sake, Cosmo, get away from that.” The cat was sniffing around the pool of vomit. “Help me out here.” And Cosmo, as if he’d understood, did something he’d never done before: He leapt into her arms. She tucked him carefully against her, hiding his singed fur. “The barbarians are at the gate,” she whispered. “Let’s do this.” Again the bell rang. Alex thought of who she wanted to be in this moment, and it was Salome, the president of Wolf’s Head she’d had to frighten into giving up use of the temple room. Rich, beautiful, used to getting her way. The kind of girl Darlington would date if he had no taste. She opened the door slowly, in no rush, and blinked at Darlington’s parents as if they’d woken her from a nap. “Yeah?” “Who are you?” The woman—Harper, the name came with Alex’s doubled vision, her sight coupled with the old man’s eyes—was tall, lean, and dressed in perfectly tailored wool trousers, a silk blouse, and pearls. The man—contempt, pure and seething, rose up at the sight of him. He looked so much like Danny, Daniel, Darlington. So much like me. And yet he looked nothing like any of them. Alex had met a lot of low-level cons in her life, people who were always looking for the shortcut, the easy fix. They were perfect marks. “Alexandra,” she said, her voice bored, her hand stroking Cosmo’s fur. “I’m watching the house for Darlington while he’s in Spain.” “We—” “I know who you are.” She tried to soak the words with equal parts disdain and disinterest. “He doesn’t want you here.” Daniel Arlington sputtered. Harper’s eyes narrowed, and she raised a perfect brow. “Alexandra, I don’t know who you are or why our son appointed you watchdog, but I want to speak to him. Now.” “Out of money again?” “Get out of my way,” said Daniel. Alex’s impulse was to give him a good hard shove and watch his bony ass land on the gravel drive. She’d seen these people in the old man’s memories, barely a word for Danny, barely a thought. Even if her mother was terrible at paying the bills or providing anything resembling stability, she at least gave a damn. But Alex had to stay in rich-girl mode. “Or what?” she said with a laugh. “This isn’t your house. I’m happy to call the police and let them sort it out.” Darlington’s father cleared his throat. “I … I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. We always hear from Danny on holidays and he always takes our calls.” “He’s in Spain,” Alex said. “And he’s seeing a therapist now. Setting boundaries. You should think about that.” “Come on, Daniel,” said Harper. “This little bitch is high on her own power. When we return, it will be with a letter from our attorney.” She marched back to the Range Rover. Daniel wagged his finger in her face, trying to get some of his own back. “That’s exactly right. You really have no business—” “Run home, you weakling.” The


indecency, (n) gout graveyard: (n) burial ground, crassitude, crassness, crudity, gown: (n) robe, clothing, cassock, churchyard, necropolis, burying density vestment, wrapper, overclothes, ground, burial site, site, burial place, grotesque: (adj) fantastic, bizarre, outerwear, uniform, tunic, clothes; radioactive cemetery, memorial funny, antic, absurd, droll, strange, (v) clothe park, morgue baroque, weird, ugly, hideous. graceful: (adj) beautiful, delicate, greaves: (n) jambeau, giambeux, ANTONYMS: (adj) lovely, normal, amiable, easy, fine, charming, fair, armour plate, armor plating, armor commonplace, attractive airy, becoming, lovely, lithe. plate groundwork: (n) bottom, basis, base, ANTONYMS: (adj) inelegant, greet: (n, v) receive; (v) address, foundation, bed, ground, footing, Nathaniel Hawthorne 289 bedrock, fundament, background, frequently, commonly, routinely, fearlessness, fortitude, brass; (adj, n) substructure wontedly, conventionally, face, guts; (n, v) assurance. grovelling: (adj) groveling, base, commonplacely. ANTONYMS: ANTONYMS: (n) frailty, timidity abject, menial, vulgar, slavish, (adv) unusually, seldom, erratically, hardness: (n) austerity, asperity, servile, obsequious, low, wormlike, exceptionally, occasionally callousness, difficulty, rigor, earthbred habituated: (v) given to, addicted to, consistency, stiffness, cruelty, guarded: (adj) wary, careful, chary, attuned to; (adj, v) used to; (adj) arduousness, tightness, insensibility. circumspect, cagey, vigilant, addicted, wont, trained, inured, ANTONYMS: (n) ease, limpness, watchful, conditional, discreet, used, inveterate, hardened. malleability gingerly, conservative. ANTONYM: (adj) untrained hardships: (n) difficulty ANTONYMS: (adj) frank, careless, haggard: (adj) emaciated, gaunt, harmless: (adj) safe, benign, trusting, reckless, open, unwary, cadaverous, careworn, tired, worn, inoffensive, hurtless, innocent, natural lean, thin, wasted, pinched, squalid. innoxious, intact, simple; (n) silly; guardianship: (n) custody, care, ANTONYMS: (adj) relaxed, carefree, (adj, n) foolish; (v) weaponless. charge, keeping, safekeeping, healthy ANTONYMS: (adj) lethal, tutelage, conservation, protection, hale: (adj) healthy, whole, sturdy, damaging, destructive, poisonous, wardship; (adj, n) ward; (adj) guard strong, sane, rugged, robust; (v) toxic, serious, offensive, malicious, guillotine: (n) trimmer, block, ax, drag; (adj, n) well, hearty, sound. hurtful, noxious, unpleasant closure by compartment, cutter, gag ANTONYM: (adj) unwell harp: (n) lyre, harmonica, harper, rule; (v) decapitate, cut, execute, kill, halfpenny: (adj) feather, bulrush, old lute, mouth harp; (v) dwell, murder son, jot, pinch of snuff, peppercorn, ingeminate, iterate, restate, reiterate, guiltiness: (n) culpability, rap; (n) bawbee, doit, farthing retell criminality, complicity, hallucination: (n) illusion, dream, harshly: (adv) roughly, severely, criminalness, fault, blame, guilty apparition, vision, fantasy, sternly, sharply, cruelly, hoarsely, conscience, status, guilt feelings, phantom, delirium, aberration, strictly, pitilessly, rigorously, collusion, blameworthiness. optical illusion, mirage, nightmare rigidly; (adj, adv) piercingly. ANTONYM: (n) innocence halo: (n) halation, aura, glory, ring, ANTONYMS: (adv) softly, guinea: (n) greaseball, Republic of circle, corona, nimbus, hoop, harmoniously, quietly, gently, Guinea, poultry, change, shilling, aureola, band, anchor ring elaborately, leniently, smoothly, penny, doit, domestic fowl, farthing, handicraftsman: (n) artisan, artist, tolerantly, cheerfully, loosely, fowl, French Guinea handcraft, handcraftsman, pleasantly guise: (n) form, dress, aspect, handicraft harvesting: (n) gathering, gather, costume, disguise, fashion, pretense, handiwork: (n) handicraft, creation, harvest home, crop, reap, plucking, camouflage, attire, figure, color production, handcraft, product, harvests, ingathering, reaping, gush: (n, v) flood, flow, spurt, jet, handwork, work, produce, design, farming, harvest time discharge, stream, rush, surge; (n) performance; (v) workmanship haste: (n, v) hurry, dash, dispatch, burst, effusion; (v) course handsaw: (n) saw, whipsaw, crosscut rush; (n)


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

was a blackened husk. There was no goose egg, nor egg of any sort, and no butter, but there was a little bowl of something gelatinous and greyish-green. “Ðangssaus,” Finn said. “My father thought you might enjoy it. It’s a kind of—” He searched for words. “Relish? Made from seaweed. It’s for toast.” “This certainly qualifies.” His face fell. “I’m sorry, Professor. My father arranged the breakfast this morning. And somehow, without my noticing, the bread was knocked into the fire.” I sat down heavily. “Well, at least the tea is hot.” He smiled. “I made sure of it.” I set my head in my hand, which was pounding from the wine. “Might I enquire what I did to displease your father so?” “It’s not so much my father who is displeased. It’s Aud.” He added quickly, “My father is old-fashioned. He does not respond well to an insult to his goði.” “What? I said nothing to offend her.” I reviewed the events of the previous evening. “Clearly there has been a misunderstanding.” Finn looked into the wood box. “Let me assist you with this, at least.” “That’s quite all right.” A hard, cold anger was forming in my stomach. “I was just about to get to it myself.” He raised his eyebrows and made no comment. Seconds after his departure, I heard the sound of an axe splitting wood in the yard. I admit that I am disheartened by this news. My research requires the villagers’ assistance—I rely as much on local lore as the evidence gathered with my own eyes and instruments in forming an accurate picture of the Folk. That I have already managed to offend the headwoman of Hrafnsvik does not bode well. I think I can guess the source of Aud’s anger—clearly, she is protective of her niece, and worried that I would publicize her affliction and make a spectacle out of her. I am determined to meet with her at the tavern today to plead my case. Or perhaps tomorrow. 23rd October I can hardly hold pen to paper, my hand shakes so. The cottage is cold as a grave, naturally, but that is not the reason. I have met one. I did not expect success upon setting out today—I had little yesterday, and returned home after a long exploratory ramble too wearied to do anything other than eat a bit of cheese and tumble into bed. In the morning, I obtained from Finn a detailed map of the Karrðarskogur and nearby mountains and divided it into grid sections of one square mile, extending ten miles in each direction (twenty miles being the upper limit of what I estimated I could walk in a day). Before commencing my systematic search, though, I wished to further familiarize myself with the terrain and develop an intuition for the place. Thus intentioned, I set off towards the sulphuric spring I had explored previously. I located it without much trouble, puffing away in its forest bower, a useful landmark. I was delighted to see that my offerings were gone. As


kinds of fame

provide extra freedom, maybe, I suppose, but royal fame was fancy

captivity.

