full scale of the problem is not always appreciated. For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle," a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant Galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of frightful interstellar battle. The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time. A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother. The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapour, and at that very moment the words I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle drifted across the conference table. Unfortunately, in the Vl'hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries. Eventually of course, after their Galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realized that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our own Galaxy - now positively identified as the source of the offending remark. For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across - which happened to be the Earth - where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog. Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the Universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it. "It's just life," they say. A short aircar trip brought Arthur and the old Magrathean to a doorway. They left the car and went through the door into a waiting room full of glass-topped tables and perspex awards. Almost immediately, a light flashed above the door at the other side of the room and they entered. "Arthur! You're safe!" a voice cried. "Am I?" said Arthur, rather startled. "Oh good." The lighting was rather subdued and it took him a moment or so to see Ford, Trillian and Zaphod sitting round a large table beautifully decked out with exotic dishes, strange sweetmeats and bizarre fruits. They were stuffing their faces. "What happened to you?" demanded Arthur. "Well," said Zaphod, attacking a boneful of grilled muscle, "our guests here have been gassing us and zapping our minds and being generally weird and have now given us a rather nice meal to make it up


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

the match in Buttevant and was walking back and that I'd be thankful for a glass of water. After a while a young woman opened the door and brought me out a big mug of milk. She was half undressed as if she was going to bed when I knocked and she had her hair hanging and I thought by her figure and by something in the look of her eyes that she must be carrying a child. She kept me in talk a long while at the door, and I thought it strange because her breast and her shoulders were bare. She asked me was I tired and would I like to stop the night there. She said she was all alone in the house and that her husband had gone that morning to Queenstown with his sister to see her off. And all the time she was talking, Stevie, she had her eyes fixed on my face and she stood so close to me I could hear her breathing. When I handed her back the mug at last she took my hand to draw me in over the threshold and said: 'COME IN AND STAY THE NIGHT HERE. YOU'VE NO CALL TO BE FRIGHTENED. THERE'S NO ONE IN IT BUT OURSELVES...' I didn't go in, Stevie. I thanked her and went on my way again, all in a fever. At the first bend of the road I looked back and she was standing at the door. The last words of Davin's story sang in his memory and the figure of the woman in the story stood forth reflected in other figures of the peasant women whom he had seen standing in the doorways at Clane as the college cars drove by, as a type of her race and of his own, a bat-like soul waking to the consciousness of itself in darkness and secrecy and loneliness and, through the eyes and voice and gesture of a woman without guile, calling the stranger to her bed. A hand was laid on his arm and a young voice cried: --Ah, gentleman, your own girl, sir! The first handsel today, gentleman. Buy that lovely bunch. Will you, gentleman? The blue flowers which she lifted towards him and her young blue eyes seemed to him at that instant images of guilelessness, and he halted till the image had vanished and he saw only her ragged dress and damp coarse hair and hoydenish face. --Do, gentleman! Don't forget your own girl, sir! --I have no money, said Stephen. --Buy them lovely ones, will you, sir? Only a penny. --Did you hear what I said? asked Stephen, bending towards her. I told you I had no money. I tell you again now. --Well, sure, you will some day, sir, please God, the girl answered after an instant. --Possibly, said Stephen, but I don't think it likely. He left her quickly, fearing that her intimacy might turn to jibing and wishing to be out of the way before she offered her ware to another, a tourist from


whose livelihoods you put in jeopardy—or how your actions could affect me—then I don’t know what we’re doing here.” “I don’t want to lose you,” he said, stepping forward tentatively. “Lanier, I behaved badly because I didn’t know what to do. And I was wrong. But I think there are two types of people in the world: the ones who move on from their mistakes and the ones who let their mistakes define them. I will never let my mistakes define me or keep me from asking for forgiveness.” It was a compelling argument, but probably not in the way he thought it was going to be. I walked back to the counter and hastily scribbled a “Closed Temporarily! Be Right Back!” sign to hang on the door and grabbed my small brown purse. “What are you doing?” Bryce asked as I began taping the sign to the door. “You’re right,” I said. “You’re absolutely right. I have let a mistake from a long time ago define me, and I can’t do that anymore.” I opened the door and, when he didn’t leave, I gestured for him to walk through it. “So what does that even mean? What about us?” “Oh, gosh. I respect what you’re saying, but I can’t marry you, Bryce.” I paused. “We aren’t right for each other. We never really were.” He couldn’t even argue with me because he knew it too. “Now,” I said, “there’s somewhere I really need to be.” As I got in my car, I didn’t give him another look. I didn’t need to. Bryce and I were brought together for a reason. We were torn apart for a reason, too. And now I had to get busy on the business of moving on with the rest of my life—and not letting mistakes from ten years ago define me for one more minute. Daphne A SIGN Hard Things To: marystuart@harrispr.com; lanier@bookmasters.com Good morning, Songbirds: I can’t bring myself to say this to June yet, but I’ve done all the paperwork filing and phone call making and begging government entities that I can possibly do. And I have the feeling that no miracles are coming through for Holly Springs. I know June is going to be stressed enough over making what might be her last summer at camp perfect. (Even typing that makes my stomach hurt.) So maybe we could get together and work out the particulars of mother-daughter camp to take that off her plate? Even if it doesn’t bring in enough to save camp, it will be a wonderful goodbye for all of us. (I’m not crying, you’re crying.) Fair winds and following seas—always and forever, Daphne The next week, Finn and I are antsy and on edge. As soon as we learned about Camp Holly Springs’s situation back in March, we started looking back over June’s records. Her PPP loan paperwork was a moot point because all those funds had already been distributed. But she had also applied for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan—which had also been denied. But the minute we


her palms struck Oddman square in the chest. The big man went flying. His body slammed into the TV, shattering the screen and knocking it to the floor. Alex couldn’t pretend it didn’t feel good to steal the Gray’s strength, to be dangerous just for a moment. She crossed the room and stood over Oddman, waited for his dazed eyes to clear. “Twelve large,” she said again. “You have a week to get it or I come back and break bones.” Though it was possible she’d cracked his sternum already. “I don’t have it,” Oddman said on a groan, his hand rubbing his chest. “My sister’s kid—” Alex knew the excuses; she’d made them herself. My mom is in the hospital. My check is late. My car needs a new transmission and I can’t pay you if I can’t get to work. It didn’t really matter if they were true or not. She squatted down. “I feel for you. I really do. But I have my job, you have yours. Twelve thousand dollars by next Friday or he’ll make me come back and turn you into an example for every dime bag hump in the neighborhood. And I don’t want to do that.” She really didn’t. Oddman seemed to believe her. “He … got something on you?” “Enough to bring me here tonight and to bring me back again.” Alex’s temples gave a sudden throb, and the oversweet tang of apple candy burst into her mouth. “Shit, man. You look bad.” It took Alex a second to realize she was the one speaking—with someone else’s voice. Oddman’s eyes widened. “Derrik?” “Yeah!” That wasn’t her voice, wasn’t her laugh. Oddman reached out to touch her shoulder, something between wonder and fear making his hand shake. “You … I went to your wake.” Alex stood, nearly losing her footing. She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection from the broken TV, but the person looking back at her wasn’t a scrawny girl in a tank top and jeans. It was a boy in a beanie and a parka. She shoved the Gray out of her. For a moment, they stared at each other —Derrik, apparently. She didn’t know what had killed him and she didn’t want to know. He’d somehow pushed to the forefront of her consciousness, taken over her face, her voice. And she wanted none of that. “Bela Lugosi’s dead,” she snarled at him. They’d become her favorite death words over the summer. He vanished. Oddman had pressed himself against the wall as if he could disappear into it. His eyes were full of tears. “What the fuck is happening?” “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Just get the money and all this goes away.” Alex only wished she had it that easy. Rete Mirabile Provenance: Galway, Ireland; 18th century Donor: Book and Snake, 1962 The “wonderful net” was procured by the Lettermen c. 1922. Specific date of origin and maker are unknown, but oral histories suggest it was created through Celtic song magic or possibly seidh (see the Norse sea


creatures--feathers floating within view of the front, and hen-coops standing on the grass. In a sitting-room on the ground-floor, ensconced in an armchair with her back to the light, was the owner and mistress of the estate, a white-haired woman of not more than sixty, or even less, wearing a large cap. She had the mobile face frequent in those whose sight has decayed by stages, has been laboriously striven after, and reluctantly let go, rather than the stagnant mien apparent in persons long sightless or born blind. Tess walked up to this lady with her feathered charges--one sitting on each arm. "Ah, you are the young woman come to look after my birds?" said Mrs d'Urberville, recognizing a new footstep. "I hope you will be kind to them. My bailiff tells me you are quite the proper person. Well, where are they? Ah, this is Strut! But he is hardly so lively today, is he? He is alarmed at being handled by a stranger, I suppose. And Phena too--yes, they are a little frightened--aren't you, dears? But they will soon get used to you." While the old lady had been speaking Tess and the other maid, in obedience to her gestures, had placed the fowls severally in her lap, and she had felt them over from head to tail, examining their beaks, their combs, the manes of the cocks, their winds, and their claws. Her touch enabled her to recognize them in a moment, and to discover if a single feather were crippled or draggled. She handled their crops, and knew what they had eaten, and if too little or too much; her face enacting a vivid pantomime of the criticisms passing in her mind. The birds that the two girls had brought in were duly returned to the yard, and the process was repeated till all the pet cocks and hens had been submitted to the old woman--Hamburghs, Bantams, Cochins, Brahmas, Dorkings, and such other sorts as were in fashion just then--her perception of each visitor being seldom at fault as she received the bird upon her knees. It reminded Tess of a Confirmation, in which Mrs d'Urberville was the bishop, the fowls the young people presented, and herself and the maid-servant the parson and curate of the parish bringing them up. At the end of the ceremony Mrs d'Urberville abruptly asked Tess, wrinkling and twitching her face into undulations, "Can you whistle?" "Whistle, Ma'am?" "Yes, whistled tunes." Tess could whistle like most other country girls, though the accomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in genteel company. However, she blandly admitted that such was the fact. "Then you will have to practise it every day. I had a lad who did it very well, but he has left. I want you to whistle to my bullfinches; as I cannot see them I like to hear them, and we teach 'em airs that way. Tell her where the cages are, Elizabeth. You must begin tomorrow, or they will go back in their piping. They have been neglected


the final dash. Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object --that final and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash --aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab. Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating .. <p 212 > attention to every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be subjected to. For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit of his profession. be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward. .. <p 212 > .. < chapter xlvii 14 THE MAT-MAKER > It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-colored waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, for an


