with his half-formed dreams, a most melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a neighboring window disturbed him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the crash of an empty bottle against the back of his aunt's woodshed brought him wide awake, and a single minute later he was dressed and out of the window and creeping along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He "meow'd" with caution once or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof of the woodshed and thence to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with his dead cat. The boys moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end of half an hour they were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard. It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill, about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over the graves, leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory of" So- --------------------------------------------------------- -101- and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer have been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light. A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of the grave. Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom's reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said in a whisper: "Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?" Huckleberry whispered: "I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, ain't it?" "I bet it is." There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter inwardly. Then Tom whispered: "Say, Hucky -- do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?" "O' course he does. Least his sperrit does." Tom, after a pause: --------------------------------------------------------- -102- "I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody calls him Hoss." "A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead people, Tom." This was a damper, and conversation died again. Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said: "Sh!" "What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts. "Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?" "I -- " "There! Now you hear it." "Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we


did not bring its offering of game or other food. Sometimes it was a young deer, again a quantity of strange, cooked food--cassava cakes pilfered from the village of Mbonga--or a boar, or leopard, and once a lion. Tarzan derived the greatest pleasure of his life in hunting meat for these strangers. It seemed to him that no pleasure on earth could compare with laboring for the welfare and protection of the beautiful white girl. Some day he would venture into the camp in daylight and talk with these people through the medium of the little bugs which were familiar to them and to Tarzan. But he found it difficult to overcome the timidity of the wild thing of the forest, and so day followed day without seeing a fulfillment of his good intentions. The party in the camp, emboldened by familiarity, wandered farther and yet farther into the jungle in search of nuts and fruit. Scarcely a day passed that did not find Professor Porter straying in his preoccupied indifference toward the jaws of death. Mr. Samuel T. Philander, never what one might call robust, was worn to the shadow of a shadow through the ceaseless worry and mental distraction resultant from his Herculean efforts to safeguard the professor. A month passed. Tarzan had finally determined to visit the camp by daylight. It was early afternoon. Clayton had wandered to the point at the harbor's mouth to look for passing vessels. Here he kept a great mass of wood, high piled, ready to be ignited as a signal should a steamer or a sail top the far horizon. Professor Porter was wandering along the beach south of the camp with Mr. Philander at his elbow, urging him to turn his steps back before the two became again the sport of some savage beast. The others gone, Jane and Esmeralda had wandered into the jungle to gather fruit, and in their search were led farther and farther from the cabin. Tarzan waited in silence before the door of the little house until they should return. His thoughts were of the beautiful white girl. They were always of her now. He wondered if she would fear him, and the thought all but caused him to relinquish his plan. He was rapidly becoming impatient for her return, that he might feast his eyes upon her and be near her, perhaps touch her. The ape-man knew no god, but he was as near to worshipping his divinity as mortal man ever comes to worship. While he waited he passed the time printing a message to her; whether he intended giving it to her he himself could not have told, but he took infinite pleasure in seeing his thoughts expressed in print--in which he was not so uncivilized after all. He wrote: I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You are mine. We live here together always in my house. I will bring you the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that roam the jungle. I will hunt


my mouth shut because she’s spooked, and I know feelings aren’t her thing. We just had a moment and now she needs space. (God, I’m so mature. Someone should make a note of this.) We reach the kitchen in adult silence and find Dad chopping spring onions at the island while staring at us with raised eyebrows (which is very poor kitchen safety; eyes on the knife, Dad). “Hi,” I say. His eyebrows somehow get higher. “Obviously,” I announce, “Mason is a liar.” Mason, who is eating a rice cake over the sink, says, “Mo am mot.” Crumbs spray across the front of his red Notts Forest shirt. I eye him in disgust. “How are we related?” He flips black curls out of his narrowed eyes. “You’re afopded.” Dad sighs heavily. “Mason, don’t talk with your mouth full, stop tormenting your brother, and go upstairs.” Mason snorts and heads for the door. “By the way,” Dad calls after him, “you’re not going to no party tonight.” Mason whirls around. “What?” “Remember our discussion,” Dad reminds him, “about what good men do and do not say about ladies?” Aha! Yes! I remember this! He is so screwed. “I wasn’t talking about Celine!” Mason wails. “I was talking about Brad!” “But you were talking about Celine,” I say solemnly. “You were violating her bodily autonomy with misogynistic lies for your own ends, Mason. You were treating her as collateral damage in a war between brothers. Mum is going to be so disappointed in you when she gets home.” Mason sputters. Celine looks very much like she is biting her tongue bloody, trying not to laugh. Dad seems amused, but he rolls his eyes and says, “That’s enough, thank you, Bradley. Mason, go upstairs.” Mason huffs and stomps away. “Now,” Dad says seriously, doing that I Am Being Parental thing he does with his face. “You two. What’s going on?” He’s asking a direct question and meeting my eyes. I try to mentally solder my jaw together, but I can already feel myself cracking under the fatherly pressure. “On? What do you mean? Nothing is…going.” What is this sentence missing? Oh yeah. “…On,” I add. Celine eyes me like I’ve been abducted and replaced with a Brad-shaped scarecrow. Then she says, “I should head home. I told Giselle I’d make dinner tonight. Bye, Trev.” She flicks an almost shy glance at me. “Um. Bye, Brad.” Then she scurries off. I follow her into the hallway so I can lock the door. “Cel—” “Sorry,” she whispers, “but I really don’t know how to talk to dads.” Then she vanishes in a puff of smoke, leaving me like a traitor to face the music alone. Which is fine, because Dad’s obviously gonna tell Mum about this and Mum will definitely tell Neneh. When I get back to the kitchen, Dad’s finished the onions and started on the scotch bonnet. I hop onto one of the stools at the marble island and watch his hands move, waiting for the conversation to start. When it doesn’t—when he just keeps


shiny, empty, slippery, glasslike. commend, laud, praise, canonize. delightful ANTONYMS: (adj) unglazed, alert, ANTONYMS: (v) profane, mock, ghostly: (adj) uncanny, eerie, weird, dull dishonor, condemn, humiliate spiritual, spectral, ghostlike, gleam: (n, v) glance, beam, blaze, glossy: (adj, v) sleek; (adj) smooth, supernatural, macabre, phantasmal; shine, glimmer, glow, flash, flicker, bright, glazed, brilliant, flat, (adj, adv) ghastly; (adv) spectrally. sparkle, glitter; (v) twinkle glistening, burnished, resplendent, ANTONYMS: (adj) tangible, natural gleaming: (adj) brilliant, shiny, lustrous, glassy. ANTONYMS: (adj) gibberish: (n) jargon, jabber, drivel, radiant, glossy, lustrous, glowing, dull, rough, coarse, shoddy gibber, gobbledygook, rubbish, beaming, resplendent; (n) gleam, glove: (n) boxing glove, gloves, mitt, bunkum, humbug, claptrap, glimmer; (adj, adv) agleam. mitten, baseball mitt, baseball glove, abracadabra; (adj, n) nonsense ANTONYMS: (adj) dull, dirty, handwear, wristband, sleeve, 288 The Scarlet Letter mittens, batting glove stocky, awkward, vigorous, jerky, acknowledge, hail, welcome, cry, gloves: (n) gauntlet, mitten, mittens, ugly, stilted, heavy, coarse, salute, bid, weep, meet, recognize gauntlets, scarf, ornament, handbag, strenuous greeting: (n) welcome, salutation, belt, batting glove, boxing glove, gracious: (adj) genial, benign, good, address, greet, compliments, baseball mitt courteous, compassionate, kind, acknowledgment, accost, hello, glowing: (adj, n) enthusiastic, cordial, accommodating, civil; (adj, n) hullo, nod; (v) salute. ANTONYM: passionate; (adj) burning, fervent, benevolent, congenial, gentle. (n) goodbye blazing, flaming, fiery, dazzling; ANTONYMS: (adj) ungracious, grieved: (adj) sore, sad, sorry, (adj, v) warm; (adj, adv) aglow. boorish, discourteous, reserved, sorrowful, upset, woeful, pained, ANTONYMS: (adj) pale, wan, rude, abrupt, critical, unkind, affected, brokenhearted unhappy, unenthusiastic, hardhearted, harsh, poor grievous: (adj) bitter, dolorous, derogatory, dispassionate, unwell grandeur: (n) dignity, splendor, dreadful, deplorable, sad, tough, gnawed: (v) gnow, eroded magnitude, brilliance, glory, pomp, pitiful, atrocious, regrettable, gnawing: (v) corroding, biting; (n) elegance, majesty, magnificence, sorrowful, sorry. ANTONYM: (adj) arrosion grandness; (adj, n) solemnity. successful god-fearing: (adj) godly, religious, ANTONYMS: (n) modesty, grievously: (adv) seriously, heavily, saintly, holy simplicity sorrowfully, gravely, severely, godly: (adj, adv) holy, saintly; (adj) grandfatherly: (adj) kind mortally, mournfully, heinously, religious, pious, divine, devotional, grandsire: (n) grandfather, ancestor weightily; (adj, adv) painfully, reverent, pure; (adv) piously, granite: (n) firmness, pluton, bitterly righteously, devoutly. ANTONYM: steadiness, batholite, limestone, grimly: (adv) severely, harshly, (adj) earthly stonework, batholith; (adj) flint, morosely, fiercely, drearily, sourly, goodly: (adv) benignly, kindly, crystal, fossil, crag gloomily, dreadfully, hardly, strongly, rightly, graciously, grapes: (v) clam, chupatty, compote, horridly, sullenly. ANTONYMS: virtuously, soundly, uprightly; (adj) damper, fish, frumenty, chowder; (adv) brightly, pleasantly, warmly sizable, handsome, respectable (n) vintage gripe: (n) complaint; (adj, v) catch; (n, goodwife: (v) good wife, old lady, grassy: (adj) verdant, gramineous, v) beef, moan, bellyache, grasp, old woman, rib, helpmate, gray weedy, herby, woody, fertile, grumble, whine, protest; (adj, n, v) mare; (n) goody blossoming, abundant, leafy, lush, clutch; (v) complain. ANTONYMS: goose: (n) goof, fathead, cuckoo, flourishing. ANTONYMS: (adj) (v) appreciate, compliment, agree, barnacle, fool, jackass, brent, brant, grassless, urban, withering rejoice goosecap; (n, v) spur; (v) serpent gratitude: (n) appreciation, thanks, griping: (adj) gripping, dissatisfied, gorgeous: (adj) luxurious, gaudy, thank, acknowledgement, greedy, ardent, discontented, attractive, brilliant, wonderful, acknowledgment, appreciativeness, covetous, pinching, torminous, glorious, gay, florid, palatial, dressy; feeling, appreciate, grateful, disgruntled; (n) wring; (v)


too? After midnight he'll likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one." "I didn't think of that." The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit comfortable. Pretty soon she says" "What did you say your name was, honey?" "M -- Mary Williams." Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't look up -- seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered, and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But now she says: "Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?" "Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary." "Oh, that's the way of it?" "Yes'm." I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I couldn't look up yet. Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said "Ouch!" it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course I didn't let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his nose I let drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a tolerable sick rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help her with. I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and went on talking about her and her husband's matters. But she broke off to say: "Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap, handy." So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking.


