do that?” she yells over the siren, aware of the weight of the pistol in her front pocket. The ambulance pulls to a stop in front of the ER’s double doors, the sound of the siren replaced by the vehicle’s doors opening. Ethan shoots another glance in its direction, but Sloane doesn’t turn around. It’s Evelyn’s turn for a new patient, not hers. Ethan’s wary eyes return to hers. “We should have the footage by tonight. So, if you hurry, you can ask your old pal to delete it. Maybe you’ll get lucky and he already has. But I doubt he’s gone to such lengths to protect you. And if not, you should be ready for some very hard questions. Questions I hope you have a good answer for. Because I’ll be honest, Sloane.” Ethan leans toward her. “What was his last BP?” she hears Logan ask one of the medics as they roll the patient inside. “Seventy over forty.” Ethan’s red eyes remain fixed on hers. “The odds of your innocence in all this are becoming…real thin. Even for someone who wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.” Sloane reaches for his hand, but he pulls away. His jaw is set, and she doesn’t like the way he’s looking at her. Does he really think, after a decade of marriage, that she’s guilty of premeditated murder? She thinks of Kay at dinner after Ethan left. “I’m scared of Brody. I should’ve told you before, but he’s been stalking me. He was waiting inside my car the other night after work—” “What!” Ethan takes a step back. The ambulance driver turns in their direction. Sloane steps forward. “I thought I could get him to leave me alone, but he’s become totally unhinged. Since this whole thing with his wife.” “You should’ve told me.” “I know.” Her hospital phone rings. She sighs and pulls it out of her pocket. It’s the nurses’ desk. She holds up a finger to Ethan to indicate she’ll just be a minute. “Dr. Marks.” Ethan is already walking away. “Hi, Dr. Marks. It’s Rachel—” “I’ll have to call you back.” After hanging up, she starts to jog after him, but stops suddenly when she feels the pistol jiggle inside her pocket. “Ethan, wait!” He wears a pained expression on his face when he turns. “I have to get back.” “Is there any way you can delay Jonah getting that video footage? Or at least watching it?” There has to be something he could do. He shakes his head. “This is all the help I can give you.” “Brody’s dangerous, Ethan.” “If you see him again, you call me. Don’t go anywhere near him. No more secrets, Sloane.” She nods. “Got it.” He walks away without another word. The waiting room hasn’t gotten any less crowded in the few minutes she was outside. The homeless man is still lying on the floor between two rows of chairs, but his screams for help have morphed into indiscernible utterings under his breath. Sloane heads straight for the locker room,


the opening to George, and she told me she was interested in applying. She’s at Harvard right now, and physics academia is an old boys’ club everywhere, but . . . Harvard’s bad. So she sent in her materials, and . . . You said you’re familiar with her work. As you can imagine, everyone knew it was going to be her from the start.” I can imagine it very well. Her thesis experiments were stepping stones to massive advancements in particle physics. Georgina is the epitome of inspiring. “Then you applied. And Monica was so impressed by your CV, she decided to bring you in despite the committee recommending against it. It was pointed out to her that there was nothing you could have done during the interview that would have gotten you the job, but she insisted, reasoning that George already had an excellent position at Harvard and might decide not to accept an offer.” He sighs. “Even if George weren’t a rock star, you have to understand: she and I were in grad school together. We’ve had half a decade longer than you in the field. Half a decade worth of scientific output, publications, grants.” You’re the ideal candidate, Monica told me the first night we met, but I wasn’t. I simply wasn’t. “Why did Monica . . . ?” “She tried her all to hire a theorist. And I have to admit, she played her cards well by choosing you as her candidate.” He leans forward. I drag my eyes up to his. “Elsie, I was there for the final vote. George won, because she was best qualified, but everyone in the department was impressed with you. Which doesn’t surprise me, after I saw your talk and read your articles.” “Right.” I press my fingers into my eyes. “My articles.” “They’re excellent. And also . . .” I look at him. “Also?” He wets his lips, like he needs time to phrase something. “Sometimes, when I read them, I can almost hear them in your voice. Your personality.” He shakes his head, self-effacing, like he knows he’s being fanciful. “A turn of sentence here. A formula there.” I thought we’d agreed that I don’t have a personality, I’m tempted to say. But I’m too tired to be bitter, and Jack . . . he’s been nothing but kind. I try for a smile. “I can’t blame you for voting for her.” “I didn’t.” My eyes widen. “I recused myself.” “Why?” He opens his mouth, but the words don’t come immediately. “I had a . . . conflict of interest.” “Because of George.” He smiles faintly. “Because of you, Elsie.” I have no idea how to interpret this. So I just don’t. “Aren’t you and Georgina . . . ?” He cocks his head, confused. God, he’s going to make me say it. “Together. Aren’t you two together?” He laughs. “No. But we are close friends. And unlike Dora, her wife, I’m scared enough of her to let her drag me to see movies that bend the spacetime continuum


the building, or possibly the world, leaves their windows open so feral cats can wander in. “I don’t know how he isn’t dead yet,” Nick says. “Have you thought about keeping him inside?” “He’s a wild animal.” “He’s the opposite of that.” The cat tries to swat at a floating soap bubble, missing by a mile. “If you want to keep him, I’m not going to stop you.” “Really?” Nick shrugs. Andy wonders if they’d have the same conversation if this hadn’t happened in the middle of the night. Nick is barely awake. There’s a red line on his face from where it was pressed against a crease in his pillow, and his eyes aren’t quite focused. Andy’s never had a pet. As a kid, it would have made no sense, what with his mother never being around. After that, he was away at school. Since then, he guesses he could have gotten a cat, but he doesn’t trust himself to look after another living creature. Although, looking at the animal in the sink, he couldn’t do much worse than this cat has been managing on his own. But it doesn’t seem right to start bringing animals into what’s really Nick’s apartment. He’s said Andy can stay, but open-ended isn’t the same as permanent. At least Andy doesn’t think so. He feels like there ought to at least be some kind of conversation about it, but he can’t imagine what that conversation would even sound like. “I probably ought to bring him downstairs,” Andy says, and proceeds to do exactly that. Chapter Nineteen On the day Emily and Jeanne are coming for dinner, Nick wakes Andy at seven in the morning. “It’s Saturday!” Andy protests, grabbing a pillow and holding it over his head to block out the sun. “This is obscene.” “If we have guests and not enough food, I won’t be responsible for my actions. We need to do the shopping.” Some barely awake part of Andy’s mind registers that Nick could buy groceries on his own and let Andy sleep in like a normal person, but Nick knows how much Andy hates waking up alone. This is Nick’s idea of a compromise. “Okay, okay.” Andy lets himself be tugged out of bed. Obviously Nick has lost his mind, because walking to the Christopher Street A&P, getting groceries, and walking back takes no more than an hour. They’ve been doing it every week for two months now. But Andy will humor him. Nick throws a shirt at him and sticks a cup of coffee in his face. It isn’t until he stumbles down the steps and out onto the sidewalk, into a shockingly warm and sunny spring morning, that the penny drops: Nick is nervous. “You know,” Andy says slowly, “you could make lasagna like you did when Linda and her friends came over.” Nick glares at him as if he suggested putting bowls of cereal out for supper. “That is the problem. I made lasagna when Linda came over the last time. And anyway, lasagna is . . .”


out. Which feels a little weird, but also I have a general idea of where she is and what she’s doing, so it’s fine. We should teach seminars on how to break up! When my mom was dying—and I mean, when my mom’s fragile-bird body lay in a hospital bed in the ICU surrounded by beeping metal boxes, spiderwebs of tubes snaking in and around her brittle frame, when she was dying dying—her doctor gathered all of us girls outside of the room and told us that the pneumonia she’d developed while in hospice was so advanced that her death was imminent. They were going to put her on a morphine drip so she could ride a wave of narcotics into the afterlife. He told us that she would probably lose consciousness soon, and that each of us (me, my sisters, and my mother’s mother) would each be allotted thirty seconds to say goodbye, or whatever we needed to say to her, before she slipped into an incommunicative state. I had turned eighteen almost four months to the day before this moment; I had been working at a bakery for most of the summer, my first non-babysitting job, and earlier that day, I had clocked out early and asked my best friend, Sarah, to drive me to see my mom at the nursing home at Touhy and Western, where she’d lived since I was thirteen. It’s so…funny is the wrong word to use, but it’s the only one I can come up with that captures it—weird? strange?? absolutely fucked-up and absurd???—to think about what it must have been like to be my friend back then, for those kids with nice clothes and limitless futures and phone numbers and Volvos in their driveways, to be friends with someone who sometimes didn’t have a place to live, whose parents were not ever coming to school for conferences, who needed to be picked up from her mom’s nursing home to go to the movies. For me it just felt normal, right? Because that was just my reality. No one fell from grace or was otherwise derailed by illness or injury from a promising life; we started bad and hovered right above bad for many years until sliding incrementally into worse before landing in godawful. But I wonder what that was like for other people, people whose lives had so far been untouched by terrible shit, not knowing what kind of shape I was gonna show up in or where I was coming from or where I was going and what I’d be facing once I got there. I like to think that I hid the turmoil well. And it’s comforting to think that no one clocked how bad my situation was, but I’m sure I didn’t. I got to the nursing home that day, and my mom started gasping for breath as soon as we walked into the room. The hospice nurse told me she’d been trying to stay alive until I could get there, which is an unreal thing to hear that I could


