I want to handle this. There’s the honest route, which is to explain to them the details of the controversy, tell them the same thing I told my editors, and let them make up their own minds. It’ll be an object lesson in the social economy of publishing, in how social media distorts and inflames the truth. Maybe they’ll walk away with more respect for me. Or I could make them regret this. “Skylar?” My voice sounds more like a bark than I intended. Skylar flinches like she’s been shot. “It’s your story we’re critiquing today, isn’t it?” “I—uh, yeah.” “So where are your printouts?” Skylar blinks. “I mean, I emailed it to everyone.” I requested in the workshop guidelines that the subject of critique bring printed copies of their story to class. We’ve been using laptops since last year, though, and I know it’s unfair to rip Skylar for it, but it’s the first knock I can think of. “I made my expectations very clear in the handouts. Perhaps you don’t think the rules apply to you, Skylar, but that attitude won’t get you very far in publishing. Keep thinking you’re the exception, and you’ll end up like one of those creeps who corner editors in bathrooms and slide manuscripts under doors into hotel rooms because they don’t think the industry guidelines apply.” This wins me a couple of snickers. Skylar’s face goes white as paper. “Are you going to corner editors in bathrooms, Skylar?” “No,” she drawls, rolling her eyes. She’s trying to play it cool, but I can hear her voice quiver. “Obviously not.” “Good. So print your manuscript next time. That goes for all of you.” I take a long, satisfying sip of my Very Berry Hibiscus Refresher. My knees are still trembling, but this verbal putdown gives me a rush of hot, spiteful confidence. “Well, let’s get to it. Rexy, what did you think of Skylar’s story?” Rexy swallows. “I, uh, liked it.” “On what grounds?” “Well, it’s interesting.” “‘Interesting’ is a word people use when they can’t think of anything better to say. Be specific, Rexy.” That sets the tone for the rest of the morning. I used to think that mean teachers were a special kind of monster, but it turns out that cruelty comes naturally. Also, it’s fun. Teenagers, after all, are unformed identities with undeveloped brains. No matter how clever they are, they still don’t know much about anything, and it’s easy to embarrass them for their ill-prepared remarks. Skylar gets the worst of it. Technically her story—a whodunnit set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, in which none of the witnesses will cooperate with the police because they have their own secrets and community codes of honor—is not bad. The writing is strong, the conceit is interesting, and there’s even a clever twist at the end that makes you reevaluate every previous word uttered by the characters. It’s very impressive for a high schooler. Still, her inexperience shows. Skylar’s exposition is clumsy in parts, she makes use of quite a few contrived coincidences to


too have been over your room with a toothcomb. It isn't there.' Bond grinned. 'It is,' he said, 'more or less. On the door of each room there is a small square of black plastic with the number of the room on it. On the corridor side, of course. When Leiter left me that night, I simply opened the door and unscrewed my number plate and put the folded cheque underneath it and screwed the plate back. It'll still be there.' He smiled. 'I'm glad there's something the stupid English can teach the clever French.' Mathis laughed delightedly. 'I suppose you think that's paid me back for knowing what the Muntzes were up to. Well, I'll call it quits. Incidentally, we've got them in the bag. They were just some minor fry hired for the occasion. We'll see they get a few years.' He rose hastily as the doctor stormed into the room and took one look at Bond. 'Out,' he said to Mathis. 'Out and don't come back.' Mathis just had time to wave cheerfully to Bond and call some hasty words of farewell before he was hustled through the door. Bond heard a torrent of heated French diminishing; down the corridor. He lay back exhausted, but heartened by all he had heard. He found himself thinking of Vesper as he quickly drifted off into a troubled sleep. There were still questions to be answered, but they could wait. CHAPTER 20 - THE NATURE OF EVIL Bond made good progress. When Mathis came to see him three days later he was propped up in bed and his arms were free. The lower half of his body was still shrouded in the oblong tent, but he looked cheerful and it was only occasionally that a twinge of pain narrowed his eyes. Mathis looked crestfallen. 'Here's your cheque,' he said to Bond. 'I've rather enjoyed walking around with forty million francs in my pocket, but I suppose you'd better sign it and I'll put it to your account with the Crdit Lyonnais. There's no sign of our friend from SMERSH. Not a damn trace. He must have got to the villa on foot or on a bicycle because you heard nothing of his arrival and the two gunmen obviously didn't. It's pretty exasperating. We've got precious little on this SMERSH organization and neither has London. Washington said they had, but it turned out to be the usual waffle from refugee interrogation, and you know that's about as much good as interrogating an English man-in-the street about his own Secret Service, or a Frenchman about the Deuxime.' 'He probably came from Leningrad to Berlin via Warsaw,' said Bond. 'From Berlin they've got plenty of routes open to the rest of Europe. He's back home by now being told off for not shooting me too. I fancy they've got quite a file on me in view of one or two of the jobs M's given me since the war. He obviously thought he was being smart enough cutting his initial in my hand.' 'What's that?'


from him slightly. “They’re comforting, and they’re fun, and they’re absurdly addictive. You always know the villain’s going to get caught in the end. But you know. I mostly just read them now.” “Why’d you stop writing?” he asks. “Fiction, I mean.” A deep breath—because I had a feeling this was coming. “I haven’t stopped, exactly. I’m just on a very long break.” I knot my fingers together, play with the bedspread, fluff my pillow. All while he waits for me to continue. “It’s the same old story, the same reason most people stop doing something they love—it wasn’t practical. Trying to get published would have meant leaving so much up to chance. It made better sense as a hobby, but once I decided to focus on journalism . . . that hobby sort of faded away.” I shake my head, because I let it go a long time ago. “But that was okay. Because I could do what I loved and still get a steady paycheck.” Except the paychecks are rarely steady, and I’ve been stuck telling other people’s stories instead of my own for so long. “Besides,” I continue. “I feel like I know too much about publishing at this point, and it’s all about living at least a year in the future. You’re always looking at the endgame and not the process. It can be easy to forget to enjoy writing.” As I say it, I realize it’s true. That it used to be a passion, but now it’s simply a job. His face falls. “You’re not enjoying this?” “No, no, no,” I rush to say. “This is actually the first time I’ve enjoyed it in a couple years.” When his features soften, that concerning feeling from our night with the vibrator comes back, full force. The way he tucked a finger beneath my chin and kissed me so gently—in that moment, it was almost too easy to forget that what we’re doing isn’t real. “I can honestly say,” he starts, placing his bowl of soup on the nightstand and fidgeting with the sheets, “that this is the most fun I’ve had on tour in a while.” “I’m guessing that might have something to do with what’s been happening in our hotel rooms?” Finn laughs, this open, brassy sound that I’ve come to learn is his true laugh. Not the one he reserves for panels, the one with slightly sharper edges. This one is smoother. Softer. “Sure, I won’t discount that. But I might have been talking about myself when I was saying that I haven’t gotten out much lately. It’s usually me and the hotel and maybe some room service, if I’m feeling adventurous.” His eyes have started drooping, his words coming out more slurred. The medication is doing its job. “That’s the way it is,” he says with an uncoordinated flick of his hand. “And I know this book might come out and nothing will change, but . . .” “It will,” I say firmly, believing not just in the quality of my writing but in the


held his head high as if he felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a wonderful look in them. The light shone on him through the tree canopy. "Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary, as if we were dervishes?" "I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff. "I've got th' rheumatics." "The Magic will take them away," said Colin in a High Priest tone, "but we won't sway until it has done it. We will only chant." "I canna' do no chantin'" said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily. "They turned me out o' th' church choir th' only time I ever tried it." No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin's face was not even crossed by a shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic. "Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy spirit. "The sun is shining--the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The flowers are growing--the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic--being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me--the Magic is in me. It is in me--it is in me. It's in every one of us. It's in Ben Weatherstaff's back. Magic! Magic! Come and help!" He said it a great many times--not a thousand times but quite a goodly number. Mary listened entranced. She felt as if it were at once queer and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began to feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. The humming of the bees in the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb's back. Soot had pushed away a squirrel and huddled close to him on his shoulder, the gray film dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped. "Now I am going to walk round the garden," he announced. Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with a jerk. "You have been asleep," said Colin. "Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enow--but I'm bound to get out afore th' collection." He was not quite awake yet. "You're not in church," said Colin. "Not me," said Ben, straightening himself. "Who said I were? I heard every bit of it. You said th' Magic was in my back. Th' doctor calls it rheumatics." The Rajah waved his hand. "That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You will get better. You have my permission to go to your work. But come back tomorrow." "I'd like to see thee walk round the garden," grunted Ben. It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt. In fact, being a stubborn old party and not having entire faith in Magic he had made up his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look over


