We drive back across the rickety wooden bridge, the waves crashing against the pylons, sending salty spray up into the windows. The lighthouse looms in the rear-view mirror, closer than it appears, but looking so very far away already, a single, grey spire next to a small white house on a rocky island. Its single eye sweeps slow circles around its top. The sky behind it is purple; in front of us, the sun is setting. Trevor says nothing as he pulls the car out onto the seaside highway, heading back towards home. He’s said nothing since I emerged from the lighthouse, empty-handed and brokenhearted and told him to drive us home. Elias Kent doesn’t live here.

I pick up the book from my lap and tuck it into the passenger-side door pocket. Closing my eyes, I lean my head back against the headrest. I feel like I could sleep for a day, but I don’t really want to. I just want to hide. Trevor had said repeatedly that we would never find Kent, that authors like him didn’t want to be found, that’s why he was always so vague with his biographical details, but I thought I had it figured out. It made so much sense.

“You know, Eric,” Trevor says, flicking on the headlights as the sky grows another shade darker. He’s going to remind me that he told me we’d strike out, and I really don’t want to hear it right now. “He might have moved.”

I open my eyes, stare at the roof of the car. “He didn’t move,” I say, my voice flat. “He never lived there.” I turn my head to look at Trevor. He’s concentrating on the road. “You were right. Coming all the way out here was ridiculous.”

“I don’t know,” he says, shrugging and looking out his window at the ocean. “It’s very pretty up here. And, it’s always nice to get away for a little vacation.”

I turn my head back towards the ceiling, closing my eyes again. Three days driving around Maine with him is not my idea of a vacation. Neither is a wild goose chase.

• • •

I first read Elias Kent when I was 13. My mother was working for the town’s public library. She brought home a new book she thought I might like, about a college kid in New England who finds a ceramic zebra behind a dumpster one day, and his attempts to track it back to its original creator that leads him up and down the east coast. The zebra shatters halfway through the story, and the kid abandons his quest in order to focus on his studies. An internship during the summer between his Junior and Senior years lands him in the employ of a company that produces ceramic animals. Including the zebra.

It was a strange story, especially on the surface. A boy and his ceramic zebra isn’t all that interesting, but the quest was just a metaphor for the quests that we all undertake that are far less tangible, less easily described. It was about how these quests seem to be virtually impossible, and the more we pursue them, the harder it seems to get to find what we’re looking for, until we forget what the quest exactly was to begin with. And, sometimes, we find that metaphorical zebra when we are least expecting it.

My mom was right, and I read it religiously, turning pages whenever I could. The book spoke to me, its prose flowing so fluidly, the narrative strong, the imagery vibrant and colorful. I would never forget the picture Kent painted of the protagonist standing at the edge of a Cape Cod sand dune, the dog-size zebra held on his shoulder, staring out at the cold Atlantic sea as the bright green dune grass played against his legs.

It was the first novel Kent wrote, and was his master’s thesis at the University of Maine. He had published a variety of short stories, which I found in the library, with the help of my mother. I fell in love with his writing. His short stories were quick sketches of life, powerful narrative compressing his sharp sense of imagery condensed into the space of fifteen to twenty pages. Some ventured into the surreal, some into a sophomoric vulgarity I would later come to realize was typical of writers in their college years.

When I was 17, Kent published what most people generally consider his masterpiece, and my all-time favorite work of fiction, Underestimated. It is a science-fictiony tale about a dystopian future, where a bloated, corrupt government is poised to collapse under its own weight and corruption. A small band of meek rebels find they must rise up and take over the government in order to save the country. Their plan goes well until they actually make their way into Washington DC. They find their way into the White House, and are quickly dispatched, though not before killing the Vice President. Their attack finally forces the rest of the country to investigate their elected officials, and thus, they succeed posthumously.

Most critics liked it, but some panned it for being an action novel. One, a habitual Kent-hater by the name of John Phiziny, called it “an exercise in the banal, a poorly conceived attempt to latch onto current popular themes that uses a lot of big words to say nothing.” All of those critics, though, they missed the true beauty of the prose: the human struggle that goes on inside the story. The rebels are made up of men and women, many of whom had never taken a stand about anything. And all were loyal Americans who knew that what they were doing was an act of treason and that the mission would more than likely lead to their deaths, in one way or another.

Some critics panned it as too dark, too gloomy, too depressing. Again, they couldn’t be more wrong. While yes, it does seem obvious that Kent’s dark vision of the future is based on where he thinks society is heading, but the final section, wherein the President initiates an investigation, knowing full well that it would mean the end of his Presidency, instills hope that people will do the right thing, that society can be saved.

This is the book that made me want to be a writer. I read an interview with him around this time in which he said that any one who wants to be a writer should write whenever possible. After that, I began carrying a small notepad and a pen with me wherever I went. If I had to wait around for something, I would pull out the small notebook and scribble furiously, writing whatever came to mind. I filled that first notepad quickly, bought another, and kept writing. Over the course of three months, I filled six small notebooks with words. Some were short stories, some were just scenes, still others were just lines of dialogue, or ideas for stories.

• • •

“Mind if I turn on the radio?” Trevor says. We’ve been riding in silence for nearly an hour now. He’s attempted to strike up conversations, but I haven’t been in the mood to talk. I tell him it’s fine. He turns it on and starts scanning through the stations. “We should be able to find a college station around here.” He flips past a variety of modern rock, country, and random chatter before settling on something that sounds like sculpted static broken up with bursts of tortured electronics. “This is Jim Henson’s Illegitimate Children,” he declares.

“I didn’t know Jim Henson had illegitimate kids,” I say.

“No, that’s the name of the band.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah,” he says, bobbing his head in time to some rhythm that I could not discern. “They don’t use traditional instruments. They take toys based on Henson’s shows and movies, sample the sounds into computers, then slice up the sounds, making songs out of them.”

The song warps and shifts, and sounds like a cat walking across a synthesizer while a scrambled cable channel plays in the background.

“What is this one?” I ask.

Trevor concentrates for a moment. “I think this one is called Tickle. It’s all done with a Tickle Me Elmo doll.”

As he says this, I recognize the falsetto Elmo laugh cutting through the static, humorless and twisted, like the laughter of a demon, and I wonder what type of person would pick up one of these toys, conceive this bizarre cacophony, and then actually record it. All I can think is that it sounds like something from the mind of a schizophrenic, a constant pulse of static blotting out other thoughts. Then it hits me.

“All these guys do is sample Muppets?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Trevor says.

“So it’s all just a gimmick.”

“I suppose so,” Trevor says after a moment.

“And they’re popular?” I say, adding, “In the world of indie music?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty well-known.”

“Because of a gimmick.”

“It’s a fun gimmick, though.”

“No, it’s not,” I say. “It’s just another so-called artist taking advantage of a culture to wring out as much money as possible.”

“Eric, what the hell is your problem?”

“This is fucking terrible. How the hell can you listen to it?”

“It’s music,” he says.

“Barely.”

Trevor looks over at me, opening his mouth then closing it and turning back to face the road. “You know,” he says quietly, “I don’t give you crap about the way you pretend this guy Kent’s books are brilliant literature.” I stare at him.

“I’ve never said that,” I say.

“Bullshit,” he says quickly. “All you ever talk about is how great his writing is, as if he’s Ernest fucking Hemingway, or something. Well, you know what? He’s not. He’s just another airport bookstore novelist.” He shakes his head. “Christ, you and this entire state.”