feel in control, like I did during our earlier lessons, when I told him what to do. Now he knows what I want, and he knows how to give it to me. He hooks his arms around my thighs, stretching me wider. “Finn,” I manage, remembering how much he liked it when I said his name. He moves his tongue faster, grazing the spot I want him most until I think I might scream if he doesn’t lick me there. And then he does—a sweep of his tongue before he sucks on my clit for just a moment. “Oh my god. Do that again.” I can feel him laugh as he obeys, sucking me longer this time before letting go. My thighs start shaking, and he keeps up a relentless rhythm, licking and sucking and anchoring me to his face with his hands squeezing my ass, until I throw an arm over my eyes, my body finally clenching tight—and then let it all go. I incinerate. We both go quiet afterward, breathing in sync as the ceiling above continues to spin. I settle back onto the bed and he tucks me against him, fingertips sliding into my hair. “I love your hair.” “Yeah?” We’ve never done this, been so generous with compliments. He nods. “One, it’s adorable,” he says, and despite what just happened with his mouth between my legs, I feel my face grow warm. “And two . . .” The rest of the sentence fades out as he seems to weigh what he wants to say next. “I get to see your whole face. And whatever you’re feeling—well, you’re not the best at hiding it. It’s right there.” He tilts my face toward him, tapping my nose ring for a moment before drawing a fingertip along my eyebrows, resting right in the middle. “When you’re angry, you get this little furrow right here. When you’re horny, you blush . . . here.” That finger lands on my collarbone. Dips lower. “And here. And here.” I swipe his hand away, and while he’s laughing, I couldn’t be further from it. Everything he’s saying makes my heart twist in the way I’ve tried to avoid since the night we met. That feeling I’ve been running from, finally catching up with me. And yet: “What about when I’m happy?” I can’t help asking. An easy smile. “That’s the best one. One of your eyes gets squinty. Just one.” “Sounds charming.” “It is,” he insists, moving forward to drop a kiss onto each eyelid as I let out a yelp. It’s probably a good thing that I’m leaving tomorrow and won’t see him for a few days. In Ohio, I wanted to send him away to protect my heart, but maybe the fact of it is that my body is stronger than my mind. Right now, he is mine, and I’m going to show him just how proud I am of his progress. I beckon him closer. I want to tell him everything I like about his face, too, his freckles and the angle


is nicely appointed and stocked well enough to accommodate a C-list celebrity on vacation: Aesop hand soap and toothpaste on the sink, Aveda shampoos in the shower, Kiehl’s body products on the big block thing with the spare towels and washcloths in it (What is that called? A credenza? A toilet cupboard?? A washroom dresser???), and everything smells good and looks expensive and has an air of fancy, but not fancy fancy? It’s “the nice mall with good air-conditioning” fancy. “The chain restaurant with a valet stand” fancy. MIDWEST FANCY. This year, I had to switch to a more, uhh, utilitarian grooming regimen to manage my allergies and whatnots, but even if you wanted to use my unscented, non-lathering soap with the waterlogged prescription label hanging on by the one remaining drop of adhesive, I would be okay with that! You would be bored and depressed, but at least you wouldn’t be breaking out in hives. I would still go out and get something nice for you to use in my shower if steroid body wash isn’t really your ministry, and you should use as much of it as you want, especially since it’s only in there so you will think I love myself and have good taste. My boss and I walk into the bathroom together. Am I supposed to carry on the conversation? No, as soon as you reach the door and you discover that she’s not headed to the coffee room, or wherever you thought she was going, you are supposed to pretend you forgot some essential bathroom item at your desk (cell phone? tampon? rocket launcher?!), and bang the heel of your hand against your forehead the way people do in cartoons and excuse yourself, clenching your butthole and bladder as tightly as you possibly can while peering around the wall of your cubicle to clock her walking back to her office, then squeeze every muscle below your belly button taut as you painfully waddle back to the bathroom to relieve yourself in peace. Can I keep talking on my cell phone in the restroom? WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS?! Who in the world are you talking to who doesn’t immediately clap their flip phone shut the minute they hear your voice echoing off the metal stalls of a public bathroom? What do you have to say that can’t wait thirty seconds, or thirty minutes? Is a child lost? Has a dam broken? Did your car burst into flames? Have two celebrities whose happiness you are deeply invested in decided to get married?! Please tell me, what is the emergency that is so fucking dire you must subject a lady who is just trying to have discreet burrito diarrhea in a shopping mall to a conversation you could easily resume after you’ve done your business? I don’t want to talk to you while you’re sitting very still in a dark, air-conditioned room where no one’s privates are exposed, let alone when there is a chorus of other people’s farts providing musical accompaniment. No one ever says anything important,


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

was running across the tennis lawn to the house. "You can't come in," said Mr. Heelas, shutting the bolts. "I'm very sorry if he's after you, but you can't come in!" Kemp appeared with a face of terror close to the glass, rapping and then shaking frantically at the French window. Then, seeing his efforts were useless, he ran along the veranda, vaulted the end, and went to hammer at the side door. Then he ran round by the side gate to the front of the house, and so into the hill-road. And Mr. Heelas staring from his window--a face of horror--had scarcely witnessed Kemp vanish, ere the asparagus was being trampled this way and that by feet unseen. At that Mr. Heelas fled precipitately upstairs, and the rest of the chase is beyond his purview. But as he passed the staircase window, he heard the side gate slam. Emerging into the hill-road, Kemp naturally took the downward direction, and so it was he came to run in his own person the very race he had watched with such a critical eye from the belvedere study only four days ago. He ran it well for a man out of training; and though his face was white and wet, his wits were cool to the last. He ran with wide strides, and wherever a patch of rough ground intervened, wherever there came a patch of raw flints, or a bit of broken glass shone dazzling, he crossed it and left the bare invisible feet that followed to take what line they would. For the first time in his life Kemp discovered that the hill- road was indescribably vast and desolate, and that the beginnings of the town far below at the hill foot were strangely remote. Never had there been a slower or more painful method of progression than running. All the gaunt villas, sleeping in the afternoon sun, looked locked and barred; no doubt they were locked and barred--by his own orders. But at any rate they might have kept a lookout for an eventuality like this! The town was rising up now, the sea had dropped out of sight behind it, and people down below were stirring. A tram was just arriving at the hill foot. Beyond that was the police station. Was that footsteps he heard behind him? Spurt. The people below were staring at him, one or two were running, and his breath was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite near now, and the Jolly Cricketers was noisily barring its doors. Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel--the drainage works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go to the police station. In another moment he had passed the door of the Jolly Cricketers, and was in the blistering fag end of the street, with human beings about him. The tram driver and his helper--arrested by the sight of his furious haste --stood staring with the tram horses unhitched. Further on


and horny as hell, while he’s so cool and calm. He’s just in my field of vision, and I watch the flex and pull of the muscles of his back under his T-shirt as he changes the song. Immediately, a sweet, almost childlike female voice starts to sing about watching me. Oh, I like this song. Christian turns and his eyes lock on mine as he moves around to the front of the sofa and sinks gracefully to his knees in front of me. Suddenly, I feel very exposed. “Exposed? Vulnerable?” he asks with his uncanny ability to voice my un- spoken words. His hands are on his knees. I nod. Why doesn’t he touch me? “Good,” he murmurs. “Hold out your hands.” I can’t look away from his mesmerizing eyes as I do what he asks. Christian pours a little oily liquid onto each palm from a small clear bottle. It’s scented—a rich, musky, sensuous scent that I can’t place. “Rub your hands.” I squirm beneath his hot, heavy gaze. “Keep still,” he warns. Oh my. “Now, Anastasia, I want you to touch yourself.” Holy cow. “Start at your throat and work down.” I hesitate. 380/551 “Don’t be shy, Ana. Come. Do it.” The humor and challenge in his expres- sion is plain to see along with his desire. The sweet voice sings that there’s nothing sweet about her. I place my hands against my throat and let them slide down to the top of my breasts. The oil makes them glide effortlessly over my skin. My hands are warm. “Lower,” Christian murmurs, his eyes darkening. He doesn’t touch me. My hands cup my breasts. “Tease yourself.” Oh my. I tug gently on my nipples. “Harder,” Christian urges. He sits immobile between my thighs, just watch- ing me. “Like I would,” he adds, his eyes shining darkly. My muscles clench deep in my belly. I groan in response and pull harder on my nipples, feeling them stiffen and lengthen beneath my touch. “Yes. Like that. Again.” Closing my eyes I pull hard, rolling and twisting them between my fingers. I moan. “Open your eyes.” I blink up at him. “Again. I want to see you. See you enjoy your touch.” Oh fuck. I repeat the process. This is so . . . erotic. “Hands. Lower.” I squirm. “Keep still, Ana. Absorb the pleasure. Lower.” His voice is low and husky, tempting and beguiling at once. “You do it,” I whisper. “Oh, I will—soon. You. Lower. Now.” Christian, exuding sensuality, runs his tongue along his teeth Holy fuck . . . I writhe, pulling on the restraints. He shakes his head, slowly. “Still.” He rests his hands on my knees, holding me in place. “Come on, Ana—lower.” My hands glide over my stomach down over my belly. “Lower,” he mouths, and he is carnality personified. “Christian, please.” His hands glide down from my knees, skimming my thighs, toward my sex. “Come on, Ana. Touch yourself.” 381/551 My left hand skims over my sex, and I rub in a slow circle, my mouth