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

rubbed across the one-eyed face she couldn’t see. “By every god buried or bleeding, I’m tired.” He said it so quietly, she wouldn’t have heard if she wasn’t studying him. Gabe kept his exhaustion and his anger and everything else he felt packed tight and stowed away. Lore turned, the book she’d idly picked up still clutched in her hands. “I found one to read. Let’s go back to the suite. We could both use a nap, I think.” It wasn’t a lie. Between Bastian’s party and waking up at the first snap of dawn, she was tired, too. Gabe turned, brow arched. His one blue eye dipped to the book she held, then widened. “That’s the one you’re taking?” The gilt cover glinted up as she turned the book around to study it for the first time. More erotic poetry. The painting on the front depicted a randy satyr chasing a nymph wearing nothing but lots of long blond hair. Her smile grew wicked edges. “What’s the matter with it, Mort?” “Nothing at all.” He strode toward the door, stiff-legged. “Maybe you could read it, too. Learn something. Since you’ve been celibate your whole life—” “You’re so sure I’ve never broken my vows, then?” She tilted her head curiously. “Have you?” Gabe gave her a cool glance over his shoulder, chin lifted. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” The door opened as Gabe was reaching for it, letting in a rather harried-looking Malcolm dressed head-to-toe in Presque Mort black. He straightened, clearly ready to bring down the force of a holy stare onto flighty nobles, then started when he recognized them, his flinty expression dissolving into a smile. “Good afternoon, Lore. And Your Grace.” “Spare me,” Gabe muttered, but he clapped the other man companionably on the back. “Didn’t expect to see you two here without your royal charge.” Malcolm held a pile of books in his hands; he passed them to enter the library and headed to one of the small staircases that led to the upper floors. “Anton made it sound like he wants Lore sewed to the Sun Prince’s ass.” “I’m actually on my way to find him now,” Lore said quickly. Gabe and Malcolm were obviously friends, and she liked the man from the little time she’d spent with him, but she assumed he was just as conditioned to report everything to Anton as Gabe was. “Gabe thought Bastian might be here, but it appears he’s spending his leisure hours elsewhere.” Like in the stables, trying to feed apples to a dead horse. Malcolm looked down from the second story, leaning over the gilded railing just long enough to see the cover of Lore’s book. His dark eyes widened as he snorted a laugh. “Taking get close to Bastian very seriously, I see.” “I always follow orders,” Lore replied. Gabe grimaced, but was too preoccupied with what Malcolm was doing to make a snide comment. “Is Anton moving more books out of the Church library?” “Not quite.” Malcolm set his book pile down on the floor, then hefted


water is yet bad. It’s bound tuh be. Too many dead folks been in it fuh it tuh be good tuh drink fuh uh long time. Dat’s de way Ah figgers it anyhow.” “All right, Tea Cake. Ah’ll send you some medicine and tell Janie how tuh take care of you. Anyhow, I want you in a bed by yo’self until you hear from me. Just you keep Janie out of yo’ bed for awhile, hear? Come on out to the car with me, Janie. I want to send Tea Cake some pills to take right away.” Outside he fumbled in his bag and gave Janie a tiny bot- tle with a few pellets inside. “Give him one of these every hour to keep him quiet, Janie, and stay out of his way when he gets in one of his fits of gagging and choking.” “How you know he’s havin’ ’em, doctah? Dat’s jus’ what Ah come out heah tuh tell yuh.” “Janie, I’m pretty sure that was a mad dawg bit yo’ hus- band. It’s too late to get hold of de dawg’s head. But de symptoms is all there. It’s mighty bad dat it’s gone on so long. Some shots right after it happened would have fixed him right up.” 208 Zora Neale Hurston “You mean he’s liable tuh die, doctah?” “Sho is. But de worst thing is he’s liable tuh suffer some- thin’ awful befo’ he goes.” “Doctor, Ah loves him fit tuh kill. Tell me anything tuh do and Ah’ll do it.” “’Bout de only thing you can do, Janie, is to put him in the County Hospital where they can tie him down and look after him.” “But he don’t like no hospital at all. He’d think Ah wuz tired uh doin’ fuh ’im, when God knows Ah ain’t. Ah can’t stand de idea us tyin’ Tea Cake lak he wuz uh mad dawg.” “It almost amounts to dat, Janie. He’s got almost no chance to pull through and he’s liable to bite somebody else, specially you, and then you’ll be in the same fix he’s in. It’s mighty bad.” “Can’t nothin’ be done fuh his case, doctah? Us got plenty money in de bank in Orlandah, doctah. See can’t yuh do somethin’ special tuh save him. Anything it cost, doctah, Ah don’t keer, but please, doctah.” “Do what I can. Ah’ll phone into Palm Beach right away for the serum which he should have had three weeks ago. I’ll do all I can to save him, Janie. But it looks too late. People in his condition can’t swallow water, you know, and in other ways it’s terrible.” Janie fooled around outside awhile to try and think it wasn’t so. If she didn’t see the sickness in his face she could imagine it wasn’t really happening. Well, she thought, that big old dawg with the hatred in his eyes had killed her after all. She wished she had slipped off that cow-tail and drowned Their Eyes Were Watching God 209 then and there and been done. But


was kind enough to bury him in London." Langdon nodded. "Does it ring any bells?" Gettum moved toward one of the workstations. "Not offhand, but let's see what we can pull up in the database." Over the past two decades, King's College Research Institute in Systematic Theology had used optical character recognition software in unison with linguistic translation devices to digitize and catalog an enormous collection of texts- encyclopedias of religion, religious biographies, sacred scriptures in dozens of languages, histories, Vatican letters, diaries of clerics, anything at all that qualified as writings on human spirituality. Because the massive collection was now in the form of bits and bytes rather than physical pages, the data was infinitely more accessible. Settling into one of the workstations, Gettum eyed the slip of paper and began typing. "To begin, we'll run a straight Boolean with a few obvious keywords and see what happens." "Thank you." Gettum typed in a few words: LONDON, KNIGHT, POPE As she clicked the SEARCH button, she could feel the hum of the massive mainframe downstairs scanning data at a rate of 500 MB/sec. "I'm asking the system to show us any documents whose complete text contains all three of these keywords. We'll get more hits than we want, but it's a good place to start." The screen was already showing the first of the hits now. 254 Painting the Pope. The Collected Portraits of Sir Joshua Reynolds. London University Press. Gettum shook her head. "Obviously not what you're looking for." She scrolled to the next hit. The London Writings of Alexander Pope by G. Wilson Knight. Again she shook her head. As the system churned on, the hits came up more quickly than usual. Dozens of texts appeared, many of them referencing the eighteenth-century British writer Alexander Pope, whose counterreligious, mock-epic poetry apparently contained plenty of references to knights and London. Gettum shot a quick glance to the numeric field at the bottom of the screen. This computer, by calculating the current number of hits and multiplying by the percentage of the database left to search, provided a rough guess of how much information would be found. This particular search looked like it was going to return an obscenely large amount of data. Estimated number of total hits: 2,692 "We need to refine the parameters further," Gettum said, stopping the search. "Is this all the information you have regarding the tomb? There's nothing else to go on?" Langdon glanced at Sophie Neveu, looking uncertain. This is no scavenger hunt, Gettum sensed. She had heard the whisperings of Robert Langdon's experience in Rome last year. This American had been granted access to the most secure library on earth-the Vatican Secret Archives. She wondered what kinds of secrets Langdon might have learned inside and if his current desperate hunt for a mysterious London tomb might relate to information he had gained within the Vatican. Gettum had been a librarian long enough to know the most common reason people came to London to look for knights. The Grail. Gettum smiled and adjusted her glasses.


