Ghostwriter: Part 3

Orson ran behind the fleeing Vivian Myers, who led him through a blackberry briar outside of the farm. They sprinted through the tough weeds and made haste towards a forest. As Vivian ran in the forest, she wove between the evergreens with great intention; clearly she knew where she was. Orson kept up and hopped over a fallen tree trunk and into a small clearing. In the clearing was a small stone cottage and blacksmith forge. Orson ran with her into the cottage.

Once they entered, Vivian turned around and locked the door and moved a small dresser in front to barricade it. Orson watched and then looked around the cottage. Primitive, vacant; and though the appliances and furniture seemed well worn, it appeared to Orson that no one had lived here in quite some time.

Vivian stepped away from the barricaded door and once again took Orson by the arm. “We have to go in another room,” she said, dragging him into the bedroom. She approached a small wardrobe and opened it, unveiling a surprisingly large collection of shirts and aprons. She put her hands between the clothes, in the middle, and separated them. Vivian pressed her right hand against the back panel board and pushed it open, like a set of double doors. The wardrobe led to a staircase into a hollowed hole in the earth with wood planks constructed around the perimeter like a mine. Vivian entered unafraid and hurried in the secret basement. Orson had no choice but to follow.

“Fix the clothes and shut the doors,” she commanded. Orson did as such, pulling the wardrobe doors shut then grabbing the aprons and flinging them together before he swung the panel boards in front of him and shut them; he saw on this side of the wardrobe were handles they could use to reopen the exit.

Orson entered the basement and saw a table with dozens of pages on it; all scribbled with different ideas and chapter titles on them. Vivian placed her hands on the table and stared down at the pages. It was then Orson could finally look at her. She had long, flowing, black hair that hung just over the table. Her eyes were big, green orbs with curled lashes. She had a mole on the left side of her face just above her lips, which were full and naturally pink. Orson was taken by her beauty.

“Orson,” Vivian summoned him. He walked towards the table. Her onyx colored hair swung over her head as she looked up at him. “How much do you know?” she asked, pointing at the book he held.

He glanced at it. “Only what’s just happened.”

“Well read,” she once more demanded.

“Could you explain some things to me first, Vivian?” he retorted. “Like how I ended up living inside of a book and why you could talk to me on that checkout card and what you mean by finish the book – frankly, everything that’s going on.”

Vivian took a deep breath and stared at him. Orson could see the look in her eyes that she wished he already knew, but she understood she needed to explain.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Let me start back to when I met Ethan.” She stood up straight and brushed her hair with her fingers, forcing herself to relax in order to articulate clearly. “I walked out of my house and saw Ethan coming towards me, where we kissed. And he told me about the family we were going to one day raise together.”

Orson waited for more but his immediate confusion interfered. “I’m sorry, you said you were going to tell me when you two first met.”

“I did. When I met him we were already married.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“For some reason I couldn’t recall ever seeing him in my life. But when he walked up to me outside of my house – our house – I seemed to understand that he was my husband and that we were in love.” Orson had a host of questions ready to spew out but he waited and listened. “As we talked and continued our normal lives,” Vivian explained, “each time he shared a story about the two of us, I seemed to suddenly remember it in that moment. Like he was filling my own memory with his. And as he talked, and we lived our married life, I recalled more and more. But each of those memories was impersonal. Like they never really happened to me, almost as if I had studied someone else’s life.”

“Did you tell him this or anyone else?” Orson asked.

“No, I just let it happen,” she admitted shamefully. “It was awful living this lie, thinking I had no idea who my own husband was. Until Merlin showed up.”

“Who’s Merlin?”

“This is Merlin’s place,” she said gesturing around them.

“Where is he?”

Vivian hesitated. “When Merlin arrived at our doorstep,” she continued, “Ethan and Merlin already knew each other. Again, though having no idea who he was, I assumed we had met before and I couldn’t remember yet. But as he and Ethan talked, I couldn’t recall any memory with him. He was a stranger to me, yet Ethan and Merlin spoke to each other like business partners or something.” She looked at the book in Orson’s hand. “Merlin had a book. He held it tightly while they spoke.”

Orson, too, looked at his own book. “You mean...?”

“This book,” she replied as she pointed down, referring in that small point the entirety of this existence; the whole world she lived in. “Together he and Ethan discussed returning home, which confused me completely. They kept talking, getting more heated as Merlin tried to convince him to leave, and I saw the book Merlin left on our table. I opened it and…” She paused, reliving the traumatic revelation. “…and I read my entire life.”

Orson slowly pieced together Vivian’s story, drawing a fearful conclusion. “Is Ethan…?”

She nodded, “Ethan is the author.”

Orson scratched his chin and attempted to take it all in, breathing slowly. “How did he get here?”

There was a glimmer of pain in Vivian’s eyes once he asked the question. She swallowed hard and built the courage to respond. “Ethan started writing this… book, which at first was different than how things are now. Not completely, but there were other… characters that he changed. Including the main character.” She exhaled slowly and looked in Orson’s eyes. “The main character was someone else completely, but, I guess… after reading and writing me… Ethan fell in love with me.”

