My hand trembles on the Oxford dictionary, but I cannot let it go because the entire bookcase is in fact a hidden door that I’m propping open with my hand.
“Who in the dickens are you?” asks the being before me as he clutches a black-and-gold fountain pen, wielding it above his head like a knife. I cannot quite tell if he’s going to stab me or take notes, but when I look at his hand, I notice I’m not the only one trembling.
“Speak!” he booms. “What are you doing here?”
I fear my very life depends on my answer, and yet I’m not sure what to say.
“I’m…I’m sorry to have interrupted you,” I say. “I mean no harm.”
“Who are you?” he growls. “To whom do you belong?”
“To my gran?” I say. “She works here.”
“The maid?” he asks.
“Yes. The maid. I’m her granddaughter. My name is…” I suddenly remember that Gran expressly forbids me from telling strangers my name.
“Call me Pip,” I say, punctuating this with a wobbly curtsy.
“In that case,” he replies, “I shall expect great things from you.”
I look at him for a moment, afraid that doing so might convert me to dust. “Are you a troll or a man?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“How refreshing. Never have I been asked that question so directly. I’m a bit of both, I suppose,” he says. “I’m what’s known as a misanthrope.”
“Misanthorpe,” I repeat. “M-I-S-A-N-T-H-O-R-P-E.”
“Incorrect. You’ve confused it with Grimthorpe. You’ve reversed two letters.”
I look carefully at the being before me. He’s thin and lithe, with no facial hair at all. His skin is pale and smooth. His teeth are straight and clean, not pointed, bloodthirsty fangs. His hair is unruly and might be possessed, but he himself is dressed neatly in a button-down blue shirt, pressed slacks, and monogrammed corduroy slippers. My eyes flitter around the spartan room, taking in the details. There’s a reading chair in the corner piled with newspapers. There’s the desk, with the looming piles of black Moleskines stacked on top. There’s also a bookcase on the far wall, every spine sporting the name J. D. Grimthorpe. Though the study is far from tidy, there are no bones of children or other small mammals strewn about. There is no evidence whatsoever of overt monstrosity.
“You’re not a troll,” I say. “You’re a man. You’re Mr. Grimthorpe, the very important writer who should not be disturbed.”
He crosses his arms and scrutinizes me. “Is that what she told you? My wife?”
I nod.
“Well, then,” he replies. “What an enormous privilege for you to be in the presence of such hallowed greatness.” He stands from his desk and offers a bow. “I suppose she also told you never to come into my study.” He slaps his pointy pen down on his desk, much to my relief. Then he walks in front of his desk and perches on it, right between the teetering stacks of black monogrammed Moleskines. He glares at me with his two steely blue eyes, one of which I saw yesterday through the crack under the door, though I can’t be sure which eye it was.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” I explain. “I heard a voice. I didn’t know your study was behind the wall. I was sitting in the library reading a book.”
“Reading? What were you reading?”
“A book about a child with no mother or father, just like me.”
“Ah yes. I see. Great Expectations. Precocious.”
“Precocious,” I repeat. I know this word. I’ve been called it before. “Meaning: clever, intelligent. Ahead of one’s peers.”
“Evidently,” he replies.
He starts to pace in front of his desk, occasionally glancing at me with those piercing eyes. “So you like to read,” he says.
“Yes, I do,” I reply. My knees are shaking, but clearly they’re not connected to my mouth after all, because despite my terror, I’m still capable of speech.
“Why do you like to read?” Mr. Grimthorpe asks.
He’s so tall and knobby it’s as though he’s formed entirely of acute angles, and yet he moves with stealthy grace. He awaits my answer to his impossible question.
I search my mind for what to say and eventually an idea bubbles to the surface. “Reading helps me understand things,” I say. “And people. I also like to visit other worlds.”
“Don’t like the one you’re in?”
“Not always, no.”
“Hmm.” He huffs as he rests an elbow on one of the Moleskine stacks on his desk. “So the misanthrope and the child have something in common.”
Suddenly, his face clouds over like the sky before a summer rain. It takes me a moment, but I work up the courage. “I told you why I read,” I say. “So why do you write?”
He scratches his head, pauses. “I write to prove that I can, and to exorcise my demons. My name will live in infamy the way the names of all those writers in my library do—in perpetuum.”
“Meaning?”
“Forever,” he replies.
“But you’re already a very famous writer. Isn’t that enough?”
His arms cross against his spindly chest. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a disturbingly acute ability to rub salt in a wound?”
“My gran says that must be done to clean it.”
“Hmm. She’s said the very same thing to me,” he replies. “They don’t know you’re in here, do they? Your grandmother and my wife?”
I shake my head.
“They won’t like it. The Great Writer is not to be disturbed. He’s mercurial. Unpredictable. An angry, middle-aged, newly teetotaling creative tyrant with a penchant to fly off the handle for no good reason. Furthermore, he’s busy redefining the mystery genre for the contemporary age.”
“So you’re writing a new book?”
“Of course I am. What on earth do you think all these Moleskines are for?” He grabs one from the looming pile, strides my way, and places it in my hands.
I gingerly open the notebook to a random page. It’s filled with messy, smudged scrawl. I focus on the words, but I can’t make head or tails of what’s written. It’s either penned in another language or written in some kind of code I can’t decipher.
Before I can ask about this, he snatches the notebook from my hands, slams it shut, and places it back on the teetering stack.
“It’s not easy, you know,” he says. “To conceive a masterpiece, a book that withstands the test of time.” His voice has lost all its growl and bite. He suddenly resembles a petulant, overgrown child. I’m reminded of the moment when I first laid eyes on the Fabergé in the parlor downstairs—a jewel-encrusted treasure concealed under centuries of grime, and yet I saw it for what it was.
“It’s a matter of polish,” I say. “With most things, especially masterpieces, it’s about removing the tarnish to reveal the shine.”
He stares at me through narrowed eyes. He takes two loping steps my way, then crouches to meet me at eye level. He’s an arm’s length away, and yet I’m not afraid. Not anymore. I see him for what he is. He’s not a troll or a monster. He’s just a man.
“Are you a child philosopher?” he asks. “A court jester? The palace fool? She who can say what others don’t dare to?”
“Gran says I have wisdom beyond my years.”
“The maid who knows all. There’s shine under her tarnish, too.” He hoists himself to a stand. “You’re welcome to visit me anytime, provided you don’t get underfoot.”
“Your feet aren’t nearly as large or hairy as I imagined they’d be,” I reply. “Mr. Grimthorpe, may I ask you one more question?”