[Activity, Elements, Bravely, Feminine, Healthy]

  How had ten days rolled around already. It hadn’t, it was nine days ago that I was in here cooking breakfast for everyone. With Lachlan gone, it became a nine day rotation. As each of the other writer’s contracts came due, we’d lose one more. I’d thought long and hard. I was shutting down the collective in an effort to keep the bookstore open as long as possible. It was going to be so sad to see them all go. All my time in Placid had been with a minimum of nine people in the house. It was going to be very quiet and lonely. I had enough money in the bank to cover this year's tax bill, without a house full of writers, the thermostat would be set as low as possible in the winter and as high as eighty in the summer.

  I’d also been preparing my resume to send out to the major publishing houses for any freelance editing jobs I could get. I wouldn’t be moving back to New York city. It’s a wonderful city, perhaps the greatest in the world, but I’m not a city girl, not anymore. Maybe I never was. When the money ran out, and the taxes were due, I’d sell the mansion and hopefully have enough cash to buy a small cottage, close enough to town to get high speed internet. Necessary for my work as a remote editor.

  The bacon, sausage and eggs were all cooked. Next I started on the pancakes. I brought a pitcher of orange juice out to the table and started the coffee maker and the kettle. We were a firmly divided group, at any time the tea and coffee wars might break out. Especially if a new scientific study came in pro caffeine or pro anti-oxidants. The coffee zealots and the tea zealots argue the point to death, before grabbing their beverage of choice and proceeding to their room to work on their manuscripts.

  I’d done a lot of things wrong, since taking over the collective. The number one biggest mistake was that I should have hired a financial planner on day one. Just assuming because the place had been running itself for the past forty years it would continue on into the foreseeable future. Maybe all this could have been avoided and along with this guilt I felt for letting down my aunt, and the collective we both loved.

  Another regret was that I hadn’t listened to Anais about Harry sooner. I always assumed he was just a harmless pot dealer. I freely gave him access to my store. I always left him alone in the store room where I kept the keys to the bookstore. He’d repaid that trust with lies then violence. Of course he would have had free access if he’d ever tried the back door. It hasn’t been locked since the nineteen seventies. I don’t even know if there is a key anywhere on the premises.

  If I wanted to live up to my ideals, I would have to have trusted him. But another man died because of my ideals. Of course Lachlan wasn’t blameless. If he hadn’t stolen Monique’s graphic novel, then tried to use it to pick up girls. He’d still be here with us.

  Last night the Leather Crafter had returned from his hunting trip. He’d called me right away. He couldn’t recall the person’s name he’d sold the sheath to. So I texted Harry’s picture from his college days as a champion snowshoer. He quickly responded that was who he’d sold it to. He only remembered because it was a special order and Harry had been very particular. I asked him to call the chief of police explaining that August was now handling the case. I told him that Harry was in custody and had confessed, but the custom made sheath was an important piece of physical evidence. That the police needed to know about.

  I had the last of the pancakes made. So I started to carry the food into the dining room. But I was surprised when Lucy and Anais showed up. We’d all had a nice dinner last night. A pizza and beer party to celebrate Monique’s bail, initially, but with the arrest of Harry, her not quite exoneration. That would happen in full at the hearing for motions next week which Monique was still required to attend. Monique, our quiet goth girl became quite the deipnosophist after having a few beers. I know that because she announced that she was a deipnosophist. I have to admit, without a full eidetic memory, I was forced to look the word up. It’s true she really is skilled in table talk. But only after a few beers.

  “What are you two doing here at this ungodly hour?”

  “I would think that an atheist would enjoy ungodly hours. But personally I’ve been up since five.”

  “Of course you have Anais, but that doesn't explain what you are doing here. Good morning Lucy, why are you here hours early for work?”

  “Last night Bianca asked me if I could come in early, didn’t she tell you?”

  Ezra came in carrying a small electronic device.”

  “Good morning Ezra. What’s the box for?”

  He plugged it in at the end of the table that had no place settings.

  “It’s a video projector, Bianca asked me to set it up for her presentation. I thought you knew all about it.”

  “No, I haven’t heard a word.”

  Then all the rest of the writers arrived for breakfast. Lots of good mornings were exchanged, as each sat at their usual spot. I went into the kitchen to get two more place settings and Lucy came along to help.

  “Lucy, did Bianca say what she wanted you here for?”

  “No, I just assumed it was about the store closing, because I heard her tell some of the other writers that big changes were coming, be sure not to drink too much, you don’t want to be hungover for this.”