despair. Even as I wept, he said, “I’m sorry, my darling. You brought this on yourself.” “Please,” I said, my voice weakening as quickly as my body. “Please let me keep him. I’ll be a good girl if you do. I’ll never do anything wrong again.” My father chucked my chin. “My darling, you’ve done enough wrong to last a lifetime.” Exhaustion lapped over me in waves so strong I suspected I was dying of heartbreak. I hoped so. Death seemed a better option than this unfathomable grief. Yet I remained alive as Miss Baker dressed me in a fresh nightgown and put me to bed. As she mopped up the mess I’d made on the floor, I listened for the sound of my son in the other room. All was quiet. The only one still crying was me. Miss Baker, done with cleaning, clasped my hand. “Don’t worry, Virginia. I’ll think of something to make him change his mind.” I was too tired--and too utterly despondent--to reply. Grief and exhaustion had me in their grip, and I felt like I was being pulled into a dark pit from which I’d never emerge. The last thing I heard was Miss Baker saying, “I swear to you, he won’t take that child from you forever.” She was lying. I never saw her--or my child--again. THIRTY-NINE I didn’t think it could get any worse. That Virginia had endured enough. I was wrong. Because Lenora keeps talking, revealing all the ways in which her sister had suffered. Forced to give birth on the floor. The baby taken from her before she could even hold him. Her father’s casual disdain in the face of her heartbreak. It’s all so tragic it takes my breath away. “You should have stopped him,” I say, speaking despite the sudden tightness in my chest. “You should have defied his orders.” “I wanted to,” Lenora says, her voice cracking. “Truly, I did. But you didn’t know my father. He was capable of great cruelty. I worried he really would murder that child if given the chance. And I was certain he’d go through with his threat to disown me. I wasn’t his daughter. Not really.” “But she was your sister!” “In name only. We were never close. Virginia and I were as opposite as summer and winter.” The comparison is apt. Looking at Lenora Hope, all I see is frigid coldness. Upstairs lies Virginia, as warm and restless as a July afternoon. Two sisters who, like the seasons they represent, never connected. Something always stood between them. So Lenora took the baby into what was Miss Baker’s room but is now mine. She cradled him and shushed his cries by letting him suckle her pinkie finger. She waited for her father to return and tell her what to do. According to Lenora, he never did. “Miss Baker eventually came into the room and began packing up her things,” she says. “When I asked what she was doing, she said, ‘Leaving, of course. With the child.’ ” Lenora registers my surprise and


ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable --they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness --and when retained .. <p 211 > for any object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and employment should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the final dash. Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final and romantic object --that final and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash --aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab. Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect


The so-called top stories were about our hike, and I looked at the photos again, and again felt dismayed at the fit of my leggings, though the dismay was almost immediately eclipsed by a nostalgia for this moment four days before, when we’d been casually holding hands, casually chatting. I took my laptop onto the balcony, sat, and created a new document that I named Pros/Cons. Then I observed the blinking cursor, listing neither pros nor cons of quitting TNO and moving to L.A. I needed some classical music to help me. I went into the room to find my earbuds, and when I returned to the balcony, my phone was buzzing with an incoming text, but it wasn’t from Noah; it was from Viv. How you feeling today? Okay, I texted back. Thanks for checking. How you feeling? She replied with a photo in which she stood in profile in front of a mirror, her belly truly enormous beneath a gray tank top. Amazing!!!! I replied. You look great When my phone buzzed again, I assumed it was her, but this time it was a message from Noah: Hey My heart clutched. Hey, I wrote back. How are you? The three dots pulsated for what felt like fifteen minutes but was probably ten seconds. Then finally: The house is really quiet without you This was so…nice? Mature? Non-game-playing? As I began typing, another text from him appeared: I’m sorry that I made you feel like I don’t respect your job From him: I do respect your job From me: I’m sorry that I failed to express the slightest appreciation about you clearing out your study From me: That was very kind of you From me: Even if I turned it into something weird and symbolic I typed, I miss you, but before I could send it, he texted: About to workout w/ Bobby From him: Have a good day I waited a few seconds then deleted I miss you * * * — But by the afternoon, I was looking up how much it would cost to transport my aunt Donna’s car back to Kansas City if I flew directly from L.A. to New York. Although I didn’t usually need to be back at TNO until the last week in September, there were rumors that we’d have additional days of training for the new Covid protocols and that attendance might be staggered because of limits on how many people could be in a room at a time. Plus, I’d been away for four months; maybe it made sense to go back early, to reacclimate to the city in a pandemic. By evening, however, I’d decided that eleven years of pitch meetings—along with eleven years of Tuesday all-nighters and Wednesday read-throughs and Thursday rewrites and Friday rehearsals and, yes, even Saturday shows—was enough. I didn’t need a twelfth year. And there were more reasons I didn’t want a twelfth year than reasons I did. I kept moving in and out of certainty and uncertainty, composure and despair. As the sun set over


the past--the dead Squire's belongings--but no one touches them. In contrast to the big party you last saw here, it seems empty with only four people here today. Yet there were only two people in the scene before--what does Eliot feel is missing here? The interchange between Mr. Lammeter and Priscilla shows the shift in generations--Priscilla now manages the farm, and Mr. Lammeter has lost his firm control. Priscilla refuses to stay to tea, saying she needs to get home to watch over the dairymaid. Priscilla blames the girl's approaching marriage for her incompetence. Notice her outburst, a few paragraphs later, about men. Why is she so sour? As Priscilla and Nancy go for a walk, Eliot uses their conversation to help you catch up on their lives. Priscilla, who enjoys her own work, says running a dairy would keep Nancy's mind off her worries. But Nancy says that a dairy wouldn't lift Godfrey's spirits. After praising her husband, Nancy claims she understands why he frets about not having children. This, then, is their marital problem. After the Lammeters leave, Godfrey goes to look at the draining fields. Nancy sits alone with her Bible. Unlike Dolly, she can read the Bible. But like Dolly, she isn't a scholar, and the words on the page soon fade away as she meditates on her own life. Anxiously, she muses on her childlessness. She knows Godfrey feels deprived. She wanted children, too, but she can deal with her own sense of loss. She humbly accepted the death of their one baby, fourteen years ago. Since then, she's devoted herself to Godfrey to make up for it. But there's one thing she won't do--adopt a child. Eliot points out that adoption wasn't very common then (as it became in her own time and in ours). NOTE: Nancy tends to form rigid opinions and cling to them. These are essential to her personality--they grow in her mind like grass, Eliot says (more plant imagery). Nancy formed her code early in life, and formed it out of superstition as well as rational thought. How does Eliot seem to feel about Nancy's principles? Nancy is convinced that adopting a child would be going against the will of God. You can hear her recalling Godfrey's arguments against this. Interestingly, he talks about adopting a specific child--Eppie. Nancy is talking about a principle, however, and she won't budge. She says it was all right for Silas to adopt Eppie because the child came to him unsought--like Dolly, she accepts the mysterious workings of God. But this doesn't bring her peace. Eliot digresses to describe Godfrey's own feelings about adopting Eppie. Since you have seen Silas and Eppie together, you can imagine the effect of this adoption on Silas, but Eliot says Godfrey never worries about this. Why not? He believes that anyone would want Eppie to rise in social class. Some readers think Eliot condemns Godfrey for this attitude, for he's really fulfilling his own desire for his child. Others say he can't help his class prejudices, and they point out


inch in front uh de plow, and even lay back his ears tuh kick and bite when Ah go in de stall tuh feed ’im.” “Git reconciled, Matt,” Lige soothed. “Us all knows he’s mean. Ah seen ’im when he took after one uh dem Roberts chillun in de street and woulda caught ’im and maybe trompled ’im tuh death if de wind hadn’t of changed all of a sudden. Yuh see de youngun wuz tryin’ tuh make it tuh de fence uh Starks’ onion patch and de mule wuz dead in behind ’im and gainin’ on ’im every jump, when all of a sudden de wind changed and blowed de mule way off his course, him bein’ so poor and everything, and before de ornery varmint could tack, de youngun had done got over de fence.” The porch laughed and Matt got mad again. “Maybe de mule takes out after everybody,” Sam said, Their Eyes Were Watching God 63 “’cause he thinks everybody he hear comin’ is Matt Bonner comin’ tuh work ’im on uh empty stomach.” “Aw, naw, aw, naw. You stop dat right now,” Walter objected. “Dat mule don’t think Ah look lak no Matt Bon- ner. He ain’t dat dumb. If Ah thought he didn’t know no better Ah’d have mah picture took and give it tuh dat mule so’s he could learn better. Ah ain’t gointuh ’low ’im tuh hold nothin’ lak dat against me.” Matt struggled to say something but his tongue failed him so he jumped down off the porch and walked away as mad as he could be. But that never halted the mule talk. There would be more stories about how poor the brute was; his age; his evil disposition and his latest caper. Everybody indulged in mule talk. He was next to the Mayor in prominence, and made better talking. Janie loved the conversation and sometimes she thought up good stories on the mule, but Joe had forbidden her to indulge. He didn’t want her talking after such trashy people. “You’se Mrs. Mayor Starks, Janie. I god, Ah can’t see what uh woman uh yo’ stability would want tuh be treasurin’ all dat gum-grease from folks dat don’t even own de house dey sleep in. ’Tain’t no earthly use. They’s jus’ some puny humans playin’ round de toes uh Time.” Janie noted that while he didn’t talk the mule himself, he sat and laughed at it. Laughed his big heh, heh laugh too. But then when Lige or Sam or Walter or some of the other big picture talkers were using a side of the world for a canvas, Joe would hustle her off inside the store to sell something. Look 64 Zora Neale Hurston like he took pleasure in doing it. Why couldn’t he go himself sometimes? She had come to hate the inside of that store any- way. That Post Office too. People always coming and asking for mail at the wrong time. Just when she was trying to count up something or write in an account book. Get her


