will suggest that we go to a football game together, an invitation I will dodge until one of us dies. I’m gonna try all your weird party foods without spitting any of them out or hiding them in your plants. Even the stuff that looks homemade, which goes against one of my primary guiding principles. I’m gonna sample that gritty breadstick-looking thing, even though I know before I touch it that it’s going to shatter into particles of sharp dust down the front of my nice party shirt the second my teeth make contact. I’m gonna take a handful of chips even though there’s no good way to eat them at a party; if I take as many as I want, then it’s just my greedy ass rudely walking around making small talk with a Miss Vickie’s salt-and-vinegar bag strapped to my muzzle like I’m a horse, but if I take a socially acceptable amount, I’m standing in the middle of a crowded room balancing two and a half thin-sliced potato crisps on an itty-bitty cocktail napkin. The aesthetic uniformity of carrot sticks is appealing to me, and I find them to be an excellent vehicle for delivering ranch dressing to my mouth and even though doing so will cause me to horrify anyone who attempts to talk to me. If you take even one bite of a raw carrot you will have carrot flecks in your mouth for at least a week afterward. I will eat them for you, so it doesn’t look like you don’t know what people want to eat. The hot dip? I’m trying that. The guacamole that’s gone gray? I’ll have some of that, too. I will take just enough of each proffered food item that you don’t feel like you’ve wasted $400 on people who just want to clean out all your booze. And I will bring good shit. I have a serious lack of confidence and am always trying to prove that I have good taste and like nice things, especially at a celebration. I’m gonna go to the boutique grocery and stuff my humiliation in my back pocket long enough to ask the person behind the counter to recommend something in the $30 range, then I’m gonna slide to the cheese counter and get one of those logs of goat cheese that has blueberry goo in it because that looks fancy to me. I’ll make my way to the cracker section and get a couple pricey boxes of sturdy-looking health crackers covered in nuts and seeds that I would never ever buy for myself, and am mostly convinced you don’t want either, but they are gonna look so nice and expensive on your cheese tray and that makes it worth it to me. If you’d prefer a dessert I could certainly pick up a “torte” of some kind on my way over, a thing I would never purchase for myself because if I’m getting a cake, I am getting a slab of moist chocolate children’s birthday cake slathered with an inch of thick, tooth-disintegrating


a second term, the former official speculated, a MAGA White House “wouldn’t care about flipping them out on the street.” The Next Trump will carry forward plans to disassemble the Department of Veterans Affairs without any resistance from the agency’s leadership team. That’s because, as one interviewee told me, “the Darin Selnicks will be in charge.” * * * Few people understand the personnel drama that will overtake another MAGA White House better than Anthony Scaramucci. He was once a take-no-prisoners Trump backer. Then he witnessed the MAGA machine from the inside. Scaramucci said that although a surprising number of high-profile leaders joined the Trump administration, it won’t happen again. “I don’t think good people are going to make that decision next time,” he remarked. Cabinet roles will be awarded to “a lower breed” with “lower intellect” who are “more malevolent,” he predicted. In conversations with dozens of former Trump aides, a range of controversial figures were repeatedly mentioned as people who would dominate the cabinet of a successor administration. For instance, the National Security Council might include people such as: Pam Bondi (attorney general), Michael Flynn (defense secretary), Richard Grenell (national security advisor), Peter Navarro (treasury secretary), Robert O’Brien (secretary of state), Kash Patel (director of national intelligence), Erik Prince (CIA director), and Stephen Miller (DHS secretary), all of whom are MAGA figures unlikely to be appointed to top government positions in “normal times.” One former NSC official called this a “doomsday org chart,” since the list includes people who were accused of politicizing intelligence, couldn’t be trusted with secret programs, or defended Trump’s mishandling of classified material. The MAGA names and faces will change as time goes on, but their moral code—and commitment to subverting democratic norms—will not. Conservative think tanks are preparing slates of MAGA figures to fill top administration posts. No group was more active in placing people in the Trump administration than the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, which is now running a 2025 Presidential Transition Project, overseen by the ex-president’s former personnel chief Kevin Roberts. A Republican familiar with the project told me the organization’s list is composed almost exclusively of pro-Trump personalities—a “nightmare slate”—and that Heritage is expected to pressure any Republican president to accept the list of loyal recruits, or else. “Heritage will help provide not just the intellectual firepower to policymakers,” project leader Roberts wrote, “but also do everything we can to ensure the right people hold positions of influence in Washington.” Perhaps the most influential GOP group attempting to staff up the next Republican presidency will be the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), described by some as MAGA’s “White House in waiting.” Many of the group’s 150-plus staff members are former officials in the Trump administration, and its American Leadership Initiative is dedicated to filling the next GOP White House with the most MAGA-friendly people. They’ve already held conferences focused on avoiding the mistakes of the first term, with AFPI leaders bemoaning the fact that Trump’s orbit was infiltrated by cabinet heads who weren’t nearly MAGA enough. It doesn’t matter that many of their


with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank could possibly have done. CHAPTER XI "Harriet, poor Harriet!"--Those were the words; in them lay the tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much his behaviour as her own, which made her so angry with him. It was the scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet's account, that gave the deepest hue to his offence.--Poor Harriet! to be a second time the dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken prophetically, when he once said, "Emma, you have been no friend to Harriet Smith."--She was afraid she had done her nothing but disservice.--It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise never have entered Harriet's imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought to have prevented them.--She felt that she had been risking her friend's happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him, and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring for her.--"But, with common sense," she added, "I am afraid I have had little to do." She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.-- As for Jane Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough; she need no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.--Her days of insignificance and evil were over.--She would soon be well, and happy, and prosperous.-- Emma could now imagine why her own attentions had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No doubt it had been from jealousy.--In Jane's eyes she had been a rival; and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack, and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was


I have ever had cause to jump,’ she said, with a wheezing laugh. ‘I have danced and swum, hunted on horseback, but I have not jumped in a very long time.’ She barely got the words out before a coughing fit struck her. Without her hands free to smother it, Dumai heard the damp rattle in that cough. She grasped Nikeya and reached under her furs and tunic, pressing a palm to her breastbone, where her heart beat like a banner in the wind. ‘Nikeya,’ she said, ‘you can’t climb. You must go back.’ ‘No. I can.’ Another hacking cough. ‘Give me . . . some ginger.’ ‘Ginger is not a cure, you fool. Master Kiprun knew his limits. Know yours.’ Dumai took her by the cheek. ‘You promised.’ Nikeya looked past her, up to the door. Blood was spreading in the white of her left eye. ‘Yes,’ she rasped. ‘I did.’ She coughed again. ‘If I let you send me back, then I trust that it will serve to demonstrate my honesty. Will you remember it, Dumai?’ Every word seemed to shred her throat. Dumai nodded, eyes watering in the cold. Furtia, once I am gone, take them to the ground. She fastened Nikeya back into the saddle. I will call when we have what we need. You will die here before I return, earth child. I am no stranger to mountains. Please, great one. ‘Be careful,’ Nikeya croaked as Dumai rose and turned to face Kanifa. Just as she rested her boot on the side of the saddle, a swift gust of wind threw her balance, and suddenly she was over the edge. The rope wrenched and went taut. Shouts came to her ears, but they were garbled by the wind. Her legs hung above the black precipice; her sight darkened again. With a growl, Furtia shunted her body towards the mountain, and Dumai went soaring in the same direction. As soon as she landed, Kanifa grabbed the back of her coat. ‘Nikeya, the rope,’ he bellowed up to her. He dug his spikes into the crust. ‘Hurry, before it pulls us over!’ Somehow, Nikeya managed it. As soon as the rope slackened, they both collapsed into the snow. As Furtia sank out of sight, Dumai rose and stooped against the wind, her hands tucked under her furs, and trudged after Kanifa, every step as hard as if her boots were made of stone. Island child. With effort, she turned back to see Nayimathun. There is a foulness on the wind. The fire comes, but the star has not. The star that brought us to this world; the long-tailed light from the black waters of creation. I must protect the land I call home. Thank you for escorting us. Dumai hunched into a bow. It was a greater honour than any of us earned. You have the stars in you, rider. I will see you in the sky one day. With those words, Nayimathun of the Deep Snows was gone, leaving them to stand where no human should. Dumai knew


