Things slowed down considerably for Dave over the next couple weeks as he began to get his feet under him and establish a routine. It was just fine with him; things in his life had been moving too quickly anyway.

The boys and their school established the pace for him. He soon got into the habit of waking them early enough so they could stumble around and fully wake up, and then he could send them off to school with a little better breakfast than just milk and cereal. It wasn't often big or elaborate, but it was something tasty and different every day. They left for school in plenty of time -- usually they walked, since it was just a few blocks, and as time went on Dave began to recognize some of the regular kids, as well as a few of the parents who walked their kids to school. At first he walked the kids right to the classroom, but after a few days went by, he didn't always do it, since he figured they knew where to go. Sometimes he'd stop and talk with Cindy or Roberta for a minute or two, mostly about the boys, who seemed to be adapting well and not causing any problems. There were a few rainy days when he drove the kids to school in the gray Chevy Malibu, but he liked the morning walks for exercise, if nothing more.

Almost every morning after he dropped the boys off at school, he'd continue his walk by going to the Spee-D-Mart. It was a good chance to touch base with Emily, of course. She had quickly become about his best friend in Bradford and one of the best he'd ever had, and it was always good to talk with her for a few minutes. Occasionally there would be some kind of a problem that local knowledge could solve, and Emily was almost always able to point him in the right direction.

On the mornings she didn't work at the Spee-D-Mart, he'd still swing by and talk with Janine, Emily's assistant. Janine was heavy set, not very pretty, and had a skin condition that didn't help, but she almost always had a bright, cheery remark or comment to lighten up the morning. When he left the Spee-D-Mart, he'd always take a large Styrofoam cup of coffee with him, and usually a doughnut or two if they had anything left that looked interesting.

As soon as he got home, he headed into the office and knuckled down to work. There were usually three or four e-mails that demanded attention, and sometimes a phone call or two. Usually they had to wait until nine, although he rarely had to wait on the clock. While there might be the odd phone call or e-mail during the day, it didn't happen very often, so not long after nine he was usually pretty well buried in his work. There hadn't been quite enough time to finish his edit of Dithyran's Probe before he left New York, but he pretty well wrapped it up in his first days back in Bradford. He sent a copy of the revised work off electronically to the Dunlap and Fyre office in New York, and another one to Meghan Solari, the author. She usually had some bones to pick with his editing -- any author did -- but had generally said in the past that his editing helped the story, so he couldn't fault her.

There would be more to do on Dithyran's Probe once Meghan had reviewed his edit, but for the moment it was out of the way, so he turned his attention to the next project, Swordsman of Atlantis. Although he'd had the project in his hands for several days, he had done little more than glance at it. Now, it demanded a fairly careful reading, just to make sure he knew where it was headed before he stuck his fingers into it. Like most manuscripts these days, Swordsman of Atlantis had been submitted electronically, and Dave had a copy on the hard drive of his laptop and another one on the desktop. Given a choice he preferred to work on the desktop normally, but for the first read he found it more comfortable to plop down in his living room chair and skim it there. He didn't do any real editing, but when he found something worthy of future attention he marked it and moved on. The book was long and involved enough that it took a couple days to do a first careful read, and some was done in the evening after the boys had gone to bed.

Usually, Dave worked right on through in the mornings, finishing the coffee and the doughnuts, if he had them. If he hadn't had the doughnuts, his stomach usually started feeling a little grumbly along about midday; when it did, he went to the kitchen and made a sandwich, usually joined with a glass of milk or a can of cola consumed as he sat at the computer screen.

Whatever was happening, fifteen minutes before school was out he knocked off what he was doing. At first he'd thought about setting an alarm clock to warn him when the time was drawing near, but before he managed to do it, he realized his time sense was good enough that it was unnecessary. Again, he'd walk to school to pick up the boys, sometimes talking with the teacher or principal for a moment or two, and sometimes not.

When he got home with the boys, it was time for a little snack and a glass of milk, and he usually joined in. Sometimes he'd play a game with the boys, or read to them -- or just work on their reading -- but sometimes he'd let them sit down and watch TV.

It turned out the local cable network didn't carry CTN, but then it didn't carry much else and not very many people were happy with it. When Dave raised the topic with Emily, he was told the town was stuck with the franchise for the next few years, but the council was working on an agreement with another company to bring high-speed internet service, which would include digital TV. The hangup the council was trying to work out was whether the digital network infringed on the cable TV franchise agreement. In the meantime, Emily told him to do what everyone else did: get a satellite dish.

Dave grumbled about it for a few days, but then when he saw just what crap was available on TV after school, he gave in. As in New York, Avalon was on in the after-school hours, and although they were getting a little old for it, the boys liked watching it because they could see their Aunt Shae. Dave often watched with them, amused he was watching it for the same reason.