The Tweedles couldn’t fathom this. They were children, incapable of

understanding anything nuanced. In their simplified cosmology: You’re

royal. So. This is the price you pay for living in a castle.

Sometimes I wondered how it might go if I could just talk to them,

calmly, explain that I didn’t live in a castle, my grandmother lived in a

castle, that in fact Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber both had far grander

lifestyles than mine. Billy had done a deep dive on their finances, so I knew.

Each Tweedle owned multiple houses, and several luxury cars, purchased

with proceeds from their photos of me and my family. (Offshore bank

accounts too, like their sponsors, the media barons who funded them, chiefly

Murdoch and the impossibly Dickensian-sounding Jonathan Harmsworth,

4th Viscount Rothermere.)

It was around this time that I began to think Murdoch was evil. No, strike

that. I began to know that he was. Firsthand. Once you’ve been chased by

someone’s henchmen through the streets of a busy modern city you lose all

doubt about where they stand on the Great Moral Continuum. All my life ’'d

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heard jokes about the links between royal misbehavior and centuries of

inbreeding, but it was then that I realized: Lack of genetic diversity was

nothing compared to press gaslighting. Marrying your cousin is far less

dicey than becoming a profit center for Murdoch Inc.

Of course I didn’t care for Murdoch’s politics, which were just to the

right of the Taliban’s. And I didn’t like the harm he did each and every day

to Truth, his wanton desecration of objective facts. Indeed, I couldn’t think

of a single human being in the 300,000-year history of the species who’d

done more damage to our collective sense of reality. But what really

sickened and frightened me in 2012 was Murdoch’s ever-expanding circle of

flunkies: young, broken, desperate men willing to do whatever was

necessary to earn one of his Grinchy smiles.

And


"Perhaps if I explain to Jamis how--" "Explain!" Jamis sneered. Paul fell silent, staring at the man. He felt no fear of him. Jamis appeared clumsy in his movements and he had fallen so easily in their night encounter on the sand. But Paul still felt the nexus-boiling of this cave, still remembered the prescient visions of himself dead under a knife. There had been so few avenues of escape for him in that vision . . . Stilgar said: "Sayyadina, you must step back now where--" "Stop calling her Sayyadina!" Jamis said. "That's yet to be proved. So she knows the prayer! What's that? Every child among us knows it." He has talked enough, Jessica thought. I've the key to him. I could immobilize him with a word. She hesitated. But I cannot stop them all. "You will answer to me then," Jessica said, and she pitched her voice in a twisting tone with a little whine in it and a catch at the end. Jamis stared at her, fright visible on his face. "I'll teach you agony," she said in the same tone. "Remember that as you fight. You'll have agony such as will make the gom jabbar a happy memory by comparison. You will writhe with your entire--" "She tries a spell on me!" Jamis gasped. He put his clenched right fist beside his ear. "I invoke the silence on her!" "So be it then," Stilgar said. He cast a warning glance at Jessica. "If you speak again, Sayyadina, we'll know it's your witchcraft and you'll be forfeit." He nodded for her to step back. Jessica felt hands pulling her, helping her back, and she sensed they were not unkindly. She saw Paul being separated from the throng, the elfin-faced Chani whispering in his ear as she nodded toward Jamis. A ring formed within the troop. More glowglobes were brought and all of them tuned to the yellow band. Jamis stepped into the ring, slipped out of his robe and tossed it to someone in the crowd. He stood there in a cloudy gray slickness of stillsuit that was patched and marked by tucks and gathers. For a moment, he bent with his mouth to his shoulder, drinking from a catchpocket tube. Presently he straightened, peeled off and detached the suit, handed it carefully into the crowd. He stood waiting, clad in loincloth and some tight fabric over his feet, a crysknife in his right hand. Jessica saw the girl-child Chani helping Paul, saw her press a crysknife handle into his palm, saw him heft it, testing the weight and balance. And it came to Jessica that Paul had been trained in prana and bindu, the nerve and the fiber--that he had been taught fighting in a deadly school, his teachers men like Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck, men who were legends in their own lifetimes. The boy knew the devious ways of the Bene Gesserit and he looked supple and confident. But he's only fifteen, she thought. And he has no shield. I must stop this. Somehow, there


received it and gave it back in hues more marvellous than before. All who dwelt in Aman were filled with wonder and delight at the work of Fanor. And Varda hallowed the Silmarils, so that thereafter no mortal flesh, nor hands unclean, nor anything of evil will might touch them, but it was scorched and withered; and Mandos foretold that the fates of Arda, earth, sea, and air, lay locked within them. The heart of Fanor was fast bound to these things that he himself had made. Then Melkor lusted for the Silmarils, and the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart. From that time forth, inflamed by this desire, he sought ever more eagerly how he should destroy Fanor and end the friendship of the Valar and the Elves; but he dissembled his purposes with cunning, and nothing of his malice could yet be seen in the semblance that he wore. Long was he at work, and slow at first and barren was his labour. But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. Ever Melkor found some ears that would heed him, and some tongues that would enlarge what they had heard; and his lies passed from friend to friend, as secrets of which the knowledge proves the teller wise. Bitterly did the Noldor atone for the folly of their open ears in the days that followed after. When he saw that many leaned towards him, Melkor would often walk among them, and amid his fair words others were woven, so subtly that many who heard them believed in recollection that they arose from their own thought. Visions he would conjure in their hearts of the mighty realms that they could have ruled at their own will, in power and freedom in the East; and then whispers went abroad that the Valar had brought the Eldar to Aman because of their jealousy, fearing that the beauty of the Quendi and the makers' power that Ilvatar had bequeathed to them would grow too great for the Valar to govern, as the Elves waxed and spread over the wide lands of the world. In those days, moreover, though the Valar knew indeed of the coming of Men that were to be, the Elves as yet knew naught of it; for Manw had not revealed it to them. Bat Melkor spoke to them in secret of Mortal Men, seeing how the silence of the Valar might be twisted to evil. Little he knew yet concerning Men, for engrossed with his own thought in the Music he had paid small heed to the Third Theme of Ilvatar; but now the whisper went among the Elves that Manw held them captive, so that Men might come and supplant them in the kingdoms of Middle-earth, for the Valar saw that they might more easily sway this short-lived and weaker race, defrauding the Elves of the inheritance of Ilvatar. Small truth


short time Oliver was sufficiently recovered to undergo the fatigue of this expedition. One morning he and Mr. Losberne set out, accordingly, in a little carriage which belonged to Mrs. Maylie. When they came to Chertsey Bridge, Oliver turned very pale, and uttered a loud exclamation. 'What's the matter with the boy?' cried the doctor, as usual, all in a bustle. 'Do you see anything--hear anything--feel anything--eh?' 'That, sir,' cried Oliver, pointing out of the carriage window. 'That house!' 'Yes; well, what of it? Stop coachman. Pull up here,' cried the doctor. 'What of the house, my man; eh?' 'The thieves--the house they took me to!' whispered Oliver. 'The devil it is!' cried the doctor. 'Hallo, there! let me out!' But, before the coachman could dismount from his box, he had tumbled out of the coach, by some means or other; and, running down to the deserted tenement, began kicking at the door like a madman. 'Halloa?' said a little ugly hump-backed man: opening the door so suddenly, that the doctor, from the very impetus of his last kick, nearly fell forward into the passage. 'What's the matter here?' 'Matter!' exclaimed the other, collaring him, without a moment's reflection. 'A good deal. Robbery is the matter.' 'There'll be Murder the matter, too,' replied the hump-backed man, coolly, 'if you don't take your hands off. Do you hear me?' 'I hear you,' said the doctor, giving his captive a hearty shake. 'Where's--confound the fellow, what's his rascally name--Sikes; that's it. Where's Sikes, you thief?' The hump-backed man stared, as if in excess of amazement and indignation; then, twisting himself, dexterously, from the doctor's grasp, growled forth a volley of horrid oaths, and retired into the house. Before he could shut the door, however, the doctor had passed into the parlour, without a word of parley. He looked anxiously round; not an article of furniture; not a vestige of anything, animate or inanimate; not even the position of the cupboards; answered Oliver's description! 'Now!' said the hump-backed man, who had watched him keenly, 'what do you mean by coming into my house, in this violent way? Do you want to rob me, or to murder me? Which is it?' 'Did you ever know a man come out to do either, in a chariot and a pair, you ridiculous old vampire?' said the irritable doctor. 'What do you want, then?' demanded the hunchback. 'Will you take yourself off, before I do you a mischief? Curse you!' 'As soon as I think proper,' said Mr. Losberne, looking into the other parlour; which, like the first, bore no resemblance whatever to Oliver's account of it. 'I shall find you out, some day, my friend.' 'Will you?' sneered the ill-favoured cripple. 'If you ever want me, I'm here. I haven't lived here mad and all alone, for five-and-twenty years, to be scared by you. You shall pay for this; you shall pay for this.' And so saying, the mis-shapen little demon set up a yell, and danced upon the ground, as if wild with rage. 'Stupid enough, this,'