each other like this." He dropped into his chair. What her answer really said was: "If you lift a finger you'll drive me back: back to all the abominations you know of, and all the temptations you half guess." He understood it as clearly as if she had uttered the words, and the thought kept him anchored to his side of the table in a kind of moved and sacred submission. "What a life for you!--" he groaned. "Oh--as long as it's a part of yours." "And mine a part of yours?" She nodded. "And that's to be all--for either of us?" "Well; it IS all, isn't it?" At that he sprang up, forgetting everything but the sweetness of her face. She rose too, not as if to meet him or to flee from him, but quietly, as though the worst of the task were done and she had only to wait; so quietly that, as he came close, her outstretched hands acted not as a check but as a guide to him. They fell into his, while her arms, extended but not rigid, kept him far enough off to let her surrendered face say the rest. They may have stood in that way for a long time, or only for a few moments; but it was long enough for her silence to communicate all she had to say, and for him to feel that only one thing mattered. He must do nothing to make this meeting their last; he must leave their future in her care, asking only that she should keep fast hold of it. "Don't--don't be unhappy," she said, with a break in her voice, as she drew her hands away; and he answered: "You won't go back--you won't go back?" as if it were the one possibility he could not bear. "I won't go back," she said; and turning away she opened the door and led the way into the public dining-room. The strident school-teachers were gathering up their possessions preparatory to a straggling flight to the wharf; across the beach lay the white steam-boat at the pier; and over the sunlit waters Boston loomed in a line of haze. XXV. Once more on the boat, and in the presence of others, Archer felt a tranquillity of spirit that surprised as much as it sustained him. The day, according to any current valuation, had been a rather ridiculous failure; he had not so much as touched Madame Olenska's hand with his lips, or extracted one word from her that gave promise of farther opportunities. Nevertheless, for a man sick with unsatisfied love, and parting for an indefinite period from the object of his passion, he felt himself almost humiliatingly calm and comforted. It was the perfect balance she had held between their loyalty to others and their honesty to themselves that had so stirred and yet tranquillized him; a balance not artfully calculated, as her tears and her falterings showed, but resulting naturally from her unabashed sincerity. It filled him with a tender awe, now the danger was


declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men in the sea. below in his hammock, ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus explained the wonder. Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. But this only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men. But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard --a cry and a rushing --and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea. The life-buoy --a long slender cask --was dropped from the stern, where it always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it, and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it slowly filled, and the parched wood also filled at its every pore; and the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one. And thus the first man of the pequod that mounted the mast to look out for the White Whale, on the White Whale's own .. <p 517 > peculiar ground; that man was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay. The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could


she asked, with a blush. "Have you any objection?" She looked at him for a moment with twinkling eyes, and she smiled. "No," she said. He got up on his knees and faced her. She looked into his eyes steadily, and her large mouth trembled with a smile. "Well?" she said. "You know, you are a ripper. I'm so grateful to you for being nice to me. I like you so much." "Don't be idiotic," she said. Philip took hold of her elbows and drew her towards him. She made no resistance, but bent forward a little, and he kissed her red lips. "Why did you do that?" she asked again. "Because it's comfortable." She did not answer, but a tender look came into her eyes, and she passed her hand softly over his hair. "You know, it's awfully silly of you to behave like this. We were such good friends. It would be so jolly to leave it at that." "If you really want to appeal to my better nature," replied Philip, "you'll do well not to stroke my cheek while you're doing it." She gave a little chuckle, but she did not stop. "It's very wrong of me, isn't it?" she said. Philip, surprised and a little amused, looked into her eyes, and as he looked he saw them soften and grow liquid, and there was an expression in them that enchanted him. His heart was suddenly stirred, and tears came to his eyes. "Norah, you're not fond of me, are you?" he asked, incredulously. "You clever boy, you ask such stupid questions." "Oh, my dear, it never struck me that you could be." He flung his arms round her and kissed her, while she, laughing, blushing, and crying, surrendered herself willingly to his embrace. Presently he released her and sitting back on his heels looked at her curiously. "Well, I'm blowed!" he said. "Why?" "I'm so surprised." "And pleased?" "Delighted," he cried with all his heart, "and so proud and so happy and so grateful." He took her hands and covered them with kisses. This was the beginning for Philip of a happiness which seemed both solid and durable. They became lovers but remained friends. There was in Norah a maternal instinct which received satisfaction in her love for Philip; she wanted someone to pet, and scold, and make a fuss of; she had a domestic temperament and found pleasure in looking after his health and his linen. She pitied his deformity, over which he was so sensitive, and her pity expressed itself instinctively in tenderness. She was young, strong, and healthy, and it seemed quite natural to her to give her love. She had high spirits and a merry soul. She liked Philip because he laughed with her at all the amusing things in life that caught her fancy, and above all she liked him because he was he. When she told him this he answered gaily: "Nonsense. You like me because I'm a silent person and never want to get a word in." Philip did not love


it! Now!" "Now?" inquired Deep Thought. "Yes! Now ..." "Alright," said the computer and settled into silence again. The two men fidgeted. The tension was unbearable. "You're really not going to like it," observed Deep Thought. "Tell us!" "Alright," said Deep Thought. "The Answer to the Great Question ..." "Yes ...!" "Of Life, the Universe and Everything ..." said Deep Thought. "Yes ...!" "Is ..." said Deep Thought, and paused. "Yes ...!" "Is ..." "Yes ...!!!...?" "Forty-two," said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm. ================================================================= Chapter 28 It was a long time before anyone spoke. Out of the corner of his eye Phouchg could see the sea of tense expectant faces down in the square outside. "We're going to get lynched aren't we?" he whispered. "It was a tough assignment," said Deep Thought mildly. "Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?" "I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is." "But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything!" howled Loonquawl. "Yes," said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools gladly, "but what actually is it?" A slow stupefied silence crept over the men as they stared at the computer and then at each other. "Well, you know, it's just Everything ... Everything ..." offered Phouchg weakly. "Exactly!" said Deep Thought. "So once you do know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means." "Oh terrific," muttered Phouchg flinging aside his notebook and wiping away a tiny tear. "Look, alright, alright," said Loonquawl, "can you just please tell us the Question?" "The Ultimate Question?" "Yes!" "Of Life, the Universe, and Everything?" "Yes!" Deep Thought pondered this for a moment. "Tricky," he said. "But can you do it?" cried Loonquawl. Deep Thought pondered this for another long moment. Finally: "No," he said firmly. Both men collapsed on to their chairs in despair. "But I'll tell you who can," said Deep Thought. They both looked up sharply. "Who?" "Tell us!" Suddenly Arthur began to feel his apparently non-existent scalp begin to crawl as he found himself moving slowly but inexorably forward towards the console, but it was only a dramatic zoom on the part of whoever had made the recording he assumed. "I speak of none other than the computer that is to come after me," intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. "A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate - and yet I will design it for you. A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you.


also learning things from Joe. Because Joe’s trying to break his Parisian crepe addiction so he can keep Peanut in top geriatric shape. And he’s willing to hand-feed Peanut slivers of rib eye to do it. It’s working, too. Peanut takes three walks a day and has the downy fur of a teenager. He’ll outlive us all. It’s so funny to me now that I met Joe so many times before I ever actually saw him. Sometimes I study that face of his while he’s sleeping and wonder why every single encounter I ever had with it didn’t set off buzzers and flashing lights and confetti showers. How could I ever have walked right past him? Dr. Nicole was so right, of course. We see what we’re looking for. Knowing how much I used to be missing has taught me to pay better attention. To pause from the hustle more often and just take it all in. Of course, I’m not hustling quite as much now as I used to be because I’m no longer quite as broke. That night of the contest? When my painting got zero votes from the judges? It really was an ugly duckling. A scout from a fine art gallery named Ellery Smith was there that night, and she loved my painting. In fact, the very thing that the judges and the other artists and the patrons all disliked about it—namely, the face—was the thing that she liked the most. She liked the mystery of it. How hard it was to read. How full of emotion it all was. She said it left her fascinated. She could never get tired of looking at it. It raised more questions than it answered. She got in touch a week or so later to see if she could represent me, and six months after that I was doing a show in her gallery of ten similar portraits. All of which sold for three thousand dollars a pop. Seriously. Mr. and Mrs. Kim got a bargain. They did hang the painting in the lobby, by the way. And when I saw it hanging there for the first time, I decided it didn’t look like Gong Yoo or John Denver or Danny DeVito. It didn’t look exactly like Joe, either, to be honest. But it felt like him. It felt like my experience of trying to see him. It looked like all the mysteries and emotions that surrounded the man I fell in love with—before I had any idea who he was. Artistically, it was good. And it made me wonder if maybe these were the kinds of paintings I should have been doing all along. If I’d been trying so hard to be exactly like my mother that I hadn’t left room to explore or to play or to be a little more like me. The experience of painting the portraits is different now, of course. Because it doesn’t take that long before the faces of strangers come into view. I’ve got only about three impressions before I see them like