he do to Peter Antonin, if he could? Figure he’d put on his executive tactical and go ninja the little motherfucker to the point of death. But that makes for a crime scene that does not look like our crime scene. If Maurice broke into Roddy’s place and beat him to death with a stapler, how did Roddy end up shot just once in the side of the head? That is a controlled, quiet sort of crime, not a crime of rage. It’s almost merciful. It doesn’t have anything like the flavour of the man who broke down the door to my office. But all right, that man and the man who lived in this apartment are not the same, and we all contain multitudes. Picture Maurice, in that moment of discovery. He has time to be colder than he was with me, he plans it out. Peter’s sins are so appalling that they merit thought. He drugs his target—let’s assume, even though it doesn’t show up later on Musgrave’s machines—and he puts his big hand around Roddy’s smaller one and he holds the gun to his head. It’s righteous and satisfying to dispense long overdue justice, and he has no idea that Roddy no more remembers Peter than any of us remembers being born. Bang. He slips away into the night, unseen. How does he do all that? Let’s say they’re friendly somehow, or Maurice makes Roddy think they are. Let’s say that for now. He puts something in Roddy’s drink and away we go. Okay, fine, but Maurice has to get past the front door first, doesn’t he? Let’s say he comes in with the after-work crowd, he’s still a foot and change taller than the tallest of them. He literally stands out. Say he gets close enough to the camera that the height issue isn’t obvious to whatever rookie Felton has reviewing the tape. Jerelyn may not notice everyone, but she’d notice Maurice because he’s a fucking Titan. He is not your average bear. Does Maurice come in pretending to be Roddy? Does that make any sense? From the corner of your eye, maybe, if you didn’t look, two very tall men might become one, but Maurice walks with a swagger, like he owns everything. Roddy for sure never did that. It doesn’t play. For this to work, Maurice has to buy Jerelyn. I want to say she’s not for sale, but everyone’s for sale at one price or another, and when your name is Tonfamecasca you can generally meet it. * * * — I walk back to Maurice’s computer and look for Jerelyn. I look for the building, for her address, for family. I look for anything that puts Maurice near her. Then I look for anything that puts him near the apartment where Roddy died, or near the university. I use his terminal to track his phone, and he—or at least, the phone—is never, ever there. But then right now, the phone is in Syros, having Mai Tais on the beach, so Maurice knows how to


visit us in the pharmacy. Meiling and I are told to sit next to each other on two pearwood stools. Both of us fold our hands in our laps. We wear pretty outfits and ribbons in our hair. Mine are of finer quality, of course, but the midwife has taken great care to make Meiling look like a girl of high standing. The two women sit at opposite sides of a teak table, a porcelain teapot and cups between them, with a bronze vase holding a single orchid set to the side. Grandmother begins the conversation. “I want to propose an idea—a more formal relationship between your daughter and my granddaughter.” Meiling and I exchange glances. This is a totally unexpected announcement. “I realize the two girls are from different classes—” The midwife, who can’t hide her distrust, interrupts to state the obvious. “My daughter has big feet. Yunxian has bound feet.” Grandmother acknowledges this mismatch with one of her own. “Yunxian is studying to be a physician, while Meiling will get filth on her hands when delivering babies.” “My daughter carries my family name, for she has no father. Your granddaughter is descended from—” “We could continue listing all the reasons not to formalize something that many people, including my husband, would find unsatisfactory, but may you and I consider the positives instead? Both girls were born in the Year of the Snake, specifically the Year of the Metal Snake. A Metal Snake can be gifted with a calculating mind and enormous willpower—” “Or a Snake can be a scheming loner,” the midwife says, still unwilling to list a good attribute. “A Metal Snake craves luxury and easy living, which Yunxian was born to,” Grandmother goes on. “A Metal Snake without these comforts can have an envious streak, find it difficult to face failure, and will seek to settle scores.” “Which one is Meiling?” Grandmother asks. Midwife Shi responds with a question of her own. “What does it matter if both girls were born in the Year of the Snake? Their natures can be nothing less than different, with the potential to cause many conflicts.” When Grandmother doesn’t argue the point, the midwife continues. “For as long as anyone can remember, a beautiful face has been acknowledged as a window into a girl’s inner character. It shows her to have a ‘beautiful’ nature—to be kind, generous, and diligent. It can also change a girl’s fate, allowing her to improve her status through marriage.” Grandmother visibly perks up. “Have arrangements been made for Meiling?” Grandmother loves me and is doing everything she can to give me a good future, but it hurts to realize that when the subject of beauty arose, she assumed the girl in question was Meiling. “A matchmaker has completed the arrangements for Meiling,” the midwife answers. I’m surprised. A midwife’s daughter has had her betrothal settled before I have? “My daughter is to marry the son of a tea merchant—” “In Wuxi?” “I would not marry out my daughter to a family far away, no matter what the


shrunken; and that they never wrapped the young and graceful form in their ghastly folds. A knell from the church bell broke harshly on these youthful thoughts. Another! Again! It was tolling for the funeral service. A group of humble mourners entered the gate: wearing white favours; for the corpse was young. They stood uncovered by a grave; and there was a mother--a mother once--among the weeping train. But the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang on. Oliver turned homeward, thinking on the many kindnesses he had received from the young lady, and wishing that the time could come again, that he might never cease showing her how grateful and attached he was. He had no cause for self-reproach on the score of neglect, or want of thought, for he had been devoted to her service; and yet a hundred little occasions rose up before him, on which he fancied he might have been more zealous, and more earnest, and wished he had been. We need be careful how we deal with those about us, when every death carries to some small circle of survivors, thoughts of so much omitted, and so little done--of so many things forgotten, and so many more which might have been repaired! There is no remorse so deep as that which is unavailing; if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this, in time. When he reached home Mrs. Maylie was sitting in the little parlour. Oliver's heart sand at sight of her; for she had never left the bedside of her niece; and he trembled to think what change could have driven her away. He learnt that she had fallen into a deep sleep, from which she would waken, either to recovery and life, or to bid them farewell, and die. They sat, listening, and afraid to speak, for hours. The untasted meal was removed, with looks which showed that their thoughts were elsewhere, they watched the sun as he sank lower and lower, and, at length, cast over sky and earth those brilliant hues which herald his departure. Their quick ears caught the sound of an approaching footstep. They both involuntarily darted to the door, as Mr. Losberne entered. 'What of Rose?' cried the old lady. 'Tell me at once! I can bear it; anything but suspense! Oh!, tell me! in the name of Heaven!' 'You must compose yourself,' said the doctor supporting her. 'Be calm, my dear ma'am, pray.' 'Let me go, in God's name! My dear child! She is dead! She is dying!' 'No!' cried the doctor, passionately. 'As He is good and merciful, she will live to bless us all, for years to come.' The lady fell upon her knees, and tried to fold her hands together; but the energy which had supported her so long, fled up to Heaven with her first thanksgiving; and she sank into the friendly arms which were extended to receive her. CHAPTER XXIV CONTAINS SOME INTRODUCTORY PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WHO NOW ARRIVES UPON THE SCENE; AND A NEW ADVENTURE WHICH


out to her observation the course of the rivers, the situation of great towns, and the boundaries of provinces, which science, rather than the eye, enabled him to describe. Notwithstanding this occupation, when he had talked awhile he suddenly became silent, thoughtful, and tears often swelled to his eyes, which Emily observed, and the sympathy of her own heart told her their cause. The scene before them bore some resemblance, though it was on a much grander scale, to a favourite one of the late Madame St. Aubert, within view of the fishing-house. They both observed this, and thought how delighted she would have been with the present landscape, while they knew that her eyes must never, never more open upon this world. St. Aubert remembered the last time of his visiting that spot in company with her, and also the mournfully presaging thoughts which had then arisen in his mind, and were now, even thus soon, realized! The recollections subdued him, and he abruptly rose from his seat, and walked away to where no eye could observe his grief. When he returned, his countenance had recovered its usual serenity; he took Emily's hand, pressed it affectionately, without speaking, and soon after called to the muleteer, who sat at a little distance, concerning a road among the mountains towards Rousillon. Michael said, there were several that way, but he did not know how far they extended, or even whether they were passable; and St. Aubert, who did not intend to travel after sun-set, asked what village they could reach about that time. The muleteer calculated that they could easily reach Mateau, which was in their present road; but that, if they took a road that sloped more to the south, towards Rousillon, there was a hamlet, which he thought they could gain before the evening shut in. St. Aubert, after some hesitation, determined to take the latter course, and Michael, having finished his meal, and harnessed his mules, again set forward, but soon stopped; and St. Aubert saw him doing homage to a cross, that stood on a rock impending over their way. Having concluded his devotions, he smacked his whip in the air, and, in spite of the rough road, and the pain of his poor mules, which he had been lately lamenting, rattled, in a full gallop, along the edge of a precipice, which it made the eye dizzy to look down. Emily was terrified almost to fainting; and St. Aubert, apprehending still greater danger from suddenly stopping the driver, was compelled to sit quietly, and trust his fate to the strength and discretion of the mules, who seemed to possess a greater portion of the latter quality than their master; for they carried the travellers safely into the valley, and there stopped upon the brink of the rivulet that watered it. Leaving the splendour of extensive prospects, they now entered this narrow valley screened by Rocks on rocks piled, as if by magic spell, Here scorch'd by lightnings, there with ivy green. The scene of barrenness was here and


onto the linoleum and risked a look back, and they were too close, they were coming. She hauled herself up along the doorway, her eyes glued to Pupkin and his hammer. He gibbered and cooed to himself. “Mark come home!” he squealed. “Louise go away!” Mark took an enormous step forward, swinging Pupkin at the same time, and Louise let go of the doorway and fell backward. The claw end of the hammer punched through the drywall where her head had been, sending fragments showering across her face, blinding her. Instinctively she turned, hurling herself toward the kitchen, her vision clearing, seeing Pupkin frantically trying to extract the hammer from the wall. It came out with a blast of plaster across the linoleum as Louise stumbled forward, bounced off the kitchen counter, and stumble-ran for the shattered door to the garage. If she could get to the backyard she could get to a neighbor, she could outrun them, she could be safe, she could be free, she could live. The door seemed to be directly in front of her, but then gravity got heavier on the right side of the room as she lost her balance, veering toward the kitchen sink, and she bruised her hip on the counter again, sending her body spinning. As she did a full three-sixty she caught a lurching, carousel snatch of Mark coming through the dining room entrance, linoleum floor bending beneath his feet, then she kept revolving past him and crashed into the louvered pantry doors with her left shoulder, hearing them splinter and crack, and she bounced herself off them hard, reaching for the garage. So close. “Fee-fi-fo-fum,” Pupkin shrieked, “I smell bloody Louise-eum!” She fell forward and grabbed the splintered doorframe to stop herself from falling down the three brick stairs, and the brightening morning sun coming through the garage door windows showed her the back door was wide open, leading to sunlight and safety. Behind her, Pupkin saw she was getting away and gave a terrible shriek that drove itself into her ears like ice picks. Mark shrieked but really Pupkin shrieked because she had never heard a human throat make a sound like that before. It could only have come from a puppet. Teetering on the threshold of the garage, Louise allowed herself a grim smile of triumph suck it, you little creep She took a step forward and something exploded in her lower back, just above her left kidney. The blow shoved her forward, making her step bigger and wider, and as she heard the thrown hammer clatter to the linoleum floor she fell into the garage, missing the steps entirely. She landed on her left leg and the pain from her kidney where the hammer had hit her made that entire side of her body weak, and she stumbled sideways, sprawling, taking giant loping shuffle-steps across the garage, one foot dragging the extension cord Mark had left there for his saw, then she crashed into the shelves on the other side. Panting, Louise rolled over and it was too


