The Author Appears in Court

“Does Ms. Rose intend on gracing us with her presence? Mr. Lasseter, were you not bringing her here today?” The judge peered over his glasses at Trick, disdain burning in his glare.

“I could more easily control the tide by means of a bucket than direct the movements of Lynn Rose,” Trick replied coolly. The judge squinted at the boy, who kept his face blank and patient. Finally, he nodded toward the door. “Ah… that being said, if you’ll excuse me, Your Honor, I’ll call her.”

But Lynn Rose’s timing was as infamous as her writing. As if directed by some ethereal hand, the courtroom doors smashed open. Silhouetted against the cold white marble hallway, the woman in a peacoat looked like a character of her own darkest design.

“Did I miss the part where I get to talk?” she snarled, her voice carrying through the hushed room like a gunshot. “Because I’ve got plenty to say.”

“Ms. Rose...” the judge said, in a warning tone. “We’re here for the verdict. I will not have chaos in this courtroom.”

In reply, Lynn dug her fingers into her scalp, vigorously throwing her greasy hair back over her head. The woman underneath the ragged mane looked half-alive at best. Her eyes were swollen and darkly circled. Tear stains drenched her cheeks. From her lip, a thick cut trailed down her chin, and hives crawled up her neck.

Lynn’s hands shook horribly. She tried to support herself against a bench, but her entire arm began to shake.

“Ms. Rose, please take a seat,” the judge directed, a strange chord of sympathy in his voice. “I don’t want to hold you in contempt of court.”

“By all means, Your Honor,” Lynn replied, her voice shockingly composed. “Hold me in contempt of court. It would be nothing, nothing at all, Your Honor.”

Trick knew the rest of the courtroom was watching Lynn. But studying characters with that woman for long enough had taught him to look at the judge instead. He was unbalanced- the man’s pomp and circumstance had all but dissolved, leaving only a mask. But even through this, his confusion shined like a strobe.

“I’m going to have to ask you again to sit down, Ms. Rose,” the judge insisted, playing the game he still knew.

“But I’m going to stand here, instead,” Lynn replied. She tilted her tired face toward the judge’s stand, dragged her tongue across her teeth, and continued, “Can I say something you’re not supposed to say in a court room?”

Henrietta lurched in her seat, but Trick held his arm against her. He looked the lawyer in the eyes and said in a low voice, “If we’ve really lost this case, let her speak now. She can’t lose anything else.”

Henrietta let out a nervous breath and slumped against her chair, fixing her eyes on the woman now stumbling her way toward the front of the courtroom.

“What is it you want to say, Ms. Rose?” the judge said, probably breaking protocol.

“Your Honor-” the lawyer on the other side of the aisle leaned forward, but Lynn was talking again.

“I know I’m about to lose this case,” Lynn replied, tilting her head awkwardly. “I know it. Copyright is a bitch, and I should’ve covered my ass. Can I say something else you’re not supposed to say in a courtroom?”

The judge squirmed and opened his mouth to object, but he would never have actually spoken.

“I think most of you here know the truth,” Lynn swallowed- the action looked painful. Her shoulders bobbed forward as she peered around the room. “That these characters are mine, that these books are mine, and that I’m about to-” she swallowed. “That I’m about to- to-”

Lynn’s shoulders bobbed again, but this time, her head followed. Her hands caught her face as it collapsed forward, and a gasping breath escaped her lips.

Her fingers dragged across her skull, through her hair, pinning it up behind her head as she drew another trembling gulp of air.

She grimaced as if stabbed, then straightened up, letting her hair fall like a curtain behind her.

“Oliver Tarrow,” she said, breathlessly. “He’s the antagonist of the Man of Ildermora and the best thing I’ve ever created. He’s a psychopath, and a bastard, sure, but he’s got a wicked sense of humor that I struggle to believe I’m responsible for.”

The opposition lawyers looked terribly confused.

“Did you booksuckers know,” she asked, catching their confusion in her eyes and holding it, turning it toward them like a mirror as she approached their bench, “That Oliver was only ever regularly called Ollie by one person? It wasn’t his mother or father, nor any lover- it was his third grade schoolteacher, who had a daughter by that name. And until the day he died, hearing that name made him think of her, and wonder for a moment whether or not he’d kill her if they crossed paths. That’s the reason he hesitates while talking to Paisley when they first meet. Paisley has no fear of death, and likes playing with fire. She tried to get under Tarrow’s skin, and though she didn’t necessarily bother him, like she thought, she gave him pause, and reminded him- for a second- of humanity.”