seal,” I said. Seeing Vaida’s ring open the doors to her disturbing underground room had planted the seed. My deal with Arin was well and good, but no plan was complete without a contingency. “I will need your and Marek’s help to steal the Sultana’s seal at the Omal palace. We can use it to negotiate our safety.” A knock at the door interrupted Sefa’s response. She straightened, her petrified gaze colliding with mine. “Enter!” I shouted. “Sefa, what is it?” The door swung open, and my neck pricked. Eerie foreboding arrived seconds before I heard his voice. “Our Champion wakes at last,” Supreme Rawain said. The axis of my world ground to a scraping halt. A quiet shatter echoed in my head. A man with a raven-headed stick sits near a woman drowning in her Nizahlan garb. An older lady with soft brown eyes keeps glancing at me and then away. Teta Palia said she was the Queen of Omal, and I wasn’t to speak to her. At the other end of the oak table, Gedo Niyar hands me a sesame-seed candy. Teta puts her hand onto my knee to stop my restless legs from kicking. I want to go home. Dawoud said he would take me to Har Adiween so I can climb the dancing trees. I glance around the table. Something important is being discussed, probably. I go back to staring at the raven-headed stick. I wonder if I would be allowed to hold it. The man in violet and black catches my eye. He winks. The table explodes. Dangling from the rope in Ayume was nothing, nothing compared to the war waging inside me. My cuffs became shackles of fire around my wrists, damming the magic baying for violence in my blood. Furious tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. Iron filled my mouth as I bit my bottom lip. I wasn’t ready. I turned my head. Thousands of Jasadis shadowed the Supreme. Their murky outlines warped, mournful, and folded into the scepter at his side. My memory had done Supreme Rawain a disservice. Age had laid a conservative touch on his handsome features and powerful build. He was shorter than his son, but taller than me. Gray streaked the hair at his temple. His eyes. The same unnatural shade that met mine the day I lost everything. The day he stole my world. As unblemished by the trappings of compassion or kindness as they had been at the Summit. My bedridden state had one advantage; he would not question why I would not kneel, and I didn’t need to explain that I would sever my legs before I knelt to him. Supreme Rawain strode into the room. Framed in the door, Arin’s indecipherable gaze followed his father. “Well? How is she doing?” the Supreme asked. The physician slunk back, clearing his throat. “Superbly, Your Highness. The venom has passed without ill effects, and the worst damage was to her palms.” Rawain clapped his hands. “Wonderful. You gave us a fright, Sylvia. I’ll admit, I had reservations


pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation. When the moon shed her soft rays among the foliage, he still lingered, and his pastoral supper of cream and fruits was often spread beneath it. Then, on the stillness of night, came the song of the nightingale, breathing sweetness, and awakening melancholy. The first interruptions to the happiness he had known since his retirement, were occasioned by the death of his two sons. He lost them at that age when infantine simplicity is so fascinating; and though, in consideration of Madame St. Aubert's distress, he restrained the expression of his own, and endeavoured to bear it, as he meant, with philosophy, he had, in truth, no philosophy that could render him calm to such losses. One daughter was now his only surviving child; and, while he watched the unfolding of her infant character, with anxious fondness, he endeavoured, with unremitting effort, to counteract those traits in her disposition, which might hereafter lead her from happiness. She had discovered in her early years uncommon delicacy of mind, warm affections, and ready benevolence; but with these was observable a degree of susceptibility too exquisite to admit of lasting peace. As she advanced in youth, this sensibility gave a pensive tone to her spirits, and a softness to her manner, which added grace to beauty, and rendered her a very interesting object to persons of a congenial disposition. But St. Aubert had too much good sense to prefer a charm to a virtue; and had penetration enough to see, that this charm was too dangerous to its possessor to be allowed the character of a blessing. He endeavoured, therefore, to strengthen her mind; to enure her to habits of self- command; to teach her to reject the first impulse of her feelings, and to look, with cool examination, upon the disappointments he sometimes threw in her way. While he instructed her to resist first impressions, and to acquire that steady dignity of mind, that can alone counterbalance the passions, and bear us, as far as is compatible with our nature, above the reach of circumstances, he taught himself a lesson of fortitude; for he was often obliged to witness, with seeming indifference, the tears and struggles which his caution occasioned her. In person, Emily resembled her mother; having the same elegant symmetry of form, the same delicacy of features, and the same blue eyes, full of tender sweetness. But, lovely as was her person, it was the varied expression of her countenance, as conversation awakened the nicer emotions of her mind, that threw such a captivating grace around her: Those tend'rer tints, that shun the careless eye, And, in the world's contagious circle, die. St. Aubert cultivated her understanding with the most scrupulous care. He gave her a general view of the sciences, and an exact acquaintance with every part of elegant literature. He taught her Latin and English, chiefly that she might understand the sublimity of their best poets. She discovered in her early years a taste for works of genius; and it was


expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips. It was so with all of us, but with no one more than Drummle: the development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious way at the rest, was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off. It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our conversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that Drummle was rallied for coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his. Drummle upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our room to our company, and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that as to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible agency, my guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about this trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm to show how muscular it was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in a ridiculous manner. Now, the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table; my guardian, taking no heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her, was leaning back in his chair biting the side of his forefinger and showing an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable. Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the housekeeper's, like a trap, as she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do this, that we all stopped in our foolish contention. "If you talk of strength," said Mr. Jaggers, "I'll show you a wrist. Molly, let them see your wrist." Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other hand behind her waist. "Master," she said, in a low voice, with her eyes attentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. "Don't." "I'll show you a wrist," repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable determination to show it. "Molly, let them see your wrist." "Master," she again murmured. "Please!" "Molly," said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking at the opposite side of the room, "let them see both your wrists. Show them. Come!" He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She brought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by side. The last wrist was much disfigured - deeply scarred and scarred across and across. When she held her hands out, she took her eyes from Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us in succession. "There's power here," said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews with his forefinger. "Very few men have the power of wrist that this woman has. It's remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw stronger in that respect, man's or woman's, than these." While he


her and Caroline said she left the restaurant first because she was running late. Sam was settling up—paying the bill, I guess. Anyway, I know it hasn’t been that long, but it’s just not like her. And she has work tonight. She wouldn’t be this late. She was gonna come home and help with the boys, then head to the studio.” He sounded beyond distraught and Bentz didn’t blame him. “So, of course, I called the restaurant. The waitress remembered her because there was some kind of commotion at her table as she was leaving. It was bumped and dishes went everywhere, so anyway, the waitress said she left about an hour and a half ago. There’s a time stamp on her credit card receipt. “And here’s the real worry,” he said. “She has a locator on her phone. She and I each do, and hers is nowhere near the restaurant or home. It’s in the bayou.” “Jesus,” Bentz whispered. “But we can track her, from the device.” “I’m already on my way.” “Whoa. Hold on. This is a police matter,” Bentz said, thinking of the brutality of the killer. “Yeah, I know that. But it’s also my wife. Do any of you have an Apple watch or iPhone?” “Yeah. This number.” “I’ll link you up. All you have to do is accept.” “Got it.” A second later he got an alert. “We’re on our way.” Bentz flipped on his emergency vehicle lights and hit the gas. Ty Wheeler’s concern was infectious. “Keep trying to reach her!” He disconnected, pulled over to the curb, and eyed the screen with its map of the area. “I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath. The pulsating red dot indicating the location of Samantha Wheeler’s phone was in the swamp and not far from Cyrus Unger’s place. Probably half a mile from where they’d come across the bodies, what were presumed to be the rotting remains of Maizie and Willard Ledoux, though there had yet to be an official ID. Father John’s work. Bentz was sure of it. And now the maniac had Samantha Wheeler. Bentz called for backup, and as he did, he added, “And a boat. We’re gonna need a boat.” * * * Through the old car’s windows, Sam saw the lights of New Orleans fade to darkness. The Chevy picked up speed; she heard the whine of the tires on pavement and the smooth rumble of the engine. She didn’t want to think where they were going or what he was going to do to her when they got there. Somehow, someway, she had to save herself. Her convulsions had stopped and the quivering in her limbs had lessened, but there was still a problem getting her muscles to do what her mind wanted. She was frantic, her breathing wild, her heart trip-hammering crazily. Try, Sam! You’ve got to try! Clamping her jaw tight, she concentrated. Attempted to move her fingers and kept one eye on the back of his head. Come on, come on. She gritted her teeth. Told herself


