burst into flames and the fire flapped at his right shoulder and there was the glitter of water. Then he was down, rolling over and over in the warm sand, crouching with arm to ward off, trying to cry for mercy. He staggered to his feet, tensed for more terrors, and looked up at a huge peaked cap. It was a white-topped cap, and above the green shade of the peak was a crown, an anchor, gold foliage. He saw white drill, epaulettes, a revolver, a row of gilt buttons down the front of a uniform. A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment. On the beach behind him was a cutter, her bows hauled up and held by two ratings. In the stern-sheets another rating held a sub-machine gun. The ululation faltered and died away. The officer looked at Ralph doubtfully for a moment, then took his hand away from the butt of the revolver. "Hullo." Squirming a little, conscious of his filthy appearance, Ralph answered shyly. "Hullo." The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered. "Are there any adults--any grownups with you?" Dumbly, Ralph shook his head. He turned a halfpace on the sand. A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with colored clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach making no noise at all. "Fun and games," said the officer. The fire reached the coconut palms by the beach and swallowed them noisily. A flame, seemingly detached, swung like an acrobat and licked up the palm heads on the platform. The sky was black. The officer grinned cheerfully at Ralph. "We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?" Ralph nodded. The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The kid needed a bath, a haircut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment. "Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?" "Only two. And they've gone." The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph. "Two? Killed?" Ralph nodded again. Behind him, the whole island was shuddering with flame. The officer knew, as a rule, when people were telling the truth. He whistled softly. Other boys were appearing now, tiny tots some of them, brown, with the distended bellies of small savages. One of them came close to the officer and looked up. "I'm, I'm--" But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away. The officer turned back to Ralph. "We'll take you off. How many of you are there?" Ralph shook his head. The officer looked past him to the group of painted boys. "Who's boss here?" "I am," said Ralph loudly. A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of spectacles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still. "We saw your smoke. And you don't know how many of you there are?" "No,


that you’re feeling better these days.” It was the way Ella moved now—more surely, as if she weren’t being tugged backward by a rope, a new carelessness in her simplest gestures like buttering a piece of toast. She was ending the school year with high grades. Her friendship circle had expanded. On her Instagram page, she beamed and laughed. With no help from Maud or Peter, she’d applied to be a counselor at the camp that she used to attend at Marin Headlands. That weekend, she and two friends lay on the deck, sunning themselves in their bathing suits, as if they lived in Southern California, not Northern. “I don’t know whether to tell you guys to put on sunscreen or sweaters,” Maud said from the sliding glass doors. Ella looked over languidly. She was wearing a bikini, no trace of the cut on her stomach. “We’re fine, Mom,” she said. Peter walked down the hall with the recycling bins stacked in his arms. “She seems so good,” Maud said, taking one of the bins. “It’s hard to believe.” “I’m glad she has friends now. And nice ones.” She followed Peter down the front stairs. He knew that she herself had a new friend and that the two of them went hiking. He knew that Alice made Maud lunch and that she had a dog. But he had no idea what Alice was to her. Because I haven’t told you, she thought, as they reached the street. And you haven’t asked. Since that one awkward night, they hadn’t tried to have sex. Now Peter took the lid off the recycling can. Does your loneliness feel like mine? Maud wondered. An ache that rattled her body, loud as the bottles raining against the steel can. When she showed up at Alice’s that Wednesday, a pickup truck was pulling through the gate onto Highway One, driven by a woman in aviator glasses. As she passed Maud’s car, she lifted her hand off the steering wheel and raised her middle finger. “I think the person leaving here just flipped me off,” Maud told Alice. She’d found her around back, looking for ticks in Clark’s fur, a pair of tweezers in hand, reading glasses on her face. “That was Gloria.” Alice pinched the tweezers and yanked out a tick. “And she probably did flip you off.” She dipped her finger in alcohol and pressed it to Clark’s skin. “Why?” Maud said. Ignoring the question, Alice put the reading glasses in the pocket of her shirt and picked up her canteen. “You still want to check the grasses to see if they’re dead?” Maud nodded, and they headed toward the field. “She knows I’m not gay, right?” she said. “That’s part of the problem.” “If I were gay, she wouldn’t care that we spend time together?” “If you were gay and we were sleeping together, she wouldn’t care. But you aren’t gay and we aren’t sleeping together.” Maud wondered what scene had taken place before she drove up to the house. An argument, clearly. She rolled back


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

understand how to jump. But the minds of rats could not understand trigonometry. When they were dead they lay on their sides. Their coats dried then. They were only dead things. The prefect was there again and it was his voice that was saying that he was to get up, that Father Minister had said he was to get up and dress and go to the infirmary. And while he was dressing himself as quickly as he could the prefect said: --We must pack off to Brother Michael because we have the collywobbles! He was very decent to say that. That was all to make him laugh. But he could not laugh because his cheeks and lips were all shivery: and then the prefect had to laugh by himself. The prefect cried: --Quick march! Hayfoot! Strawfoot! They went together down the staircase and along the corridor and past the bath. As he passed the door he remembered with a vague fear the warm turf-coloured bogwater, the warm moist air, the noise of plunges, the smell of the towels, like medicine. Brother Michael was standing at the door of the infirmary and from the door of the dark cabinet on his right came a smell like medicine. That came from the bottles on the shelves. The prefect spoke to Brother Michael and Brother Michael answered and called the prefect sir. He had reddish hair mixed with grey and a queer look. It was queer that he would always be a brother. It was queer too that you could not call him sir because he was a brother and had a different kind of look. Was he not holy enough or why could he not catch up on the others? There were two beds in the room and in one bed there was a fellow: and when they went in he called out: --Hello! It's young Dedalus! What's up? --The sky is up, Brother Michael said. He was a fellow out of the third of grammar and, while Stephen was undressing, he asked Brother Michael to bring him a round of buttered toast. --Ah, do! he said. --Butter you up! said Brother Michael. You'll get your walking papers in the morning when the doctor comes. --Will I? the fellow said. I'm not well yet. Brother Michael repeated: --You'll get your walking papers. I tell you. He bent down to rake the fire. He had a long back like the long back of a tramhorse. He shook the poker gravely and nodded his head at the fellow out of third of grammar. Then Brother Michael went away and after a while the fellow out of third of grammar turned in towards the wall and fell asleep. That was the infirmary. He was sick then. Had they written home to tell his mother and father? But it would be quicker for one of the priests to go himself to tell them. Or he would write a letter for the priest to bring. Dear Mother, I am sick. I want to go home. Please come and take