But they didn't always watch TV. Kayla was in her first year on the middle school cross-country team, and Emily said she was showing signs of being a good runner, so she was conscientious about getting to practices and meets. But on the afternoons when she didn't have a practice or meet after school, she often walked home with Dave and the boys, and spent some time playing with them. When it happened, Dave usually went back to whatever project he'd been working on.

By the time that wound up, it was usually getting to be about time for dinner. In the first few weeks Dave and the boys could have eaten out virtually every night, but Dave soon put a halt to that, limiting it to one or two nights a week. There were many reasons for it, the most important being he felt that having dinner together helped to rebuild a sense of family, which in his mind had been badly shaken. Besides, he didn't want to wear out his welcome.

So, most dinners they had at home. They weren't fancy or elaborate, and mostly ran toward things the three of them liked, although Dave tried to push them away from the junk advertised on TV and toward more healthy food. Often when they ate at home, JoAnne would join them, occasionally bringing Hazel with her.

The evenings were also pretty much for the boys, too -- usually TV again, but not always, and then it was often a videotape rather than broadcast. Whatever it was, Dave tried to have it wrapped up by a quarter to eight. He'd tell the boys to go get their pajamas on and get ready for bed, because Aunt Shae would be calling soon.

Shae almost always called right at eight, never missing it by more than a minute or two; after the first call, Dave had moved the speakerphone to the living room so it would be more comfortable for the three of them, and they usually gathered on the couch. Shae always talked to the boys for a few minutes, asking about school, telling them their mother would be proud of them, sometimes telling a story from when she and Dave were kids going to the same school.

After a while she'd ask, "Are you ready for your bedtime story?" and the boys always were.

The first few nights the stories seemed adapted from Avalon, but in time, they morphed into a mini-series about two boys, both young wizards with some magical powers, being taken to a strange land with all sorts of wondrous creatures and odd happenings. Dave soon realized it was something of a metaphor for the boys themselves -- it was close enough to them they could identify with it, but enough different that they would have to use their imaginations. At first, Dave thought Shae was reading it, but one night, Shae happened to ask them what they thought ought to happen next, and they told her their idea. Sure enough, the next night it happened to the boys, but considerably buffed up -- the story line went on for the next several days. Shae was a magnificent storyteller and Dave came to enjoy the bedtime ritual about as much as the boys. It was a special time.

The boys were very good about going to bed once Shae hit the evening cliffhanger. On the few occasions that they were cranky about it, all it took to bring them around was a gentle comment that if they didn't get to bed and get to sleep there wouldn't be a story the next night. Getting to sleep sometimes took a while, but as soon as Dave was sure they were down for the night, he'd go back downstairs, pick up the phone in the office and call Shae back.

Sometimes those calls were only a few minutes, but often they would take an hour or more. He and Shae talked about a lot of things -- the boys, of course, her job, and some of the things she went through shooting Avalon. Especially in his early days back in Bradford, Dave had stories about his adventures, the things he'd found out, people he'd met, people they mutually knew. They never seemed to lack for anything to talk about, and the discussions were wide ranging. The late phone calls soon became Dave's favorite time of the day.

One of the things Dave was curious about was where Shae was getting the stories she was telling the boys. "Out of mid-air, mostly," she replied to his surprise. "I usually work out the general direction of where I'm going while I'm hanging around during the day, waiting on setups and doing nothing much. The actual story doesn't come out until I'm telling it."

"You ought to write some of those down," he told her. "There are some great kids' stories you've been telling. That's my professional opinion, by the way, not one of a friend."

"I've tried," she sighed. "It always seems to come out real flat. I'm not a writer, Dave. I'm a storyteller. There's a big difference. You tend to think of how words read. I have to operate on how they're said."

"Be that as it may," he replied, mentally conceding her point. "You do a great job of telling a story. I love watching you on Avalon, but you do a much better job of it when you're not playing a five year old. You really draw in your audience. Just write down enough to remind you of the general storyline so you can tell it again later. It seems to me there might be something you could do with this talent in the future."

"Yeah, but I haven't figured out what it is yet," she sighed.

The only thing that kept the phone calls going on even longer was the fact that both of them knew they were running up a lot of long distance charges. Sometimes when they hung up Dave was just about ready for bed himself, but usually he took an hour or so afterward just for himself -- often reading something, usually not fiction but something to make him think. In the first part of the month it was Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was a real thought provoker indeed.

All in all, it made for a fairly steady routine, one he fell into easily. New York seemed far away, and was -- there was little in his life in Bradford that resembled his life of a month and more before. Though he'd had real mixed emotions about the move back to Bradford, so far it had diverted him from the pain of losing Julie, and realistically he could not have asked for more.