the foolish, of the same stratum or class. It was the morning of his departure. His brothers had already left the Vicarage to proceed on a walking tour in the north, whence one was to return to his college, and the other to his curacy. Angel might have accompanied them, but preferred to rejoin his sweetheart at Talbothays. He would have been an awkward member of the party; for, though the most appreciative humanist, the most ideal religionist, even the best-versed Christologist of the three, there was alienation in the standing consciousness that his squareness would not fit the round hole that had been prepared for him. To neither Felix nor Cuthbert had he ventured to mention Tess. His mother made him sandwiches, and his father accompanied him, on his own mare, a little way along the road. Having fairly well advanced his own affairs Angel listened in a willing silence, as they jogged on together through the shady lanes, to his father's account of his parish difficulties, and the coldness of brother clergymen whom he loved, because of his strict interpretations of the New Testament by the light of what they deemed a pernicious Calvinistic doctrine. "Pernicious!" said Mr Clare, with genial scorn; and he proceeded to recount experiences which would show the absurdity of that idea. He told of wondrous conversions of evil livers of which he had been the instrument, not only amongst the poor, but amongst the rich and well-to-do; and he also candidly admitted many failures. As an instance of the latter, he mentioned the case of a young upstart squire named d'Urberville, living some forty miles off, in the neighbourhood of Trantridge. "Not one of the ancient d'Urbervilles of Kingsbere and other places?" asked his son. "That curiously historic worn-out family with its ghostly legend of the coach-and-four?" "O no. The original d'Urbervilles decayed and disappeared sixty or eighty years ago--at least, I believe so. This seems to be a new family which had taken the name; for the credit of the former knightly line I hope they are spurious, I'm sure. But it is odd to hear you express interest in old families. I thought you set less store by them even than I." "You misapprehend me, father; you often do," said Angel with a little impatience. "Politically I am sceptical as to the virtue of their being old. Some of the wise even among themselves 'exclaim against their own succession,' as Hamlet puts it; but lyrically, dramatically, and even historically, I am tenderly attached to them." This distinction, though by no means a subtle one, was yet too subtle for Mr Clare the elder, and he went on with the story he had been about to relate; which was that after the death of the senior so-called d'Urberville the young man developed the most culpable passions, though he had a blind mother, whose condition should have made him know better. A knowledge of his career having come to the ears of Mr Clare, when he was in that part of the country preaching missionary


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

in," said the man with the beard. "I'm going to let off at his legs. Draw the bolts." "Not with that thing going off behind me," said the barman, craning over the blind. "Very well," said the man with the black beard, and stooping down, revolver ready, drew them himself. Barman, cabman, and police- man faced about. "Come in," said the bearded man in an undertone, standing back and facing the unbolted doors with his pistol behind him. No one came in, the door remained closed. Five minutes afterwards when a second cabman pushed his head in cautiously, they were still waiting, and an anxious face peered out of the bar-parlour and supplied information. "Are all the doors of the house shut?" asked Marvel. "He's going round--prowling round. He's as artful as the devil." "Good Lord!" said the burly barman. "There's the back! Just watch them doors! I say!--" He looked about him helplessly. The bar-parlour door slammed and they heard the key turn. "There's the yard door and the private door. The yard door--" He rushed out of the bar. In a minute he reappeared with a carving-knife in his hand. "The yard door was open!" he said, and his fat underlip dropped. "He may be in the house now!" said the first cabman. "He's not in the kitchen," said the barman. "There's two women there, and I've stabbed every inch of it with this little beef slicer. And they don't think he's come in. They haven't noticed--" "Have you fastened it?" asked the first cabman. "I'm out of frocks," said the barman. The man with the beard replaced his revolver. And even as he did so the flap of the bar was shut down and the bolt clicked, and then with a tremendous thud the catch of the door snapped and the bar- parlour door burst open. They heard Marvel squeal like a caught leveret, and forthwith they were clambering over the bar to his rescue. The bearded man's revolver cracked and the looking-glass at the back of the parlour was starred brightly and came smashing and tinkling down. As the barman entered the room he saw Marvel, curiously crumpled up and struggling against the door that led to the yard and kitchen. The door flew open while the barman hesitated, and Marvel was dragged into the kitchen. There was a scream and a clatter of pans. Marvel, head down, and lugging back obstinately, was forced to the kitchen door, and the bolts were drawn. Then the policeman, who had been trying to pass the barman, rushed in, followed by one of the cabmen, gripped the wrist of the invisible hand that collared Marvel, was hit in the face and went reeling back. The door opened, and Marvel made a frantic effort to obtain a lodgment behind it. Then the cabman clutched something. "I got him," said the cabman. The barman's red hands came clawing at the unseen. "Here he is!" said the barman. Mr. Marvel, released, suddenly dropped to the ground and made an attempt to crawl behind the


on scholarship but I stank of it: my frayed shorts, my hole-filled Neutral Milk Hotel T-shirt that I wore twice before Kimborough confiscated it, my wrecked Converses. I was forced to wear thin white tank tops from a package of ten Kimborough bought for me from Walmart, and the fact that I had been the recipient of Kimborough’s charity seemed to anger people, not because they were jealous but because I was a bottom dweller, always pitied and never feared, and because they were unaccustomed to having a person like me among them. They ignored me when we were forced to lug giant bales of hay across fields together or harvest yards of turnips or do seventy-five crunches as punishment for leaving bits of flaky, toxic shit on the chicken coop floor. After a month of this, they began to tolerate me: I didn’t share their anger and embarrassment at having lost their Benzes and summer vacations to Mexico, but I was unobtrusive, a nonentity, and there would be no consequences for them if they talked shit about Kimborough and Sledge while I read a book in the background. When I was seventeen I could still see well enough to read. My reading was a trait my parents admired without sharing it themselves. They described me to their friends as “bookish.” Really, I just appreciated how static and parsable words were on a page, how little they demanded of me visually. I liked books that took a long time to read, which meant that I read a lot of Russian novels, and The Brothers Karamazov was my favorite. I was reading it for the third time at Last Chance, imagining that I was Alyosha, a saint surrounded by sinners. I especially liked the part where the Elder Zosima described his childhood: I was the sickly elder brother who inspired him to become a man of the cloth, or maybe I was Zosima himself, who Alyosha prayed both for and with. The book had as many examples of how to be good as it had examples of how to be bad. It stretched for miles in my head. We were given one hour of rec time before dinner, an idea which had clearly originated with Kimborough because Sledge obviously resented it. The other Last Chance prisoners would kick around a half-deflated soccer ball or improvise a game of touch football and Sledge would stand cross-armed watching them, waiting for one of them to scream in frustration at a missed goal or kick someone in the shins out of anger and hopelessness. Then Sledge could make them run three laps around the property. But that rarely happened, because these games were played with little effort, their players so exhausted from the day that they seemed to be playing just to spite Sledge, to prove that he couldn’t beat them. But I knew from my Russian novels that anything motivated by hubris can’t be sustained: Sledge always found a way to punish people, whether it was for “poor form” (whatever that meant) or for giving


her former home. They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing in comparison of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her husband, but she wanted at once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe. Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills, as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years' marriage, he was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain. From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his mother's, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek, and his own situation to improve as he could. A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury, where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy competence--enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining Highbury, which he had always longed for--enough to marry a woman as portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of his own friendly and social disposition. It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth, it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to; but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that, even in his first marriage; but his second must shew him how delightful a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it. He had only himself to please in his choice: his


as the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive, half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their forecastle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable to future investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If any of the following .. <p 142 > whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his Folio, Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude: --The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; the Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; etc. From Icelandic, Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists of uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing. Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught --nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! .. <p 132n. > I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a nosy, contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the kingdom of Cetology. .. <p 137n. > Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its diminished form does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume does. .. <p 142 > .. < chapter xxxiii 24 THE SPECKSYNDER > Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the whale-fleet. The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is evinced by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery,


