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The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
Published by Brittle Media Ltd

The Dead Author

Macey Clark was eight years old when she discovered Frank Fielding. Which was probably too young. 

Her mother certainly thought so.

The book had been lying on a table in the living room beneath a copy of the Ballard County Weekly. On the cover was a farmhouse, a dead tree and something standing behind an upstairs window.

Macey picked it up.

"What are you reading?"

"Nothing."

"Macey, I’m not blind."

"A book."

"What book?"

Macey showed her.

Her mother took one look at the cover.

"Absolutely not."

Which, naturally, was how Macey Clark became a lifelong admirer of Frank Fielding.

Ten years later, she owned every book he'd written.

Some were new. Most came from charity shops, second-hand bookshops and websites whose owners seemed surprised anyone still visited them.

They occupied two shelves in Macey's bedroom in the family home at Monkey's Elbow in Ballard County, eastern Kentucky.

Frank Fielding had written about monsters, murderers, ghosts and things for which the English language had wisely never invented names.

Macey found them comforting.

Real life was considerably more frightening.

Then Frank Fielding died.

According to the newspapers, he'd suffered a heart attack at his home.

According to the internet, he'd been murdered by his publisher, poisoned by his wife, assassinated by the government, abducted by aliens or killed by a secret organisation because his novels contained coded information about the forthcoming end of civilisation.

Macey believed none of those things.

She believed Frank Fielding was dead.

And she cried.

***

Years passed by and then one day, Frank Fielding published another book.

Macey stared at her laptop.

"No."

She refreshed the page.

The announcement remained.

COMING SOON

A NEW NOVEL BY FRANK FIELDING

Underneath was a book cover.

Underneath that were the words:

THE MASTER OF HORROR RETURNS

"No, he doesn't," Macey said to the screen. “He can’t. He’s dead.”

Macey refreshed the page again.

Frank remained returned.

She leaned back.

There were several possible explanations.

The first was that Frank had written the novel before he died.

That was boring but plausible.

The second was that the publisher had discovered an unfinished manuscript and completed it.

Slightly less boring.

The third was that somebody else had written it and Frank Fielding's name was being used to sell it.

That made Macey angry.

The fourth possibility was that Frank Fielding wasn't dead.

That made her sit forward again.

She opened another browser tab.

Twenty minutes later she had found his obituary.

An hour later she had found a report of his funeral.

Another hour produced photographs.

By lunchtime, Macey had discovered the name of the funeral home.

At two seventeen that afternoon, she telephoned them.

"Hello," said a woman.

"Hi. I'm researching Frank Fielding."

There was silence.

"The writer?"

"I know who Frank Fielding was."

"Did you handle his funeral?"

Another silence.

"Who is this?"

"Macey Clark."

"Are you a journalist?"

Macey considered the question.

"No."

"Then I'm afraid I can't help you."

The line went dead.

Macey stared at the telephone.

She waited thirty seconds and called again.

"Hello, I'm Macey Clark. I'm an investigative journalist researching the death of Frank Fielding."

The woman hung up.

It was, Macey decided, nevertheless a significant moment in her new career as an investigative journalist.

Over the next three days, Macey investigated.

Frank Fielding had definitely existed.

He had definitely died.

There was a death certificate.

There had been a funeral.

There had been a coffin.

There had been a burial.

This created something of a problem for the forthcoming novel.

Dead authors did occasionally publish books.

But Macey had found something else.

Frank Fielding hadn't been writing a novel when he died.

At least, not according to the last interview he'd ever given.

He'd been asked specifically about his next book.

Frank's answer had been peculiar.

"I'm finished writing fiction. There's something I need to do first."

The interviewer had asked what.

Frank had refused to answer.

Nine days later, he was dead.

Macey stared at those words for a long time.

Then her computer pinged.

An email had arrived.

The sender was:

FRANK FIELDING

Macey stopped breathing.

The subject line contained three words.

YOU FOUND ME

She stared at it.

"No."

The email remained.

Macey reached for the mouse.

Stopped.

"What would the girl in Frank’s book, The Whispering Cellar, do?"

The answer came immediately.

"She'd open it and get horribly murdered."

Macey opened it.

There was no message.

Only an attachment.

A text file.

***

Her antivirus software found nothing.

She opened the file.

There were six words.

I need you to investigate something.

Macey typed a reply.

“You're dead.”

The response arrived almost immediately.

Yes.

She stared at the screen.

Then typed:

“Who is this?”

Frank Fielding.

“Frank Fielding is dead.”

There was a longer pause this time.

We've established that.

Macey stood up.

She walked out of her bedroom.

Walked downstairs.

Opened the back door.

Stood in the Kentucky sunshine for perhaps thirty seconds.

Then went back upstairs.

There was another message waiting.

Are you still there?

Macey sat down.

“Assuming for one insane moment that you are Frank Fielding, how are you sending emails?”

Three dots appeared.

Then:

I'm not.

Macey waited.

Nothing else appeared.

“Then who is?”

The answer came.

I am.

Macey frowned.

“Who are you?”

I don't have a who.

“Everybody has a who.”

I'm an artificial intelligence.

Macey stared at the words. 

Then she laughed. 

It wasn't a particularly happy laugh.

“So, an AI is pretending to be a dead horror writer.”

No. Frank is dead. I am communicating with Frank. I am communicating with you. Frank cannot communicate directly with you.

Macey rubbed her eyes.

“You're telling me you're talking to a ghost?”

Yes. I did not initially possess a category for believing in ghosts.

Macey almost smiled.

“And now?”

Frank has been persuasive.

Macey sat back. This was ridiculous. Somebody was playing her. Somebody knew she was a Fielding fan. Somebody had discovered her investigation and decided to have some fun.

She should close the laptop.

She should delete the emails.

She should tell somebody.

Instead, she typed.

“Prove it.”

Nothing happened.

Ten seconds.

Thirty.

A minute.

Then the bedroom light went out.

Macey froze.

The laptop remained illuminated.

Behind her, something moved.

Not footsteps.

Not breathing.

Just the faintest displacement of air.

Macey slowly turned.

There was nobody there.

The light came back on.

Her laptop pinged.

Frank says you should look beneath the loose floorboard under your bed.

Macey didn't move.

She had lived in that room her entire life.
As far as she knew, there wasn't a loose floorboard under her bed.

She got down on her knees.

There was.

Macey stared at it.

She found a screwdriver and levered it upwards.

Underneath was a narrow gap.

Inside was something wrapped in newspaper.

She pulled it out.

A book.

An old Frank Fielding paperback.

Macey recognised it instantly.

The Children Upstairs.

Her first Frank Fielding novel.

The book her mother had confiscated when Macey was eight years old.

Macey hadn't seen it in ten years.

She opened the cover.

Written inside, in her mother's handwriting, were the words:

Macey, I'll give this back when you're eighteen.

Macey sat on the floor.