Akari said. “Mr. Grimes! Get us away from Lincoln, now!” Chen said, “Sergeant Max Dryer is hailing—” “On display,” I snapped back, getting to my feet. Max, with Grip at his side somewhere within a narrow passageway, was in full battle mode. Both their shredders were firing electromagnetic pulses. One beetle was on its back, its legs flailing, while three more were being held at bay. “Talk to me, Max.” “They must have modified these fuckers!” Grip jumped back as a beetle lunged for his legs. He fired off no less than ten pulses before the beetle retreated, looking hurt, but most definitely not dead. “How many are there, Hardy?” “Seventy-five … Sixty here on Adams, fifteen on Lincoln.” The halo display segmented, providing an external view of Adams pulling away from Lincoln. The three spaceways stretched to their limits, then tore apart, sparks ignited at the junction points of both ships. “Akari—” “Already on it!” she yelled back. I watched as Adams’ modified Phazon Pulsar cannons came alive. The yellow cloud turned a glistening, shimmering gold before flashing white and then dissipating into the blackness of space. I let out a breath, but knew the momentary reprieve wouldn’t last. Bosun Polk hurried onto the bridge. “What can I do to help?” “I want visual feeds. Show me exactly where each of those beetles is.” Polk joined Akari at Tactical. Chen said, “Wrath and Portent are three minutes out. Captain Loggins wants to talk to you.” “No time to chat. Tell him we’ll do what we can to provide some cover. Tell Captains Loggins and Church to get in behind us … Need to coax those Liquilid frigates away from Lincoln.” I looked to the now multi-segmented halo display; it took me a moment to realize what I was looking at. Beetles. They were all over the damn ship and moving with impressive speed. Several were awkwardly making their way up stairwells. “Good thing they’re not adept at using GravLifts,” Hardy commented. “You’re still standing here? You do see that they’re on their way to the bridge, right? Maybe this would be a good time for a killer ChronoBot to prove his worth?” He turned to move. “Wait!” I dragged two palms down my face. Dammit, I need to concentrate. “Hardy, we need to know where that quantum flux signal is being generated from. Now more than ever. Whatever you have to do, whatever internal resources you can rally, maybe LuMan can help … but we, I, need to know where that is … right now.” Hardy went still, his faceplate as black as deep space. Then, fading into view, came the animated spinning gears and sprockets. “What I can tell you … is there is still no way to pinpoint those quantum waves … flux waves.” I continued to hold my breath. “With that said … and let me tell you, Cap … this is by no means something you can hang your hat on—” “Hardy!” “Okay, okay … I have picked up communications signals. Very faint.” “Of course you have!”


misfortune, and make it perceptible to the beholder's eye. It was the better to be discerned, by this exterior type, how worn and old were the soul's more immediate garments; that form and countenance, the beauty and grace of which had almost transcended the skill of the most exquisite of artists. It could the more adequately be known that the soul of the man must have suffered some miserable wrong, from its earthly experience. There he seemed to sit, with a dim veil of decay and ruin betwixt him and the world, but through which, at flitting intervals, might be caught the same expression, so refined, so softly imaginative, which Malbone--venturing a happy touch, with suspended breath --had imparted to the miniature! There had been something so innately characteristic in this look, that all the dusky years, and the burden of unfit calamity which had fallen upon him, did not suffice utterly to destroy it. Hepzibah had now poured out a cup of deliciously fragrant coffee, and presented it to her guest. As his eyes met hers, he seemed bewildered and disquieted. "Is this you, Hepzibah?" he murmured sadly. then, more apart, and perhaps unconscious that he was overheard, "How changed! how changed! And is she angry with me? Why does she bend her brow so?" Poor Hepzibah! It was that wretched scowl which time and her near-sightedness, and the fret of inward discomfort, had rendered so habitual that any vehemence of mood invariably evoked it. But at the indistinct murmur of his words her whole face grew tender, and even lovely, with sorrowful affection; the harshness of her features disappeared, as it were, behind the warm and misty glow. "Angry! she repeated; "angry with you, Clifford!" Her tone, as she uttered the exclamation, had a plaintive and really exquisite melody thrilling through it, yet without subduing a certain something which an obtuse auditor might still have mistaken for asperity. It was as if some transcendent musician should draw a soul-thrilling sweetness out of a cracked instrument, which makes its physical imperfection heard in the midst of ethereal harmony,--so deep was the sensibility that found an organ in Hepzibah's voice! "There is nothing but love, here, Clifford," she added,--"nothing but love! You are at home!" The guest responded to her tone by a smile, which did not half light up his face. Feeble as it was, however, and gone in a moment, it had a charm of wonderful beauty. It was followed by a coarser expression; or one that had the effect of coarseness on the fine mould and outline of his countenance, because there was nothing intellectual to temper it. It was a look of appetite. He ate food with what might almost be termed voracity; and seemed to forget himself, Hepzibah, the young girl, and everything else around him, in the sensual enjoyment which the bountifully spread table afforded. In his natural system, though high-wrought and delicately refined, a sensibility to the delights of the palate was probably inherent. It would have been kept in check, however, and even converted


hammered his iron, the soldier waved his glittering blade; the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his book with eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to and fro along the page; the milkmaid energetically drained her cow; and a miser counted gold into his strong-box,--all at the same turning of a crank. Yes; and, moved by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on her lips! Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our business or amusement,--however serious, however trifling, --all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. For the most remarkable aspect of the affair was, that, at the cessation of the music, everybody was petrified at once, from the most extravagant life into a dead torpor. Neither was the cobbler's shoe finished, nor the blacksmith's iron shaped out; nor was there a drop less of brandy in the toper's bottle, nor a drop more of milk in the milkmaid's pail, nor one additional coin in the miser's strong-box, nor was the scholar a page deeper in his book. All were precisely in the same condition as before they made themselves so ridiculous by their haste to toil, to enjoy, to accumulate gold, and to become wise. Saddest of all, moreover, the lover was none the happier for the maiden's granted kiss! But, rather than swallow this last too acrid ingredient, we reject the whole moral of the show. The monkey, meanwhile, with a thick tail curling out into preposterous prolixity from beneath his tartans, took his station at the Italian's feet. He turned a wrinkled and abominable little visage to every passer-by, and to the circle of children that soon gathered round, and to Hepzibah's shop-door, and upward to the arched window, whence Phoebe and Clifford were looking down. Every moment, also, he took off his Highland bonnet, and performed a bow and scrape. Sometimes, moreover, he made personal application to individuals, holding out his small black palm, and otherwise plainly signifying his excessive desire for whatever filthy lucre might happen to be in anybody's pocket. The mean and low, yet strangely man-like expression of his wilted countenance; the prying and crafty glance, that showed him ready to gripe at every miserable advantage; his enormous tail (too enormous to be decently concealed under his gabardine), and the deviltry of nature which it betokened,--take this monkey just as he was, in short, and you could desire no better image of the Mammon of copper coin, symbolizing the grossest form of the love of money. Neither was there any possibility of satisfying the covetous little devil. Phoebe threw down a whole handful of cents, which he picked up with joyless eagerness, handed them over to the Italian for safekeeping, and immediately recommenced a series of pantomimic petitions for more. Doubtless, more than one New-Englander--or, let him be of what country he might, it


dance ended. Around them, other couples were in a pose with their right hands together and the other curved above their heads, but Bastian and Lore still stood with their palms facing between them, almost touching but not quite. “I look forward to having you around, Lore.” His voice was low, breath brushing her temple as he leaned forward to speak into her ear. “It certainly has the potential to be interesting.” “Do you think so, Your Highness?” He was close enough that she felt the brush of his lips curving. “I know so.” Across the room, Alie watched them, giggling behind her hand. Next to her, Gabe caught Lore’s eye, arched a sardonic brow. She tried to make a face that communicated what else am I supposed to do? but mostly just succeeded in looking nauseous. Bastian stepped back. He reached into his coat, and for a wild moment, Lore thought he was going to pull out a dagger or one of those tiny pistols, prove himself the Kirythean informant his father thought he was by taking care of her right here in the middle of his own party. The courtiers would probably love it. They’d all bring in peasants to murder at their own balls; it’d be the next big trend in masquerade hosting. But all Bastian pulled from his coat was a pressed flower, a line of palepurple blooms on a green stem. “A foxglove for a foxglove.” Bastian handed it to her with a bow and a flourish. “Beautiful and poisonous. Much like yourself, if I may be so bold as to make an assessment after our brief acquaintance.” Gingerly, Lore took the bloom. The dry petals crunched slightly between her fingers. “Until next time, Lore.” Bastian turned and walked away, a drop of ink in a sea of color. Lore closed the door to the apartments behind her and leaned back against it. “I suppose that went about as well as it could.” “You performed your assignment admirably,” Gabriel said, sitting down on the couch with a long sigh. “It seems ingratiating myself with Bastian won’t be the hard part.” Lore pulled off her mask and let it drop. “Getting any kind of information out of him will be. He’s not going to tell me he’s a traitor just because he thinks I’m pretty; he’s smarter than his father or his uncle gives him credit for.” Gabe snorted. Lore toed off the heeled slippers that had come with her costume, pale purple and embroidered with serrated leaves. Foxglove leaves. The dried bloom Bastian had given her was still in her palm. If she’d been found with something like this on the streets of Dellaire, it’d be at least three days in the Northwest Ward stocks if it was a first offense, and a ticket to the Burnt Isles if it wasn’t. But here, in this gilded palace full of money and excess, it was a prince’s idle gift. She thought of the courtiers in the corner with their belladonna tea, physicians on call and no reason to