beaker, or else leave an inevitable and weary languor, after the lees of bitterness wherewith she had been drugged, as with a cordial of intensest potency. Pearl was decked out with airy gaiety. It would have been impossible to guess that this bright and sunny apparition owed its existence to the shape of gloomy gray; or that a fancy, at once so gorgeous and so delicate as must have been requisite to contrive the child's apparel, was the same that had achieved a task perhaps more difficult, in imparting so distinct a peculiarity to Hester's simple robe. The dress, so proper was it to little Pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable development and outward manifestation of her character, no more to Thesaurus aloes: (n) physic, aloe; (adj) gall and unfriendly, stern, cold, cool, feebleness; (n) lethargy, fatigue, wormwood, quassia, rue. disagreeable, aloof, reserved, distant, infirmity, lassitude, weakness, apparition: (n) ghost, phantom, spirit, rude, uncordial, unpleasant. indifference, ennui; (adj) atony. spectre, hallucination, spook, shade, drugged: (adj) stoned, drowsy, ANTONYM: (n) energy. eidolon, wraith, advent; (n, v) vision. narcotised, comatose, drunk, high, lees: (adj, n) grounds; (n) sediment, beaker: (n) goblet, bail, bowl, canakin, chloroformed, narcotized, stupefied. deposit, residue, ground, lee, dreg, Billy, chalice, tumbler, cup, glass, ANTONYMS: (adj) clean, straight. feculence, bottom, silt, feces. container, jar. flavoured: (adj) seasoned, spiced, quench: (adj, v) extinguish, allay, cordial: (adj) genial, warm, affable, spicy, tasteful, flavorful. slake; (v) appease, quash, put out, amiable, friendly, genuine, ardent, henceforth: (adv) hence, in future, destroy, assuage, annihilate, calm, unaffected, gracious, honest; (n) after this; (adj) following. chill. ANTONYMS: (v) stimulate, liqueur. ANTONYMS: (adj) languor: (adj, n) inactivity, inertia, light. Nathaniel Hawthorne 221 be separated from her than the many-hued brilliancy from a butterfly's wing, or the painted glory from the leaf of a bright flower. As with these, so with the child; her garb was all of one idea with her nature. On this eventful day, moreover, there was a certain singular inquietude and excitement in her mood, resembling nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that sparkles and flashes with the varied throbbings of the breast on which it is displayed. Children have always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them: always, especially, a sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circumstances; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of Hester's brow.% This effervescence made her flit with a bird-like movement, rather than walk by her mother's side. She broke continually into shouts of a wild, inarticulate, and sometimes piercing music. When they reached the market-place, she became still more restless, on perceiving the stir and bustle that enlivened the spot; for it was usually more like the broad and lonesome green before a village meeting-house, than the centre of a town's business "Why, what is this, mother?" cried she. "Wherefore have all the people left their work to-day? Is it a play-day for the


the ones who liked to lick the mirror occasionally. Miss Beaumont sat behind her desk, her forehead wrinkled. When Miss Stanwich was in charge, the office was a welcoming place, smelling of crushed rosin and coffee. Miss Beaumont had replaced the scratched-up oak desk with a stark, modern one, and now the small room reeked of cigarette smoke. She began speaking before Marion had even sat down. “I’m getting more complaints, Marion. You’re not giving the young ones enough structure. You know what I’m saying, right? We’ve had this conversation before.” “The freestyle was only for a few minutes of class. It helps them shake off the fidgets and get back on track.” She was about to add that Miss Stanwich used to encourage a sense of play during class but thought better of it. Miss Beaumont had little patience for what she considered the lax methods of the previous owner. “They’re sent here to learn discipline and grace,” said Miss Beaumont. “They can run about like hooligans at home; that’s not why they come to my dance studio.” “I’ll stick with the standard program from now on,” conceded Marion. “You said that last time. You seem to have a hard time obeying the rules.” “Sorry. I promise. No more freestyle.” Miss Beaumont let out a dramatic sigh. “No. I can’t do this anymore. It’s not working out, I’m afraid.” She paused. “I’m sorry, what?” Marion’s heart raced. There was a finality to Miss Beaumont’s tone that frightened her. Not working out? “There are a number of teachers with storied professional careers in the dance world who are eager to join our faculty, and I’ve been putting off the inevitable out of respect for your long association with Miss Stanwich. But enough’s enough. Your services are no longer needed here at Broadway Ballet and Dance Studio.” She picked up the cigarette that was smoldering in the ashtray and took a long drag, aiming her exhale at the open window. “Effective immediately.” * * * “What are you doing home so early?” Marion’s sister, Judy, sat at the antique rolltop desk in the living room of the house in Bronxville, paying bills, and from the sour look on her face, she wasn’t pleased at the interruption. Marion dumped her dance bag on the floor and plopped on the couch, legs wide, arms flung out. Judy was the last person she wanted to share her day with. Yet that hadn’t always been the case. When Marion was a little girl, Judy had been her entire world. It was Judy’s idea to put on a variety show for the neighbors and charge admission. She rode her bike around, pasting flyers up on the telephone poles, cut out paper tickets, and collected the coins in a coffee can. Marion happily danced about the stage in her leotard and tights for a good fifteen minutes before an older boy who juggled shoved her off. At the end of the show, the parents in attendance praised Marion for her lovely performance while Judy sat counting their riches at


against the leader of ISIS, Stephen Miller reportedly proposed beheading the militant, dipping his head in pig’s blood as an affront to Muslims, and parading it around as a warning. Esper says he had to tell the Trump aide that such an action would be a war crime. (Miller denied that the episode occurred.) The no-holds-barred attitude applied to the border more than anything. Aides would go to whatever lengths were necessary to fulfill Trump’s pledge to secure the territorial line with Mexico. That included a willingness to explore lethal drone strikes against innocent civilians. The border symbolizes the wider aims of the MAGA movement. In order to make America great again, adherents believe Washington must curb the influx of foreigners who are ruining America. Everything MAGA leaders reject about the existing order—the “globalist” promotion of free trade, the “establishment” story of America as a nation of immigrants, the “woke elites” whose internationalist views are destroying Western culture—is embodied by the situation at the border. Politics aside, the crisis is real. The United States is unable to control the flow of people and contraband across its territory, which has reached unprecedented levels. Drugs and dangerous individuals infiltrate America easily because of inadequate security, creating a volatile situation for border communities and the wider country. But the situation is also unfair to migrants seeking a better life. America’s porous border has incentivized a spike in human trafficking, cartel activity, and violence, which makes the journey dangerous for these would-be Americans. When they arrive, a broken immigration system forces them into years of uncertainty in the shadows before they’re given a final answer about whether or not they can stay here. Polls show a majority of Americans support tougher border security and immigration reform. Whether it’s a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants living in the United States or a faster process for aspiring Americans to become citizens, the solution is uncomplicated in theory. In practice, political polarization has put a legislative solution well out of reach for every recent U.S. president who tried. Donald Trump saw only one side of this equation: security. To him, this was the primary mission of DHS—deporting undocumented immigrants, punishing those who made it to the border, and making it harder for any others to follow their path. Everything else was secondary or irrelevant. He conveyed this to DHS leaders in some form or fashion weekly. Kristen Marquardt, who served as a Trump-appointed counterterrorism leader at DHS, compared the president’s obsession with the border to the strong desert winds she experienced as a CIA officer overseas. “You know those ‘shamals’ in the Middle East—those sandstorms that block out the sun? That’s what immigration did to the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration,” she explained. “There was no light, no air, no room for anything else.” Another far-right president would create the same environment, with potentially dire consequences. I raised the possibility with an advisor who was appointed by Trump to manage national security programs. She saw what happened to DHS under her former boss. “If MAGA


through the last few years. Not that I’m surprised. That’s always been you, Rich. Making the best out of a bad situation. Finding the good in the bad. I wish I could be more like that.” As he reached across me to put a bunch of wrapped cutlery in the gray tub housing finished sets, his arm grazed mine, and I tried to ignore the shot of electricity that ran through me. “So,” I said casually, “are you dating anyone?” “Well, I know this might come as a shock, but dating in my line of work is a little tricky. I’d never date anyone on staff and it’s kind of hard to be like, ‘Hey, I know this is going great, but for the next ten weeks, I’m basically going to disappear. In fact, not only will I not see you, but you likely won’t hear from me for days at a time.’ ” We both laughed. “Yes, but you can make up for it the other seasons.” “Maybe. But so far, that hasn’t been a compelling argument. At least, not compelling enough to make anyone stay.” I ventured a glance at him, wondering how that could possibly be true. “I don’t know how June does it, staying here all year long, alone for months at a time.” Rich shook his head. “Me neither. I always come visit her when I’m down, but besides a few work weekends and a weekly check-in, I’m not here if it isn’t April to September. It gets cold on this river. And dark. And terribly lonely. And she’s by herself in that tiny cabin…” A chill ran up my spine. I often thought of June here, alone, and wondered why she stayed year-round. After all the loss and heartache she had endured, maybe the solitude soothed her soul. Or, maybe, after months of being on every minute of the day, she needed to recharge her batteries and get ready to be everything to everyone again. Although, I had to admit, being here alone in the winter with only Rich checking on you didn’t sound so bad… Stop it, I scolded myself. I was only feeling this way because I was mad at Bryce—again. Should one be this mad at her fiancé before they were even married? I mean, I knew every couple had their ups and downs, but lately it felt like more than that. It almost felt like for all these months he had been playing a part and now, finally, he had taken off the mask. But was this who he really was? Or was the sweet, doting Bryce his true self, and the stress of a big life transition was just getting in the way of that? Or maybe he was a little bit of both. I had always been willing to take the good with the bad, but this bad felt different. The voice in the back of my mind told me he was hiding something. And that was a feeling I didn’t like at all. As if reading my thoughts, Rich