  “Honestly, I wish I was hungover. Then my headache would distract from my heartache of closing this place up. Even the days I have to get up so early to cook. Well lets get the rest of this food into the others at least they’ll hear this over a good meal.”

  Everyone was seated and eating, or sipping their coffee and tea. When Bianca arrived, carrying an open laptop.

  “Sorry I’m late everyone. I had a bit of an issue with the internet, but it’s all sorted now, thanks to Ezra.”

  “Is this about closing down, Bianca because I wanted to wait a bit before talking about it, we’re just getting over the murder and wrongful arrest. You all deserve a bit of peace.”

  “CLosing down, no not at all. This is all about expansion, change and why it’s good for everyone. First, I’ll cover the writer's contract. The writer's contract at this moment is dead. This contract was drawn up before a lot of you, myself included, were even born. Just to give you an idea today's dollar is worth about seventeen percent of what it was fifty years ago, that means the collective lost eighty three cents on every dollar yet neither Laura nor her aunt ever changed anything about the original agreement. So the very generous old contract is dead. What does that mean for us writers? Eighty percent of the writers, four out of five will be paying a monthly fee to stay here, that covers room and board plus internet. The fee will be based on the property and school taxes, the power, heat and internet bills and food costs will be divided by eight, right now. But more on that later. For this past year, the total costs of the collective were one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. I have a spreadsheet, I'll be happy to share with any or all of you and will be attached to the new writers contract Finally changes to the percentages, instead of ten percent for one year, it will be seven point five for three years. Questions so far, I’ve only stated the bad stuff, what it is going to cost you, from the writer's point of view, but I want to take this step by step.”

  “Why does the percentage change, lowering the rate but extending the duration?”

  “Good question, right now a best selling author is paying way more than the rest of us. Bestsellers generally sell the most copies in the first year, so by lowering the rate but extending the duration, a best selling author's payout will probably be less overall. Now the rest of us non-bestsellers, we weren’t really paying our share, plus our sales tend to grow over time so it’s only fair to the collective as a whole for the changes. Plus that seven and a half percent is a debit, thus deductible from your taxes. In essence the government is helping you pay for room and board by not taxing that percentage of your income. I can help any of you without accountants to see just how much money you’ll save on your taxes.”

  “How much will I be paying monthly?”

  “For this coming year, twelve hundred and fifty dollars, with a rebate at the end of the year based on the total amount of income generated from the percentage paid by the current writers, and a few other sources that will be detailed as I continue. Again, all of this information will be available to all collective members, including all invoices. Our biggest bill is the sixty thousand dollar tax bill, it’s fully half of our expenditures.”

  “You talked about a rebate, could you give us exact figures?”

  “Based on this year’s income it’d work out to about one thousand dollars, but as it’s based on income and not a steady revenue stream, it could be double that or maybe half that. Again all numbers will be available for any who’d like to take a look. I will also propose an entirely new revenue stream, that writers who participate will net eighty percent of the profits.”

  “What about the bookstore?”

  “Laura, that’s the next topic, I just want to answer any of the writer’s questions first and I haven’t gotten to the writer perks yet. All they have gotten so far is the bad news.”

  “Okay, sorry.”

  “Any other questions from the writers, I know this is a shock compared to what you have been paying. But as long as Laura did ask about the store, please let me share a fact that I just myself learned about. Laura has been working the bookstore all by herself, until very recently when she acquired an unpaid intern. For the past five years this bookstore has kept the collective afloat, because Laura has not taken a salary or indeed any profit from it at all.”

  “Why hasn’t she been paid?”

  “Because the collective would have gone under five years ago if she took a salary. As a matter of fact, if Laura kicked us all out tomorrow. Paid Lucy a minimum wage salary, after all living expenses she’d make about twenty thousand a year. For the past five years she’s been subsidizing every writer that’s stayed here. It would very much be to her financial benefit, to throw each and everyone of us out.”

  There was a lot of murmuring at that revelation. I had no idea that the store actually made any money.

  “Writers, do you have any other questions about costs? If not we can move onto the new terms of the writer’s agreement.”

  No one asked any more questions. I wasn’t quite sure but this mostly sounded bad for the writer and good for the collective.