said, “Should we pop into Bellevue and you can deliver a baby for old times’ sake?” “I’ll take a rain check on that.” The driver pulled into the street, and less than a minute had passed when I heard a rhythmic breathing, a quieter sound than snoring, and when I leaned forward again, I saw that Dr. Theo had fallen asleep. Viv and I made eye contact, and she smiled. “I like him,” I half whispered and half mouthed. “I do, too,” she whispered back. “You know the Danny Horst Rule?” I said quietly. “Do you believe it?” “No,” she said immediately. “Really?” “For sure our culture is obsessed with how women look, and we’ve all been infected. But at the individual level, people are way freakier than we acknowledge. Attraction has to do with so many things besides appearance.” After a pause—we were headed up FDR Drive, nearly empty at this hour, riding alongside the dark swath of the East River, beyond which the lights of Brooklyn were visible—Viv said, “Would you rather marry Danny or Annabel?” “Definitely Danny,” I said. “Right? Because hot eventually gets boring, but funny never does.” “With you, the person won’t have to choose,” I said. “They’ll get funny and hot.” “I know.” Viv pointed to her left, where Dr. Theo slept, and, in the same lowered tone we’d been speaking in, said, “Lucky dude.” I hesitated before saying, “On Tuesday night, I helped Noah Brewster with his sketch. He randomly showed up in my office, and it was just the two of us for about an hour, before Autumn came and found him again. After that, all this week, I kept feeling like there was chemistry between us. Then I’d think, it’s impossible. There’s no way.” “Of course it’s possible,” Viv said. We were passing the landing of the East Twentieth Street ferry when she said, “You’re like Roman Holiday.” “What do you mean?” “Noah sneaking away from his handlers. He’s Audrey Hepburn and you’re Gregory Peck.” “Ha,” I said. “That didn’t occur to me.” After a few seconds, I added, “But if there was chemistry, I fucked it up tonight. At Blosca, we were having a weirdly soul-baring conversation, and I panicked and said something mean about him dating twenty-two-year-old models.” “Why’d you do that?” “I have no idea,” I said, and I began to cry. Viv didn’t reply. Instead, she took my left hand in her right one and held it, and the driver kept heading up FDR Drive, past the buildings on one side and the river on the other, at this quiet hour, on this spring night, on the island of Manhattan. On Viv’s other side, Dr. Theo continued to breathe deeply. CHAPTER 2 July 2020 from: Noah Brewster <NoahRBrewster@gmail.com> to: Sally Milz <Smilz@TNOshow.com> date: Jul 20, 2020, 11:42 PM subject: Actually Is this still you? from: Sally Milz <Smilz@TNOshow.com> to: Noah Brewster <NoahRBrewster@gmail.com> date: Jul 21, 2020, 8:04 AM subject: Actually Yes, this is still me. (Okay, my inner English major is experiencing a lot of turmoil right now. I


people chimed in, “Holly two! Holly me, holly you! Holly who?” And before I knew what was happening the entire room practically shouted: “Holly Springs!” Then everyone who knew our camp cheer was singing: “From sunup to sundown, any city, any town, there’s nothing better in the whole wide world, than a sweet and spunky Holly Springs girl!” It was awful. Off-key, pitchy, nothing beautiful about it. Even still, it brought tears to my eyes. And I knew when June handed Daphne the mic it was because she was too emotional to continue. This camp meant just as much to all these people as it did to us. It was a place that had affected them deep down in their hearts and souls in a way that was worth way more than a $5,000,000 development deal. And, well, that was saying a lot. June came over and put her arm around my shoulders, squeezing me to her side. “Thank you,” she whispered. Unable to control my tears, I said, “No, June, thank you.” She hugged me just as Daphne said into the mic, “Wow! That was the ugliest, most hauntingly beautiful rendition of the camp song I’ve ever heard!” More cheers and table banging. “Let’s see who we have here. This year’s Songbirds, raise your hands!” Cheers erupted again as they stood on their benches. They were so cute! This continued for Chickadees, Nightingales, Finches, Canaries, Starlings, Cardinals, Doves, Sparrows, and, finally, Blue Jays, the oldest group. If Daphne had intended for this little exercise to get all the girls in the room pumped and on their feet, she had succeeded. “Seriously, friends, I think you all know this has been a hard couple of years for Camp Holly Springs. Our fearless leader, June, has held it together with prayers and Scotch tape, but your being here tonight is a real, tangible way to help save this place. Please thank everyone you see working around here the next couple of days. They have all volunteered their time so your fees for the weekend go directly to camp. I’m going to let you get back to the party, but I just have to say that Holly Springs taught me everything I needed to know and gave me the innocence of childhood that I didn’t get at home. Let’s keep that going for another seventy-six years so that more kids can grow up with a safe place, happy memories, and a song in their heart.” She paused. “And, judging from what I heard earlier, maybe we keep the songs in our hearts?” Everyone laughed and the singing commenced again. Huff, Henry in tow, made his way over to me. “I feel so inspired now.” His tone was light, but I could tell he meant it. Whether he was inspired by the speech or by Daphne I couldn’t be sure. “No big ask?” Rich asked as Daphne joined us, picking Henry up. “No way,” Daphne said, seeming slightly out of breath. “We save the big ask for tomorrow night, when everyone has had the best


Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher says! Ef I could git de ten CENTS back, I'd call it squah, en be glad er de chanst." "Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again some time or other." "Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'." CHAPTER IX. I WANTED to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island that I'd found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got to it, because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile wide. This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it, and by and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on the side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two or three rooms bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool in there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time. Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he said them little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to get wet? So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner. The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner. We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and


silence, while she continued to weep; and it was some moments before he could so far command his voice as to speak. It trembled while he said, 'My Emily, I am going to prayers with my family; you will join us. We must ask support from above. Where else ought we to seek it--where else can we find it?' Emily checked her tears, and followed her father to the parlour, where, the servants being assembled, St. Aubert read, in a low and solemn voice, the evening service, and added a prayer for the soul of the departed. During this, his voice often faltered, his tears fell upon the book, and at length he paused. But the sublime emotions of pure devotion gradually elevated his views above this world, and finally brought comfort to his heart. When the service was ended, and the servants were withdrawn, he tenderly kissed Emily, and said, 'I have endeavoured to teach you, from your earliest youth, the duty of self-command; I have pointed out to you the great importance of it through life, not only as it preserves us in the various and dangerous temptations that call us from rectitude and virtue, but as it limits the indulgences which are termed virtuous, yet which, extended beyond a certain boundary, are vicious, for their consequence is evil. All excess is vicious; even that sorrow, which is amiable in its origin, becomes a selfish and unjust passion, if indulged at the expence of our duties--by our duties I mean what we owe to ourselves, as well as to others. The indulgence of excessive grief enervates the mind, and almost incapacitates it for again partaking of those various innocent enjoyments which a benevolent God designed to be the sun-shine of our lives. My dear Emily, recollect and practise the precepts I have so often given you, and which your own experience has so often shewn you to be wise. 'Your sorrow is useless. Do not receive this as merely a commonplace remark, but let reason THEREFORE restrain sorrow. I would not annihilate your feelings, my child, I would only teach you to command them; for whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one; that, on the other hand, is all vice--vice, of which the deformity is not softened, or the effect consoled for, by any semblance or possibility of good. You know my sufferings, and are, therefore, convinced that mine are not the light words which, on these occasions, are so often repeated to destroy even the sources of honest emotion, or which merely display the selfish ostentation of a false philosophy. I will shew my Emily, that I can practise what I advise. I have said thus much, because I cannot bear to see you wasting in useless sorrow, for want of that resistance which is due from mind; and I have not said it till now, because there is a period when all reasoning must yield to nature; that is past: and another, when excessive indulgence, having