of my car while I was in class.” Sloane motions toward the garage. “I was just assessing the damage. And it’s pretty bad.” Her mother-in-law puts a hand over her heart. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry, dear.” She shakes her head. “Crime seems to be on the rise everywhere these days. I hate going anywhere in San Francisco without secure parking. I’m just glad you’re okay.” Sloane forces a smile. “Thank you.” What on earth is she doing here? And why did it have to be now? Kay’s heels clack against the hardwood floor as Sloane follows her into the living room. Her platinum-blonde bob is teased a good inch at the roots, adding to her already tall stature. Kay stands a good head taller than Sloane’s own mother, and Sloane wonders what Kay would think of Crystal if she were still alive. Kay is a well-kept woman, sparing no cost in her appearance. Crystal bleached her hair from a box, still sporting a perm in 1998. Even without money, her mother’s beauty would outshine everyone else in the room. There was a fire in her eyes that Sloane has never seen in anyone else. “My meeting with the new corporate client finished early, so I thought we could drive together to the restaurant. But maybe we should get an Uber after what happened to your car. Unless Ethan can drive us?” Sloane fights to shake the image of Brody’s gritted teeth and wild eyes when his hand clenched around her throat. What restaurant? Sloane racks her brain but is sure she’s never heard anything from Ethan—or Kay—about this visit. Or dinner plans. Kay furrows her brows. “Did Ethan not tell you? I thought I’d stay the night rather than fly back right away. Take you two to dinner. He said you’d both be free. I spoke to him about it a week ago.” Sloane feels a stab of resentment at her mother-in-law’s words. Ethan can make definite plans a week in advance with his mother? Why can’t he ever do that for me? Kay eyes Sloane’s attire before continuing. “I made us a reservation at Vito’s for eight.” Sloane glances at her leggings and faded t-shirt embellished with the rock band Heart. “I forgot,” she lies. “I’m so sorry. Things have been a little hectic at the hospital lately.” She forges an apologetic smile. “It skipped my mind it was tonight.” “I completely understand. So…” Kay looks around the empty living room. “Will Ethan be meeting us there?” Sloane doubts that Ethan ever told his mother about his affair. And now he’s conveniently left it to her to pretend everything is great between them. “I’m not sure. I’ll send him a text and see what time he’ll be done with work.” Swallowing the distaste in her mouth at Ethan’s unmentioned plans with his mother, Sloane moves into the kitchen to get her phone. “Great,” Kay says. “I’ll just put my things in the guest room.” Her words barely register as Sloane grabs her phone off the kitchen island and types a


ahead. His features slackening in death as blood poured in an inverted V around the arrow cleaving his throat. “Wake up!” I shouted, shaking Arin’s arm. “Please!” My magic slammed around my cuffs, agitated. I had to stop the arrows. This was a Jasadi attack, and I did not need to venture a guess what they wanted. How could Arin allow us to risk the Meridian Pass? We were waiting targets down here. The soldiers would protect their Heir. Sefa and Marek only had me. Grief. Rage. Fear. I had no doubts as to which was motivating my magic this time. When I pushed my magic toward him, it complied. I could only hope it wouldn’t hurt him more. I had neither the skill nor the time to form a proper shield. With great difficulty, I turned my horse away from him and spurred it on. If anyone was going to kill Arin of Nizahl, it would be me. Dust and pebbles churned over the canyon, obscuring my vision. A boon. The soldiers wouldn’t see me toss my horse’s reins to the side and leap onto the side of the Meridian Pass. The smooth rock face slid beneath my boots, but I had climbed worse. With a push from my magic, I scaled it quickly. I hauled myself to the top of the canyon. Arms grabbed me. A dozen bows took aim at my face. “You need to stop,” I panted. “Do what you will to the soldiers, but I have friends down there.” “It is you.” A man lowered his bow in disbelief. He studied me as though I might disappear at any moment. “Malika Essiya.” The group on the opposite side of the canyon was still shooting arrows. Every muscle in my body was tensed for a scream I recognized. “Are you… the Urabi?” He nodded, pressing a palm to his heart. One by one, the other archers lowered their bows. “My name is Efra, Mawlati. We have come to rescue you.” The next time I saw Soraya, I would make her gargle with all the teeth I planned to knock from her mouth for leaking the news of my existence to the Urabi. They were looking at me with a reverence I didn’t deserve, calling me by a title I left in the ash with my grandparents’ bodies. She had plucked my nightmare into reality. My heart pounded in a familiar song: run, run, run. I was watching Niphran burn on a lake. The kitmer pacing around me, waiting. My knees buckling beneath the weight of the crowd of shadows on shore. “He is using me to lure you to the Alcalah,” I said. “You have to run.” Efra stared at me. “The Nizahl Heir knows you are a Jasadi?” And then, with blistering accusation, “And you agreed to help the silver serpent lure us to our deaths?” “Will someone grab her? We need to move!” cried a bowman on the opposite side. Efra’s disgust filled me with shame, and shame was an old friend. My heart slowed. The


how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel. I say this to you knowing full well that I am riddled with contradictions. As you’ve read in my other letters, I love my brother’s bravery, but I hate how he’s abandoned me to fight for a god. I love my mother, but I hate what booze has done to her, as if it’s drowning her and I don’t know how to save her. I love the words I write until I soon realize how much I hate them, as if I am destined to always be at war within myself. And yet I keep moving forward. On some days, I’m afraid, but most days, I simply want to achieve those things I dream of. A world where my brother is home safe, and my mother is well, and I write words that I don’t despise half of the time. Words that will mean something to someone else, as if I’ve cast a line into the dark and felt a tug in the distance. All right, now I’ve let the words spill out. I’ve given you a piece of armor, I suppose. But I don’t think you’ll mind. She sent the letter over the threshold, telling herself not to expect a reply. At least, not for a little while. Iris began to work on her essay, trying to sense the shape of it. But her attention was on her wardrobe door, on the shadows that lined the threshold and the stranger who dwelled beyond it. She paused to check the time. It was half past ten at night. She considered leaving the flat to search for her mother. The worry was a nagging weight in her chest, but Iris wasn’t sure where she should go. If it would be safe for her to walk alone this late at night. She’ll return soon. Just like she always does. When the clubs close at midnight. A letter passed through the portal, bringing her back to the present. Iris reached for it. The paper crinkled in her fingers as she read: One person. One piece of armor. I’ll strive for this. Thank you. {10} Station Nine The office was overflowing with felicitations the following day. Iris leaned against the tea sideboard, watching as Roman was greeted with grins and claps on the back. “Congratulations, Kitt!” “I hear Miss Little is beautiful and accomplished. What a catch.” “When’s the wedding?” Roman smiled and received it all graciously, dressed in starched clothes and polished leather shoes, his black hair combed out of his eyes and his face shaven. Another perfect appearance. If Iris didn’t know better—if she hadn’t sat on a park bench with him and heard him confess how reluctant he was to marry a stranger—she would have thought he was thrilled. She wondered if she had dreamt that moment with him, when they had almost spoken to one another like old friends. When he had laughed, listened, and apologized. Because it suddenly felt like some feverish


