Over the next few days, I was able to piece together a few pages of my book. I refused to delude myself; they were not excellent pages. My heart was not in the work. My solitary retreat without distractions had turned out to be a veritable stew of them. My work suffered in part because I was more interested in the world around me than the world of my own creation. This, as any writer will tell you, is a death knell. I soldiered on in the hopes that things would turn around, but never during this time period did I consider isolating myself further. I continued my daily walks to Anabel’s, and once gaining access, I also began to row myself about the channel. I found rowing to be even better exercise than my long walks. It was positively exhausting.

On my third day out in the boat, resting somewhere near the middle of the channel, enjoying the low rhythm of bobbing, I was seized by an idea that wouldn't let me go. Reader, you may find this hard to believe, as I have just told you that my creative energies were floundering, but they only seemed to flounder when I tried to put them to use. Otherwise, they were my most active faculty in those strange days. You may even consider the sudden striking of an idea as the most likely of all happenings in my exceedingly unlikely story. I grabbed hold of the oars and began to row with a deliberate speed towards my landlord's dock. It did not take me long to reach it, and I tied the boat off very near the red light that caused my living room windows to bleed.

Up close it was a curiously unimpressive artifact. No bigger round than my fist, it was the product of a single bulb the size of a golf ball. Its light was duller up close, muted by proximity, more like a reddish orb than a glowing bulb. Once able to cease my investigation into the bulb, I walked the length of Mr. Blud’s dock for the first time. I found that it lead directly to another path, also slatted wood, that went through Mr. Blud’s back property, lined by non-native fir trees the height of my shoulders. It seemed that Mr. Blud’s dock, in truth, went all the way from near the middle of the channel to his back door.

I stood in front of this door for a very long, few moments. It was like the door to a large freezer, thick steel, completely seamless, and the strangest part: no outdoor handle. I knocked on the door, my clenched fist making neither sound nor echo, a feat while so close to the channel’s shore. To my surprise, the door opened right away, and standing in the doorway, blocking any view, was Riven. He looked displeased to see me, or so I thought. His countenance was always frightening, but the set of his jaw spoke more for him than his other facial expressions, and it was set resolutely.

“He’s not expectin ya.”

“It’s a social call. I was out rowing and...”

“Seen ya rowing out there.”

“Right, well...I’d like Mr. Blud’s assistance.”

“I told ya, it’s me you deal with for the cottage. Ya leave a message with Anabel and I’ll see to it.”

“It’s not about the cottage. Everything satisfactory on that front.”

“...”

“I’m writing a history of the channel and the surrounding area.”

The lie came easily.

“I’m a writer. It’s what I do. Mr. Blud is an important personage in these parts and...”

“I’m sorry, he can’t help you with that. Good day, Mr. Grady.”

“Good day, R...”

The door closed as silently as it opened, impressive even in its dismissal of me. I thought I might peek around the grounds a bit, but the thought occurred to me that a man whose back door looked like that might not take too kindly to any snooping. I walked back down the dock, first through the tunnel of fir trees and once again down to the red light and my borrowed rowboat.

I don’t know what came over me, what compelled me to row to that house, but it seemed at the time to be a capital idea, as if approaching from the water was the key to the puzzle, like an invasion of a hostile nation. I can’t say I was surprised by the chilly reception I received, but it did nothing to blunt my interest in the goings on of my particularly secretive landlord. Who in God’s name needed a door like that? As I rowed back to my side of the channel, a rain beginning to fall, first lightly and then soaking me to the bone, I made a resolution that would end my writer’s block.

Rowing.

(waiting)

I was going to write about the channel and its history. It had been a lie when it came out of my mouth, but it no longer had to be. There was no doubt in my mind that Mr. Blud played prominently in the history of the place, and if he didn’t care to tell me himself...well I’d find out one way or another. The rain fell in torrents, and the fisherman’s warning of bad weather was ringing in my ears as I tied off back at the docks. A light was on in Anabel’s, and I gave a thought to stopping in to dry off and warm up, but I couldn’t. My typewriter was calling.

My typewriter was calling, and for the first time in months, I didn't think it was a false alarm.