idea that so gigantic a sum was involved," said he. "Sir Charles had the reputation of being rich, but we did not know how very rich he was until we came to examine his securities. The total value of the estate was close on to a million." "Dear me! It is a stake for which a man might well play a desperate game. And one more question, Dr. Mortimer. Suppos- ing that anything happened to our young friend here -- you will forgive the unpleasant hypothesis! -- who would inherit the estate?" "Since Rodger Baskerville, Sir Charles's younger brother died unmarried, the estate would descend to the Desmonds, who are distant cousins. James Desmond is an elderly clergyman in Westmoreland." "Thank you. These details are all of great interest. Have you met Mr. James Desmond?" "Yes; he once came down to visit Sir Charles. He is a man of venerable appearance and of saintly life. I remember that he refused to accept any settlement from Sir Charles, though he pressed it upon him." "And this man of simple tastes would be the heir to Sir Charles's thousands." "He would be the heir to the estate because that is entailed. He would also be the heir to the money unless it were willed otherwise by the present owner, who can, of course, do what he likes with it." "And have you made your will, Sir Henry?" "No, Mr. Holmes, I have not. I've had no time, for it was only yesterday that I learned how matters stood. But in any case I feel that the money should go with the title and estate. That was my poor uncle's idea. How is the owner going to restore the glories of the Baskervilles if he has not money enough to keep up the property? House, land, and dollars must go together." "Quite so. Well, Sir Henry, I am of one mind with you as to the advisability of your going down to Devonshire without delay. There is only one provision which I must make. You certainly must not go alone." "Dr. Mortimer returns with me." "But Dr. Mortimer has his practice to attend to, and his house is miles away from yours. With all the good will in the world he may be unable to help you. No, Sir Henry, you must take with you someone, a trusty man, who will be always by your side." "Is it possible that you could come yourself, Mr. Holmes?" "If matters came to a crisis I should endeavour to be present in person; but you can understand that, with my extensive con- sulting practice and with the constant appeals which reach me from many quarters, it is impossible for me to be absent from London for an indefinite time. At the present instant one of the most revered names in England is being besmirched by a black- mailer, and only I can stop a disastrous scandal. You will see how impossible it is for me to go to Dartmoor." "Whom would you recommend, then?" Holmes laid his hand


piles of stones. But there's a good little harbour in a little cove, for those who know how to find it." George took the oars after a while, and rowed steadily out a little beyond the island. Then she stopped and looked back towards the shore. "How do you know when you are over the wreck?" asked Julian, puzzled. "I should never know!" "Well, do you see that church tower on the mainland?" asked George. "And do you see the tip of that hill over there? Well, when you get them exactly in line with one another, between the two towers of the castle on the island, you are pretty well over the wreck! I found that out ages ago." The children saw that the tip of the far-off hill and the church tower were practically in line, when they looked at them between the two old towers of the island castle. They looked eagerly down into the sea to see if they could spy the wreck. The water was perfectly clear and smooth. There was hardly a wrinkle. Timothy looked down into it too, his head on one side, his ears cocked, just as if he knew what he was looking for! The children laughed at him. "We're not exactly over it," said George, looking down too. "The water's so clear today that we should be able to see quite a long way down. Wait, I'll row a bit to the left." "Woof!" said Timothy, suddenly, and wagged his tail- and at the same moment the three children saw something deep down in the water! "It's the wreck!" said Julian, almost falling out of the boat in his excitement. "I can see a bit of broken mast. Look, Dick, look!" All four children and the dog, too, gazed down earnestly into the clear water. After a little while they could make out the outlines of a dark hulk, out of which the broken mast stood. "It's a bit on one side," said Julian. "Poor old ship. How it must hate lying there, gradually falling to pieces. George, I wish I could dive down and get a closer look at it." "Well, why don't you?" said George. "You've got your swimming trunks on. I've often dived down. I'll come with you, if you like, if Dick can keep the boat round about here. There's a current that is trying to take it out to sea. Dick, you'll have to keep working a bit with this oar to keep the boat in one spot." The girl stripped off her jeans and jersey and Julian did the same. They both had on bathing costumes underneath. George took a beautiful header off the end of the boat, deep down into the water. The others watched her swimming strongly downwards, holding her breath. After a bit she came up, almost bursting for breath. "Well, I went almost down to the wreck," she said. "It's just the same as it always is- seaweedy and covered with limpets and things. I wish I could get right into the


loud voices from What put to sea with seventy-five.” the cabin, but to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts that I had scarcely given ear. And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appro- Now, however, when I had nothing else to do, I began to pay priate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the more heed. morning. But, indeed, from what I saw, all these buccaneers One I recognized for the coxswain’s, Israel Hands, that were as callous as the sea they sailed on. had been Flint’s gunner in former days. The other was, of At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drew nearer course, my friend of the red night-cap. Both men were plainly in the dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a the worse of drink, and they were still drinking, for even while good, tough effort, cut the last fibres through. I was listening, one of them, with a drunken cry, opened the The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I was stern window and threw out something, which I divined to almost instantly swept against the bows of the be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain HISPANIOLA. At the same time, the schooner began to that they were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end, across the and every now and then there came forth such an explosion current. as I thought was sure to end in blows. But each time the I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment to be quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled lower for a while, swamped; and since I found I could not push the coracle until the next crisis came and in its turn passed away without directly off, I now shoved straight astern. At length I was result. clear of my dangerous neighbour, and just as I gave the last On shore, I could see the glow of the great camp-fire burn- impulsion, my hands came across a light cord that was trail- Contents ing warmly through the shore-side trees. Someone was sing- ing overboard across the stern bulwarks. Instantly I grasped ing, a dull, old, droning sailor’s song, with a droop and a qua- it. Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 188 189 Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was at first mere instinct, but once I had it in my hands and found “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— it fast, curiosity began to get the upper hand, and I deter- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! mined I should have one look through the cabin window. Drink and the devil had done for the rest— I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and when I judged Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” myself near enough, rose at infinite risk to about half my height and thus commanded the roof


as respectable as you," he said, in an ebullition of bitterness against womankind in general. "It isn't a question of respectability, but one of principle!" He spoke such things as these and more of a kindred sort to her, being still swayed by the antipathetic wave which warps direct souls with such persistence when once their vision finds itself mocked by appearances. There was, it is true, underneath, a back current of sympathy through which a woman of the world might have conquered him. But Tess did not think of this; she took everything as her deserts, and hardly opened her mouth. The firmness of her devotion to him was indeed almost pitiful; quick-tempered as she naturally was, nothing that he could say made her unseemly; she sought not her own; was not provoked; thought no evil of his treatment of her. She might just now have been Apostolic Charity herself returned to a self-seeking modern world. This evening, night, and morning were passed precisely as the preceding ones had been passed. On one, and only one, occasion did she--the formerly free and independent Tess--venture to make any advances. It was on the third occasion of his starting after a meal to go out to the flour-mill. As he was leaving the table he said "Goodbye," and she replied in the same words, at the same time inclining her mouth in the way of his. He did not avail himself of the invitation, saying, as he turned hastily aside---- "I shall be home punctually." Tess shrank into herself as if she had been struck. Often enough had he tried to reach those lips against her consent--often had he said gaily that her mouth and breath tasted of the butter and eggs and milk and honey on which she mainly lived, that he drew sustenance from them, and other follies of that sort. But he did not care for them now. He observed her sudden shrinking, and said gently-- "You know, I have to think of a course. It was imperative that we should stay together a little while, to avoid the scandal to you that would have resulted from our immediate parting. But you must see it is only for form's sake." "Yes," said Tess absently. He went out, and on his way to the mill stood still, and wished for a moment that he had responded yet more kindly, and kissed her once at least. Thus they lived through this despairing day or two; in the same house, truly; but more widely apart than before they were lovers. It was evident to her that he was, as he had said, living with paralyzed activities, in his endeavour to think of a plan of procedure. She was awe-strikin to discover such determination under such apparent flexibility. His consistency was, indeed, too cruel. She no longer expected forgiveness now. More than once she thought of going away from him during his absence at the mill; but she feared that this, instead of benefiting him, might be the means of hampering and humiliating him