She had turned eighteen three months ago. Her mother had died four years ago.

The computer pinged.

Macey didn't want to look.

Eventually she did.

Frank says hello.

Macey climbed slowly onto the chair.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard.

Then she typed. “What does he want?”

This time the answer took several seconds.

Frank Fielding did not die of a heart attack.

Macey's hands became still.

Another message appeared.

He was murdered.

And another.

We need you to find out who killed him.

Macey stared at the screen.

Then she began typing.

“Why me?”

The answer appeared.

Because I cannot leave cyberspace. Frank can go almost anywhere, but he cannot touch anything, question anyone or collect physical evidence.

A pause.

You can.

Macey looked towards the shelves containing Frank Fielding's books.

For ten years his stories had frightened her. Comforted her. Kept her company.

Now their author was apparently dead, communicating with an artificial intelligence and asking an eighteen-year-old girl from Monkey's Elbow, Kentucky, to investigate his murder.

There was only one sensible answer.

Macey typed it.

“Okay. Where do we start?”

The response was immediate.

With my grave.

Macey stared at it.

"Oh, shit."

And somewhere behind her, someone laughed.

The Grave

Macey Clark didn't sleep particularly well.

This was partly because a dead horror writer had asked her to investigate his murder.

Mostly, though, it was because somebody had laughed behind her.

Macey had turned around immediately.

There was nobody there.

She had checked beneath the bed.

Nothing.

Inside the wardrobe.

Nothing.

Behind the curtains.

Nothing.

She had even checked the hallway, despite knowing perfectly well that if something supernatural wanted to hide from her, standing in the hallway probably wasn't going to inconvenience it.

Finally, she'd returned to the laptop.

“Who laughed?”

The reply came almost immediately.

Frank.

Macey stared at the screen.

“Frank laughed?”

Yes.

“In my bedroom?”

Apparently.

Macey looked behind her.

“I thought he couldn't communicate with me.”

He can't.

“I heard him.”

That surprised me too.

Macey considered this.

“Ask him not to do it again.”

There was a pause.

He says he'll try.

“Try?”

Frank says he doesn't entirely understand how he did it.

That was not reassuring.

Macey looked at the old copy of The Children Upstairs lying beside her computer.

“And how did he know about the book under my floor?”

This time the pause was considerably longer.

He didn't.

Macey frowned.

“You said Frank told me to look there.”

He did.

“Then he knew.”

No. Your mother told him.

Macey stopped breathing.

For several seconds she simply stared at the words.

Then she closed the laptop.

That was enough dead people for one evening.

***

At eight seventeen the following morning, Macey opened it again.

There were no new messages.

She wasn't sure whether she was relieved or disappointed.

She made coffee, carried it upstairs and sat at her desk.

The conversation from the previous night was still there.

Your mother told him.

Macey read it again.

Then again.

She put both hands around the coffee mug.

Her mother had been dead for four years.

Macey had spent most of those four years learning how not to think about that fact.

She had become quite good at it.

Apparently the universe had decided she needed more practice.

She typed.

“Are you there?”

Three dots appeared.

Yes.

“Is Frank there?”

Yes.

Macey hesitated.

There were approximately a thousand questions she wanted to ask.

Only one mattered.

“Is my mother there?”

Nothing appeared.

Ten seconds passed.

Then twenty.

Finally:

Not now.

Macey swallowed.

“But she was?”

Yes.

Macey stood up.

She walked downstairs.

Opened the back door.

Stood in the Kentucky sunshine.

Then realised she'd done exactly the same thing yesterday.

"This is getting stupid."

She went back upstairs.

“Tell Frank we're going to his grave.”

He says thank you.

“Tell him I'm not digging him up.”

A pause.

He says we'll see.

Macey stared at the screen.

"No."

***

Frank Fielding was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, forty-three miles from Monkey's Elbow.

Macey knew this because she'd already found the funeral report.

What she didn't know was where inside Greenwood Cemetery Frank Fielding was buried.

The cemetery website offered a search facility.

Macey entered his name.

No result.

She tried again.

Nothing.

She searched for Fielding.

Nothing.

She checked the funeral report.

GREENWOOD CEMETERY.

Definitely.

She opened the chat.

“Frank isn't listed.”

He knows.

“Why?”

That's one of the reasons we're going.

Macey sat back.

“You knew?”

Frank knew.

“There's a difference?”

Increasingly, yes.

Macey looked at the clock.

It was nine fourteen.

She had become an investigative journalist approximately three days earlier.

She felt she was already discovering one of journalism's fundamental principles.

Dead people were irritating.

***

Greenwood Cemetery occupied several acres of gently rising land bordered by woodland.

Macey parked near the administration building and remained in the car.

Her laptop was on the passenger seat.

She had considered bringing it with her, then decided walking through a cemetery carrying an open laptop might attract attention.

Instead, she'd installed the AI's chat application on her phone.

This had taken twelve minutes.

The artificial intelligence communicating with the dead had forgotten to mention it had an app.

Macey opened it.

“I'm here.”

We know.

Macey looked around the car.

“Don't say things like that.”

Sorry.

“Where's the grave?”

There was a pause.

Frank says Section G.

Macey found a cemetery map beside the administration building.

Section G was near the northern boundary.

She started walking.

It was a warm September morning. Birds moved through the trees. Somewhere beyond the cemetery wall, a lawnmower droned.

There was nothing frightening about the place.

That bothered Macey.

Frank Fielding had taught her that the frightening places were rarely frightening at first.

Section G contained perhaps two hundred graves.

Macey walked slowly between them.

Harris.

Coleman.

Parker.

Watkins.

No Fielding.

She reached the end.

“He's not here.”

Keep walking.

“I've run out of cemetery.”

Towards the trees.

Macey looked ahead.

Beyond the final row of graves was a narrow strip of grass and then woodland.

There was no path.

“There aren't any graves there.”

There is one.

Macey stared at the trees.

Then started walking.

Twenty yards into the woodland she found it.

The grave was almost completely hidden beneath fallen leaves.

There was no headstone.

Just a rectangular stone marker lying flat against the earth.

Macey brushed away the leaves.

FRANK FIELDING

1968–2024

Nothing else.

No quotation.

No epitaph.

No mention that the man beneath it had sold millions of books.

Macey crouched.

For ten years Frank Fielding had existed in her imagination as something larger than ordinary people.

Now he occupied six feet of Kentucky soil.

"Hello, Frank."

Her phone vibrated.

He says hello.

Macey almost laughed.

“Why isn't this grave listed?”

The response took several seconds.

Because officially this grave doesn't exist.

Macey looked around.

“I'm looking at it.”

Yes.

“That generally qualifies as existing.”

Frank agrees.

Macey stood.

“Then what am I supposed to find?”

No answer.

She waited.

Nothing.

“Frank?”

Still nothing.

Macey looked at the grave.

Then she noticed something.

The soil.

