Page 32 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

Thirty

Emily

I wake up to drumming. It takes a minute for it to sink in that the noise is hard rain pelting the windows. I turn toward the sound, which is when I realize I’m not in my bed, not in my house. I panic for a moment, then I recall the events of last night. I’m at the farmhouse, Alex’s farmhouse.

Ridiculously refreshed from the two hours and twelve minutes of extra sleep, I stand up and stretch, then walk over to the window, cracking my back and hips with a series of satisfying pops as I go.

I pull aside the curtain. It’s pouring. Yesterday, for all the wildness of the blizzard, the world was white and beautiful, pristine under the heavy blanket of snow.

Now the snow is a melting grayish slush, wet and raw. I hate the rain.

I turn from the window and pad down the hallway to brush my teeth and splash some water on my face.

Alex is already in the kitchen, slipping a blue enamel dish into the oven. Freshly brewed coffee sits in the carafe.

“Good morning.”

“I made a quiche,” she says in a bemused voice.

Then she throws me an embarrassed, baffled look over her shoulder as she shuts the oven door. “I don’t know why. I’ve literally never even thought about making a quiche before today. I feel like a 1950s housewife.”

“It smells wonderful,” I tell her.

She ducks her head and smiles. “Dried herbs from my garden.”

I consider her for a moment. “So you grow your own food? And preserve it?”

“Some. I have a vegetable garden. I can. I pickle. I jar jams and sauces. I dry herbs.”

“It must be satisfying to be so self-sufficient.”

“It’s something to keep me busy.” She deflects my admiration deftly.

“So you don’t work?” I wince at how that sounds and hurriedly add, “I mean, I know you rent out the cabin. That’s work.”

She laughs. “No, it’s okay. I don’t have a job.

I live pretty simply. A lot of what I need, I make.

Or I barter for it. My biggest expense is books, but I get those used and swap with some folks in the valley.

” She shrugs. “And, you’re right, I have the rental income.

I don’t have to be so frugal—Robert earns a good salary. But we’re saving most of it.”

The first real smile I’ve seen lights her face, softening the hard edges of her jaw.

“What are you saving for?”

She waves a hand. “It’s stupid.”

“I want to know. Tell me.”

I grab a chair and she hands me a mug of coffee. She retrieves a notebook from the counter and slides it across the counter. I trap it under my palm.

“We have a bucket list for when Robert retires. He’s a military linguist and his work has taken him all over the world, but I haven’t gone along.

So when he’s done in two years—actually twenty-one months—we’ll sell the farm, get rid of most of our stuff, and become global nomads.

We’ll travel around, see all the things I’ve read about or places he’s seen in passing in a blur during a leave.

We’re going to experience the entire world together. ”

As I page through the notebook taking in the places, events, and ideas scribbled in cramped blue ink, I get swept up in her excitement. “That’s amazing.”

She flushes. “It seems silly sometimes.”

“You’re going after a dream. That’s bold, not silly.”

She pours herself a cup of coffee and joins me at the table. “What’s your bold dream?”

“Oh.” I sip my coffee and think. “I suppose I’m doing it. I’ve always wanted to write and I’m living that dream. Maybe it’s not as exciting as globe trotting, but I have a rich interior life,” I say lamely.

She gives me a steady look. “Tell me about the book you came here to work on.”

“I don’t really talk about works in progress.”

“Is that a superstition?”

I scrunch up my nose and try to figure out how to explain my process. “No, it’s not that I think it’s bad luck to talk about it. It’s that I don’t know the story until I’m finished writing it. I discover it as I go. So what I tell you now might not be the way the story ends up.”

“It’s okay. I won’t hold you to it,” she says with a laugh.

For most of my books, I wouldn’t be able to do this, but this one’s different since it’s a retelling.

“I’ll give it a shot. My agent has a client who’s a huge romance author.

People tattoo her characters’ names on their butts and name their cats after her.

There are tours of the town she sets her books in. ”

She nods. “I think I know her. Jillian James, right? The one who bought the bookstore?”

“Right. So, you know, she’s a force unto herself. Jillian had this idea to have twelve authors each retell a fairy tale. She’ll release the books over the course of a year. And I was invited to participate.”

“So it’s a romance?”

“No, mine isn’t a romance. It’s women’s fiction, which is what I usually write.” I paused. “Actually, this one’s a little dark for me.”

“Frankly, I’m surprised you don’t write noir given your past.”