Maybe I just won’t look. Yes, excellent plan. “Excuse me,” I say politely. “I bet Greg’s looking for me.” I turn before he can reply, immediately feeling like I managed to free myself from a gravitational singularity. Phew. The living room’s a couple of twists and turns away, large but crowded, pretty despite the overabundance of naval paintings and aggressive leather furniture. I spend a few minutes reassuring Greg’s aunt that we’ll consult her before choosing a caterer for the wedding; pretending not to notice Uncle Paul licking his lips at me; amiably chatting with an assortment of cousins about the weather, traffic, and bad Twilight takes. The birthday girl is opening presents by the fireplace, telling one of her daughters-in-law, “A coupon for a mud bath? Lovely. It’ll feel like practice for when I’m lowered in my grave and you all fight over my money.” It’s on brand: the first time I met Millicent Smith, she put both hands on my shoulders and told me, “Having kids was the worst mistake of my life.” Her eldest son was standing right next to her. I have yet to ascertain whether she is a malevolent hag or just unintentionally cruel. Either way, she’s my favorite Smith character. I wander away with a smile, winding up at the half-played Go board in the corner of the room. It’s been here ever since my first visit, the wooden squares and porcelain stones incongruous amid the coastal decor. Greg is chatting with his dad, and I wonder if we’ll leave soon. I have thirty-three Vibrations, Waves, and Optics essays to grade, which will surely have me wishing for a violent death. A Fundamentals of Materials Science Scantron exam to write. And, of course, a job talk to prepare. I want—no, I need to nail it. There’s no margin of error, since it’s my way out of spending my nights fake dating and my days exchanging emails with sexxxy.chad.420@hotmail.com about whether his chinchilla’s gluten allergy should release him from the Physics 101 midterm. I’ll have to rehearse it a minimum of eleven times—i.e., the number of dimensions according to Mtheory, my favorite über-string version— “Do you play?” I startle. Again. Jack stands on the other side of the board, dark eyes studying me. All his relatives are here—why is he wasting precious family time to pester his brother’s fake girlfriend? “Elsie?” My name, again. Said like the universe made that word for him alone. “I asked, do you play?” He sounds amused. I hate him. “Oh. Um, a bit.” Understatement. Go is mind twisting and punishingly intricate—therefore, many physicists’ extracurricular activity of choice. “Do you?” Jack doesn’t answer. Instead he adds a few white stones. “Oh, no.” I shake my head. “It’s someone else’s game. We can’t—” “Black okay?” Not really. But I swallow and hesitantly reach for the stones and set them down. My pride plays a nice little tug-of-war against my survival instincts: I won’t conceal my Go skills and let Jack win, but for all I know losing will transform him into a fire-breathing


I found articles or posts about the women I was looking for and scoured them for any information that might be relevant. April Kyle was from Spokane and liked the outdoors; she’d run off with an older boyfriend. Marjorie Campion had three children and a dog and was a known drug addict. There were women who seemed made to disappear into the cracks and those whose vanishing had turned communities upside down, and all of them were just as thoroughly gone. I bookmarked another article and flipped to the next tab I had open, a forum post from a girl trying to find information about a missing aunt. I rubbed my eyes and checked the name—they were all blurring together. Jessi Walker. Nineteen when she disappeared, though her family didn’t ever file an official missing-person report, because she’d packed her bags. A few weeks passed before they realized she was gone for good. The niece writing the post got a Christmas card and a birthday card from Jessi, and then she went silent. They’d been close and the niece was certain that something had happened to her. Jessi Walker’s niece wasn’t sure when she’d actually gone missing. Sometime after April, two years before my attack. I’d looked up how long it would take for a body to become a skeleton, and my best guess was that it would have happened within a year or two of lying in the Grotto, so that matched. And that was the “quiet summer.” It was all just guesswork. How had Liv figured this out? I started to bookmark the page and close it out, and then I froze. I hadn’t looked at the username the niece had created to post on the message board. Persephone McAllister. The name on the dead woman’s bracelet wasn’t hers. It was her niece’s. A remembrance of the girl she left behind but never forgot. I pulled up the case entry again, heart beating fast and hard. The attached photo showed a young woman in a cotton sundress, smirking a little at the camera. She had brown, wavy hair and a slender build—Stahl’s type. The look in her eye hinted at an urge to wander, a restlessness that had wound its brambles around my own heart. It was her. It was Persephone. “Found you,” I whispered. She smiled that coy little smile at me, her weight balanced on her back foot, entirely aware of the camera. I almost felt like I recognized her. Like if I passed her in the street, I would have waved. I’d been nine years old when she left home, and she was nineteen—a decade older, not someone I would have spent any time with. A decade younger than I was now. Had Stahl offered her a ride? Had he dragged her into the woods, hidden her away where no one could find her? I shuddered. I understood what Cass meant, now, when she said she wanted to tell Persephone that she’d had a daughter. He’s dead, I wanted to whisper to those bones. I’d found Persephone,


now, he’ll cast blame elsewhere. This is better than the alternative, which happens when he retreats into a cave of resentment because he hasn’t gotten his way. It must be difficult, I realize, for him to have failed the next level of the imperial exams multiple times and have everyone know. “Making a baby is an internal contest between yin and yang,” Lady Kuo pointedly tells him. “It is up to yang to win over yin.” My husband stares at the floor. I doubt he’s ever been so rebuked, but his mother isn’t done. “Taoist scriptures tell us that if you want a son,” she reminds him, “then bedroom affairs must be conducted on the first, third, and fifth days after monthly moon water ceases. Please ignore the second, fourth, and sixth days, unless you want to sire another daughter. After that, you can forget all bedchamber activity, for the child palace will be closed for business.” I’ve heard this theory before, but in the inner chambers some women believe that performing bedchamber affairs just before the appearance of monthly moon water will guarantee a son. Personally, I’ve always held to Grandmother’s advice: after the act itself, lie on your back with your knees up. To have a son, lean to the right so the baby may lodge on the yang side of the body; for a girl, lean to the left so she might nestle on the yin side of the body. Of course, I’ve followed these traditions and have yet to be given a son. Before my husband can speak, Lady Kuo says the words I’ve been dreading. “Perhaps it’s time to buy one or more concubines to give me grandsons.” I hope Maoren will dismiss this suggestion outright, knowing that a Dragon can be rude and rough in the way he speaks truth. Beyond that, custom says that if a man hasn’t given his wife a son by the time he reaches the age of forty, then it’s a wife’s duty to select either a concubine or a secondary wife for him. But my husband is only thirty! That’s far too young to bring in a concubine for this purpose. But when I glance at my husband and he refuses to meet my eyes, I see the other part of his Dragon personality come through. A Dragon likes things easy. A Dragon is privileged, spoiled, and used to getting his own way. He takes love and privilege for granted, because they are due to him as a Dragon. “We must have a son to secure the family line,” he tells me later as I undress, as though I didn’t know this already. We do what we’re supposed to do. We do it every night for a week. A couple of times we pursue night sports by day. And then my monthly moon water comes. Dragons like to take credit, but if they don’t win right away, they fizzle out. This is exactly what happens to my husband. Instead of coming to my marriage bed, he goes out to teahouses


rune. --POGUE MAHONE! ACUSHLA MACHREE! It's destroyed we are from this day! It's destroyed we are surely! All smiled their smiles. --Saint Thomas, Stephen smiling said, whose gorbellied works I enjoy reading in the original, writing of incest from a standpoint different from that of the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of, likens it in his wise and curious way to an avarice of the emotions. He means that the love so given to one near in blood is covetously withheld from some stranger who, it may be, hungers for it. Jews, whom christians tax with avarice, are of all races the most given to intermarriage. Accusations are made in anger. The christian laws which built up the hoards of the jews (for whom, as for the lollards, storm was shelter) bound their affections too with hoops of steel. Whether these be sins or virtues old Nobodaddy will tell us at doomsday leet. But a man who holds so tightly to what he calls his rights over what he calls his debts will hold tightly also to what he calls his rights over her whom he calls his wife. No sir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his wife or his manservant or his maidservant or his jackass. --Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned. --Gentle Will is being roughly handled, gentle Mr Best said gently. --Which will? gagged sweetly Buck Mulligan. We are getting mixed. --The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will's widow, is the will to die. --REQUIESCAT! Stephen prayed. WHAT OF ALL THE WILL TO DO? IT HAS VANISHED LONG AGO ... --She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the mobled queen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as rare as a motorcar is now and that its carvings were the wonder of seven parishes. In old age she takes up with gospellers (one stayed with her at New Place and drank a quart of sack the town council paid for but in which bed he slept it skills not to ask) and heard she had a soul. She read or had read to her his chapbooks preferring them to the MERRY WIVES and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan, she thought over HOOKS AND EYES FOR BELIEVERS' BREECHES and THE MOST SPIRITUAL SNUFFBOX TO MAKE THE MOST DEVOUT SOULS SNEEZE. Venus has twisted her lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience. It is an age of exhausted whoredom groping for its god. --History shows that to be true, INQUIT EGLINTONUS CHRONOLOLOGOS. The ages succeed one another. But we have it on high authority that a man's worst enemies shall be those of his own house and family. I feel that Russell is right. What do we care for his wife or father? I should say that only family poets have family lives. Falstaff was not a family man. I feel that the fat knight is his supreme creation. Lean, he lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping


unlooked-for contact. Green lights of nausea appeared for a moment and ate into the darkness. Roger lay behind him and Jack's mouth was at his ear. "Over there, where there used to be a gap in the rock. A sort of hump--see?" Ashes blew into Ralph's face from the dead fire. He could not see the gap or anything else, because the green lights were opening again and growing, and the top of the mountain was sliding sideways. Once more, from a distance, he heard Jack's whisper. "Scared?" Not scared so much as paralyzed; hung up there immovable on the top of a diminishing, moving mountain. Jack slid away from him, Roger bumped, fumbled with a hiss of breath, and passed onwards. He heard them whispering. "Can you see anything?" "There--" In front of them, only three or four yards away, was a rock-like hump where no rock should be. Ralph could hear a tiny chattering noise coming from somewhere-- perhaps from his own mouth. He bound himself together with his will, fused his fear and loathing into a hatred, and stood up. He took two leaden steps forward. Behind them the silver of moon had drawn clear of the horizon. Before them, something like a great ape was sitting asleep with its head between its knees. Then the wind roared in the forest, there was confusion in the darkness and the creature lifted its head, holding toward them the ruin of a face. Ralph found himself taking giant strides among the ashes, heard other creatures crying out and leaping and dared the impossible on the dark slope; presently the mountain was deserted, save for the three abandoned sticks and the thing that bowed. CHAPTER EIGHT Gift for the Darkness Piggy looked up miserably from the dawn-pale beach to the dark mountain. "Are you sure? Really sure, I mean?" I told you a dozen times now," said Ralph, "we saw it." "D'you think we're safe down here?" "How the hell should I know?" Ralph jerked away from him and walked a few paces along the beach. Jack was kneeling and drawing a circular pattern in the sand with his forefinger. Piggy's voice came to them, hushed. "Are you sure? Really?" "Go up and see," said Jack contemptuously, "and good riddance." "No fear." "The beast had teeth," said Ralph, "and big black eyes." He shuddered violently. Piggy took off his one round of glass and polished the surface. "What we going to do?" Ralph turned toward the platform. The conch glimmered among the trees, a white blob against the place where the sun would rise. He pushed back his mop. "I don't know." He remembered the panic flight down the mountainside. "I don't think we'd ever fight a thing that size, honestly, you know. We'd talk but we wouldn't fight a tiger. We'd hide. Even Jack 'ud hide." Jack still looked at the sand. "What about my hunters?" Simon came stealing out of the shadows by the shelters. Ralph ignored Jack's question. He pointed to the touch of yellow above the sea. "As


the serpent lioness. She lost herself in her work, calm for the first time in days, the act of recreation enwrapping her. All the while, she was aware of Esbar, warm at her side. She blew dust from the drawings. ‘This is the large wyrm,’ she said, showing Esbar the first one. ‘And that is what attacked the Liongarden – you see, it has two legs, not four, and it’s smaller. Finally, a melding of serpent and lion. I suspect it hatched from one of the dark rocks.’ ‘How did you escape the large wyrm?’ ‘Canthe used magic against it.’ Esbar tensed. ‘I thought Canthe had no magic. That her siden had burned out long ago.’ ‘It was not siden. Esbar, she has another power, like nothing I have ever seen or felt. She gave out cold white light, as if she had become a star. Every wyrm fled from it.’ ‘Where is she?’ ‘With the men. She was unconscious for most of the journey home, so I could not ask her more.’ Esbar returned the sketches to the table. ‘Saghul told me to make her a postulant,’ she said. ‘I want to follow her wishes, but this casts the matter into doubt again, in my mind.’ ‘You said we need every sister,’ Tunuva reminded her. ‘After Carmentum, that is truer than ever.’ When Esbar stood, so did she. ‘Ez, I just watched a republic crumble in a day. Surely we can’t squander a warrior who can wield such a force.’ ‘I think it far more foolish to trust her with the fruit, giving her twice as much power as she already has. Besides, if this magic has such a ruinous influence on wyrms, it may weaken us as well.’ Esbar raised her eyebrows. ‘Did you feel it, when she used that power?’ ‘Yes,’ Tunuva admitted. ‘My flame was very weak for the next hour.’ ‘Then you understand the risks I have to weigh. She may help us fight the wyrms, but at what cost?’ Esbar said, her gaze flinty. ‘What if she were to turn that power against us?’ ‘Why would she?’ Tunuva asked her. ‘Esbar, I understand your fear, but this is a fellow mage, with nothing in the world left to her name. She lost her tree, her family – everything she ever had. We are her chance to belong again. She has no reason to betray us.’ ‘Her family,’ Esbar said. Tunuva nodded once. ‘You must have grown close to her on the road.’ ‘I learned more about her,’ Tunuva agreed. ‘I know it’s too soon to give her the fruit. I only think you should do as Saghul requested, and make her a postulant. She would still have to prove herself worthy of the tree – but give her a place here. Give her a chance.’ Esbar looked at the fire, her jaw working. ‘Canthe may remain here as our guest,’ she said at last, ‘but I still trust my instincts, Tuva. Something tells me not to let her into our ranks. I mislike the way she


probably have thrown it out themselves directly they saw him appear on the steps. 'It certainly helped,' said Bond, 'but why didn't you make any sign when they finally got me after the car smash, when I spoke to you? I was dreadfully worried. I thought they might have knocked you out or something.' 'I'm afraid I must have been unconscious,' said Vesper. 'I fainted once from lack of air and when I came to they had cut a hole in front of my face. I must have fainted again. I don't remember much until we got to the villa. I really only gathered you had been captured when I heard you try and come after me in the passage.' 'And they didn't touch you?' asked Bond. 'They didn't try and mess about with you while I was being beaten up?' 'No,' said Vesper. 'They just left me in an arm-chair. They drank and played cards - "belotte" I think it was from what I heard - and then they went to sleep. I suppose that was how SMERSH got them. They bound my legs and put me on a chair in a corner facing the wall and I saw nothing of SMERSH. I heard some odd noises. I expect they woke me up. And then what sounded like one of them falling off his chair. Then there were some soft footsteps and a door closed and then nothing happened until Mathis and the police burst in hours later. I slept most of the time. I had no idea what had happened to you, but,' she faltered, 'I did once hear a terrible scream. It sounded very far away. At least, I think it must have been a scream. At the time I thought it might have been a nightmare.' 'I'm afraid that must have been me,' said Bond. Vesper put out a hand and touched one of his. Her eyes filled with tears. 'It's horrible,' she said. 'The things they did to you. And it was all my fault. If only . . .' She buried her face in her hands. 'That's all right,' said Bond comfortingly. 'It's no good crying over spilt milk. It's all over now and thank heavens they let you alone.' He patted her knee. 'They were going to start on you when they'd got me really softened up,' (softened up is good, he thought to himself). 'We've got a lot to thank SMERSH for. Now, come on, let's forget about it. It certainly wasn't anything to do with you. Anybody could have fallen for that note. Anyway, it's all water over the dam,' he added cheerfully. Vesper looked at him gratefully through her tears. 'You really promise?' she asked. 'I thought you would never forgive me. I . . . I'll try and make it up to you. Somehow.' She looked at him. Somehow? thought Bond to himself. He looked at her. She was smiling at him. He smiled back. 'You'd better look out,' he said. 'I may hold you to that.' She looked into his


loaded so inefficiently.) But that’s not where my mind wants to go. I need space. I need air. I need hours of hypnotherapy to erase him from my nerve endings. “I need to use the bathroom,” I blurt, and slip out into the aisle. 17 HAPPY PLACE AN HOUR OUTSIDE BOZEMAN, MONTANA A SNOWY DRIVEWAY and a frigid rental car, struggling to keep purchase on the iced asphalt. Wyn’s warm hand tight on mine. He lifts the backs of my fingers to his mouth, lets his breath warm them. “They’re going to love you.” I wasn’t even this nervous before my MCAT. No moment in these first two years of medical school has induced this kind of anxiety. In school, I know what it takes to succeed, how to win approval. It’s something you can earn with work, but this is different. They might not like me. I might not like them. I might talk too much or not enough. I might keep them up with my middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom, or put their dishes away in the wrong place, or get in their way in any of the millions of highly specific ways you can only learn to avoid with time. The windows are lit yellow gold, and the snow looks purple in the dark. It’s so beautiful it makes me wish I were a painter or a photographer, someone whose lifework was capturing the ungraspable. Cleo would be able to bottle this moment if she were here. Before Wyn’s even put the car in park, the front door flies open. His parents come running in flannel pajamas and untied bathrobes, the hems of their pants stuffed into snow boots. Gloria is wordlessly whooping. Hank hugs me before we’re even introduced. Wyn’s mother is taller than I’d expected, nearly as tall as Hank, with ice- blond hair and permanently rosy cheeks. Hank has thick sandy-brown waves heavily laced with gray, and a more deeply grooved version of Wyn’s face behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. His sisters, tiny platinum Lou and even tinier dark-haired Michael, are already inside, sipping brandy in front of the fireplace, and after insisting on getting our bags himself, Hank ushers us inside, straight into a wall of noise. Even in front of his family, Wyn keeps his hands on me—at my waist or the curve of my back or resting against the base of my neck, his thumb moving restlessly as he answers the dozens of questions thrown at us rapid fire. The drive wasn’t too bad. The flights from New York were long and cramped. We aren’t hungry. (As Gloria asks this, she shoves plates of pumpkin pie toward us.) We’ve been together (openly) for ten months now. “I’ve been in love with her since we met, though,” Wyn says. “Of course you have,” Gloria says, squeezing my knee. “She’s sweet as pie!” “You just think that because of the curly hair,” Wyn says. “She’s actually extremely feisty.” My face goes beet red, but everyone is laughing, talking over one another, and Wyn is