“When was the last time you even read a book?” I ask.

“Last April,” he says quickly. “And it was way better than anything Elias fucking Kent’s ever written.”

“What was it, “Teach Yourself AJAX in 28 Days”?”

“No,” he says. “It was Trees Caught Fire by Eric McCarthy.” One of the two books I’ve had published. The first one, in fact. Published nearly four years ago, right after I graduated from college. I tried to give him one of my free copies, but he insisted on buying one. I had seen it in his apartment, and thought he’d read it before this year, though I’d never talked to him about it.

“You finally read it?”

“Third time, actually.”

I’m stunned. Speechless. The song fades, a new one coming in. Actual string instruments playing long, slow notes. After a few minutes, an electric piano comes in, playing a soft melody.

“You can change the radio, find something you like,” Trevor says.

“No,” I say. “If you like this stuff, you can leave it.”

“Actually, this is 52 Pick-up,” he says. “This song’s about 15 minutes long, and will put me to sleep if we leave it on.”

I laugh and switch over to a rock station.

“How long until we hit Portland?” I ask.

Trevor looks down at the dashboard, making calculations in his head. “About three hours.”

• • •

Trevor is two years younger than I am, and our sibling rivalry has always been strong. Be it in youth sports, playing in the backyard, or in school, Trevor was always determined to be better than me. And, in most cases, he succeeded. In the rare cases that he couldn’t, he settled for being different. In school, I was always better at the liberal arts subjects: English, Social Studies, History. He, in turn, studied math and sciences. Our report cards looked like mirror images of the other. Strangely, we both ended up in the writing field. I write books, he writes code.

The year I turned twelve, my soccer team won the town league championship. Just a few weeks later, Trevor’s travel team won the state championship. Once again, he showed me up. I still remember my father sitting with me in the metal bleachers as we watched Trevor score his third goal of the game, early in the second half. I clapped, half-heartedly, and refused to cheer. My father looked down at me, a frown curling his lips down under his bushy mustache.

“You should be happy for your brother, Eric,” he said. “He’s the only one you’ve got, you know.” I’d heard the speech before. I heard it earlier that year, when Trevor pitched a no-hitter in a little league game. The year before, when he beat me in the school science fair. And pretty much every year when he had way more friends at his birthday party than I had at mine. By this point, I just wanted Trevor to go away.

I got my wish less than a month later, when my parents called us down into the kitchen for a family meeting.

Family meetings are never fun. You know something serious is wrong if your parents are going to the trouble of getting everyone together in the same room. Sometimes it’s just that one of us isn’t doing their chores, or in the worst cases, that some non-immediate family member has passed away. This family meeting was worse than any of them. Our parents just stood there, leaning against the counter for what seemed like an hour, not talking, shifting uncomfortably, looking at each other nervously. With each moment that passed in silence, our fears over the seriousness of this meeting grew unabated. Finally, my father came right out and said it.

In retrospect, the news could have been worse. It could have been that one of them, or one of us, was dying from some incurable disease, but the idea that our parents were getting divorced was devastating.

My body shook as I buried my head in my arms and cried. My mother hugged me to her, rubbing my back. Trevor just kept saying, “No,” staring at my father who simply stood against the counter, his arms folded, staring down at the floor. After we calmed down, our parents started discussing the logistics of everything with us.

“I will be finding a condo in Manchester,” my father said. “You two boys will be staying here, with your mother.” I nodded. It made sense. We’d lived our whole lives in this town, most of it in this house, and this whole event was painful enough without uprooting everyone. Trevor, of course, always needing to be the voice of dissention, especially when I was involved, didn’t like it.

“I’m not staying here,” he said, his voice elevated, near shouting. Our parents looked at each other for a moment. Mom stopped rubbing my back. “I’m going with dad.”

“Look, son,” dad started, “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“I’m going with you,” Trevor said again, and I could see that his eyes were red from holding back tears. Dad looked at my brother, his mustache twitching as he literally chewed his words. After a moment he threw one hand a little bit in the air.

“Alright, we’ll talk about it,” he said.

Three weeks later, my mother and I were alone in the house. Mom cried the entire night Trevor moved out.

At first, I was angry at my brother for abandoning mom and me, but I soon came to enjoy the separation. We became only children, spoiled by our parents, free to roam our neighborhoods without running into the other. I became the only McCarthy in the school district, the star pupil of my half of the family. My grades in math and science didn’t improve, but with no one doing better than me, I didn’t feel as bad.

Weekends, our parents would trade. I’d go over dad’s, Trevor would visit mom. We were still only children, but in the opposite environment. Dad and I went to the movies, or skiing, or hiking. He let me stay up late watching TV, since I was sleeping on the couch. It was either that or Trevor’s room, and I didn’t care for that idea. In the rare instances where Trevor and I were in the same place at the same time – some weekends one parent or the other just needed a break – we treated each other like strangers meeting on a crowded subway. Pleasant enough to finish the trip, but never making eye contact.

By the following summer, I realized how lonely it was being an only child. Trevor seemed to go out of his way to make even a simple game of catch an infuriating experience, but he was always willing to go out and play. I could have called Trevor. It was summer, he could have stayed over for a few days, but I refused. He abandoned me, not the other way around. I wasn’t about to beg him to come save me from boredom. He must be going through the same things as me.

The problem was, he didn’t need me at all. Another area he was always better than me was in the realm of society. He had plenty of friends, and could make more in whatever situation into which he was dropped. It’s why changing school’s in the middle of the year was no problem for him. He was treated as the new kid for a while, but quickly – almost instantaneously, if you believe my father – fit in and made new friends.

That was when my mother introduced me to the work of Elias Kent.

• • •

We refuel just before getting back onto I-95, and I take over behind the wheel. Trevor is a little surprised, as one of the reasons I brought him along is so that I wouldn’t have to drive as much. I hate driving, especially in Maine, but right now, I really need to drive.

“Whoa, big bro,” Trevor says, as I gun the engine and zip past a couple of sedans to merge onto the interstate. “Where’s the fire?”

“We have to get to Portland by 8 o’clock,” I say. “Or at least as close as possible.” It was already just past 7:00.

He looks at me for a moment. “You do know that the city doesn’t actually close at 8pm, right?”

“The library does.”

“The library.”

“Yup.”

“You’re doing 85 miles an hour to get to the Portland City Library?”

“Yup.”

“Y’know, Ahab, sometimes you’ve just got to let the white whale go.”

I look over at him, stunned at the reference. He shrugs. “It’s one of dad’s favorite books. He compares every book he reads and every movie he sees to it.” This is true. He once called the protagonist in of one of my early stories as a “simplistic Ishmael archetype”.

“Look, you said yourself that this state acts like Kent is one of the greatest authors of the past century,” I say, pulling into the left lane to push past a couple of tractor trailers. “And what does the Manchester Library do every time a New Hampshire writer hits the bestseller list?”

“I couldn’t tell you the last time I was in the library,” he says.

“They have a special area, all about the local author,” I tell him. “They collect as much of the author’s work as possible, and archive it. The more famous the author, the more stuff they collect. There’s a whole room full of Robert Frost’s work in the Manchester Library.”

“And you think there’s something similar in Portland?”

“I know there is.”

“If you knew, why didn’t we stop on the way up, instead of driving all the way out to Orono?”

“I didn’t even think of it until your comment. I called the library from that last gas station.”