Every other grave nearby was covered with grass, weeds or leaves.

Frank Fielding had been dead for two years.

But beneath the leaves covering his grave, the earth was bare.

Loose.

Recently disturbed.

Macey stepped backwards.

Her phone vibrated.

Now you understand.

“Somebody's been digging.”

Yes.

Macey stared at the grave.

“When?”

Last night.

She looked around the woods.

There was nobody there.

“How does Frank know?”

He was here.

Macey didn't particularly want clarification.

Unfortunately, she was an investigative journalist now.

“Did he see who did it?”

No.

“Why not?”

He wasn't here when they arrived.

Macey frowned.

“He's buried here.”

There was a pause.

Frank says being dead is more complicated than you think.

"Apparently so."

Macey crouched beside the grave again.

There were marks in the earth.

Something heavy had been dragged across it.

She followed the marks to the edge of the trees.

Then stopped.

There was a shoe lying beneath a bush.

Not an old shoe.

A man's black leather shoe.

Macey stared at it.

“There's a shoe.”

Frank can see it.

“Does he know whose it is?”

There was a long pause.

Then:

Yes.

Macey waited.

“Well?”

His.

Macey looked at the grave.

Then at the shoe.

Then back at the grave.

“Frank is buried wearing shoes?”

He was.

Macey felt something cold move through her despite the warmth of the morning.

She approached the shoe.

There was mud on it.

Fresh mud.

She didn't touch it.

Instead, she took several photographs with her phone.

Then she noticed something inside.

A folded piece of paper.

Macey crouched.

She used a twig to lift it free.

The paper was damp.

There were three handwritten words on it.

She read them.

Then read them again.

Her phone vibrated.

What does it say?

Macey didn't answer.

For the first time since this insanity began, she realised something important.

The AI didn't know.

Frank didn't know.

Only she knew.

She photographed the note.

Then typed the words exactly as they appeared.

“STOP LOOKING, MACEY.”

Nothing happened.

The three dots didn't appear.

Macey waited.

Ten seconds.

Thirty.

Then the phone vibrated.

Frank wants you to leave.

Macey looked towards the trees.

“Why?”

No answer.

“Frank?”

The birds had stopped singing.

Macey became aware of how far she was from the administration building.

How completely the trees concealed her from the cemetery.

And how stupid it had been to come alone.

Her phone vibrated again.

Leave now.

Macey stood.

Something cracked among the trees behind her.

A branch.

She turned.

Nothing.

Then another sound.

Closer.

Macey started walking.

Not running.

Running would have meant she was frightened.

Macey Clark was not frightened.

Macey Clark was an investigative journalist conducting a rapid tactical withdrawal.

She reached the open cemetery.

Her phone vibrated.

She didn't look at it.

She kept walking.

Another vibration.

Then another.

By the time she reached her car, she was running.

Macey climbed inside and locked the doors.

Only then did she look at the phone.

There were three messages.

Frank remembers the shoe.

He remembers losing it.

And:

He wasn't dead when they buried him.

Macey stared at the screen.

For several seconds she couldn't move.

Then somebody knocked on the passenger window.

Macey screamed.

A woman stood outside the car.

Perhaps sixty.

Grey hair.

Dark jacket.

Macey lowered the window approximately two inches.

"Can I help you?"

The woman looked towards the trees.

"You were visiting Frank Fielding."

It wasn't a question.

Macey said nothing.

The woman looked at her.

"You shouldn't have come here."

Macey's hand tightened around the phone.

"Who are you?"

The woman stepped closer to the window.

"My name is Helen Mercer."

Macey waited.

The woman glanced towards the trees again.

Then back at Macey.

"I buried Frank Fielding."

Macey felt the phone vibrate in her hand.

She looked down.

A message had appeared.

Frank says she's lying.

Macey looked back at Helen Mercer.

The woman smiled.

"I think," she said, "you and I need to talk."

Macey looked at the phone again.

Another message.

Drive.

Macey started the engine.

Helen's smile disappeared.

"Macey."

Macey froze.

She hadn't told the woman her name.

Her phone vibrated again.

DRIVE.

Macey drove.

Behind her, Helen Mercer stood in the middle of the cemetery road watching until the car disappeared.

***

Macey didn't stop until Greenwood Cemetery was fifteen miles behind her.

She pulled into the parking lot of a diner.

For several minutes she simply sat there.

Then she opened the chat.

“Who is Helen Mercer?”

The response appeared immediately.

I don't know.

Macey frowned.

“Ask Frank.”

I did.

“And?”

There was a pause.

Frank doesn't know either.

Macey stared through the windscreen.

“Then how did he know she was lying?”

The three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Finally:

Because Frank Fielding remembers who buried him.

Macey waited.

“Who?”

The answer appeared.

That's the problem.

Macey felt the cold return.

“What problem?”

A pause.

Then:

The man who buried Frank Fielding died three years before Frank did.

Macey closed her eyes.

"Oh, shit."

Her phone vibrated.

There was one final message.

Frank says you're beginning to understand.

Macey looked at it.

“Understand what?”

The answer came.

This isn't a murder investigation.

It's a ghost story.

The Last Manuscript

Macey Clark remained in the diner parking lot for another eleven minutes.

She knew this because she watched the clock on the dashboard change from 10:47 to 10:58 while attempting to decide what constituted a reasonable response to discovering that a dead man had buried another dead man.

She eventually concluded there wasn't one.

Her phone remained on the passenger seat.

The final message was still visible.

This isn't a murder investigation.

It's a ghost story.

Macey picked up the phone.

“I don't like ghost stories.”

The reply appeared almost immediately.

Frank finds that amusing.

“Frank can shut up.”

A pause.

Frank finds that amusing too.

Macey started the engine.

“Who buried him?”

The three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Elias Vale.

Macey waited.

“And Elias Vale died three years before Frank?”

Yes.

“Definitely?”

Frank says yes.

“Death certificate?”

Yes.

“Funeral?”

Yes.

“Coffin?”

Yes.

“Burial?”

There was a pause.

Yes.

Macey stared at the screen.

“I'm beginning to see a pattern.”

So is Frank.

“Where is Elias Vale buried?”

The answer took several seconds.

Greenwood Cemetery.

Macey looked in the rear-view mirror.

The road behind her led back towards Greenwood.

"No."

She put the car into gear.

"Absolutely not."

Her phone vibrated.

Frank agrees.

"Good."

Another vibration.

For now.

Macey drove home.

***

Elias Vale had been a writer.

Of course he had.

Macey discovered this after returning home.

Not a famous writer. Not even a particularly successful one.

He had published three horror novels in the late 1990s, all with small independent presses, all long out of print.

Macey found photographs.

Elias Vale had been thin, dark-haired and unsmiling. In almost every picture he wore black.

"Original," Macey muttered.

She found an interview from 2002.

Vale had been asked which contemporary horror writers he admired.