right the ship of her broken marriage. But it was a start. Chapter 7 Ethan waits until he hears the shower turn on in their master bathroom to sneak into the garage and check the GPS in Sloane’s Porsche. He heard her come home last night not long after he went to bed. It was nearly midnight when he checked the clock. Much too late for her to have come straight home after the award gala. He tossed and turned all night, at one point nearly marching into their bedroom demanding to know who she’d been with after the ceremony. He was already awake that morning when her alarm went off across the hall, and it dawned on him that he could check her navigation history. When he gets downstairs, he spots her purse on the kitchen counter. It takes him only a few seconds to find her key fob tucked inside the side pouch. Before opening the door to the garage, he pauses to make sure he can still hear water running upstairs. He climbs in sideways when he gets to her Porsche, not wanting to adjust the seat. He turns on the car and drums his fingers against the wheel as he waits for her navigation screen to load. The map appears, and it takes him longer than he anticipated to find the most recent destination. When the waterfront Medina address pops up, Ethan stares at the screen. Her time at the location was less than an hour. Medina was one of the most expensive zip codes in the country, and properties on the lake were worth upward of ten million dollars. He takes a photo of the address with his phone before turning off her car and going back inside. The upstairs shower is still running. He drops her key fob into her purse and turns on the coffee pot, starting to feel relieved. Maybe he was wrong to think she’d sleep with someone else after he blew off her award dinner. A home like that had to belong to some major hospital donor. Maybe they had an after-party. Sloane was too ambitious not to attend, at least for a little while. Rain beats against the kitchen window as he pours a cup of coffee, not waiting for the full pot to brew. What was he thinking last night? Pushing Sloane into someone else’s arms would only bring catastrophe. He wonders if a part of him wanted her to cheat as a way of feeling better for doing it to her. He’s starting to relax when he hears her footsteps on the stairs. Maybe he even misread the phone call he overheard yesterday. But he has to know the truth, or it’s going to drive him crazy. “Morning.” Ethan leans against the counter, taking a sip of coffee as Sloane slams the refrigerator door after retrieving her almond milk. She makes for her espresso machine and fires up the milk frother without answering. Ethan waits for the noise to stop before saying anything more, admiring her lean frame beneath


man in Raveloe, she tells you, although her tone is ironic. She first discusses the local gentry as villagers might--pointing out Cass' big brick house, casually mentioning the Osgoods. But then she discusses these landowners with an outsider's perspective. She makes you aware that political conditions later brought this class to ruin, through their wasteful living habits and poor farming. Yet when she describes the generous feasts that people like Cass and Osgood hold, she paints a glowing picture of old-fashioned plenty. (You'll see one of these feasts later, in Chapter 11.) The poor enjoy this bounty, too. Do you think Eliot approves or disapproves of this social system? What evidence supports your opinion? There's a reason why Squire Cass throws big raucous parties and spends his time at the local pub--his wife died long ago. Eliot expresses here her ideal of woman's role--as a source of order, refinement, and loving feelings. Lacking a mother, the Cass sons have turned out badly. Compare this all-male family to Silas Marner's, which seems to consist only of himself, a mother, and a sister. Eliot lets you hear the village gossip about Dunstan and Godfrey. While Dunstan sounds thoroughly bad, Godfrey seems good-hearted. But people have been worried about Godfrey's behavior lately. Everyone's hoping he'll straighten himself out by marrying Nancy Lammeter, obviously the daughter of another important Raveloe family. Now you meet the Cass brothers in person, so you can make up your own mind about them. As Godfrey stands by the fire, the parlor around him defines his gloomy mood. It's dimly lit and messy, full of pleasure's leftovers--discarded hunting clothes, half-empty mugs of beer, ashy pipes, and a dying fire. When Dunsey, who's been drinking, strolls into the room, his jeering tone lives up to the villagers' opinion of him. Agitated, Godfrey demands that Dunstan return the money he borrowed from Godfrey, which was a tenant's rent payment. Dunstan knows how to manipulate Godfrey, though. He threatens to tell the Squire about Godfrey's marriage to drunken Molly Farren, and Godfrey reacts with fear. Now you know why lately Godfrey's been acting strangely. NOTE: PARALLELS Like Silas, Godfrey is taken advantage of by a thieving brother. (Dane was like a brother to Silas.) Both hope to marry a nice young woman but are prevented by shameful situations--Silas' conviction and Godfrey's marriage. What obvious contrasts, however, can you point to? This is the first scene Eliot dramatizes directly. She doesn't comment much, except to show characters' gestures and expressions. In slangy, lively speech, the brothers refer casually to people they know, whom you haven't met. You've caught them in the midst of life, with upcoming events (the hunt, Mrs. Osgood's party) and ongoing quarrels. Afraid of their father, they blackmail each other. Godfrey declares he may confess his marriage to the Squire to shake off Dunstan's hold on him. But Eliot takes you into his thoughts, to show that this springs from desperation more than courage--Molly's been threatening to reveal herself to his father, anyway. He thinks over the consequences of confession: losing Nancy


ugly mess of anger and betrayal. “I guess it’s true what they say, huh, Remaut? When someone shows who they are, you’d better believe them. I thought to give you the benefit of the doubt. More fool me.” Gabe wasn’t close enough to touch, but the very air around him seemed to vibrate with the force of keeping himself still. His fist curled by his side, white-knuckled. “He’s right.” All eyes snapped to Lore. She stared straight ahead, not looking at any of them, keeping her gaze locked on the thin flaring line of the sun emerging over the garden wall. “It seems like betrayal comes easily to you, Duke Remaut.” She’d wounded him. She’d meant to. Still, the subtle deflation of his shoulders, the way his face turned so all she could see was that infernal eye patch, made all her organs tie themselves in knots. “I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than you and my nephew think.” Anton peered at her, the rising sun behind him making the scarred side of his face a mass of runneled shadow. “Questions of betrayal and treason often are. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.” He turned sharply, headed toward the door cut into the wall of the garden that led back into the Church. “Come. We have much to discuss.” The Presque Mort deposited Lore and Bastian in a large antechamber, empty other than a long table and a handful of chairs, hung with one simple tapestry of Apollius clutching His bleeding chest. It reminded Lore of the room she’d been taken to after accidentally raising Horse. Her bonds were a bit more intricate this time. So were Bastian’s. Instead of ropes, their hands were manacled, and those manacles attached to thick iron rings in the floor. A slanted echo of the iron bars crossing the floor in the Citadel. She supposed no one needed that particular reminder of their holy purpose in the Church. There were reminders everywhere. It was Malcolm who locked the manacles around her wrists. “Why?” she asked as he worked, not bothering to whisper. “I thought you wanted things to change, Malcolm? I thought you were on our side?” She didn’t mean to sound so wounded. The head librarian took a moment to answer. When he did, it was with a sigh. “Anton will explain,” he said. “Gabe came to him, then they both came to me, and what they told me let me know that we have to work together.” Lore scowled. Next to her, another Presque Mort shackled Bastian, but the Sun Prince stayed silent, staring at the floor. An hour later, and that silence still held. In that hour, she’d observed that they both handled betrayal differently. Lore iced over, letting no emotion cross her face. Bastian, by contrast, cycled between looking like he might attempt to pull the iron ring out of the floor with his bare hands, and looking like he’d just lost a friend. She supposed he had, in a way. The thing between her and Gabe and Bastian wasn’t friendship,


that old man in the black suit hide something, quickly in his coat . ... The old man leapt up as if to run. And Montag said, "Wait ! " "I haven't done anything! " cried the old man trembling. "No one said you did." They had sat in the green soft light without saying a word for a moment, and then Montag talked about the weather, and then the old man responded with a pale voice. It was a strange quiet meeting. The old man admitted to being a retired English professor who had been thrown out upon the world forty years ago when the last liberal arts college shut for lack of students and patronage. His name was Faber, and when he finally lost his fear of Montag, he talked in a cadenced voice, looking at the sky and the trees and the green park, and when an hour had passed he said something to Montag and Montag sensed it was a rhymeless poem. Then the old man grew even more courageous and said something else and that was a poem, too. Faber held his hand over his left coat-pocket and spoke these words gently, and Montag knew if he reached out, he might pull a book of poetry from the man's coat. But he did not reach out. His. hands stayed on his knees, numbed and useless. "I don't talk things, sir," said Faber. "I talk the meaning of things. I sit here and know I'm alive." That was all there was to it, really. An hour of monologue, a poem, a comment, and then without even acknowledging the fact that Montag was a fireman, Faber with a certain trembling, wrote his address on a slip of paper. "For your file," he said, "in case you decide to be angry with me." "I'm not angry," Montag said, surprised. Mildred shrieked with laughter in the hall. Montag went to his bedroom closet and flipped through his file-wallet to the heading: FUTURE INVESTIGATIONS (?). Faber's name was there. He hadn't turned it in and he hadn't erased it. He dialled the call on a secondary phone. The phone on the far end of the line called Faber's name a dozen times before the professor answered in a faint voice. Montag identified himself and was met with a lengthy silence. "Yes, Mr. Montag?" "Professor Faber, I have a rather odd question to ask. How many copies of the Bible are left in this country?" "I don't know what you're talking about! " "I want to know if there are any copies left at all." "This is some sort of a trap! I can't talk to just anyone on the phone!" "How many copies of Shakespeare and Plato?" "None ! You know as well as I do. None!" Faber hung up. Montag put down the phone. None. A thing he knew of course from the firehouse listings. But somehow he had wanted to hear it from Faber himself. In the hall Mildred's face was suffused with excitement. "Well, the ladies are coming over!"