“You called the library?”

“Yeah. Talked to a librarian. He said he’d keep the library open for a little bit after eight and let us look through what they have.”

“You know, it’s a hundred miles back to Portland,” Trevor says.

“So?”

“So, driving 20 miles over the limit for that distance will only save about 20 minutes.” He catches his breath as I signal quickly and swerve into the center lane to get around a slow-moving station wagon.

“That should be enough.”

“Why can’t we just find some dinner, a place to spend the night, and go to the library in the morning? Have the full day to search.”

“Because this guy lied to me – to us. To the whole world.” My fingers clench around the steering wheel. I stare straight ahead. “He’s been telling everyone he lives in this remote part of Maine, alone in his light house, and it’s all been a lie. Is everything about this guy a lie? No one actually knows anything about him, other than what he’s allowed them to know. He’s made out to be Maine’s version of Salinger, withdrawn from society, but still working, hunched over his typewriter at all hours of the day or night, while the ocean surges around his light house.” I can feel my brother staring at me, but I don’t look at him. “In the Author’s Notes of his book “The Gift of Memory” he claimed that he wrote the bulk of it in one night, as a blizzard raged outside, knocking out his power, cutting him off so entirely from the outside world that he was afraid he’d not live through the storm. Was that all a lie? Just another carefully crafted story to sell more books? I’m going to find out. Tonight.”

Trevor is still staring at me. I glance at him from the corner of my eye. His eyebrow is cocked, and his mouth hangs open slightly.

“It’s ok, Starbuck,” I say, patting the steering reassuringly and smiling at my brother. “I’m not going to let anything happen to your Pequod here.”

We hit the Portland city limits just after 8 o’clock. I follow the directions the librarian gave me, and pull up in front of a large, rectangular brick building twenty minutes later. I park the car across the street, and start getting my bag out of the back.

“It looks closed,” Trevor says, getting out of the passenger’s side. I look up at the building. The windows are dark, many of them with shades drawn. The large front door opens; out steps a man in a trench coat, carrying a soft briefcase. He turns, pushes the door closed, and turns a key. I drop my bag on the seat and jog across the damp street. The man turns and stops, eying me warily.

“Robert James?” I say. The man nods slowly. “Eric McCarthy. I spoke with you a couple of hours ago.” He continues to eye me. “About Elias Kent.”

“Oh yes,” he says, nodding. “I’m sorry, I kept the library open as late as possible, but I must be heading home.”

“Please, sir, I only need a few minutes.”

“What can you expect to find in that short a time?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, choosing honesty, at least for the moment. “Maybe just a hint that there is something worth looking into more closely tomorrow.” And only for a moment.

“What exactly are you looking for?”

I take a breath and curse myself silently. I had meant to pose as just another researcher, not looking for anything specific. Changing tack now would be suspiscious, so I go back to honesty. “I’m trying to find where he lives.” The librarian’s eyes narrow as he scrutinizes me again. Trevor walks up beside me, holding my bag. I explain to the librarian about our journey to find the lighthouse. I leave out the part about wanting to expose Kent’s lies. No need to be too honest.

After I finish, the librarian looks at me for a moment, and asks, “Why is this so important to you?”

“He’s my father,” I say.

• • •

“I couldn’t get all of the books you wanted,” my mother said to me, sitting down at the table with me and my brother. It was late August, two days before Trevor’s 24th birthday. We went to dinner at one of his favorite restaurants to celebrate. There was supposed to be four of us.

“Where’s Megan?” mom asked Trevor.

“She got called in to work tonight,” Trevor says. “Big project they’re trying to get done.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” mom said. “She works too hard.”

Mom always liked Megan, even back before she started dating Trevor, back in high school, when she was just my friend. I had hoped to be something more, and I’d even nearly convinced her to go out on a date with me sophomore years in college when she informed me that she was seeing someone. A guy with the same last name as me. A guy named Trevor. She didn’t even know he was my brother, or even related to me. Not surprising as we were from different towns, looked nothing alike, and had been denying the relation since Trevor entered the same high school, two years behind me.

Still, I didn’t talk to her for the better part of a year after that. I made excuses why I couldn’t take her phone calls, or didn’t answer her e-mails, or didn’t hang out with her the weekends we were both home from school. I did my best to avoid her.

That ended the night she met up with Trevor and his mother for dinner one day early in summer break. Trevor had no idea that his new girlfriend had met his mother, and mom had no idea that Trevor’s Megan was the same Megan that I had pursued futilely for years. Oh, how I wished I could have been there for that first-but-not-first meeting. The way Trevor tells the story, she accused him of treachery and deceit before throwing a loaf of bread at him and storming out the door. Megan’s version is similar, except for the bread.

Her anger at Trevor dissipated quickly, as he convinced her to go back inside, and they had a nice meal with my mother. Her fury at me, however, continued unabated for quite some time. She laid the blame for the shocking revelation at my feet, as I was the only one of the four who knew everything. I suppose she had a point.

In the end, though, Megan calmed down, and the incident turned out to be a blessing. Megan and I started talking again, and having her as a mutual friend caused Trevor and me to set aside our rivalries and hurt feelings and start hanging out together again. Just over five years later, we found ourselves in that same restaurant again.

“What books?” Trevor asked.

“I’m doing some research on Elias Kent,” I answered.

“I thought you knew everything there was to know about him.”

“Not where he lives.”

“You need to do research for that? Ever hear of a phone book?”

“He’s not listed.”

“Just send a letter to his publisher, or his agent,” Trevor said dismissively, taking a sip of the beer he’d ordered while waiting for mom. This was classic Trevor: if I’m making something complicated, there must be a simple solution. He assumes that I will ignore the easy path because I find some sort of joy in complaining; that I would rather suffer through an impossible task than complete a far easier one.

I clenched a fist under the table, and started to respond. Mom could sense my rising blood pressure, though, and interrupted.

“Trevor,” she said, in her calm, diplomatic voice, “there’s a reason they call him a recluse.”

“Right,” I continued, relaxing. “He never returns fan mail, and his publisher won’t give out his address. Trust me, I’ve tried the usual channels. No one’s even seen the guy in nearly 15 years.”

“So how are you planning on finding him?”

“In the “About the Author” section, it says he lives in a lighthouse.”

“No one lives in lighthouses,” Trevor interjected.

“Right, he lives in the house next to the lighthouse.”

“Do people still live in lighthouse houses?”

“Well, apparently one person does.”

“Unless he’s lying.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think he is. There’s lots of references to the lighthouse in his stories.”

“So he writes about lighthouses, so what?”

“No, not about lighthouses, about a specific lighthouse.”

The waitress came over and took my mother’s drink order. Trevor ordered an appetizer. Spinach and cheese dip.

“So,” he said after the waitress left. “You search through the stories for clues, and then what?”

“I’ve already found a lot of clues. Now I have to match them up to a specific lighthouse. That’s where mom comes in.”

“I talked to the librarian at the university,” she said, “and they have a bunch of books that would help, but they have a policy to not loan anything related to state history out at the start of a semester. They wouldn’t be able to send anything until November. Late October at the earliest.”

“I kind of figured that would be a problem,” I told her.

“It’s ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head. “As if students are going to need those books more now than later in the semester. I think they just didn’t want to loan them to a New Hampshire library.” My brother and I laughed. As long as I can remember, my mother has had an intense dislike of Maine, though the reasons are known only to her.