last glimmers of light sink into blackness behind the horizon. He was tallish, elderly and dressed in a single long grey robe. When he turned his face was thin and distinguished, careworn but not unkind, the sort of face you would happily bank with. But he didn't turn yet, not even to react to Arthur's yelp of surprise. Eventually the last rays of the sun had vanished completely, and he turned. His face was still illuminated from somewhere, and when Arthur looked for the source of the light he saw that a few yards away stood a small craft of some kind - a small hovercraft, Arthur guessed. It shed a dim pool of light around it. The man looked at Arthur, sadly it seemed. "You choose a cold night to visit our dead planet," he said. "Who ... who are you?" stammered Arthur. The man looked away. Again a kind of sadness seemed to cross his face. "My name is not important," he said. He seemed to have something on his mind. Conversation was clearly something he felt he didn't have to rush at. Arthur felt awkward. "I ... er ... you startled me ..." he said, lamely. The man looked round to him again and slightly raised his eyebrows. "Hmmmm?" he said. "I said you startled me." "Do not be alarmed, I will not harm you." Arthur frowned at him. "But you shot at us! There were missiles ..." he said. The man chuckled slightly. "An automatic system," he said and gave a small sigh. "Ancient computers ranged in the bowels of the planet tick away the dark millennia, and the ages hang heavy on their dusty data banks. I think they take the occasional pot shot to relieve the monotony." He looked gravely at Arthur and said, "I'm a great fan of science you know." "Oh ... er, really?" said Arthur, who was beginning to find the man's curious, kindly manner disconcerting. "Oh, yes," said the old man, and simply stopped talking again. "Ah," said Arthur, "er ..." He had an odd felling of being like a man in the act of adultery who is surprised when the woman's husband wanders into the room, changes his trousers, passes a few idle remarks about the weather and leaves again. "You seem ill at ease," said the old man with polite concern. "Er, no ... well, yes. Actually you see, we weren't really expecting to find anybody about in fact. I sort of gathered that you were all dead or something ..." "Dead?" said the old man. "Good gracious no, we have but slept." "Slept?" said Arthur incredulously. "Yes, through the economic recession you see," said the old man, apparently unconcerned about whether Arthur understood a word he was talking about or not. "Er, economic recession?" "Well you see, five million years ago the Galactic economy collapsed, and seeing that custom-made planets are something of a luxury commodity you see ..." He paused and looked at Arthur. "You know we built planets do you?" he asked solemnly. "Well yes," said Arthur,


imagine it." "I could have smashed the silly devils. At last, faint with the desire for tasteful food, I went into another place and demanded a private room. 'I am disfigured,' I said. 'Badly.' They looked at me curiously, but of course it was not their affair--and so at last I got my lunch. It was not particularly well served, but it sufficed; and when I had had it, I sat over a cigar, trying to plan my line of action. And outside a snowstorm was beginning. "The more I thought it over, Kemp, the more I realised what a helpless absurdity an Invisible Man was--in a cold and dirty climate and a crowded civilised city. Before I made this mad experiment I had dreamt of a thousand advantages. That afternoon it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, but it made it impossible to enjoy them when they are got. Ambition--what is the good of pride of place when you cannot appear there? What is the good of the love of woman when her name must needs be Delilah? I have no taste for politics, for the blackguardisms of fame, for philanthropy, for sport. What was I to do? And for this I had become a wrapped-up mystery, a swathed and bandaged caricature of a man!" He paused, and his attitude suggested a roving glance at the window. "But how did you get to Iping?" said Kemp, anxious to keep his guest busy talking. "I went there to work. I had one hope. It was a half idea! I have it still. It is a full blown idea now. A way of getting back! Of restoring what I have done. When I choose. When I have done all I mean to do invisibly. And that is what I chiefly want to talk to you about now." "You went straight to Iping?" "Yes. I had simply to get my three volumes of memoranda and my cheque-book, my luggage and underclothing, order a quantity of chemicals to work out this idea of mine--I will show you the calculations as soon as I get my books--and then I started. Jove! I remember the snowstorm now, and the accursed bother it was to keep the snow from damping my pasteboard nose." "At the end," said Kemp, "the day before yesterday, when they found you out, you rather--to judge by the papers--" "I did. Rather. Did I kill that fool of a constable?" "No," said Kemp. "He's expected to recover." "That's his luck, then. I clean lost my temper, the fools! Why couldn't they leave me alone? And that grocer lout?" "There are no deaths expected," said Kemp. "I don't know about that tramp of mine," said the Invisible Man, with an unpleasant laugh. "By Heaven, Kemp, you don't know what rage is! To have worked for years, to have planned and plotted, and then to get some fumbling purblind idiot messing across your course! Every conceivable sort of


frightened even Lucy. “As it seems you have married a poor girl under questionable circumstances and could have killed her father because of it, you will accept knowing you have a good deal of growing up to do and amends to make. I only hope this wife of yours has a far more sensible mind than you do and will keep you from making any more foolish decisions. If your father could see you now . . . I can only imagine what Simon thinks of— But where is Simon?” All of them turned in the direction of the approaching storm, and the ache in Lucy’s chest returned. Wherever Simon was, she hoped he would return. At the very least, she hoped he was safe. Chapter Twenty-Seven “Lucy, you need to sit down a moment,” Nick said. Lucy couldn’t sit. If she sat, her mind arrived at terrible conclusions. As long as she was moving, and as long as she had a view out the window to the rain-soaked grounds, things were still uncertain. “Lucy.” This time, instead of just insisting, Nick took her by the hand and led her to the sofa, forcing her down onto the cushion. “You’re making me dizzy, pacing like that.” “We should go after him,” she said, craning her neck to look out the window again. “Nick, it’s been hours. What if he’s injured?” His hands wrapped around hers, and he waited until she looked at him before he said anything. “Simon Calloway is no fool. He would have sought out shelter before the storm hit with full force. There are plenty of tenant cottages in that direction, and he knows these lands better than anyone. He could probably ride them blindfolded and be perfectly safe.” Pressing a hand to her forehead, Lucy groaned. “You’re laying it on a bit thick,” she said, though she was grateful for the positivity. All she could think about was Simon being thrown from his horse after a clap of thunder and lying in a ditch somewhere, injured and frozen. “Oh, Nick, you should have seen his face when I told him. He was so hurt.” “He was confused.” “He hates me, just as I thought he would.” Nick huffed out a sigh, almost angry as he commanded her attention with a tug on her hands. “Lucy Hayes, you are impossible to hate.” He turned to the other side of the room, where Lady Calloway and Olivia had taken up sewing to pass the time; William had gone to bed an hour ago, too exhausted to continue the vigil with his family. “Lady C., I could use your assistance.” Lady Calloway offered a smile, though she was clearly just as worried about Simon as Lucy, because she couldn’t hold the gesture for long. “I understand why you did what you did,” she told Lucy. Lucy had explained everything to her and Olivia a few hours before, with the help of Nick. Now all of them knew about Mr. Granger, except for the threats he had made to the family. She’d


trees bent in a storm. Mrs. King spotted guests picking at the gilt-work, estimating the value. I could tell you the price, she thought. Winnie had costed them up, the buyers primed and ready. They were of near-incalculable value, and yet they looked dull and dreary beside the flower arches and the walls hung with silks. A palm tree the size of an omnibus lapped at them gently. It was beaded with sweat, teardrops running all the way down the trunk. Mrs. King wasn’t one for hanging about. She saw Miss de Vries’s eyes on the clock, too. “Shall we get down to it?” she asked. Miss de Vries nodded, curt. “Yes.” “Your father spoke to me just before he died. I imagine he spoke to you, too.” Miss de Vries quickened a half step. “He did.” There was no tension in Miss de Vries’s face. No expression at all. Dangerous, that. The women paused on the threshold of the ballroom and together they surveyed the room, their triumph. The crowd was immense, and the air smelled of musk and perfume and sweat. The walls were a fresh shade of salmon pink, glazed and gleaming under the electroliers. The waltz unfurled in loops and swirls, dancers orbiting the room in perfect formation. Miss de Vries’s eyes shimmered. Mrs. King had to hand it to her. This had to be the greatest ball of the season. Lockwood approached. Cleared his throat. “Mrs. King is willing to swear that she is not Mr. de Vries’s daughter,” he said, under his breath. “Illegitimate daughter,” said Mrs. King, with a smile. She was interested to see how Madam would react. Miss de Vries didn’t make a sound. But her face tightened, a little twist of irritation. It aged her. She caught eyes with a group of men huddled near the door, dressed like Cavaliers and Roundheads. They lifted their hats with a flourish, and she inclined her head in response. Mr. Lockwood gave a nervous laugh. “It’s good news, Miss de Vries.” “I need a drink,” Miss de Vries said. “Do you, Mrs. King?” Mrs. King pondered this. Was it cruel, having this conversation now, tonight—here? In public? Perhaps. But she perceived a sparkle of provocation in Miss de Vries’s eyes. “I really do,” Mrs. King said. Miss de Vries moved slowly, her costume rippling. The refreshments had been set out in the anteroom, an abundance of lemonade, iced sherbet, wafers, bonbons. She picked two glasses of champagne from a tray and handed one to Mrs. King. “Go on, then,” said Miss de Vries, sipping from her glass. She closed her eyes as she did it. Swallowed. “I can see you’re simply itching to say something to me. The floor is yours. Speak.” Mrs. King studied her own champagne, tiny bubbles splitting, bursting, one by one. “I had everything upside down,” she said. “And so did you. Your father pulled the wool over our eyes.” The music surged, and the dancers shifted, too. “We’ve lived our lives back to front. You must have thought me an


misfortune of my life occurred--an omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in the greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the malignity of the distemper--Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and myself. "My children," she said, "my firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting you in another world." She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed forever--that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized. My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events, was now again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of some weeks. It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the