them. It is worthy of remark, as illustrating the importance we attach to our own judgments, and the pride with which we put forth our most rash and hasty conclusions, that, although Mr. Grimwig was not by any means a bad-hearted man, and though he would have been unfeignedly sorry to see his respected friend duped and deceived, he really did most earnestly and strongly hope at that moment, that Oliver Twist might not come back. It grew so dark, that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely discernible; but there the two old gentlemen continued to sit, in silence, with the watch between them. CHAPTER XV SHOWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST, THE MERRY OLD JEW AND MISS NANCY WERE In the obscure parlour of a low public-house, in the filthiest part of Little Saffron Hill; a dark and gloomy den, where a flaring gas-light burnt all day in the winter-time; and where no ray of sun ever shone in the summer: there sat, brooding over a little pewter measure and a small glass, strongly impregnated with the smell of liquor, a man in a velveteen coat, drab shorts, half-boots and stockings, whom even by that dim light no experienced agent of the police would have hesitated to recognise as Mr. William Sikes. At his feet, sat a white-coated, red-eyed dog; who occupied himself, alternately, in winking at his master with both eyes at the same time; and in licking a large, fresh cut on one side of his mouth, which appeared to be the result of some recent conflict. 'Keep quiet, you warmint! Keep quiet!' said Mr. Sikes, suddenly breaking silence. Whether his meditations were so intense as to be disturbed by the dog's winking, or whether his feelings were so wrought upon by his reflections that they required all the relief derivable from kicking an unoffending animal to allay them, is matter for argument and consideration. Whatever was the cause, the effect was a kick and a curse, bestowed upon the dog simultaneously. Dogs are not generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by their masters; but Mr. Sikes's dog, having faults of temper in common with his owner, and labouring, perhaps, at this moment, under a powerful sense of injury, made no more ado but at once fixed his teeth in one of the half-boots. Having given in a hearty shake, he retired, growling, under a form; just escaping the pewter measure which Mr. Sikes levelled at his head. 'You would, would you?' said Sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and deliberately opening with the other a large clasp-knife, which he drew from his pocket. 'Come here, you born devil! Come here! D'ye hear?' The dog no doubt heard; because Mr. Sikes spoke in the very harshest key of a very harsh voice; but, appearing to entertain some unaccountable objection to having his throat cut, he remained where he was, and growled more fiercely than before: at the same time grasping the end of the poker between his teeth, and biting at it like a


board the Arrow. The sight that met the Frenchmen's eyes as they clambered over the ship's side was appalling. A dozen dead and dying men rolled hither and thither upon the pitching deck, the living intermingled with the dead. Two of the corpses appeared to have been partially devoured as though by wolves. The prize crew soon had the vessel under proper sail once more and the living members of the ill-starred company carried below to their hammocks. The dead were wrapped in tarpaulins and lashed on deck to be identified by their comrades before being consigned to the deep. None of the living was conscious when the Frenchmen reached the Arrow's deck. Even the poor devil who had waved the single despairing signal of distress had lapsed into unconsciousness before he had learned whether it had availed or not. It did not take the French officer long to learn what had caused the terrible condition aboard; for when water and brandy were sought to restore the men, it was found that there was none, nor even food of any description. He immediately signalled to the cruiser to send water, medicine, and provisions, and another boat made the perilous trip to the Arrow. When restoratives had been applied several of the men regained consciousness, and then the whole story was told. That part of it we know up to the sailing of the Arrow after the murder of Snipes, and the burial of his body above the treasure chest. It seems that the pursuit by the cruiser had so terrorized the mutineers that they had continued out across the Atlantic for several days after losing her; but on discovering the meager supply of water and provisions aboard, they had turned back toward the east. With no one on board who understood navigation, discussions soon arose as to their whereabouts; and as three days' sailing to the east did not raise land, they bore off to the north, fearing that the high north winds that had prevailed had driven them south of the southern extremity of Africa. They kept on a north-northeasterly course for two days, when they were overtaken by a calm which lasted for nearly a week. Their water was gone, and in another day they would be without food. Conditions changed rapidly from bad to worse. One man went mad and leaped overboard. Soon another opened his veins and drank his own blood. When he died they threw him overboard also, though there were those among them who wanted to keep the corpse on board. Hunger was changing them from human beasts to wild beasts. Chapter 20 108 Two days before they had been picked up by the cruiser they had become too weak to handle the vessel, and that same day three men died. On the following morning it was seen that one of the corpses had been partially devoured. All that day the men lay glaring at each other like beasts of prey, and the following morning two of the corpses lay almost entirely stripped of flesh. The


pleasure he was silent; and then, in a graver tone, began with, "I have something to tell you, Emma; some news." "Good or bad?" said she, quickly, looking up in his face. "I do not know which it ought to be called." "Oh! good I am sure.--I see it in your countenance. You are trying not to smile." "I am afraid," said he, composing his features, "I am very much afraid, my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it." "Indeed! but why so?--I can hardly imagine that any thing which pleases or amuses you, should not please and amuse me too." "There is one subject," he replied, "I hope but one, on which we do not think alike." He paused a moment, again smiling, with his eyes fixed on her face. "Does nothing occur to you?-- Do not you recollect?--Harriet Smith." Her cheeks flushed at the name, and she felt afraid of something, though she knew not what. "Have you heard from her yourself this morning?" cried he. "You have, I believe, and know the whole." "No, I have not; I know nothing; pray tell me." "You are prepared for the worst, I see--and very bad it is. Harriet Smith marries Robert Martin." Emma gave a start, which did not seem like being prepared-- and her eyes, in eager gaze, said, "No, this is impossible!" but her lips were closed. "It is so, indeed," continued Mr. Knightley; "I have it from Robert Martin himself. He left me not half an hour ago." She was still looking at him with the most speaking amazement. "You like it, my Emma, as little as I feared.--I wish our opinions were the same. But in time they will. Time, you may be sure, will make one or the other of us think differently; and, in the meanwhile, we need not talk much on the subject." "You mistake me, you quite mistake me," she replied, exerting herself. "It is not that such a circumstance would now make me unhappy, but I cannot believe it. It seems an impossibility!--You cannot mean to say, that Harriet Smith has accepted Robert Martin. You cannot mean that he has even proposed to her again--yet. You only mean, that he intends it." "I mean that he has done it," answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but determined decision, "and been accepted." "Good God!" she cried.--"Well!"--Then having recourse to her workbasket, in excuse for leaning down her face, and concealing all the exquisite feelings of delight and entertainment which she knew she must be expressing, she added, "Well, now tell me every thing; make this intelligible to me. How, where, when?--Let me know it all. I never was more surprized--but it does not make me unhappy, I assure you.--How--how has it been possible?" "It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago, and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send to John.--He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was asked by him to


"Did she die free?" asked Jem. "As the mountain air," said Atticus. "She was conscious to the last, almost. Conscious," he smiled, "and cantankerous. She still disapproved heartily of my doings, and said I'd probably spend the rest of my life bailing you out of jail. She had Jessie fix you this box-" Atticus reached down and picked up the candy box. He handed it to Jem. Jem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a white, waxy, perfect camellia. It was a Snow-on-the-Mountain. Jem's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Old hell-devil, old hell-devil!" he screamed, flinging it down. "Why can't she leave me alone?" In a flash Atticus was up and standing over him. Jem buried his face in Atticus's shirt front. "Sh-h," he said. "I think that was her way of telling you- everything's all right now, Jem, everything's all right. You know, she was a great lady." "A lady?" Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. "After all those things she said about you, a lady?" "She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew." Jem picked up the candy box and threw it in the fire. He picked up the camellia, and when I went off to bed I saw him fingering the wide petals. Atticus was reading the paper. PART TWO 12 Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: "Reckon he's got a tapeworm?" Atticus said no, Jem was growing. I must be patient with him and disturb him as little as possible. This change in Jem had come about in a matter of weeks. Mrs. Dubose was not cold in her grave- Jem had seemed grateful enough for my company when he went to read to her. Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went so far as to tell me what to do. After one altercation when Jem hollered, "It's time you started bein' a girl and acting right!" I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia. "Don't you fret too much over Mister Jem-" she began. "Mister Jem?" "Yeah, he's just about Mister Jem now." "He ain't that old," I said. "All he needs is somebody to


