Page 39 of The Mystery Guest

I head to the front of the mansion and creep up the main stairs. I pause at the landing on the second floor, looking down the long damask corridor to the library at the end. Mr. Grimthorpe is not a troll—I know this now—and yet when I met him face-to-face a week ago, he raged and roared at the end of our encounter. He called me a terrible name and ordered me away. I still don’t know what I did wrong, but then again, I never do until it’s too late. I’m reminded of that time at school when I corrected a word Ms. Crippsmisspelled on her blackboard, for which I was ordered to stand in the corner of the classroom, remaining there for so long that shame found its exit, streaming hotly down my legs.

Now, I tiptoe my way to the threshold of the library and pause. I don’t enter, not yet. Instead, I look at the forbidden wall of books and the crack by the floor—dark, no signs of life on the other side.

I walk over to the shelf and removeGreat Expectations,returning to my spot on the chaise longue to crack open the book. Over the last while, I’ve made good progress, and although I don’t know that I fully understand everything about Pip, I’m fascinated by Miss Havisham, the old and withered bride with a singular mission in life—to torment a boy with a good heart. Somehow this is more frightening than anything I’ve ever read, so why is it that I keep turning the pages?

Click.A tiny sound, but it echoes in the vaulted silence of the high-ceilinged library.

Light through the crack in the wall spills onto the library floor.

Footfalls, the swish of slippers.

For the first time in days, there are signs of life beyond the forbidden fourth wall.

My eye is on the Oxford dictionary, which juts out past the other spines. And just like that, the wall of books opens to reveal Mr. Grimthorpe standing in the doorway looking rumpled and slack, his shoulders slumped. I clutch my book to my chest.

Then the strangest thing happens.

“I am sorry,” Mr. Grimthorpe says.

I can hardly believe my ears. Is that an apology from the mouth of an adult man? The concept is so foreign that he might as well be speaking in tongues. I have to shake my head back and forth just to be certain I’m hearing correctly.

“My behavior the other day was inexcusable,” he says. “I raged like an idiot. I called you a name that in retrospect refers more tomyself than it does to you, for I am the true imbecile, the vain king with a title to nothing. The only explanation I can offer for my irrational lunacy is my personal ailment, one of its lingering symptoms being an unhealthy penchant for lashing out against the innocent. Please accept my apology.”

I don’t quite follow what he’s saying, but his face is lined with pain. I make an important discovery in that moment: it doesn’t matter if you understand another person’s pain because their injury is real nonetheless.

“I forgive you, Mr. Grimthorpe,” I say. “But do you know what ‘sorry’ means?”

“Enlighten me,” he replies.

“It means you promise never to make the same mistake again.”

He sighs and walks over to his desk, plopping himself down in his chair. “I’ll never make that error again, though I can’t be certain I won’t make others. The truth is, Pip, I have lost all my mirth, if indeed I ever had any.”

“Mirth?” I ask as I hang back in the doorway.

“Meaning: joy, contentment, happiness,” he offers. “I used to find it at the bottom of a bottle, but I’ve given that up. And a few other things besides. Where mirth lives now, I do not know. Sometimes I’m convinced I’ll find it when I reach the end of my next novel, but I’m contending with a new and even more severe affliction.”

“Meaning: illness?”

“Yes. An affliction peculiar to writers known as writer’s block. I find myself unable to complete my current work. It eludes me in every way, and yet if I knew how to finish it, I’m certain it would get me what I want.”

“Which is?”

“Further infamy. Notoriety. A place on bookshelves for centuries to come. An end to my restlessness, a return of my mirth.”

I carefully step forward into his study, pausing a safe arm’s length away from his desk and from the teetering piles of monogrammed black Moleskines.

“May I ask what your book is about?”

He leans forward. “It’s a mystery. A writer is being held captive in his home by his wife. He has two choices: kill her or kill himself.”

“Which does he choose?” I ask.

“He kills his wife. But then he has a new problem.”

“Which is?”

“He must make her body disappear or face murder charges and a new form of imprisonment, this time in a jail rather than in the relative comfort of his own home.”

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