Hannah Whitten - The Foxglove King-Orbit (2023).txt

and the present muddle, awful and infinite. She limped as fast as she could into the narrow space between two storefronts, huddling into the shadows. In a moment of clarity, she pulled the cap from her head and let her hair tumble free, twisted the hem of her shirt and tucked it in her trousers so it molded to her curves. Not really a disguise, but it made her look different than she had at the moment she’d raised the horse, and it might buy her enough anonymity to get away. Someone grabbed her arm. Lore turned with a snarl in her teeth, hand already raising to strike at whoever had touched her. Michal. Clearly, he hadn’t expected what he saw when she turned around; he’d seen her running to the alley, but not made the connection between her and Horse. Now she watched every piece of the puzzle lock into place, played out across his features: blue eyes narrowing before going wide and horrified. He glanced over his shoulder at the square, mouth dropping open, a flinch shuddering through his hand before it jerked back from her, fingers splayed. “Sorry,” Lore muttered, her tongue suddenly thick. “I’m sorry.” She shoved past him, out into the square again. Turned down the first alley she came to. Started running and didn’t stop, her head down and her vision blurred, picking directions at random and thinking only of away. So when one of the Presque Mort stepped out of a trash-strewn alcove in front of her, she nearly ran right into him. He loomed over her, hands outstretched, the image of a lit candle inked into each palm. His black clothing fit close to a muscular body, one blue eye gleaming at her, the other covered by the dark leather of an eye patch. There was something almost familiar about him, a sense that she’d met him before. But that was ludicrous. Lore didn’t know any of the Presque Mort, or any other members of the clergy, for that matter. Not anymore. “Of course the Presque Mort would show up,” Lore spat as she stumbled away from the inked hands, fumbling for her dagger again. “Of fucking course.” The Presque Mort didn’t respond, just watched her as she turned to run in the opposite direction, trying to backtrack the way she’d come and pick a new route. He whistled, a low note rising higher, and it was echoed by others, ringing off the stone, clear above the grown-distant cacophony of the Ward. They had her cornered. The first monk moved slowly forward, tattooed hands held out like she was an unfamiliar dog he didn’t want to frighten away. Unusually tall, with a crop of shorn reddish-blond hair and broad shoulders, handsomeness wasted on someone with vows of celibacy. “We don’t want to hurt you.” Deep voice, clipped tones, like this refuse-lined alley was a Citadel ballroom. “You have a funny way of showing it.” Lore’s feet stuttered over uneven cobblestones as she backed away, nearly sending her stumbling. The Presque Mort made no response.


Take me away, Dorian-- take me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it all means? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that." He flung himself down on the sofa, and turned away his face. "You have killed my love," he muttered. She looked at him in wonder, and laughed. He made no answer. She came across to him, and stroked his hair with her little fingers. She knelt down and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him. Then he leaped up, and went to the door. "Yes," he cried, "you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were wonderful, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you were to me, once. Why, once . . . . Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! What are you without your art? Nothing. I would have made you famous, splendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you would have belonged to me. What are you now? A third-rate actress with a pretty face." The girl grew white, and trembled. She clinched her hands together, and her voice seemed to catch in her throat. "You are not serious, Dorian?" she murmured. "You are acting." "Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well," he answered, bitterly. She rose from her knees, and, with a piteous expression of pain in her face, came across the room to him. She put her hand upon his arm, and looked into his eyes. He thrust her back. "Don't touch me!" he cried. A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet, and lay there like a trampled flower. "Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!" she whispered. "I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you all the time. But I will try,--indeed, I will try. It came so suddenly across me, my love for you. I think I should never have known it if you had not kissed me,--if we had not kissed each other.


too late. After squeezing what’s left in her honey container into her tea, she goes to toss the tea-bag wrapper into the kitchen garbage. Seeing it is past overflowing, she grabs the bag and carries it to the garage. The concrete is cold against her bare feet as she glances at her dented Porsche and recalls the day Ethan told her with tears in his eyes that he had slept with his homicide partner. How he— A clang of metal clamoring against the concrete causes Sloane to whip around. The trash bag slips from her grip as Brody jumps out from behind the shelving against the wall. Chapter 36 Laughter erupts from the room at the end of the hallway as Ethan and Jonah follow the firefighter captain through Seattle Fire Station 29. Maybe I should’ve leaked the photos, Ethan thinks. Or at least given a damning statement against Carr to the media. But he couldn’t let his personal vendetta against Carr allow him to do something to jeopardize their case, or the safety of any of the girls in the photos. Jonah turns to Ethan. “My brother’s a firefighter. He only works like nine shifts a month. Sometimes I think I chose the wrong career path.” “Yeah, maybe.” Ethan nods, feeling a twist in his gut at the cascade of events that will occur once Jonah discovers Sloane is the woman on Carr’s security footage. Jonah has already set up a meeting with a judge first thing in the morning to get the warrant approved for the security cameras at Carr’s San Juan Island home. Ethan could warn Sloane. Have her ask Brody to get rid of it. But the thought of her contacting him again, asking him to destroy evidence, makes him sick. He could tell Sloane to come forward, which would look better than being found out, if Jonah gets the warrant approved. But before he does either, he needs to know the truth of her involvement in Chelsea’s death. They come to a large rec room where three leather recliners face a flatscreen TV playing Thursday night football, where the Seahawks are playing the Cowboys on the road. A member of Seattle Fire fills each one. Two more are watching the game from a couch against the wall. “Yes!” One of them raises her hands in the air as the Cowboys miss a field goal. “No!” Another emergency responder exclaims, digging his hand into the opened bag of Doritos on his lap. “He’s on my fantasy team.” Jackson, the captain who met Ethan and Jonah at the door, reaches for the remote and mutes the TV. One of the firefighters turns in her seat. “What are you doing?” “These detectives from Seattle Homicide have a few questions about our 911 call with Chelsea Carr,” Jackson says. The three firefighters turn their attention away from the game and sit upright in their recliners. Jackson motions toward the two guys sitting on the couch. “Hunter and Landon were the two medics who worked on Chelsea. But all six of us


"Hush, Heck," said Atticus, "let's go back to town." When they drove away, Jem and I went to Miss Stephanie's front steps. We sat waiting for Zeebo to arrive in the garbage truck. Jem sat in numb confusion, and Miss Stephanie said, "Uh, uh, uh, who'da thought of a mad dog in February? Maybe he wadn't mad, maybe he was just crazy. I'd hate to see Harry Johnson's face when he gets in from the Mobile run and finds Atticus Finch's shot his dog. Bet he was just full of fleas from somewhere-" Miss Maudie said Miss Stephanie'd be singing a different tune if Tim Johnson was still coming up the street, that they'd find out soon enough, they'd send his head to Montgomery. Jem became vaguely articulate: "'d you see him, Scout? 'd you see him just standin' there?... 'n' all of a sudden he just relaxed all over, an' it looked like that gun was a part of him... an' he did it so quick, like... I hafta aim for ten minutes 'fore I can hit somethin'...." Miss Maudie grinned wickedly. "Well now, Miss Jean Louise," she said, "still think your father can't do anything? Still ashamed of him?" "Nome," I said meekly. "Forgot to tell you the other day that besides playing the Jew's Harp, Atticus Finch was the deadest shot in Maycomb County in his time." "Dead shot..." echoed Jem. "That's what I said, Jem Finch. Guess you'll change your tune now. The very idea, didn't you know his nickname was Ol' One-Shot when he was a boy? Why, down at the Landing when he was coming up, if he shot fifteen times and hit fourteen doves he'd complain about wasting ammunition." "He never said anything about that," Jem muttered. "Never said anything about it, did he?" "No ma'am." "Wonder why he never goes huntin' now," I said. "Maybe I can tell you," said Miss Maudie. "If your father's anything, he's civilized in his heart. Marksmanship's a gift of God, a talent- oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin's different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn't shoot till he had to, and he had to today." "Looks like he'd be proud of it," I said. "People in their right minds never take pride in their talents," said Miss Maudie. We saw Zeebo drive up. He took a pitchfork from the back of the garbage truck and gingerly lifted Tim Johnson. He pitched the dog onto the truck, then poured something from a gallon jug on and around the spot where Tim fell. "Don't yawl come over here for a while," he called. When we went home I told Jem we'd really have something to talk about at school on Monday. Jem turned on me. "Don't say anything about it, Scout," he said. "What? I certainly am. Ain't everybody's daddy the deadest shot in Maycomb