Morpheus! I must be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none tonight! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need by, tonight shall be sleepless. Later.--Glad I made the resolution, gladder that I kept to it. I had lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the night watchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once. My patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through the observation trap in the door. His attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me. He was only in his night gear, and cannot be far off. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldn't get through the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and as we were only a few feet above ground landed unhurt. The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our grounds from those of the deserted house. I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield's figure just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old iron-bound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, les t I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to him, the more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him in. I heard him say. . . "I am here to do your bidding, Master. I am your slave, and you will


again. Meanwhile other people had come in, mostly men, for the women always arrived first, and the studio for the time of year (it was early yet) was fairly full. Presently there came in a young man with thin, black hair, an enormous nose, and a face so long that it reminded you of a horse. He sat down next to Philip and nodded across him to Miss Price. "You're very late," she said. "Are you only just up?" "It was such a splendid day, I thought I'd lie in bed and think how beautiful it was out." Philip smiled, but Miss Price took the remark seriously. "That seems a funny thing to do, I should have thought it would be more to the point to get up and enjoy it." "The way of the humorist is very hard," said the young man gravely. He did not seem inclined to work. He looked at his canvas; he was working in colour, and had sketched in the day before the model who was posing. He turned to Philip. "Have you just come out from England?" "Yes." "How did you find your way to Amitrano's?" "It was the only school I knew of." "I hope you haven't come with the idea that you will learn anything here which will be of the smallest use to you." "It's the best school in Paris," said Miss Price. "It's the only one where they take art seriously." "Should art be taken seriously?" the young man asked; and since Miss Price replied only with a scornful shrug, he added: "But the point is, all schools are bad. They are academical, obviously. Why this is less injurious than most is that the teaching is more incompetent than elsewhere. Because you learn nothing...." "But why d'you come here then?" interrupted Philip. "I see the better course, but do not follow it. Miss Price, who is cultured, will remember the Latin of that." "I wish you would leave me out of your conversation, Mr. Clutton," said Miss Price brusquely. "The only way to learn to paint," he went on, imperturbable, "is to take a studio, hire a model, and just fight it out for yourself." "That seems a simple thing to do," said Philip. "It only needs money," replied Clutton. He began to paint, and Philip looked at him from the comer of his eye. He was long and desperately thin; his huge bones seemed to protrude from his body; his elbows were so sharp that they appeared to jut out through the arms of his shabby coat. His trousers were frayed at the bottom, and on each of his boots was a clumsy patch. Miss Price got up and went over to Philip's easel. "If Mr. Clutton will hold his tongue for a moment, I'll just help you a little," she said. "Miss Price dislikes me because I have humour," said Clutton, looking meditatively at his canvas, "but she detests me because I have genius." He spoke with solemnity, and his colossal, misshapen nose made what he said very quaint.


his lips. “Not here. Why?” I gestured at the sketches. “If Lukub is hosting the Banquet, then the third trial will be in Nizahl.” The guards exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Wes said slowly. “Baira’s trial will be held in Nizahl.” Jeru’s thick brows drew together. “You are the Nizahl Champion; did you think you could avoid visiting the kingdom you’re competing for?” The question circled in my head. In the whirl of change, I had not stopped to consider I would be meeting Supreme Rawain again. The man who slaughtered my family, who eviscerated Jasad, would be delivered glory by the very same Heir he had failed to kill. I walked out without another word. My surroundings dipped in and out of focus. If I failed in the Alcalah, Felix’s ego would not rest until my head was mounted on Mahair’s flag post. If I did win, I would be granted a Victor’s immunity, but I would be spitting on the grave of every Jasadi cut down by a Nizahl sword. Which I could have borne, were it not for the fact that apparently, two groups of Jasadis probably suspected I was the Heir. Perhaps they were even stupid enough to want me at the helm of their pointless cause. What other reason could they have for chasing me? Certainly not the draw of my magic. At some point, I had slid down the wall in the hallway. I wrapped my arms around my knees, and a part of me noted this fit could have been delayed for the ten steps it took to reach my room. I started to laugh. If Arin knew the real reason the Mufsids and Urabi were competing, if he thought for even just one second that the Jasad Heir was alive and living two halls away from him—I laughed harder. They’d have to scrape what was left of me off the walls. He was not a man who played the odds, and the risk that the Mufsids or Urabi could capture me and lend legitimacy to their cause was too great. Maybe they didn’t hope to recruit me. It was entirely possible they simply wanted to kill me themselves. Take their well-deserved revenge on the Heir who had forsaken them. “Careful, sire,” came Vaun’s voice, but it seemed to emerge from a narrow tunnel. “Her kind lash out during outbursts.” I trained you to lead Jasad, and he is training you to betray it. What freedom can you gain after this? Where can you go where Essiya won’t follow? Hanim’s words bled into my thoughts, until I could not distinguish what was mine and what was Hanim’s. I became vaguely aware of a shape settling in front of me in the hall. I cringed, drawing my knees closer. I hope you perish in the very first trial. Sylvia is worthless, and if you succeed as Nizahl’s Champion, Essiya will be, too. How did they know where to find me? Why would they conjure Hanim’s rotting specter if they meant to recruit me? I could not guess


been watching too much CSI and Law and Order or whatever on TV,” her father had charged. Montoya had held up a hand. “We’ll handle it,” he’d assured her before they’d left. Father and daughter had shuttled quickly away, out the door of the viewing room, their footsteps echoing in the hallway before fading, and the body had been returned to the morgue where the detectives were now standing, staring down at what remained of Helene Sands Laroche. And Montoya was right. Without makeup or her wigs, the prosthetics on her nose and cheeks removed, she looked younger than her years. “Yeah.” Bentz was staring at the corpse and shaking his head, knowing that the psycho who had killed so many was at it again. All because Bentz’s aim had been off just a fraction, but enough to allow the pathetic piece of human garbage that was the Rosary Killer to survive. If only the bullet would have found its mark on that murky night in the bayou, or if only the alligators had feasted on the wounded man. But no. Father John was back. “This is not a copycat.” “Probably not.” “Let’s get out of here.” The morgue was cold and sterile with tile walls and shiny, brutal-looking instruments—stainless steel saws and scales, forceps and scalpels, scissors and hammers. Tools of the trade for autopsies, but Bentz imagined them as weapons. They’d seen enough. Though the autopsy wasn’t complete, the toxicology screen not processed, it seemed obvious that Helene Laroche had died from asphyxiation, the result of being strangled by what appeared to be, at least in Bentz’s mind, a rosary, most likely a homemade one with sharpened beads and piano wire for string. He’d seen it before. A long time ago. Outside the day was gray and overcast, still warmer than usual for October, the wind steady and quick. The talk by the weather forecasters was that there was still a chance for a hurricane this year. That thought was grim; hurricanes here, despite all the recent upgrades to the city’s defenses against huge storms, were a cause of major concern and stretched city services, including the police department, to the limits of their capabilities. They reached Montoya’s Mustang and Bentz slid into the passenger seat. “All right,” Montoya said as he started the car and the big engine roared to life. “I’m convinced. Rosary is back.” He wheeled out of the lot, gunning it to slide into a spot in heavy traffic. This wasn’t good news, but at least Montoya and Bentz were on the same page. “But I’m not sure he was behind the McKnight homicide.” “No?” The truth was Bentz was on the fence about that as well. “MO is too different.” “What are the chances that we’ve got two whackos dressed as priests?” “Slim. Okay, I’ll give you that.” Montoya’s head swiveled and then he cut across traffic to make a quick left turn. “Hey!” Bentz shouted as an angry horn blared. In all the years they’d been partnered together Bentz had never gotten used to


no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving _her_ the preference.'' ``They have none of them much to recommend them,'' replied he; ``they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.'' ``Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.'' ``You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.'' ``Ah! you do not know what I suffer.'' ``But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood.'' ``It will be no use to us if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them.'' ``Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty I will visit them all.'' Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three and twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. _Her_ mind was less difficult to develope. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news. __ CHAPTER II (2) MR. BENNET was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid, she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with, ``I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy.'' ``We are not in a way to know _what_ Mr. Bingley likes,'' said her mother resentfully, ``since we are not to visit.'' ``But you forget, mama,'' said Elizabeth, ``that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs. Long has promised to introduce him.'' ``I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her.'' ``No more have I,'' said Mr. Bennet; ``and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you.'' Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply; but unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters. ``Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.'' ``Kitty has no discretion in her coughs,'' said her father; ``she times them ill.'' ``I do not cough for my own amusement,'' replied Kitty fretfully.