dogs to be fooled by dogs. In the 'tween-decks of the Narwhal, Buck and Curly joined two other dogs. One of them was a big, snow-white fellow from Spitzbergen who had been brought away by a whaling captain, and who had later accompanied a Geological Survey into the Barrens. He was friendly, in a treacherous sort of way, smiling into one's face the while he meditated some underhand trick, as, for instance, when he stole from Buck's food at the first meal. As Buck sprang to punish him, the lash of Francois's whip sang through the air, reaching the culprit first; and nothing remained to Buck but to recover the bone. That was fair of Francois, he decided, and the half-breed began his rise in Buck's estimation. The other dog made no advances, nor received any; also, he did not attempt to steal from the newcomers. He was a gloomy, morose fellow, and he showed Curly plainly that all he desired was to be left alone, and further, that there would be trouble if he were not left alone. "Dave" he was called, and he ate and slept, or yawned between times, and took interest in nothing, not even when the Narwhal crossed Queen Charlotte Sound and rolled and pitched and bucked like a thing possessed. When Buck and Curly grew excited, half wild with fear, he raised his head as though annoyed, favored them with an incurious glance, yawned, and went to sleep again. Day and night the ship throbbed to the tireless pulse of the propeller, and though one day was very like another, it was apparent to Buck that the weather was steadily growing colder. At last, one morning, the propeller was quiet, and the Narwhal was pervaded with an atmosphere of excitement. He felt it, as did the other dogs, and knew that a change was at hand. Francois leashed them and brought them on deck. At the first step upon the cold surface, Buck's feet sank into a white mushy something very like mud. He sprang back with a snort. More of this white stuff was falling through the air. He shook himself, but more of it fell upon him. He sniffed it curiously, then licked some up on his tongue. It bit like fire, and the next instant was gone. This puzzled him. He tried it again, with the same result. The onlookers laughed uproariously, and he felt ashamed, he knew not why, for it was his first snow. Chapter II The Law of Club and Fang Buck's first day on the Dyea beach was like a nightmare. Every hour was filled with shock and surprise. He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do but loaf and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly alert; for these dogs and men


anywhere but his brother’s home . . . She frowned. “Mr. Jonathan Granger has continued on to wherever he was going. I’ll never have to see him again, though I am sorry you will.” Her eyes went wide as realization hit her. “Rebecca! You need to get back to London! You were supposed to be gone for only a few days.” “I came to make sure you arrived at your final destination safely,” the maid replied, though her voice had gone quiet. “The missus will understand, or if she doesn’t . . . I can find work somewhere else. Maybe that would be better, after Mr. Granger . . .” Lucy’s stomach clenched. She didn’t miss how pale Rebecca had gone. “After Mr. Granger what?” The maid bit her lip. “I really don’t want to say.” “Rebecca.” “I overheard him telling one of the footmen that if he couldn’t stop you from leaving, he planned to waylay our journey before we ever arrived at the Winthrops’,” Rebecca whispered. “He wants to carry you off back to London so he can finally marry you. The only reason he didn’t catch us leaving London was because I arranged for us to leave while he had business dealings.” Lucy had wondered why Mr. Granger had not been at his brother’s house the morning she left, when he had certainly known she was leaving soon. She had expected a final attempt at persuading her to take his hand, but she had said her goodbyes to the rest of the family with ease and left without any strife. At least, that was what she had thought until she saw him at the inn. “Wait,” Lucy said, her stomach dropping. “Did you say ‘carry me off’?” Rebecca nodded slowly, her face still pale as she smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle in the green dress. “You saw him at the inn, sure as I did.” “He wouldn’t dare something as brash as dragging me away,” Lucy argued. Would he? She honestly didn’t know, and the thought of the man forcing her into a marriage that would only bring her grief made her sick to her stomach. Her father had always talked of how deeply he’d loved her mother even years after she was gone, and Lucy had always dreamed of finding a love that strong for herself. After his death, it was the only hope she’d had left, and she could never love Mr. Granger. Not even with time. The last five years had only made her detest him more with each moment of knowing him. She had never known anyone to look at women the way Mr. Granger did. It was the same look he gave his favorite dog and his stacks of banknotes when he and his brother made a good business deal. “This is why you need to be engaged to Mr. Calloway,” Rebecca said, pulling Lucy out of her thoughts. That made no sense whatsoever. “Rebecca, I—” “Mr. Granger will never think to look in a place like this,” the maid said, as if Lucy had


love does not run quite as smoothly as one would under the circumstances expect. To-day, for example, its surface was broken by a very unexpected ripple, which has caused our friend considerable perplexity and annoyance. After the conversation which I have quoted about Barrymore, Sir Henry put on his hat and prepared to go out. As a matter of course I did the same. "What, are you coming, Watson?" he asked, looking at me in a curious way. "That depends on whether you are going on the moor," said I. "Yes, I am." "Well, you know what my instructions are. I am sorry to intrude, but you heard how earnestly Holmes insisted that I should not leave you, and especially that you should not go alone upon the moor." Sir Henry put his hand upon my shoulder with a pleasant smile. "My dear fellow," said he, "Holmes, with all his wisdom, did not foresee some things which have happened since I have been on the moor. You understand me? I am sure that you are the last man in the world who would wish to be a spoil-sport. I must go out alone." It put me in a most awkward position. I was at a loss what to say or what to do, and before I had made up my mind he picked up his cane and was gone. But when I came to think the matter over my conscience reproached me bitterly for having on any pretext allowed him to go out of my sight. I imagined what my feelings would be if I had to return to you and to confess that some misfortune had occurred through my disregard for your instructions. I assure you my cheeks flushed at the very thought. It might not even now be too late to overtake him, so I set off at once in the direction of Merripit House. I hurried along the road at the top of my speed without seeing anything of Sir Henry, until I came to the point where the moor path branches off. There, fearing that perhaps I had come in the wrong direction after all, I mounted a hill from which I could command a view -- the same hill which is cut into the dark quarry. Thence I saw him at once. He was on the moor path about a quarter of a mile off, and a lady was by his side who could only be Miss Stapleton. It was clear that there was already an understanding between them and that they had met by ap- pointment. They were walking slowly along in deep conversa- tion, and I saw her making quick little movements of her hands as if she were very earnest in what she was saying, while he listened intently, and once or twice shook his head in strong dissent. I stood among the rocks watching them, very much puzzled as to what I should do next. To follow them and break into their intimate conversation seemed to be an outrage, and yet my clear


one of those finance guys who, like, runs every day at five in the morning? Or does push-ups whenever you’re about to leave the house?” “You got me. I’ve got a punching bag at my place.” He mimed a few uppercuts. “You get all your anger out and you get to look at all the lucky bastards enjoying the park.” “You’ve got a place on the park,” I said, my brain feeling glazed. “That means you’re truly an asshole.” He laughed. I tried to stay alert. All good spies always stay alert. “This Synthesis,” he said. “How does it work?” I shook my head. “You said no business. You said I wouldn’t have to say anything about business.” “It’s not business,” he protested. “It is. It definitely is. I know you’re a devious fuck but just—I don’t know—just let me enjoy the drinks before you try to take me for all I’m worth.” He sat forward on his stool, eyes bright. “Then just Synthesize me. You don’t have to explain it. I just want to be Synthesized.” I sucked on the orange wedge from my sidecar. “I’m not going to do anything of the sort.” “I’ll pay you.” “You couldn’t pay me any amount of money.” “Okay, then I’ll buy you another drink.” It felt like a matter of minutes before he was paying for a room and we were going upstairs together, me feeling light and loose-limbed and him moving with a directness I wasn’t accustomed to seeing in him, but then again I was accustomed to seeing him sitting in chairs behind desks and calmly making financial predictions on TV. In the room, he took off his jacket and kicked off his shoes and sat on the edge of the bed, palms upturned at his sides. “What do I have to do?” he asked. “For you to Synthesize me?” I sat down across from him and started laughing, making no effort to stop. “Just tell me a memory that really sticks out to you,” I said. “My wife shutting the door in my face the April before we got divorced,” he said. “No, okay—forget that. How about you sucking on that orange wedge?” I opened my eyes. His were open too, blue as the hottest part of a flame. Afterward, he curled against me in bed, and I could feel the front of his body against the back of mine, the cold tops of his thighs and bony knots of his kneecaps. “I’m sorry,” he said, and bit my ear. “I don’t want to take you for all you’re worth.” “You don’t have to.” “I feel like I do, though. Because it’s blood money.” I pulled his arm under mine and around my torso. “Can I ask you a question?” “Anything,” he said. “What do you do to make yourself not in love with someone?” I flipped to face him, or rather the blur that was supposed to be him. “What do you mean?” “Like, if you’ve loved someone for a long time—how do you force yourself out of love?”


screaming at each other above the din. Montag found himself at the parlour door with his food still in his mouth. "Doesn't everyone look nice!" "Nice." "You look fine, Millie! " "Fine." "Everyone looks swell." "Swell! "Montag stood watching them. "Patience," whispered Faber. "I shouldn't be here," whispered Montag, almost to himself. "I should be on my way back to you with the money!" "Tomorrow's time enough. Careful!" "Isn't this show wonderful?" cried Mildred. "Wonderful!" On one wall a woman smiled and drank orange juice simultaneously. How does she do both at once, thought Montag, insanely. In the other walls an X-ray of the same woman revealed the contracting journey of the refreshing beverage on its way to her delightful stomach! Abruptly the room took off on a rocket flight into the clouds, it plunged into a lime-green sea where blue fish ate red and yellow fish. A minute later, Three White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other's limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter. Two minutes more and the room whipped out of town to the jet cars wildly circling an arena, bashing and backing up and bashing each other again. Montag saw a number of bodies fly in the air. "Millie, did you see that?" "I saw it, I saw it! " Montag reached inside the parlour wall and pulled the main switch. The images drained away, as if the water had been let out from a gigantic crystal bowl of hysterical fish. The three women turned slowly and looked with unconcealed irritation and then dislike at Montag. "When do you suppose the war will start?" he said. "I notice your husbands aren't here tonight?" "Oh, they come and go, come and go," said Mrs. Phelps. "In again out again Finnegan, the Army called Pete yesterday. He'll be back next week. The Army said so. Quick war. Forty-eight hours they said, and everyone home. That's what the Army said. Quick war. Pete was called yesterday and they said he'd be, back next week. Quick..." The three women fidgeted and looked nervously at the empty mud-coloured walls. "I'm not worried," said Mrs. Phelps. "I'll let Pete do all the worrying." She giggled. "I'll let old Pete do all the worrying. Not me. I'm not worried." "Yes," said Millie. "Let old Pete do the worrying." "It's always someone else's husband dies, they say." "I've heard that, too. I've never known any dead man killed in a war. Killed jumping off buildings, yes, like Gloria's husband last week, but from wars? No." "Not from wars," said Mrs. Phelps. "Anyway, Pete and I always said, no tears, nothing like that. It's our third marriage each and we're independent. Be independent, we always said. He said, if I get killed off, you just go right ahead and don't cry, but get married again, and don't think of me." "That reminds me," said Mildred. "Did you see that Clara Dove five-minute romance last night in your wall? Well, it was all about this woman who--" Montag said nothing but stood looking at the


