Page 49 of The Story Between Us

“The Flannel Festival.”

“Big autumn thing. Eleven days from now.” Jake gestured toward the town square. “A whole weekend of fall stuff—bonfires, hayrides, pie contests. The whole town goes crazy for it. They’re putting up the decorations this weekend.”

“I know about the Flannel Festival. But everyone wants Nate to finish by then?”

“They want him to come to it, at least. He hasn’t shown his face at a town event since—” Jake stopped, cleared his throat. “Anyway. The festival’s a big deal. Closing night, they do this lantern thing on the lake. It’s pretty great. But I guess you know that too.”

He handed her the pastry bag. “Tell him we’re all pulling for him, yeah?”

She watched him amble back down the driveway, hands in his pockets, whistling something off-key. The whole town. Rooting for Nate. A man who’d barely left his house in three years, and Maple Lake was tracking his progress like a sports team.

No pressure.

Inside, the house was quiet. Nate’s office door was closed, but light peeked out under the crack.

She set the pastries on the kitchen counter and walked to the door. Knocked.

“I brought lunch. And Jake brought pastries. Apparently the whole town is invested in your word count.”

A long pause. Then, “Come in.”

He was at his desk this time, actually sitting in the chair, actually facing the screen. The document was still empty, but at least he was trying.

“I thought we could try something different,” she said, settling into the armchair across from him. “Why don’t you talk me through all the ideas you have for the rest of the book?”

He stared at her.

“Just…brainstorm out loud. What are you thinking? Where do you want the story to go?”

Nothing. His jaw tightened, and she watched him retreat behind his eyes—that familiar shutdown, the walls going up.

“Okay.” She shifted tactics. “How about this—just tell me the last thing that happened. In the story. Where did you leave off yesterday?”

Silence.

“Nate.”

Still nothing. He was staring at his hands now, fingers laced together, knuckles white.

“Fine. Forget the current book.” She leaned forward. “How did you start this project anyway? Go back to the beginning. How did you and Emma come up with the whole thing?”

His shoulders tensed. She could see him closing down further, folding into himself, becoming smaller and more unreachable with every question.

This wasn’t working. None of it was working.

She sighed and stood up, turning toward the kitchen. “I’ll make coffee.”

“It all started with Emma.”

She froze. Didn’t turn around.

“She was fourteen the first time she told me the story. We were in her hospital room. She was hooked up to all these machines, and she couldn’t sleep, and she asked me to tell her something. A story. Something to take her mind off everything.” His voice was quiet, rough.

“I went blank. I had nothing. Stories were her gift, not mine. But she said, ‘Fine, I’ll tell you one. But you have to remember it, because I might forget.’ And she started talking about this kingdom. This world. A prince who didn’t know he was a prince, and a girl who could see the future but couldn’t change it, and a wall at the edge of everything that no one had crossed in three hundred years.”

Livvie kept her eyes fixed on the doorway. Held her breath as he paused.

“She talked for hours. And I sat there with a notebook I’d grabbed from the nurses’ station and wrote it all down. Every word. Because she said she might forget, and I couldn’t let that happen.”