Page 46 of I Will Break You
“And Frankenstein?”
“What are you getting at?”
“What do they have in common, apart from being about monsters?”
I chew my bottom lip. “They were both written in the eighteen-hundreds, both major players in the horror genre?”
“What else?”
“Umm… There’s at least a hundred movies based on both?”
She shakes her head. “Think about the structure.”
“Dracula had a few chapters at the beginning like a regular novel, then it was journal entries, newspaper clippings, and letters. Then Frankenstein also used letters and different points of view?”
She claps her hands together. “Do the same. You’ve scanned the letters, right?”
“Yes?”
“So we’ll include those in the manuscript. I’ll forward you the emails I sent Kayla to set up the mailing address and that kind of thing. We’ll reprint transcripts of your viral videos where you comment on newspaper articles, along with the letters you both exchanged.”
I rub the back of my head. “There’s a lot of personal information about my past.”
“Then we delete anything you find intrusive.”
“What about all the work I’ve done so far?”
“Shove it in. I’ll cut down any duplicates.”
“And the ending?”
“Write your speculation on what happened to his soul.” She makes jazz hands. “We’ll include text message exchanges between you and me about what happened to Kayla, and then?—”
She freezes.
My brow furrows, and I wait for her to complete the thought, but her eyes go wide. I turn to see what’s gotten her so spooked, but all I see is a rack of canes.
“Myra?” I tap her shoulder.
“You don’t know, do you?”
“What?”
“I drove to Gavin’s apartment after work and rang the bell. The guy next door said he left the day before in an ambulance but hasn’t yet returned.”
My breath hitches. I already know the rest of that story, but still ask, “What happened?”
“He says a masked man broke in, and forced him to drink two bottles of cognac, but he passed out after the first. He woke up later, covered in vomit and booze, with his hand burned. All five of his fingers were missing.”
After leaving Myra at work, I drove straight back to Mom and Dad’s, where I took my medication. Within minutes, I wentstraight to sleep and spent the rest of the morning in bed. They say it takes several days to see its effects,but in my case, the delusions rolled away by the evening.
The drugs numbed the shock of Myra confirming Gavin’s injury, and by the time I thought to check the overnight bag, the envelope and the fingers inside it were gone. I tried calling to check on his wellbeing, but I think he’s blocked my number.
I probably shouldn’t have flown into a rage at Dr. Saint. She was obviously rattled about something other than me, and had agreed to an emergency appointment, despite reeling from whatever happened to her bandaged hand.
Mom had gotten my hopes up with the suggestion that I might be able to listen to my recordings, and getting turned down by the doctor ignited my temper. It’s no excuse for lashing out, but I need to uncover the mystery of that photo.
The next few days pass in a drowsy haze as the drugs work their magic on my mind. In between lengthy naps, I type Xero’s letters into a document, along with my replies. I rework parts of the original manuscript into journal entries until I have fifty-thousand words of content.