the wrecked shelter. There was the platform and the pool. The best thing to do was to ignore this leaden feeling about the heart and rely on their common sense, their daylight sanity. Now that the tribe had eaten, the thing to do was to try again. And anyway, he couldn't stay here all night in an empty shelter by the deserted platform. His flesh crept and he shivered in the evening sun. No fire; no smoke; no rescue. He turned and limped away through the forest toward Jack's end of the island. The slanting sticks of sunlight were lost among the branches. At length he came to a clearing in the forest where rock prevented vegetation from growing. Now it was a pool of shadows and Ralph nearly flung himself behind a tree when he saw something standing in the center; but then he saw that the white face was bone and that the pig's skull grinned at him from the top of a stick. He walked slowly into the middle of the clearing and looked steadily at the skull that gleamed as white as ever the conch had done and seemed to jeer at him cynically. An inquisitive ant was busy in one of the eye sockets but otherwise the thing was lifeless. Or was it? Little prickles of sensation ran up and down his back. He stood, the skull about on a level with his face, and held up his hair with two hands. The teeth grinned, the empty sockets seemed to hold his gaze masterfully and without effort. What was it? The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won't tell. A sick fear and rage swept him. Fiercely he hit out at the filthy thing in front of him that bobbed like a toy and came back, still grinning into his face, so that he lashed and cried out in loathing. Then he was licking his bruised knuckles and looking at the bare stick, while the skull lay in two pieces, its grin now six feet across. He wrenched the quivering stick from the crack and held it as a spear between him and the white pieces. Then he backed away, keeping his face to the skull that lay grinning at the sky. When the green glow had gone from the horizon and night was fully accomplished, Ralph came again to the thicket in front of the Castle Rock. Peeping through, he could see that the height was still occupied, and whoever it was up there had a spear at the ready. He knelt among the shadows and felt his isolation bitterly. They were savages it was true; but they were human, and the ambushing fears of the deep night were coming on. Ralph moaned faintly. Tired though he was, he could not relax and fall into a well of sleep for fear of the tribe. Might it not be possible to walk boldly into the fort, say-- "I've got pax," laugh lightly and sleep among the others? Pretend they were still boys,


“She and her hairdresser friend went into business together. They mostly do weddings and dances. Still FaceTimes me twice a month, makes about five minutes of small talk, then says goodbye.” His teeth skate over his bottom lip. “I’m sorry.” He’s the only person who knows how much it bothers me that I barely know Eloise, that despite having a sister, I always felt acutely alone in our childhood home. Between our six-year age gap and her constant disagreements with our parents, we didn’t have much time to bond. I shrug. “Some things never change, and the best thing is to stop hoping they will.” “Other things do, though,” he says. I break eye contact. “What about your sisters? How are they?” “Good,” he replies, half smiling. “Lou’s with my mom this week. Said to tell you hi.” I smile despite the twinge in my chest. “And Michael? Still in Colorado?” He nods. “She’s dating another aerospace engineer, who works for a competing company. They moved in together, but they’re both under NDAs, so neither of them even lets the other into their home office.” I laugh. “That,” I say, “is so unbelievably on-brand.” “I know,” he says. “And Lou finished at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in May.” “That’s amazing,” I say. Together, the three of them could be loud and rude and competitive. They argued over everything—what to have for dinner, who got first use of the shower, who really understood the rules of dominoes and who was totally off —as if as soon as a thought or feeling occurred to them, it spewed out. But nothing ever blew up. Little arguments flared and extinguished; small insults casually faded. And everyone went back to joking, hugging, kicking, acting like siblings do in movies. I wonder but don’t ask whether his younger sister, Lou, is just visiting their mom or if she ended up moving home after grad school like she’d been planning, back when Wyn’s stay out there was supposed to be temporary. She was going to take over Gloria’s care. “I miss them,” I admit. “They miss you too,” he says. I ask, “Do they wonder why I never visit?” “I go out of town sometimes,” he says. “For work stuff.” “Work stuff?” I ask. He nods but doesn’t clarify. “They think we’re seeing each other then.” I nod. I don’t have anything to say to that. He clears his throat. “My mom said you were taking a pottery class.” “Oh,” I say. “Yeah.” “I pretended I already knew about it,” he says. “Right. That’s good.” “But she mentioned that she thinks you’re getting better. And your newest bowl looked way less like a butt.” The laugh rockets out of me as if shot from a cannon. “That’s funny, because you should have seen the rapturous text she sent me about that butt- bowl. She pretended it was very good.” “Nah.” He grins. “She wasn’t pretending. She told me it was really good. It just also looked like a butt. You know how she is.” “Remember how nice she was