school was intended exclusively for the ice-adapted children brought back from McMurdo City, humanity’s capital city, located on the far side of the continent. In contrast to the three settlements on the Antarctic Peninsula, McMurdo had been an established scientific base before the Exodus, the most substantial base on the continent. As the most developed location, it had become the place where the world’s governments had pooled their most advanced equipment, their very best scientists and their most sophisticated survival shelters. Today it was the largest and most important human settlement in existence, tasked with a single goal – the survival of the species. In McMurdo City there was a plan – the Cold People Project. These genetically modified children, adapted to survive in the cold, would be human, mostly, but adjusted for life on the ice. Each child would be different, each set of modifications unique. The scientists could offer no guarantees regarding the outcome; the techniques were radical. The child might die. The mother might die. The child might be beautiful in a conventional sense; it might be beautiful in a way never seen before. This school for the ice-adapted was a place for these remarkable children to study but also a place to study them – to see how the genetic modifications took hold. The teachers didn’t write reports for the parents; they wrote reports for the McMurdo scientists. The experimentations were so audacious that unforeseen consequences were frequent, varying from peculiar and delightful character quirks to physical attributes never seen before. None of the teachers knew what to expect from one day to the next. A student might discover they were gifted with an exquisite singing voice more bird-like than human, or they might be able to change the colour of their skin. Some could be encased in ice and remain unscathed. Unlike any school before, there was no bullying of any kind and no unkind words. The sense of solidarity between them was wonderful for the teachers to behold; they looked after each other and in their own way loved each other. Since there was no normal, no one was ever made to feel the odd one out. At six foot six, Echo was more mythic than human, as if sculpted from the ice by a powerful sorcerer and brought to life with a spell, which, in a way, she was, the product of adapted genomes, the mysteries of which were only partially understood by scientists in McMurdo. Her body mass was so great, her muscle so dense, her body so complex, she weighed three times as much as ordinary-born people of a similar size but with none of their cumbersome bulk, gifted with hybrid muscle, crossbred from multiple species including the mandibles of the trap jaw ant, an insect that could lift a hundred times its own body weight. Her bones were adapted from the rhino femur, the strongest bone in the animal kingdom. Wrapped around the muscle and bone were layers of newly adapted brown adipose tissues – remarkable fat cells that could break down


about the throne. How unlike alas the hangdog look of a republican official, who, as the servant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the lowest of his masters. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him--who might reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor--to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public. "Do this," said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its memorable wig; "do this, and the profit shall be all your own. You will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was in mine, when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. But I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to your predecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due" And I said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue--"I will".% On Hester Prynne's story, therefore, I bestowed much thought. It was the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and fro across my room, or traversing, with a hundredfold repetition, the long extent from the front door of the Custom-House to the side entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness and annoyance of the old Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning footsteps. Remembering their own former habits, they used to say that the Surveyor was walking the quarter-deck. They probably fancied that my sole object--and, indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could ever put himself into voluntary motion--was to get an appetite for dinner. And, to say the truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind that generally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result of so much indefatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmosphere of a Custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of "The Scarlet Letter" would ever have been brought before the public eye. My imagination was a tarnished Thesaurus dazzlingly: (adv) glitteringly, property, legacy, heritage, intelligibly. splendidly, glaringly, fulgently, inheritance, principal, museum piece, oftentimes: (adv) frequently, ofttimes, vividly, dazzle, brightly, brilliantly, plant, estate; (adj, n) valuable. oft, frequent, repeatedly, much, a garishly, luminously, magnificently. hundredfold: (adj) centuple. great deal. ANTONYM: (adv) rarely. ANTONYMS: (adv) dimly, dully. moth-eaten: (adj) shabby, obsolete, traversing: (n) traverse, filial: (adj) dutiful. aged, old, threadbare, stale, outdated, perambulation, crossing; (adj) hangdog: (adj) guilty, shamefaced, boring, ancient, mangy, hackneyed. moving. ashamed, bullied, browbeaten, obscurely: (adv) cloudily, darkly, unmercifully: (adv) pitilessly, cowed, stealthy, embarrassed, vaguely, secretly, hazily, abstrusely, remorselessly, unpityingly, intimidated, sheepish, afraid. foggily, mysteriously, indistinctly, unrelentingly, ruthlessly, cruelly, ANTONYM: (adj) proud. occultly, unclearly. ANTONYMS: relentlessly, unsparingly, hardly, heirloom: (n) fixtures, antique, (adv) clearly,


an actor, but he didn’t have to be. “Stand down, priest,” Anselm said with a laugh. “The Wheelwalker has my protection. You have no authority here.” Darlington gripped Alex’s arm. “This was your plan? To give yourself up? This isn’t meant to be your sacrifice, Stern.” Alex almost smiled. “I’m not sure that’s true.” Her life had been built on lies and stolen chances, a series of tricks, and evasions, and sleight of hand. She already knew the language of demons. She’d been speaking it her whole life. A little magic. The stones to take a beating. “Come forward and meet the punishment you deserve,” Anselm said. He held up the yoke. It was different from the one Darlington had been forced to wear, inlaid with garnets and black onyx. It was beautiful, but there was no mistaking what it meant. “Alex,” Darlington said. “I won’t let you do this.” She let fire bloom over her body and Darlington yanked his hand back, his horns emerging. “It’s not your call to make.” “I liked our game,” Anselm crooned. “There are so many more to come.” But Alex was only half-listening. She was watching the reflection in the mirrored fountain. Tzvi stood behind Eitan. He had taken Mercy’s salt sword. Eitan had a gun in his hands. And Mercy had a bottle in hers. Datura. She hurled it at Eitan. The bottle of oil smashed against him, and before he could recover, Mercy shoved him toward the basin. Alex seized the yoke from Anselm and leapt toward the water, jamming her other hand beneath the surface. She heard shouting around her. Anselm was lunging at her and he wasn’t in his human form anymore. She didn’t know what he was—a goat with spiked horns, a red-eyed rabbit, a hairy-legged spider. He was every horror all at once. But Dawes and Darlington and Turner had arrayed themselves around her. “Protect her,” Turner shouted. “No one gets through!” His feathered cape looked less like a costume than actual wings, spreading wide. Dawes had raised her hands and words had appeared on her scholar’s robe—symbols, scrawl, a thousand languages, maybe every language ever known. Darlington’s horns glowed golden and he drew his sword. They had enacted their little play for Anselm’s benefit and now they were ready to defend. She had baited Eitan, telling him she was going to work for Linus Reiter, that she knew his secrets, that she would share every one in return for the vampire’s protection. She’d had Turner call him up with all of the authority of the NHPD to question Eitan’s connection to her, to make it clear she was talking, becoming a liability. Alex knew Eitan would move to deal with her himself. After all, he knew exactly how to locate her. She’d realized that when he’d sidled up to her outside of Blue State Coffee. She’d made sure her phone was on and left it with Mercy in the courtyard so that he could find her tonight. Now she could feel his soul fighting her, slippery and screaming,


who still polished my father’s shaving mirror each night because he’d hated the layer of coal dust that settled on everything in the Seam. The community home would crush her like a bug. So I kept our predicament a secret. But the money ran out and we were slowly starving to death. There’s no other way to put it. I kept telling myself if I could only hold out until May, just May 8th, I would turn 28 twelve and be able to sign up for the tesserae and get that precious grain and oil to feed us. Only there were still several weeks to go. We could well be dead by then. Starvation’s not an uncommon fate in District 12. Who hasn’t seen the victims? Older people who can’t work. Child- ren from a family with too many to feed. Those injured in the mines. Straggling through the streets. And one day, you come upon them sitting motionless against a wall or lying in the Meadow, you hear the wails from a house, and the Peacekee- pers are called in to retrieve the body. Starvation is never the cause of death officially. It’s always the flu, or exposure, or pneumonia. But that fools no one. On the afternoon of my encounter with Peeta Mellark, the rain was falling in relentless icy sheets. I had been in town, trying to trade some threadbare old baby clothes of Prim’s in the public market, but there were no takers. Although I had been to the Hob on several occasions with my father, I was too frightened to venture into that rough, gritty place alone. The rain had soaked through my father’s hunting jacket, leaving me chilled to the bone. For three days, we’d had nothing but boiled water with some old dried mint leaves I’d found in the back of a cupboard. By the time the market closed, I was shak- ing so hard I dropped my bundle of baby clothes in a mud puddle. I didn’t pick it up for fear I would keel over and be un- able to regain my feet. Besides, no one wanted those clothes. I couldn’t go home. Because at home was my mother with her dead eyes and my little sister, with her hollow cheeks and cracked lips. I couldn’t walk into that room with the smoky 29 fire from the damp branches I had scavenged at the edge of the woods after the coal had run out, my bands empty of any hope. I found myself stumbling along a muddy lane behind the shops that serve the wealthiest townspeople. The merchants live above their businesses, so I was essentially in their back- yards. I remember the outlines of garden beds not yet planted for the spring, a goat or two in a pen, one sodden dog tied to a post, hunched defeated in the muck. All forms of stealing are forbidden in District 12. Punisha- ble by death. But it crossed my mind that there might be something in the trash bins, and those were fair


