Free The Understory by Elizabeth Leiknes

scribbling the outline of a treasure box on the paper in front of her, hoping to fill the inside before the conversation’s end. “What was your inspiration for writing a magical story that takes place in the rainforest?”
    The man let out an unforgiving and disappointed sigh. He’d probably been asked that one a million times. Strike one.
    “Um, how did this project differ from your academic writing—”
    “Oh, for Chrissakes,” he yelled into the phone, slurring his words a little. “It’s a goddamned fairy tale! That’s how it’s different—”
    “Right, sir. Sorry.” Strike two. After a quick, desperate breath, she blurted, “I need to know what’s in the magic treasure box.”
    After a long pause, Martin Baxter delivered four unexpected words. “It’s just a book,” he said. His voice had softened, though, and Story remembered the smile he wore in the picture with Hope on his shoulders.
    “I know it’s just a book, sir, but the story seemed to come from someplace pure,” she said, “and I know it sounds crazy, but that treasure box is a source of hope for—”
    “I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” he interrupted. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lecture at ten o’clock, and I’m on my way out.”
    Story grimaced. Of all people, she should have known that sometimes even the mere mention of hope is an ugly reminder that you don’t have any. “Of course, sir,” Story said. “Thank you for your time.” As she prepared to hang up, something urged her to stay on the line. After a pause, she said, “It’s a lovely story, Mr. Baxter.” In the brief moment between what she’d said, and what she said next, it truly was a beautiful moment between strangers.
    But all beautiful things eventually die.
    “I mean, I haven’t read it all, but from what I’ve heard, it’s clever, I mean, it’s well-written, at least the bits I heard when I was eavesdropping.” By now she was drowning. Being a colossal failure was Story’s strength, though, so she pressed on. “I mean, if I was eight, this book would totally make me want to visit the rainforest . . . or at least recycle my plastic.”
    This is my favorite book in the world, though I have never read it. Ugh.
    And then Martin Baxter did something he hadn’t done in a long time. He laughed. “You’re a horrible interviewer.”
    “I’m a horrible everything . Really. It’s like a sport for me.”
    The silence was back.
    “Well, thanks again,” Story spit out, “and good luck with—”
    “It has whatever you need.”
    Story was confused. “Pardon?”
    He spoke in a deliberate and sincere tone. “The magic treasure box. Inside, it has whatever you need.”
    But before Story could ask him exactly what he meant, the sound of a dial tone intruded. She was left staring at her doodle of an empty treasure box, the white space on the page a glaring reminder of what she didn’t have.
    Strike three.



NINE
    C laire Payne and sorrow, the constant companion that had occupied her passenger’s seat for the last year, drove to work together, trying hard to keep rage from squeezing into the front seat. When she’d dropped Cooper off at school, a teacher had asked for, and received, an unexpected, impromptu parent-teacher conference regarding Cooper’s angry outbursts over emotionally neutral things like right angles and cytoplasm, and by the time she left, Claire was late, pissed off, and ashamed she wasn’t doing a better job with her son.
    “What are you, fucking retarded?” she hollered out her window, honking loudly and swerving as a man, ambling through the crosswalk, kept her from speeding through the yellow light. When the light turned red and she screeched to a stop, the lumbering man approached her car window and reached for something in his back pocket. He was close enough for Claire to read his shirt, which said “Sunrise Manor”—the local mental hospital.
    He might be an escaped axe murderer, she thought, there for a quick