dialled her father’s number, and a voice informed her that the number was switched off. Two strange men at the gate made Wúràọlá call Yèyé before letting her into the compound. She began to run when she saw the house but had to slow to a walk because it hurt too much to move her bruised body. The walls of the ground floor were blackened beyond recognition. Only the metal bars of the burglary-proof windows remained where there had once been glass and curtains. There was no need to knock, because there was no door anymore. Everything that had been wood was now ashes. Though all the walls were still standing, they were blackened, and the floor was littered with glass and incinerated furniture. Wúràọlá pulled her blouse over her nose and picked her way through the wreckage to the staircase. Everyone except her father was in the living room upstairs. Láyí was out in the balcony, shouting at someone on the phone. Mọ́tárá was asleep with her head on their mother’s knee, a posture she had resisted even as a child. Yes, their father was missing. Whatever caused Mọ́tárá to offer herself for mothering had to be something that awful. Wúràọlá sat beside her mother and placed a hand on Mọ́tárá’s head. “What happened?” “How are you?” Yèyé said, as though it was a normal day, and they were not sitting in a room with broken windows. “Is your face swollen? What happened to your face?” “It’s nothing.” She had worn a turtleneck blouse to hide the bruises on her neck and arms and trousers to cover the cuts on her leg. There was little she could do about her face. “Nothing, kẹ̀, with all these bumps on your skin.” “I’m reacting to something I ate yesterday.” She would come to the real reason later, not right now. “It’s bad o.” Yèyé peered at Wúràọlá’s face. “Hope you’ve taken drugs?” “Leave my face for now. I said, what happened? You said he was kidnapped?” Yèyé sniffled and blinked. “I think it is connected to your in-laws, because the only name they gave us was Fẹ̀sọ̀jaiyé, the one that wants to contest the primaries with Kúnlé’s father. They said he was the one who sent them.” Wúràọlá nodded. It was not the right time to mention that the Cokers would no longer be her in-laws now. “The first person I called after we bought new SIMs and, um, and…and everything was your father-in-law. He was already on his way to catch his flight in Lagos. He’s going to, to, um—” “Abuja.” “Ehen. Láyí has a friend who knows the Honourable’s wife, and he has called that one to help us talk to them and, um”—Yèyé took a shuddering breath—“Láyí’s friend said that Fẹ̀sọ̀jaiyé’s wife says they don’t know anything about this, that the kidnappers must have been lying or I didn’t hear the name well.” “We need to think about ransom.” Láyí had come in from the balcony. “Just in case the kidnappers ask for something, how much cash can we raise


sticky forehead. “I’m serious.” “I am too,” I say. “You’re a mystery to me, Harriet Kilpatrick.” My smile falters. “I’m a mystery to me too,” I say. “I didn’t realize how little I understood myself until I met Cleo and Sabrina. They’re both so sure of how they feel about things.” He pulls another curl straight, and the gentle tug sends a current down my center. “Well, we should get to know you,” he says. “I wouldn’t know where to start.” “Something small,” he says. “Like what?” He smiles unevenly. “Like why do you love cozy mysteries?” I shrug. “I don’t know. They’re so . . . mild.” His kiss against the side of my head melts into a laugh. “Mild?” “The worst thing that can happen to a person happens, right at the start of the story,” I explain. “And it’s like . . . this feeling of safety. You know exactly what’s going to happen by the end. So many things are unpredictable in life. I like things you can trust.” He frowns, his golden hair mussed up off his forehead. I’m suddenly sure I’ve found the one unacceptable answer to his question, the one that makes him realize I am not the cool, sexy, mysterious woman he has confused me with. His teeth scrape over the fullest part of his lip. “You can trust me, Harriet.” In that moment, he pierces a little deeper into my heart, opens another door, finds an entire walled-off room I didn’t realize was there. He pulls me into his chest, and our heartbeats sync. I’ve never felt so certain of anything, so right, so safe. 15 REAL LIFE Wednesday SOMEONE IS JACKHAMMERING inside my skull. I roll over, press my face into the downy mattress. THUNK-THUNK-THUNK. A voice breaks the bodiless dark: “Everybody decent?” My eyes snap open on a bedroom washed in the dim gray of morning. The smell of wet stone and brine wafts in from the open window, and rain pummels the roof. “I’m coming in!” Sabrina. She’s calling through the door. My eyes zigzag around the room, my scrambled egg of a brain piecing together my surroundings. I’m sprawled in the middle of a king-sized bed, wearing only my underwear and Virgin Who CAN Drive T-shirt. “In three . . .” Sabrina says. My gaze finds the jumble of spare sheets on the floor, the golden-brown leg extending beyond it, the arm tucked under the mess of sun-streaked golden hair. “Two . . .” I hurl a pillow at Wyn’s face, and he jolts upright. “One,” Sabrina says. “That’s it. I’m coming in. Cover up your”—I wave frantically at Wyn—“goods if you don’t want me to see them.” His gaze clears, widens. He gathers the bundle of bedding around him and launches himself onto the bed, a trail of sheets spilling out behind him. “Good morning,” Sabrina says, swinging the door open. “What’s going on?” I jerk the blankets up over Wyn’s lap and mine. Sabrina’s mouth curves when she notices the bedding half draped on the bed and


They are the most simple-mannered people alive, and quite unambitious. They are two of the few remaining Evangelical school. Tessy, are you an Evangelical?" "I don't know." "You go to church very regularly, and our parson here is not very High, they tell me." Tess's ideas on the views of the parish clergyman, whom she heard every week, seemed to be rather more vague than Clare's, who had never heard him at all. "I wish I could fix my mind on what I hear there more firmly than I do," she remarked as a safe generality. "It is often a great sorrow to me." She spoke so unaffectedly that Angel was sure in his heart that his father could not object to her on religious grounds, even though she did not know whether her principles were High, Low or Broad. He himself knew that, in reality, the confused beliefs which she held, apparently imbibed in childhood, were, if anything, Tractarian as to phraseology, and Pantheistic as to essence. Confused or otherwise, to disturb them was his last desire: Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views; Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse A life that leads melodious days. He had occasionally thought the counsel less honest than musical; but he gladly conformed to it now. He spoke further of the incidents of his visit, of his father's mode of life, of his zeal for his principles; she grew serener, and the undulations disappeared from her skimming; as she finished one lead after another he followed her, and drew the plugs for letting down the milk. "I fancied you looked a little downcast when you came in," she ventured to observe, anxious to keep away from the subject of herself. "Yes--well, my father had been talking a good deal to me of his troubles and difficulties, and the subject always tends to depress me. He is so zealous that he gets many snubs and buffetings from people of a different way of thinking from himself, and I don't like to hear of such humiliations to a man of his age, the more particularly as I don't think earnestness does any good when carried so far. He has been telling me of a very unpleasant scene in which he took part quite recently. He went as the deputy of some missionary society to preach in the neighbourhood of Trantridge, a place forty miles from here, and made it his business to expostulate with a lax young cynic he met with somewhere about there--son of some landowner up that way--and who has a mother afflicted with blindness. My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance. It was very foolish of my father, I must say, to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless. But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in season or out of season; and, of course, he makes many enemies, not only among the absolutely vicious, but


it was about hot sex instead of, ugh, well, not hot sex? The young nun is reading over the stern nun’s shoulder about “modesty in the fifteenth century for cloistered sisters,” and you just have to trust me that there is something worth grinding your pussy into the edge of the couch cushion coming up. The stern nun says, “Thank you, Sister Mona, you can leave,” and I have literally never listened to that part before, and I am crying. SISTER MOAN-A, GIVE ME A BREAK OVER HERE. Sister Mona turns around to face Mean Nun as she reaches for the door and holds out a white envelope. “This came for you,” she says coyly, and because I’m disgusting, I thought, “And I’m gonna come for you.” There’s a long, lingering shot of Mean Nun as some inscrutable emotions play across her face (Fear? Anxiety?? Heartburn from Taco Tuesday at the nunnery???) and then, it’s the next day (I guess?) and Sister Mona and another young nun are outside collecting the wash from the line, and I need you to know that in this case “the wash” appears to be stiff white napkins that still have the crease marks from the package they were purchased in. There’s water noise in the background, from either a babbling brook or because someone left the sink running or because these ladies are squirting so forcefully it’s audible through ten pounds of black cloth. The other nun stops doing her chores and says, “Sister Mona? I have a confession.” Oh shit! Are we about to find out God isn’t real and there is literally no point to our stupid and painful lives atop this spinning rock as it hurtles through outer space?! Haha, no, she just wants to tell Sister Mona that she still “thinks of [their] night together.” Sister Mona rolls her eyes like “Here we go with this shit again,” and continues unclipping her cheap-ass napkins. Ugh, maybe whoever wrote this actually knew what they were doing because nothing is sexier than intense, unrequited longing. My heart is pounding in my chest! Hang on, the camera pulls out (don’t make me make the joke), and it’s actually sheets they’re pretending to fold? I imagine the morning after your first night in this sexy lesbo convent you wake up covered in a thousand papercuts because these sheets look like the definition of hell. Sister Mona coldly apologizes to Sister Mary, apparently, for “awakening temptation” in her, and Sister Mary is crestfallen, holding her basket of sandpaper with tears streaming down her face as Sister Mona walks around her to go back inside. Is this what Jesus would do?! We’re back inside and Mean Nun from earlier is in a confessional booth. I think. I don’t know because I was raised in black-people church where we did not have to do this. God, I can’t even imagine. How do you decide which sins to tell? According to my behavior in therapy, my answer would be the most entertaining ones that make me sound the least unhinged,