“It’s alright mom,” I said. “I’ll just have to go up there.”

“To Orono?” Trevor asked.

“Yeah, why not? It would be like tracing Kent’s steps. University of Maine to a lighthouse on the coast.”

“When are you heading up?” Trevor asked.

“Second or third week of September. I’m going to take some vacation time.”

“Do you want company?”

“No, I think I can handle this on my own.”

“Eric,” mom said. “Take your brother along. It’ll be good for the two of you.”

“Come on,” Trevor said. “I’ll drive.”

• • •

“You are not,” the librarian says.

It was worth a shot.

“Look,” Trevor says. “Mr. James, my brother and I are from New Hampshire. In the past two days we’ve driven to Orono, and halfway to Lubec in search of Mr. Kent. Our best lead turned out to be a red herring, and our last hope might be in this library.”

The librarian looks from my brother to me, and back at Trevor.

“Alright,” he says, turning towards the door. “I can give you about 20 minutes. A half hour at the most.”

“Thank you so much,” I say.

“Don’t mention it,” he responds, opening the door and ushering us inside. He closes and locks the door behind us. Fluorescent lights hum to life as he flips some switches. “It’s back here,” he says, leading us towards a room in the back of the library. “I’m not sure how much we’ll have that will help you. It’s mostly just writings, nothing really about him.” He gestures to a stack of boxes marked Elias Kent Archives in black marker.

“It’s not quite what I was expecting,” I say.

Mr. James shrugs. “We put some of it on display at times, but most of it is just random papers he wrote in college, or earlier. None of it really makes for a good exhibition. Hell, those bottom two boxes aren’t even sorted.”

“Really?”

“We scanned the stuff when it first came in, but nothing seemed particularly interesting.”

“How did you get all of this?” Trevor asks, pulling the first box down.

“It just showed up here one night. We pretty much assumed that Kent, or someone from his family left it here for us. I’ll be at the front desk if you need anything else.”

He heads out of the room, returning to the front of the library. Trevor and I start pulling boxes down, laying them side by side along the back wall.

“Where should we start?” Trevor asks.

“You start with the stuff from the bottom,” I say, pointing at the boxes to my right. “The stuff he did at the beginning of his career may be useful. I’ll start going through the more recent stuff.”

“Sounds good,” Trevor says, picking up the box and moving it over to a table. “Oh man,” he says after lifting the lid. “It’s just loose papers.”

I look over his shoulder. “Crap.” The box is full of pages, hundreds of them, unbound, piled together. “Alright, we’re just going to have to organize this stuff. Come back tomorrow and actually look through it.”

Trevor sighs, but agrees. He was hoping to head home tomorrow morning. Or, at least, not sit around another library reading about Elias Kent. We each grab a pile of papers, and start separating into individual piles based on the story title. There is a lot of work in the box: different versions of short stories, unfinished novels or long stories, journal entries. There are at least 8 different versions of his first published work, Sunrise on Machias Bay. Some pages are typed; some handwritten on notebook paper. There is even a sketch of a story scribbled on pages from an old notepad.

“Stop reading, Eric,” Trevor says, as I linger on a particular scrap of a story about angels weeping while protecting us while we sleep. “Let’s get as much done as we can.”

“Sorry,” I say. “This is just kind of amazing. It’s like sorting through history.”

“Paper cuts and boredom. Yeah, sounds like a history class to me.”

I ignore his comment, and keep sorting, until I come across a story entitled, “My Home Town.” I scan it quickly, but it is about a ten-year-old named Josh wandering around South Portland, describing the things he sees. Probably just an exercise for some class.

“Who is John Phiziny?” Trevor asks.

“Just some old, cantankerous columnist for the Portland Press Herald. He reviews all of Kent’s work. Hates pretty much everything about them.” I continue sorting for a moment, then stop and look at my brother. He has stopped, reading a page. “Why?”

He hands the page to me.

• • •

We set out in the middle of the day on Tuesday, a day and a half later than I wanted to leave, but Trevor couldn’t leave until Megan got home from a business trip that weekend. I thought about leaving without him, but I knew that mom would be furious. We hadn’t even left yet, though, and he was already being difficult.

The drive up to Bangor was uneventful. And boring. Hideously boring. The state of Maine is 33,000 square miles of natural beauty, featuring lush forests, grandiose mountains, and a stunning coastline. And the main highway running through the state manages to showcase none of that. Around Augusta, you begin to see some rolling hills, but they disappear rather quickly.

Trevor and I passed the time talking about our jobs, our lives, sports. One thing we could always agree on was sports. He was into basketball a bit more than me, but we both loved baseball, football, and soccer. We discuss the Revs latest attempt to win the elusive championship, the upcoming Patriots season, and the Red Sox chances in the playoffs.

“Do you ever think that maybe this Kent guy just doesn’t want to be found?” Trevor asked, after our conversation about the Red Sox petered out. “I mean, do you really think he’s sitting in some lighthouse, waiting for some ambitious fan to track him down?”

“Well, I don’t think he’s necessarily waiting for someone to find him,” I said.

“But you think he left hints in his writings that could lead someone to him.”

“When you write a program, you use code that is unique to you, right? A sort of digital signature that someone could trace back to you?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” he said.

“This is the same thing.”

Trevor shook his head, but didn’t say anything.

“How is it different?”

“I’m not a recluse,” he said quickly. “Eric, it’s the exact opposite. Programmers use code like that to let people know who they are, so they can make contacts and get more work. This guy doesn’t want to be found. How do we know these clues aren’t just a way for him to jerk people around?” I didn’t respond. “Hell, how do you even know that “Elias Kent” isn’t just a pen name?”

“If it is, no one knows his real name.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point of a pen name?”

“Sometimes,” I answered. “Sometimes authors just think the pen name sounds better than their real name. Zane Grey changed his name because he didn’t think Pearl Gray was a suitable name for an author of Westerns.”

“Not to mention Pearl is a terrible name for a guy.”

“The point is, when a writer gets as famous as Elias Kent, people figure out those kinds of things.”

“Unless he doesn’t want anyone to find out. And if that’s true, how are we ever going to find him?”

We checked into a hotel in Bangor, just off the highway. Across the street, a giant Paul Bunyan stared down at us jovially, his massive axe slung across one shoulder.

“I thought Paul Bunyan was from Michigan,” Trevor said, as we passed by it to enter the hotel lobby.

“I think he was born in Bangor, then headed west as he got older.”

“To find what?”

I shrugged. “Better skiing?”

We spent the night in Bangor, then drove up to the university library in Orono the next morning. A young librarian showed us to the reference section, and the collection of reserved books on the history of Maine, and various books on lighthouses. I asked her to show me to their collection of Kent’s writings. She directed me into the fiction section, as they had no separate area for his work. Trevor and I sat a small, round table in the back.

“Man,” he said, flipping through Lighthouses of New England. “Maine takes up half of this book. Why couldn’t we start looking in New Hampshire? There’s only five.”

“And only the Portsmouth Harbor Light is on the coast and accessible,” I responded. “If you’re going to choose a place to live where you won’t be found, would you chose the only one in the state?”

“Alright, so where do we start?”

It is mentioned several times that Kent lives in his “family’s lighthouse”, meaning that the Kent family either built the lighthouse originally, or were long-time caretakers. I decided we should start there, looking through the books for any instances of the name Kent in conjunction with either the caretakers or the builders of the houses. The process was not quick. None of the books were comprehensive, and some were even inaccurate, which led to a lot of book-swapping and cross-referencing. After an hour, we had only gotten through half of the lighthouses – eliminating them all.

