“Yes,” Zachary says.
“Yes? Did you just say yes?”
“Yes, I’ll do the sequel.”
Silence at the other end. She’s speechless for once. He can see the surprise on her face.
“Well, good,” she says finally. “I’ll let them know. We can have a lunch and discuss delivery date, etcetera.”
Emily starts to cry, soft gulps at first, then full-out blasts. He sits down and shifts her to his knee. “Got to run, Eleanor. Baby’s crying. I think she’s hungry.”
“I know the book will be a winner, Mr. Z. And maybe a sequel will help get the movie out of development hell. You never know.”
Did she ever congratulate him or compliment him on the baby? He can’t remember her ever acknowledging this new addition to his life.
She really isn’t human.
He clicks off the phone and tosses it onto the couch. He carries Emily to the changing table. Maybe that’s why she’s crying.
I wish Kristen would get home.
He feels a flash of guilt.
And then more than guilt. He’s just promised a new book, and he doesn’t even have his laptop. And in a moment of sheer insanity, he told a woman, a total stranger, she could write the book for him.
How crazy was that?
If he could undo the day …
Maybe he still can.
When the nanny arrives the next morning, he hails a taxi and returns to 83rd and 2nd. It shouldn’t be difficult to find her building. He passes the shoe repair store, the supermarket, the drugstore. He stops at the corner, shielding his eyes from the low morning sun.
Was it the redbrick building across the street? It doesn’t look familiar. He turns and gazes at a tall white apartment building on the east side of 2nd Avenue. Cars are parked in a short, circular driveway that leads to the entrance.
He doesn’t remember a driveway in front of her building. But the other buildings don’t look familiar, either.
He can’t ask for her, he realizes. He doesn’t know her name.
I never even asked her name.
He doesn’t know her name and he doesn’t know where she lives. And, of course, he was too dazed and besotted to get her phone number.
Classic stupidity. But then the word library flashes into his head.
“Whoa. Yes,” he murmurs. “The library.”
She will return to the library and bring his laptop. Why did he go into such panic mode? Well, can you blame him? Writers don’t like to lose their laptops (or leave them with total strangers).
Zachary feels a stab of fear as a large man in a pale blue business suit rapidly crosses 83rd Street. Cardoza? No. Another broad-shouldered, sandy-haired man taking elephant strides.
You’re going to have to confront Cardoza. You can’t be afraid every time you leave the apartment.
He studies the apartment buildings again. It’s useless. He takes a taxi back across town to the library on Amsterdam. The reading room is empty. He nods to the librarian at the front desk, who doesn’t look up, and makes his way downstairs to the children’s room.
Zachary glances around. No sign of the young woman. The room is empty, as before. A very slender man with tall spiked blond hair over a frog-shaped face, and square, black-framed glasses approaches him. “I’m the children’s activity director. Can I help you?”
“Well …” Zachary hesitates. He plans to stay down here and wait for the young woman with his laptop. But it might be awkward sitting by himself in the children’s room. “I’m doing research on fairy tales,” he says. “Can you direct me to the right shelves?”
He doesn’t realize this is only the beginning of a very long week.
8
For five days, he waits at the table in the children’s room, a stack of fairy tale books in front of him. He reads every collection, fairy tales from a dozen countries. He becomes an expert on witches and elves and princesses, evil spells, cauldrons of poisoned soups, power-mad queens, orphans lost in the forest, dragons and angels and talking owls. He spends the week in this terrifying otherworld, and the young woman doesn’t show up.
Should he forget about her? Chalk the whole thing up to a crazy, weird experience? Buy a new laptop and get back to his life?
He admits to himself that he really wants to see her. He wants to see her beautiful, almost perfect face and hear her whisper-smooth voice. Yes, he has sexual fantasies about her all the time. But he just wants to see the blue eyes, the red lips, the angel-white skin …
When she shows up at his apartment on a Monday afternoon, he freezes at the door, tongue-tied. He can feel his cheeks go hot and knows he’s blushing.
“You’re here,” he utters redundantly.
She laughs. “Can I come in?” He’s blocking the door.
She slides into the apartment. She’s wearing layers of t-shirts, pale blue and pink, and a short, pleated plaid skirt. Her legs are bare down to her white sneakers.
She brushes her dark hair back with a shake of her head. Then she hands him the laptop. “Did you miss me, honey?” She draws a finger down his cheek.