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had so long eluded, and he should fall at last--richly as he merited such a fate--by her hand. But, these were the mere wanderings of a mind unwholly to detach itself from old companions and associations, though enabled to fix itself steadily on one object, and resolved not to be turned aside by any consideration. Her fears for Sikes would have been more powerful inducements to recoil while there was yet time; but she had stipulated that her secret should be rigidly kept, she had dropped no clue which could lead to his discovery, she had refused, even for his sake, a refuge from all the guilt and wretchedness that encompasses her--and what more could she do! She was resolved. Though all her mental struggles terminated in this conclusion, they forced themselves upon her, again and again, and left their traces too. She grew pale and thin, even within a few days. At times, she took no heed of what was passing before her, or no part in conversations where once, she would have been the loudest. At other times, she laughed without merriment, and was noisy without a moment afterwards--she sat silent and dejected, brooding with her head upon her hands, while the very effort by which she roused herself, told, more forcibly than even these indications, that she was ill at ease, and that her thoughts were occupied with matters very different and distant from those in the course of discussion by her companions. It was Sunday night, and the bell of the nearest church struck the hour. Sikes and the Jew were talking, but they paused to listen. The girl looked up from the low seat on which she crouched, and listened too. Eleven. 'An hour this side of midnight,' said Sikes, raising the blind to look out and returning to his seat. 'Dark and heavy it is too. A good night for business this.' 'Ah!' replied Fagin. 'What a pity, Bill, my dear, that there's none quite ready to be done.' 'You're right for once,' replied Sikes gruffly. 'It is a pity, for I'm in the humour too.' Fagin sighed, and shook his head despondingly. 'We must make up for lost time when we've got things into a good train. That's all I know,' said Sikes. 'That's the way to talk, my dear,' replied Fagin, venturing to pat him on the shoulder. 'It does me good to hear you.' 'Does you good, does it!' cried Sikes. 'Well, so be it.' 'Ha! ha! ha!' laughed Fagin, as if he were relieved by even this concession. 'You're like yourself to-night, Bill. Quite like yourself.' 'I don't feel like myself when you lay that withered old claw on my shoulder, so take it away,' said Sikes, casting off the Jew's hand. 'It make you nervous, Bill,--reminds you of being nabbed, does it?' said Fagin, determined not to be offended. 'Reminds me of being nabbed by the devil,' returned Sikes. 'There never was another man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father, and I suppose HE is singeing


kind of strapless sports top and shorts. She laughs at me and wraps the shawl around her middle like a beach dress. “Better?” Actually now instead of looking like an attractive woman in sweaty workout gear she looks like an attractive woman wrapped in a silk thing that’s not really big enough for the job, but never mind. “Cal Sounder,” I say. She laughs. “Mr. Sounder, there’s no one in Victor’s tonight who doesn’t know that.” “I guess not.” “What can I do for you?” “You can tell me about the bulletproof scarf.” She touches it gently. “A gift.” “Someone worried about your safety.” “I’m a singer. I get the wrong kinds of fans sometimes. I get letters, flowers, even visits. People see me onstage and they’re moved, but they don’t have the sophistication to understand the difference between an emotional response and a relationship. A little extra protection never hurts. Besides, I think it’s beautiful. Don’t you?” She shifts her shoulders, making the shawl shimmer. “And the…concerned party? They understand that difference?” “Yes. He does.” “A boyfriend.” “I hope that isn’t disappointing to you, Mr. Sounder. This is going to be a conversation, between us. Nothing more.” “No, that’s what I came for: to talk.” “So talk. I’m secretly hoping you work for a record label.” “I’m a police consultant. What can you tell me about the man who gave you the scarf?” “Roddy? Is he in trouble?” “No.” Which is not exactly a lie. “I promise I’ll explain, but I’d like to talk first so your answers aren’t coloured by the situation now.” “Consultant, you said. Not detective.” “No. Officially retained, but not actually police.” “I don’t know whether I want to help you. How do I know you’re on my side?” “Ask Victor.” “Because everyone trusts Victor.” “Everyone who knows her.” Which is true. Victor is a whole bucket of crazy in that velvet catsuit, but in the end, she has rules and she follows them all the way down into the mud. “And what would Victor say about you?” “That I can help you. That I’ll do my best for Roddy. That I play straight as I can. She made me promise to be nice to you.” “Doesn’t that mean she thought you might not?” “Means she thought my promise was worth something.” “And Sam?” “Sam would say I’m an asshole. But he wouldn’t argue the rest, and he did pour me a beer.” She laughs. “That’s about as good as it gets with Sam.” “It is. He serious about that new chef?” She grins. “Are you a gossip, Mr. Sounder?” “Tell me with your hand on your heart that Sam being romantically entangled doesn’t blow your mind.” She puts her hand on her heart and opens her mouth, then shakes her head. “I actually can’t.” “What’s her name?” “Iolani. So…is he serious?” “Deadly, I think. Is she?” “Am I talking to Sam’s drinking buddy now?” “We drink in the same place sometimes. I don’t know about buddy.” “Well, okay. She likes him. She doesn’t really know what


the way that he had come, his head hanging, the very picture of dejection. What all this meant I could not imagine, but I was deeply ashamed to have witnessed so intimate a scene without my friend's knowledge. I ran down the hill therefore and met the baronet at the bottom. His face was flushed with anger and his brows were wrinkled, like one who is at his wit's ends what to do. "Halloa, Watson! Where have you dropped from?" said he. "You don't mean to say that you came after me in spite of all?" I explained everything to him: how I had found it impossible to remain behind, how I had followed him, and how I had witnessed all that had occurred. For an instant his eyes blazed at me, but my frankness disarmed his anger, and he broke at last into a rather rueful laugh. "You would have thought the middle of that prairie a fairly safe place for a man to be private," said he, "but, by thunder, the whole countryside seems to have been out to see me do my wooing -- and a mighty poor wooing at that! Where had you engaged a seat?" "I was on that hill." "Quite in the back row, eh? But her brother was well up to the front. Did you see him come out on us?" "Yes, I did." "Did he ever strike you as being crazy -- this brother of hers?" "I can't say that he ever did." "I dare say not. I always thought him sane enough until to-day, but you can take it from me that either he or I ought to be in a straitjacket. What's the matter with me, anyhow? You've lived near me for some weeks, Watson. Tell me straight, now! Is there anything that would prevent me from making a good husband to a woman that I loved?" "I should say not." "He can't object to my worldly position, so it must be myself that he has this down on. What has he against me? I never hurt man or woman in my life that I know of. And yet he would not so much as let me touch the tips of her fingers." "Did he say so?" "That, and a deal more. I tell you, Watson, I've only known her these few weeks, but from the first I just felt that she was made for me, and she, too -- she was happy when she was with me, and that I'll swear. There's a light in a woman's eyes that speaks louder than words. But he has never let us get together and it was only to-day for the first time that I saw a chance of having a few words with her alone. She was glad to meet me, but when she did it was not love that she would talk about, and she wouldn't have let me talk about it either if she could have stopped it. She kept coming back to it that this was a place of danger,


'un, peevish-like. Now I DID know the old 'un,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'and I know'd his merits, so I unnerstan' her; but 'tan't entirely so, you see, with others - nat'rally can't be!' My aunt and I both acquiesced. 'Wheerby,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'my sister might - I doen't say she would, but might - find Missis Gummidge give her a leetle trouble now-and-again. Theerfur 'tan't my intentions to moor Missis Gummidge 'long with them, but to find a Beein' fur her wheer she can fisherate for herself.' (A Beein' signifies, in that dialect, a home, and to fisherate is to provide.) 'Fur which purpose,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'I means to make her a 'lowance afore I go, as'll leave her pretty comfort'ble. She's the faithfullest of creeturs. 'Tan't to be expected, of course, at her time of life, and being lone and lorn, as the good old Mawther is to be knocked about aboardship, and in the woods and wilds of a new and fur-away country. So that's what I'm a-going to do with her.' He forgot nobody. He thought of everybody's claims and strivings, but his own. 'Em'ly,' he continued, 'will keep along with me - poor child, she's sore in need of peace and rest! - until such time as we goes upon our voyage. She'll work at them clothes, as must be made; and I hope her troubles will begin to seem longer ago than they was, wen she finds herself once more by her rough but loving uncle.' MY aunt nodded confirmation of this hope, and imparted great satisfaction to Mr. Peggotty. 'Theer's one thing furder, Mas'r Davy,' said he, putting his hand in his breast-pocket, and gravely taking out the little paper bundle I had seen before, which he unrolled on the table. 'Theer's these here banknotes - fifty pound, and ten. To them I wish to add the money as she come away with. I've asked her about that (but not saying why), and have added of it up. I an't a scholar. Would you be so kind as see how 'tis?' He handed me, apologetically for his scholarship, a piece of paper, and observed me while I looked it over. It was quite right. 'Thankee, sir,' he said, taking it back. 'This money, if you doen't see objections, Mas'r Davy, I shall put up jest afore I go, in a cover directed to him; and put that up in another, directed to his mother. I shall tell her, in no more wureds than I speak to you, what it's the price on; and that I'm gone, and past receiving of it back.' I told him that I thought it would be right to do so - that I was thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. 'I said that theer was on'y one thing furder,' he proceeded with a grave smile, when he had made up his little bundle again, and put it in his pocket; 'but theer was two. I warn't sure in my mind, wen I come


