Capítulo 4
The Anniversary Letters
Throughout their marriage, Amelia has been writing annual letters to Adam, inspired by his screenplay about a man who writes to his wife every anniversary. These letters, which Adam has never seen, reveal the true history of their relationship - and the cracks that formed from the beginning.
The first letter, written in 2007 and titled "Rock," describes their meeting at the Electric Cinema, where Amelia accidentally sat in Adam's seat. Despite their whirlwind romance surprising skeptics, Amelia accepted being "second fiddle" to Adam's writing. She nicknamed their hallway "Story Street" due to the manuscripts and books lining it. Their first big argument happened when Amelia discovered Adam's manuscript for "Rock Paper Scissors" - his first screenplay that never made it to screen despite years of drafts.
Subsequent letters chart the deterioration of their relationship. The "Paper" letter from 2009 reveals how Henry Winter, a reclusive author who never allowed adaptations of his books, surprisingly agreed to let Adam adapt his novel "The Doppelganger." This opportunity transformed Adam's career but began to pull him away from Amelia. She confesses a secret she can't share with Adam - that Henry Winter only trusted him with the book because of her.
The "Cotton" letter from 2010 describes Adam buying them a beautiful Victorian house in Hampstead Village with his newfound success, promising it would be their "forever home." The "Leather" letter from 2011 reveals Amelia accompanying Adam to industry events, helping him navigate social situations due to his face blindness by whispering identities to him. She also mentions seeing Henry Winter following them around a party, though she never told Adam.
Each letter reveals more secrets and growing distance between them. The "Iron" letter describes a stay at actress October O'Brien's French villa, where Amelia discovered mail addressed to "R. O'Brien" and learned October was just a stage name. The "Copper" letter from 2015 details October's suicide and how Adam spent their anniversary with Henry Winter instead of her.
By the "Bronze" letter of 2016, Amelia contemplated leaving Adam, feeling invisible and unappreciated. They played rock-paper-scissors to decide their marriage's fate, and Adam won. The "Pottery" letter mentions a work friend of Amelia's who could be her twin save for their hair differences. The "Steel" letter reveals this friend was actually Robin, Henry Winter's daughter, who had been married to Adam before Amelia.
These letters, hidden throughout the chapel, gradually expose the web of lies and betrayal that connects all three characters - Adam, Amelia, and Robin.
Capítulo 5
The Woman in the Red Kimono
Adam has been haunted by recurring nightmares about "the woman in the red kimono" since childhood. In these dreams, he sees a British woman in her forties with shoulder-length blonde hair and matching lipstick being hit by a car in the rain. Sometimes he's in the car, sometimes watching from the street, sometimes from a thirteenth-floor window.
This was the night his mother died when he was thirteen. Due to his prosopagnosia, Adam couldn't identify who was driving, leaving him forever wondering if someone he knew killed his mother. He idolizes his ghost mother, though Amelia notes he conveniently forgets she wasn't perfect - wearing that red kimono whenever male "friends" visited their council flat.
The red kimono becomes a recurring motif throughout their stay at the chapel. When they check outside after hearing Bob barking, Adam believes he sees someone wearing a red kimono like his mother's entering the chapel. Later, they discover a bedroom filled with carved wooden robins and find a red silk kimono placed on their bed - identical to the one Adam's mother wore when she was killed.
These deliberate triggers suggest someone knows about Adam's trauma and is using it against him. The kimono represents not just his mother's death, but also his complicated feelings about her life - the shame and anger he felt about her entertaining men while raising him alone in poverty.
As the story unfolds, we learn the shocking truth: Adam himself was responsible for his mother's death. As a rebellious thirteen-year-old, he met a girl in the park who taught him to steal and drive a car. Taking a corner too quickly, he hit his mother, who was out walking because Adam had refused to walk the dog that night. The girl pushed him out and drove away. Years later, he would marry this same girl - Amelia - without recognizing her due to his face blindness.