With that, he would sew a set of school uniforms that had no holes. He would do that during his time at Aunty Caro’s place. She’d let him use the machines for as long as he wanted once he was done with any assigned tasks. There would be money left over to buy a new pair of sandals. The sandals would have to be rubber, though, not the pair of Kitos he really wanted. Once he returned to United, Ẹniọlá told Rashidi and Sàámú that he would be going back to Glorious Destiny at some point during the next week. There was a pocket of silence before both boys shrugged as though they had been expecting this all along and it did not matter whether he stayed or left. Ẹniọlá bit his tongue to keep from saying he would miss them. While Rashidi fiddled with the XpressMusic, Sàámú informed Ẹniọlá that Honourable had moved his market visit forward. The boys would now be needed that Thursday. “Àbí, Glorious Destiny students are too important?” Rashidi asked without looking up from the phone. “What?” Ẹniọlá said. “You are too important to be one of us now.” “Rashidi has started again.” Sàámú tapped the desk in front of him. “Stop stuffing words in Ẹniọlá’s mouth. He’s just going back so he can prepare for the school cert, he’s still one of us. Àbí?” Ẹniọlá nodded. “I just want to prepare better for the school certificate. Don’t worry, I will still be coming to Honourable’s house in the afternoon. The school doesn’t have a compound or anything. I can leave very easily.” Rashidi exchanged a look with Sàámú before training his gaze on Ẹniọlá’s face. Seated opposite the other two, Ẹniọlá felt as though he was being examined for some hidden flaw—a loose thread tucked in the hem of a finished dress, threatening to undo the seam. “I mean it, Rashidi, you’ll see me there almost every day. Where will I get money for my school fees or the exam if I don’t come?” “Okay.” Rashidi turned to Sàámú and nodded. “Holy Michael said we should give you.” Sàámú reached into his knapsack and placed a black nylon bag on the desk. Ẹniọlá smiled before he could stop himself. Holy Michael was a towering man who sometimes followed Erelú around like a bodyguard. He only spoke to the boys when he wanted to pass on a message from Erelú or Honourable himself. Ẹniọlá picked up the nylon and looked inside. Rashidi laughed. “See the way he’s opening teeth. This one thinks it is money.” “It’s a knife,” Sàámú said. It was the smallest knife Ẹniọlá had ever held. The hilt was brown with two silver dots, and the blade disappeared into a black sheath. When he placed it in his palm, the tip did not extend beyond his middle finger. “What is it for?” he asked. “Swimming,” Sàámú said. “What else would it be for? It’s for your training, you need to learn to protect yourself.” “From what?” Rashidi laughed. “Your voice is shaking, Ẹniọlá. Don’t


* * * — Zoegar puts me back in the transport hood and drops me in the centre of town. It’s the deep part of the night by the time I watch him drive away, and even the party kids have gone home. The streetlamps reflect in sheets of black ice that were puddles eight hours ago, and the slush is turning hard where it’s pushed against the buildings and piled up at the kerbs. I smell woodsmoke and cold coming across the lake, and then the wind changes and there’s something else, hot and synthetic like burning tyres. A black cloud rising at the foot of Chersenesos, rising in a column, and fire engines blue and red and white crashing through the empty streets. By the time I get there there’s not much to see. The fire’s out and the police building is wet and black at one corner. The firemen have everyone being checked out for smoke inhalation, because there’s nothing they like more than bossing cops, the few times a year they get to do it. I walk through the lines like someone else’s ghost, everyone ignoring me. I see Felton and Tidbo. Two nurses up and one over, Kristoffsen J., the rookie cop from the hospital, has a nasty burn on her arm, but it’ll heal. The guy next to her keeps saying thank you, over and over. Figure she pulled him out of something. Good for her. I keep going, looking, not finding. I see Gratton and he waves me over. “Arson,” he says. “Person or persons unknown. Fire bomb.” “Where?” “My office,” Musgrave says, appearing behind him. The medic working on her isn’t happy she’s walking around. “I’m fine, thank you,” she adds to him, “I’m a doctor.” “You’re a patient,” he says, “in a post-crisis situation that may or may not be impacting your ability to make good decisions. Look up and to the left, please.” Gratton makes a phone gesture, taps his watch. Yeah. Talk soon. Musgrave waits until the nurse has looked in both her eyes and down her throat, then peels him off. “I’m fine. Cal, my car’s five minutes away. I don’t want to be behind the wheel. Drive me home, please.” That’s so unexpected I don’t argue. Musgrave leans on me as we walk away. “We need to talk,” she says. “Right the fuck now.” “What about?” “How much of a cop are you tonight?” “You know exactly how much of a cop I am. What’s going on?” She sighs. “I burned down the lab,” she says, and we turn the corner. 4 This is how much of a cop I am. A long time ago when I first started working with the department there was a moment when maybe Musgrave and I might have had something. I’d blown in from—well, never mind. I did some fairly crazy things after Athena got her first dose, and I made some surprising friends. Musgrave and I were younger, dumber and hotter. We weren’t dating and we weren’t sleeping together, but we were


settle him down. Other four homeys get back to their business. You and me, we make damn sure Nina can’t get her hook in no one never again.” “What’s Antoine gonna say?” “Antoine he ain’t relevant no more. We don’t tell Antoine. I keep the boy out of sight. Day after tomorrow, it won’t matter what Antoine wants. He won’t be givin’ orders to no one, nowhere, about nothin’ no more.” Kuba likes the plan so much, he’s nodding like a bobblehead doll. When he stops nodding, he says, “How you see it goin’ down with Nina?” “How you see it?” Aleem asks. “I don’t mean no affront.” “You my brother, Kuba. Talk free.” “I mean, she was your woman.” “She’s nothin’ to me now. ’Cept a pain in the ass.” “I’m thinkin’ it’s a wasted opportunity iffen it’s a quick trey eight in the head.” “What opportunity?” “She weren’t your woman once, I woulda been on her long ago.” “You want to tear off a piece ’fore we pop her?” “Sure would be somethin’ to remember in my old age.” Aleem is aware of Kuba’s preference for heavy action. Whenever some fresh who’s being pimped gets out of line to an extent that she can’t be rehabilitated for the market, Kuba sets aside a full day to break her down so much that nobody wants to look at her again, let alone touch her. Aleem has never been present for one of those sessions, but he’s seen the aftermath. He is intrigued. Nina has been such a threat to his reputation and so smug in her churchified ways that she deserves whatever she gets. “I wouldn’t mind storin’ up a memory myself,” Aleem says. Kuba has such a sweet smile that few people could ever imagine what lies behind it. “Let’s catch up with her again,” Aleem says. Kuba accelerates into the wind, the rain, the night, and the promise of a passion for which there is no Valentine’s Day card. IN THE TWILIGHT KINGDOM At a corner table with a panoramic view of the elegant room, Durand Calaphas orders a four-hundred-dollar bottle of wine, which he might or might not finish. He is in no hurry. Later, he will have the filet mignon, which lists on the menu for seventy-six dollars, side dishes additional, and will probably cost eighty-two in another month. His job comes with such a generous expense account that no purchase of his has ever been questioned, and his credit card, issued by the agency, has no charge limit as far as he is aware. This is the bold new age of Modern Monetary Theory, which holds that excess has no consequence because the government can tax the economy into prosperity and the treasury is bottomless, or something like that. The restaurant is around the corner from the street of streets, in this neighborhood where millionaires and billionaires have for decades come to shop for outrageously priced merchandise, which is where they will continue shopping as long as there is both vanity and social order. The former


poison,” she said, primly capping the flask and tucking it away. “The storage rooms where the bloodcoats put it once it’s confiscated.” Every muscle in Lore’s body stiffened. Next to her, Alie pulled her bottom lip worriedly between her teeth. Apparently, Cecelia didn’t notice. “I can show you where it is, if you want,” she said breezily. “It’s not hard to find—” “Cecelia.” Though her friend didn’t notice Lore’s discomfort, Alie did. She shook her head, slightly, near-white curls ruffling. The other woman gave a showy shrug. “Suit yourself.” She wandered over to the rest of her team, offering both Bastian and Olivier a sip of her flask. Olivier accepted, but Bastian declined, the dark glitter of his eyes arcing to Lore across the green. The game ended quickly, with Bastian taking the winning hoop. Cecelia and Olivier excused themselves quickly, saying they had a dinner to attend. As they were leaving, Cecelia glanced over her shoulder at Lore. “If you change your mind,” she said with a wave, “let me know! We can make a party of it!” Lore’s hand pulled into a fist at her side, hidden in the billowing lavender skirts of her gown. Bastian walked over with his mallet swung across his shoulders, frowning after Cecelia and her brother. “What would you be changing your mind about, Lore?” “It doesn’t matter.” She focused on releasing her fists. On taking in deep breaths and letting them out. “I won’t be changing my mind.” He arched a dark brow. “It wouldn’t be about poison, would it?” Lore said nothing. “I wish she wouldn’t,” Alie said softly. She’d crossed her arms over her chest, her fingers picking anxiously at the embroidery on her sleeves. “I know she has a good reason—as much as one can—but I still wish she wouldn’t.” “There’s no good reason to poison yourself.” Gabe stood dour and looming at the edge of the group, mallet held in his hand like a cudgel. “Intentionally altering the balance of Spiritum and Mortem within a human body goes against the Tracts.” “There’s more to right and wrong than what’s in the Tracts, Gabe.” Alie didn’t snap, not really, but her voice had an edge in it that Lore hadn’t heard before. Gabe noticed. Surprise flickered across his face. “I was unaware Cecelia was partial to poisoning until the night of the masque,” Bastian said, taking hold of the conversation and steering it back in the direction he wanted. “She just started.” Alie sighed. “And she has her reasons.” “The high being first among them, I assume,” Bastian said drily. “It’s not that. Or not just that, anyway.” Alie shook her head. “She’s sick. It’s not hugely aggressive, the physicians say, but enough that her life expectancy is… lessened. Cecelia started taking the belladonna in the hope it would add some years.” She rubbed at her forehead. “Now, she certainly shouldn’t be taking as much as she did the night of your masquerade, Bastian, but she’s scared.” Angry heat raised color in Lore’s cheeks; she glanced away so none of them