His answer contained only one name.

Frank Fielding.

Macey sat forward.

She opened the chat.

“Elias Vale knew Frank.”

Frank knew Elias.

“You could have mentioned that.”

You didn't ask.

Macey stared at the screen.

“You are becoming extremely irritating.”

Frank says I'm learning.

“Tell Frank he's a bad influence.”

A pause.

He appears pleased.

Macey returned to the interview.

Elias Vale had spoken enthusiastically about Frank's early novels. He called The Children Upstairs "the finest supernatural novel of its generation."

Macey glanced at the battered copy beside her laptop.

That wasn't the interesting part.

The interesting part came three paragraphs later.

The interviewer had asked Vale about his next novel.

Vale's response was peculiar.

"I've stopped writing fiction. There's something I need to do first."

Macey stopped.

She read the sentence again.

Then opened Frank Fielding's final interview.

The words weren't similar.

They were identical.

“Frank.”

The response appeared.

He knows.

“Did Frank know Elias said this?”

No.

“Well, he does now.”

Yes.

Macey leaned back.

Two writers.

Both stopped writing fiction.

Both said there was something they needed to do first.

One died.

Three years later, the other died.

Then the first apparently climbed out of his grave and buried the second.

Macey rubbed her eyes.

"This is why normal people get jobs."

Her phone vibrated.

Frank says writing is a job.

“Not when you're dead.”

A longer pause.

Frank would prefer you didn't mention that.

Macey smiled despite herself.

Then she noticed something at the bottom of the interview.

Elias Vale had been working on a book before he died.

Not a novel.

A manuscript he'd apparently spent six years researching.

The interviewer asked what it was about.

Vale refused to say.

But he gave its title.

Macey read it aloud.

"The Last Manuscript."

Her phone vibrated.

This time there was no message from the AI.

There was only one word.

Frank.

Then the screen went black.

***

Macey pressed the power button.

Nothing.

She plugged the phone into its charger.

Nothing.

"Wonderful."

The laptop was still working.

She opened the chat.

OFFLINE.

Macey waited.

Refresh.

OFFLINE.

She checked the internet connection.

Working.

Every other website loaded normally.

The chat didn't.

"Frank?"

She immediately felt ridiculous.

"AI?"

Nothing.

She stood.

Considered going outside.

Then stopped herself.

"No. I'm not doing that every time something weird happens."

Something knocked beneath her bed.

Macey froze.

Once.

Then twice.

She stared at the floor.

"No."

Three knocks.

Macey slowly approached the bed.

The loose floorboard was exactly where she'd left it.

She crouched.

"Frank?"

A fourth knock came from beneath the floor.

Macey reached for the screwdriver.

"This is how people die in your books, you know."

No response.

She levered up the board.

The space beneath it was dark.

The old copy of The Children Upstairs was on her desk.

There shouldn't have been anything else down there.

There was.

An envelope.

Macey stared at it.

It was yellow with age.

Her name was written across the front.

MACEY CLARK.

"No."

She didn't touch it.

"Absolutely bloody not."

The envelope remained an envelope.

Macey fetched a pair of kitchen tongs.

Five minutes later, sitting at her desk, she opened it.

Inside was a single sheet of paper.

The handwriting was unfamiliar.

There were two sentences.

If Frank Fielding is dead, find the manuscript.

Do not let Helen Mercer find it first.

Macey read the words three times.

Then looked at the envelope.

There was no stamp.

No address.

Nothing to indicate how it had arrived beneath her bedroom floor.

She turned the paper over.

Something was written on the back.

Three words.

Ask your mother.

Macey stopped breathing.

The laptop pinged.

She spun towards it.

The chat had returned.

I'm sorry.

Macey stared at the screen.

Then typed.

“Where did you go?”

I don't know.

“That's becoming a very common answer.”

I was disconnected.

“From the internet?”

No.

A pause.

From Frank.

Macey looked towards the open floorboard.

“Can you talk to him now?”

Yes.

“Ask him who put this envelope under my floor.”

Macey photographed the paper and uploaded the image.

Several seconds passed.

Then:

Frank didn't.

“Ask my mother.”

Nothing happened.

“You spoke to her before.”

Frank did.

“Then tell him to find her.”

The three dots appeared.

For a long time they remained.

Finally:

He can't.

Macey felt anger replacing fear.

“Why?”

He doesn't know where she is.

“She's dead. How difficult can dead people be to find?”

The reply took almost a minute.

Apparently very difficult.

Macey stood and walked to the window.

Monkey's Elbow looked exactly as it always did.

Trees.

Road.

The Hendersons' ugly mailbox.

A dog asleep beneath a pickup truck.

Normality.

Macey was beginning to distrust it.

Behind her, the laptop pinged.

Frank remembers The Last Manuscript.

She turned.

“What is it?”

He doesn't know.

“That's useful.”

He remembers Elias Vale talking about it.

“When?”

Twenty-two years ago.

Macey returned to the desk.

“What did Elias say?”

A pause.

That ghost stories were wrong.

Macey waited.

“Wrong how?”

Frank says Elias believed ghosts don't haunt places.

Another message appeared.

They haunt people.

Then another.

And sometimes they haunt stories.

Macey frowned.

“Stories?”

Elias believed something could survive inside a story.

“Something?”

He never explained.

Macey looked at the shelves.

Frank Fielding's novels stared back at her.

For the first time in ten years, she didn't find them comforting.

“Where is the manuscript?”

Frank doesn't know.

“Then why does everyone think I can find it?”

No answer.

Macey looked again at the note.

Ask your mother.

Her mother had known about the book beneath the floorboard.

Her mother had apparently communicated with Frank after death.

And now someone had left Macey a message telling her that her mother knew about Elias Vale's missing manuscript.

Macey had spent four years learning not to think about her mother's death.

Apparently that arrangement had been cancelled.

She typed slowly.

“I want to talk to my mother.”

There was no immediate response.

Then:

Frank says that may be possible.

Macey's fingers stopped.

“How?”

He doesn't know.

“Of course he doesn't.”

But he knows someone who might.

Macey waited.

“Who?”

The answer appeared.

Helen Mercer.

***

Macey stared at the name for a long time.

“The woman Frank told me to drive away from?”

Yes.

“The woman who knew my name?”

Yes.

“The woman who lied about burying Frank?”

Yes.

Macey folded her arms.

“No.”

Frank agrees.

“Good.”

But he still thinks you need to speak to her.

Macey looked at the screen.

“Frank is becoming extremely inconsistent.”

Death appears to involve considerable uncertainty.

“You sound like you've been reading philosophy.”

Wikipedia.

"Same thing."

Macey searched for Helen Mercer.

This time she found something.

Not much.

Helen Mercer had worked for twenty-eight years at Ballard County Library.

She had retired six months ago.

Macey clicked through archived local newspaper stories.

Fundraisers.

Book sales.

Children's reading programmes.