have you stay onboard with our guest until we return. We can't very well drag him all over London with us." Sophie looked wary. "Leigh, I was serious about the French police finding your plane before we return." Teabing laughed. "Yes, imagine their surprise if they board and find Rmy." Sophie looked surprised by his cavalier attitude. "Leigh, you transported a bound hostage across international borders. This is serious." "So are my lawyers." He scowled toward the monk in the rear of the plane. "That animal broke into my home and almost killed me. That is a fact, and Rmy will corroborate." "But you tied him up and flew him to London!" Langdon said. Teabing held up his right hand and feigned a courtroom oath. "Your honor, forgive an eccentric old knight his foolish prejudice for the British court system. I realize I should have called the French authorities, but I'm a snob and do not trust those laissez-faire French to prosecute properly. This man almost murdered me. Yes, I made a rash decision forcing my manservant to help me bring him to England, but I was under great stress. Mea culpa. Mea culpa." Langdon looked incredulous. "Coming from you, Leigh, that just might fly." "Sir?" the pilot called back. "The tower just radioed. They've got some kind of maintenance problem out near your hangar, and they're asking me to bring the plane directly to the terminal instead." Teabing had been flying to Biggin Hill for over a decade, and this was a first. "Did they mention what the problem is?" 223 "The controller was vague. Something about a gas leak at the pumping station? They asked me to park in front of the terminal and keep everyone onboard until further notice. Safety precaution. We're not supposed to deplane until we get the all clear from airport authorities." Teabing was skeptical. Must be one hell of a gas leak. The pumping station was a good half mile from his hangar. Rmy also looked concerned. "Sir, this sounds highly irregular." Teabing turned to Sophie and Langdon. "My friends, I have an unpleasant suspicion that we are about to be met by a welcoming committee." Langdon gave a bleak sigh. "I guess Fache still thinks I'm his man." "Either that," Sophie said, "or he is too deep into this to admit his error. Teabing was not listening. Regardless of Fache's mind-set, action needed to be taken fast. Don't lose sight of the ultimate goal. The Grail. We're so dose. Below them, the landing gear descended with a clunk. "Leigh," Langdon said, sounding deeply remorseful, "I should turn myself in and sort this out legally. Leave you all out of it." "Oh, heavens, Robert!" Teabing waved it off. "Do you really think they're going to let the rest of us go? I just transported you illegally. Miss Neveu assisted in your escape from the Louvre, and we have a man tied up in the back of the plane. Really now! We're all in this together." "Maybe a different airport?" Sophie said. Teabing shook his head.


more, for this incident, how unaccountably silent and impenetrable the house had become. As her next resort, Phoebe made her way into the garden, where on so warm and bright a day as the present, she had little doubt of finding Clifford, and perhaps Hepzibah also, idling away the noontide in the shadow of the arbor. Immediately on her entering the garden gate, the family of hens half ran, half flew to meet her; while a strange grimalkin, which was prowling under the parlor window, took to his heels, clambered hastily over the fence, and vanished. The arbor was vacant, and its floor, table, and circular bench were still damp, and bestrewn with twigs and the disarray of the past storm. The growth of the garden seemed to have got quite out of bounds; the weeds had taken advantage of Phoebe's absence, and the long-continued rain, to run rampant over the flowers and kitchen-vegetables. Maule's well had overflowed its stone border, and made a pool of formidable breadth in that corner of the garden. The impression of the whole scene was that of a spot where no human foot had left its print for many preceding days,--probably not since Phoebe's departure,--for she saw a side-comb of her own under the table of the arbor, where it must have fallen on the last afternoon when she and Clifford sat there. The girl knew that her two relatives were capable of far greater oddities than that of shutting themselves up in their old house, as they appeared now to have done. Nevertheless, with indistinct misgivings of something amiss, and apprehensions to which she could not give shape, she approached the door that formed the customary communication between the house and garden. It was secured within, like the two which she had already tried. She knocked, however; and immediately, as if the application had been expected, the door was drawn open, by a considerable exertion of some unseen person's strength, not wide, but far enough to afford her a side-long entrance. As Hepzibah, in order not to expose herself to inspection from without, invariably opened a door in this manner, Phoebe necessarily concluded that it was her cousin who now admitted her. Without hesitation, therefore, she stepped across the threshold, and had no sooner entered than the door closed behind her. XX The Flower of Eden PHOEBE, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogether bedimmed in such density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages of the old house. She was not at first aware by whom she had been admitted. Before her eyes had adapted themselves to the obscurity, a hand grasped her own with a firm but gentle and warm pressure, thus imparting a welcome which caused her heart to leap and thrill with an indefinable shiver of enjoyment. She felt herself drawn along, not towards the parlor, but into a large and unoccupied apartment, which had formerly been the grand reception-room of the Seven Gables. The sunshine came freely into all the uncurtained windows of this room, and


any on his daughter. CHAPTER II I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul. SHAKESPEARE Madame St. Aubert was interred in the neighbouring village church; her husband and daughter attended her to the grave, followed by a long train of the peasantry, who were sincere mourners of this excellent woman. On his return from the funeral, St. Aubert shut himself in his chamber. When he came forth, it was with a serene countenance, though pale in sorrow. He gave orders that his family should attend him. Emily only was absent; who, overcome with the scene she had just witnessed, had retired to her closet to weep alone. St. Aubert followed her thither: he took her hand in silence, while she continued to weep; and it was some moments before he could so far command his voice as to speak. It trembled while he said, 'My Emily, I am going to prayers with my family; you will join us. We must ask support from above. Where else ought we to seek it--where else can we find it?' Emily checked her tears, and followed her father to the parlour, where, the servants being assembled, St. Aubert read, in a low and solemn voice, the evening service, and added a prayer for the soul of the departed. During this, his voice often faltered, his tears fell upon the book, and at length he paused. But the sublime emotions of pure devotion gradually elevated his views above this world, and finally brought comfort to his heart. When the service was ended, and the servants were withdrawn, he tenderly kissed Emily, and said, 'I have endeavoured to teach you, from your earliest youth, the duty of self-command; I have pointed out to you the great importance of it through life, not only as it preserves us in the various and dangerous temptations that call us from rectitude and virtue, but as it limits the indulgences which are termed virtuous, yet which, extended beyond a certain boundary, are vicious, for their consequence is evil. All excess is vicious; even that sorrow, which is amiable in its origin, becomes a selfish and unjust passion, if indulged at the expence of our duties--by our duties I mean what we owe to ourselves, as well as to others. The indulgence of excessive grief enervates the mind, and almost incapacitates it for again partaking of those various innocent enjoyments which a benevolent God designed to be the sun-shine of our lives. My dear Emily, recollect and practise the precepts I have so often given you, and which your own experience has so often shewn you to be wise. 'Your sorrow is useless. Do not receive this as merely a commonplace remark, but let reason THEREFORE restrain sorrow. I would not annihilate your feelings, my child, I would only teach you to command them; for whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one; that, on the other hand, is all vice--vice, of which the deformity is not