ground where the sun can reach the single layer of berries that covers it. But where is he? “Peeta!” I call out in a panic. “Peeta!” I turn to the rustle of brush and almost send an arrow through him. Fortunately, I pull my bow at the last second and it sticks in an oak trunk to his left. He jumps back, flinging a handful of berries into the foliage. My fear comes out as anger. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be here, not running around in the woods!” “I found some berries down by the stream,” he says, clearly confused by my outburst. “I whistled. Why didn’t you whistle back?” I snap at him. “I didn’t hear. The water’s too loud, I guess,” he says. He crosses and puts his hands on my shoulders. That’s when I feel that I’m trembling. “I thought Cato killed you!” I almost shout. “No, I’m fine.” Peeta wraps his arms around me, but I don’t respond. “Katniss?” I push away, trying to sort out my feelings. “If two people agree on a signal, they stay in range. Because if one of them doesn’t answer, they’re in trouble, all right?” “All right!” he says. “All right. Because that’s what happened with Rue, and I watched her die!” I say. I turn away from him, go to the pack 313 and open a fresh bottle of water, although I still have some in mine. But I’m not ready to forgive him. I notice the food. The rolls and apples are untouched, but someone’s definitely picked away part of the cheese. “And you ate without me!” I really don’t care, I just want something else to be mad about. “What? No, I didn’t,” Peeta says. “Oh, and I suppose the apples ate the cheese,” I say. “I don’t know what ate the cheese,” Peeta says slowly and distinctly, as if trying not to lose his temper, “but it wasn’t me. I’ve been down by the stream collecting berries. Would you care for some?” I would actually, but I don’t want to relent too soon. I do walk over and look at them. I’ve never seen this type before. No, I have. But not in the arena. These aren’t Rue’s berries, al- though they resemble them. Nor do they match any I learned about in training. I lean down and scoop up a few, rolling them between my fingers. My father’s voice comes back to me. “Not these, Katniss. Never these. They’re nightlock. You’ll be dead before they reach your stomach.” Just then, the cannon fires. I whip around, expecting Peeta to collapse to the ground, but he only raises his eyebrows. The hovercraft appears a hundred yards or so away. What’s left of Foxface’s emaciated body is lifted into the air. I can see the red glint of her hair in the sunlight. I should have known the moment I saw the missing cheese. ... 314 Peeta has me by the arm, pushing me toward a tree. “Climb. He’ll be here in a second. We’ll stand


cousins and friends. So I spent the hors d’oeuvres portion of the evening nursing a glass of champagne and heartily doing that thing where you never, ever look at the only person you want to look at. That thing where you pretend to not even be aware of the only person you’re aware of. That thing where you give an Oscar-level performance of being totally, utterly, blissfully fine because the person watching you from across the party never kissed you senseless and then broke your heart. Did that even happen? Because you sure as hell don’t remember it. You’re too fabulous to remember it. You and your ruffly dress and your flirty new rooftop companion are far, far too awesome for a thing like being dumped—and then ghosted and then treated with contempt—to even matter. Daniel turned out to be highly accomplished at flirting—and then it didn’t take that long before his face delighted me by coming into focus. “Oh, hello,” I said, with a frisson of delight when it happened. “There you are.” “Here I am,” Daniel agreed gamely, with no clue what I meant. “You are cuter than Sue said,” I said. At that, Daniel laughed and gave me a side squeeze, and that’s when I looked up to see Joe watching us. “Say something funny,” I said to Daniel real quick. “Like what?” Daniel asked. And then I burst out laughing like that was it. Then Daniel laughed because I was laughing. When we settled, Daniel said, “So. That guy who’s been watching you this entire time? Are you trying to make him jealous?” Joe had been watching me this entire time? That felt like a sad little victory. “Yes, please,” I said. “Let’s go dance, then,” Daniel said, nodding at the empty floor. “I don’t think it’s time for that yet,” I said, glancing over at Mrs. Kim, not wanting to mess up her schedule. “Oh, it’s definitely not,” Daniel said. Then he gave me a nod. “Even better.” And that’s how I wound up slow-dancing with Sue’s cute cousin, adding another kind of triumph to the evening, until the caterers started serving dinner. I then made my way toward the tables to find my place card and discovered that Mrs. Kim did not get the Joe memo—and she had seated us right next to each other. The place cards were in Korean and English. The English on mine read Sadie. And the one in front of the empty chair next to me read Helpful. Mr. Kim, you adorable troublemaker. Joe walked up next to me, read his own place card, and realized the same thing. We turned and met eyes. Did I say he was heartbreaking from across the roof? Up close, he was worse. Those lips. That jaw. Those eyes. I’d seen them all before—in pieces. And here they were, miraculously together and adding up to far more than the sum of their parts. “Sadie,” Joe said, acknowledging me with a nod. “Joe,” I acknowledged back—noting how odd it was to know that for sure. And


I can hear if any changes need to be made.” Rambo beeped once, twice, rising slightly on his lift. Then, “VACUUM. USED BY HUMANS TO CLEAN.” He spun in a circle, waving his arms. “That’s me! Oh my goodness, that’s exactly right! Vic. Vic. He’s so good at this!” The Coachman grinned. “Thank you for recognizing the greatness of my work. I will remember this moment forever, or at least until my body breaks down, leaving only my deteriorating consciousness that will undoubtedly devolve into a mimicry of human insanity. Nurse, oh, nurse. It’s your turn.” With a little shimmy of his hips, he glided back to the desk, picking up another piece of paper. Skipping back to the cages, he used the robot arm to drop the page on the stool. “Beautiful miss, if you could, please read the words upon your label.” “No,” Nurse Ratched said. “I am not in the mood.” The Coachman blinked. “The mood? What do you mean, the—oh. Oh. I see! Well, far be it from me to tell a lady of your caliber what she should or should not do. No, I won’t have you tiring out your precious circuitry over something like this. Fear not, I shall read it for you!” “You should come closer,” Nurse Ratched said. “I promise not to strangle you until your head pops off and falls to the floor.” On her screen, the words YOU CAN TRUST ME! I’M A NURSE! The Coachman waggled his finger at her. “Ah, you almost got me there! You are a delight. Your star burns bright, no doubt about it! Your label reads: NURSE REGISTERED AUTOMATON TO CARE, HEAL, EDUCATE, AND DRILL. PERFECTLY PRESERVED.” Nurse Ratched was silent for a moment. Then, “I do not detect any lies. You may continue.” Rambo beeped. “But—” “Hush, vacuum,” Nurse Ratched said. “The adults are speaking. Engaging Flirting Protocol. Yoo-hoo. Coachman. One of my arms secretes a viscous liquid not unlike lubrication. Do with that what you will.” The Coachman took a step toward her. “You don’t say? Perhaps a little demonstration is in order. Call it my checkup. Is that right? Is that what humans say? Going in for a checkup?” “Yes. That is exactly right. Come over here and let me body check—I mean, see you for your checkup appointment. Remove your trousers and cough. Do not be shy. I do not judge.” For a moment, Vic thought the Coachman would do exactly that. One hand went to the front of his pants as if getting ready to pull them down, the robot arm bouncing against his side. Then his eyes narrowed. “Say, you wouldn’t be trying to trick me, would you?” “Disengaging Flirting Protocol. Yes. I was doing exactly that. There is lubrication, but it would not have mattered given what I was about to do.” “Impressive,” the Coachman whispered. “I still almost want to try just to see what happens. But there will be time for that later. On to the next!” Back to the desk again, picking up the third label.


would do many times, and with joy. It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences; yet it was not a simple but rather a very complex passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, changed into something that seemed to the boy himself to be remote from sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves. While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door, and his valet entered, and reminded him it was time to dress [32] for dinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a faded rose. He thought of Dorian Gray's young fiery-colored life, and wondered how it was all going to end. When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram lying on the hall-table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl Vane. CHAPTER IV [...32] "I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?" said Lord Henry on the following evening, as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol where dinner had been laid for three. "No, Harry," answered Hallward, giving his hat and coat to the bowing waiter. "What is it? Nothing about politics, I hope? They don't interest me. There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons worth painting; though many of them would be the better for a little whitewashing." "Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, watching him as he spoke. Hallward turned perfectly pale, and a curious look flashed for a moment into his eyes, and then passed away, leaving them dull." Dorian engaged to be married!" he cried. "Impossible!" "It is perfectly true." "To whom?" "To some little actress or other." "I can't believe it. Dorian is far too sensible." "Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear Basil." "Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry," said Hallward, smiling. "Except in America. But I didn't say he was married. I said he was engaged