  “Alright then let’s talk about some of the advantages for the writers under the new system, first instead of six month stays. Paying writers can sign one year leases and they can be renewed. None of you gets kicked out in six months, if you’d prefer to stay. Rent-free authors sign up for the six months, they also agree to paying the collective twenty percent of royalties for five years. At the end of six months, if they can pay they can become a paying author, or if they agree to let Laura and three of the paying authors review their work to determine if it’s worth renewing the free lease another six months to give them time to finish and publish their work. This keeps freeloaders to a minimum while giving true struggling authors an opportunity to finish their work and become real paid authors. Questions?”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “So you are saying as long as I can afford to pay, I can stay here. Just sign a new lease every year?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. There is a way to get removed. Any problematic author can be removed with no questions asked if asked by Laura and fifty percent of the writers, or sixty six percent of just the writers. There are a couple of illegal acts included in the contract that get a writer removed immediately but that is much like the current contract. Any questions or should we move onto the new revenue stream and then finally the bookstore.”

  No one asked any more questions, I think they were in shock by this point.

  “Okay lets move onto the new revenue stream. The ‘Writers Weekend Workshop’ the collective will put on a number of these throughout the year. The writers who choose to participate will share amongst eighty percent of the profit, and it will be almost one hundred percent profit. Attendees will be responsible for securing lodging and their own food. There will be a limited number of ‘aspiring authors’ under twelve as that is as much space as we have presently. We need to decide amongst ourselves how much to charge. Our participating authors will get eighty percent as I said, the other twenty percent will go into the collective budget. That’s why I was so unsure just how much of a rebate at the end of the year the collective will be paying back to paying authors. Non-paying authors may also participate as ‘instructors’ getting their cut of the eighty percent. One last thing, no one will be required to cook any longer. I hired a chef, which will save us money in the long run, no more frozen dinners, cooked by the authors who through no fault of their own never learned to cook, so look forward to home cooked meals. The money we save on take out and pizza was already removed from this year’s lease agreement. We are still all required to do all of the other job wheel jobs in rotation.”

  A general round of cheers went up I assume for the cook, not the job wheel. Hiring a cook? Getting a salary. I loved the sound of this so far.

  “Alright, should we move on to the bookstore?”

  Several shouts of yes

  “Laura’s bookstore has a great strength and a great weakness. The funny thing is they are exactly the same thing. The strength is that a person who walks in her knows that every inch of floor space is devoted to fiction. The weakness is that about forty nine percent of readers want non-fiction books. I’ve negotiated a deal with a non-fiction only bookstore in Woodstock, NY that once Laura signs will effectively double her stock of books while lowering her profit margin. If Laura sells a ten dollar bible she’ll make two dollars, the other store makes three dollars and does all the work. Vice versa if they sell our Lord of the Rings for ten dollars, we’ll make three dollars and they’ll make two dollars. Their store also has a writer’s collective so if you wanted to spend a weekend or more in Woodstock, you could swap with a writer from their collective. In order for this to work, Laura, you'd at first need to hire a part time employee to handle shipping out fictional books directly to the customer, as would our sister store. I’d suggest a high school student three to five days a week. By my calculations your sales should conservatively go up by twenty five percent. Any questions Laura, Lucy?”

  “I don’t ever have to touch or allow into the store a bible is that correct?”

  “Yes Laura, that is correct.”

  “Okay, just checking.”

  “I also have expansion plans that will lower the ‘rent considerably in the future’ but I don’t have any hard data yet. I know that you all have to think this over, and like I said, I’ll show you all of the facts and figures. All of this will be completely transparent. No one will be making a profit, off of your own work except you. Laura handles the bookstore, the collective handles the collective. But know that in the end Laura owns the building, can sell it at any time, or she can appoint someone to continue the entire ‘experiment’ if she wishes to retire or just move onto something new.”

  “I would never sell the building, except as a last resort, I’ll need to make out a will and designate someone who’d like to run a bookstore under a collective. But Bianca I hate to ask more of you, but I’d like to set up a foundation in my aunt’s name to keep the collective running in perpetuity. Her own son August, wanted no part of the store or the collective, but I’d really love to know that the hippies won, in at least one address in Lake Placid.”

  “Laura, it’s not just here, our sister store in Woodstock has a complete stock of every book found in the last ‘Whole Earth Catalog’, that is still in print and used books for the ones that are no longer in print. Plus I loved Lucy’s idea of Project Marginalia and free books. I wrote you up a proposal on a store expansion, that I’d like to finance with some of my ill gotten gains from my former life. Where you’d be giving away free books without losing any money.”

  “I like the sound of that, but we have to go down and open the store, it’s ten after ten. Come on Lucy.”

  “I’m sure all of your customers are used to your tardiness, Laura. Just tell them you had to go back for your twenty year old coat.”

  “Anais, I don’t know why you are so hung up on the fact that it’s twenty years old. That makes it vintage, a classic, a warm and fuzzy coat.”

  “And four years older than your intern.”

  Lucy and I went down and opened the store.