this, quite seriously. Then sighed. Marched to the window, hauled it open. Reached out, feeling for the drainpipe. Glanced back over her shoulder. Mouthed, Two minutes. Jane-one motioned one of the men to cover the keyhole. Tiptoed to the center of the room. Twirled a finger in the air. At first the men didn’t understand. Then she kicked off her shoes, pulled her apron over her head, unbuttoned her black twill dress. Their mouths dropped open. She stood there in her chemise and her bloomers. The men turned around in a hurry. Jane-one felt a tingling in her muscles, and began her stretches. 35 1:00 a.m. Hephzibah had a new problem. There was a man heading upstairs. She recognized the ashen gleam to his hair from the old days. The family lawyer. Mr. Lockwood. As soon as the princess had gone in for supper, he’d slipped away from the royal party. Hephzibah had watched him beetling toward the stairs. She’d planted several of her best people by the banister to head off any real guests who tried to leave the saloon floor, but the crush was too great—they couldn’t waylay him. No, no. She hastened after him. He took the stairs two at a time, as if he were in a hurry. Hephzibah had to cling on to the banister to stop herself from tumbling over. “Sir!” she exclaimed, voice going up a notch. He didn’t hear her. He rounded the stairs and disappeared. Her first thought was, He’s fetching something for Miss de Vries. But her bedroom was at the front of the house, facing the park. And Lockwood had turned the other way, toward the enormous suite above the ballroom. He had entered Mr. de Vries’s bedroom. Her heart plunged when she saw Mrs. Bone’s men marching over from the other end of the house, ready to start clearing Mr. de Vries’s suite of its possessions. She hoisted her skirts and legged it along the passage. The double doors were open. The lights were burning dimly in the gigantic suite beyond. Lockwood was already in there. The men frowned at her, halting. “Do as I do,” she said, breathless. She pressed herself behind the half-open door, skirts to the wall. The lawyer didn’t seem to notice that half the objects in the room were sitting under dust sheets, or atop packing crates. He was crouching by the bureau, opening drawers, rifling inside, closing them again. Searching for something. One of the men leaned over her shoulder. His breath smelled very faintly of beer. He had a terrifyingly muscular forearm. “We need him out of there,” he said. Hephzibah scanned the insurance contract in her mind. No gags, no blindfolds. But there was nothing about scaring people... “Death!” she cried, throwing open the sliding doors. “Destruction! Doom!” Lockwood started nearly out of his skin, lurching backward. Hephzibah strode across the bare floorboards, sequins scattering as she went. “Good Lord,” Lockwood said, face reddening in annoyance. He had a nasty bruise on his top lip. “We will deliver you to your doom!”


and sank, and rose and sank again, and many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever. The worm does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow creeping fire upon the living frame. Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have been a long and troubled dream. Feebly raising himself in the bed, with his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around. 'What room is this? Where have I been brought to?' said Oliver. 'This is not the place I went to sleep in.' He uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak; but they were overheard at once. The curtain at the bed's head was hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which she had been sitting at needle-work. 'Hush, my dear,' said the old lady softly. 'You must be very quiet, or you will be ill again; and you have been very bad,--as bad as bad could be, pretty nigh. Lie down again; there's a dear!' With those words, the old lady very gently placed Oliver's head upon the pillow; and, smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and loving in his face, that he could not help placing his little withered hand in hers, and drawing it round his neck. 'Save us!' said the old lady, with tears in her eyes. 'What a grateful little dear it is. Pretty creetur! What would his mother feel if she had sat by him as I have, and could see him now!' 'Perhaps she does see me,' whispered Oliver, folding his hands together; 'perhaps she has sat by me. I almost feel as if she had.' 'That was the fever, my dear,' said the old lady mildly. 'I suppose it was,' replied Oliver, 'because heaven is a long way off; and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor boy. But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there; for she was very ill herself before she died. She can't know anything about me though,' added Oliver after a moment's silence. 'If she had seen me hurt, it would have made here sorrowful; and her face has always looked sweet and happy, when I have dreamed of her.' The old lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very quiet, or he would be ill again. So, Oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he was completely exhausted


to Romulus and Theseus. The patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should have been imbued with different sensations. "But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter gall of envy rose within me. "Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in which they were written, I began to study them with diligence. It was your journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress of your work; this history was mingled with accounts of domestic occurrences. You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. `Hateful day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. `Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.' "These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude; but when I contemplated the virtues of the cottagers, their amiable and benevolent dispositions, I persuaded myself that when they should become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues they would compassionate me and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion


know whether that’s a good thing or not; I don’t know whether I want him to think I am or not. So I sit and eat my ice cream. “I think the opposite of you,” I finally admit. “Not that you’re not-innocent, but rather … experienced.” I twirl a finger around the kitchen. “You’ve done this before. It’s been such a smooth night, there’s no doubt you’ve done this before.” “I don’t deny it,” he says. I have to wait for him to swallow his ice cream before he continues. “Last year, I came out of a four-year relationship.” Four years? “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.” “We grew apart,” he says. “It took me a while to accept that, sometimes, nothing is wrong.” He looks calm as he says it, maybe a little sad even. “Growing up and apart—it can happen.” “Growing up” catches me off guard because he’s thirty-four. He’s already grown up, but then I realize how naive that sounds. I don’t think you turn thirty and become immune to mistake-making or lesson-learning. You grow wiser (supposedly) but never omniscient. There’s always something you need to be taught, and so you keep learning and you keep growing up—until you’re dead. But I don’t know that feeling and I’m having difficulty imagining it. Ben has experienced real love, having a partner, another half. He’s grown older with someone, experienced life with them, years, milestones, celebrations as well as lamentations. It’s a mature response to the end of all of that, to the end of four years with someone you no longer see. “Do you date much, Maddie?” I don’t want to tell him my last date was eight years ago at Nando’s and that my ex had brought his friends along so we could all share the platter. But his response was so honest I can’t find it in me to lie. “No, not much at all,” I admit. “I am … or was a homebody.” Ben puts down his spoon to listen to me; I feel quite trapped by how warm his stare is. “I spent a lot of time with my dad. My mum travels…” I hear her voice before I say anything else. Our matters are private, remember? You tell one person, they tell another and the next thing you know, important people are asking all sorts of questions. “My mum travels a lot, so it was just Dad and me for a while,” I say slowly. “She’s back now and so I moved out and…” I shrug, not sure of where I’m going with this, if I should be going anywhere with this. “I guess I’m finally living a little.” Ben smiles softly, firstly to himself and then at me. He holds up his sundae glass. “Cheers to living a little,” he says. I clink mine against his and whisper, “Cheers.” * * * Ben kisses me again at the end of the night. He orders me a cab home and kisses me on his doorstep until it arrives. He uses his tongue and


from October first, if you still have it.” He knows it’s likely too late. Most stores only keep their security footage for ninety days, but smaller businesses like the Kirkland Market are more likely to only keep them for thirty. Her pleasant smile fades. She glances around as if she might be in imminent danger. “Um. Did you say homicide?” “I did. I’m looking for something possibly related to an ongoing investigation,” he lies. “Do you know if you still have your security footage from that date?” She swallows. “Let me just check with my manager.” She waves her hand to get the attention of a middle-aged man straightening an aisle end display of organic honey. “Hey, Rick? Could you come here?” The man walks toward them wearing a matching green apron to his employee behind the counter. The cashier points to Ethan when the manager approaches. “This man is a detective from Seattle Homicide. Wanting to know how long we keep our security footage.” Beyond them, an elderly woman slows her cart, watching them intently before turning down an aisle. The manager turns his attention to Ethan, raising his eyebrows. “Oh. We keep ours for ninety days.” A grave shadow crosses over his face. “Did something happen here I should be aware of?” “No. I’m just looking for something that might help in an ongoing investigation. Would I be able to view the footage you have from the evening of October first?” Ethan holds his breath as the manager seems to think it over. There is no way Ethan can get a warrant if he asks for one. “Sure.” Rick glances at the entrance as several more shoppers enter the store. “But I won’t have time to go through the footage until later today, unless you want to go have a look for yourself. We’re short-staffed and busier than usual with Thanksgiving coming up.” Ethan thinks of the assault victim from last night. And the second, untouched case file still sitting atop his desk. “Later today is great.” He pulls out his card with his email and extends it to the manager. Normally, Ethan would give the business a link to upload the footage directly to the department’s official website for digital evidence collection, where it would get logged and linked to a specific investigation. “Okay.” The manager inspects the card. “Detective Marks. I’ll email you a link to view the footage from the night. It might be early evening by the time I send it over.” “Thank you.” “Excuse me?” a tall, dark-haired woman with a toddler on her hip comes to a stop beside Ethan, her exasperated gaze fixed on the manager. “Do you have that organic cranberry sauce made from that farm in Grayland?” The manager tucks Ethan’s card into his apron and nods. “Right this way.” Chapter 49 Sloane takes a seat beside the window overlooking the Seattle waterfront at the same table she shared with Kay just over a month ago. She looks around the busy Italian restaurant as she waits for Ethan’s mother. Every table


