A/N: Beta'd by Miss Poison (Twilighted) and Feisty Y. Beden (FFn and Ravelry).

Ethan Church

I take another deep breath, attempting to find comfort in the stale, too warm air inside the car. It doesn't help. I need real air. I need oxygen, but the rain pouring down the darkly tinted windows makes fresh air an impossibility. It also means all I can see of the world flying by outside is the indistinct shapes and shadows of trees by the side of the road.

The sporadic twinges in my chest only seem to increase my anxiety the further we drive.

I glance briefly at my carry-on bag resting on the seat next to me and contemplate pulling out a book to distract myself, but I know there's really no point. I'd been optimistic when I packed it. I'd put in a variety of novels from the To Be Read shelf on my bookcase, and of course, a few choice selections from the stack of books that lives on my bedside table, the ones I can read over and over without them losing their appeal, the literary equivalents of a security blanket. It wasn't until I got to the airport that I truly accepted the futility of bringing them.

There in the airport kiosk, between a wall of personalized key chains and a display of shot glasses with Arizona written across them in yellow block letters, on a spinning rack of books was The Last Days of Summer with Ethan Church printed across the glossy new covers. I didn't stand a chance.

I started reading it as I waited for my flight to board, and I became so absorbed in it that I nearly missed my plane. I don't know who I sat with or what the inside of the plane looked like. I finished before we landed, but it left me mentally exhausted and thoroughly distracted by the slowly ebbing pulse of energy in my chest. By the time I met with the driver that had been sent, I could barely respond properly to his polite pleasantries.

The driver makes another turn, and suddenly the previous pounding of heavy water droplets assaulting the roof gives way to an occasional light spattering. I angle my head to look around the empty passenger seat out the front window. We're on a relatively dry dirt road barely wider than the car, flanked on both sides by impenetrable rows of tall trees. The treetops must be blocking out the rain.

With a sudden desperation, I open the window next to me. Cool damp air swirls in, ruffling my hair against my neck. My eyes slide shut as I take a series of deep breaths. It smells like rot, and earth, and rain. I let my head fall back against the back of the seat as the anxiety retreats 'til it's just a mild fluttering in the pit of my stomach.

Before too long I have to shut my window, because we're driving out from under the cover of the closely packed trees into an old fashioned circular drive. The driver says something about taking my things around back before he gets out to open my door. I grab my carry-on and quickly jog to the covered front porch. The car pulls around the side of the house, and I'm alone with my erratic heartbeat and my pulsing chest.

There's a large stone fountain in the middle of the drive, a deep circular base with three bowl-like tiers rising up from it. It's almost completely overgrown with viny plants and dark green moss, and the water from the rain overflows from one tier to the next in continuous sheets. It's beautifully dilapidated in the same way that the imposing three-story red-brick building is. Neither is broken or abandoned, just overgrown with thriving spindly green life.

I take a few more deep breaths, steeling myself, before I knock on the door. It opens almost immediately to reveal a petite woman with light grey hair, probably in her seventies. She smiles widely at my look of surprise and says, "I heard the car pull up. I thought you were going to try to make a run for it." Her laugh is warm and infectious. If it weren't for the unrelenting thing in my chest, I think I'd feel at ease.

She moves aside and motions me into the large front hall before taking my wet coat.

"Welcome to Ferndale, Miss Swan."

"Please call me Bella." Her hand is surprisingly strong when I shake it.

"You can call me Adelaide. Mr. Church is waiting for you in the morning room." We walk down high-ceilinged hallways to a room at the back of the house.

"Come by the kitchen when you're finished, and we'll get you settled in," she instructs quietly. Her hand briefly touches my shoulder in a comforting gesture, and then her footsteps retreat down the hall.

My hand reaches out to grasp the doorknob, but once my fingers wrap around it fear bubbles up in my stomach, becoming lodged in my throat. I'm afraid that if I walk into this room, and come face to face with this man, the thing in my chest will pulse and grow until there's nothing left of me. I'm afraid I'll be consumed. Utterly, irrecoverably consumed. I still want to open the door.

The hinges creak slightly as I push the door into the room. I briefly wonder if it'll hurt to lose myself to this feeling, but the thought gets pushed aside as soon as I step inside.

The appearance of the man sitting on the couch on the other side of the room stops me in my tracks. His frailty is shocking. He has pale, delicate looking skin, white wispy hair, and his hunched frame is dwarfed by the plush couch and pillows surrounding him. Logically I knew he couldn't be young, but the power of his words seems to have led me to unknowingly expect someone with the physical power of youth, despite the rational impossibility.

"Take a seat, won't you," he says with an indulgent smile. My cheeks flush when I realize I've been staring.

"I'm sorry," I mutter quietly, walking over to a chair across from him. I take a deep breath as I sit down and wonder why this thing in my chest feels the same as it did on the other side of the door.

"Don't worry about it. If I made a habit of meeting people, I'm sure I'd be used to it. I take it I'm not what you were expecting?"

"Oh... umm."

"I'm not offended. You're not what I was expecting either, Miss Swan."

