Free Ghostwriting by Eric Brown

screen. He had left it blank. Now a block of text, perhaps a hundred words long, confronted him.
    He began reading, and his heart throbbed in his chest. He felt hot, then dizzy, and it was all he could do to stifle the cry that rose in his throat.
    He read on, disbelieving.
    I just wanted to say how much I love you both. I don’t think I ever told you that. I mean, I remember being stroppy and rude – a typical teenager. But I never said I love you. I felt it, all the time. Something stopped me from telling you. I don’t know... I didn’t want to seem soppy. But now... I’m glad I can communicate at last. I’ve been watching you, both of you. You, dad, working away on your writing, and mum in the garden... I can feel your sadness. But, please, for my sake, don’t grieve. I’m okay. I really am. I’ll be in touch again. Love, Jane.
    He came to the end and read it again, then again. Then he went through it a third time, extracting every nuance of meaning and intent from the clumsy teenage sentiment.
    He held his head in his hands and thought about it. The doors had been locked, back and front. As were all the windows. No one could have got into the house and done this.
    He took deep breaths, attempted to compose himself.
    He reached out for the microphone, brought it closer to his lips and said, tentatively, “Jane, are you there? Is it you?”
    The words appeared on the screen, his question made more substantial in Verdana twelve point.
    Heart hammering, he sat back and awaited her reply.
    It didn’t come. Five minutes passed, then ten. He wondered if he should leave the room. He had been away when she had spoken the first time, after all.
    He went downstairs, hoping that Anne would be out in the garden, and made himself a tea. He nearly dropped the packet of tea-bags twice, and the cup rattled on the saucer as he carried it back upstairs. He paused before the study door, taking a deep breath, then entered.
    The only words on the screen were her original communiqué and his short question.
    He sat back and wondered if he were going mad.
    Then he tried to work out a rational explanation for what had happened.

    ~

    He was unable to work the following morning. He had left the voice recognition program on overnight, but the screen was blank when he looked in before breakfast.
    He had said nothing to Anne last night. He supposed she had taken his quiet abstraction as preoccupation with the novel.
    Now he faced the screen bearing only the chapter heading, and knew that words would be beyond him this morning. His novel was a rational, psychological study of a man coming to terms with his loss. How could he continue with it in light of last night’s phenomenon?
    “Steven,” Anne called up from the hall. “We’re going over to see James and Lillian at one, remember?”
    Christ, he said to himself. It was already fifteen minutes to one. He had nothing against the Greenes – in fact they were good friends – but the last thing he wanted at the moment was a dose of James’ ebullience. Jim Greene was a financial adviser, and Rhodes was sure he compensated for a mind-numbingly boring nine-to-five office job by being the essence of excruciating bonhomie the rest of the time.
    He closed the novel file, hesitated a second, then left the voice recognition program open on a blank screen.

    ~

    They walked across the village, sunlight beating down from a cloudless summer sky.
    “The novel proving difficult?”
    “What? Oh, the novel... Yes, but that’s par for the course. I’d worry if it was all plain sailing.”
    She hesitated, then said, “Are you okay, Steven? You can talk, you know?”
    Instead of talking, and feeling guilty for the gesture, he just squeezed her hand.
    The Greenes lived in a big converted barn on the edge of the village. Everything about the place, from the Porsche parked strategically in the gravelled drive, to the spotless cream shag pile in the lounge, spoke of conspicuous indulgence.
    Five years