Kaku. Sheldon Cooper got the seven-season spin-off show, but Leonard? Nothing.” People chuckle— including Volkov. Jack’s slim smile doesn’t waver. “The advantage of theory is that we trade in ideas, and ideas are cheap and fast. Experimental physicists need expensive equipment to troubleshoot every step, but theorists can just sit there and write”—I add a calculated shrug—“science fan fiction.” It’s an actual insult I got when I went to a Harvard social as Cece’s plus-one. From a philosophy grad who, after three beers, decided to mansplain to the entire bar why my publications didn’t really count. The things I do for free food. “Theorists hide behind fancy math,” Cole says. Sweet summer STEMlord. I promise you’re not as edgy as you think. “What I don’t get is . . . what’s the point of building abstract theories that are not even bound by the laws of nature?” says the guy next to Cole. He’s wearing a long-sleeved tee that reads “Physics and Chill” in the Shrek font. I kinda love it. “Experiments are way more useful.” Another dude. In the first row. “You only care about what might be, but not what actually is.” Dude, of course. This time from the third row. “The possible applications are always an afterthought.” Many students nod. So do I, because I can read them like a large-print edition. I know the exact Elsie they want. Time to bring this home. “What you guys are saying is that theoretical physics doesn’t always end in a product. And to that, all I can say is . . . I agree. Physics is like sex: it may yield practical results, but often that’s not why we do it.” At least that’s what Feynman once said. He’s also on record as calling women worthless bitches, but we’ll let it slide since his quote made you laugh. “How many of you are experimentalists?” Almost all hands shoot up, and Cole’s the highest. I’m depressingly unsurprised. “The truth is, you guys are right. Theorists do focus on mathematical models and abstract concepts. But they do it hoping that experimentalists like you will come across our theories and decide to prove us right.” Ugh. I want a shower and a bar of industrial-strength soap. “And that’s why I want to talk with you guys about my theories on Wigner crystallization. So that I can hear your opinions and improve through your feedback. I don’t know when theorists and experimentalists became rivals, but physics is not about competition—it’s about collaboration. You’re free to make up your mind, and I’m not going to try and convince you that you need my theories. I will acknowledge, however, that I need your experiments.” Am I laying it on too thick? Nope. Well, yes. But the grads love it. They nod. They murmur. A couple of them grin smugly. It’s my cue to unsheathe my warmest smile. “Does that answer your question, Cole?” It does. Cole’s ravenous ego has been sufficiently fed with scraps of my dignity. Oh, the things I do for healthcare and pension funds


for a portrait, and they'd better dine together and have a good old talk. Philip reminded him of his acquaintance with Hayward, and was entertained to see that Lawson was slightly awed by Hayward's elegant clothes and grand manner. They sat upon him better than they had done in the shabby little studio which Lawson and Philip had shared. At dinner Lawson went on with his news. Flanagan had gone back to America. Clutton had disappeared. He had come to the conclusion that a man had no chance of doing anything so long as he was in contact with art and artists: the only thing was to get right away. To make the step easier he had quarrelled with all his friends in Paris. He developed a talent for telling them home truths, which made them bear with fortitude his declaration that he had done with that city and was settling in Gerona, a little town in the north of Spain which had attracted him when he saw it from the train on his way to Barcelona. He was living there now alone. "I wonder if he'll ever do any good," said Philip. He was interested in the human side of that struggle to express something which was so obscure in the man's mind that he was become morbid and querulous. Philip felt vaguely that he was himself in the same case, but with him it was the conduct of his life as a whole that perplexed him. That was his means of self-expression, and what he must do with it was not clear. But he had no time to continue with this train of thought, for Lawson poured out a frank recital of his affair with Ruth Chalice. She had left him for a young student who had just come from England, and was behaving in a scandalous fashion. Lawson really thought someone ought to step in and save the young man. She would ruin him. Philip gathered that Lawson's chief grievance was that the rupture had come in the middle of a portrait he was painting. "Women have no real feeling for art," he said. "They only pretend they have." But he finished philosophically enough: "However, I got four portraits out of her, and I'm not sure if the last I was working on would ever have been a success." Philip envied the easy way in which the painter managed his love affairs. He had passed eighteen months pleasantly enough, had got an excellent model for nothing, and had parted from her at the end with no great pang. "And what about Cronshaw?" asked Philip. "Oh, he's done for," answered Lawson, with the cheerful callousness of his youth. "He'll be dead in six months. He got pneumonia last winter. He was in the English hospital for seven weeks, and when he came out they told him his only chance was to give up liquor." "Poor devil," smiled the abstemious Philip. "He kept off for a bit. He used to go to the Lilas all the same, he couldn't keep away


Arin’s warning. In the future, avoid touching the trees while you run. Even the sap in Ayume can kill you. “May you fester eternally in your tomb, Dania,” I spat. Apprenticing under Rory did not come without its cursed knowledge. Though Rory created cures in areas where few solutions existed, even he rarely bothered with venom. From the pain radiating up my arm, I judged I had less than twenty minutes before the sap immobilized my entire body. A rope dangled from the bluff, the frayed end brushing my shoulder. The sheer rock face sneered down at me. The cliff cut into the night sky like a blade of darkness. I pressed my forehead to the crumbling stone and closed my eyes. Already, the fingers of my right hand hurt to fold. If my arm quit halfway up the climb, I might be able to dangle from the rope long enough for the air to finish its task and send me to sleep. At least then I would not be conscious when I plummeted to my death. I tossed off Timur’s coat and hoisted myself onto the rope. Bending my legs, I pushed off the cliff and used the swing’s momentum to begin the climb. I clutched the rope with one hand at the bottom, one on top. I wrapped the knuckles of my bottom hand in the rope for leverage while the top one pulled me upward—an old trick of Hanim’s to prevent sliding. The pattern held; I pushed off the side of the cliff and climbed a foot, swapping the bottom hand every few minutes. I tried to think of Fairel or Rory, Sefa or Marek. Anything to invigorate my magic. But my arms ached, and my eyes struggled to stay open. The sap pumped its poison through me, competing with the fatigue to see which could kill me first. Instead of anyone dear to me, I thought of Soraya. I had adored her so completely. Wept over her death long after the tears for my grandparents dried. She had loved me, too. But the hate… the hate that poisoned worse than any sap, that rotted Soraya and left behind the woman who stabbed me in Lukub. A sudden wind batted me to the side. The rope catapulted me into the bluff. I hit the rocks and lost my grip, sliding down for a dizzying few seconds before I caught myself again. The friction from the rope tore my palms open, coating my forearms in blood. Swaying gently, I tried to gauge how much left there was to climb. “You’re not even halfway there,” a little girl said from my right. I jolted, the rope fibers digging into my raw hands. The little girl dangled from a second rope, peering at me with distaste. It’s not real, Hanim said. It’s the forest’s magic. “I am not the forest’s magic. I’m yours,” she griped. “Hurry. You have moments left.” “Essiya,” I breathed. “Essiya,” she returned. “Or Sylvia, I suppose, which is not the name I would have chosen. You named us


way. Pulling me through the moment with a mounting sense of longing. Each thing I did, each move I made, made me want more of whatever that was. When I felt ready to start painting, I followed my instincts. I sketched out Joe’s torso—his outline leaning into the frame with that kind of friendly, Labrador retriever energy he had. I found myself so immersed in rendering his body—those shoulders, the pecs and forearms, the trim angles of his fingers, resting on his jeans—that I didn’t work too hard on the face. I wasn’t avoiding it, exactly. I was just following the parts that called to me. The neck, the earlobes, the flop of the hair. Everything I’d tried to do since the surgery had been about trying to get to the product. But now I settled into the process. I just painted. I kept my eyes closed to “look” at Joe, but I opened them in front of the canvas. I wanted to see the colors. I wanted to watch the brushstrokes happen. I wanted to see the painting appear in front of my eyes. No matter what else might happen with this painting, the process of making it was bliss. That counted for something. At last, when I finally worked up the courage to sketch his face, I didn’t try to make it make sense. I wasn’t thinking, What would Norman Rockwell do? I was thinking about what I would do. What I needed to do—with each mark and each line—to render my experience of Joe’s face. I was following my own compass. Wherever it would lead. And it turned out, Sue was right. That was a win in itself. * * * I PAINTED—AND TOUCHED, and painted and touched—Joe for two solid hours that night. He was endlessly patient. Didn’t check his phone or fall asleep or even ask for a glass of water. He just stayed with me the whole time, taking it all in. When I’d done everything I could do for the night and I had a pretty full, dynamic early painted sketch, I thanked him, like he could go. “Anyway,” I said, washing my hands at the sink. “I really appreciate you doing this for me. Congratulations. You’re almost free.” “Free from what?” Joe asked. “From me. Once the art show is over, we won’t have to see each other anymore.” “Why wouldn’t we see each other?” “I’m just saying. I’ve taken up a lot of your time.” “I was hoping you’d give me roller-skating lessons.” “But how would Dr. Michaux feel about that?” Joe frowned. “Why would Dr. Michaux feel anything about that?” “Aren’t you … you know?” “What?” Joe took a swig of water. “Didn’t we talk about this?” “You said you weren’t dating. But I figured you must be hooking up.” Joe coughed. “What?” “You’re always … coming out of her apartment,” I said. And a bunch of others. “Yeah? So?” “So aren’t you guys … together?” “Wait—you thought we were—what?” My fingers were still tingling from touching him. I shrugged. Joe started