"What were you expecting?"

"I thought you'd be older."

"I skipped a few grades."

"Well, I did expect you to be smart." He chuckles quietly, reaching over to pick up the teacup and saucer on the side table. The white and blue china makes a tinkling sound in his shaking hands. As he lifts the cup towards his face I notice the patches of old burn scars on the back of his hands spreading up under the cuffs of his shirt.

"Are you alright?"

"Well... I'm dying, but outside of that I'm very well, thank you."

"You're dying?"

"Yes, yes I am. That's why I need you to write this book for me."

"But why now? I don't mean to sound rude, but why didn't you start it earlier when you could've done it yourself?"

"It didn't have an end earlier. I can't stand a story without an end."

"And the end is...?"

"My death, of course. I can't very well finish a book when I'm dead, now can I?"

"But why me? All the authors out there that would've jumped at this chance... why would you ask me?"

"I've come across your translations. There are a few in the library, actually. You're very faithful to the text, and that's what I want. It just so happens that in this case I'm the text."

"You want me to... translate you into words?"

He looks off to the side thoughtfully, and then turns back to me with a smile. "Yes, I suppose I do."

"This is very unusual," I comment with an uncomfortable laugh.

"And you haven't even heard my story yet." He takes a deep, raspy breath and leans back further against the couch, resting quietly for a moment. His right hand is still shaking slightly, while the left lies limply on his lap, both mottled with scars. He seems tired already, and we've only just started speaking.

"I'm sorry if this sounds patronizing, but... are you sure you're up for this?"

"Oh, yes. I'm better in the mornings, which is when we'll be having our little sessions. Some days I have more energy than others, so we'll just play it by ear. The rest of the day is yours to do with as you please. Has Adelaide given you a tour yet?"

"No, but I think that's next."

He nods. "You're welcome to explore. I recommend the library and the gardens, when it's not raining, of course. Do you like nature? I certainly hope you do; that's really all that's out here."

"I like nature just fine."

"Good. There's a small town nearby, Forks, and a slightly larger town past that, Port Angeles. If you decide you want to make the trip you can talk to Adelaide, and she'll set you up with a car or call the driver to come up for you, whichever you prefer."

"Thank you."

"I think that's everything for today. Do you have any questions for me?"

"Umm... it's not really a question, but I have a cheque with the rest of the money you sent me," I say, digging it out of my carry-on.

"I sent it because I intended for you to have it." He waves his right hand in front of him, indicating that he won't take it.

"But I didn't need most of it."

"Think of it as a down payment until the lucrative publishing contract is signed."

"It's over two thousand dollars."

"Which will be nothing compared to the money you'll get from your future deal, I'm sure. Keep it, I insist."

00000

I walk down the halls after Adelaide in a bit of a daze, barely paying attention to the rooms she points out to me. I'd imagined many possible scenarios since I got his second letter, but a dying old man with no discernable effect on the thing in my chest isn't close to any of them. Why would I feel this intense connection to his written words, but nothing towards him? Will I feel something when he starts telling his own story?

After the tour, she leaves me alone in my second floor bedroom to get settled in before dinner. It's full of dark wood antiques and pale blue fabrics. The view outside the large windows is the vast backyard, rain-soaked green under a cloudy grey sky.

I eat dinner with Adelaide at the rough wooden table in the kitchen while she recounts how she clung to her mother's skirts for weeks when they first came to live here after her father died in the Second World War. I feel like I've been transported back to a different time, a different place that exists outside the world I grew up in. I already miss the sun.

00000

As I walk out the washroom door, another crack of thunder sounds; the window glass shakes in its frame at the end of the hall. I take a few steps in the dark towards my bedroom door before the thing in my chest starts pounding like a frightened heartbeat, but the sensation is almost completely drowned out by the panic that starts coursing through me.

I have the feeling of being watched again, but this time it's not a passive gaze, waiting patiently for the inevitable. It isn't until I hear the quiet rumbling noise that I realize the feeling is predatory. I flatten my back against the wall, staring into the dark corner by the window where the noise seems to be coming from. I stand perfectly still, my heart thumping in my chest, echoed by the thing lodged next to it.

Lightning flashes outside the window, briefly illuminating the end of the hall. The light spreads partway into the corner, and for a second I see a hard jaw-line, long neck, and, lower, a clenched fist all stark white and tense, but it's gone in an instant, even before the blinding light gives way to the country dark.

My hand frantically searches the wall for the light switch somewhere behind me, never taking my eyes off the corner, even though I can't see anything now. The lights flick on seconds later. The corner and the rest of the hallway are completely empty. If there's nothing there now, there mustn't have been anything there in the first place. Clearly staying in this house, in this storm, at this time of night is causing me to imagine things. My mind flashes to the nightmares and waking dreams Adelaide said she used to have when she first moved here as a little girl.

An awkward chuckle escapes my lips, and the slightly hysterical edge prompts me to pull myself away from the wall and continue on to my room. Even with my dismissal of whatever just happened I still don't take my eyes off the corner until my bedroom door is firmly shut.