“He fell in love with you?” Orson clarified. “With someone fictional—I mean…”

“It’s okay, I’m over it.” Vivian looked down in despair. “In, I guess, your world – the real world – he found Merlin, who is some kind of magician or sorcerer where you’re from. Ethan apparently paid him everything; he offered Merlin all the money he had to enchant his book.”

“What for?”

“To be with me.” Vivian rubbed her arms nervously, visibly uncomfortable. “So, he did. Merlin enchanted it. And Ethan rewrote the character’s name to his and described him just as he looked. And Ethan was transported. That’s when he ran up to me outside my house. Why I couldn’t remember him when we met.”

It was strange processing everything. Orson was amazed at the truth but could sense Vivian was not only disturbed by it but ashamed and wounded. “What happened once Merlin arrived?”

“Merlin did what you did, and wrote himself into the book,” she started. “He made himself a blacksmith to fit in with the world Ethan created. He came to make a portal or gateway for Ethan to come back, explaining that it was too dangerous for him to stay in here too long or he’d become mad. His reality would become an illusion if he continued to live in this, literal, ‘fantasy.’ As you can guess, Ethan did not want to leave.” Her eyes burned as she delivered that statement. “During his time here, Merlin and I grew close. He could see I was confused and worried. We both saw Ethan changing, and I was becoming scared of who he was. Merlin agreed to help me if anything happened. So, he made the portal and left.”

“How was he going to help you? How would he know?” Orson inquired.

“He gave me the notecard,” Vivian reached in her back pocket and revealed her own notecard that shared the same dialogue Orson had on his. “He enchanted the notecard to communicate with me between worlds. Merlin also said he was going to read the story as it happened in case I couldn’t write to him for whatever reason. Eventually, as he followed along with the story, Merlin saw Ethan was changing and becoming mad. Merlin wrote himself in again, writing another encounter between Ethan and the blacksmith, and returned to my world. Merlin came to rescue me.” She suddenly stopped, struggling to speak. “Ethan then... stole the book that Merlin brought with him.”

“This book?” Orson repeated carefully.

“And he could do anything he wanted,” Vivian gritted her teeth. “Unlike Merlin and yourself, Ethan could change everything. You can only use what Ethan has already established in the world – like the sheep outside to storm the house. You can’t send meteors falling from the sky. But Ethan can, and did.”

“But how?”

“Because he’s the author.” Vivian locked eyes with Orson and held their gaze. She leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. “And as Merlin took me away, he wrote in… awful things that… he killed Merlin. That’s what happened to him.”

Orson sighed sorrowfully, pitying the life she’s endured. “I’m so sorry.”

“Ethan brought me back and forced me to stay, saying the worst things. His obsessive love for me was… disgusting. Then I remembered he had Merlin’s book still. One night, while he was still sleeping, I found where he had kept the book. I ran away and hid here in Merlin’s forge and tried writing my way out. But I couldn’t. I’m only a character. I don’t have the ability to change anything because I was never an writer on the outside, in the real world, like you. So I burned it in the forge, just so Ethan couldn’t do anything else. I took my notecard and wrote on it, hoping one day someone like you would find it. Ethan quickly realized what I had done and… I’ve been running since.”

“And that’s why you were at Connor’s?” Orson tracked.

“Eventually,” she agreed. “He was worried about Ethan, having formed the memories of raising Ethan as his uncle.”

“That must be why Connor said Ethan and I grew up together,” Orson realized. “Because I wrote myself into the story, he was given a new set of memories that recalled the two of us as children on his farm.”

“Exactly.”

“So,” Orson began, “do you have any... memories of me?”

“No,” she stated. “Because I’ve read the book. I can’t be influenced by the story anymore.” She brushed her hair back anxiously, “Listen, Orson, we have to get going soon. Ethan will know we’re here, that I ran to Merlin’s forgery and he’ll hunt you down and kill you and take back the book.”

“Go where, though?” Orson asked.

“We have to find the portal. Merlin said it was in a well somewhere.”

“He never told you or Ethan where?”

“Merlin hid it so others couldn’t just leave. He thought it might be dangerous if a cast of characters started entering the real world.”

“Well,” Orson raised his eyebrows, “perhaps he left a map here.”

She glared back at him. “Do you think that I don’t know what’s on this table—”

Orson then placed the book on the table and clicked his pen. He wrote at the bottom of the page. Vivian looked on the table and saw a folded, yellowed paper sitting underneath a sheet. She reached for it and unfolded it. It was a map, leading to a well in a desert canyon.

“Alright, Orson,” she smirked, “I think we’ll get along just fine.”

“One last thing,” Orson began. “Why do I have to finish the book? You said on the notecard in order to save you I had to finish the book.”

Vivian bit her lip and waited to answer. She looked up and tried avoiding eye contact. “Once the book is finished, everything is permanent. Nothing can change.” She paused. “After the book is finished, Merlin said the enchantment spell wears off. And Ethan, if he’s still here once it’s finished... he’ll die.” Orson looked at Vivian, who couldn’t hide her suffering any longer. “Please,” she said softly.

Orson understood that she had been taken hostage by her own husband to fulfill his writer’s fantasy. He nodded. “Lets get you to that well, Vivian.”

She smiled, slightly, the best she knew how. Vivian grabbed the map and led Orson out of the basement.