would, if I had any skill writing long form—but comics don’t translate perfectly into books. The best I’ve been able to do so far is to compile all the comic pages into graphic novels available for purchase in the Monstrous Sea store.
That’s a tall order, I write. There’s a lot of comic.
He puts on that little smile again. It takes him a good three minutes to write.
The main story could probably fill a trilogy, and that’s if I take the backstory out. The backstory—all the stuff with the Orcian Alliance, and Damien’s pirates, and the Angels and the Rishtians—all that could fit another two or three prequels.
I take a deep breath. And you want to write all that? For something you didn’t even come up with?
He shrugs. I really love Monstrous Sea. And it seems like a challenge.
I bite my lip to keep in this wash of emotion bubbling up in my chest. He doesn’t even realize he’s praising me. This is weird. And probably wrong, right? Like, I should tell him who I am. But what if that ruins this? I don’t want him to know who I am because it’s not who I am all the time. I’m not LadyConstellation right now. I can’t be.
When I don’t immediately answer, he carefully touches the tips of his fingers to the edge of the paper and reclaims it. He writes more and slides it back.
I actually need a new beta reader for it—would you want to read it? I saw some of your pictures the other day, and it seems like you know a lot about the world.
My hand hesitates before I answer.
I’m not much of a fanfiction reader. I don’t know how much help I would be.
This is true; I try to stay away from the fanfiction because I don’t want it to accidentally bleed into the story, and then have one of the fans say I plagiarized off them. I would be interested in seeing a prose transcription of the comic, but I don’t actually know how good of a writer Wallace is, and I don’t want to read it and have it be horrible and then I have to pretend to like it so I don’t hurt his feelings. Though Wallace doesn’t look like the type of person to have his feelings hurt easily—or at least he might not show it when he does.
He reads my note, then holds up a finger and puts down the second hamburger to reach into his bag. He pulls out a sheet of paper, covered in writing on both sides. Then he adds to our conversation, and hands both papers back to me.
Read the first page. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to read the rest.
I’m not sure if he understands that reading any of it will make it hard to say no to reading the rest, but I take the page from him anyway and flatten it out on the table in front of me. The breeze nips at the corner of the paper. Spelled out across the top of the page is the title Monstrous Sea: A Transcription of the Comic by LadyConstellation.
And below that, in his printer-precise handwriting:
Amity had two birth days.
This is my story. This is my story in words, something I could never do.
I don’t need to finish the page. I already know I want to read the rest.
Wallace writes, Is it that bad?
“No!” My voice shocks both of us, a sudden sound in the quiet courtyard. Wallace stops with his Drumstick halfway unwrapped. I scramble for the paper and write down, No, it’s really good! How much of this have you done so far?
Just one chapter, he writes.
Are you sure you want to let me read it?
I already typed this chapter up, so it isn’t my only copy. You can mark on it too, if you want.
That wasn’t really what I was asking him, but whatever. He fishes a sheaf of papers out of his bag and hands them over. They’re covered front and back with his handwriting, and small, neat page numbers decorate the top right-hand corners. I slide them inside the front cover of my sketchbook, the safest place I know.
I can have them back to you tomorrow, I write. Is that okay?
He reads that and nods, smiling again.
Just a little.
CHAPTER 7
How I look has never seemed that important. Not the clothes I wear or the poor hairstyle choices I make, but my actual body. I’m not especially tall or short.