Capítulo 6
The Mysterious Robin
The chapel has another observer - Robin, who lives in a small thatched cottage nearby. From the beginning, she watches the couple from a distance, noting their arrival in their mint-green vintage car and following them as they explore the property. When they find the chapel locked, Robin knows someone needs to let them in.
Robin is described in stark contrast to Amelia - practical layers of cotton, wool, and tweed, self-cut gray hair, and a weather-worn appearance compared to Amelia's stylish clothes and expertly applied makeup. She peeks through the stained-glass windows, watching them light candles, warm food, and drink wine.
When Amelia spots Robin looking through the window and screams, Robin retreats. Later, when Adam and Amelia visit her cottage seeking help, Robin closes all her curtains and refuses to answer the door. She's annoyed at being called a "nutter" by Adam and resents being judged for how she keeps her home.
As the story progresses, we learn Robin's true identity - she is Henry Winter's daughter and Adam's first wife. She befriended Amelia at Battersea Dogs Home, helped her get a job, only for Amelia to steal her husband. After finding Adam and Amelia in bed together, Robin left her rings on the kitchen table and fled. That same day, Henry called to say he was dying, guiding Robin back to the childhood home she'd escaped years ago.
Robin reveals her troubled childhood with Henry, who was a brilliant writer but a dark, dangerous man. He bullied Robin's mother until she died, then bullied Robin. He called her "the unhappy accident" and sent birthday cards weeks late with the wrong age. When Robin's English teacher sent Henry a story she wrote about a novelist who commits crimes then writes about them, he punished her by cutting off her plaits while she slept and making her write "I must not tell tales" repeatedly.
After Henry died, Robin found his unfinished manuscript and replaced it with her own writing, successfully fooling his agent. She also discovered Adam's screenplay in Henry's desk with a letter asking for advice. Now she's formed a plan to rewrite her life story - and take revenge on both Adam and Amelia.
Capítulo 7
The Final Game of Rock Paper Scissors
As the weekend progresses, tensions escalate. Bob mysteriously disappears. The power goes out. Amelia gets trapped in the crypt when the trapdoor slams shut above her. They discover scratch marks on the walls, as though someone once desperately tried to claw their way out. They hear whispers and footsteps when no one else should be there.
Outside, they find a bizarre scarecrow with a snowman's head wearing Henry Winter's signature panama hat and blue bow tie. Behind the chapel, they discover a small cemetery where one gravestone has been deliberately cleared of snow. On this relatively new headstone sits Bob's red collar. The grave belongs to Henry Winter, "Father of one, author of many. 1937-2018."
When they try to escape, they find all four tires of their car have been deliberately slashed with smile-shaped gashes. Someone clearly doesn't want them to leave.
Inside the chapel, they discover a bedroom that's an exact replica of their bedroom at home, down to the precise Farrow & Ball paint color Amelia had chosen years ago. They find three photos: Adam's wedding to Robin with Henry photobombing, teenage Robin fishing on Blackwater Loch, and a little girl resembling Robin sitting on Henry's lap.
The final confrontation begins when an envelope with Adam's name slides under the door. The letter inside reveals shocking truths - Amelia was involved in the hit-and-run that killed Adam's mother nearly thirty years ago, and she deliberately sought him out at Battersea. As Adam confronts her, Amelia confirms the truth but grabs a knife when he tells her he was never happy with her. Someone appears behind her with scissors.
Six months later, Robin writes that she and Adam are reunited. "Rock Paper Scissors" will be published under Henry Winter's name, though she wrote it. She mentions trying unsuccessfully to remove her mother's sapphire ring from Amelia's "lifeless hand" in Scotland. Adam reflects that his nightmares have stopped, though he still thinks daily about his mother's death. He reveals that he was the one driving the car that night, not Amelia - she pushed him out and drove away after the accident.