“Well, yes. I waited for you. At the library. I mean—”
She gazes around the living room, then dives to the baby in the porta-crib on the couch. “Ooh, she’s so cute.” She rubs Emily’s head tenderly. “And she’s so bald.”
“She had hair when she was born,” Zachary says. “But it fell out. Now she’s sprouting her real hair.” And then a question forces its way to his mind: “How did you know she’s a girl?”
She gives the baby head a last rub, then turns to him. “Zachary, I know everything about you.” A strange smile, not warm, maybe ironic. “Today we’ll find out what you know about me.”
He blinks. “Excuse me?”
She points to the laptop. “I wrote the sequel for you, dear. I hope you like it.”
He crosses the room to her. He has an impulse to toss down the laptop and throw his arms around her tiny waist. Instead, he squints at her. “You wrote the whole book in one week?”
She giggles. “I’m very fast.”
“But—”
“And very good. It didn’t take long to pick up your style.” She pushes him to the couch. “Go ahead. Read it. I can’t wait. Read the first chapter. I want to see the look on your face.”
He sits down beside the baby and opens the laptop on his lap. She gets down on her knees in front of the porta-crib and makes cooing sounds, petting the baby’s head as if she were a puppy.
Zachary opens the file and starts to read. His mind whirs. He’s thinking of how he can tell her the work is not right, not acceptable, without making her angry and driving her away.
He wants to kiss her. He wants to hold her. He’s aroused to the point of not being able to concentrate on the words. But he reads. Squinting into the glare of the screen, he reads the first chapter.
When he finishes it, he taps the screen with his fingers. “This is good. This is really good.”
She smiles. “I thought you’d approve.”
“Seriously. It’s excellent,” Zachary insists. He stares at her as if he’s never really seen her. This young woman is no-kidding-around talented.
He taps the screen again. “Where is the rest? I need to see more. I’m excited. I think … I think you’ve really got it.”
She climbs to her feet. Then she reaches down and carefully lifts the baby from the small basket. Emily makes no sound as she lowers her to her shoulder.
“I will show you how to read the rest of the book, Zachary. But, remember, I said you’d have to pay?”
He nods. “That’s no problem. We can talk about terms.”
She rocks the baby gently on her shoulder. “Don’t worry about terms, honey.”
“Then … what do you want?”
The blue eyes lock on his. “You just have to tell me my name.??
?
A laugh escapes his throat. “I … what?”
“You don’t know my name, do you?”
“Well, I’m embarrassed. But …”
“So go ahead. Guess my name. You want the rest of the book, right? Okay. Guess my name, and the book is yours. That’s the deal. Tell me my name. You have three chances.”
He closes the computer but leaves it on his lap. “Seriously?”
She doesn’t blink. She taps one foot.
Zachary realizes he has to play her game. Okay. No big deal.
He guesses. “Uh … Sarah?”
She shakes her head. He sees a flash of merriment in those cold blue eyes. “Two more guesses.”
“Jessica?”
“No. Think hard, honey. You’re down to your last guess. Make it a good one.”
He squints hard at her, studies her as if trying to read her thoughts. What name does she look like? Well …
“Ashley?”
She lowers her head, hair falling over her face. “Oh, wow. Sorry, Zachary. That’s not my name. And that was your last chance.” She walks past him toward the door.
“So, tell me,” he cries. “What is it? What is your name?”
She sighs. “Zachary, didn’t we meet among the fairy tales?”
“Yes.”
“So you should have guessed. You really should have guessed. My name is Rumpelstiltskin.”
He gasps. “Huh?”
“My name is Rumpelstiltskin. You didn’t guess it. So now the baby is mine.”
Zachary shoves the laptop to the couch and struggles to his feet. But before he can stand up, she and the baby are out the door.
9
He tugs open the door and bolts into the hall. He listens for her footsteps on the stairs. But all he can hear are his pounding heartbeats.
She’s crazy, and she has my baby.
He takes off, flying down the stairs two at a time. Out onto the stoop. He gazes up and down the sidewalk. No. No. Not here. Breathing so hard, it feels as if his chest might burst.
Don’t give yourself a heart attack.
Did she have a car waiting? How did she disappear so quickly?
He pulls himself back up to the living room. He grabs his phone off the couch.
I’ve got to call the police. She kidnapped my baby.
But what will the police say when he tells them her name is Rumpelstiltskin? He can already hear the derisive laughter when he describes how he’s been living in a fairy tale.
“Oh, you lost your baby to Rumpelstiltskin? Why don’t you ask Goldilocks to help you find her?” Followed by: “Hawhawhawhawhaw.”