“Do we have a map of Maine?” I asked, reaching in my bag for my notebook. Trevor rooted through the books and produced a large atlas. I flipped a few pages to where I’d written some notes. In several stories, Kent had given details about the location of the lighthouse, though none were very specific.

“Why didn’t you use those earlier?” Trevor asked.

“I don’t know much about the towns along the coast, do you?” Trevor shook his head. “So, saying the lighthouse is north of Portland doesn’t narrow anything down. We’d still have to check each lighthouse on the map.”

“True.”

“Alright, it looks like it’s northeast of Mt. Desert Island, and southwest of Lubec.”

Trevor scanned the map, putting his finger on each location. “That’s like half the state,” he said. “That’ll take forever.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“What’s it made of?”

“What?”

“This book,” he said, opening Lighthouses of New England, “lists the construction materials of each lighthouse. We can at least eliminate a bunch of them pretty quickly using that info.”

I flipped through my notes, but as far as I can tell, Kent never mentions the construction of the lighthouse. I told Trevor to look through the locations, while I focused on the other references to the building in Kent’s writings. He mentions it not being visible from Route 1. It is on what seems to be an island from most appearances, but is accessible by car. When the seas get high, such as during many winter storms, it feels like the island will be washed away, but the lighthouse stands firm and solid. This made it sound as though the building was brick or stone.

The reference was from his short story, Coastal Tides, which focused on the lighthouse, and yet, doesn’t give much detail. I found a printing of the story in one of his collections, and reread. As I remembered, there was nothing extremely descriptive about the look or construction of the tower, just his romanticized account of living alone with his typewriter and the sea. After one particularly nasty storm, he decides to pack up and leave, but nearly gets stranded on an inland road when another storm kicks up. He rethinks his decision, and moves back into the lighthouse, noting the safety of its solid spire. I read the passage aloud to Trevor.

“There are a lot of lighthouses build out of various types of stone,” he said. “Reread that last bit, though.”

“It’s spire, solid and unyielding brings to mind the words of my father, when he told me that this place, above all others, was the best place to live free. Or die.”

Trevor smiled at me. He had figured something out.

“What?” I said finally.

“Granite,” he said simply. When I didn’t respond, he continued. “The last four words of that story: “live free or die”. New Hampshire’s state motto. The granite state. The lighthouse is made of granite.”

My heart raced as I knew he was right, that we’d found another clue, one that should eliminate a good chunk of the lighthouses on the list. Trevor figured it out, I corrected myself. The guy didn’t even want to be here researching any of this, only came along to hang out and take a vacation in Maine, and he is the one figuring out clues. I pushed my jealousy to the back of my mind, and turned my attention back to the lighthouses.

The hint proved valuable. Of the nearly 70 lighthouses in Maine, only 18 of them are made of granite. Four of them are southwest of Mt. Desert Island, one is way too far to the northeast, three of them only have granite bases, and eight of them are too far off the coast to get to by car. That left two: Hamilton Point Light in Jonesport, and Conte Island Light, near Machiasport. Both of which matched every description I had, and neither listed anyone named Kent in connection with either the construction or the caretaking of the lighthouse.

We turned next to the history books, poring over them for any mentions of the lighthouses. Many were general references to the rockiness of the coast and the need for guidance in order to ensure safe passage. There was little information about these two specific lighthouses though.

I decided to try a different approach. While Trevor continued to look up historical info, I searched for the family name. It didn’t take long to get a hit. The Kent family moved into the Maine territory when it was still a part of the Massachusetts colony, working their way up the coast, eventually settling just northeast of Bar Harbor, along with several other family, most notably that of John C. Jones. The governor gave Jones the parcel of land on which the group had settled, and named it Jonesborough. Later, after Maine’s incorporation as a state, the town changed its name to Jonesport.

“Hamilton Point,” I said to Trevor, showing him the history of the town.

We headed over to the computers to try to get more info. A quick search led us to a couple of sites that informed us the lighthouse was neither open to the public, and best viewed by boat. Undeterred, and in some ways, encouraged, we browsed to a map site to get directions. Trevor typed in our current location, and the coordinates of the lighthouse.

“Houston, we’ve got a problem,” he said. “According to this site, there’s no way to drive to the Hamilton Point Lighthouse.”

“So we can’t get there?”

He clicked a button that switched the map image with an overhead satellite shot. “See this right here?” he said, pointing at an oblong landmass on the screen. “This is where the lighthouse is. It’s on an island” He clicks a couple more times, zooming in on the area. “See this thin line right here? I would guess that’s a small bridge connecting Hamilton Point to the mainland.”

“But it’s not an actual road,” I finished.

“Exactly.”

“Could you just print out directions to the spot where that bridge connects with the mainland?”

“I can do one better than that,” he said, pulling out his cell phone. “If I can find the coordinates of that spot, I can use my phone’s GPS. It’ll give us a better idea of where we are in relation to the bridge.”

“Wow,” I said, more to myself than him. “I’m lucky if my phone can actually receive calls.”

“Ok, got it,” he said, apparently not hearing me. He picked up his phone, and started punching in commands. According to his phone, the drive would take around two hours. It was already mid-afternoon, so we decided to wait until the next day.

• • •

“What is this?” I ask, scanning the darkened, slightly torn page of notebook paper my brother handed me. Slightly slanted handwriting, a modified version of cursive covers the page. In some spots the writing has smudged or faded, but is mostly legible. “Are there more pages to this?” I ask, after quickly reading the page.

“Yeah,” Trevor says, pulling out three more pages and handing them to me. It’s shorter than later drafts, the main character’s name is Jack instead of James, and the ending is different, more abrupt and with far less subtlety.

“What is it?” Trevor asks.

“Elias Kent’s first published story,” I answer. “Written by John Phiziny.”

• • •

The drive took longer than the estimated two hours, as we found that Trevor’s GPS, while very good at telling us where we were, was not very good at telling us where we were supposed to go. After a number of wrong turns and missed exits, we found ourselves on a small road, winding along the rocky coastline, late in the afternoon. It was nearly 3:30 when we rounded a corner and saw the grey tower jutting out of the bright blue sea.

As we approached, Trevor remarked that he could see the bridge. He pointed it out to me, and sure enough, there it was – a narrow wooden bridge, extending from the small, rocky island and supported by evenly spaced beams and a lattice of smaller pieces of lumber. Trevor slowed down as we approached the coordinates of the mainland end, but as we passed through the little circle on the screen of his phone, we saw that we were above the bridge, on a small cliff overlooking the channel that ran between us and the island.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, imagining the bridge abutting the rock face below us. “How do we get there?”

Trevor pulled the car over to the shoulder, and stared over my shoulder at the bridge and the island for a long minute. “Hold on,” he said, and shifted into reverse. We backed up along the breakdown lane, slowing down next to a dirt parking area and two large blueberry bushes. “Right there,” Trevor said, pointing at a small gap between the bushes. I peered in, and saw a small dirt road that quickly turned and sloped away.

“It’s practically invisible,” he said, aiming the car through the bushes. The branches scraped against the car, and he grimaced a bit, understandably worries about the car’s paint job.

“I doubt many people come down here,” I said. “Otherwise, those branches would probably be dead.”