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their fits relieved each other like guards. When Nippers’ was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa. This was a good natural arrangement under the circumstances. Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. His father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office as student at law, errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very spicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere wafers—indeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny—the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders and flurried rashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage for a seal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then. But he mollified me by making an oriental bow, and saying—”With submission, sir, it was generous of me to find you in stationery on my own account.” Now my original business—that of a conveyancer and title hunter, and drawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts—was considerably increased by receiving the master’s office. There was now great work for scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby. After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers. I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, the other by myself. According to my humor I threw


manner, I could see in my visitor's face, and not a little else besides! "She asks me every three minutes if I think you're coming in." "I see--I see." I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it out. "Has she said to you since yesterday--except to repudiate her familiarity with anything so dreadful--a single other word about Miss Jessel?" "Not one, miss. And of course you know," my friend added, "I took it from her, by the lake, that, just then and there at least, there WAS nobody." "Rather! and, naturally, you take it from her still." "I don't contradict her. What else can I do?" "Nothing in the world! You've the cleverest little person to deal with. They've made them--their two friends, I mean--still cleverer even than nature did; for it was wondrous material to play on! Flora has now her grievance, and she'll work it to the end." "Yes, miss; but to WHAT end?" "Why, that of dealing with me to her uncle. She'll make me out to him the lowest creature--!" I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose's face; she looked for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. "And him who thinks so well of you!" "He has an odd way--it comes over me now," I laughed,"--of proving it! But that doesn't matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to get rid of me." My companion bravely concurred. "Never again to so much as look at you." "So that what you've come to me now for," I asked, "is to speed me on my way?" Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. "I've a better idea--the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seem the right thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won't do. It's YOU who must go. You must take Flora." My visitor, at this, did speculate. "But where in the world--?" "Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all, now, from me. Straight to her uncle." "Only to tell on you--?" "No, not `only'! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy." She was still vague. "And what IS your remedy?" "Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles's." She looked at me hard. "Do you think he--?" "Won't, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as possible and leave me with him alone." I was amazed, myself, at the spirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, she hesitated. "There's one thing, of course," I went on: "they mustn't, before she goes, see each other for three seconds." Then it came over me that, in spite of Flora's presumable sequestration from the instant of her return from the pool, it might already be too late. "Do you mean," I


were other pieces that looked salvageable, but he ignored them for now. If there was some kind of power core still active, they needed it, especially since it seemed to have some juice left. He couldn’t turn away from power. Not when it was so close. It could lead to the creation of another mechanical heart. And when that thought entered his head, it refused to leave, bouncing around his skull. He took a break an hour into it, sitting on the ground, watching as Nurse Ratched held up a discarded arm toward Rambo. “How do you do,” she said in that queer, flat voice of hers. “It’s nice to meet you,” Rambo replied, reaching up with his pincers to grab the hand. Which, of course, Nurse Ratched immediately dropped. “Aaaaaaaahhhh,” she said. “You tore off my arm. You have killed me. Why, Rambo, why.” Rambo screamed in terror. “Oh my god, oh my god. What have I done? What kind of monster am I?” He flung the arm as hard as he could. It flew up … and crashed back down on top of him, setting him off all over again. “Ha, ha,” Nurse Ratched said as her screen filled with a smiley face. “Just kidding. That was not really my arm. I am still alive.” “Don’t do that,” Rambo scolded her. “You scared me. I thought I was a murderer. Vacuums aren’t allowed to be murderers!” “Too bad,” Nurse Ratched said as her screen darkened. “You would make a good murderer. Not as good as me, but good enough.” A halo appeared on her screen, surrounded by golden light. “Not that I would murder. Engaging Empathy Protocol. Murder is bad, and I would feel bad, and I don’t want to feel bad because feelings are detrimental to my existence.” “Keep telling yourself that,” Vic muttered as he picked himself up off the ground. He stretched his arms over his head, back popping. And then he got back to work. It took another hour before Nurse Ratched said, “You are close.” He paused, looking down at the bodies and body parts around him. He was little more than halfway through the heap. His chest felt tight, his breaths short and quick. “Still registering the power source?” “Yes,” she said. “Is it a new friend?” Rambo asked. “Perhaps,” Nurse Ratched said. “Or perhaps it is a terrible machine bent on destroying everything it comes into contact with.” “Oh,” Rambo said as he beeped worriedly. “I hope it’s the first one.” “I would put the odds at being twelve percent in your favor. And eighty percent against.” Rambo clacked his pincers as he counted. “What about the last eight percent?” “There is an eight percent chance that the power source has gone critical and will cause an explosion that will level the surrounding area, killing all of us in the process.” “It’s not going to explode,” Vic told Rambo. “She would never have let us get this far if she thought that was going to happen.” “So I let you think,” Nurse Ratched


forgot his timidity in the agony of his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly: "You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We might have gone home--" Ralph pushed Piggy to one side. "I was chief, and you were going to do what I said. You talk. But you can't even build huts--then you go off hunting and let out the fire--" He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a peak of feeling. "There was a ship--" One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig. "The job was too much. We needed everyone." Ralph turned. "You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished. But you had to hunt--" "We needed meat." Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand. The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled commonsense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair. Piggy began again. "You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep the smoke going--" This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from some of the hunters, drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came into his blue eyes. He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stomach. Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with humiliation. "You would, would you? Fatty!" Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy's head. Piggy's glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror: "My specs!" He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top with awful wings. "One side's broken." Piggy grabbed and put on the glasses. He looked malevolently at Jack. "I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye. Jus' you wait--" Jack made a move toward Piggy who scrambled away till a great rock lay between them. He thrust his head over the top and glared at Jack through his one flashing glass. "Now I only got one eye. Just you wait--" Jack mimicked the whine and scramble. "Jus' you wait--yah!" Piggy and the parody were so funny that the hunters began to laugh. Jack felt encouraged. He went on scrambling and the laughter rose to a gale of hysteria. Unwillingly Ralph felt his lips twitch; he was angry with himself for giving way. He muttered. "That was a dirty trick." Jack broke out of his gyration and stood facing Ralph. His words came in a shout. "All right, all right!" He looked at Piggy, at the hunters, at Ralph. "I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. I--" He drew himself up. "--I


