Rock Paper Scissors

Robin is the first wife of screenwriter Adam and the daughter of bestselling horror novelist Henry. When Feeney first introduces her by name in Chapter 14, 70 pages into the narrative, the natural assumption is that she wasn’t present in the story before then. However, the annual love letters to Adam beginning in Chapter 3 are from Robin. These letters reveal that she was a meek, adoring fan of Adam as a writer. Not until later does the narrative reveal that she asked Henry, from whom she’s estranged, to let Adam adapt one of his novels, jumpstarting Adam’s career. Her marriage to Adam was a series of disappointments, from her inability to conceive a child, to Adam’s oblivious emotional distance, to his affair with her best friend.

The narrative introduces Robin by name as a hermit living in a two-room cottage on the grounds of Blackwater Chapel. A total recluse, her only companion is Oscar the rabbit. Her seemingly random, malicious troublemaking intentions toward the couple staying in the chapel make her appear like a person with a mental illness or, as prior residents of the chapel reportedly were, a witch.

Robin is an unusual