kind, it makes me feel rotten. “You are exactly right,” he says. “We need you. My English, it is not so good. Your generation has very good English. You can tell them our story. Make sure they remember us.” He nods, determined. “Yes. Make sure they remember us.” He gives my hands one last squeeze and tells me something in Chinese, but of course I don’t understand a word. For the first time since I submitted the manuscript, I feel a deep wash of shame. This isn’t my history, my heritage. This isn’t my community. I am an outsider, basking in their love under false pretenses. It should be Athena sitting here, smiling with these people, signing books and listening to the stories of her elders. “Eat, eat!” Mr. Lee nods encouragingly at my plate. “You young people work too hard. You don’t eat enough.” I want to vomit. I can’t stay a moment longer among these people. I need to break free from their smiles, their kindness. “Excuse me, Mr. Lee.” I stand up and hurry across the room. “I have to go,” I tell Susan. “I need to—uh, I forgot I have to pick up my mom at the airport.” I know it’s an awful excuse the moment I blurt it out—Susan knows I don’t have a car, that’s the reason she had to come pick me up at the train station in the first place. But she seems sympathetic. “Of course. You can’t keep your mother waiting. Just let me get my purse, and I’ll drive you to the station.” “No, please, I couldn’t impose. I’ll get an Uber—” “Absolutely not! Rosslyn is so far!” “I really don’t want to put you out of the way,” I gasp. “You haven’t finished your dinner. I had a lovely time, and it was so great meeting everyone, but I—um, I should really just let you enjoy your night.” I burst for the door before Susan can answer. She doesn’t chase after me, but if she had, I would have sprinted until I was out of sight. It’s so undignified, but all I can perceive then is the relief of cool air on my face outside. Ten AFTER THAT, I ASK EMILY TO DECLINE MOST EVENT INVITATIONS on my behalf. I’m done with schools, bookstores, and book clubs. I’m selling at the level where personal appearances aren’t going to move the needle on sales, so I don’t need to keep exposing myself as bait for further controversy. The only events I keep attending are awards ceremonies at literary conventions, because as much as I now want to hide from the public, I’d hate to give up the rush of validation from those. Awards in this industry are very silly and arbitrary, less a marker of prestige or literary quality and more an indication that you’ve won a popularity contest with a very small, skewed group of voters. Awards don’t matter—at least, I am told this constantly by the people who regularly win them. Athena made an annual point to explain all this


frames, rectangular frames; her mom’s art (lots of her mom’s art); framed diplomas; framed programs from Mark’s high school plays; framed class pictures; framed graduation pictures; framed vacation pictures: the Joyner National Portrait Gallery as curated by their mom. Something felt wrong. The silence of the house stretched her nerves tight. Then she realized she didn’t see the string. They used to tuck the white string that pulled down the attic stairs behind a corner of a picture of her dad receiving an award from the National Economic Freedom Forum, otherwise it bonked you in the head when you walked by. It was gone. Louise looked up and her shoulders twitched. High in the shadows someone had done an ugly job of nailing the attic hatch closed, hammering every piece of scrap wood they could find over it and hacking off the pull-down string at its base. It reminded Louise of the one zombie movie Ian had made her watch where people boarded up their windows to keep the zombies out. Had the springs broken and this was her dad’s terrible attempt at repair? Were there raccoons in the attic and he’d done this to keep them from getting into the house? Had taking care of her dad been too hard for her mom? Had the screens gotten dirty and had raccoons gotten in the attic and this was the best she could do? Louise felt guilty for not noticing things were getting this bad. Standing under the boarded attic hatch made her nervous, so she headed for the end of the hall and her parents’ closed bedroom door, and stopped when she saw the big vent at the end of the hall. Its grille had fallen off, exposing the big square chopped into the drywall. She picked up the vent cover and leaned it against the wall. Had the raccoons in the attic gotten into the ducts? Had squirrels? It felt wrong. The boarded-up hatch, the busted vent, the hammer, the cane, the TV. Her mom’s purse on the end of the counter. Something had happened right before her mom and dad had left their house for the last time. Something bad. Her parents’ closed bedroom door and her old bedroom door faced each other and she decided to finish her walk-through and get out of there. She reached for the knob to her parents’ bedroom door and stopped. She’d open it and the room would be empty and that would feel too final. She turned and pushed open her old bedroom door instead. Her dad had converted it into his computer room long ago. The ancient family Dell stood on her old desk, awash in a sea of her dad’s paperwork and bills. Louise automatically started to sort them. She couldn’t remember how many times she’d sorted out her dad’s desk. Almost every time she came home she hadn’t been able to sleep until she’d gotten his desk in order, and every time she came back it had reverted to her dad’s cryptic system of filing by piling. Her movements


to be anything. Let’s start with breakfast, and go from there.” He kissed my forehead before I left—just about the only part of me that didn’t hurt. I tried to pace, but my bruised ribs wouldn’t let me, so I curled up in the chair in front of the laptop instead, poking my way through what little information there was on AJ Stahl again. I tried to make those old photos match the guy who’d jumped me, but it had been too long. He could have grown up into anyone. I’d left the phone tracker open on the side of the screen. Suddenly the little dot vanished, the map reloading to a new location. Just as abruptly, it pinged “signal lost.” Someone had turned on the phone and then turned it off. But I’d had it for a brief second. I had an address. I copied the address, heart hammering, and plugged it into the search. A nail salon in Redmond? Wait—it was one unit of the building. I checked the other businesses. A dog grooming place—probably not sinister—a pho joint, a board-game shop, and something called Jessup Consulting. “Vague. Not at all suspicious,” I muttered. I pulled up their website. The web design was definitely criminal, with retina-searing colors and a stock photo of a comically serious-looking dude with a wired earpiece and a sharp suit. The header told me they provided security and investigation services. The guy in my hotel room was a PI? A personal grudge was one thing. Hiring people to come after me—that was something else. Twenty minutes later, Ethan arrived with takeout to find me lost in a flurry of open tabs and scribbled notes. I’d tracked down the name of the owner of the company, Terry Jessup, and from there found a half dozen current and former employees. None of them were my guy. Jessup Consulting came up as a minor note in a few articles, but nothing relevant—work for corporations and small companies, mostly. Nothing that stank of “violent personal vendetta.” “Why would this guy attack you?” Ethan asked. “It doesn’t exactly sound like normal PI work.” I frowned. Ethan was right. At a glance, Jessup Consulting didn’t seem like thugs for hire. And why attack me? He hadn’t killed me, and he could have. So rough me up? Why? Except that he hadn’t attacked me, had he? Not exactly. He’d lunged for me. Or he’d lunged for the door. I’d surprised him in my room, and he’d tried to get out. And I’d gone completely psycho, trying to brain him with an iPhone. I rubbed my forehead with the tips of my fingers. “I went after him. He was just trying to stop me,” I realized, and almost laughed. He hadn’t been trying to kill me at all. “He still broke into your room,” Ethan pointed out. “If he wasn’t after you, what was he after?” “All he got was my phone, as far as I know. And there’s nothing incriminating on that,” I said. You couldn’t be friends with Liv and not


the Hermitage bar, he had found her desirable and he knew that if things had been different in the night-club, if Vesper had responded in any way and if there had been no kidnapping he would have tried to sleep with her that night. Even later, in the car and outside the villa when God knows he had had other things to think about, his eroticism had been hotly aroused by the sight of her indecent nakedness. And now when he could see her again, he was afraid. Afraid that his senses and his body would not respond to her sensual beauty. Afraid that he would feel no stir of desire and that his blood would stay cool. In his mind he had made this first meeting into a test and he was shirking the answer. That was the real reason, he admitted, why he had waited to give his body a chance to respond, why he had put off their first meeting for over a week. He would like to have put off the meeting still further, but he explained to himself that his report must be written, that any day an emissary from London would come over and want to hear the full story, that today was as good as tomorrow, that anyway he might as well know the worst. So on the eighth day he asked for her, for the early morning when he was feeling refreshed and strong after the night's rest. For no reason at all, he had expected that she would show some sign of her experiences, that she would look pale and even ill. He was not prepared for the tall bronzed girl in a cream tussore frock with a black belt who came happily through the door and stood smiling at him. 'Good heavens, Vesper,' he said with a wry gesture of welcome, 'you look absolutely splendid. You must thrive on disaster. How have you managed to get such a wonderful sunburn?' 'I feel very guilty,' she said sitting down beside him. 'But I've been bathing every day while you've been lying here. The doctor said I was to and Head of S said I was to, so, well, I just thought it wouldn't help you for me to be moping away all day long in my room. I've found a wonderful stretch of sand down the coast and I take my lunch and go there every day with a book and I don't come back till the evening. There's a bus that takes me there and back with only a short walk over the dunes, and I've managed to get over the fact that it's on the way down that road to the villa.' Her voice faltered. The mention of the villa had made Bond's eyes flicker. She continued bravely, refusing to be defeated by Bond's lack of response. 'The doctor says it won't be long before you're allowed up. I thought perhaps . . . I thought perhaps I could take you down to this beach later on. The doctor says that


