A novel by Rich Schaffer
WearingtheWhite
1933 — 1955
He had not written a word in years.
The book was given to him, free, by a man who wanted only to be told one thing.
Everything he asked for arrived, and for twenty-two years he called what followed coincidence.
It asked his name but once, and then it wanted only one answer of him, ever after.
Someone made it by hand, in a cave, with blood worked into the paper, and burned this mark on the box built to hold it.
The way of it
Nothing was refused him. What it took, it took from somewhere else, quietly, and never the thing he would have given — the cat that met him at the door, the tree he learned to climb, the boy who used to run ahead of him on the path.
What is done cannot be undone.
There was a small house at the edge of the woods. He asked for a better one.
He wanted the staircase most — grand enough to stop a guest in the doorway — and he built the house around it. Years later he could not climb it without stopping to rest.
One room upstairs had a steel door, and the lock was on the outside.
Recovered pages
I swear I woke up and those things just stood there, staring at me.
It was in the roots of the tree all this time. Right under my feet.
The big day. Oh no — he just knocked.
It reminded me of Wells. I will never forget its face.
Dark, deep eyes, alone and not my son's.
I don't know if he hears me, I don't know if he smells me, but as soon as I move it starts.
It cost me everything. One way or another this needs to end.
There was a child in that house who had never once been afraid of anything.
Everyone else had learned by then what the dark was for.
Something is keeping count.
What is your name?
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