Ethan comes into the room. He eyes her overnight bag as she sets it on the floor. “You want to tell me where you were this weekend?” He crosses his arms. Despite enjoying her weekend with Brody, she’s certain that nothing will ever compare to what she has with the man standing in front her. His ocean blue eyes bore into hers. Good, she thinks. Let him worry about it. Let him care. It’s Ethan she wants. He’s the reason she did this. She refrains from smiling. “I went to the San Juans. I’d never been. And I needed to get away for a couple of days. Clear my head.” His face hardens. “It was just what I needed.” “Who were you with?” His left eye twitches. She clears her throat. He stares at her in cold silence, waiting for her response. “I went alone.” He flexes his jaw before pulling a beer from the fridge. He pops the cap but doesn’t take a drink. “Then why’d you lie about being at the hospital?” She shrugs. “I guess I felt guilty about taking a couple of days to myself when you’ve been working so hard that you never come home. Not even for our anniversary. Or my award gala.” He tries to keep his expression neutral, but the twitch of his eye tells her he’s boiling inside. “Is that what this is? You’re getting back at me?” She smiles. “I just wanted to have a nice weekend. And didn’t want to sit around the house all by myself.” “So, you went to the San Juans all by yourself?” “Yep.” He sets his jaw in the way he always does when he’s pissed. As he should be. Ethan sets his beer on the counter and steps toward her. “Didn’t you tell me once you went to college with Brody Carr?” She feigns confusion. “The guy from The One?” Ethan narrows his eyes. “Touchdown!” an announcer exclaims through the living room TV. His voice is quickly drowned out by the roar of the crowd. “We were in the same class together before he dropped out. I didn’t know him. Why?” “You said you were chemistry lab partners.” Ethan frowns. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to share?” Her mouth feels dry. She studies the look on his face. Ethan isn’t going to let this go tonight. He’s going to push until she confesses. It suddenly occurs to her this could be the end of them. It was a risk, her fling with Brody. It could be the final straw that pushes them over the edge of no return. Ethan could tell her it’s over. “I’m sure.” He comes another step closer. She braces herself for what could be coming next. She relaxes her shoulders, knowing if she hadn’t done it, their marriage was doomed. It was all or nothing. If this was the end, Brody would undoubtedly be happy to step in and take Ethan’s place. But as she looks at Ethan, the two-day stubble on his face reminding her of when they


possible?” Brody smiles. “You train—your body, and more importantly, your mind. To hold your breath for several minutes, while staying calm, despite the increasing pressure and darkness.” “How?” “Physically, by learning to control your diaphragm, and to increase your lung capacity through lung packing.” “Lung packing?” He nods. “You gulp air into your already inflated lungs using a muscle contraction like swallowing. It forces more air into the…whatever those small air sacs are called.” “Alveoli. Seems like that could cause a pneumothorax.” “A what?” “Air leaking out from the lungs causing them to collapse.” “Oh, right. There are risks, and that’s why you train and refine your technique. But some divers have gone much deeper than me. The world record for free immersion freediving, which is what I did, is one hundred and thirty-two meters.” Sloane does a quick calculation in her head. That was over four hundred feet. It seems unfathomable. “In free immersion, you have no propulsion equipment, and you can only pull on the rope to assist with the descent and ascent.” Sloane feels a shiver creep down her spine at the thought of plunging to the dark depths of the ocean, aching for oxygen while enduring the crushing pressure. “I can’t see why anyone would risk their life like that. For what? Ego?” Brody shakes his head. “Freediving isn’t about that. You do it for the dive itself. Mentally, you learn to succumb to the depths. Finding peace in the absence of all stimuli. Using the lack of light and sound to go inside yourself. The freedom of being one with the water, at a depth few people have ever reached, mastering your fears and surrendering to the darkness by allowing yourself to be carried into the deep.” He stares out the window at the water, as if forgetting she was there. “When you get to about forty meters, it feels like your natural buoyancy is reversing, and the ocean starts pulling you down. It’s a freefall that feels like you’re flying.” Except you’re sinking, Sloane thinks. “It’s an inner stillness that is unlike any other human experience. The only time I’ve ever felt pure joy. You let go of everything, even the urge to breathe. Your heart rate slows. Some divers have recorded a heart rate of only ten beats per minute.” “That would induce unconsciousness.” Sloane gapes at him, and Brody laughs. He shakes his head. “But in freediving, it doesn’t.” “Huh.” Sloane sits back, intrigued by the physiology of it all. Sloane studies him as the boat sways gently from the swell of the water. How can someone be so incredibly successful, while also being so relaxed? He appears lost in thought for a moment until he tears his eyes away from the water and stands from the table. A mischievous look comes over his face as he clasps his hands together. “I have a surprise for you.” Chapter 14 “I guessed on the size,” Brody says in one of the boat’s two small cabins, as Sloane lifts the hooded wetsuit out of the shopping


think about is Friday night.” They had a lot to accomplish before Halloween and only a few days to get it done. Alex had brought home recommended reading that Dawes had curated for her and Mercy, and they studied it in their room between classes and meals, then stashed it under their beds. She still didn’t know how to feel about Mercy putting herself in danger, but she was also grateful to not feel so alone, and Mercy’s excitement was a tonic to Dawes’s constant worrying. “This is real life,” Alex reminded her, holding up a glue stick. “The stuff with Lethe … that’s the distraction.” She was reminding herself as much as Mercy. The cool weather had shifted the feel of campus. There was something impermanent in the first months of the new semester, a warm softness that left it malleable in the waning days of what was no longer summer, but didn’t yet feel like fall. Now hats and scarves emerged, boots replaced sandals, a kind of seriousness took hold. Alex and Mercy still cracked their windows or sometimes opened them wide—the dorm heaters had embraced the new season with too much zeal. But tucked away in the JE reading room or meeting with her philosophy TA at Bass, Alex felt a strange sensation creep over her, a dangerous comfort in routine. She wasn’t sailing through her classes, but she was passing, a steady stream of Cs and Bs, a cascade of hard-won mediocrity. All of this can be lost, she told herself as she bent her lips to another cup of tea, feeling the steam on her skin. This ease, this quiet. It was precious. It was impossible. She was sticking googly eyes on a sunflower when her phone pinged. Alex had almost forgotten about Eitan, or maybe hoped he’d forgotten about her now that Oddman had paid his nut, and the novelty of her as muscle had worn off. The text was an address Alex didn’t recognize, and when she looked it up, she saw it was in Old Greenwich. How the hell was she supposed to get there? “Do you want to take a theater class next semester?” Mercy asked. “Sure.” “What’s wrong?” “Just my mom.” In a way it was true. “My parents won’t like it,” Mercy went on. “But I can tell them it will help with public speaking. Shakespeare Acted is the only one open to non– theater majors.” “Shakespeare again?” Lauren asked, repulsed. She was an econ major and constantly complaining about anything that involved more reading. Mercy laughed. “Yeah.” I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands. Alex couldn’t remember what it was from, but she was tempted to text it to Eitan. Instead she texted Dawes and asked if the Mercedes was at Il Bastone. Why? came the reply. But Alex wasn’t in the mood for the mother hen protecting her boy’s precious car. She was putting everything on the line for dear Darlington and she needed transportation. She waited Dawes out and eventually her phone pinged again. Yes. Don’t