raised him and he caught the window sill. "Hurry," Jem whispered, "we can't last much longer." Dill punched my shoulder, and we lowered him to the ground. "What'd you see?" "Nothing. Curtains. There's a little teeny light way off somewhere, though." "Let's get away from here," breathed Jem. "Let's go 'round in back again. Sh-h," he warned me, as I was about to protest. "Let's try the back window." "Dill, no," I said. Dill stopped and let Jem go ahead. When Jem put his foot on the bottom step, the step squeaked. He stood still, then tried his weight by degrees. The step was silent. Jem skipped two steps, put his foot on the porch, heaved himself to it, and teetered a long moment. He regained his balance and dropped to his knees. He crawled to the window, raised his head and looked in. Then I saw the shadow. It was the shadow of a man with a hat on. At first I thought it was a tree, but there was no wind blowing, and tree-trunks never walked. The back porch was bathed in moonlight, and the shadow, crisp as toast, moved across the porch toward Jem. Dill saw it next. He put his hands to his face. When it crossed Jem, Jem saw it. He put his arms over his head and went rigid. The shadow stopped about a foot beyond Jem. Its arm came out from its side, dropped, and was still. Then it turned and moved back across Jem, walked along the porch and off the side of the house, returning as it had come. Jem leaped off the porch and galloped toward us. He flung open the gate, danced Dill and me through, and shooed us between two rows of swishing collards. Halfway through the collards I tripped; as I tripped the roar of a shotgun shattered the neighborhood. Dill and Jem dived beside me. Jem's breath came in sobs: "Fence by the schoolyard!- hurry, Scout!" Jem held the bottom wire; Dill and I rolled through and were halfway to the shelter of the schoolyard's solitary oak when we sensed that Jem was not with us. We ran back and found him struggling in the fence, kicking his pants off to get loose. He ran to the oak tree in his shorts. Safely behind it, we gave way to numbness, but Jem's mind was racing: "We gotta get home, they'll miss us." We ran across the schoolyard, crawled under the fence to Deer's Pasture behind our house, climbed our back fence and were at the back steps before Jem would let us pause to rest. Respiration normal, the three of us strolled as casually as we could to the front yard. We looked down the street and saw a circle of neighbors at the Radley front gate. "We better go down there," said Jem. "They'll think it's funny if we don't show up." Mr. Nathan Radley was standing inside his gate, a shotgun broken across his arm. Atticus was standing beside Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie Crawford. Miss


oleaginousness, smarminess. decrepitude, imbecility, feebleness, phosphorescent: (adj) bright, light, wearisome: (adj, v) tiresome, irksome, insanity, years; (adj) second glowing, fluorescent, phosphoreous; troublesome; (adj) tedious, dull, childishness. ANTONYM: (n) (v) meteoric, in a blaze, ablaze, monotonous, boring, laborious, adolescence. blazing, rutilant, relucent. trying, slow, annoying. ANTONYMS: jollity: (adj, n) glee, joviality; (n) shipwreck: (n, v) ruin; (adj, v) sink; (v) (adj) satisfying, soothing, exciting, merriment, cheerfulness, festivity, defeat, scuttle, destroy, fail; (n) hulk, refreshing, easy. frolic, gladness, hilarity, mirth, accident, wreckage, wrack, ruination. witticisms: (n) facetiae. Nathaniel Hawthorne 19 bright-buttoned %blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed--not young, indeed--but a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually re-echoed through the Custom- House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal--and there was very little else to look at--he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that extreme age, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at or conceived of. The careless security of his life in the Custom-House, on a regular income, and with but slight and infrequent apprehensions of removal, had no doubt contributed to make time pass lightly over him. The original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep the old gentleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no power of thought no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities: nothing, in short, but a few commonplace instincts, which, aided by the cheerful temper which grew inevitably out of his physical well-being, did duty very respectably, and to general acceptance, in lieu of a heart. He had been the husband of three wives, all long since dead; the father of twenty children, most of whom, at every age of childhood or maturity, had likewise returned to dust. Here, one would suppose, might have been sorrow enough to imbue the sunniest disposition through and through with a sable tinge. Not so with our old Inspector One brief sigh sufficed to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences. The next moment he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant: far readier than the Collector's junior clerk, who at nineteen years was much the elder and graver man of the two. I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, I think, livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity there presented to my notice. He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; so perfect, in one point of view; so shallow, so Thesaurus admixture: (n) mixture, composite, tinge, steep, dye,


during two or three hours. There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals, and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of the candle. Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed. It was very, very sad; and while I read I sighed, for it seemed as if all joy had vanished from the world, never to be restored. "The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen latch. Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than usual, owing, I suppose, to the sudden storm. That entrance was fastened, and we heard him coming round to get in by the other. I rose with an irrepressible expression of what I felt on my lips, which induced my companion, who had been staring towards the door, to turn and look at me. " 'I'll keep him out five minutes,' he exclaimed. 'You won't object?' " 'No; you may keep him out the whole night for me,' I answered. 'Do; put the key in the lock, and draw the bolts.' "Earnshaw accomplished this ere his guest reached the front. He then came and brought his chair to the other side of my table, leaning over it, and searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate that gleamed from his. As he both looked and felt like an assassin, he couldn't exactly find that; but he discov- ered enough to encourage him to speak. " 'You and I,' he said, 'have each a great debt to set- tle with the man out yonder. If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to discharge it. Are you as soft as your brother? Are you willing to endure to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?' " 'I'm weary of enduring now,' I replied, 'and I'd be glad of a retaliation that wouldn't recoil on myself; but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends. They wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.' " 'Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence!' cried Hindley. 'Mrs. Heath- cliff, I'll ask you to do nothing but sit still and be dumb. Tell me now, can you? I'm sure you would have as much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend's existence. He'll be your death unless you overreach him; and he'll be my ruin. Damn the hellish villain! He knocks at the door as if he were master here al- ready! Promise to hold your tongue, and before that clock strikes---it wants three minutes of one---you're a free woman!' "He took the implements which I described to you in my letter from his breast, and would have turned down the candle. I snatched it away, however, and seized his arm. " 'I'll not hold my tongue,' I said; 'you mustn't touch him. Let the door remain shut, and be quiet.' " 'No! I've formed my


At sunset they carried the sacks to the postbox, frog-marching the postman down the lane with one of Mrs. Bone’s stony-faced guards. Winnie patted her sack as it was borne away from her hands. “Godspeed,” she murmured. Mrs. King glanced at her. “You’re enjoying this.” Winnie considered this seriously. “I am,” she said. “Come on,” Mrs. King said. “Let’s have a drink.” She felt it then: that burst and tingle of pleasure, that thrill of surety. She had her funds, her women, her plan. She pictured the messages flying out into the night, lifting off like starlings in flight: looping and undulating and gathering force like a storm cloud. To Europe, to America and beyond. Spreading the word: there was a big job on the horizon, bigger than all imagining, a fortune to be made... Godspeed, she said to herself—in private, deep inside. * * * Alice came downstairs while the other servants were managing the dinner service. She’d been at her worktable nearly four hours, mouth parched, eyes blurring, and there was an intractable ache in her neck. Madam’s costume was at the stage where it controlled her, not the other way around. Unpicking one thread meant unpicking a dozen more. The shoulder seams were immensely delicate, spun as finely as silkworm threads, and they needed to carry so much weight: the rich lining, jet ornaments, the far-reaching acreage of the train. The dress seemed to unspool every time she looked at it, growing uglier, wilder, blacker. She hoped never to see crepe de Chine again. Miss de Vries hadn’t sent for her all day. Alice hounded the other servants with inquiries: had Madam given word as to when she next wanted to be fitted? Had she left any message, any instructions for Alice at all? She needed some assurance that she was still doing well, that she was excelling, that she was safe. The weaselly-looking errand boy was lugging a bucket of coal in for the range. “Whatchoo asking so many questions for?” he said, staring at Alice without compunction. Alice rounded on him. “Bugger off, little rat,” she said, showing her teeth. His eyes widened, startled, and he scuttled off across the yard, his ragged coat flapping in the breeze. Alice had startled herself. She put her hands to her crucifix. By any measure it was too late for Miss de Vries to still be eating her dinner. Evidently, she was preoccupied, absorbed in business. Alice lingered in the front hall, trying to invent excuses to enter the dining room. William, the head footman, came out and spotted her. “You’d better make yourself scarce before Shepherd sees you,” he said, eyes narrowing. And then, voice gentle: “What’s got you in a twist?” “Nothing,” she said, anguished. “Hmm,” he said, turning his gaze away from her. “Do I sense a tragedy?” She blushed at that and scurried outside, crossing the garden, then the yard. Mr. Doggett and his boys were playing Racing Demon outside the mews house, flicking cigarette ash behind the ornamental urns. They didn’t notice Alice, or else


