CONTINUITY - 4

A previously unpublished chapter of "The Revisionaries" concludes. (For paid subscribers.)

“The weirdest novel of the year!” -The Washington Post

Hello. My novel is long. My manuscript was longer. Many chapters that were a part of the original work hit the cutting room floor. That’s publishing for you.

Now I’m serializing some of those chapters for my paying membership. If you’re interested, you can read all the details here.

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< Part 3

Billy sips the drink as he makes his way back down the hallway the bedroom. Morris is waiting there. He’s sitting at the writing desk, straight-backed, reading from the notebook. He wears a tailored gray suit, a crisp white shirt open at the collar. He produces a cigarette and lights it. The smoke billows from his mouth and in the dim it curls around his head.

Billy does not run. There is no thought of running. There is more the sense of having come to the end of a long chase—even though, throughout the chase, from inception to conclusion, only Morris has been in movement, while he, Billy, ever dormant, has been running in place, always looking over-shoulder, listlessly trying to divest himself of these frightening familial entanglements, never quite believing they should be his: house, wealth, power, title. Hiding beneath pillow and bedspread from all his childhood terrors. There is, he realizes, a certain peace, a restoration of expectations, in the moment when the monster finally tears the pillow away.

Without looking up, Morris says, “The reason William waited until Isaac was dead to honor Tavenor is simple. Isaac had become convinced Tavenor was the whelp of another wolf.”