snapshot, Michael might have only a day or two before the ISA is able to share his image with thousands of agents by the old-fashioned expedient of wanted sheets and posters printed with obsolete technology and then distributed by hand. A realization pivots him from the window. Now that they have so unexpectedly, fortuitously connected him to Carter Woodbine, they must know that he fled Beverly Hills in the attorney’s Bentley. They are able to monitor its unique GPS signal and swiftly track it to its current location, the garage on the top floor of this residence. In fact, they should already be blocking off the street, surrounding the house. Having died once, Michael has no doubt that he can die again. Although he was reanimated, the next death will be final because it will be so violent that it will put him beyond all possibility of resurrection. His enemies will see to that. He is the Singularity, but the merging of man and machine does not provide immortality; a machine reduced to radioactive melt and scattered scraps of metal cannot be repaired. From his previous invasion of ISA’s computer system, Michael has imprinted in memory everything in Durand Calaphas’s agency file, including his iPhone number. As he leaves the library, navigates the living room, and takes the stairs to the top floor, he also goes online, into a bottomless sea of microwaves carrying data. Because he already knows the number and GPS signal of Calaphas’s phone, he instantly finds the agent in a Beverly Hills restaurant. He quickly enters that phone, speeds through the list of contacts, and locates the number for Grantworth. By the time he reaches the foyer, he is in the deputy director’s phone, where he accesses CONTACTS and grabs the number for the ISA director, Katherine Ormond-Wattley. Crossing the foyer into the hall that leads to the garage, he mentally enters Ormond-Wattley’s phone as she’s in the middle of an encrypted discussion with the president’s national security adviser, Pierce Leyton. Michael hears what Katherine Ormond-Wattley says and also hears what she hears after Leyton’s encrypted transmissions are translated into normal English, or into English that’s as normal as Leyton is able to speak it. They’re talking about a cable-network prime-time host whom they would like to destroy professionally if they could do so without seeming to be behind whatever lie about him they might concoct and document with manufactured evidence. As Michael enters the garage and turns on the lights, he drops through the contacts on Director Kathy’s phone and finds Carter Woodbine’s number. He slides into the agency’s audio archives and listens to the attorney’s initial conversation with the director. He had taken the half million from Woodbine shortly after three o’clock in the morning, but the attorney hadn’t placed his call to Ormond-Wattley until 1:35 in the afternoon, approximately ten hours later. Strange. On the phone call, Woodbine seeks the assistance of the ISA, not only to recover the money but also to find Michael and determine how the five-story fortress that houses the law


said the Caterpillar. `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. `Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar. Alice folded her hands, and began:-- `You are old, Father William,' the young man said, `And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right?' `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, `I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.' `You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door-- Pray, what is the reason of that?' `In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, `I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box-- Allow me to sell you a couple?' `You are old,' said the youth, `and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak-- Pray how did you manage to do it?' `In my youth,' said his father, `I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life.' `You are old,' said the youth, `one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose-- What made you so awfully clever?' `I have answered three questions, and that is enough,' Said his father; `don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!' `That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar. `Not QUITE right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; `some of the words have got altered.' `It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes. The Caterpillar was the first to speak. `What size do you want to be?' it asked. `Oh, I'm not particular as to size,' Alice hastily replied; `only one doesn't like changing so often, you know.' `I DON'T know,' said the Caterpillar. Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper. `Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar. `Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger, sir, if you wouldn't mind,' said Alice: `three inches is such a wretched height to be.' `It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). `But I'm not used to it!' pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought of herself, `I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily offended!' `You'll get used to it in time,' said the Caterpillar; and


their past. There were men to fear and distrust in the smuggler crew. Paul pulled at his lip to indicate he understood, looked up at the men standing guard above them on the rocks. He saw Stilgar there. Memory of the unsolved problem with Stilgar cooled some of Paul's elation. "Stilgar," he said, "this is Gurney Halleck of whom you've heard me speak. My father's master-of-arms, one of the swordmasters who instructed me, an old friend. He can be trusted in any venture." "I hear," Stilgar said. "You are his Duke." Paul stared at the dark visage above him, wondering at the reasons which had impelled Stilgar to say just that. His Duke. There had been a strange subtle intonation in Stilgar's voice, as though he would rather have said something else. And that wasn't like Stilgar, who was a leader of Fremen, a man who spoke his mind. My Duke! Gurney thought. He looked anew at Paul. Yes, with Leto dead, the title fell on Paul's shoulders. The pattern of the Fremen war on Arrakis began to take on new shape in Gurney's mind. My Duke! A place that had been dead within him began coming alive. Only part of his awareness focused on Paul's ordering the smuggler crew disarmed until they could be questioned. Gurney's mind returned to the command when he heard some of his men protesting. He shook his head, whirled. "Are you men deaf?" he barked. "This is the rightful Duke of Arrakis. Do as he commands." Grumbling, the smugglers submitted. Paul moved up beside Gurney, spoke in a low voice. "I'd not have expected you to walk into this trap, Gurney." "I'm properly chastened," Gurney said. "I'll wager yon patch of spice is little more than a sand grain's thickness, a bait to lure us." "That's a wager you'd win," Paul said. He looked down at the men being disarmed. "Are there any more of my father's men among your crew?" "None. We're spread thin. There're a few among the free traders. Most have spent their profits to leave this place." "But you stayed." "I stayed." "Because Rabban is here," Paul said. "I thought I had nothing left but revenge," Gurney said. An oddly chopped cry sounded from the ridgetop. Gurney looked up to see a Fremen waving his kerchief. "A maker comes," Paul said. He moved out to a point of rock with Gurney following, looked off to the southwest. The burrow mound of a worm could be seen in the middle distance, a dust-crowned track that cut directly through the dunes on a course toward the ridge. "He's big enough," Paul said. A clattering sound lifted from the factory crawler below them. It turned on its treads like a giant insect, lumbered toward the rocks. "Too bad we couldn't have saved the carryall," Paul said. Gurney glanced at him, looked back to the patches of smoke and debris out on the desert where carryall and ornithopters had been brought down by Fremen rockets. He felt a sudden pang for the men lost there --


eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might try to assure him of my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive. The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite bank of the river. "All right," said the sergeant. "March." We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. "You are expected on board," said the sergeant to my convict; "they know you are coming. Don't straggle, my man. Close up here." The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard. I had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dyke came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The torches we carried, dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because of their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we had to halt while they rested. After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged, and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut where there was a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and a stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in their great-coats, were not much interested in us, but