The epilogue features Samuel Smith, a private investigator hired by Henry Winter, visiting Blackwater Chapel after becoming concerned when Henry stopped communicating. He finds the chapel abandoned with chains on the doors. In the cemetery, he discovers a fresh unmarked grave with an inhaler sticking out of the dirt. Henry Winter's headstone now reads "KILLER OF ONE, AUTHOR OF MANY." On the grave is a glass box containing a sapphire ring still attached to a human finger, a paper crane, and vintage stork-shaped scissors.
Capítulo 8
The Art of Deception
At its core, "Rock Paper Scissors" explores how well we truly know the people we love - and how easily we can be deceived by them. All three main characters are unreliable narrators, each hiding crucial truths from the others and from the reader.
Adam's face blindness serves as both a literal condition and a metaphor for his inability to see people for who they truly are. Despite being unable to recognize faces, he believes he knows when his wife is lying: "After seven years of marriage, I recognize when my wife is lying. I just don't know why yet." The irony is that he's missed the biggest deception of all - that he married the girl who was present when his mother died.
Amelia has constructed an entirely false identity to win Adam's love. She changed everything about herself - her hair, clothes, even how she speaks - because she knew she could "make him happier than Robin did." Her difficult childhood in foster homes taught her never to trust or get comfortable, yet she desperately seeks stability through marriage to Adam, perhaps as atonement for her role in his mother's death.
Robin, initially presented as a strange recluse, reveals herself to be perhaps the most calculating of all. After being betrayed by both her husband and her friend, she orchestrates an elaborate revenge plot, luring them to her childhood home during a snowstorm, isolating them, and psychologically torturing them with reminders of their past sins.
The title "Rock Paper Scissors" refers not just to the game the characters play at pivotal moments, but to the cyclical nature of their relationships - each character temporarily gaining the upper hand before being defeated by another's move. Like the game itself, their interactions follow a pattern where no one can win indefinitely.
Capítulo 9
The Inheritance of Trauma
Generational trauma runs through the narrative like a dark undercurrent. Henry Winter inflicted psychological abuse on his daughter Robin, who in turn becomes manipulative and vengeful. Adam's childhood trauma of witnessing his mother's death (and his unacknowledged role in it) shapes his adult relationships and his career choice - he becomes a screenwriter, creating fictional narratives perhaps to escape his own painful reality.
Amelia's childhood as an orphan bounced between foster homes creates in her a desperate need for belonging that manifests as possessiveness in her marriage. When Adam mentions wishing they'd had children, he says he feared "we might have fucked them up somehow, the way our parents fucked us up." This acknowledgment of generational trauma suggests a self-awareness that comes too late to save their marriage.
The setting of Blackwater Chapel reinforces this theme. Once used as a witch prison in the 1500s, it carries centuries of suffering within its walls. The worn tombstones forming the larder floor, the crypt with its rusted metal rings embedded in the walls, and the graveyard outside all serve as reminders of past pain that continues to influence the present.
Even the objects in the chapel connect to this theme. The anniversary gifts Adam and Amelia exchange each year - rock, paper, bronze, copper, iron - accumulate like layers of history, each one representing another year of secrets and lies. When these objects are discovered in Henry's desk drawer, they become physical evidence of the interconnected nature of the characters' traumas.
In the end, "Rock Paper Scissors" suggests that without confronting our past wounds honestly, we are doomed to perpetuate cycles of deception and harm. The characters who survive physically may not survive spiritually, as they continue to build their lives on foundations of lies.
Capítulo 10
The Price of Ambition
Adam's career trajectory illustrates the cost of artistic ambition. His breakthrough came when Henry Winter allowed him to adapt "The Doppelganger" - the first screenwriter ever trusted with Winter's work. This opportunity transformed Adam's life financially but began the erosion of his marriage. As Amelia notes in one letter, "We see each other even less now, and you no longer need my input on your work."