woman inside, a familiar stranger. She told me that she had been waiting for me. That the shop had been waiting for me also. ‘Wake up,’ she said. ‘Wake up.’ In the morning light, I could see the light brown strands of Henry’s hair on the pillow beside me. If he had been disappointed with not finding the bookshop, he hadn’t let on. The narrow passageway led directly back to my flat. It wasn’t a secret pathway to another dimension, it was just an old servants’ tunnel or something. He took me back to bed and said that he had already found everything he wanted. I had found more than I had ever dreamed of, and yet something felt incomplete. ‘The tree!’ ‘I’m awake, I’m awake,’ Henry responded to my scream, one eye still shut, his hair standing on end. ‘It’s gone.’ ‘Okay. The very fact of the tree growing here was odd in the first place, but this is just … what are you doing?’ I was getting dressed. Fast. ‘Well, aren’t you coming?’ Henry blinked, then reluctantly pulled on his jeans. I ran up the stairs ahead of him. ‘Martha? Were these words always here on the stairs? Strange things are found …’ he shouted up, but I had found something stranger still. I had expected to find the hallway of number 12 Ha'penny Lane at the top of the stairs, where it always was. Instead, I found myself standing in a place I had never fully believed existed up to that point – Opaline’s Bookshop. Daylight streamed in through the glass shopfront, creating rays of sunshine, glittering with dust motes falling like confetti. I hardly dared breathe in case the whole thing would evaporate. Slowly, I let my eyes readjust to what was in front of me. There were wooden bookcases from floor to ceiling lined with soft green moss and with ivy creeping along the edges. Fallen leaves swept silently across the tiled floor, and floating overhead were toy hot-air balloons. It felt as though the place had just woken up from a long slumber, like Rip Van Winkle, and was shaking off the years of hibernation. I blinked, but it did not disappear. The scent of warm wood and paper filled the air, along with a sweetness like a golden September apple. It was full of brightly coloured antique books and curiosities, all waiting for our arrival. I’d come home. Henry bumped into me at the top of the stairs and then took in the view. ‘Please tell me you’re seeing this and I’m not having an episode.’ ‘It’s real, Henry.’ I turned to look at him and smiled. ‘I’m seeing it, but I can’t believe it,’ he whispered. ‘How is this possible?’ I took a long, deep breath and tried to think of the last lines in Opaline’s book. ‘Maybe it was I who was lost all along and not the bookshop.’ I reached out for Henry’s hand and he clasped it tightly. ‘We did it,’ I said. ‘We found the bookshop.’ His smile was beautiful


question for you.” “Go on,” Iris said. This must be the moment. He was about to propose again. Mirth shone in his eyes. “Were you serious when you told the nurse that you wouldn’t snog me again?” Iris gaped, and then she laughed. “Is that what you’re most worried about?” Roman’s hands tightened on her hips. “I fear that once you taste something like that … you don’t forget it, Iris. And now I must see if your words from three days ago hold, or if you will rewrite them with me here, in this moment.” She was quiet, full of heady thoughts as Roman’s statement sank in. She had never wanted someone so fiercely—it nearly felt like she was falling ill —and she caressed his hair. The black strands were soft between her fingers, and Roman shut his eyes, wholly captive to her touch. She took that moment to study his face, the slant of his mouth as his breaths skipped. “I suppose I can be persuaded to rewrite those words,” she whispered in a teasing cadence, and he opened his eyes to regard her. His pupils were large and dark, like new moons. Iris could nearly see herself within them. “But only with you, Kitt.” “Because I excel at writing?” he countered. Iris smiled. “That, among other things.” She kissed him—a light brushing of her lips against his—and he was still, as if she had enchanted him. But soon his mouth eagerly opened beneath hers, his hands tracing the curve of her spine. It sent a shiver through her, to feel his fingertips memorize her, to feel his teeth nip at her bottom lip as they began to explore each other. She touched him in return, learning the broad slope of his shoulders and the dip of his collarbone and the sharp cut of his jaw. She felt like she was drowning; she felt like she had run up the bluff. There was a pleasant ache within her—bright and vibrant and molten—and she realized that she wanted to feel his skin against hers. He broke their kiss, his eyes glazed as they briefly met hers. He pressed his mouth to her neck, as if drinking in the scent of her skin. His fingers were splayed over her back, holding her close against him, and his breath was warm on her throat. “Marry me, Iris Elizabeth Winnow,” Roman whispered, drawing back to look at her. “I want to spend all my days and all my nights with you. Marry me.” Iris, heart full of fire, framed his face with her hands. She had never been this close to someone, but she felt safe with Roman. And she had not felt such safety in a long time. “Iris … Iris, say something,” he begged. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Roman Carver Kitt.” Roman’s confidence returned, a flicker of a smile. She watched it in his eyes, like stars burning at eventide; she felt it in his body as the tension melted. He wove his fingers into her long, unruly hair and said, “I


in pain. Another thing I’ll never forget--the sweaty agony of it all. Like I was splitting in half, shedding my skin, being reborn through the fire of pure pain. I had only my sister and Miss Baker, who rushed in to help after hearing my cries. Neither of them knew what they were doing. So I pushed. I screamed. I hurt. At some point, exhausted and delirious from pain, I blacked out. My body was still pushing, crying, screaming, and hurting, but my mind was elsewhere. I pictured me and Ricky on a hillside studded with wildflowers and white-capped mountains in the distance. We stood in the sunlight, our child in my arms, as birds in the surrounding pines sang a song meant just for us. Only when the birdsong turned to crying did I snap back to reality. Mother’s instinct. I knew my child had been born. And that it needed me. He needed me. I saw my child was a boy when my sister returned from the kitchen with a butcher knife she used to cut the umbilical cord. He was so tiny. So fragile. But when I looked at him, I felt a love so fierce it startled me. Nothing else in the world mattered but him. I was his mother, and I knew I would do anything to protect him. At last, my life had a purpose, which was to love my child more than anything else. That realization was the happiest moment of my life. That happiness left me the second I saw that my father was also in the room. He’d spent the labor pacing Miss Baker’s room next door, not emerging until he heard my baby crying. As my sister was about to put my son into my arms, he said, “Lenora, take the baby into the other room.” My sister froze. My child in her arms did not. He wriggled, kicked, and cried. One of his tiny hands reached out for me, as if he already knew I was his mother and that he belonged in my empty arms. I reached out, too, stretching my hand until our fingers touched. A single second of contact. That’s all I was allowed. “Lenora,” my father said, more sternly this time. “Take the child.” “Can’t she at least hold him?” My father shook his head. “It’ll only make it worse.” “But she’s his mother,” my sister said. “She’s not,” my father replied. “She never had a child. And that baby is not a Hope. None of this happened. Now you’ll either take that bastard into the other room or I’ll take it from you and throw it off the terrace. Then I’ll disown both you and your sister.” Lenora couldn’t bring herself to look at me as she stood and carried my son out of the room, even as I begged her to stay. “No, Lenora! Please, please don’t go! Please give him to me!” I wanted to chase after her, but I couldn’t. My body was too weak. The effort of bringing a new life into


also unto you. And it shall be called ... The Earth." Phouchg gaped at Deep Thought. "What a dull name," he said and great incisions appeared down the length of his body. Loonquawl too suddenly sustained horrific gashed from nowhere. The Computer console blotched and cracked, the walls flickered and crumbled and the room crashed upwards into its own ceiling ... Slartibartfast was standing in front of Arthur holding the two wires. "End of the tape," he explained. ================================================================= Chapter 29 "Zaphod! Wake up!" "Mmmmmwwwwwerrrrr?" "Hey come on, wake up." "Just let me stick to what I'm good at, yeah?" muttered Zaphod and rolled away from the voice back to sleep. "Do you want me to kick you?" said Ford. "Would it give you a lot of pleasure?" said Zaphod, blearily. "No." "Nor me. So what's the point? Stop bugging me." Zaphod curled himself up. "He got a double dose of the gas," said Trillian looking down at him, "two windpipes." "And stop talking," said Zaphod, "it's hard enough trying to sleep anyway. What's the matter with the ground? It's all cold and hard." "It's gold," said Ford. With an amazingly balletic movement Zaphod was standing and scanning the horizon, because that was how far the gold ground stretched in every direction, perfectly smooth and solid. It gleamed like ... it's impossible to say what it gleamed like because nothing in the Universe gleams in quite the same way that a planet of solid gold does. "Who put all that there?" yelped Zaphod, goggle-eyed. "Don't get excited," said Ford, "it's only a catalogue." "A who?" "A catalogue," said Trillian, "an illusion." "How can you say that?" cried Zaphod, falling to his hands and knees and staring at the ground. He poked it and prodded it with his fingernail. It was very heavy and very slightly soft - he could mark it with his fingernail. It was very yellow and very shiny, and when he breathed on it his breath evaporated off it in that very peculiar and special way that breath evaporates off solid gold. "Trillian and I came round a while ago," said Ford. "We shouted and yelled till somebody came and then carried on shouting and yelling till they got fed up and put us in their planet catalogue to keep us busy till they were ready to deal with us. This is all Sens-O-Tape." Zaphod stared at him bitterly. "Ah, shit," he said, "you wake me up from my own perfectly good dream to show me somebody else's." He sat down in a huff. "What's that series of valleys over there?" he said. "Hallmark," said Ford. "We had a look." "We didn't wake you earlier," said Trillian. "The last planet was knee deep in fish." "Fish?" "Some people like the oddest things." "And before that," said Ford, "we had platinum. Bit dull. We thought you'd like to see this one though." Seas of light glared at them in one solid blaze wherever they looked. "Very pretty," said Zaphod petulantly. In the sky a huge green catalogue number appeared. It