One of the things that had been a major concern about the move back to Bradford was how well the long-distance editing was going to work. It had been his biggest single point of reluctance. So far it was working all right, but how well it would continue to work was open to question.

Swordsman of Atlantis was the first thing that caused a sticking point. On the first serious read-through, Dave lost a lot of his enthusiasm for the book. Oh, it was well written from the point of the author knowing how to use the language -- in the time he messed with it, Dave only found a very small handful of typos. The real problem was the book as a whole was basically mediocre. The characters were wooden and simplistic; the plot was formulaic and predictable; the dialogue could get very awkward. By the end of the first read-through Dave was of the opinion that if the buy-or-bounce decision had been his, he'd have probably bounced it.

If he'd been in New York, it would have been easy for Dave to go to someone else in the department for a second opinion, to see if the book had just hit him wrong, but it wasn't an option now. He stewed away at the question for a day or so, picking at editing points, until he remembered Rob Dunlap commenting that they were just going to have to learn how to deal with these issues. The next morning, when he got back from the Spee-D-Mart with his fresh cup of coffee, he flipped on the computer to bring up the book, then picked up the phone and called Michelle Martin, his supervisor at the Dunlap and Fyre office in New York.

"Dave," Michelle said brightly when she heard his voice -- as they hadn't talked in several days. "How's it going watching the grass grow out there in Indiana or wherever?"

"Michigan," Dave laughed, recognizing Michelle's tease. "This time of year the grass is pretty well done growing, but it is kind of neat to watch the leaves turn color and start to fall."

"Ah, for those bucolic rural pleasures," she laughed. "So what can I do for you today?"

"This is a little awkward, and I wouldn't put it this way in New York," he said. "But just how committed are we to Swordsman of Atlantis?"

"It's tentatively on the list for January, and a contract has been signed," she told him. "Is there some problem?"

"Yeah," Dave said. "It's just not very good, in my opinion." He went on to describe some of the problems he was having with the book -- the plot, the characters, the dialogue. "Now, the point I'm leading to is most of this is fixable. There's not a lot I can do about the plot, but I can free up the characters quite a bit, give them some color, put some life in the dialogue, and like that. The problem is I can't do it overnight. Frankly, editing it so it would be decent would take months, although I can clean up the superficial issues with little effort. So, I guess I'm saying I need to know how to play it."

Michelle was quiet for a moment, then replied, "Dave, I can't give you a straight answer on it right off the top of my head. I know it came to us as a pretty much done deal, so I'm guessing that the decision was made over in general fiction by someone who doesn't know anything about fantasy. It could have been Pittman, and he's gone, now. In other words, if this was done by someone who has something on someone, I don't know who they are or where the bodies are buried. My guess is your question is going to have to go right up to Rob before it can be settled. How about putting together an e-mail that details your concerns, give some examples and the options involved, and get it off to me. Be fairly detailed. That'll give me something on record I can take up the ladder."

"Yeah, I can do that," Dave told her. "My guess is, if it's that bad but the money has been paid, we'll probably publish it but not put any more into it than we have to."

"I'd tend to guess that way myself," she agreed. "But with Rob, you never know. If this Larissa Hamilton is the daughter of one of his college buddies or something, he may want to go the whole nine yards. Why don't you clean up the superficial issues, like you said? Then just sit on doing anything more until I can get a reading on it."

"No problem on my account," he said. "The thing is it's going to run me out of work in a day or two. Have you got anything else going I can throw my time at usefully?"

"Dave, things are still a mess here," she said. "The move has got a lot of things loused up, and the production cycle is one of them. I've got half a dozen things I'd love to have you working on, but I don't want to get you committed to another project and then find out from Rob that Swordsman of Atlantis is a get-it-done-yesterday project."

"Yeah, I can see how it could be a concern. That's one of the reasons I don't like to be out of the office; it limits my flexibility. If I was there, I could throw my time at other issues pretty easily."

Michelle let out a sigh. "I'll tell you one thing we're way behind on," she told him. "I hate like hell to throw a senior editor like you at it, but you're available and I trust you."

Dave wasn't a fisherman, but he knew a worm with a fishhook in it when he saw it. "What's that?" he said dubiously.

"The slush pile," Michelle sighed again. "The crap just keeps coming in, and we've been so wrapped up with getting back on schedule that nobody in this department has even taken a look at it in over a month. How about if I send you the collection, you can give it a once-over, bounce the real shit, and point out anything that needs a harder look, maybe with some recommendations?"