the day before, when Mrs. King went to get her report. “Look here. I don’t suppose I could get some of my payment up front, could I?” Alice had asked. This annoyed Mrs. King. First Mrs. Bone, now the rest of them. “Certainly not,” she said. “I can’t show special favors to you—I told you before.” Alice looked uneasy. “I was only asking,” she said. Mrs. King softened her tone. “Why?” she said. “Is something the matter?” She watched Alice’s expression harden. Mrs. King recognized that demeanor. It was her own. “Not in the least,” her sister said quietly. “And I’ve nothing to report.” 16 Nine days to go Miss de Vries heard William and the under-footmen sorting the post in the front hall. They were fetching extra platters. She knew what this meant. The responses were arriving. It put her on edge. “Alice?” she said, calling through to the dressing room. The girl appeared, eager faced but tired, hair scragged back, skin gray. She tucked her needle into her apron pocket, wiped her hands. “Yes, Madam?” Her throat sounded dry. “I’m running late. Iris has the afternoon off. Bring me some afternoon dresses to look at, will you?” Alice’s eyes widened, and Miss de Vries understood why. Sewing maids sewed. They didn’t do any more than that. The rules below stairs were rigid, unbending. She always enjoyed this, sending them scrambling. It settled her own nerves. “Certainly, Madam,” Alice said, and hurried out of the room. She was keen to impress, and that pleased Miss de Vries, too. Alice returned with two dresses. “Perhaps these, Madam? The plain crepe or the crepe with jet.” Miss de Vries opened her arms. “You choose.” Alice hesitated. “Plain,” she said. And then, with a little flush, as if testing herself, “It suits you better.” Miss de Vries laughed at that. “You ought to tell me they suit me equally.” Alice reddened. “Beg pardon, Madam.” Miss de Vries put out her wrists to be unbuttoned. “I suppose I shall have to give up the jet, then.” She met Alice’s gaze. “You have it.” Alice dropped her hands. “Me?” “Certainly. It’ll get moth-eaten otherwise. I can’t possibly wear it now.” Alice took a step back. “I didn’t mean to speak out of turn,” she said, frowning. Miss de Vries studied herself in the glass. “You didn’t. You have a good eye, as well you know.” She adjusted the lace around her neck. “Iris could take a lesson from you.” She didn’t look at Alice. She knew what effect this would have. It happened the same way, every time. A blush, a demurral, a lot of pretty confusion. They were such adorable playthings, the junior maids. Pet them long enough and they gave up all kinds of gossip. The house-parlormaids were machine-made, perfectly trained, more inscrutable. They’d waited on grander ladies in even bigger houses than this one. Sometimes they even unsettled Miss de Vries herself. But Alice was timid, mouselike. She’d gobble up nice treats. “I oughtn’t to take this, Madam,” said Alice, voice serious. She


few things indeed were really impossible. There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters. It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry. `No, I'll look first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked `poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. However, this bottle was NOT marked `poison,' so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * `What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up like a telescope.' And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going though the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?' And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing. After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found he had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing


it was receiving, he was happily employed until the gentlemen joined them; and he found in Mrs. Philips a very attentive listener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she heard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin, and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine their own indifferent imitations of china on the mantlepiece, the interval of waiting appeared very long. It was over at last, however. The gentlemen did approach; and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room, Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking of him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration. The officers of the ----shire were in general a very creditable, gentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party; but Mr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and walk, as _they_ were superior to the broad-faced stuffy uncle Philips, breathing port wine, who followed them into the room. Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated himself; and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into conversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, and on the probability of a rainy season, made her feel that the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker. With such rivals for the notice of the fair, as Mr. Wickham and the officers, Mr. Collins seemed likely to sink into insignificance; to the young ladies he certainly was nothing; but he had still at intervals a kind listener in Mrs. Philips, and was, by her watchfulness, most abundantly supplied with coffee and muffin. When the card tables were placed, he had an opportunity of obliging her in return, by sitting down to whist. ``I know little of the game, at present,'' said he, ``but I shall be glad to improve myself, for in my situation of life --'' Mrs. Philips was very thankful for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason. Mr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there seemed danger of Lydia's engrossing him entirely for she was a most determined talker; but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets, she soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets and exclaiming after prizes, to have attention for any one in particular. Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore at leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be told, the history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not even mention that gentleman. Her curiosity however was unexpectedly relieved. Mr. Wickham began


glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by friendliness which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw through the affair and for some reason or other best known to himself allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet. Adjacent to the men's public urinal they perceived an icecream car round which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly animated way, there being some little differences between the parties. --PUTTANA MADONNA, CHE CI DIA I QUATTRINI! HO RAGIONE? CULO ROTTO! --INTENDIAMOCI. MEZZO SOVRANO PIU ... --DICE LUI, PERO! --MEZZO. --FARABUTTO! MORTACCI SUI! --MA ASCOLTA! CINQUE LA TESTA PIU ... Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus HOMO already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity. --Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description. Accordingly his first act was with characteristic SANGFROID to order these commodities quietly. The HOI POLLOI of jarvies or stevedores or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute, though, to be sure, rather in a quandary over VOGLIO, remarked to his PROTEGE in an audible tone of voice A PROPOS of the battle royal in the street which was still raging fast and furious: --A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not write your poetry in that language? BELLA POETRIA! It is so melodious and full. BELLADONNA. VOGLIO. Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering from lassitude generally, replied: --To fill


has Kitt been here?” Iris had asked. “Almost a month,” Sarah had replied. “So don’t worry about him having seniority. I think you both have a fair shot at the promotion.” “And what does his family do?” “His grandfather pioneered the railroad.” “So his family has money.” “Heaps,” Sarah said. “Where did he go to school?” “I think Devan Hall, but don’t quote me on that.” A prestigious school where most of the rich parents of Oath sent their spoiled brats. A direct contrast to Iris’s humble Windy Grove. She had almost winced at this revelation, but pressed on with “Is he courting anyone?” “Not that I know of,” Sarah had answered with a shrug. “But he doesn’t share much about his life with us. In fact, I don’t really know that much about him, other than he doesn’t like anyone touching the things on his desk.” Partly satiated with her newfound knowledge, Iris had decided the best course of action was to ignore her competition. She could pretend he didn’t exist most of the time. But she soon discovered that would be increasingly difficult as they had to race each other to the bulletin board for weekly assignments. She had triumphantly snagged the first one. Roman had then obtained the second, but only because she had let him. It had given her the chance to read a published article of his. Iris had sat hunched at her desk, reading what Roman had written about a retired baseball player—a sport Iris had never cared about but suddenly found herself ensorcelled by, all due to the poignant and witty tone of Roman’s writing. She was transfixed by his every word, feeling the stitches of the baseball in her hand, the warm summer night, the thrill of the crowd in the stadium— “See something you like?” Roman’s haughty voice broke the spell. Iris had startled, crumpling the paper in her hands. But he knew exactly what she had been reading, and he was smug about it. “Not at all,” she had said. And because she was desperate for something to distract her from her mortification, she noticed his name, printed in small black type beneath the column headline. ROMAN C. KITT “What does the C stand for?” she asked, glancing up at him. He had only lifted his cup of tea and taken a sip, refusing to reply. But he held her gaze over the chipped edge of the porcelain. “Roman Cheeky Kitt?” Iris had guessed. “Or maybe Roman Churlish Kitt?” His amusement dimmed. He didn’t like to be made fun of, and Iris’s grin broadened as she leaned back in her chair. “Or perhaps it’s Roman Cantankerous Kitt?” He had turned and left without another word, but his jaw had been clenched. Once he was gone, she had finished reading his article in peace. It made her heart ache—his writing was extraordinary—and she had dreamt about him that night. The next morning, she had promptly torn the paper to shreds and vowed to never read another one of his pieces again. If she