systems.” Derrota nodded. “I’m not typically the go-to explosives guy.” Ignoring him, Resnick continued, “You three will be working in an oxygen-free environment,” he said to Pristy. “There are combat suits in the lockers next to the control room. Get suited and ready to go in fifteen minutes. I will wait here.” Captain Pristy frowned at Resnick and didn’t move. The others all looked at her, sensing something was wrong. Resnick’s head tilted. “Problem?” “Yes, sir,” Pristy said. “Why us?” “You’re here,” Resnick said. Pristy shook her head. “That’s not a good reason, General. None of us are properly trained. If this is as important as you say, why don’t you have your best agents on it?” “They’re not available.” “Then why don’t you go?” “You always question your superiors?” Resnick asked. “Only when the orders make no sense, sir.” “No wonder you were posted out in the middle of nowhere.” Pristy’s face heated up with rising anger. “Look, General—” “I stay behind in case you screw up and die,” Resnick said. “Which happens, especially to petty officers who haven’t properly set their ChronoLinks.” “What?” Aubrey looked at her wrist, swore, and started fiddling. After a few clicks, she said, “Got it.” “And as for the rest of the agents, Captain,” Resnick said. “When USS Adams got captured, its databases raided and its crew tortured and then eaten, what do you think the Liquilids found?” “Earth’s territories and our allies,” Pristy snapped back. “You told me.” “I didn’t tell you enough, or you would have figured out the important bit.” Resnick walked past her to the ringularity. He spun on his heel and crossed his arms. “Go ahead. See if you can figure it out. I’ll wait.” “Shit,” Derrota said. “Time travel.” “Two points to the scientist,” sarcasm laced Resnick’s voice. “Now, there are no records on Adams of time travel, but there are records of this place, and guess where they came first? Better yet, tell me what a species … one that craves total domination and has more power than any other we’ve seen … would do once it acquired time travel.” Pristy sighed. “Take over everything.” “From the beginning of time.” “How long before they come here?” Derrota asked. “Oh, they are here,” Resnick said. “They’re just not now. We’ve lost five hundred people securing this base. And the rest of the real time agents, along with the Grand Consortium’s four other timeships, are fighting the Liquilids throughout time and space. So, all I have to work with are you three.” He let the words sink in, then asked Aubrey, “What are the four tenets of time travel?” She looked startled to be addressed but reeled them off like a medical resident identifying patient symptoms. “Tenet one: Top Secret. All time-travel capabilities must remain classified. Two: Uncontaminated. Leave nothing behind, especially when traveling to the past. Three: Historical Purity. Never rewrite history. Your historical timeline stability score, as measured by your ChronoLink, must be above 98.5 before the mission can be considered a success. Four: No Causal Loops. If


with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquaintance only with the grey twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison.% When the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam; and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and Thesaurus abashed: (adj, v) discomfited; (adj) dungeon: (n, v) keep; (n) prison, cell, copiousness, abundance, lushness, mortified, sheepish, embarrassed, jail, penitentiary, fastness, oubliette, affluence, wealth, luxury, excess, ashamed, confused, humiliated, Bastille, bridewell, detention, house luxuriancy, rampancy; (adj) afraid, shamefaced, confounded; (v) of correction. fecundity. dashed. ANTONYMS: (adj) proud, flourishes: (n) added extras, motherly: (adj) tender, fatherly, warm, undaunted, reassured, pleased, trappings, superfluities, trimmings, sisterly, loving, affectionate; (adv) heartened, emboldened, cool, accompaniments, additions, maternally; (v) ardent, fond, devoted, confident, composed, relaxed, embellishments. erotic. ANTONYM: (adj) paternal. unabashed. gristly: (adj) stringy, rubbery, tough, stepped: (v) advanced, gone, stopen. darksome: (adj) obscure, darkling, chewy, fibrous, hard, stiff, leathery, sumptuary: (adj) monetary, crumenal, darkish, abstruse, dusky, sombre, sinewy. fiscal, financial, restrictive, gloomy, dim,


it was all my fault, not if I could help it. Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's whisky. Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said that handling a snake- skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread him- self out so that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of looking at the moon that way, like a fool. Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at the village. They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market- house there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's as white


had reeked like a corpse. Now it was clear and frozen stiff. In five centuries, there had been no wars or sieges here. Ascalun was unconquered. Her mother had grown up in the castle. Glorian had been born there, like most Berethnet women. The bells had rung for days, and all had called her the Gift of Halgalant, for with her arrival all wounds had been healed. I was meant to bring peace, she thought. Now I stand on the brink of war. Snow was banked on every street, dirty and trampled, torn by footprints. The procession rode through the wards of the capital, where torches lit the pending night. They had arrived at eventide, when most of the city would be at home or in the sanctuaries at prayer. Still, a royal entry required ceremony, even when unexpected. Trumpets called out her approach. Glorian set her gaze on the castle and withdrew into the secret place inside her, where she could not hear or see. The ride passed like a dream. Blazing torches, candles fretting in windows, rain against her face. People shouted out to her, still thinking she was her mother, returned from the North. Only when they were past the castle gates did she breathe painlessly again. ‘Lady Florell, take Her Royal Highness to her old rooms in the Queens’ Tower,’ Lord Robart said. ‘She must be very tired.’ **** The Queens’ Tower – called the King’s Tower for centuries, before the name became absurd – had been made to withstand both attack and invasion. Its sides were round and sanded, impossible to climb, not one foothold between its lower windows. Glorian followed Florell up hundreds of steps. Her bedchamber was just as she remembered it. A fire crackled in the arched hearth, and a supper of game stew and hot wastel had been left on a table. Helisent removed her damp cloak for her. ‘I wish to bathe,’ Glorian said, as if from a distance. ‘I have a chill.’ Florell nodded. ‘Mariken,’ she said to her Mentish servant, ‘have hot baths prepared for everyone, if you would.’ ‘Yes, my lady.’ ‘I’m well, Florell,’ Julain said, her voice quaking a little. ‘I should stay with Glorian.’ ‘Julain.’ Florell took her by the shoulders. ‘You cannot watch over a princess – or a queen – if you don’t have a care for yourself first. All of us are grieving and shaken.’ She took the cloak from Helisent. ‘Go, all of you, and rest this night. Mariken will bring your supper.’ Glorian sank on to the bed and took off her gloves. She was too tired to cry, or to undress, or do anything but stare at the nearest candle. She wondered if her parents had been taken by the fire, or by the sea. ‘Sweeting,’ Florell said, ‘may I speak frankly – as your mother’s friend, and yours?’ ‘I do not expect deference from you of all people, Florell.’ ‘You should expect it from us all. In seven days, you will be Queen of Inys.’ Glorian managed a nod. ‘The