of time-vision, this was the strangest. "I have breasted the future to place my words where only you can hear them," Alia had said. "Even you cannot do that, my brother. I find it an interesting play. And . . . oh, yes -- I've killed our grandfather, the demented old Baron. He had very little pain." Silence. His time sense had seen her withdrawal. "Muad'Dib." Paul opened his eyes to see Stilgar's black-bearded visage above him, the dark eyes glaring with battle light. "You've found the body of the old Baron," Paul said. A hush of the person settled over Stilgar. "How could you know?" he whispered. "We just found the body in that great pile of metal the Emperor built." Paul ignored the question, seeing Gurney return accompanied by two Fremen who supported a captive Sardaukar. "Here's one of them, m'Lord," Gurney said. He signed to the guard to hold the captive five paces in front of Paul. The Sardaukar's eyes, Paul noted, carried a glazed expression of shock. A blue bruise stretched from the bridge of his nose to the corner of his mouth. He was of the blond, chisel-featured caste, the look that seemed synonymous with rank among the Sardaukar, yet there were no insignia on his torn uniform except the gold buttons with the Imperial crest and the tattered braid of his trousers. "I think this one's an officer, m'Lord," Gurney said. Paul nodded, said: "I am the Duke Paul Atreides. Do you understand that, man?" The Sardaukar stared at him unmoving. "Speak up," Paul said, "or your Emperor may die." The man blinked, swallowed. "Who am I?" Paul demanded. "You are the Duke Paul Atreides," the man husked. He seemed too submissive to Paul, but then the Sardaukar had never been prepared for such happenings as this day. They'd never known anything but victory which, Paul realized, could be a weakness in itself. He put that thought aside for later consideration in his own training program. "I have a message for you to carry to the Emperor," Paul said. And he couched his words in the ancient formula: "I, a Duke of a Great House, an Imperial Kinsman, give my word of bond under the Convention. If the Emperor and his people lay down their arms and come to me here I will guard their lives with my own." Paul held up his left hand with the ducal signet for the Sardaukar to see. "I swear it by this." The man wet his lips with his tongue, glanced at Gurney. "Yes," Paul said. "Who but an Atreides could command the allegiance of Gurney Halleck." "I will carry the message," the Sardaukar said. "Take him to our forward command post and send him in," Paul said. "Yes, m'Lord." Gurney motioned for the guard to obey, led them out. Paul turned back to Stilgar. "Chani and your mother have arrived," Stilgar said. "Chani has asked time to be alone with her grief. The Reverend Mother sought a moment in the weirding room; I know not why." "My mother's


as is possible or necessary. Do not believe what you read in novels or books about the war. There is nothing worse. It is not only the immediate agony, but also the thought that your manhood is being gradually destroyed and that at the end, if you will not yield, you will no longer be a man. 'That, my dear Bond, is a sad and terrible thought - a long chain of agony for the body and also for the mind, and then the final screaming moment when you will beg me to kill you. All that is inevitable unless you tell me where you hid the money.' He poured some more coffee into the glass and drank it down leaving brown corners to his mouth. Bond's lips were writhing. He was trying to say something. At last he got the word out in a harsh croak: 'Drink,' he said and his tongue came out and swilled across his dry lips. 'Of course, my dear boy, how thoughtless of me.' Le Chiffre poured some coffee into the other glass. There was a ring of sweat drops on the floor round Bond's chair. 'We must certainly keep your tongue lubricated.' He laid the handle of the carpet-beater down on the floor between his thick legs and rose from his chair. He went behind Bond and taking a handful of his soaking hair in one hand, he wrenched Bond's head sharply back. He poured the coffee down Bond's throat in small mouthfuls so that he would not choke. Then he released his head so that it fell forward again on his chest. He went back to his chair and picked up the carpet-beater. Bond raised his head and spoke thickly. 'Money no good to you.' His voice was a laborious croak. 'Police trace it to you.' Exhausted by the effort, his head sank forward again. He was a little, but only a little, exaggerating the extent of his physical collapse. Anything to gain time and anything to defer the next searing pain. 'Ah, my dear fellow, I had forgotten to tell you.' Le Chiffre smiled wolfishly. 'We met after our little game at the Casino and you were such a sportsman that you agreed we would have one more run through the pack between the two of us. It was a gallant gesture. Typical of an English gentleman. 'Unfortunately you lost and this upset you so much that you decided to leave Royale immediately for an unknown destination. Like the gentleman you are, you very kindly gave me a note explaining the circumstances so that I would have no difficulty in cashing your cheque. You see, dear boy, everything has been thought of and you need have no fears on my account.' He chuckled fatly. 'Now shall we continue? I have all the time in the world and truth to tell I am rather interested to see how long a man can stand this particular form of . . . er . . . encouragement.' He rattled the harsh cane on the floor. So


ground. She slips back into her tunic, flinching when it sticks to her wound, then leaves the cave, her hips brushing against the smooth rocks. The lynx lies close to the spring, its blood spreading on the orange leaves like spilled wine. Clytemnestra limps closer to it and retrieves her dagger. The animal’s eyes are open, reflecting the bright shape of the moon. Surprise is still etched on them, and sadness. They are not so different from a dead man’s eyes. Clytemnestra ties the animal’s paws to her quiver and starts to walk, hoping to be home by morning. Her mother will be proud of her hunt. 2 One Girl Wins and the Other Loses “SLOW DOWN, CLYTEMNESTRA! Artemis will shoot me if I am second again!” Clytemnestra laughs, and the sound echoes like birdsong across the plain. “She won’t. Mother told you that to make you run faster!” They are racing between the rows of olive and fig trees, their hair catching the leaves, their bare feet stepping on fallen fruit. Clytemnestra is faster. Cuts and bruises cover her arms, and her eyes show her determination to reach the river first. Behind her, Helen pants, calling to her sister. Whenever the sunlight catches her hair, it glows as brightly as the ripe fruit around her. Clytemnestra jumps out of the grove onto the sunbaked earth. The ground burns her feet, so she hops onto the yellow grass. She stops only when she gets to the river to look at her figure mirrored in the water. She is dirty, disheveled. “Wait for me,” Helen calls. Clytemnestra turns. Her sister has stopped at the edge of the grove, sweat pouring down her tunic. She is glowering at her. “Why must you do everything in a hurry?” Helen asks. Clytemnestra smiles. To their people, Helen of Sparta may look like a goddess, but truly, she follows her sister in everything she does. “Because it’s hot,” Clytemnestra says. She throws aside her tunic and plunges into the river. Her long hair dances around her like seaweed. The fresh breeze of the early morning is making way for the summer heat. Along the banks of the Eurotas river, between the dry plains and rough mountains, a few bloodred anemones struggle to grow. Not far from the banks, the thin strip of fertile soil with olive and fig trees stretches shyly, like a ray of sun in a clouded sky. Helen is lingering by the bank, the water up to her thighs. She always walks slowly into the river, wetting herself with her hands. “Come on.” Clytemnestra swims toward Helen and hugs her waist. “It’s cold,” Helen moans, but she keeps walking into the water. When Clytemnestra tries to let go of her, Helen clings to her sister’s warm body, pressing as close as she can. “You are no Spartan woman,” Clytemnestra says with a smile. “Not like you. If you were a man, you’d be among the strongest fighters in Greece.” “I’m already among the cleverest in Sparta,” Clytemnestra says, grinning. Helen frowns. “You shouldn’t say


“Do you?” “Real clear.” “Because I could always administer a vision test.” As Santana goes to a control box mounted on the wall and puts down the big roll-up, Durand considers a glass-walled cubicle with a sign above its door that reads VALET. Against the back wall of that space is a pegboard on which only a few electronic keys hang. As an experienced player, he often notices things that seem mundane but that eventually prove to be essential to a winning strategy. Santana opens an interior door, and Calaphas follows him into a vestibule. “Leave your raincoat. Don’t go drippin’ all over the place.” As they proceed along a hallway toward the lobby at the front of the building, Santana speaks a name and says, “Know who that is?” “He’s a United States senator.” Santana mentions another name. Calaphas says, “Investment fund boss. Oversees trillions.” The third name is Katherine Ormond-Wattley, the director of the ISA, to whom Calaphas answers if he answers to anyone. “Them three,” Santana says, “is so tight with Woodbine they’re Siamese twins.” “Four twins.” “You get what I’m sayin’?” “With some effort.” “Get it outta your head how Woodbine’s just some mouthpiece you can keep waitin’ while you have port. I don’t work for no pocket-change pussy. The man is on the ladder, not just on it, high up.” “Good for him. Good for you. Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a long day, that’s all.” Although of a style different from that of seventeenth-century France, the lobby rivals the Hall of Mirrors in the palace at Versailles as an effort to impress on commoners that he who resides here has pockets deeper than the sea. The elevator is accessed with a code that Santana enters in a keypad. The cab rises in silence, so smoothly that they don’t seem to be moving. “Respect gotta be paid,” Santana says. “I won’t embarrass you,” Calaphas assures him. This will be a far more interesting meeting than Calaphas has expected. That understanding comes to him not as a premonition; it has become his considered intention to make it interesting. VIEWPOINTS Sometimes, Aleem is too enthusiastic for his own good. He knows this. He is profoundly self-aware. He is a get-it-done guy who has no patience for the hindrances of the world. The worst hindrances are people, and he has killed more of them than he should have. He doesn’t regret excessive murder or think it is immoral. Nothing is immoral unless you believe it is, and even if you believe something is immoral, you’re wrong. That’s Aleem Sutter’s philosophy. When he admits to having killed more people than he should have, he’s only acknowledging that sometimes offing a treacherous buttface isn’t worth the risk involved. If he better managed his enthusiasm, he would on some occasions do nothing more than cripple the dude for life or, if the hindrance loves his mother, Aleem would be better advised to just disfigure the bitch and threaten to waste her to keep her little mama’s boy in line. The ecstasy, the overpowering