“I’m going to let go. Okay? No sneaky punches, promise?”

“Let loose, damn it,” Coleman gasped. Maxfield released his hold. Randy cast a furious look at Casey.

“We’re not through,” he threatened before stomping off.

“Thanks, Joshua,” Casey said as she watched her attacker walk toward the parking lot.

“No problemo. These marriage things drive people crazy.”

Casey studied Joshua. She didn’t look angry anymore, just curious.

“Do you really know how to rig a car?”

Joshua threw his head back and laughed. “Hell no. Remember, I’m a novelist. I lie for a living.”

Suddenly, Maxfield and the dean noticed the gawking teenagers. Maxfield held up his hands.

“Everything’s cool. You can return to your regularly scheduled programming.” He turned to Casey. “Let’s go.”

“Did you see that?” Sally Castle said, awestruck. “I didn’t know Mr. Maxfield knew that Jackie Chan stuff. That was so cool.”

Suddenly, Sally noticed her friend’s ashen complexion. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” Ashley answered, but she was lying. The violence had made her flash back to the attack in her house. And there was something else, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it Coleman’s voice? She’d thought that it sounded familiar when she first heard him speak, but now she wasn’t so certain she’d heard it before. But Coleman was about the same height as her father’s murderer. No, that was ridiculous. A lot of men were the same size as the killer. Mr. Maxfield was the same size, too, and he didn’t make her nervous.

Terri Spencer rushed up the stairs to the second floor of the liberal arts building, then walked down the hall slowly so she could catch her breath. It was the first day of the writing group, and she was late. When she entered the schoolroom, Joshua Maxfield waved her onto a chair next to a heavyset, bearded man who was seated on the side of a conference table nearest the door. Next to him was an older woman with long gray hair. Across the table were two middle-aged women and a young man.

“Sorry I’m late,” Terri apologized. “The traffic was horrendous.”

“It’s not a problem,” Maxfield assured her from his position at the head of the table. “We just got settled. All you missed was a chance to get some coffee and doughnuts and I think we’ll still let you do that. What do you say, group?”

Everyone laughed, including Terri. “I’m fine, thanks,” she told Maxfield.

“Then we’ll get started by introducing ourselves. And I’ll begin by telling you a little about myself. I went to community college in Boston after I was expelled from high school. I began A Tourist in Babylon in my English class as an essay. My professor encouraged me to turn it into a novel. I thought he was crazy-I honestly didn’t think I had any talent-but I decided to give it a try. I transferred to the University of Massachusetts and finished the novel while getting my BA.

“Tourist was rejected by several houses before an editor at Pegasus Press was wise enough to discern its merits. The rest, as they say, is history. My first novel was nominated for all of the major literary prizes and was a bestseller. So I know a little about crass commercialism as well as literature.

“The Wishing Well was published a year or so later. I taught creative writing at a college in New England for a while but I decided to come west a few years ago and dedicate myself to working with younger students. I’ve enjoyed my two years at the Oregon Academy tremendously but I like to work with older writers for balance, which is why I conduct these seminars.

“But enough about me. Terri, why don’t you tell everyone who you are, where you work, and why you’re here?”

“I’m Terri Spencer, I’m a reporter at The Oregonian. I know all reporters are supposed to be writing the Great American Novel in their spare time. It’s a terrible cliché but it’s true in my case. I don’t know about the ‘great’ part but I am halfway through a book and I thought it was time to get some professional help.”

“ Harvey,” Maxfield said, nodding to the bearded man sitting to Terri’s left.

Harvey Cox told the group that he was a biotech researcher who had published one science fiction short story and was looking for help with a science fiction novel he was writing. Lois Dean, the older woman, had run across a set of diaries written by an ancestor who had followed the Oregon Trail in the 1800s. She wanted to turn them into a historical novel. Mindy Krauss and Lori Ryan were housewives and bridge partners who were trying their hand at a mystery, and Brad Dorrigan was a computer programmer who had majored in English Lit and spoke earnestly about the coming-of-age story he had been working on for several years.

“Okay, great,” Maxfield said. “Well, we certainly have a diverse group. That’s good. It means that we’re going to get different opinions when we critique each other’s work. And that is one of the things we are going to do here.

“Now let me talk about criticism for a moment. Each week I’m going to read something that someone in the group has submitted and each of you is going to be painfully honest with your opinions. That doesn’t mean that you are going to be mean or spiteful. The only type of criticism I expect here is constructive criticism. It’s perfectly all right to dislike something, but I want you to tell the writer why you don’t like what he or she has written and I want you to suggest how the work can be changed for the better. So think before you speak.

“My job will be to moderate these proceedings but I’m also going to give you tips that I hope will improve your writing. When we start each class I’ll spend some time talking about character development, outlining, and other aspects of the writer’s craft. Now, I don’t like talking to hear myself speak. I assume you’re here because you are motivated to improve your craft. So, ask questions. Remember, in this group there is no such thing as a stupid question.

“And with that introduction, unless there are questions, I’m going to start our first session with a brief discussion of the method I use to develop story ideas.”

They took a break after the first hour, and Terri talked to the other members of Maxfield’s class. Except for Brad Dorrigan, who took himself a little too seriously, the other aspiring writers were a pleasant group.

“Okay, back to the grind,” Joshua Maxfield said when fifteen minutes had passed. Terri carried a cup of coffee to her place. While everyone got settled, she checked the notes she’d taken about developing story ideas.

“I said that we’re going to spend a portion of each meeting critiquing each other’s writing,” Maxfield said. “Tonight, I’m going to read a chapter from a work in progress and everyone will comment.”

Terri was nervous that her manuscript would be the subject of the first critique. The other students looked just as worried. Maxfield squared up a short stack of paper that lay in front of him. He picked up the first sheet.

“I am a God. Not The God. I am from one of the lesser pantheons but a God nonetheless. I don’t make a practice of announcing the fact, and those that discover my powers never tell. On a balmy spring evening in mid-May I introduced myself to the Reardons of Sheldon, Massachusetts.

“I chose the Reardons because they were so ordinary, the type of people who occupy space while alive and are not missed when they die. Our experience together would be, by far, the most amazing event in their boring lives.

“Bob, a short, overweight man who was losing his hair, was an accountant. Margaret sold makeup at a department store on Main Street. I imagine that she had once been attractive. She still worked hard to keep her figure, but her skin was beginning to wrinkle and her legs were marred by cellulite. Their only daughter, Desiree, was seventeen, a junior in high school. She was of normal intelligence, and her looks were average, but she was physically advanced. I’d caught sight of her when she visited her mother at work. Her tight shorts showed off her taut buttocks and long firm legs. Her T-shirt was cut to display her flat, tanned tummy and sensual navel. Oh how I desired to lick it.