Book of Horrors (Nightmare Hall) by Diane Hoh

Author:Diane Hoh [Hoh, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453248096
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-03-27T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

TIRED OF JUDE’S NAGGING, Reed worked up enough courage on Monday morning to ask Victoria McCoy if she would permit the fan club to visit the house.

The writer paled visibly. “Fan club? What fan club?”

“You know, the group I told you about. The fan club I started on campus. They’re all dying to meet you, and I promised I would ask.”

McCoy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “They want to come here? You expect me to allow strangers to go running through my house, going through my things, taking heaven only knows what?”

“They wouldn’t take anything,” Reed said hotly. She turned away, toward the desk, sorry she’d mentioned the visit. The brass raven stared down at her from the bookshelves, as if he, too, disapproved.

“Well, what do they want from me?” the author asked, following Reed to the desk.

Reed sat in the desk chair and busied herself with a pile of mail. She couldn’t bear to see the look of anger on McCoy’s face. “I told you, they’re fans. They just want to meet you, that’s all.”

“I suppose you’ve been telling them all about me.” The voice was icy. “You come here, to my house, and then you go back to campus and tell them everything I say and do, is that it?”

“No, that’s not it,” Reed said. Her hands were shaking, she was so angry. “We all admire your work. We talk about your work, not about you.”

“Well, of course you do,” McCoy said in a warm, pleasant voice.

Reed looked up.

Victoria McCoy was smiling down at her. “I have an idea,” she said enthusiastically. “Why don’t we invite your little fan club to tea? I’ll have Rain get some cookies. Those lovely square ones with raisins and nuts. Do you think your friends would like those? We’ll have tea, and we’ll talk, and I’ll answer any questions they might have. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Reed was stunned speechless.

“I’m sure there are a million things they’d like to know about a writer’s life,” McCoy continued, leaving the desk to wander around the room as she talked. “My, I haven’t met with fans in such a long time. I was so ill …”

Reed was both delighted and chagrined by the sudden change of heart. The fan club would be thrilled. But it was definitely a strain on the nerves, trying to keep up with McCoy’s moods.

McCoy whirled, smiling brilliantly at Reed. “Oh, we’re going to have such a nice time, aren’t we?”

Forcing a smile of her own, Reed nodded. She would invite the club members. And then she’d keep her fingers crossed that Victoria McCoy didn’t have another sudden change of heart and uninvite them.

When Reed passed on the astonishing news to the members, they were as stunned as she was. She had told them, more than once, that McCoy was a very private person. Now, here they were, being invited to meet with her, at her house. “Wednesday at four,” Reed added. “That’ll work out fine, because we can talk about it later, at our regular meeting.

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