Lynn snickered darkly to herself. The sound rattled wetly in her throat, as though she was fighting a cold.

“And my favorite chapter of Gabriel’s Storm is chapter 27 - I don’t usually keep track of chapter numbers, but I swear, I’ll never forget the night I wrote the scene where Oscar puts a bullet in Danielle’s head to keep her from getting their children sick.”

Someone in the back of the room audibly gasped.

“Hadn’t read that far, had you?” Lynn asked, turning toward the source of the sound. Her eyes brightened. “Sorry to spoil it for you. But you might like this detail- I wrote it the same night that they caught the killer behind the Patrick murders. Remember that? Some six or seven years ago? I was tired as hell, staring into the TV like a hypnosis patient, and I couldn’t wrap my head around why a man would kill the woman he loved,” Lynn was striding toward the back of the room. She lifted up her hand aimlessly, gesturing to it. “The rings on the fingers and all that- they make all these promises to each other. Sitting on my desk was the Gabriel’s Storm transcript, halfway done. And I realized, I didn’t know what motivated the Patrick killer, but I know the only reason in the world that Oscar would kill Danielle would be to protect their children. And in a world full of superviruses, that wasn’t too unlikely...”

Lynn lowered her hands and began to amble back toward the front of the room.

“Sorry, Your Honor, for wasting everyone’s time,” she said. “You know I’m a woman of many words.”

“Please, Ms. Rose, if you would please just take a seat,” the judge said, his voice small and his instruction weak. Lynn, predictably, disregarded it.

“Your Honor, I don’t think I’ll be doing that quite yet,” Lynn replied. “While I apologize for my pontification-”

One of the lawyers leapt to his feet. “Your Honor, this has gone on long enough-”

“So have a lot of things, junior, but here we are,” Lynn countered, throwing him a dark, furious look that Trick had seen on many occasions.

The lawyer began to squeak pitifully, “Did she just threaten me? Was she threatening me?”

By then, however, Lynn had already moved on.

“While I apologize for my pontification, it’s not quite done yet,” she added. “I think you’ll find this fascinating- in the 1960’s, a scientist by the name of John Calhoun was studying mice. Specifically, he was studying how constant close proximity to other mice would change their behavior. Here’s the spooky part – this forced contact could cause a social breakdown, even if the mouse had ample food and water. These are often called the Mouse Utopia Experiments, and in them, Calhoun picked out a specific type of mouse psyche. A small subset of mice would hide themselves away from the others, only emerging from solitude to eat and get water, then return to their hideaways to groom themselves carefully, and obsessively. He called these mice the beautiful ones, because in a world where the others were fighting and squabbling and eating each other’s tails, these mice would instead waste away on their own.

“Calhoun predicted that a similar social breakdown awaited humans if we could not handle overpopulation, but that the use of creative outlets could substitute for physical distance between people - in other words, creating an intellectual space where physical space was not an option - would suffice to prevent chaos.

“You see, I agree with Calhoun. And I'd be lying to say I don't relate with the beautiful ones. I would rather waste away in isolation than be forced into close, constant contact with the rest of the world. But I’ve had my books to give me space, to give me worlds to explore on my own. Something I could do, something I could be proud of.”

Lynn smiled darkly. She began to snicker under her breath. But as her chuckling grew louder, her smile faded into a grimace, and her expression gave the strangled laughing noises escaping her throat a horrible sort of context.

“When you take that away from me, though, I’m not one of the beautiful ones,” she said with a trembling voice. Lynn shrugged the coat off of her shoulders, and immediately, several cries rang out. Lynn looked up, straight into Trick’s burning eyes, and said, “I’m a fucking monster.”

The woman’s arms looked torn to pieces- cuts crisscrossed every inch of her skin. She wore a black tank top, which perfectly framed the tops of her bloody shoulders. Blood was still dripping from several of the largest gashes, and without the coat to catch them, they began to slink down and collect around Lynn’s fingers.

“Oh, Lynn, no,” Trick gasped. He stood up quickly, but not quickly enough. Lynn’s hand curled toward the small of her back, and she procured a small handgun from her waistband. She turned the weapon once in her hand and held it up to the center of her forehead.

For Trick, time had slowed. He vaulted two benches full of people, crossed the aisle in two steps, and threw himself at Lynn desperately.

He collided with her just in time to hear the horrible cry of her gun, and they both crashed to the ground.