knew I wouldn't be able to look for them." "What, are you crazy?" "It's a possibility I haven't ruled out yet," said Zaphod quietly. "I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good." For a long time nobody said anything as Ford gazed at Zaphod with a mind suddenly full of worry. "Listen old friend, if you want to ..." started Ford eventually. "No, wait ... I'll tell you something," said Zaphod. "I freewheel a lot. I get an idea to do something, and, hey, why not, I do it. I reckon I'll become President of the Galaxy, and it just happens, it's easy. I decide to steal this ship. I decide to look for Magrathea, and it all just happens. Yeah, I work out how it can best be done, right, but it always works out. It's like having a Galacticredit card which keeps on working though you never send off the cheques. And then whenever I stop and think - why did I want to do something? - how did I work out how to do it? - I get a very strong desire just to stop thinking about it. Like I have now. It's a big effort to talk about it." Zaphod paused for a while. For a while there was silence. Then he frowned and said, "Last night I was worrying about this again. About the fact that part of my mind just didn't seem to work properly. Then it occurred to me that the way it seemed was that someone else was using my mind to have good ideas with, without telling me about it. I put the two ideas together and decided that maybe that somebody had locked off part of my mind for that purpose, which was why I couldn't use it. I wondered if there was a way I could check. "I went to the ship's medical bay and plugged myself into the encephelographic screen. I went through every major screening test on both my heads - all the tests I had to go through under government medical officers before my nomination for Presidency could be properly ratified. They showed up nothing. Nothing unexpected at least. They showed that I was clever, imaginative, irresponsible, untrustworthy, extrovert, nothing you couldn't have guessed. And no other anomalies. So I started inventing further tests, completely at random. Nothing. Then I tried superimposing the results from one head on top of the results from the other head. Still nothing. Finally I got silly, because I'd given it all up as nothing more than an attack of paranoia. Last thing I did before I packed it in was take the superimposed picture and look at it through a green filter. You remember I was always superstitious about the color green when I was a kid? I always wanted to be a pilot on one of the trading scouts?" Ford nodded. "And there it was," said Zaphod, "clear as day. A whole section in the


which I have now perfected. Through trial and error, I have come to understand the importance of silver nitrate and sound in the creation of a most powerful spell. My runes, by themselves, are child’s play, and therefore I reach the fifth and most important point of my story: my death. My heart, fragile as it has always been, is sure to fail me soon. I’ve grown weaker and weaker, and I foresee my end. But, as the serpent sheds its skin, I will merely shed one skin in exchange for another. I will rise anew. My whole existence has been nothing but the prelude to this great event. I can now see how each of the turning points in my life embroidered the picture of my destiny. I have learned from every single sorcerer and shaman who ever crossed my path, and when they would not share their secrets, I have stolen them. I have lied, I have cheated, I have bled and made others bleed. I have amassed all the knowledge that could be had that was mine for the taking. My will has been honed, and as my body has turned frail, my feeble heart now almost grinding to a halt, my mind has become stronger and will overcome the natural limits of the flesh. Should everything proceed as we have planned, then upon my rebirth I will burn this letter and with it all traces of Wilhelm Ewers, becoming someone new. But should an obstacle present itself, do not let this letter go astray. For I write my story and my will upon these pages, and in doing so I affix myself to the world. For I preserve my will upon my image and in doing so affix myself to the world. My dear Clarimonde, I affix myself to your memory, let nothing come between us. Await me. Wilhelm Friedrich Ewers. Montserrat examined the thin sheets of paper with their tiny black scribbles, and she had the thought that she was grasping a piece of an ancient exoskeleton, as if indeed Wilhelm Ewers had left a part of himself upon these pages, as though the letter and the book itself were smudged with his fingerprints and his magic. She closed the book and placed it on her desk. She walked back into the living room, her movements slow. There was something almost voyeuristic about this act of reading Ewers’s letter, yet it had been extremely helpful. Wilhelm Ewers, she could now confidently state, had grown up during the time of burgeoning occult movements in Germany. When such esoteric groups were suppressed, he survived and moved to South America, where he perfected a syncretic magic bible that liberally borrowed from other magical systems. He took ideas from Crowley, yes, but also numerous unnamed local warlocks and healers. Ewers had learned from or stolen from a vast number of people before making himself at home in Mexico. The picture of the dead man was acquiring colors and details in her mind, to the point that she could almost picture what


the front door into the fragrant evening in the direction of downtown St. Helena. Maybe she was in the mood for some atmosphere. People. A mood lift. Upon returning home a few months ago, she’d gone on several dates, hoping to find that perfect rebound to occupy her while she wallowed in Napa. But shortly thereafter, dating had totally lost its appeal and she refused to examine why. Refused. She’d swiped left so many times without a good reason that she’d gotten disgusted and deleted Tinder altogether. Man, her phone was a silent, desolate place these days. She should just use it as a paperweight or a doorstop. The lights of Grapevine Way beckoned as she walked along the dirt path, live jazz music from one of the many cafés winding toward her on the breeze. August was right to question why she preferred the city over this lush valley of grapes and sunshine and merriment. People came from all over to experience the exquisite bliss of St. Helena. But as Natalie stepped onto Grapevine Way and hooked a right, still with no idea of her destination, she couldn’t muster any affection for the town. It was beautiful, classy, inviting. A jewel at the foot of the mountain. But to her, it would always be the place she wasn’t wanted. Natalie stopped at the window of a confection shop that had been there since she was a child. It had already closed for the day, but as she peered in through the darkened glass, she remembered one of the times she and Julian had been brought there as children. Julian couldn’t walk through the shop without a classmate flagging her older brother down, asking him to come sit at their table. Even though the future history professor spoke only in breadcrumbs, those monosyllables were either funny or thought provoking. And, more importantly, never unkind. As a track star and academic wonder, he’d been nothing short of revered. Popularity had come easily—and uninvited—to Julian. But Natalie could also see herself through the glass, working overtime to be noticed by anyone. Her parents, her classmates, the cool teenagers behind the counter. For some reason, the same wealth that added to Julian’s popularity seemed to reflect negatively on her. She wasn’t a gifted genius. She was an average student. Didn’t have a lot of athletic ability. All that money at her disposal and she’d probably just coast her whole life, thanks to being a Vos. Around the time Natalie realized everyone thought of her as someone who’d merely won the last name lottery, she’d started acting out. Playing pranks on her friends. Always accepting the dare. And when she got older, she’d been the one to supply the booze and throw the raging parties that got everyone in trouble. It just seemed to be the only way anyone noticed or acknowledged her. If she was loud. If she was crazy. Softly approaching her parents for affection never worked. They were either busy or their meager amount of free parent time had to be spent on


birds in the trees as he wiped his face. “Much better. A first step to a new beginning.” The little building soon became a home for all manner of things: sheets of metal and lengths of wires and cords, batteries of all shapes and sizes, circuit boards and microchips in glass mason jars. Other jars held hundreds of seeds of various shapes, sizes, and colors. There were old music boxes that sang little songs that ached, and silent record players without any records. Televisions, both great and small, their screens dark. And books! So many books on a variety of topics from plant life to whaling, from animals of the forest to complex diagrams of nuclear cores. They lined the new floor-toceiling shelving he’d made from the remains of what he’d torn down. It wasn’t until he placed the last book on the last shelf that he realized he himself had nowhere to stay. The room was too full. It wouldn’t take much to expand the building, adding a room or two. But Giovanni Lawson wasn’t one to take the easy route. He saw the world in complex shapes and designs, and when he looked up at the trees around him, he knew what he would do. He wouldn’t build outward. He’d build upward. It took time, as these things do. Many years passed. It needed to be perfect. There was safety among the trees and away from the harsh, blinding lights and cacophony of the city he’d left behind. Up in the branches of the trees above the house, he constructed a new little building around the solid trunk of the tallest fir tree, the undisputed king of the forest. From there, he built several more rooms into the trees, all connected by rope bridges—a laboratory and a sunroom, the ceiling made of foggy and scratched glass, the floor of shining oak panels, and no walls. Later this sunroom would become something different. The forest was vast and wild. He doubted they’d ever be able to find him there. On sunny days, a herd of deer would graze on the grass below him, and the birds would sing above him. He hummed along with their song. Giovanni was at peace. At peace until the day his chest began to hurt. “Oh my,” he said. “What an interesting sensation. It burns.” In his lab he ran calculations. He typed on his keyboard, the clack, clack, clack echoing flatly around him. “I see,” he said on the fifty-second day after he’d first felt the ache in his chest. He stared at the screen, checking his numbers. It was loneliness, pure and simple. Numbers never lied. Three more years went by. Three years of the ache in his chest only growing stronger. Three years of quiet, of longing to hear a voice aside from his own. He would look out the window of his laboratory to see that it was snowing, when just yesterday the forest had been caught in the throes of summer. On a day that began no differently than all the