Trevor didn’t respond, focused more on making the turn. “Man,” he said, as we descended the steep slope. “I’d hate to do that in the winter. If your writer really lives here, he’s got some balls.”

The bottom of the road is an oblong dirt area. The far edge slopes gently into the ocean, probably a boat launch ramp. The bridge extends from the near edge. Trevor turns his car and slowly nudges the front wheels up the small incline and onto the bridge. We clear the railings on either side by less than a foot, and I try to imagine anything bigger than this actually making this crossing. We’re about halfway across when the structure begins to shudder.

“Maybe we should have parked and walked across,” I said.

“All wooden bridges shake when you drive across them,” Trevor said, his voice calm. Soon, we were on the other side, the lighthouse directly in front of us.

“We’re here,” Trevor said.

• • •

It is Sunrise on Machias Bay. There’s no disputing that. It must have been an assignment, as Phiziny wrote his name, the class, and the date in the top left corner.

John Phiziny

English 426

3/20/1968

“What year was Kent’s story published?” Trevor asks.

“1991,” I answer quietly. It feels as if gravity has doubled in the room, focused on my body, pulling my innards down to the floor while my head stays in place. I can’t breathe. I close my eyes, hoping the paper in my hands will change, that it was some trick of the light, and when I open my eyes, the name will change back to Elias Kent, the date will be 1988, and everything will be alright. “We never should have come up here,” I say.

“Hey, that doesn’t mean anything,” Trevor says. “Maybe they just both wrote the same story.”

I open my eyes and look down at the paper. “Yeah, the exact same story, and it just happens to be in Kent’s possession.”

“No one knows for sure that this all came from Kent. Maybe this Phiziny guy planted it here, then left all of this stuff here as a way to frame Kent. You said he hated the guy’s work. Maybe this is all an elaborate sabotage.”

Very elaborate. “It’s a long way from thinking someone’s a bad writer to destroying their career.”

“Well, think about it. You’re a writer. What if you had tried to be a writer and failed, then someone else, twenty years later, gets published after stealing one of your stories?”

“If he had the proof, though, why not share it with the world? Expose the plagiarist, instead of leaving it mixed in a jumble of papers and hoping for someone to sort through them? That just leaves way too much to chance.”

“So, what then?”

“Kent must have forgotten he had this, just dumped all of his writings in this box, and left it on the doorstep like an orphan.” The clouds in my head clear, an idea shining down like the full moon over a calm lake. Or the light of a flickering flame as it creeps up a sheet of old notebook paper. “Put everything back in the box,” I tell Trevor. “We gotta get out of here.” I find my bag and slip the pages in between two of my notebooks.

“What are you doing?” Trevor asks, his voice just above a whisper.

“We need it,” I say, matching his volume. I doubt Mr. Jones can hear us, but better to be safe. “I’ll explain later. Just don’t say anything to the librarian.”

He looks at me for a moment, trying to decide what to do. “Alright,” he says finally, turning back to the papers. I come over and help him. We restack the boxes and head out to the front, shutting the lights off as we leave. I take a breath and walk to the front desk. Mr. Jones looks at his watch as I approach, Trevor a couple of steps behind me. It’s only been twenty minutes.

“I figured we’d get out of your hair a bit early so that you can get home,” I say.

“Did you find anything useful?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, smiling. I hope it looks genuine. “There was some interesting stuff in there. Way too much to get through in a half hour, though.” I pause, shifting the bag on my shoulder. “Listen, do you have a phone book of the area?” He places a thick phone book on the counter in front of me. I flip through the P’s until I find the listing I’m looking for. I point to it, and ask the librarian if it’s nearby.

“Yeah, it’s not far from here,” he says. “Why do you want to go there? Did you find some connection between the two?”

“Uh, no, but it occurred to me that he might have some connections that could be useful.” I write down the address.

“Good thinking.”

I thank him profusely for reopening the library to us, then Trevor and I head back outside. I give him the address to enter into his cell phone’s GPS. We get back in the car.

“What are you planning on doing with that story?” Trevor asks.

“We’re going to visit John Phiziny and find out the truth,” I say, starting the car, and pulling out into the street. “And then I’m going to destroy it.”

• • •

Other than it being grey and composed out of large, curved rectangular stone blocks, the lighthouse looked almost nearly like I’d expected. A tall, solid-looking tower, topped with glass and black metal. There was no door at the base, like you would see on a free-standing lighthouse. Instead, it connected to a small Cape Cod style house, white, with a black door and shutters. In the center of the roof, where there used to be a chimney, there was just a couple of antennae. We park next to a dusty black pickup.

I reached into the back and got my bag, pulling out an old copy of Underestimated, and looking at it. The back cover is a large black and white picture of Elias Kent, not much older than me, smiling out at the world. I got out of the car. Trevor started to follow suit.

“No,” I said, leaning down to look in through the open door. “Stay in the car.”

“What?”

“He’s a recluse. He’s not expecting any visitors at all, let alone two. I don’t want to scare the guy.”

“Alright,” Trevor said after a moment. “I guess I’ll just wait here.”

I didn’t want Trevor coming with me. It was bad enough that he figured out the granite clue before me, I wasn’t going to let him ruin meeting Elias. This was my moment, no one else’s. I followed the clues. I tracked down the elusive Elias Kent. This was my moment. I shut the door and headed towards the house.

I felt weightless walking up to the building. If the gravel made any noise crunching under my feet, I couldn’t hear it over the sound of the blood pumping through my ears. I had to pause on the doorstep, my hand up to knock, and take a couple of breaths to slow my heart rate. I closed my eyes and knocked.

The door creaks open, and my eyes widen as there, standing in front of me, was a man of about my age, in khakis and a blue button down shirt, his long hair pulled into a ponytail, a confused look on his face.

“Who are you?” I asked. It was a reflex. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “Do you live here?”

“No one lives here,” the man said.

“What? What do you mean?”

“This isn’t a residential house,” he said. “Come inside, see for yourself.” He stepped aside, revealing a large, mostly empty room. In one corner, there was a cluster of equipment. A small table and chair sat under a window on the far wall. I walked past the man, into the room. To the right, a small set of stairs ran up to the second floor. An open door under the stairs revealed a bathroom. To the left, the round base of the lighthouse was visible through another open door.

“What is this place?” I asked.

“It’s a weather observation station,” the man said. “I’m a civilian technician with the Coast Guard. We monitor weather conditions in the Gulf.”

“What’s upstairs?”

“Storage, mostly.”

I walked over to the lighthouse, peered inside. There was nothing in there other than a spiral staircase running along the wall.

“What were you expecting to find here?” the man asked.

“A writer,” I responded, and explained the entire story to him.

“I think someone’s been pulling your leg,” he said after I finished. “This light and the Conte Island Light have been uninhabited weather stations as long as I can remember.”

• • •

We pull into the driveway of Phiziny’s small Victorian ten minutes later. The porch light is off, but there are lights on in the windows. I take off my seatbelt, and start to get out of the car. Trevor stays seated, belt fastened. I look over at him.

“Aren’t you coming?” I ask.

“I kinda figured you wanted to do this alone,” he says.

“Not this time,” I respond, grabbing my bag.

We step up onto the porch. I ring the bell. From inside, we can hear footsteps making their way to the door. A deadbolt slides away, and the door opens as far as the security chain allows. A sliver of a face – an eye, the side of a nose, and the down-turned corner of a mouth – peers out at us.