the Mayor under his thrall. He made him issue an inter-district curfew a few minutes ago.” That explained the frequency of the warning bells. Slowly, Io was getting a grasp of Bianca’s plan: Minos was needed to track the rogue gang’s pathway. Konstantin Fyodorov, an unregistered chernobog-born, was likely needed to keep the rogue gang trapped at the spot where Bianca intended to make her last stand. Jarl, a grace-born, had enchanted the Mayor to keep people safe in their homes today. It was a clever plan, which Io had expected from the future mob queen, but also surprisingly protective of the innocent of the Silts. “Minos, Fyodorov, Jarl,” Edei said. “Three out of four victims, here in the Silts, twelve years ago, on the last day of the Moonset Riots.” Io felt her mind spinning faster and faster. “And we know Horatio was involved in the Riots, even if just tangentially, hired by the Nine to kill the wraiths when some of them were just children. They are all involved.” Bianca Rossi and her accomplices were at the epicenter, the fabricators of this end to the great carnage. But who was the bloodthirsty rogue gang they were banding up against? In all the recollections of the Riots that Io had heard, even in the history books, the rogue gang was a mystery, faceless and nameless. Roosters’ Silence had the district in a choke hold; none of the thirty or so people here, none of the other gangs, had ever spoken of the rogue gang’s identity. Even now, twelve years later, their names remained a secret. Io could feel it in her veins: the knot of all the clues she had gathered was unspooling. She would finally know the beginning of the tale. The mob climbed a flood-escape ladder to the roofs of Chamomile Avenue, heading toward the school. In front of her, Edei was silent, lips pursed, face ashen. Thunder rumbled in quick succession, and the sky seemed to crack open like an egg, rain pouring in thick droplets. In seconds, Io’s hair was drenched, her spectacles a kaleidoscope of drops, the railing slippery beneath her fingers. They walked for a long time, passing through the various neighborhoods of the Silts. People would appear on flood-escape ladders or wait on bridges to join Bianca, knuckles and iron bars held tightly in their fists. But when they were almost at the school, Io noticed a change. The rain was coming down red as blood. Scarlet was slathered on her, her jacket, her cheeks, her fingers. “What is this?” she whispered, opening her palm to cup the red rain. Edei’s fingers reached back for her, pressing against her stomach. “Io, wait, don’t look—” His warning came too late. Io had already lifted her eyes—across a thick bridge stretched the rooftop of the school, the way paved with dead bodies. Dozens, more than she could possibly count, in various unnatural positions. One was so close Io could see the blood trickling from its unmoving lips. And there they were, on the rooftop across the


together long gone to ash, and Bran never liked to put his full weight on them. The best way was to start from the godswood, shinny up the tall sentinel, and cross over the armory and the guards hall, leaping roof to roof, barefoot so the guards wouldn't hear you overhead. That brought you up to the blind side of the First Keep, the oldest part of the castle, a squat round fortress that was taller than it looked. Only rats and spiders lived there now but the old stones still made for good climbing. You could go straight up to where the gargoyles leaned out blindly 72 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN over empty space, and swing from gargoyle to gargoyle, hand over hand, around to the north side. From there, if you really stretched, you could reach out and pull yourself over to the broken tower where it leaned close. The last part was the scramble up the blackened stones to the eyrie, no more than ten feet, and then the crows would come round to see if you'd brought any corn. Bran was moving from gargoyle to gargoyle with the ease of long practice when he heard the voices. He was so startled he almost lost his grip. The First Keep had been empty all his life. "I do not like it," a woman was saying. There was a row of windows beneath him, and the voice was drifting out of the last window on this side. "You should be the Hand." "Gods forbid," a man's voice replied lazily. "It's not an honor I'd want. There's far too much work involved." Bran hung, listening, suddenly afraid to go on. They might glimpse his feet if he tried to swing by. "Don't you see the danger this puts us in?" the woman said. "Robert loves the man like a brother." "Robert can barely stomach his brothers. Not that I blame him. Stannis would be enough to give anyone indigestion." "Don't play the fool. Stannis and Renly are one thing, and Eddard Stark is quite another. Robert will listen to Stark. Damn them both. I should have insisted that he name you, but I was certain Stark would refuse him." "We ought to count ourselves fortunate," the man said. "The king might as easily have named one of his brothers, or even Littlefinger, gods help us. Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I'll sleep more easily by night." They were talking about Father, Bran realized. He wanted to hear more. A few more feet . . . but they would see him if he swung out in front of the window. "We will have to watch him carefully," the woman said. "I would sooner watch you," the man said. He sounded bored. "Come back here." "Lord Eddard has never taken any interest in anything that happened south of the Neck," the woman said. "Never. I tell you, he means to move against us. Why else would he leave the seat of his power?" "A hundred reasons. Duty. Honor. He yearns


She doesn’t answer. I leave a message telling her if she wants my help she can have it, and here’s my daily rate. I call Athena because I want to. She doesn’t answer either. I sit until my feet stop hurting and the itch gets warm under my rib cage. Then I get my coat and go down to Gull Town, the worn-out, lower-rent business district inland and a little west of the point. It’s the place some start-ups are born, but mostly it’s where companies go to die. In a brownstone that really is brown, organic and mossy from the alpine dust, a guy called Orhan runs a business doing credit and background checks for schools that don’t want to hire someone with the wrong sort of convictions. On off days, he runs searches for people like me. Orhan’s a grinder, not an artist, but I can’t lean on Floyd Ostby all the time; he’d push back. I give Orhan two names: Mac Denton, and Roy Mullen. “What do you want, Cal? What are you looking for?” “Denton, you’re gonna find all kinds of shit on him. Bullying, light assault and some harassment. Make a list but don’t foreground it. I want to know if he’s been lucky recently. Maybe a distant relative died and he inherits twenty thousand. Like that.” “This relative attach any kind of conditions to so generous a bequest?” “Maybe to beat me down in public.” “Always nice people we deal with, Cal.” “I hear ya. The other one, Roy Mullen, he was a cop. Tread light, but I’m pretty sure he took money to drive over my witness and shoot her in the chest. She died. He got me pretty good, too.” Orhan raises bushy eyebrows. “How’d that work out for him?” “Not well. Figure you’ve got a few hours before they shut his accounts.” “You seem like you’re having a time, Cal. I’ll do you a solid and check your man Denton for outgoings in the same amount, in case he maybe sends someone to let you know he is unhappy.” “Thanks, Orhan.” He shrugs. “Got to protect my revenue streams. It’s not a favourable economy.” * * * — From Orhan’s I head north again, then take a waterbus along the shore and duck inland to Victor’s. She’s not there, which is fine, because I want to talk to Sam. “How’s your chef?” “I am not discussing that with you.” “Come on, Sam, it’s just small talk before I ask you what you really don’t want to talk about with me.” “She’s fine, Cal. She has doubts about me as a long-term partner.” “I don’t.” “Well, that’s great, let’s get hitched right away.” “Come work with me. That gets you away from Victor’s. You can bootstrap to respectable security professional.” “Yeah, sure, because just everyone thinks you’re respectable.” “Athena does and that’s all that matters.” “So I hear. Also that you keep stepping back, which I understand conceptually but for the record: you’re an idiot.” That is probably true. * * * — “Sam,


Silas questions her, making sure she won't regret losing a rich social position. Then Nancy questions her, reminding her of her family duty. But Eppie firmly replies to both that she couldn't live any other life but what she's been brought up to. Godfrey, agitated, leaves. Nancy tries to cover for his rudeness, then hurries after him. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 20 At the beginning of the previous chapter, maybe you felt sorry for Silas. At the beginning of this one, however, you might just as easily feel sorry for Godfrey and Nancy. Godfrey has been rebuffed by his only child. Nancy has no hope now of ending her childlessness. The silence between them as they arrive home seems brooding, ominous. But then they exchange a long, steady gaze that expresses more than words could ever do. What does this tell you about their marriage? Godfrey takes Nancy's hand and faces the truth decisively. Notice the imagery he uses. He rejects his own father's images, where human relations are like property--"There's debts we can't pay like money debts." Instead, he uses images of nature to talk of affection--"the trees have been growing." NOTE: TRAGIC CLIMAX In a letter about Silas Marner, Eliot remarked that "the nemesis is mild." Nemesis in Greek tragedy is the hero's punishment for his tragic mistake. Often this is severe--in Oedipus, for example, the hero is blinded and exiled. Godfrey's punishment is not severe, but, as he describes it, it's ironic: "I wanted to pass for childless once... I shall pass for childless now against my wish." Godfrey doesn't turn his back on Eppie. Considerately, he decides not to make her parentage public, because it wouldn't do anyone any good. Nevertheless, he intends to go on helping her, playing the role he's always played in her life. Nancy urges him not to tell anyone, even her father and sister, about his secret. Some readers think she's being practical here; others think she's trying to save her own reputation. Godfrey, however, says he'll put the truth in his will--he's given up hiding his secrets. Like any old married couple, Godfrey and Nancy rehash between them the recent events. Godfrey remarks that Eppie dislikes him, but he accepts this as his fitting punishment. What's more important, he realizes that he still has Nancy--and that's enough. He seems purified of his restless, regretful feelings, ready to be content with his wife and home as they are. All in all, do you think this is a tragic ending to this plot? Why? ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 21 Now that the climax of the story has been passed, Eliot resolves the one cloud still hanging over Silas--his early experience in Lantern-Yard. Silas decides to take Eppie to visit his old home. Buoyed by his new perspective on life, he's ready to face the past. Eppie's hopes are simpler--like most country people, she doesn't travel much, and this is an adventure. When Silas and Eppie arrive in the town, however, it's an alien place. You see it through two perspectives, Silas' inner reaction and


looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, `It was the BEST butter, you know.' Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. `What a funny watch!' she remarked. `It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!' `Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. `Does YOUR watch tell you what year it is?' `Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: `but that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together.' `Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter. Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. `I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she could. `The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose. The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, `Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.' `Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. `No, I give it up,' Alice replied: `what's the answer?' `I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter. `Nor I,' said the March Hare. Alice sighed wearily. `I think you might do something better with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.' `If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you wouldn't talk about wasting IT. It's HIM.' `I don't know what you mean,' said Alice. `Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!' `Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: `but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.' `Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. `He won't stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!' (`I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) `That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully: `but then--I shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.' `Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter: `but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.' `Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice asked. The Hatter shook his head mournfully. `Not I!' he replied. `We quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--' (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) `--it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!" You know the song, perhaps?' `I've heard something like it,' said Alice. `It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, `in this way:-- "Up above the