And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat. Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife's viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon .. <p 395 > the seas of life; but in the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had as last abandoned her; yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have been found sticking in her. Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other. These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very learned judge in set terms decided, to wit, --That as for the boat, he awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs. A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; For notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two props to stand on. Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of Russian


fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complete and wonderful as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully collecting and arranging my materials, I began. No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption. These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize. One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was indeed but a passing trance,


and the ash still hadn’t cleared. A soft touch on her elbow. Gabriel nodded forward, where Malcolm and Anton were about to turn a corner. Lore lurched forward to follow, tearing herself away from Apollius and Nyxara. Around the corner, a huge set of double doors appeared, even more giltand-jewel-encrusted than the Citadel’s main entrance. Bloodcoat guards lined the hall, all of them inclining their heads in a bow when Anton appeared. The Priest Exalted paid them no mind, facing forward as the bloodcoats at the end of the line pushed the double doors open. The throne room beyond was even more impressive than the rest of the Citadel, large enough to hold a ball. The walls were covered in sculpted golden friezes, curving up into graceful arches beneath a domed window. Those iron bars still covered the floor, but seemed more polished here, shining almost silver. They coalesced around the bottom of the throne in a sharp, cresting wave, their pointed ends mirroring the rays of the gilded heart set at the top of the throne, right over the head of the man sitting at its edge, deep in thought. “Anton,” King August said, glancing up from his steepled hands. “You took longer than anticipated.” “I had to inform the lady of our expectations. She took a bit of convincing.” For all his brother’s brusqueness, Anton seemed unruffled, though he toyed with his pendant again, one fingernail digging into the garnet. “Unless you’d rather I left that to you? You do excel at negotiation.” His tone made it clear this was not a compliment. “No need.” August stood up, stepping deftly over the iron bars bristling the base of the throne with the ease of practice. He and Anton were twins, but August wasn’t quite as good-looking—at least, he wouldn’t be if Anton weren’t so horribly scarred. Their hair was the same iron gray, their eyes the same deep brown. August kept a short, well-trimmed beard framing his sharp jaw, where Anton stayed clean-shaven. For all the extravagance of his palace, the King was dressed rather simply. Dark pants, dark doublet over a creamy white shirt, supple leather boots, all of it clearly the best Auverraine had to offer. The understated clothing made August’s crown that much more ostentatious, the same design Lore had seen sold in the stalls on the dock roads yesterday—a band that rested on his brow, studded with winking rubies, and another band over the top of his head that supported thick golden sun rays, making him look like Apollius himself. Lore supposed that was the point. Maybe she should’ve felt some sort of awe at being in the presence of the Sainted King. But the day already felt so surreal, so difficult to hammer into the borders of the life she knew, that all she felt was annoyance and the distant thrum of dread. “So,” the Sainted King said. “This is our deathwitch.” Lore fidgeted a moment, wondering if she should curtsy, quickly deciding that it would only lead to falling on her ass. Instead she


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

day in January,--one of those sunny, frosty days that came before the snow this year. My weary brain tried to formulate the position, to plot out a plan of action. "I was surprised to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how inconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was worked out; the intense stress of nearly four years' continuous work left me incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and I tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries, the passion of discovery that had enabled me to compass even the downfall of my father's grey hairs. Nothing seemd to matter. I saw pretty clearly this was a transient mood, due to overwork and want of sleep, and that either by drugs or rest it would be possible to recover my energies. "All I could think clearly was that the thing had to be carried through; the fixed idea still ruled me. And soon, for the money I had was almost exhausted. I looked about me at the hillside, with children playing and girls watching them, and tried to think of all the fantastic advantages an invisible man would have in the world. After a time I crawled home, took some food and a strong dose of strychnine, and went to sleep in my clothes on my unmade bed. Strychnine is a grand tonic, Kemp, to take the flabbiness out of a man." "It's the devil," said Kemp. "It's the palaeolithic in a bottle." "I awoke vastly invigorated and rather irritable. You know?" "I know the stuff." "And there was some one rapping at the door. It was my landlord with threats and inquiries, an old Polish Jew in a long grey coat and greasy slippers. I had been tormenting a cat in the night he was sure,--the old woman's tongue had been busy. He insisted on knowing all about it. The laws of this country against vivisection were very severe,--he might be liable. I denied the cat. Then the vibration of the little gas engine could be felt all over the house, he said. That was true, certainly. He edged round me into the room, peering about over his German-silver spectacles, and a sudden dread came into my mind that he might carry away something of my secret. I tried to keep between him and the concentrating apparatus I had arranged, and that only made him more curious. What was I doing? Why was I always alone and secretive? Was it legal? Was it dangerous? I paid nothing but the usual rent. His had always been a most respectable house--in a disreputable neighbourhood. Suddenly my temper gave way. I told him to get out. He began to protest, to jabber of his right of entry. In a moment I had him by the collar; something ripped, and he went spinning out into his own passage. I slammed and locked the door and sat down quivering. "He made a fuss outside, which I disregarded, and after a time he went away.


Blue Pixie. I’ve learned to ignore that little monster. You should do the same. It will make things easier.” “What is it?” Nurse Ratched asked. “Security,” the Doorman said. “It has eyes everywhere. It sees all. It knows all. It’s an extension of the Blue Fairy. They found the idea of watching everything all the time exhausting, especially given their other … responsibilities. The Blue Pixie oversees Heaven, leaving the Blue Fairy to their whims. No matter my distaste, it has served its purpose well.” The hallway came to a dead end, the blue light from the screens overwhelming. The wall in front of them was smooth. No door. No way through. The Doorman pressed his hand against the wall. Blue light arced up around his fingers, and a seam appeared down the middle. The wall parted, revealing a lift, the floor of which was layered in plush red carpet. The walls were gold, and from the ceiling hung a small chandelier, the crystals glittering. The Doorman stepped inside, motioning the others to follow. Hap told Vic to stay where he was. He stepped forward, surveying the lift. He reached one foot out, stepping onto the carpet as if testing it. Satisfied (about what, exactly, Vic didn’t know) he walked inside the lift. The Doorman looked amused. “I assure you that nothing will happen to your human. What would be the point?” “I d-don’t know you,” Hap said. “I d-don’t trust you.” “Trust,” the Doorman. “Truly? What would a HARP need with trust?” Hap ignored him. He nodded toward Vic. “C-come. It’s safe.” Vic stepped inside the lift. Nurse Ratched came next, Rambo still sitting on top of her. She lifted him off her, setting him on the carpet. He rubbed his pincers through the fiber. “Soft,” he whispered. “So soft. I want to live here.” “No,” Nurse Ratched said. “This is no place for one like you.” Vic stood side by side with Hap as the Doorman pressed the only button on the wall, marked with the same wings that’d been on the coin. The lift began to rise. No one spoke. The doors to the lift parted once more. In front of them stretched yet another hallway, though far different than the one they’d been in below. The floors were wooden and had been polished until they gleamed. Sconces lined the walls, the lights flickering like firelight near paintings that caused Vic to flush, skin hot. Humans. Machines. Androids, all in various stages of sexual congress. Some were covered in skin. Others were metal. Vic stumbled out of the lift when the paintings moved, the figures writhing together silently, the watercolors blurring. One man threw his head back in pleasure, a machine kneeling before him, gripping his thighs. At first he thought the muffled noises he heard were coming from the paintings. The lift closed behind them, the seam disappearing and becoming a wall that seemed impenetrable. Vic barely noticed because the gasps, the moans, the screams weren’t coming from the paintings. They were coming from behind the closed doors