like medicine,” I said, counting off on my fingers. “And I do like art.” Suffice it to say, he didn’t think any of that was relevant. Then he went on to imply that I was spoiled and foolish and had never known true suffering. Even though we both knew—on that last one, at least—he was lying. Anyway, it didn’t matter. He didn’t get to decide what I did with my life. I was the one who had to live it, after all. My dad was not a big fan of losing. “Don’t ask me for help when you’re broke,” he said. “You’re on your own. If you choose this path for yourself, then you have to walk it.” I shrugged. “I haven’t asked you for help since I was fourteen.” At that, my dad stood up, scooting back his café chair with a honk that announced he was done. Done with this conversation—and possibly done with fatherhood, as well. I still remember the determination I felt as I watched him leave. It seems almost quaint now. I’ll show you, I remember thinking, with a self-righteous fire in my eyes. I’ll make you wish you’d believed in me all along. Spoiler alert: I did not show him. At least not so far. That was eight years ago. I’d gotten that BFA in Fine Arts. I’d graduated all alone, and then I’d marched past all the families taking proud pictures, and then I’d driven triumphantly out of the university parking lot in my banged-up Toyota that my friend Sue and I had painted hot pink with flames for the Art Car Parade. And then? I’d embarked on many endless years of … not showing him. I applied to contests and didn’t win. I submitted my work for shows and didn’t get accepted. I eked out a living selling portraits from photos (both human and pet) on Etsy at a hundred dollars a pop. But it wasn’t enough to make rent. And whenever I talked to my dad, I pretended I was “thriving.” Because he might have been right that day. I might be headed for a pauper’s grave. But I would be under the dirt in that grave before I’d ever admit it. That must have been why I called him about placing in the contest. The contest itself was a big deal—and huge prize money, if you could win it. I guess the lure of having a genuine triumph to report kept me from thinking clearly. Plus, don’t we all, deep down, carry an inextinguishable longing for our parents to be proud of us? Even long after we’ve given up? In the thrill of the moment, I forgot that he didn’t care. It was a good thing—and no surprise—that my call went straight to his voicemail. It meant I could make my next call. To somebody who did care. “What!” my friend Sue shouted as soon as the words were out. “That’s huge!” She stretched out the U for what felt like a full minute. Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge. And I just let myself enjoy it.


her get close in some ways, but he continued to doggedly fend her off in others. Last night at her mother’s house, they’d been each other’s one-person hype squads. They’d comforted each other with touches and . . . God, at some point it started to feel like she was actually introducing her husband into the family. She’d forgotten about their arrangement right up until Ingram stood to leave for the night. She’d wanted to forget again on the ride home, but the silence was too deafening. Was he waiting for her to announce her returned feelings? Was he waiting for her to announce she wanted him as her real husband? Reading August was next to impossible this morning, when he was working in the barn with the door closed, a clear sign to stay out. She wasn’t welcome there. And it was too much of a reminder of how she’d been raised. Allowed to participate only when it was convenient for everyone else and there was no chance she’d screw up. Maybe she would screw up his operation, even worse than it already was. After all, she’d flamed out brilliantly in New York. If he were hurting her intentionally, maybe she could find the heart to be mad at him. But really, he was just a stubborn, determined man who saw only the goal, not sparing any thoughts about who he climbed over to reach it. And instead of being mad at him, she missed him. Missed sitting shoulder to thigh with him like she’d done last night. Missed the sound of his big, obnoxious laugh—and it had been only one day. Whether she’d hurt him by protecting herself and not vocalizing her feelings or he was shutting her out, she still wanted to hear that laugh. She wanted this time with him and she wanted to experience it to the fullest because it . . . made her feel a way she couldn’t admit yet. Not without questioning her vision for the future. Natalie’s attention drifted away from her laptop and around the kitchen, landing on a package of cookies above the stove. Should she make August some food? Heaven only knew the last thing he’d expect was for her to bring him a snack. An idea struck. A perfect way to hear his laugh again. She closed her laptop and made sure the door was locked, then she spent the next forty-five minutes setting her plans in motion. At one time, she’d been known in this town as the prank queen. But it had been a while since she’d played a prank. Funny how the series of pranks excited her more than the chance to guarantee a billion dollars in financing, but that was a problem for another day. For now, she desperately needed to lighten the tension between her and August. And in the process, she’d get him back for making her dance to “Brick House” at their wedding. Close to an hour later, Natalie plated the cookies she’d been working on, schooled her features, and walked out


susceptibility of Mr. Welland's bronchial tubes, they always spent the latter part of the winter. Mr. Welland was a mild and silent man, with no opinions but with many habits. With these habits none might interfere; and one of them demanded that his wife and daughter should always go with him on his annual journey to the south. To preserve an unbroken domesticity was essential to his peace of mind; he would not have known where his hair-brushes were, or how to provide stamps for his letters, if Mrs. Welland had not been there to tell him. As all the members of the family adored each other, and as Mr. Welland was the central object of their idolatry, it never occurred to his wife and May to let him go to St. Augustine alone; and his sons, who were both in the law, and could not leave New York during the winter, always joined him for Easter and travelled back with him. It was impossible for Archer to discuss the necessity of May's accompanying her father. The reputation of the Mingotts' family physician was largely based on the attack of pneumonia which Mr. Welland had never had; and his insistence on St. Augustine was therefore inflexible. Originally, it had been intended that May's engagement should not be announced till her return from Florida, and the fact that it had been made known sooner could not be expected to alter Mr. Welland's plans. Archer would have liked to join the travellers and have a few weeks of sunshine and boating with his betrothed; but he too was bound by custom and conventions. Little arduous as his professional duties were, he would have been convicted of frivolity by the whole Mingott clan if he had suggested asking for a holiday in mid-winter; and he accepted May's departure with the resignation which he perceived would have to be one of the principal constituents of married life. He was conscious that Madame Olenska was looking at him under lowered lids. "I have done what you wished--what you advised," she said abruptly. "Ah--I'm glad," he returned, embarrassed by her broaching the subject at such a moment. "I understand--that you were right," she went on a little breathlessly; "but sometimes life is difficult . . . perplexing. . ." "I know." "And I wanted to tell you that I DO feel you were right; and that I'm grateful to you," she ended, lifting her opera-glass quickly to her eyes as the door of the box opened and Beaufort's resonant voice broke in on them. Archer stood up, and left the box and the theatre. Only the day before he had received a letter from May Welland in which, with characteristic candour, she had asked him to "be kind to Ellen" in their absence. "She likes you and admires you so much--and you know, though she doesn't show it, she's still very lonely and unhappy. I don't think Granny understands her, or uncle Lovell Mingott either; they really think she's much worldlier and fonder of society than she is.


left no opening for any thought that these could be aught else than enemies. Similarity of form led him into no erroneous conception of the welcome that would be accorded him should he be discovered by these, the first of his own kind he had ever seen. Tarzan of the Apes was no sentimentalist. He knew nothing of the brotherhood of man. All things outside his own tribe were his deadly enemies, with the few exceptions of which Tantor, the elephant, was a marked example. Chapter 10 And he realized all this without malice or hatred. To kill was the law of the wild world he knew. Few were his primitive pleasures, but the greatest of these was to hunt and kill, and so he accorded to others the right to cherish the same desires as he, even though he himself might be the object of their hunt. His strange life had left him neither morose nor bloodthirsty. That he joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. He killed for food most often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does; for it has remained for man alone among all creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly for the mere pleasure of inflicting suffering and death. And when he killed for revenge, or in self-defense, he did that also without hysteria, for it was a very businesslike proceeding which admitted of no levity. So it was that now, as he cautiously approached the village of Mbonga, he was quite prepared either to kill or be killed should he be discovered. He proceeded with unwonted stealth, for Kulonga had taught him great respect for the little sharp splinters of wood which dealt death so swiftly and unerringly. At length he came to a great tree, heavy laden with thick foliage and loaded with pendant loops of giant creepers. From this almost impenetrable bower above the village he crouched, looking down upon the scene below him, wondering over every feature of this new, strange life. There were naked children running and playing in the village street. There were women grinding dried plantain in crude stone mortars, while others were fashioning cakes from the powdered flour. Out in the fields he could see still other women hoeing, weeding, or gathering. All wore strange protruding girdles of dried grass about their hips and many were loaded with brass and copper anklets, armlets and bracelets. Around many a dusky neck hung curiously coiled strands of wire, while several were further ornamented by huge nose rings. Tarzan of the Apes looked with growing wonder at these strange creatures. Dozing in the shade he saw several men, while at the extreme outskirts of the clearing he occasionally caught glimpses of armed warriors apparently guarding the village against surprise from an attacking enemy. He noticed that the women alone worked. Nowhere was there evidence of a man tilling the fields or performing any of the homely duties of the village. Finally