Saviour from the Past

Chapter 7

A/N There will be intermittent time jumps throughout this story, if it continues with my current plan as I am writing. Some will be small periods of months, some will be years. This is the first one and is a small one.

"Hey Rory, can I give you two more manuscripts before I leave for the weekend?"

Rory looked up to see Mr Miller standing at her doorway, okay doorway might be a stretch, the opening of her cubicle was a more accurate descriptor. It was now mid-July and Rory had been interning at the publishing company since school had broken for summer at the start of May. Mr Miller was the head of the department that she was interning in this month. She had decided to take Francine up on her offer, although Francine would admit she did honestly just pass on the resume, she didn't even mention being connected to Rory, and with their different last names it wasn't obvious. She was really enjoying this internship, they weren't just treating her like cheap labor and a coffee maker, they had actually transitioned her through different departments so that she could get experience with all of the different aspects involved in publishing. So far she had been in productions and operations, marketing and publicity, and the editorial department. Right now she was helping the publisher's readers on working their way through the slush pile. She had been helping them for two weeks and so far it and the editorial department were her favorites.

"Of course, Mr Miller. I will try to have them finished by Monday," she said with a smile.

"Rory, how many manuscripts have you worked through since you moved into this section?" he asked, as he looked around the piles in her cubicle.

"I think about forty four, Sir." she answered, following his gaze to take in the piles. "Do I need to speed up? Sorry, there were a few that were awful and it was hard to get through them, but I found two that I think are amazing, I may have even read one of them three times."

"Where are those two?"

"This one is a psychological thriller, a bit of groundhog day, mixed with a savior complex. Has a good twist at the end," she described quickly as she passed him the first one she found. The second one she pulled out of her own bag. "This one is a fantasy romance, it has world building, different mythical creatures and a believable romance. It definitely has the makings of the start of a series. I wouldn't be surprised if the author has already written the second book, as there is a cliffhanger ending which is bold for an unknown author."

Steven Miller stared at his intern in shock. He had of course heard the editorial department talking about how helpful she had been when she helped out the junior copy editors in their department, which didn't happen often, but they never got interns who were helpful in more than one department. It was actually what had started the company rotating interns, they had an intern one year who had been awful in their productions and operations department, so they hadn't brought them back, that student went on to become an amazing editor at a competing company, he just had yet to find his niche when he was with them.

"Thank you. I will take these two and read them next. You don't need to speed up at all, this is a time consuming process which is why we have people where this is their only job. Sometimes they only find one decent manuscript every six months, so that can seem like a lot of wasted time, don't let it get you down. You can leave those for the weekend, I don't expect you to be reading our stuff at home. It is still your summer break, I hope you are finding time to relax as well?"

"Yes, I am trying to. This weekend, my friends and I are going to Ocean Beach park, as long as the weather stays good. And next weekend I am actually going to Philadelphia. A friend of mine works at a small in-house publishing company and they are having an open house for them and local artists," Rory answered, aware that he was only asking to be polite.