Zachary vows to find her on his own. He knows he isn’t thinking clearly. He can’t really think at all. He only knows he has to run. He has to run across the city, run to the places she might be, run to anywhere he might find her.
He’s too frightened, too horrified to stay in one place. If he does, the horror of what he has done will catch up to him and swallow him whole.
He runs to the library. No one has seen her there. He runs to the East Side, back to her block. Which building? Which building? No. No sign of her.
Where to look now? He can’t give up.
He’s walking up 2nd Avenue almost, to 86th Street, when he sees her seated at a table in a coffee shop window. She has Emily on her shoulder. A plate of scrambled eggs in front of her. And sitting in the opposite chair—Cardoza.
Were they working together?
Of course they were. Cardoza’s job was to get him frightened, off-balance, vulnerable, ready for her to step in and do her thing.
Rage overtakes him. He pounds on the window with both fists.
They turn, surprise then alarm on their faces. Before they can jump up, Zachary is through the door, past the group of people at the cash register waiting for a table.
His fists cut the air as he strides up to their table. His head feels ready to explode. He can feel the blood pulsing at his temples. He glares at them, his eyes moving from Cardoza, to the baby, to the woman.
He opens his mouth to speak—and stops. He suddenly feels like a balloon deflating. He can feel the air whoosh from his lungs, feel his whole body sinking … shrinking.
He lowers his fists. His breathing slows. Finally, Zachary finds his voice. “I made you up, didn’t I,” he says softly.
They both nod, faces blank.
“I made you both up. You’re not real,” Zachary repeats.
“Yes,” she answers in a whisper. “You imagined us.”
“You’re in my mind. You’re a fairy tale. You’re not really here.” Zachary murmurs.
They watch him expectantly. She holds the baby against her shoulder, her eyes, unblinking, on Zachary.
“I imagined you,” he says. “And if I shut my eyes …”
He doesn’t wait for them to respond. He shuts his eyes.
And when he opens them, he sees faces—unfamiliar faces—staring down at him. Faces hovering over him, features tensed, as if they’ve been waiting for him to do or say something.
He’s lying on his back. He raises his head. “Where am I?” he asks.
10
“We put you in this room, Dr. Striver,” a chocolate-skinned woman in a pale green uniform replies. Her curly white hair pokes out from her nurse’s cap. “We thought you’d be comfortable here.”
He nods and settles his head back on the pillow where it had been resting. Cardoza and Rumpelstiltskin linger in his mind.
A woman bumps the nurse out of her way. Her face hovers above his, her eyes disapproving, cheeks wet with tears. “You did it again, Howard,” Debra, his wife, says. “I … don’t understand. Can you explain it to me? Is living inside your own mind so much better than being with me?”
“No,” he replies quickly. He reaches for her but she eludes his arms. The tears glisten on her cheeks. She makes no attempt to rub them away.
“How long have I been out?” he asks.
“Two days,” Debra says. “But we had no way of knowing how long you would be away this time.” Before he can reply, she continues. “Why do you keep doing this, Howard? Retreating into your own mind. You’re trying to escape from me. Just admit it.”
“No,” he says again. “No. Really.” He pulls himself up to a sitting position. He gazes at the doctors and nurses who have retreated to the walls so that Debra can confront him. “The baby,” he says to her. “Is the baby okay?”
She narrows her dark eyes at him. “Howard, we don’t have a baby. What’s wrong with you?”
He’s trying to get clear. He has to sort things out before he can assure Debra, before he can win her back. “What about my book?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “You keep threatening to write a book about your discoveries. But you’ll never have time to write if you keep disappearing into your own mind.”
He nods. He’s starting to feel stronger. He takes her hand and squeezes it tenderly. “I’m ready to make a new start, Debra. I’ll try not to escape again. I promise. Let’s make this a new beginning. Part two of our lives. The sequel. Yes, let’s start the sequel today.”
She eyes him doubtfully, but she doesn’t let go of his hand.
“Dr. Striver,” the white-haired nurse interrupts. “Those men from the Pentagon have been waiting for two days.”
He scratches his head. “What do they want?”
“Remember? They want to talk to you about how the military can make use of your brain powers? Dr. Striver? Dr. Striver?”
Debra drops his hand. She shakes him by the shoulders. “I don’t believe it. Howard? Howard? Is he gone again? Howard—don’t do this. Howard?”
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by R. L. Stine
Cover design by Gabriela Sahagun
978-1-4976-9544-3
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