help you. So'll my old man if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway 'prentice, that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it. You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that's a good boy." So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and I had been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck out for this town of Goshen. "Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?" "Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen." "He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just ex- actly wrong." "Well,,he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight." "Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it." So she put me up a snack, and says: "Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer up prompt now -- don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?" "The hind end, mum." "Well, then, a horse?" "The for'rard end, mum." "Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?" "North side." "If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with their heads pointed the same direction?" "The whole fifteen, mum." "Well, I reckon you HAVE lived in the country. I thought maybe you was trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now?" "George Peters, mum." "Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child, when


that she knew the name of nearly everything there. `That's the judge,' she said to herself, `because of his great wig.' The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly not becoming. `And that's the jury-box,' thought Alice, `and those twelve creatures,' (she was obliged to say `creatures,' you see, because some of them were animals, and some were birds,) `I suppose they are the jurors.' She said this last word two or three times over to herself, being rather proud of it: for she thought, and rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the meaning of it at all. However, `jury-men' would have done just as well. The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates. `What are they doing?' Alice whispered to the Gryphon. `They can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.' `They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in reply, `for fear they should forget them before the end of the trial.' `Stupid things!' Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, `Silence in the court!' and the King put on his spectacles and looked anxiously round, to make out who was talking. Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down `stupid things!' on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them didn't know how to spell `stupid,' and that he had to ask his neighbour to tell him. `A nice muddle their slates'll be in before the trial's over!' thought Alice. One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked. This of course, Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it away. She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very little use, as it left no mark on the slate. `Herald, read the accusation!' said the King. On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:-- `The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts, All on a summer day: The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts, And took them quite away!' `Consider your verdict,' the King said to the jury. `Not yet, not yet!' the Rabbit hastily interrupted. `There's a great deal to come before that!' `Call the first witness,' said the King; and the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, `First witness!' The first witness was the Hatter. He came in with a


giving credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into somewhere else. Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had a good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today. Still you learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as women don't mock what matter? That's the way to find out. Ask yourself who is he now. THE MYSTERY MAN ON THE BEACH, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that fellow today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his kismet however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain they say. Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body feels the atmosphere. Old Betty's joints are on the rack. Mother Shipton's prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the twinkling. No. Signs of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills seem coming nigh. Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds flash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against. Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest. Roygbiv Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A star I see. Venus? Can't tell yet. Two. When three it's night. Were those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom ship. No. Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of the setting sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native land, goodnight. Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his way up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the position. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don't know how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it's the only time we cross legs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happy chairs under them. But it's the evening influence. They feel all that. Open like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock


look up. A dog old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer, as I saw in a moment was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leaned upon it with folded arms, his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in.     "No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters left for you. I think it contains a color-box, pencils and paper."     I approached, to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I thought, with austerity, as I came near; the traces of tears were doubtless very visible upon it.     "Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected?" he asked.     "Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my scholars very well."     "But perhaps your accommodations your cottage your furniture have disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but "     I interrupted: "My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet, a sofa and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing I was an outcast, a begger, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine."     "But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you is dark and empty."     "I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness."     "Very well: I hope you feel the content you express; at any rate, your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw you, of course, I do not know; but I counsel you to resist, firmly, every temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present career steadily, for some months at least."     "It is what I mean to do," I answered.     St. John continued: "It is hard work to control the workings of inclination, and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get when our will strains after a path we may not follow we need neither starve from inanition nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden fruit it longed to taste and perhaps purer; and


more people trying to board. The sense of urgency increasing, mothers and fathers pleaded with the lucky people on the boat, offering their small children to those on deck. One woman threw her little boy, tossed him, and he was caught by the crowd of passengers. Weeping hysterically, he cried out for his mother, but when they tried to return him, the mother retreated, refusing to take him, begging them to keep him safe as the boat pushed off from the docks. Atto’s father brandished his antique rifle used for hunting rabbits, firing warning shots in the air, pleading with people on the dock that his ship was already full beyond capacity and if they took more people they’d capsize. As with the truck, Liza and her family were the only American citizens on board; all the others were Lisbon natives, and there was open hostility towards this foreign family, taking up precious space which could have been used for friends or relatives. ‘Why are they on board?’ Atto had silenced these doubters, making it clear he wouldn’t countenance the idea of leaving Liza or her family behind. As the boat pushed clear, it left a wall of people on the edge of the docks. Some jumped, clinging onto the side, while others missed, falling into the water. Liza looked down at one man hanging onto the rail and offered her hand. He took it, but he was so heavy she was almost pulled overboard, her father grabbing her waist just in time. The man lost his grip, and she was forced to watch him fall into the frothy water around the side of the boat. Away from the coast, they joined a flotilla of fishing boats setting sail, an armada of refugees following alien instructions, without government assistance or guidance of any kind. Nearby, one of the fishing boats began to list, overloaded with people. There were cries for help as it keeled over, emptying the deck-load of passengers into the water, the screams for help tearing at the heart of everyone who could hear. No one asked if they could help them. They all knew the answer was no. The voices calling for help grew faint, as the armada of fishing boats turned south. ATLANTIC OCEAN WEST AFRICAN COASTLINE MAURITANIA TWO WEEKS LATER AS SOME OF THE STRONGEST and healthiest of the passengers, Liza and her family were near the bow, lashed to the side to prevent them being swept overboard. Having endured days of Atlantic storms, with twenty-foot waves breaking across the deck, washing three people overboard, they were now travelling through calmer waters off the coast of Mauritania, sheltering from the sweltering sun under improvised canopies tied together from spare clothes, a mosaic of shirts and hoodies. No one had packed any sunscreen and there were countless examples of essential items that were suddenly no longer available. With less than sixteen days left to reach Antarctica, they were running low on fuel and fresh water. There’d been almost no time to prepare for the journey, leaving the port


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

imagine using those qualities as insults. “Besides, now you’re a hot commodity, Connor.” He takes another bite and chews. I’m still daydreaming about Fizzy’s loud mouth and what she did with it, so this takes a second to penetrate. “You mean the confessionals? Ah, that’s just a small bit.” “That small bit is likely a huge part of the reason Blaine’s trying to put some fear in you.” I still, looking up at him. “What are you talking about?” Ash appears to do a mental obstacle course before he carefully puts his fork and knife down. He lifts his napkin to his lips, tapping gingerly. “Are you unaware of what’s happening online?” “You mean our ratings?” I nod as I say it because Brenna sends them to me every morning. “They’re great.” “No, I mean your fan base.” “I’ve had a few people stop me, but that’s just because they recognize someone from TV.” “A few?” he says pointedly, and I follow his gaze to a group of women in a booth across the restaurant. As soon as they see me, their eyes snap back down to the table. “I’m talking about Connor Prince stans.” I shake my head. “It’s not like that.” With a condescending chuckle, he pulls out his phone, mumbling to himself, “I tell him his phone is good for more than texting and reading the news, but does he listen? No.” Ash taps his screen a few times with a flourish and then turns it to face me. “First of all, your Instagram. You have almost three hundred thousand followers.” I blink. I haven’t posted anything in years. “What?” He gives an exasperated sigh and swipes through his phone again before setting it on the table in front of me. “There.” I scan around, trying to orient myself. “What am I looking at?” “It’s Twitter.” A finger comes down, pointing at a cluster of letters. “What does that hashtag say?” “It says…” It takes me a minute to read because the words are all smushed together, no spaces. “ ‘Daddy Prince The True Love Experiment’?” I look up at him. “Who’s Daddy Prince?” “You are. That’s what the True Love fandom calls you.” “The—fandom—?” I break off, confusion deepening. “Daddy Prince?” “Twitter blows up when confessionals start.” “I’m not even on-screen that much. There are more successful, better-looking, and frankly more agreeable men for them to get excited about.” “Can’t argue with that,” he says with a grin. “But they’re writing you in anyway. Apparently, Daddy Prince, they love your deep voice and your sexy accent, and the way you and Fizzy banter.” He glances up at the sound of my stifled mortification. “Oh, come on, stop looking so horrified. ‘Daddy Prince’ is pretty tame compared to some of the other stuff here.” As he continues to scroll, his grin turns into a frown and he muses, “I didn’t realize ‘choke me’ was such a common phrase.” I ignore this. “What does that mean, ‘write in’? Can’t they only vote for the contestants?” “You wouldn’t know this because