Dave was less than enthusiastic. Normally, it was a job assigned to a junior editor, or an intern, someone lower down. Publishers like Dunlap and Fyre got dozens of unrequested submissions each week from hopeful authors. Most were pure junk, although it was Rob's policy that someone at least look at everything that came in "over the transom" because you never knew when there was going to be a diamond in the rough. Rob was fond of the story of Tom Clancy's first book, Hunt for Red October. It had been rejected from the slush piles of some ungodly number of publishers before finally being taken up by a tiny specialty publishing house -- who promptly turned it into the company's first and only number one best seller and created Clancy's career in the process.

Like most editors, Dave didn't care at all for dealing with the first reading of the slush pile. But once in a while there was that piece of gold to be found, and he had a better example to work with than most. He'd picked a novel by an unknown first author out of the slush pile years ago and liked it. He'd had to do some politicking clear up to Rob before the buy decision had been made, but it had been worth it. The author was Meghan Solari, the author of Dithyran's Probe, which was her fourth novel. In the long run, it had made for some major brownie points -- Meghan was a solid seller. The last time he'd talked with her, a couple months ago, she said she had some pretty good ideas for the followup, Dithyran's Mist, and even had a few parts of it blocked out. It would take her a year or more to finish, but there wouldn't be any discussion of whether to buy it because her books were proven solid sellers.

The real problem was a minority of stuff that came over the transom was good enough -- better than Swordsman of Atlantis, for example -- and able with a decent amount of editing to probably be profitable. But with only so much market and so many resources available to publish a first book, making a decision was a real problem, so known authors with a publishing history had the inside track. It seemed unfair as hell to prospective authors, some whom had put years into a good book, even potential bestseller material -- Clancy had once been one -- but that was the way the system worked. Dave had the idea that the internet was going to revolutionize this, as it had done so much else, but he had only vague ideas of how such a thing might come about.

"I suppose I could take a stab at it," Dave said with obvious reluctance. "You're giving me the authority to bounce the junk?"

"Right," she replied. "We'll trust your opinion when something deserves a closer look, even if you don't think it's a buy. Here's the deal. The list is in pretty good shape until early next year, and there's stuff in the pike. But I think there's room for a few new pieces, maybe even if they need some work, but only if it's got the right potential. Whatever else, if you can make a dent in the pile, it would make a big step in getting things back to normal around here. How soon can you get on it?"

"A couple days, probably," Dave said. "That's if you want me to give Swordsman of Atlantis a once-over."

"I think you might as well. It's obviously carrying some unknown baggage so we can't just sit on it. How about if I make a folder for you on the server and copy some of the electronic slush over to it? Then you can FTP it and go through it from there. When you get through something just give me an e-mail summary."

"I suppose that'll work," Dave conceded, not very happy about it. It was not a job that would have been shoved on him if he'd still been in New York, although he might have gotten a piece of it, under the circumstances. Right now, the Dunlap and Fyre office seemed awfully far away.

It wasn't until later in the day, when he was putting together his e-mail stating his problems with Swordsman of Atlantis, when he happened to notice the date: October 11 -- a month since the day, a month that Julie had been gone. He'd hardly noticed it. Maybe this was working, after all -- he probably would have been a bundle of nerves if he'd been in the office today. As it was, he was far away enough and things were different enough that he felt only a brief pang of pain and loss.

In a couple days, Dave was deep in going through the submissions. As expected, a majority were clearly junk. Though he tried to at least skim all of the stuff, a lot could be rejected in the first ten minutes. Poor writing, bad use of language, wooden characters, bad punctuation and spelling, too intense and detailed eroticism -- it usually didn't take long to find a reason to dump almost everything.

But there were occasional jewels even there. Several times he found really interesting plots or characters buried in the poor writing, enough to sit down and write an insightful and encouraging letter to the authors, pointing out some of the problems and encouraging them to work on those things, do a rewrite or try again, promising he'd be willing to look at a major revision. Although he only knew their names and addresses, in two cases he realized the authors were quite young, maybe still in high school, and had quite a bit of potential with a little maturity in their writing and after some effective courses in the field. He wanted to encourage that kind of talent, rather than just stifle it with a brusque rejection.

As he expected, there were a number of pieces that seemed to have some potential -- and at least he was glad to be able to pass the buck on to Michelle, who would doubtlessly pass it on to someone else. These were the manuscripts that would work if someone were willing to put a lot of editing time into them, but whether it was worth the investment was a decision beyond his level. Only once in the whole stack was he able to send an e-mail to Michelle with a flat, "Grab this! It's great! I'll come to New York and fight for it if I have to."

The stack seemed endless. Every day there would be more files in his FTP folder on the office server, either full texts or sample chapters and outlines. He and Michelle exchanged e-mails every day, and talked on the phone every two or three days. She told him he was definitely gaining ground on the stack, but there was still a lot to do. After a couple weeks of it, he was really ready to get back to the editing he liked, and asked about Swordsman of Atlantis, but was told that a decision was still up in the air.

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