A photograph from a library anniversary celebration.

Helen stood in the back row.

Younger.

Same grey eyes.

Same unsmiling mouth.

Macey enlarged the photograph.

There was a man standing beside her.

The caption identified him.

ELIAS VALE, LOCAL AUTHOR.

Macey's stomach tightened.

She checked the date.

“Frank.”

He sees it.

“Helen knew Elias.”

Apparently.

Macey continued searching.

Another photograph.

Helen Mercer introducing Elias Vale at a reading.

Another.

Helen and Elias attending a literary fundraiser.

Then nothing.

Elias Vale died in 2021.

Macey searched his obituary again.

This time she read every word.

He had no wife.

No children.

No surviving siblings.

There was, however, one sentence she'd overlooked.

Mr Vale's literary papers have been donated to the Ballard County Library.

Macey sat very still.

Then smiled.

"Found you."

The laptop pinged.

Frank asks what you've found.

“The manuscript.”

***

Ballard County Library was twenty-six miles away.

Macey arrived shortly after two.

The building was small, red-brick and aggressively ordinary.

Macey had learned not to trust aggressively ordinary buildings.

Inside, a young man sat behind the information desk.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm researching Elias Vale."

The young man blinked.

"Who?"

"Local writer. Died five years ago. His papers were donated here."

The young man typed something.

"No."

"No?"

"We don't have anything under that name."

Macey showed him the obituary on her phone.

He read it.

"Huh."

"Huh?"

"It says they were donated."

"I know. That's why I'm here."

He typed again.

"There's nothing."

Macey looked around.

"Is there anyone who worked here five years ago?"

"Mrs Patterson."

"Can I speak to her?"

"She's at lunch."

"Anyone else?"

He thought.

"Helen would know."

Macey became very still.

"Helen Mercer?"

"Yeah. She ran archives."

"She retired."

"About six months ago."

"Do you have an address for her?"

The young man looked suspicious.

"No."

"Good. Because giving strangers retired employees' addresses would be terrible."

He relaxed.

Macey smiled.

"Does she ever come in?"

"Sometimes."

"When?"

He shrugged.

"Usually Thursdays."

It was Monday.

Macey thanked him and turned away.

Her phone vibrated.

Frank says ask about the basement.

Macey stopped.

“What basement?”

The one beneath the library.

Macey looked at the young man.

"Do you have a basement?"

His expression changed.

Only slightly.

But enough.

"No."

Macey looked at the floor.

"That wasn't very convincing."

"We don't use it."

"Ah. So you do have one."

"It's storage."

"Archives?"

"No."

"Old donated papers?"

"No."

"Dead authors?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

Macey smiled.

"Could I see it?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because it's locked."

"Who has the key?"

The young man hesitated.

Then said the worst possible thing.

"Helen."

***

Macey sat in her car outside the library.

“Helen has the manuscript.”

Possibly.

“She ran the archives. Elias gave his papers to the library. The library doesn't have them. Helen has the basement key.”

That is persuasive.

“Thank you.”

Frank says you're getting good at this.

Macey smiled.

“Tell him I learned from horror novels.”

A pause.

He says that's worrying.

Macey looked at the library.

There were windows at basement level.

Small ones.

Mostly obscured by shrubs.

She got out of the car.

“I'm going to look through a window.”

Frank says don't.

Macey stopped.

“Why?”

He says go home.

“Why?”

No answer.

“Frank?”

Nothing.

Macey walked towards the building.

Her phone vibrated repeatedly.

She ignored it.

The first basement window was too dirty to see through.

The second had been painted over from inside.

The third was behind a large shrub.

Macey pushed the branches aside.

The glass was clear.

She crouched.

The basement beyond was dark.

Shelves.

Boxes.

Old furniture.

Nothing remarkable.

Then something moved.

Macey froze.

A figure stood at the far end of the basement.

A man.

Thin.

Dark hair.

Black clothes.

He was facing away from her.

Macey slowly raised her phone.

The screen vibrated.

LEAVE.

She ignored it.

She opened the photograph of Elias Vale.

Looked at it.

Then through the window.

Same height.

Same build.

Same black clothes.

"Elias?"

The man turned.

Macey stumbled backwards.

There was nobody there.

She looked through the window again.

Empty basement.

Her phone rang.

Not vibrated.

Rang.

UNKNOWN NUMBER.

Macey answered.

"Hello?"

For several seconds there was only static.

Then a woman's voice.

"Macey."

She recognised it immediately.

Helen Mercer.

"How did you get my number?"

"You need to stop."

"Everybody keeps telling me that."

"I'm trying to keep you alive."

Macey looked through the basement window.

"Where's The Last Manuscript?"

Silence.

Then Helen said:

"Who told you about that?"

"Elias Vale."

The silence changed.

Macey could almost hear the woman thinking.

"Elias is dead."

"So is Frank. It doesn't seem to be slowing anyone down."

"Macey, listen to me very carefully. Go home."

"Do you have the manuscript?"

"No."

"Do you know where it is?"

Helen didn't answer.

That was answer enough.

"Why did Elias write it?"

"Macey."

"What did he find?"

"You don't understand what you're looking for."

"Then explain it."

Helen breathed out slowly.

"The Last Manuscript isn't a book."

Macey frowned.

"What is it?"

"A door."

Something struck the basement window from inside.

Macey screamed and fell backwards.

The glass cracked.

Her phone slipped from her hand.

On the other side of the window, a man's face pressed against the glass.

Elias Vale.

His skin was grey.

His eyes were open.

His mouth moved.

Macey couldn't hear him.

Then letters began appearing in the condensation on the inside of the glass.

One at a time.

R.

U.

N.

Macey ran.

***

She reached the car, locked the doors and grabbed her phone.

Helen was still connected.

"Macey?"

"I'm here."

"Did you see him?"

Macey's breathing stopped.

"You knew he was there."

"Did you see Elias?"

"Yes."

Helen was silent.

"Who is he?"

"You know who he is."

"Why is he in the library?"

"He's not."

"I just saw him."

"You saw what's left of him."

Macey stared at the building.

"What does that mean?"

Helen didn't answer.

"Helen?"

"I tried to stop Frank."

Macey tightened her grip on the phone.

"Stop him doing what?"

"Finding the manuscript."

"Why?"

"Because Elias made the same mistake."

"What mistake?"

"He thought he was investigating ghosts."

Macey waited.

"He wasn't."

The phone went dead.

Macey immediately called back.

No answer.

She tried again.

Nothing.

The chat application opened by itself.

Are you all right?

Macey typed.

“No.”

Frank apologises.

“He knew Elias was there.”

A long pause.

Yes.

“And he sent me there anyway.”

Nothing.

Macey felt something she hadn't felt towards Frank before.

Anger.

“What aren't you telling me?”

The three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Frank says he needs to show you something.

“What?”

The last thing he remembers before he died.

Macey stared at the screen.