This is an echo of our conversation about true crime. But it’s just not in my nature. I shrug. “My books are all about relationships. In this book, the relationship is a friendship. It’s based on Maid Maleen . It’s an obscure German fairy tale, not one of the famous ones.”

“Right, the princess who’s put in the tower for seven years and her father forgets about her.”

My jaw hinges open. “Literally nobody, including my agent and Jillian, has ever heard of Maid Maleen .”

It’s her turn to shrug. “I read everything,” she tells me.

“Then you know the plot. In the Grimm brothers’ version, she’s in love with a prince, but her father wants her to marry someone else. In the original version, there is no king-approved suitor. Her father just doesn’t like the one she has, so he puts her in the tower to break her spirit.”

“He builds a windowless tower, sends up seven years’ worth of food and drink, then seals Maleen and her lady-in-waiting inside,” Alex adds.

“Right. Maleen has a choice. Her lady-in-waiting doesn’t.”

“Does her maid even have a name?”

“Not in the fairy tale. I named her Ruth.”

“Are you doing the part where the prince futilely rides around the tower on a horse calling Maleen’s name?” she asks with a laugh.

“I’m on the fence. It would be an effective way to show how useless the prince is. He’s not capable of rescuing her. But he’s not essential to my story. So, probably not.”

She nods with what seems like approval.

“Anyway, seven years go by, the food runs out, but nobody comes to let them out of the tower. They’ve been forgotten.

So they have to rescue themselves.” She’s still nodding along, so I speed it up.

“And, you know, in the fairy tale, when they dig themselves out with the butter knives after three days, that’s basically the midpoint of the story. ”

“Right. They free themselves and find the kingdom in ruins. They travel to another country, which happens to be where the hapless hero lives.”

“Then Maleen’s working in the kitchen, and the prince’s new bride forces her to be a stand-in at the wedding. When Maleen drops enough hints that the prince realizes who she is, the other woman orders her execution. Then, she’s killed, and Maleen and her guy live happily ever after.”

“As any good princess should,” she says in a wry tone.

“Yeah, well, I’m not doing any of that. My story is called The Tower , and it focuses on the seven years Maleen and Ruth spend in captivity. The climax is their escape. The book ends when they get out.”

“Why?”

I consider her question for a moment. I haven’t written the ending yet, but I know what I want it to be.

“I guess because life doesn’t always have a tidy, happy ending.

I want Maleen to have a new beginning off the page.

And Ruth, too. Did you ever notice that, in the original, once they reach the new kingdom, we don’t hear anything more about the lady-in-waiting? Where’d she go?”

Alex furrows her brow. “I never thought about it, but I guess we don’t. That’s pretty harsh. She gave up seven years of her life for this woman. Maleen gets her prince and Ruth gets shafted.”

“Exactly. I like to think she was smart enough to cut ties and move on, but we don’t know.

In my book, they both get their freedom.

But most of the focus is on the seven years they spend together in that tower and the effect that has on them.

” I suddenly feel exposed, vulnerable, talking about this. “Anyway, that’s the story.”

What I can’t bring myself to explain is that I can’t brush aside the seven years to focus on a reunion with the prince because I’m fascinated by other questions: How did the experience of being locked up in the tower change Maleen from someone who was passive and obedient to someone who dug her way out of a tower using a bread knife?

How did Ruth change during that time? The captivity changed them, but they probably also changed one another.

Alex says aloud what I’ve been thinking, “Seven years in the tower changed both of them.”

We exchange a look.

The towers she and I have been trapped in have likely changed us, too.

The ding of the oven timer saves me from having to respond.

We devour the quiche, which tastes as amazing as it smells. Then, while we’re clearing the table, I say, “Oh, I used your phone last night.”

“Oh?” her tone is light and casual, and she doesn’t turn away from the sink, but her shoulders stiffen. “That’s lucky. It’s out now.”

“Wait, the phone lines are down?”

She jerks her chin toward the phone. “It was this morning. You’re welcome to check.” She pauses. Then, “Who did you call?”

“I wanted to say goodnight to Tristan.”

She shoots me a sidelong glance. “You didn’t.”

“I didn’t tell him about our conversation. Except …” I trail off and turn to the window to watch the rain slide down the pane.

“Except?” she prompts.

“Except I mentioned that he would have known you as Lexi Lincoln.”

“What did he say?” Her voice is low.