No one came to talk to her, and one by one the group dwindled away till she was left alone. She could not roam about and amuse herself, for the burned breadth would show, so she stared at people rather forlornly till the dancing began. Meg was asked at once, and the tight slippers tripped about so briskly that none would have guessed the pain their wearer suffered smilingly. Jo saw a big red headed youth approaching her corner, and fearing he meant to engage her, she slipped into a curtained recess, intending to peep and enjoy herself in peace. Unfortunately, another bashful person had chosen the same refuge, for, as the curtain fell behind her, she found herself face to face with the `Laurence boy'. "Dear me, I didn't know anyone was here!" stammered Jo, preparing to back out as speedily as she had bounced in. But the boy laughed and said pleasantly, though he looked a little startled, "Don't mind me, stay if you like." "Shan't I disturb you?" "Not a bit. I only came here because I don't know many people and felt rather strange at first, you know." "So did I. Don't go away, please, unless you'd rather." The boy sat down again and looked at his pumps, till Jo said, trying to be polite and easy, "I think I've had the pleasure of seeing you before. You live near us, don't you?" "Next door." And he looked up and laughed outright, for Jo's prim manner was rather funny when he remembered how they had chatted about cricket when he brought the cat home. That put Jo at her ease and she laughed too, as she said, in her heartiest way, "We did have such a good time over your nice Christmas present." "Grandpa sent it." "But you put it into his head, didn't you, now?" "How is your cat, Miss March?" asked the boy, trying to look sober while his black eyes shone with fun. "Nicely, thank you, Mr. Laurence. But I am not Miss March, I'm only Jo," returned the young lady. "I'm not Mr. Laurence, I'm only Laurie." "Laurie Laurence, what an odd name." "My first name is Theodore, but I don't like it, for the fellows called me Dora, so I made the say Laurie instead." "I hate my name, too, so sentimental! I wish every one would say Jo instead of Josephine. How did you make the boys stop calling you Dora?" "I thrashed `em." "I can't thrash Aunt March, so I suppose I shall have to bear it." And Jo resigned herself with a sigh. "Don't you like to dance, Miss Jo?" asked Laurie, looking as if he thought the name suited her. "I like it well enough if there is plenty of room, and everyone is lively. In a place like this I'm sure to upset something, tread on people's toes, or do something dreadful, so I keep out of mischief and let Meg sail about. Don't you dance?" "Sometimes. You see I've been abroad a good many years, and haven't


a wide-eyed look of surprise. “That wouldn’t be very sporting. I like to think that I’ve always been a good friend to you. Why else would I have volunteered to write the foreword to your encyclopaedia?” I was going to club him over the head with my encyclopaedia when it came out. Was it really necessary for him to always be reminding me that I needed him? “As a matter of fact, my findings are quite advanced,” I said. “So you may discover that whatever research you undertake here only serves to back up my conclusions.” “Indeed?” To my chagrin, he looked excited rather than resentful, and I realized that he truly did see us as colleagues rather than competitors. The problem with Bambleby, I’ve always found, is that he manages to inspire a strong inclination towards dislike without the satisfaction of empirical evidence to buttress the sentiment. “Will you show me the data you’ve collected thus far?” His eagerness was interrupted by a yawn. “Tomorrow, perhaps?” I tapped the rim of my mug, watching him. “What form do you anticipate this assistance taking, precisely?” He gave me a different sort of smile, and I felt a chill creep down my back. There is something that Bambleby does which would be noticeable only to those who spend a great deal of time around the Folk. It is the way in which his emotions seem to slide through him like water, one giving way to another as abruptly as waves on the shore. This changeability would seem disconcerting or false on a human face, but it is just the way the Folk are made. He leaned forward. “Are you familiar with the International Conference of Dryadology and Experimental Folklore?” His voice had a teasing edge, for of course I was familiar. ICODEF is the most prestigious conference in our field, held annually in Paris, to which I had not once been invited. Bambleby went every year, damn him. “I’m a featured speaker this year,” he said. “There is a particular sponsor attending whom I wish to impress. Very deep pockets. It could mean funding for not one but several research expeditions I have been putting off for lack of resources. Few things would be more impressive than a paper presenting even preliminary findings of a heretofore unknown Folk. As you say, these Hidden Ones are regarded with scepticism by even the most open-minded of scholars. But, as I’ve always argued, the fact that the Folk are absent in other regions of Arctic and sub-Arctic Europe cannot be taken as evidence of their absence in every winter country.” I narrowed my eyes. “I’ve not been invited to ICODEF this year. Will you credit me in a footnote?” “We will present our findings together. I will impress my sponsor. You will make a name for yourself and set the scientific community clamouring for your book, which I understand is out next year.” He sank back into his slouch, looking merry, utterly convinced that I would be delighted. I kept my expression bland, to deny him


Jorgensen will have a stroke if you even suggest printing the names of the cops, even without any insinuation that they were at fault.” “I know.” Nick throws his pen onto the desk. That evening, they filed a depressingly basic article stating the bare facts and repeating the police commissioner’s promises to get to the bottom of the missing evidence. “What kind of bullshit is it that they put this statement out at five on a Friday afternoon?” He gets to his feet and begins pacing. The newsroom is relatively quiet, only a handful of reporters on the night desk. Without the usual steady thrum of voices shouting into telephones and the clatter of typewriter keys, it seems deserted, eerily silent. Someone has turned off a few of the overhead fluorescent lights. He can hear the hum of a vacuum cleaner somewhere else on the floor. Nick knows that getting the NYPD’s hackles up is playing with fire. He already worries that any man he talks to is a plainclothes officer waiting for the right moment to arrest him—something that happens to queer men every goddamn day in this city. Nick would be done—fired from the Chronicle, exposed to his family, thirty days in jail. He doesn’t need to paint a target on his back by pissing off the force as a whole. The thing is that Nick hates the cops and he’ll happily play with fire if that’s what it takes to chase down a good lead. If Nick gets burned, it’s not like it’ll matter to anyone but himself. “Twenty cops were working in the office that day,” Nick says. “Twenty cops were working when the items were discovered to be missing,” Andy corrects, because he’s doggedly accurate about news for someone who, at any given moment, has about a fifty percent chance of being able to accurately tell you the date. Nick supposes it’s because he was basically raised in newsrooms, but maybe it’s in his blood. Now when they go out to cover a story together, Nick isn’t babysitting Andy. Andy’s pulling his weight and then some. Other reporters have started to refer to them as a single unit—NickandAndy or RussoandFleming—and Nick has to fight not to smile whenever he hears it. He has to remind himself that this is temporary, that soon Andy is either going upstairs to do whatever publishers do, or he’s going to leave to work somewhere else. He’s not spending the rest of his life covering minor police corruption stories with Nick, and the fact that Nick has any feelings about that whatsoever is a problem. “Right,” Nick agrees. “So we need to know the last time anyone noticed envelopes and guns in the safe, and also who was assigned to the office since then. Who gets assigned to the Property Clerk’s Office, anyway? What did they say?” Andy flips through their notes. “‘Officers assigned to light duty,’” he reads. “Okay. The first thing I want to know is whether that’s a fairy tale. Are these cops really too sick or injured for