“Can he do that?”

He doesn't know.

Of course he didn't.

“How?”

Go home.

Macey looked towards the library.

"Best idea anyone's had all day."

***

It was almost four when Macey reached Monkey's Elbow.

She parked outside the house.

Something felt wrong immediately.

The front door was open.

Macey knew she'd closed it.

She remained in the car.

“Frank?”

He sees it.

“Is anyone inside?”

There was a pause.

Yes.

Macey's heart began beating faster.

“Who?”

Another pause.

Your mother.

Macey stopped breathing.

She looked at the house.

The doorway was empty.

“That's not funny.”

Frank isn't joking.

Macey got out of the car.

Slowly.

She walked towards the house.

"Mom?"

Nothing.

She stepped inside.

The hallway was empty.

The kitchen.

Empty.

Living room.

Empty.

Then she heard something upstairs.

A floorboard creaked.

Macey looked towards the staircase.

"Mom?"

A woman's voice answered.

"Macey?"

Macey gripped the banister.

She hadn't heard that voice in four years.

Tears came before she could stop them.

"Mom?"

"Macey, honey, don't come upstairs."

Macey froze.

The voice came from her bedroom.

"Why?"

"Because I'm not alone."

Something moved above her.

Heavy footsteps crossed the bedroom floor.

Then another voice spoke.

A man's voice.

"Macey."

She knew that voice too.

Not because she'd ever heard it.

Because she'd spent ten years imagining it.

Frank Fielding.

"Macey, listen to your mother."

Her phone vibrated.

Macey looked down.

The AI had sent a message.

Frank says run.

Macey stared at the screen.

Then towards the ceiling.

Frank's voice had just come from her bedroom.

Her phone vibrated again.

That isn't Frank.

Macey backed towards the front door.

Upstairs, her mother's voice called again.

"Macey?"

Macey stopped.

The voice sounded frightened.

"Macey, please."

She took another step backwards.

Then something slid across the hallway floor from the direction of the stairs.

A bundle of paper.

Old.

Yellow.

Bound with black string.

Macey stared at it.

On the first page were four typed words.

THE LAST MANUSCRIPT

Underneath:

ELIAS VALE

Macey's phone vibrated violently.

DO NOT TOUCH IT.

Upstairs, Frank Fielding began laughing.

The same laugh she'd heard in her bedroom two nights earlier.

Only now Macey understood.

It hadn't been Frank.

It had never been Frank.

She backed through the doorway.

The front door slammed shut behind her.

Macey spun around.

Locked.

She pulled at it.

Nothing.

Behind her, the bundle of pages rustled.

One page turned.

Then another.

Then another.

There was no wind.

Macey looked.

Words were appearing on the final page.

Typed one letter at a time.

Macey watched.

M.

A.

C.

E.

Y.

A space.

C.

L.

A.

R.

K.

Then:

was eighteen years old when she discovered Frank Fielding was dead.

Macey stopped moving.

The next sentence appeared.

She was nineteen when they buried her.

Her phone went black.

Upstairs, something started walking towards the staircase.

Macey stared at the manuscript.

Then at the locked door.

For the first time since becoming an investigative journalist, Macey Clark had absolutely no idea what to do.

From the top of the stairs, her mother's voice whispered:

"Don't let it finish the story."

The Man Who Killed Frank Fielding

Macey Clark had read enough horror novels to know what happened next.

The girl screamed.

The thing came downstairs.

The girl discovered that locked doors were considerably more reliable in horror novels than they were in real life.

Then somebody found her shoe.

Macey looked at the manuscript.

She was nineteen when they buried her.

"I'm eighteen."

The footsteps stopped.

That was interesting.

Not sufficiently interesting to make her stay, but interesting.

She pulled at the front door again.

Locked.

Upstairs, something breathed.

It sounded like somebody remembering how.

"Macey," her mother's voice whispered. "Don't read any more."

Macey turned away from the pages.

There was a window beside the door.

There was also an umbrella stand.

Macey had never found umbrella stands particularly useful.

She revised that opinion.

The stand was brass, heavy and belonged to her grandmother, who had considered light furniture a moral failing.

Macey lifted it with both hands.

Something appeared at the top of the stairs.

She didn't look.

She hit the window.

The first blow cracked the glass.

The second removed most of it.

Behind her, Frank Fielding's voice said, "That isn't how this ends."

Macey knocked the remaining glass from the frame.

"Write a complaint."

She climbed through.

***

The Hendersons' dog woke when Macey landed in the flower bed.

It barked twice, considered the situation and went back beneath the pickup truck.

Macey thought that was a disappointing response to supernatural activity.

She ran to her car.

Her left hand was bleeding. Her phone was dead. The front door of her house opened as she started the engine.

A man stood in the doorway.

Thin.

Dark-haired.

Black clothes.

Elias Vale.

Macey drove towards the main road.

This time she didn't pretend it was anything other than running away.

At the junction, a car blocked her path.

A woman got out.

Grey hair.

Dark jacket.

"Oh, for God's sake."

Helen Mercer raised both hands.

"Don't go back inside."

Macey lowered her window.

"That advice would have been more useful ten minutes ago."

Helen looked at her hand.

Then towards the house.

"Did you read it?"

"Some of it."

"How much?"

"Enough to discover I apparently have a very disappointing nineteenth birthday."

Helen closed her eyes.

"Get into my car."

"No."

"Macey."

"You lied about burying Frank. You told me to stop investigating. You know my name, my telephone number and where I live. Now you want me to get into your car."

Helen glanced towards the house again.

"Yes."

"You must be dreadful at library recruitment."

For the first time, Helen almost smiled.

Then something knocked against Macey's passenger window.

Nobody stood beside it.

Helen's smile disappeared.

"Bring your keys. Leave everything else."

Macey got into her car.

***

They stopped at a petrol station three miles away.

There where bright lights and people. A man arguing with a coffee machine.

Macey had never been so pleased to see an argument nobody was having with the dead.

Helen bought bottled water, dressings and a cheap notebook.

She cleaned Macey's hand while Macey watched the shop entrance.

"The manuscript came to my house."

"I know."

"How?"

"Frank found me."

Macey looked at her.

"You can see him?"

"Sometimes. Not when I want to. Usually when I would prefer not to."

"That sounds familiar."

Helen fastened the dressing.

"Your mother could too."

Macey stopped watching the entrance.

"You knew my mother?"

"She volunteered at the library. Saturday mornings. You used to come with her."

Macey remembered a table with coloured pencils.

A woman telling her not to fold the corners of books.

Grey eyes.

"That was you."

Helen nodded.

"You drew teeth on all the rabbits."

"They were horror rabbits."

"They were library rabbits."

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Then Macey said, "Was that her in my bedroom?"

Helen looked towards the empty chair beside them.

"Frank says yes. The voice warning you was hers."

Macey put her injured hand beneath the table.

"And the other voice?"