her there was no chance of that. We were living as frugally as we could with two children, finally beginning to recover from our combined years of graduate school, but we had nothing to spare, and I was soon to be unemployed. The rational part of my brain knew the card wasn’t ours, and neither were the charges, and we probably couldn’t be forced to pay fourteen hundred dollars plus interest if we hadn’t been the ones to spend it. Still, I had grown up hearing my parents’ warnings about credit card debt, and now felt myself edging closer to panic: What if the unexplained charges kept coming and we had to pay all of them? What if we were victims of identity theft and couldn’t prove it and our credit was ruined and we were never able to rent a house or buy a car again? By the time Dan got home, I was talking to another Discover representative, my agitation mounting. It took two minutes for my husband to get the story from me, take the phone, and confirm that we had received the statement in error. The company had no idea why or how our information had been associated with the account, which did belong to someone, just not to us. They promised to send us something in writing verifying that we didn’t owe them anything. Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a great evening. Dan handed my phone back to me, greeted the kids, and started making dinner, as usual. I expect that he forgot about the bill by the next morning. For days, I watched the mail, looking for the promised written confirmation that our errant debt had been cleared. * * * I have never been at ease when I think about money. I can acknowledge the necessity of it, try to earn and save it, share it with others who need it, but having to talk about or seriously plan around it will always make me feel small and afraid. A friend once asked me how much I would need to have in the bank to no longer worry, and I could only laugh. More than I’ll ever have. No one in my family had ever gone to graduate school, and I did not fully anticipate what several years of not maximizing our income, facing every shock and setback without a practical safety net, would mean. When my company laid me off while I was on maternity leave, we found ourselves temporarily living on Dan’s graduate stipend. We expected some relief once he graduated and found a postdoc, but because we’d moved to a far more expensive area and I’d gone back to school, things felt as tight as they had before. Even after I landed another editorial position with a small website and ramped up my freelancing, we couldn’t afford full-time child care for two young children. I learned to juggle my job duties and classwork around my older daughter’s preschool schedule and early intervention services for our younger daughter, who was diagnosed with developmental


soul in three bodies, right? But it wasn’t just about helping Ava and her girlfriend. It was about justice for these women who had been mutated and manipulated, who had died untimely deaths—two of them at Io’s hand—who no one else seemed to care about. Io massaged the back of her neck. Gods, she was tired. Days and days of nonstop gallivanting up and down Alante and all she had to show for it was a solution as leaky as a basement in the Silts. “If we had a little more time at Mister Hypnos,” she lamented, “we could have explored more of Bianca’s past. When she created the wraiths and how. We would have our evidence.” “Yeah.” Ava aggressively tapped the newspapers on the table with a finger. “Strange that Bianca was arrested the day before the elections, isn’t it? Strange that it was publicized on election morning, even though it’s an ongoing investigation, right? Strange that it’s ensured Saint-Yves a thirty-point margin in the exit polls. One would say it’s almost convenient.” Thais ground her teeth. “Excuse me—convenient? What exactly are you insinuating, Ava?” “Not insinuating. I’m stating the obvious. Her arrest has secured Saint-Yves’s win. I hope it was worth the chaos that is about to ensue. Because this”—Ava flicked the shutters behind her, where Io could hear distant shouts and what sounded like gunshots—“is just the beginning, Thais.” Io’s body tensed for an outburst, but all Thais gave Ava was a dismissing roll of the eyes. “I’m sorry your girlfriend’s a murdering liar, Ava. And I’m sorry your home is inhabited by self-serving criminals who refuse to see the truth.” Ava’s face dissolved in defeat. “You used to love Alante more fiercely than any of us.” Thais shrugged, the cold gesture of an ice statue. “That thread frayed a long time ago.” Io froze. Her mind conjured the memory of her own fingers over Thais’s home-thread, snipping at it, little by little, every night, until it finally snapped. She felt Edei’s gaze on her, then his arm lying softly on the back of her chair. It was a small comfort, that he knew, that he didn’t blame her, but wasn’t nearly enough. Gods, if Thais found out, if Ava found out what Io had done . . . “I didn’t think you were still naive enough to confuse love for loyalty, sister mine,” Thais told Ava. “The two are nothing alike.” Ava’s gaze dropped to the floor. Io thought the old embers had died, but here was her fury again, an absolute inferno. “Don’t talk to her like that,” Io snapped. “Your fiancé found an opportunity and seized it with no thoughts spared for the consequences it would have on the Silts. Stop trying to hurt Ava because she disagrees with you.” Thais pursed her lips, that expression Io knew too well: the snarl of a big cat before it pounced. “Since when do you care about the Silts, Io? Aren’t you the one that’s made a career out of cutting their less wholesome threads like some almighty


not even half. We’re agog with it.” Miss de Vries’s face was immobile. “Have I said something amiss?” Hephzibah patted her on the hand. “Don’t fret. It’s a new century, dear. We’re all ripe for a shake-up. And you needn’t stand on ceremony about HRH. She’s slipping down the pecking order every year, poor thing. One day you’ll be able to drag her to any old bazaar or rose sale you like. I can’t see her making any great marriage, can you?” Hephzibah shifted in her seat. “But for now, of course, things are managed terribly, particularly in her household.” “Of course.” “It’s the question of security that really gets us all stirred up. We are living in such awfully violent times. Now, if you wanted to secure the royal presence, I would have to assure the household that there would be exceptional care taken for Her Royal Highness’s safety.” Only Miss de Vries’s knuckles, the faintest cracking of the skin, betrayed her interest. “Of course,” she said. “She does not, you understand, go out in society a great deal.” “I hear she’s very close to the queen.” “Quite right,” said Hephzibah severely, “and we forget, all too often, they are first and foremost a family. The first family in the land, bound as tightly in blood and bond as any—” she paused, casting around for the right words “—tradesman and his daughter.” Miss de Vries took this flank attack with a thin smile. “Indeed.” “So her safety is of paramount importance. We have our own policemen at the palace, you understand.” The moment stretched, longer and longer. And then, at last, Miss de Vries said, “They should feel free to look around, if it would help things.” “Thank you,” said Hephzibah, setting her cup down with a clatter. “If a few of your people clear out, give them a few rooms to stay in, then I am sure that would suffice.” Miss de Vries looked uncertain. “You mean...” “On the night of your party. We would want our own men in the house.” Miss de Vries laid down her cup. “Is it likely that the princess will attend, Your Grace?” Hephzibah drew on the strength of all duchesses past and present, the specters of great ladies living and dead. She sat up straight and said, “Miss de Vries. I would no more presume to predict the movements of Her Royal Highness than to divine the direction of the winds. But I am willing to put in a word, if you’re able to oblige me.” Miss de Vries’s gaze narrowed, suspicious. “If I can, Your Grace.” Hephzibah smiled. “It’s quite remarkable, the expenses people incur, ferrying Their Royal Highnesses from one engagement to another. If there’s anything that can be done to ease the burden for us...” Miss de Vries’s face closed, as if she’d disappeared behind a screen. “She’ll hate it,” Mrs. King had said, “being treated like a piggy bank. It’s everything she despises. But she’ll need to see a sign of weakness. She needs to feel she’s in control.”


parked. Fache walked up to the plane and rapped loudly on the fuselage. "This is the captain of the French Judicial Police. Open the door!" The terrified pilot opened the hatch and lowered the stairs. Fache ascended. Three minutes later, with the help of his sidearm, he had a full confession, including a description of the bound albino monk. In addition, he learned that the pilot saw Langdon and Sophie leave something behind in Teabing's safe, a wooden box of some sort. Although the pilot denied knowing what was in the box, he admitted it had been the focus of Langdon's full attention during the flight to London. "Open the safe," Fache demanded. The pilot looked terrified. "I don't know the combination!" 237 "That's too bad. I was going to offer to let you keep your pilot's license." The pilot wrung his hands. "I know some men in maintenance here. Maybe they could drill it?" "You have half an hour." The pilot leapt for his radio. Fache strode to the back of the plane and poured himself a hard drink. It was early, but he had not yet slept, so this hardly counted as drinking before noon. Sitting in a plush bucket seat, he closed his eyes, trying to sort out what was going on. The Kent police's blunder could cost me dearly. Everyone was now on the lookout for a black Jaguar limousine. Fache's phone rang, and he wished for a moment's peace. "Allo?" "I'm en route to London." It was Bishop Aringarosa. "I'll be arriving in an hour." Fache sat up. "I thought you were going to Paris." "I am deeply concerned. I have changed my plans." "You should not have." "Do you have Silas?" "No. His captors eluded the local police before I landed." Aringarosa's anger rang sharply. "You assured me you would stop that plane!" Fache lowered his voice. "Bishop, considering your situation, I recommend you not test my patience today. I will find Silas and the others as soon as possible. Where are you landing?" "One moment." Aringarosa covered the receiver and then came back. "The pilot is trying to get clearance at Heathrow. I'm his only passenger, but our redirect was unscheduled." "Tell him to come to Biggin Hill Executive Airport in Kent. I'll get him clearance. If I'm not here when you land, I'll have a car waiting for you." "Thank you." "As I expressed when we first spoke, Bishop, you would do well to remember that you are not the only man on the verge of losing everything." 238 CHAPTER 85 You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb. Each of the carved knights within the Temple Church lay on his back with his head resting on a rectangular stone pillow. Sophie felt a chill. The poem's reference to an "orb" conjured images of the night in her grandfather's basement. Hieros Gamos. The orbs. Sophie wondered if the ritual had been performed in this very sanctuary. The circular room seemed custom-built for such a pagan rite. A stone pew encircled a bare