The Hollywood studio paid more for those 120 pages than Amelia "could earn in ten years." Their move to an affluent Hampstead Village home placed them among "theater directors, newsreaders and Oscar nominees," making Amelia feel inadequate, "like I'm still a first draft while Adam is the finished article."
Robin reveals that she asked her estranged father to let Adam adapt one of his novels, hoping it would launch Adam's career with his own screenplays. Instead, Henry "only used Adam to try getting close to me, caring more about his books than his daughter." After Henry's death, Robin continued writing novels under his name, successfully fooling his agent.
The novel suggests that artistic success often comes at the expense of personal relationships. Henry Winter was "a brilliant writer but a dark, dangerous man" whose books were "his real children." Adam similarly disappears into books "like a rabbit in a magician's hat," making Amelia feel abandoned. Even Robin eventually follows this pattern, finding that she "can write my own novels now that I'm free of his judgment."
The irony is that none of these characters achieves true artistic fulfillment. Adam spends his career adapting other people's novels rather than telling his own stories. Henry dies alone, estranged from his daughter. Robin must publish under her father's name to be read. And Amelia, who might have had creative potential of her own, subordinates her identity to supporting Adam's career.
Capítulo 11
The Illusion of Truth
"Sometimes a lie is the kindest truth you can tell yourself," Adam reflects in the novel's closing pages. This sentiment encapsulates the book's exploration of how we construct narratives about our lives that may not align with reality.
Each character believes their version of events is the truth, yet each perspective is fundamentally flawed. Adam doesn't remember his role in his mother's death until the end. Amelia convinces herself she deserves Adam's love despite her deception. Robin justifies her revenge by positioning herself as the victim, ignoring her own capacity for cruelty.
The structure of the novel itself plays with this theme. By alternating between different narrators and including the anniversary letters, Feeney forces readers to constantly reassess what they believe to be true. Just as we think we understand the dynamics between the characters, another revelation forces us to reconsider everything we've read before.
Even the setting contributes to this theme. Blackwater Chapel, with its dozens of small mirrors reflecting distorted versions of the couple back at themselves, symbolizes how we see only partial, often warped reflections of truth. The stained-glass windows filter light into colored patterns, suggesting how our perceptions are always colored by our experiences and biases.
In the end, "Rock Paper Scissors" suggests that objective truth may be impossible to achieve in human relationships. We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives, selecting and arranging events to create a story we can live with. The danger comes when these personal fictions cause harm to others - as they do, fatally, for the characters in this novel.
Capítulo 12
When the Game Ends
"Rock Paper Scissors" concludes with ambiguity and horror. Samuel Smith, the private investigator, finds Blackwater Chapel abandoned with chains on the doors. In the cemetery, he discovers a fresh unmarked grave with an inhaler sticking out of the dirt - presumably Amelia's final resting place. Henry Winter's headstone now reads "KILLER OF ONE, AUTHOR OF MANY," suggesting Robin has learned more about her father's crimes. Most disturbing is the glass box containing a sapphire ring still attached to a human finger - likely Amelia's finger that Robin couldn't remove the ring from.
The novel leaves us with questions: Did Adam know Robin killed Amelia? Was he complicit? Who whispered Sam's name three times in the darkness? Has justice been served, or has one cycle of violence simply been replaced by another?
What's clear is that no one emerges unscathed from this deadly game. Even the apparent "winners" - Robin and Adam - are living lives built on deception and murder. Their reunion isn't a happy ending but another turn in the cycle of trauma and revenge.
Like the game that gives the novel its title, there are no true winners in "Rock Paper Scissors" - only temporary victories before the next round begins. The characters have been playing this game their entire lives, each move determined by choices made long ago. As Robin observes, "Life is about choices, and sometimes one bad decision leads to another with no way back."
In this bleak but compelling vision, Feeney suggests that our past actions define us more than we might wish to believe. The secrets we keep, the lies we tell, and the truths we avoid all eventually demand their price. And sometimes, that price is paid not just by us, but by those we claim to love.