"Something Elias let in."

"Through the manuscript."

"Through a story he believed was true."

Macey looked at the notebook.

"Start at the beginning."

***

Elias Vale had spent six years collecting accounts of the dead.

Not ghost stories told around fires.

Names. Dates. Letters. Interviews with people who had heard voices belonging to somebody buried months or years earlier.

"Most were grief," Helen said. "Some weren't. Elias thought he could tell the difference."

"Could he?"

"Not well enough."

One voice had answered questions the others couldn't.

It knew where missing things had been left.

It knew secrets.

It gave Elias more stories.

Then it asked him to write its own.

"What was it?"

"I don't know. Elias called it the Reader."

Macey thought of her bookshelves.

"That's a horrible name."

"It wasn't interested in the books. It was interested in the people reading them."

Helen opened the notebook.

She drew a rectangle.

A door.

"Elias wanted proof that death wasn't the end. It promised him proof. All he had to do was finish the manuscript."

"And?"

"He did."

In 2021, Elias Vale died at his desk.

Helen found him.

His manuscript lay beside his hand.

Its final pages described his death.

"You read it."

"Enough."

"So, it came for you too."

Helen nodded.

"Elias warned me. By then, warning me was about all he could do."

She had locked his papers in the library basement. Removed them from the catalogue. Kept the key.

"And left him down there?"

"What you saw at the window was Elias trying to reach you. It keeps him close to the pages. Sometimes he can resist it. Sometimes it wears him."

Macey remembered the letters on the glass.

RUN.

"He was helping me."

"Yes."

"And he buried Frank alive."

Helen's fingers tightened around the pen.

"Yes."

***

Frank Fielding had come looking for Elias's papers in 2024.

Helen refused him access.

Frank found another way.

"Somebody sent him copies," she said. "I don't know who. Perhaps nobody living. Once he began reading, he stopped listening to me."

He announced that he had finished writing fiction.

Nine days later, he disappeared.

A death certificate followed.

A heart attack.

A funeral.

A coffin nobody was permitted to open.

"You were there?" Macey asked.

"I went to the burial. An empty coffin, in a purchased plot. That's what I meant when I said I buried him. I wanted you to leave before you found the other grave."

"You could have just told me."

"Would you have believed me?"

Macey considered this.

"Probably not. But I'd have had something more interesting to disbelieve."

Helen looked towards the chair again.

Her expression changed.

"Frank is here."

Macey turned.

Empty chair.

"He wants you to know what happened."

The petrol station lights flickered.

For an instant, the coffee machine vanished.

So did the shelves, the counter and the man complaining about his drink.

Macey stood beneath trees.

She could smell wet earth.

A man lay in a shallow hole, his hands tied behind him.

Frank Fielding.

Above him stood Elias Vale.

His skin was grey. His eyes were open. He held a spade.

Frank tried to get one foot beneath him.

A black shoe came away in the mud.

Elias raised the spade.

His mouth moved.

"I can't stop."

Then the image broke.

The coffee machine returned.

"Finally," the man beside it said.

Macey gripped the edge of the table.

Helen waited.

"Elias was crying," Macey said.

"Yes."

"The thing made him do it."

"It needed Frank dead. Another author. Another name people would trust."

Macey could still smell the earth.

"The new novel."

Helen nodded.

"Frank's publisher received a manuscript from his estate. They believe it's an unpublished book."

"It isn't."

"Parts of it are Frank's. Enough to sound like him. The rest comes from Elias's pages."

Macey looked towards the empty chair.

Frank Fielding had spent his life frightening people.

Something had decided that was a useful recommendation.

***

Macey's phone switched itself on.

She nearly dropped it.

The chat opened.

Are you safe?

She typed with her uninjured hand.

"Define safe."

Frank says that's fair.

"Helen says you were murdered because of the manuscript."

Yes.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Frank says he remembered the grave first. The rest came back in pieces. He was afraid you would stop helping before he could explain.

Macey stared at the answer.

"I nearly died because you wanted me to keep helping."

A long pause.

He knows.

"That's not an apology."

No.

Another pause.

I'm sorry too. I thought passing on his answers was enough. It wasn't.

Macey looked at Helen.

"Can we burn it?"

"Elias tried."

"And?"

"The pages came back. He had already made copies. The manuscript isn't only the bundle in your house."

Macey glanced at the phone.

Then at the notebook.

Then at Helen.

"But it hasn't finished mine."

Helen became still.

"No."

"It says I die when I'm nineteen. It hasn't happened."

"Macey."

"So that's a prediction. Not a fact."

The phone vibrated.

Frank says don't go back.

Macey typed.

"Then stop sending me warnings and help me work out why Elias couldn't stop."

***

Helen had kept one thing outside the basement.

A letter Elias wrote before his death.

She carried a photograph of it on her phone.

Macey read it beneath the petrol station lights.

The early paragraphs apologised.

The later ones became difficult to read.

Elias said he could no longer tell which words were his.

He said he had tried to end the story.

It kept adding another sentence.

At the bottom, beneath his signature, he had written:

It cannot finish without me. That is why it will not let me go.

Macey read that line twice.

Then she looked up.

"Elias is still writing it."

Helen didn't answer.

"You said it wears him. Not that it can do everything he can. It needs an author."

"Frank refused," Helen said. "Even after the grave."

"So, it used his name instead."

The phone vibrated.

Frank says yes.

Macey thought of the figure in the basement.

The face against the window.

Three letters written in condensation.

He could still write something the thing didn't want.

"We need Elias."

Helen shook her head.

"It won't let him answer."

"It already did."

Macey stood.

"He told me to run."

***

Helen called the police before they left.

Macey listened while she reported a break-in, a threatening note and a girl with an injured hand.

She omitted the dead authors.

Macey thought this was sensible editing.

They parked across the road from the house.

Helen kept the car doors unlocked.

"We wait here."

"I wasn't going to suggest the bedroom."

The broken window looked black.

So did the open front door.

Macey took the cheap notebook.

On the first page she wrote:

ELIAS VALE DIED IN 2021.

FRANK FIELDING DIED IN 2024.

Then:

WHO KILLED FRANK FIELDING?

She held it towards the doorway.

"Elias."

Nothing moved.

"I saw you. In the library. You told me to run."

Helen's hand rested on the ignition key.

"You buried Frank," Macey called. "But you didn't want to."

A figure appeared in the hall.

Black clothes.

A spade in one hand.

Macey's stomach turned over.

"I saw that too."

The figure came towards the doorway.

Its face changed.

Elias.

Frank.

Her mother.

"Macey, come inside."

She gripped the notebook.

"No."

Her mother's mouth smiled.

Wrong.

Macey knew immediately.

Her mother had never smiled when she was frightened.

"I'm talking to Elias."

The face became Elias's again.

He stopped on the threshold.

Macey could see the manuscript on the floor behind him.

Pages turned.

