that company’s publicity department, and copies of her contracts.”
“Yeesh!” Seymour cried. “For a guy who was morally squeamish about snooping, you sure uncovered an awful lot.”
Brainert scowled. “I don’t know if that’s an insult or a compliment.”
“Since when have I ever complimented you, Brainiac?”
After that crack, Seymour climbed inside the trailer and began rooting through the box himself.
“Norma gets all of her mail delivered to a PO box in Maine,” Seymour noted. “Wait! Here’s a bank statement.”
“Her new novel is unbelievably good,” Brainert said. “The Crows Will Carry Your Soul is in the vein of Jack Kerouac, but far more poetic, perhaps because it’s told from a modern woman’s perspective. It’s quite wise, profound really.”
“Holy Finger Lakes!” Seymour cried. “Amanda Pilgrim has over three million dollars in her checking account!”
That doesn’t sound like someone who would steal vintage jewelry no matter how much it’s worth, now, does it, Jack?
People do things for all sorts of reasons, Penny. Don’t absolve Norma quite yet.
Wow! Are you ever stubborn!
I call it cautious, honey. When it comes to the Tears of Valentino . . . Well, let’s just say I was fooled, and it could happen to you.
“Put that box away, Seymour,” Brainert insisted as he gathered up the manuscript pages he’d scattered across the futon. “I think we’ve invaded this woman’s privacy enough for one day.”
After that, we all returned to the Volkswagen and unloaded the camping stuff. Back at the site, Seymour set down waterproof tarps and put the tent up over them.
Meanwhile, I sorted through the various freeze-dried foods, cans, and army surplus MREs (that’s meals ready to eat) that Seymour had packed in his bugout kit. In the end I was glad I’d convinced him to raid his own refrigerator before we left Quindicott. The thought of eating out of pouches stockpiled in the event of World War III was unappealing to me. But thanks to Seymour’s kitchen we had plenty of cold lemonade, buns, and fresh hot dogs to roast over a fire.
And speaking of fires. “It’s getting dark fast. Colder, too. Shouldn’t we start a campfire?”
“I’ve already gathered the wood,” Brainert said.
Seymour and Brainert stacked up the twigs and sticks in a neat pile. Then Seymour dashed on a little charcoal lighter fluid to get the blaze started.
Suddenly, Seymour frowned; he checked his pockets, then the heavy backpack he’d brought.
“Son of a—”
“What’s the matter now, Seymour?” Brainert demanded.
“I . . . I think I forgot to bring matches.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you saying that your bugout kit, the safety net you rely on to get you through the zombie apocalypse, the next pandemic, or nuclear war, actually lacks a way to create fire?”
“Hah!” Brainert whooped. “What were you going to do? Rub two sticks together?”
“I regard this exercise as a good test,” Seymour argued. “A sort of trial run. I’ll smooth over the rough spots and be more prepared next time.”
“So, what do we do about a fire this time?”
Seymour sighed. “Norma has a bunch of kerosene lanterns in her trailer. She probably has matches somewhere, too.”
With that, Seymour climbed into the trailer and began his search. After five minutes, it was getting much, much darker and we still didn’t even have a spark, let alone a fire.
“I saw a hibachi grill under the futon,” Brainert called. “Check there.”
“Found them,” Seymour called—to our infinite relief.
Suddenly a crash came from inside the trailer. Brainert and I both ran to see what the racket was about.
“When I put the hibachi back, the shelf fell off. There’s a space behind it with another manuscript.”
Seymour pulled out a six-inch-thick stack, the pages single-spaced and double-sided—the totally wrong format for any publisher to accept. Obviously this writing was nothing Norma intended to publish.
“It doesn’t even have a title,” Seymour said. “Just a date. June the eleventh, eight years ago.”
“It’s probably a freshman effort,” Brainert said. “What authors call a trunk book. Put it back. We’ve snooped enough for one day.”
By nine p.m. we were sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs. As the mystery meat sizzled, we talked about Norma, aka Amanda Pilgrim’s literary career.
“I confess I only read her early novel, The Second Death of Mercy Brown,” Seymour said.
“That’s a horror story, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It figures,” Brainert said. “Blood and gore and sensationalism, and Seymour’s there.”
“It wasn’t like that at all,” Seymour countered. “Amanda Pilgrim turned the true-life Exeter vampire incident into a story about a dysfunctional family and the daughter they scapegoated, even after her death.”
Brainert, dubious, raised an eyebrow. “Real life, you say?”
“There’s no actual vampire in the whole novel, Brainiac. Mercy Brown supposedly hunted for prey right here in Rhode Island, but in reality her victims died from acute illnesses. And Mercy Brown wasn’t the first suspected New England vampire either. There were vampire panics all over the Northeast in the nineteenth century. The big ones occurred in Connecticut and Vermont.”
“I’ve heard a lot of legends about werewolves, vampires, and ghosts stalking New England,” I said—and immediately regretted it.
Oh, come off it, Penny, Jack cried. Werewolves and vampires I can buy, but what kind of joker believes in ghosts?
Very funny, Jack.
“Yes, there are plenty of spooky stories set around here and I’ve probably heard them all,” Seymour replied. “Of course, I have my own, personal favorite.”
“Do tell,” Brainert deadpanned.
Seymour grinned. “Okay, but remember. You asked for it.”