I found the original typewritten pages in the back room of the Spore of the Gray Cap. I had gone there searching for Janice, as she had not shown up for her job in over a month. Since we had a professional history, I felt an obligation to find out what might be wrong. In fact, given our personal history, I felt more than an obligation—I was worried about her.

Given the events that had taken place at Martin Lake’s party—events accurately described in Janice’s account—I thought it likely she was “hiding” from a sense of shame or embarrassment. I never realized she might be writing a highly inflammatory, perhaps even actionable, history of her life and her brother’s life.

When I found the manuscript, it lay in a disorganized mess of pages beside her typewriter. The typewriter had become clogged with a green lichen or fungus; the entire shell overtaken by the spread of this loamy green substance. If I had arrived only a day later, the manuscript also might have succumbed to this same affliction.

I examined the pages briefly—long enough, however, to ascertain who had written the text and to note the comments added by Duncan, whose handwriting and attitude are familiar to me from our association over the years.

Beyond the desk, on the floor near the wall, a series of loose boards partially covered up a hole that led down into the ground. Once I saw the hole, I left quickly, pausing only to gather up the manuscript pages.

After I returned to my office with the manuscript and read through it, I was baffled as to what to do next. While many of the sections dealing with Ambergris’s recent history had a general ring of truth to them, these were inextricably interwoven with sections that contained the most outrageous accusations and assertions. What was true and what false, I might never know.

Neither could I corroborate any statements made about Janice’s family—despite the mention of family papers and Duncan’s journal in the manuscript, no such documents had been in evidence at the Spore of the Gray Cap. Worst of all, the manuscript did such a disservice to the reputation and character of my author Mary Sabon that from a purely professional point of view I was disinclined to attempt publication. However, paramount above all other concerns, I sincerely believed that Duncan or Janice would walk into my offices at any moment to reclaim the manuscript. So, for several years, I held on to it. I could not bring myself to destroy it. Nor could I bring myself to let the public have its way with the account.