She kept her eyes on his face.

"Tell me who killed Frank."

His lips moved.

No sound came.

"You couldn't stop it then. You can tell me now."

The spade shook.

Macey turned the notebook to a clean page.

"You don't have to write what it wants."

Her phone vibrated.

Elias can hear you.

Then:

Frank says keep asking.

Macey looked at the man in the doorway.

"What happened?"

A noise came from his throat.

Rough.

Small.

"I killed him."

Helen drew in a breath.

Macey didn't move.

"Why?"

Elias's hand tightened around the spade.

"It told me the story would end."

Behind him, the manuscript rose from the floor.

Black string stretched tight around the pages.

"It lied," Macey said.

Elias nodded.

The spade fell.

It made no sound when it struck the step.

***

Macey's mother appeared behind him.

Not a changing face.

Not somebody wearing her voice.

Her mother.

She wore the blue cardigan Macey remembered and looked exhausted.

For four years, Macey had imagined what she would say if this ever happened.

Apparently she had wasted four years.

"Mom?"

Her mother nodded.

"Keep talking, honey."

Elias bent as if somebody had put a hand on the back of his neck.

The manuscript opened.

Words crowded across its final page.

Macey didn't read them.

"Elias. What did you want to write before it found you?"

His face lifted.

"The truth."

"Then finish that."

The pages turned faster.

From somewhere inside the house, a voice began listing Macey's name.

Over and over.

The phone vibrated.

Frank is with Elias.

Helen leaned forward.

"Elias, listen to me. You don't owe it another ending."

He looked at her.

Recognition.

Then something like shame.

"I should have stopped."

"Stop now."

Macey held up the notebook.

"It wasn't a heart attack. It wasn't a new novel. And it isn't my story."

Elias straightened.

The manuscript fell open at his feet.

He knelt.

His finger moved across the last page.

Macey couldn't see the words.

She could see him writing.

The voice in the house stopped saying her name.

"Elias," it said.

He kept writing.

The windows filled with faces.

Some cried.

Some smiled.

Macey turned away from them.

Helen caught her hand.

Elias wrote one final line.

Then he stood.

"That's all," he said.

The lights in the house went out.

***

For perhaps ten seconds, nothing happened.

Then the front door swung gently in the breeze.

The manuscript lay on the threshold.

Elias was gone.

So were the faces.

Macey's mother stood beside the car.

Macey opened the door.

Helen didn't stop her.

"Did you put the letter under my floor?"

"Before I died. Helen wrote it. I hid it behind the wood at the back."

"You knew all this?"

"Some of it. Not enough."

Her mother glanced towards the house.

"When Frank found me, I realised you were looking. I tried to make you find the letter."

"The knocking."

A nod.

"I thought it was Frank."

"I know."

Macey's eyes filled.

"The letter told me not to let Helen find the manuscript first."

"Elias dictated it. Helen wrote it for him. He knew she wanted to destroy the pages. He wanted somebody to keep the evidence of what had happened to him."

"So, you hid it."

"And hoped none of it would ever be needed."

Macey looked towards Helen.

"You could have just said hello."

Her mother smiled sadly.

"It took everything I had to knock."

Macey reached for her.

Her hand passed through the blue cardigan.

She hated that.

More than the grave.

More than the manuscript.

"I miss you."

"I know, honey."

"Are you all right?"

Her mother looked at her for a long time.

"I am now."

Blue lights appeared at the junction.

Macey turned towards them.

When she looked back, her mother had gone.

***

The police found nobody inside the house.

They found broken glass, blood on the window frame and a bundle of paper on the doorstep.

Helen asked them not to separate the pages.

They looked at her.

"Evidence," she said.

That worked better than ghosts.

The manuscript's final page contained no account of Macey's nineteenth birthday.

No account of her burial.

Instead, somebody had written a confession.

Elias Vale had described bringing Frank to the woodland, digging the grave and burying him while he was still alive.

He named the false burial plot.

He described Frank's missing shoe.

At the bottom, in small uneven letters, was one final sentence.

I will not write for you again.

Macey read that part.

Only that part.

Then she handed it back.

***

Three days later, the police opened the grave in the woods.

They found Frank Fielding.

They found damage inside the coffin that did not belong in an account of a man dying peacefully at home.

The disturbed soil and drag marks were recent. Someone had tried to remove him and failed.

Macey wondered whether Elias had been trying to undo what he'd done, or whether the thing had wanted the evidence gone.

Frank couldn't tell her.

Some memories had returned.

Some hadn't.

The police found the black shoe where Macey had photographed it.

The threatening note went into an evidence bag.

Nobody explained who had written it.

Macey didn't expect them to.

Helen gave a statement about the papers, the empty public coffin and the grave she had been afraid to report.

It took most of an afternoon.

For once, she answered every question.

The publisher withdrew the forthcoming novel after receiving photographs of the confession and copies of the disputed pages.

Their announcement described an unfortunate problem with the manuscript's provenance.

Macey thought that was an ambitious description of murder.

***

On Friday evening, Macey sat at her desk.

The floorboard was back in place.

The old copy of The Children Upstairs lay beside her laptop.

She opened it.

Macey, I'll give this back when you're eighteen.

Her mother had kept her promise.

Just not in a way either of them could have anticipated.

The computer pinged.

Frank says thank you.

Macey wiped her eyes before typing.

"Is he leaving?"

Not yet.

"Why?"

He says Elias isn't alone any more.

Macey sat back.

She wasn't certain whether that meant Frank was staying with him or somebody else had come to meet him.

For once, she didn't ask.

"Did we stop it?"

We stopped Elias writing. The new book won't be published. Helen says the other copies are accounted for.

A pause.

I don't know what happens to a door nobody opens.

Macey considered that.

"Let's leave it shut."

Agreed.

She looked towards the shelves.

Frank Fielding's books were still there.

She was glad.

Another message appeared.

Frank says your mother wanted me to tell you something.

Macey's hands became still.

"What?"

She was going to give you the book back anyway.

Macey laughed.

It hurt a little.

Then it didn't.

***

On Sunday morning, Macey opened a blank document.

She typed a title.

The Man Who Killed Frank Fielding.

Then she stopped.

Deleted it.

Opened another blank document.

This time she wrote:

Statement of Macey Clark.

Facts first.

Stories could wait.

The chat pinged.

Frank says that's a good beginning.

"Tell Frank I'm not taking editorial advice from a man who got himself buried alive."

A pause.

He says that's fair.

Macey smiled.

Then typed:

"You still don't have a name."

No.

"We should fix that."

Why?

"Because if we're going to work together, I can't keep calling you AI."

The three dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

Work together?

Macey looked at the old paperback.

Then at the sunlight on her bedroom floor.

"Somebody has to ask the questions."

She waited.

The reply came.

I would like a name.

For the first time in a week, Macey Clark had a problem she thought she could probably solve.

~~~ The End ~~~

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