“Mr. John Phiziny?” I say.

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Eric McCarthy, and this is my brother Trevor. We’ve come here from Manchester, New Hampshire, and we’d like to speak to you about some of your writings.”

“You can send me e-mail or letters through the paper,” Phiziny snaps, the single eye narrowing.

“We really need to speak with you in person, sir,” I say.

Phiziny doesn’t respond.

“It’s about Elias Kent,” I say. Phiziny’s eye widens for an instant, then disappears behind the swiftly closing door. For a second, I’m afraid that he is refusing to talk to us, then I hear the slide of the security chain latch. The door opens. John Phiziny beckons us inside. He’s in his late 50’s, with a large frame that might have been muscular in his younger days. He probably played football in high school, and maybe in college. His black hair is graying at the temples. A day’s growth of stubble lines his chin.

He leads us through a short corner into his living room, gesturing to a couple of easy chairs and a small couch. Trevor sits the couch; I take one of the armchairs. A small coffee table sits in the middle of the furniture. The only decoration in the room is a framed photo of a lighthouse I recognize as the White Island Lighthouse in the Isles of Shoals.

“You two don’t look like brothers,” he says, sitting in the chair opposite me and looking from me to my brother. “Anyway, what’s all this about Elias Kent?”

“What do you know about him?”

He rubs the stubble on his chin gruffly. “Terrible writer,” he says. Everything he says comes out sour, as though the words leave a bitter aftertaste.

“I like this guy,” Trevor says. I ignore him.

“Besides that,” I say. “What do you know about him as a person? Who he is, where he lives, stuff like that.”

“Ah, this again.”

“This again?” Trevor asks.

Phiziny looks at him. “I’m going to guess you two are writers?”

Trevor points at me. “Just him. I’m just the driver. Frankly, I’m on your side.”

“Well, either way,” Phiziny says. “Every so often, you’ll hear about a writer who claims to be inspired by that hack, and sets off in search of him. Sometimes, they e-mail me, thinking my journalistic contacts will give me access to secret information.” That sounds familiar. “Well, I’ll tell you what I tell all of them, and it’s all I know. He’s a recluse, avoids all social contact. Lives alone in a lighthouse somewhere up the coast. And though he drops hints as to its locations, none are specific enough to be of any help, and no one, not even his publisher, not even his agent, has been able to find it. For all intents and purposes, the lighthouse doesn’t exist.”

“We found it,” I say.

Phiziny’s eyes widen; his forehead creases. “Really?” he asks, sounding genuinely surprised. “How did you manage that?”

“We followed the clues.”

“Indeed, but I’ve seen some of the research that some pretty intelligent people have done, and they couldn’t narrow it down to less than a couple of lights.”

“We got a big help from the story Coastal Tides. The last two lines, in particular.”

“The last two lines?”

“It’s spire, solid and unyielding brings to mind the words of my father, when he told me that this place, above all others, was the best place to live free. Or die.” I say, reciting the lines from memory. “Trevor figured out that “live free or die” referred to granite.”

Phiziny smiles broadly, laughing to himself. “It’s amazing. One of the worst lines he’s ever written, finally coming back to bite the hack in the ass. He probably fought to keep that line in the story, too. Thought it was clever.”

“The other clue that helped was the history of the Kent family.”

“How so?”

“They never operated any of the lighthouses, but they did help found a town that is home to one of the ten granite lighthouses that aren’t out in the open ocean.”

“Which led you where?” Phiziny asks, his eyes narrow again, hands clasped near his face.

“Hamilton Point Light in Jonesport.”

“And what did you find there?” A smile spreads across his face, behind his hands.

“Nothing,” I say. “No one lives there. It’s a weather station.”

“Well, that may be the best fiction the blowhard’s ever done,” Phiziny says. “So, now your trail’s run cold, and you’re hoping I can help.”

“Something like that,” Trevor says.

“We drove from Jonesport to the Portland library,” I say. “There, we sorted through a pile of Kent’s old papers and drafts.” I pick up my bag, placing it on my lap and opening it.

“That’s when we decided to come here,” Trevor says.

“What does even worse versions of Kent’s writing have to do with me? Would you like me to review some more of it?”

“I don’t think you’d need to review this,” I say, pulling the papers out of my bag. “You should know this story very well.”

“Why do you say that?” His tone changes. He sounds nervous.

“You wrote it.” I hand the unbound pages to him. He scans the front page, closes his eyes for a few moments, then opens them and hands the pages back to me.

“So what?” he says, the sourness returning.

“Look,” I say, leaning forward in the chair. “Up until six hours ago, Elias Kent was one of my favorite authors. Right now, I don’t much care about him. He could be living in Hollywood, writing scripts for Michael Bay under a pseudonym for extra cash for all I care. He led my brother and me on a wild goose chase, he’s lied about his life on ever bio page and in every interview he’s ever given. That alone is enough to piss me off. Then, twenty minutes ago, I find out that he plagiarized his first published. I just want some answers.”

“Really?” he says. I nod. “Alright, I wrote that story, when I was at UNH, studying journalism, back in 1968. And yes, it was published, in 1991, I believe, by Elias Kent.”

“Did you know?”

“Of course. I can recognize my own work.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I didn’t really see the point. He rewrote much of it, changed the main character slightly, and added another thousand words to give it a real ending. In some ways, it’s a different story.”

“It’s not at all,” I say. “It’s the same story.” Phiziny shrugs.

“So, instead of getting your proper recognition, you take your revenge out on him by tearing apart everything he writes?”

“Look, kid, I am a journalist. When I say Kent is a terrible writer, it’s because I believe he is a terrible writer. It has nothing to do with revenge.”

I say nothing, just stare at Phiziny.

“If it makes you feel better, I know that nothing else he’s ever written has been plagiarized.”

“From you?”

“From anyone.”

“Great.” I’m sure there have been worse days in my life, but this ranks up there with them. Everything I believed in about this guy has been flushed down the toilet. I look over at my brother and think about Ahab, and wonder if Trevor will be able to find a coffin to float on, now that my white whale has dragged me down.

“Listen,” Phiziny says getting up from the chair. “If you like his writing, that’s great. Keep buying his books. Let it inspire you. I just hope you’ve learned something from this whole experience.”

“Oh, I have,” I say, bitterly, thinking about how little I actually knew about Kent, even after all of my research. “More than I ever wanted to.”

“In the long run, I think you’ll find that lesson extremely valuable.” It sounds like something my mother would say.

I nod, then look at my watch. “I think we should be going,” I say.

“Hang on,” Phiziny says. “I have something I want to show you.”

Great, I think, how much worse will today get?

“Excuse me, Mr. Phiziny,” Trevor says. “Could I use your bathroom before we leave.”

“Sure,” he says, climbing the stairs. “Down the hall, to the right. And please don’t wander around or touch anything.”

Trevor rolls his eyes and heads down the hallway, into the bathroom. The door closes. Still sitting in the armchair, I rub my eyes. The worst thing about all of this is that I didn’t have to do any of this. If I had just stayed home with my imagination, Kent wouldn’t be a plagiarist, and he’d still be living in some anonymous lighthouse. I hear the toilet flush and the door open, but Trevor doesn’t come back down the hallway. I look over as another light comes on.

“Eric, come here,” Trevor says in hushed, but intense voice. I get up and head down the hallway. Eric is in a small breakfast nook across from the bathroom. He’s standing in front of a shelf, examining the statue of an animal. He hears me and steps aside to give me a better view. It’s a zebra. A porcelain zebra.