it open. Kúnlé. She flipped the phone shut and slid it into the back pocket of her jeans, where it began to vibrate again as she pulled out the next case file. Pancreatectomy—knocked out since noon, he might wake up any moment now and spend the rest of the night wide-eyed. But at least—thanks to the small mercies of morphine—he would not be in pain. His was the first pancreatectomy Wúràọlá had scrubbed in for since she started the surgical rotation. On the night before the surgery, she’d fallen asleep shortly before dawn with her head nestled between the pages of Clinical Pancreatology for Practising Gastroenterologists and Surgeons. In the end, she wasn’t even allowed to touch the surgical tray during the procedure. There had been no electricity in the hospital for over a month, but that in itself was no longer unusual enough to be remarkable. The real problem was a fuel crisis that had lasted for a week because tanker drivers, rig workers, someone or the other was on strike. Wúràọlá was often too tired to go beyond the headlines, but what she could surmise was that some union was on strike, there was a fuel crisis as a result and the hospital’s powerhouse was running out of diesel for the generator. A memo announcing yet another power-sharing formula was slid into pigeonholes and stuck with colourful thumbtacks to noticeboards after the strike began. If the intensive care unit and Hurford Ward were to be powered nonstop, other wards and theatres would be powered only when there was a procedure that necessitated the use of electricity. And so, during the surgery, consultants did everything without teaching as they went along. They did not even ask any of the resident doctors to assist. It seemed as though the two surgeons had concluded that losing an extra second to a resident’s slower incision or a house officer’s inexperienced suturing could rob a neonate of the electricity needed to power its ventilator if the fuel scarcity persisted. When Wúràọlá was assigned to lead nurses as they wheeled the patient through the hospital’s darkened corridors after the surgery, she’d burst into giggles as she stepped out of the theatre. Six years of training, and the only skill that had been required of her in a twelve-hour-long surgery was her ability to hold up her phone so its torchlight would guide nurses? The surgery had gone well. But the medical team already knew that the procedure would not save his life. Extend it? Yes, by a few weeks or months if he was lucky. Was it luck, though, if his final days were spent in pain or an opioid daze? Wúràọlá was not sure. The patient’s brother came in every night to pray for him. He had told Wúràọlá more than once that the surgeons were wrong, the few months they’d predicted would stretch into years and then decades because the patient was destined, after this momentary travail, to enjoy that rare and beautiful miracle: a long and happy life. He had spoken with such


taken her in. Tunuva wanted to comfort her, but it would have to wait. Better that she faced her punishment first. And there would be a punishment. The loss of an ichneumon was an unspeakable thing. The Bridal Chamber was dark, save two candles and a low-burning fire. It was rare for Esbar to light one in winter. Now she sat at her table with the flames at her back, studying a stone fragment. Tunuva drank her in. She wanted to see her like this now, at rest, in the stillness, before her cruel tidings shattered the peace. Esbar looked up, and breathed out. ‘Tuva,’ she said. ‘Hello, lover.’ Her face softened. It hardened again when Siyu stepped into the chamber. ‘So,’ she said, putting down the fragment, ‘you have deigned to return to our ranks, Siyu.’ Siyu kept hold of her composure. ‘Tuva found me in Carmentum and asked me to come back. She said the Priory needed all the help it could muster, and I saw that it was true.’ ‘You both smell of smoke. Why?’ ‘Because as we speak, Carmentum is burning,’ Tunuva said. ‘Burning with wyrmfire.’ Esbar rose from her seat. Tunuva watched an archive of emotions flit across her face. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she said. ‘Tell me all of it.’ Tunuva did, from the beginning. She described the Prince of Beasts, the battle in the Liongarden. ‘You brought that family to the hunters’ attention,’ Esbar said coolly to Siyu. ‘Not only that, but you allowed your ichneumon to be captured for blood sport. Have you tended her wounds?’ Siyu shrank a little. ‘On our way out of the city,’ Tunuva said, ‘a wyrm of unspeakable strength followed us. Ninuru and Lalhar fought it to protect us both. It overpowered Lalhar.’ Esbar stared at her birthdaughter. Jeda rose from her mat by the bed, ears pricked. ‘Siyu,’ Esbar forced out. ‘Is Lalhar dead?’ ‘I’m sorry,’ Siyu whispered. Her eyes shone with unshed tears. ‘I didn’t know there were people like that, who would hurt an ichneumon. I didn’t know the wyrms would come.’ ‘You would have known,’ Esbar erupted, ‘if you had been with your family when I addressed them!’ Siyu cringed from her anger. ‘You would have known there were rocks hatching across the South, and that leaving without your sisters was dangerous. Perhaps then you would not have towed a baby or your poor ichneumon with you. Or perhaps you still would have.’ ‘No,’ Siyu said, her voice shaking. ‘Esbar, if I’d known, I would never have taken—’ ‘You used your ichneumon as a beast of burden, to indulge your absurd fantasy,’ Esbar said hotly. ‘Lalhar had no choice but to follow you. Her devotion to you was absolute, and you had a duty to treat her with the respect she deserved in return. You have disgraced the line of Siyāti. You endangered Lukiri, you may have killed Anyso’s family—’ ‘You killed him,’ Siyu screamed at her. Tunuva stiffened. ‘Tuva says you didn’t, but who hated him as much as you?’ ‘I didn’t hate him,


inside of Hope’s End is nicer than the outside, but only slightly. Just beyond the door is a grand foyer with marble tile, velvet drapes at the windows, and tapestries on the walls. The furnishings range from potted palms to fancy wooden chairs with dusty cushions under brocade pillows. Overhead, an oil-painted sky full of puffy-pink clouds adorns the arched ceiling. It all looks simultaneously fancy and shabby and stopped in time. Like the lobby of a four-star hotel that had been suddenly abandoned decades ago. To the left, a long hallway runs past tall windows and a single open doorway, on its way to a set of wide double doors that are currently closed. It then takes a sharp right, disappearing around a corner. On the right is another hallway, offering a straight shot to a sun-drenched room. My attention, though, is mostly focused on what’s in front of me. A red-carpeted staircase directly across from the front door that rises a dozen steps before splitting in two like a pair of wings. Each symmetrical half then curves upward to the second floor. A stained-glass window looms over the center landing, through which slant streaks of sunlight in rainbowed hues that color the carpet. “The Grand Stairs,” Mrs. Baker says. “Built with the house in 1913. Very little about the place has changed since then. Mr. Hope made sure to choose a design that was timeless.” She keeps moving, her heels clicking like a metronome on the marble tile. I trail after her, tripped up slightly by the floor. It’s uneven in spots, swelling and ebbing like the ocean outside. “You can collect your belongings later,” Mrs. Baker says. “I thought it would be nice to chat in the sunroom first. It’s a cheerful little room.” I’ll believe it when I see it. So far, nothing about Hope’s End suggests cheerfulness, even the few pretty bits. Gloom and doom seem to have taken up residence in the corners, gathered there like cobwebs. There’s also a chill to the air—a salt-tinged, intangible something that makes me shiver. I know it’s just my imagination. Three people died here. Horrifically, if legend is to be believed. Knowledge like that can mess with your brain. As if to illustrate that point, we pass a framed oil painting that depicts a teenage girl in a pink satin gown. “Miss Hope,” Mrs. Baker says, not bothering to glance at the portrait as she trots by. “Commissioned by her father to mark her birthday.” Unlike Mrs. Baker, I’m stopped cold by the portrait. In it, Lenora is seated on a white divan, with pink-striped wallpaper behind her and, just over her shoulder, a sliver of mirror in a gilt frame. Lenora leans somewhat awkwardly against the armrest of the divan. Her hands rest on her lap, fingers intertwined, suggesting a tension the painter tried hard to disguise with a too-casual pose. Her pale skin and delicate features make me think of a flower just before it blooms. Young Lenora had a pert nose, ripe lips, and green eyes


to the triage nurse who, without looking up from her computer screen, asked me to please describe my symptoms. “Well, ma’am (HEE HAW), I am having (HEE HAW) a pretty bad (HEE HAW) allergic reaction to something (HEE HAW), I think?” She finally looked up, eyes widening as she asked me to move my mask away from my face and when I did, she flew back in her chair like she’d just seen Ghostface and his butcher knife. “Ashley!!!!” the triage nurse screamed over her shoulder. “Get triage one ready!” I closed my eyes because I felt woozy and fanned the stale air around me because I was still so fucking hot, and the nurse came running around the desk like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, you don’t get to faint!” and hustled me back to the triage room so they could get my vitals. I slumped in the chair, my breath sounding like a tin can full of glass shards rolling down a mountain made of ball bearings, as Ashley appeared and clamped an oxygen monitor onto my finger. “I think (HEE HAW) it feels like (HEE HAW) strep?” I said as that sharp, tacky streptococcus feeling suddenly crept up my esophagus and into my throat. I reached up and touched my burning-hot neck, filling with the overflow lava from my pulsating blood-head, with fingers, I hadn’t noticed until that very moment, that had swelled up like balloon animals. Ashley looked away from the monitors and down at me and said, “Ahh, fuck this,” and left the room, returning seconds later with a wheelchair. “Prep Trauma A!” she shouted into the little walkie-talkie affixed to her collar while patting the wheelchair seat. I stood up and said whatever “No worries, I can walk!” sounds like when your tongue is the size and thickness of a pack of wool socks and you are steadily losing oxygen. Imagine being such a fucking sicko that even though your eyes are two bruised fists, and your mouth has tripled in size, you’re worried about imposing on the woman trying to save your life. “In situations like this,” she said gravely, “it is against hospital policy to let you walk anywhere. You gotta sit.” So I sat in the wheelchair, and Ashley took off running. I’ve been in the hospital a whole lot of times, and I gotta tell ya: I never had better, faster service than this, including the time I walked into an ER and projectile-vomited all over the intake lady. This whole part of the story, save my idiotic waiting around, took three, maybe four minutes! At the end of an impossibly long hallway, Ashley turned the corner into a shockingly bright room: three surgical lights were mounted above a table with oxygen tanks and a crash cart pushed next to it, plus six people in the middle of doing…I don’t know what, but they all seemed very busy. I’m a loser, so my first thought was “Wow, all this for me?!” and when I stood up to get on the table, I was sheepishly