taken from him. ' "No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!" "Very well. It may, however, have been written on Monday and only posted to-day." "That is possible." "If so, much may have happened between." "Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes. I know that all is well with him. There is so keen a sympathy between us that I should know if evil came upon him. On the very day that I saw him last he cut himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room rushed upstairs instantly with the utmost certainty that something had happened. Do you think that I would respond to such a trifle and yet be ignorant of his death?" "I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner. And in this letter you certainly have a very strong piece of evidence to corroborate your view. But if your husband is alive and able to write letters, why should he remain away from you?" "I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable." "And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?" "No." "And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?" "Very much so." "Was the window open?" "Yes." "Then he might have called to you?" "He might." "He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?" "Yes." "A call for help, you thought?" "Yes. He waved his hands." "But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?" "It is possible." "And you thought he was pulled back?" "He disappeared so suddenly." "He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the room?" "No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the Lascar was at the foot of the stairs." "Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary clothes on?" "But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare throat." "Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?" "Never." "Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?" "Never." "Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow." A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown,


sugar and tin cups, and the nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him with his knife, and fried him. When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By and by Jim says: "But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty ef it warn't you?" Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says: "How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?" He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he says: "Maybe I better not tell." "Why, Jim?" "Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I uz to tell you, would you, Huck?" "Blamed if I would, Jim." "Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I -- I RUN OFF." "Jim!" "But mind, you said you wouldn' tell -- you know you said you wouldn' tell, Huck." "Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest INJUN, I will. People would call me a low- down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum -- but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-going to tell, and I ain't a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all about it." "Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole missus -- dat's Miss Watson -- she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader roun' de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'. De widder she try to git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'. I lit out mighty quick, I tell you. "I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a skift 'long de sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid in de ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go 'way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time. 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er nine every skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over to de town en say you's killed. Dese las' skifts wuz full


to her mouth, capturing it in a blistering kiss. “I thought I’d blown my chance to have you like this. I’m not sure how I was able to go on living. Still a mystery.” He sank his fingers into her hair, angled her head, and took her mouth in several slanting kisses that scrambled her brain, all while his big, fully dressed body kept her pinned hard to the mattress, his thickness trapped between their bellies like a taunt. “Bottom line, I’m not going in like some eager young puppy. Bad as I want to unzip my jeans and give you hell, princess, if your life doesn’t flash in front of your eyes when I finally get my cock inside you, I don’t deserve to call myself your husband.” Natalie mentally reeled. Opened her mouth to disagree that unzipping and giving hell was a negative thing. But August had already stripped off his shirt—oh, the muscle—and rolled over onto his back. “Come here.” He ran his tongue along his bottom lip, that broad chest beginning to heave faster and faster. “Let me lick it.” Her brain had gone offline. “I don’t understand.” August either didn’t hear her or was choosing to ignore her confusion, because his teeth were sinking into that glossy bottom lip now, his palm stroking the ridge in his jeans. “Christ, just thinking about you sitting on my face might finish me.” “You want me to—” “I’m not above begging.” Forget the fact that she’d never done that before. Not from the top position. But she’d experienced the force of nature that was August’s tongue on their wedding night and the memories were not just glorious, they were fresh. He didn’t need to beg. He didn’t even need to ask her twice. She straddled the mile-wide mountain range that was his chest, whimpering when he took two rough handfuls of her backside and dragged her onto his mouth. Dragged. Grinding her there. On his stiff tongue. And now, ladies and gentlemen, she would never again underestimate the effects of nipple stimulation. There was no awkward moment or easing into the act of being pleasured from below. Not when he’d already gotten her this wet, this sensitive. There were only the desperate writhes of her hips, the shallow, hiccupping sounds emanating from her throat, August’s moans, and the wild urgency to climax. He entered her with his tongue, pushed it as deep as possible—and her womb itself constricted, her thighs going rubbery. “Oh my God. Oh my God.” His middle finger teased her rear entrance, that magical tongue driving in, out, in—and goodbye reality, she was now a resident of the stars. She rode on a rainbow unicorn over the Milky Way and waved at an astronaut. Her body was still in the bedroom, thighs squeezing the sides of August’s head, fingers clutching shakily at the headboard while wave after wave of pleasure rocketed through her lower body, tightening and releasing muscles, brutalizing her in the best way possible. Even after the orgasm crested and she came back down the


had lately recovered. She had, indeed, taken the infection, during her attendance upon him, and, her constitution being too weak to throw out the disease immediately, it had lurked in her veins, and occasioned the heavy languor of which she had complained. St. Aubert, whose anxiety for his wife overcame every other consideration, detained the physician in his house. He remembered the feelings and the reflections that had called a momentary gloom upon his mind, on the day when he had last visited the fishing-house, in company with Madame St. Aubert, and he now admitted a presentiment, that this illness would be a fatal one. But he effectually concealed this from her, and from his daughter, whom he endeavoured to re-animate with hopes that her constant assiduities would not be unavailing. The physician, when asked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the disorder, replied, that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he could not ascertain. Madame St. Aubert seemed to have formed a more decided one; but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed them upon her anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of tenderness, as if she anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and that seemed to say, it was for their sakes only, for their sufferings, that she regretted life. On the seventh day, the disorder was at its crisis. The physician assumed a graver manner, which she observed, and took occasion, when her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell him, that she perceived her death was approaching. 'Do not attempt to deceive me,' said she, 'I feel that I cannot long survive. I am prepared for the event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it. Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to induce you to flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour to teach them resignation by my example.' The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St. Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect. The latter was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he received this information; but a consideration of the increased affliction which the observance of his grief would occasion his wife, enabled him, after some time, to command himself in her presence. Emily was at first overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded by the strength of her wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her mother would yet recover, and to this she pertinaciously adhered almost to the last hour. The progress of this disorder was marked, on the side of Madame St. Aubert, by patient suffering, and subjected wishes. The composure, with which she awaited her death, could be derived only from the retrospect of a life governed, as far as human frailty permits, by a consciousness of being always in the presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a higher world. But her piety could not entirely subdue


the dispersing smoke in the horizon, then up at the mountain. "Ralph--please! Is there a signal?" Simon put out his hand, timidly, to touch Ralph; but Ralph started to run, splashing through the shallow end of the bathing pool, across the hot, white sand and under the palms. A moment later he was battling with the complex undergrowth that was already engulfing the scar. Simon ran after him, then Maurice. Piggy shouted. "Ralph! Please--Ralph!" Then he too started to run, stumbling over Maurice's discarded shorts before he was across the terrace. Behind the four boys, the smoke moved gently along the horizon; and on the beach, Henry and Johnny were throwing sand at Percival who was crying quietly again; and all three were in complete ignorance of the excitement. By the time Ralph had reached the landward end of the scar he was using precious breath to swear. He did desperate violence to his naked body among the rasping creepers so that blood was sliding over him. Just where the steep ascent of the mountain began, he stopped. Maurice was only a few yards behind him. "Piggy's specs!" shouted Ralph. "If the fire's all out, we'll need them--" He stopped shouting and swayed on his feet. Piggy was only just visible, bumbling up from the beach. Ralph looked at the horizon, then up to the mountain. Was it better to fetch Piggy's glasses, or would the ship have gone? Or if they climbed on, supposing the fire was all out, and they had to watch Piggy crawling nearer and the ship sinking under the horizon? Balanced on a high peak of need, agonized by indecision, Ralph cried out: "Oh God, oh God!" Simon, struggling with the bushes, caught his breath. His face was twisted. Ralph blundered on, savaging himself, as the wisp of smoke moved on. The fire was dead. They saw that straight away; saw what they had really known down on the beach when the smoke of home had beckoned. The fire was out, smokeless and dead; the watchers were gone. A pile of unused fuel lay ready. Ralph turned to the sea. The horizon stretched, impersonal once more, barren of all but the faintest trace of smoke. Ralph ran stumbling along the rocks, saved himself on the edge of the pink cliff, and screamed at the ship. "Come back! Come back!" He ran backwards and forwards along the cliff, his face always to the sea, and his voice rose insanely. "Come back! Come back!" Simon and Maurice arrived. Ralph looked at them with unwinking eyes. Simon turned away, smearing the water from his cheeks. Ralph reached inside himself for the worst word he knew. "They let the bloody fire go out." He looked down the unfriendly side of the mountain. Piggy arrived, out of breath and whimpering like a littlun. Ralph clenched his fist and went very red. The intentness of his gaze, the bitterness of his voice, pointed for him. "There they are." A procession had appeared, far down among the pink stones that lay near the water's