“What the hell?” I say.

“It’s the zebra from Kent’s first book, isn’t it?”

“It sure looks like it.”

“So what, did Kent steal it from this guy also? Or do they just know each other?”

“Either way, Phiziny knows more than he’s told us.” On the left wall is a shelf with some framed photographs. One is at a college graduation, a man and a woman in caps and gowns, with sashes signifying they have received their masters degrees.

“This looks like mom,” I say, pointing out the picture to Trevor.

“Yeah, it kinda does,” he says. “Is that guy Phiziny, thirty years ago?”

“I would guess so, but he looks familiar.” I look down at my bag. “No,” I say aloud, then pull my copy of Underestimated out, looking from the back cover to the photo.

“I thought I asked you not to wander around,” Phiziny says suddenly from behind us.

“This is you getting your masters from UMaine, right?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “1974.”

“And it’s funny, because in this picture, you bear a striking resemblance to this picture of Elias Kent.” I show him the back cover of the book in my hand. “What are you, his father? Uncle? Jealous older brother?”

“No,” Trevor says before Phiziny can answer. “Don’t you get it? John Phiziny is a terrible name for a writer.”

“It’s true,” Phiziny says. “Terrible name.”

“No,” I say. “That doesn’t make any sense. You’re twenty years older than Kent.”

Phiziny shrugs. “I figured people would rather read a first novel from a twenty-something just out of grad school than a guy in his late 40’s. So, I took my own personal timeline and just pushed it up twenty years.”

“So you’re basically just a character you created,” I say.

“I think you’ll find that’s true of most writers,” Phiziny says.

“But you hate Kent’s work.”

“John Phiziny does,” he says. “I admit, it’s sort of taking the easy way out, but I figured that the best way to throw off suspicion was to have the alter egos hate each other. No one would suspect that Elias Kent would say the things about his own writings that John Phiziny has. And in some cases, I really don’t like what I’ve written. Like that “live free or die” line.”

“Aren’t you worried that the negative reviews are costing Kent book sales.”

“Who really listens to critics these days?” Phiziny asks. “If anything, it has the opposite effect – people keep reading the books, and more people read my columns to find out what I’m saying about their favorite author.”

People like me.

“Don’t people see this stuff, though?” Trevor says. “I mean, the porcelain zebra from that first novel? Isn’t that sort of a dead giveaway?”

“One of the side effects of trying to keep a dual persona secret is a tendency to be reclusive. The easiest way to hide the secret is to never risk showing it to anyone.”

I look down at the book in my hands, then think about the story in my bag.

“That’s why there was no point in exposing the plagiarism,” I say.

“Because there wasn’t any,” Phiziny says.

“I’m sorry about the stuff I said earlier,” I say. “About Phiziny and Kent.”

Phiziny shakes his head. “It’s alright,” he says. “I’ve heard a lot of that about the wild goose chase before. No one ever got as far as you.”

“Was it the right lighthouse?” Trevor asks.

“See for yourselves,” Phiziny says, presenting a photograph. It shows a granite lighthouse with a black top, and a small Cape Cod attached. Hamilton Point Light.

“When I was in grad school at Orono,” he says, “I used to drive out to the coast and write out there. This lighthouse always captivated me.”

“You were going to tell us anyway?” Trevor says.

“I hadn’t decided yet, but like I said, no one’s gotten as far as you. I think you’ve earned the right to know.”

“How do you know we won’t just go expose you?” I ask.

“I sense that after all of this, you still have a good deal of respect for Elias Kent,” Phiziny says.

“As Trevor does for John Phiziny,” I say, looking over at my brother. He smiles back.

Phiziny smiles as well. “Yes, I suppose so,” he says. “And, it is a risk I’m willing to take. Only a handful of other people know. Some are those that I trust implicitly, like my family. Others, have reasons not to let the secret out, like my agent.”

“What about her?” I ask, gesturing towards the photo.

He gazes at it for a long moment, a sad smile playing across his lips. “Oh yes,” he says softly. “She was there the day Elias Kent was born. You rather remind me of her. She was tenacious in her pursuit of the truth. Never had quite the daring for adventure that you have. I sometimes wonder, had we stayed together, had a kid…” he trails off.

“You’re not worried about her exposing you?”

“She’ll never speak a word of it.” He pauses for a second. I want to ask who she is, and what happened to her, but Phiziny cuts across me. “You two, however,” he says more brightly, “are the only people with real evidence of my duality.”

“Oh,” I say, and begin reaching into my bag to pull out the story. Phiziny steps over and stops me, pushing my hands away. He closes and latches the bag.

“No,” he says. “It is yours now. You must decide what to do with it.”

I stare at him for a moment. “What if I decide to give it back to you?”

He shakes his head. “I will refuse to accept it,” he says.

“And if I decide to go public?”

“Then I’ll deal with that.”

Everyone is quiet for a few moments. I glance over at Trevor. He nods slightly.

“Mr. Phiziny-Kent, this has been, well, amazing,” I say, “but I think we really should be heading home.”

“I understand,” he says. “You’ve got a bit more of a drive left.” He shakes my hand, then Trevor’s.

“Thank you,” I say. “For everything.”

“Don’t mention it,” Phiziny says. “If you ever want to talk, drop me an e-mail.”

“I will,” I say.

Trevor and I head out into the driveway. I hand the keys to him; I’ve had enough driving for the day. I slump into the passenger seat, stowing my bag between my feet. Trevor starts the car and rolls it backwards out of the driveway. Phiziny’s porch light shuts off as we drive past his house.

I look over at my brother. “I’m glad you came,” I say.

“Me too,” he says.

“I didn’t want you to come,” I say quickly, before losing my nerve. “I thought you’d be a pain in my ass, and we’d spend half the trip arguing.”

“Eric, we have spent half the trip arguing.”

“True. However, without you, I never would have found him.”

“Sure you would have.”

“Maybe. Either way, the trip wouldn’t have been as much fun.”

Trevor is quiet for a moment as he pulls the car through the curving ramp onto I-95. “You know,” he says finally. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever admitted to having fun with me.”

“I think it may be the first time it’s happened.”

“So, what are you going to do with that story? Looks like you have permission to torch it now.”

“I think I’m going to keep it.”

“Keep it?”

“Yeah, put it somewhere safe; somewhere I can read it if I want.”

“Why?”

“It’s my proof that Kent exists, that we actually found him.”

“You can’t show it to anyone, though.”

“Yeah, but it’s enough to know I have it.”

I readjust my bag, trying to get comfortable. Something inside it rubs against my leg. I reach down and open it, flipping on a map light to see inside. There is an extra book.

“Did you put this in here?” I ask Trevor.

“Put what in where?”

“This…” I pick up the book. It is a copy of Trees Caught Fire, my first novel.

“Wasn’t me. Must have been Phiziny. He must have slipped it in when we weren’t looking.”

“When he closed my bag for me?” I say, rifling the pages, a blur of black text, white paper, and red marks.

“Maybe he has a third persona who is a magician,” Trevor says.

On the title page sit two paragraphs, each in different handwriting and colors. The top one, in red ink and the neat handwriting of John Phiziny; the bottom in blue, and the messy scrawl of Elias Kent.

“He read it,” I say, “and left me a note.”

“What’s it say?”

“They liked it.”

Eric’s Light – Matt Pedone