  “So are you going to hire me when my internship is up?”

  “Yes it appears that I am, are there any other kids in your school that you’d trust to work here in the store. It looks like we’ll need a part timer pretty soon. Do you know Lizbeth Rossi aka Lis?”

  “Kind of.”

  “She’s in the fantasy bookclub. She's also a ‘warrior’ named Bruna Forgeborn so she'd probably have the strength to lift and wrap and ship books. You should attend the bookclub this week, sometimes they play table top roleplaying games.”

  “What kind of fantasy do they read?”

  “Last time they were supposed to talk about the Wandering Inn, but then at the last minute they switched topics and talked about TTRPG stuff.”

  “That sounds like fun, beside I love the Wandering Inn, it’s my number three favorite.”

  “What’s your first and second?”

  “First has to be Lord of the Rings, without that would any of the other stuff even be out there. Second has to be The First Law by Joe Abercrombie. Fourth Good Omens.”

  “Well that settles it, you have to join the fantasy book club.”

  I started thinking about starting a Lord of the Rings re-read. Then I heard a soft knocking on the front door.

  “Oh crap Lucy, we forgot to unlock the door.”

  The End

  “Well Laura, did you have a good time?”

  “Rose what are you doing here, can you just jump into our world like this?”

  “Of course I’m a Bibliomancer, I can jump into any fictional world. But tell me did you like it?”

  “Yes, it’s so much nicer than my old fictional world, but I thought you were going to put me into a foreign country or another world.”

  “Yeah, my Grandmaster, he told me Earth was too toxic right now, especially with ‘you know who as president’. But I just completely avoided national politics and I thought it went alright, at least I wasn’t getting angrier and angrier as I wrote it, so that felt like a good sign. I thought I could bring my girlfriend Lu here, I always wanted to try cross country skiing. Maybe we could stay here at the collective.”

  “Well it’s full right now, but you’re the author, but please don’t kill off any of the writers staying here.”

  “I would never, I’ve never killed a character off before Lachlan. I felt terrible writing it. I believe in Tolkien’s axiom ‘Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends.’ “

  “Me too.”

  “I know that’s why I made you a hippie. If this was one of my worlds, the hippies would have won. But as it is, we don’t know who authored this world, and it would be disrespectful to re-write another author’s world. No matter how badly it needs it. But your good naturedness is what kept me from flipping out like the last time. If you want to stay here in Lake Placid, you can if you want, or I can put you back into the Dingy Little Bookstore and you can sell collector editions again."

  “Do you really mean, I could stay here if I wanted to?”

  “Yes, absolutely Laura. We can even do another mystery, but I don’t want to kill anymore characters off, so we’ll need to come up with a different non-lethal crime. Are there any other characters you want me to move away to another location or anything, such as Anais?”

  “No, Anais was a good friend to me in this story, we did have our issues in the past, but we’re old enough to look past all of that. Besides, isn't she the Watson to my Sherlock?”

  “I’d reverse that she’s the pragmatic realist you’re the hippy idealist. The Hippy idealism was my favorite part of the story, especially the scene when you enslaved the shoplifter and taught her to run the cash register.”

  “I would have thought that you’d like the mystery parts, the way in the beginning it seemed that it might be revenge for the stolen intellectual property or all the blonde red herrings you threw my way.”

  “No, I read cozy mystery and fantasy for the characters, I hardly ever actually solve the cozy mystery itself. I care more about the characters, I pay more attention to them then the plot. The best idea in the book, in my opinion, was Lucy’s Project Marginalia, I’m so going to steal that idea for our store. But if anyone tries to write in any of the Magical tomes it won’t go well for them. If Sparky doesn’t roast them with a fireball, one of the tomes might just eat the offender. Maybe I could get our public librarian Eldara to start a shelf of marginalia books. I could get Doug to print out the top twenty most controversial books and we could let folks go to town.”

  “Rose, do you think if I had been an author instead of an editor, I could have been a Bibliomancer?”

  “No, I’m sorry Laura, it’s not talent or lack of ambition, but earth’s magic and wonder has all been sucked up by religion. A demon friend of mine, she told me Earth used to be rich in magic, long, long ago but somehow religion just caught on. Almost all the people forgot about philosophy, just went for religion. They wanted an explanation for everything, so they just made one up. Maybe the Bibliomancer that author earth was really into religion for some reason. I have to go, Sparky’s yelling for me. So yes to another, this time non-violent mystery?”

  “As long as I get to stay in Placid.”

  “Great, you might have to take a weekend side trip but I think you love it, the trip I mean.”