The Silenced Tale, стр. 44
I roll onto my side, enjoying the quiet whisper of the duvet sliding against my pajamas as I do so, and take Pip’s face between my hands. My wife is beautiful in the orange gloaming of the streetlights outside our bedroom window. I kiss her softly, gently, taking the time to linger, to communicate that I wish her to be at ease, to feel safe, to know that she is loved. Pip folds up her thesis and lets it drop to the floor. On my bedside table, the baby monitor pushes the steady, sure white noise of Alis’s deep, undisturbed breaths as she sleeps.
“Do not get caught up in the Hero’s Journey,” I say, when our kiss has wound down to its natural conclusion. “It is entirely possible that this is no adventure at all, and it is only our natural worry coloring our perspective. Terrible things happen in the Overrealm all the time, after all, and none of that is connected by narrative.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I know. These fits, the horrible threats, of course they’re connected to one another. But we will not solve how if we do not sleep. And we neither of us can do anything more tonight toward finding . . . the stalker. Elgar is out of Seattle, and presumably safe and sound. Tonight, let us just sleep.”
“That’s not exactly a comfort,” Pip sighs, and snuggles against my chest, pulling my arm over her waist and holding on to my admittedly thin bicep as if she were Alis and I, Library.
“Well, I am sorry that your realm is not clever enough to operate on the same predictive narrative rules as mine,” I sniff theatrically. Pip giggles and buries her cold nose against my neck in revenge, giggling harder when I yelp.
Elgar
The flight down is uneventful, and by the time they’ve been collected by their shiny new California security shadow, and set up in a three-bedroom suite in Beverly Hills, Juan is feeling calmer. A shower, a good sit-down with a tea, and a walk around the block energizes him, and they spend the evening eating weird California sushi and compiling everything Juan remembers about his nameless ex-boyfriend with the author fetish into an email for the Seattle police. That is the most they can do to help from LA, and they get a reply a few minutes later, thanking them for the extra information and assuring them that they should enjoy their time away and not let this mar their trip.
Despite the frenzied schedule of flesh-pressing, brunch catch-ups with his agent, long lunch meetings, and the indeterminable hours always gluttonously gobbled up by having to drive through the incessant LA traffic, the first two days Elgar and Juan spend in the city are akin to an actual vacation. Knowing that their troubles are stuck in Seattle (hopefully, Elgar’s mind whispers traitorously), and that there are two LAPD officers shadowing them at every turn, helps Juan enjoy his first trip to La-La Land and reminds Elgar of just how damn cool it is that someone is turning his books into a TV series. He’d lost perspective on that with all the fear and worry.
It turns out that having his cheery, optimistic, stylish assistant along is a great way to pull him out of his funk and help him get excited about the storytelling process again.
In fact, Elgar is in such a good mood that he even concedes to Juan dragging him clothes shopping, letting his assistant treat him like some sort of runway dummy. Though, he has to admit that the red velvet smoking jacket really does make him look suave. Elgar’s almost sad that Forsyth isn’t here. Juan’s endless nattering about color would have been the perfect compliment for Forsyth’s never-ending nagging about the importance of tailoring.
Juan is also an interesting eye to have along when they tour the production design house—Flageolet is going with a more shabby-Victorian-chic mishmash than Elgar had really envisioned when he’d written the books (he’d been thinking more Errol Flynn and less Neil Gaiman, if he were honest). But with Juan along, Elgar can see the appeal of a consistent, stand-out visual style that will, god willing, be easy and fun for cosplayers to emulate.
The casting agents had been busy during Elgar’s safe-house exile, and the two-day marathon table read of all ten episodes of the first season is scheduled for the third day of their stay. On the morning of, Juan and Elgar shake hands with the principal cast—who all look uncannily similar to what Elgar’s had in his head this whole time, save for Forsyth.
They had gone with an eleven-year-old boy who’s gawkier and weedier than any son of Algar Turn really should be. Elgar can forgive that, though. It’s not like the showrunner knows the boy is meant to grow into the Shadow Hand of Hain, and an excellent swordsman. The books never explicitly say that.
The actors are all keen to meet Elgar, and he shares a breakfast in the studio canteen with the principals before the first episode’s reading is scheduled to begin. (And yeah, okay, he might have whispered into that skinny ginger kid’s ear that he might want to consider picking up a sword-training regime. What of it?)
It’s surreal to listen to dialogue he’d written two decades ago re-purposed into lines spoken by real people, with real emotion. But the joy of sitting at the giant square conference table, sipping coffee and listening to his story come to life sweeps the weirdness away. His only real moment of grimacing disconnect comes when the Forsyth actor speaks—it’s all wrong; his cadence, his emphasis . . . he sounds sneering and squirrelly instead of calm, collected, and well-spoken like