Christopher Boucher - Golden Delicious

Somewhere off the margin, “I am.” howled.

Six feet above me, the bookworm who’d buried me started coughing. Suddenly all of my sentences started coughing — those in the trees, in the fields, in the fibers. Every word I’d brought into Appleseed, every sentence I’d invented, started spitting up black blood; line by line they squawked, shriveled up, and went silent.

My Dad, working at Muir Drop, saw a sentence fall on the factory floor and stood up from his workbench. He put down his tools and prayed. “ ? Buddy?”

Just at that moment, down in the page, I had what they call an—

What do they call it?

A realizing. An eponymous? New information in my almost-dead mind.

“Wait a second,” said a thought. “Maybe I don’t need to die. Maybe—”

But it was too late — I was already dead. I had one prayer, maybe less, left in my skull. I prayed it out as far as I could. “Mom! Dad! I’m so sorry. I—” I prayed to anyone who would listen. “All of this was my fault,” I prayed. The prayer — the sentences — wormed out through my skull and toward the surface. But I don’t know if it ever reached anyone. My mind went quiet, and dark, and still.

Diane threw off her welding mask and flew up off the bridge, over the Connecticut River and the western Margin, past the deadgroves and the Prayer Centers and toward home. For the first time, she saw how many stories she’d missed: “Monarch,” “Bastille Square,” “Fathers in the Field,” and so many others. When had all those stories been written? And what were they about?

She landed near the pair of headphones, the corpse of the sentence and the lumpy page. “ ?” she prayed. She surveyed the site. Then she dropped down to her knees and ran her hands over the freshly turned page. She prayed her son’s name, over and over. On the third prayer, she received an automatic prayer from Appleseed. “I’m sorry, but no party is listed under that prayer name. Please check the name and try praying again.”

Across the street, her husband’s truck pulled into the driveway. Ralph leapt out of the cab and charged across the street. “Di!” he hollered. “Why isn’t answering my prayers?”

Diane’s mind raced. She ran through one idea after the next.

Then Ralph saw the lump. “What’s—” He looked at Diane — her face was a monsoon — and then back at the soil. “No,” he shouted. He dove at the page and started digging with his bare hands. “Wasn’t anyone with him?” he grunted. “That fucking Memory he always hangs out with? Or the Reader — where’s the Reader?”

Diane looked up into the darkness, then down at the page. “Wait a second,” said one of Diane’s thoughts to another.

“What?” said the second thought.

The first thought said, “What if we—”

“Dig, Di. Dig!” Ralph tossed clumpfuls of page over his shoulder.

Diane lifted off the ground, flew a hundred feet off the page—

“Diane!” shouted Ralph.

— hovered there for a moment, and then shot straight down, gaining speed and dropping through an open bookwormhole and down into the page.

Even traveling as fast as she did — scorching through the paper from story to story — it took Diane a long time (hours, days, or years, depending on the novel) to find you. For a while the search seemed never-ending. How many novels were there? More than once, she found a Reader who looked like you — sitting in a noiry diner, rifling through a used bookstore in a bodice-ripper — only to find out when she approached you that it was someone else.

When she finally did track you down, you were living twenty miles away and two years later and working as a newspaper reporter. You weren’t making much meaning at the job, but you were gaining experience and collecting stories. That day, you were covering an event called the Marginalia Arts Festival. You were on deadline — your story was due in less than two hours. One of the organizing tents had agreed to speak with you about the festival’s mission, and you were interviewing them by the entrance. Diane spotted you and the festival tent and dropped down behind a row of Port-a-Potties.

“It’s a great opportunity for artists to make a name for themselves,” the tent told you. “And tents as well.”

You wrote down those quotes. “And where do you see the Marginalia Festival in, say, five years?” you said.

The tent’s brow furrowed. “I’d like people to look forward to Marginalia the same way they do—”

Just then you saw the flash of a warskirt between a row of toilets. You immediately closed your notebook, spun around, and started walking.

“Hello?” said the tent.

You brisked away from her and bolded across Pulaski Park and back toward Main Street.

“Miss!” shouted the tent.

You looked for a place to hide: JavaNet? The Haymarket?

It was too late: Diane landed in front of you. Before she even had a chance to speak, though, you stuck your finger in her face. “Leave me alone,” you spat, and you stormed past her. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

Diane flew over you and landed inches from your face. “Just wait a second,” she said.

“No,” you said. You changed direction and stormed the other way.

“Stop right there,” boomed Diane. “I am a recognized Mother of—”

“But you’re not my mother,” you said over your shoulder. “You’re not anyone to me—”

“I’ve been looking for you for years ,” Diane said, her voice breaking. “Will you at least listen to what I have to say?”

You stopped and turned around.

“Absolutely not,” said the Reader. “I have a good life here. A full life. I’m somebody. I have a boyfriend. A good job. I never had any of that in Appleseed. I didn’t even have thoughts of my own! All I was to was just words on a—”

“ is dead,” said Diane. “Those sentences he imagined—”

“ Bookworms he called them,” said the Reader. “Fucking figments.”

“—rotted out the whole town. And then one of them killed him.”

“He killed himself , you mean,” the Reader said.

All the air left Diane’s body.

“Because you weren’t there to save him,” said the Reader.

“O K ,” Diane said.

“Everyone abandoned him,” the Reader said.

“All right — we could have”—her voice shook—“been there more. You’re right. OK?” Diane held out her hands. “But we can still save him. You — you can still save him.”

“ Me save him? You save him.”

“I can’t on my own. You have to come back. Appleseed needs a Reader.”

“I never had any sentences of my own,” you said. “Now I finally do and you want me to leave them all behind?”

“For a few days — just to help us finish the story,” Diane said.

You crossed your arms.

“Please,” said Diane. “Please.”

“And then what?”

“What do you mean?”

“If I go back to Appleshit,” said the Reader. “What happens when I finish reading?” said the Reader. “Am I stuck in—”