my own breast, and it were in danger of bursting. The counting-house clock was at half past twelve, and there was general preparation for going to dinner, when Mr. Quinion tapped at the counting-house window, and beckoned to me to go in. I went in, and found there a stoutish, middle-aged person, in a brown surtout and black tights and shoes, with no more hair upon his head (which was a large one, and very shining) than there is upon an egg, and with a very extensive face, which he turned full upon me. His clothes were shabby, but he had an imposing shirt-collar on. He carried a jaunty sort of a stick, with a large pair of rusty tassels to it; and a quizzing-glass hung outside his coat, - for ornament, I afterwards found, as he very seldom looked through it, and couldn't see anything when he did. 'This,' said Mr. Quinion, in allusion to myself, 'is he.' 'This,' said the stranger, with a certain condescending roll in his voice, and a certain indescribable air of doing something genteel, which impressed me very much, 'is Master Copperfield. I hope I see you well, sir?' I said I was very well, and hoped he was. I was sufficiently ill at ease, Heaven knows; but it was not in my nature to complain much at that time of my life, so I said I was very well, and hoped he was. 'I am,' said the stranger, 'thank Heaven, quite well. I have received a letter from Mr. Murdstone, in which he mentions that he would desire me to receive into an apartment in the rear of my house, which is at present unoccupied - and is, in short, to be let as a - in short,' said the stranger, with a smile and in a burst of confidence, 'as a bedroom - the young beginner whom I have now the pleasure to -' and the stranger waved his hand, and settled his chin in his shirt-collar. 'This is Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion to me. 'Ahem!' said the stranger, 'that is my name.' 'Mr. Micawber,' said Mr. Quinion, 'is known to Mr. Murdstone. He takes orders for us on commission, when he can get any. He has been written to by Mr. Murdstone, on the subject of your lodgings, and he will receive you as a lodger.' 'My address,' said Mr. Micawber, 'is Windsor Terrace, City Road. I - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the same genteel air, and in another burst of confidence - 'I live there.' I made him a bow. 'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road, - in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, 'that you might lose yourself - I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.' I thanked him with


… the words vanished within her. She held up her handful of letters. And she said, “You.” Roman was silent for a beat. He drew a deep breath and whispered, “Me.” Iris smiled, a shield for how mortified she was. She felt like laughing and crying, but she forced them both down. Her head began to ache. “All this time, you were receiving my letters?” “Yes,” Roman replied. “I just … I can’t believe this, Kitt!” “Why? What’s so hard to believe, Iris?” “All this time it was you.” She blinked away her tears and tossed one of the letters onto Roman’s bed. It was satisfying, to hear the paper crinkle, a distraction from her embarrassment. She dropped another page, and then another. The letters fell onto his lap. “Stop it, Iris,” Roman said, gathering them up as they drifted. As she carelessly crinkled them. “I understand why you’re angry at me, but let me expl—” “How long have you known?” she asked tersely. “When did you know it was me?” Roman paused, his jaw clenched. He continued to gently gather her letters. “I knew from the beginning.” “The beginning?” “From the first letter you sent,” he amended. “You didn’t mention your name, but you talked about your job at the Gazette, the columnist position.” Iris froze in horror, listening to him. He had known all this time? He had known all this time! “I honestly thought it was a prank at first,” he rambled on. “That you were doing it to get in my head. Until I read the other letters—” “Why didn’t you say something to me, Kitt?” “I wanted to. But I was worried you would stop writing.” “So you thought it best to play me for a fool?” His eyes smoldered with offense. “I never once played you for a fool, Iris. Nor did I ever think that of you.” “Were you humoring me, then?” she asked. She hated how her voice trembled. “Was this all some joke to play on the poor low-class girl at work?” She hit a nerve. Roman’s face crumpled, as if she had just struck him. “No. I would never do any of those things to you, and if you think that I would, then you don’t—” “You lied to me, Kitt!” she cried. “I didn’t lie to you. All the things I told you … none of them were lies. None of them, do you hear me?” Iris stared at Roman. He was red-faced and holding her letters to his chest, and she suddenly had to add new layers to him. All the Carver details. She thought of Del, realizing that Roman had been an older brother; he had lost his sister. He had pulled her from the waters after she had drowned on her seventh birthday. He had carried her body home to his parents. A lump rose in her throat. Iris closed her eyes. Roman sighed. “Iris? Will you come here? Sit beside me for a while, and we can talk more.” She needed a moment to herself. To process


of a blazing fire when we got back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied; each hearth in the school-room was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.     A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread a whole, instead of a half, slice with the delicate addition of a thin scrap of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.     The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to along sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was to thrust them forward into the center of the school-room, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitor's high stools.     I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon; his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming; but come he did at last.     One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing; I recognized almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, roseen masse , it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the school-room, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearth-rug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right; it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever.     I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition: too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition, etc.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple


I’ll kill you myself, do you hear me?” “Attie,” Iris said calmly, stepping over the threshold. “I need to introduce you to someone.” She moved aside so Attie could get a clear view of Roman, entering the B and B for the first time. Attie’s jaw dropped. But she quickly recovered from her surprise, her eyes narrowing with slight suspicion. “Did the eithrals drop a boy from the sky, then?” “Another correspondent,” Iris said, at which Roman glanced at her. “This is Roman Kitt. Kitt, this is my friend and fellow writer, Att—” “Thea Attwood,” he finished, and he set down his typewriter case to extend his hand to Attie, reveling in her renewed shock. “It’s an honor to finally meet you.” Iris was confused, glancing between the two of them. But Attie’s own surprise melted and suddenly she was grinning. She shook Roman’s hand and asked, “Do you have a copy with you?” Roman slid the leather bag from his shoulder. He untethered it and procured a newspaper, wound tight to ward off wrinkles. He gave it to Attie, and she viciously unfurled it, her eyes racing across the headlines. “Gods below,” she murmured, breathless. “Look at this, Iris!” Iris moved to stand at Attie’s side, only to stifle her own gasp. Attie’s war article was on the front page of the Inkridden Tribune. A major headline. THE PATH OF DACRE’S DESTRUCTION by THEA ATTWOOD Iris read the first few lines over Attie’s shoulder, awe and excitement coursing through her. “If you’ll both excuse me, there’s a letter I need to write,” Attie said abruptly. Iris watched her bolt down the hallway, knowing she was probably going to wax vengefully poetic to the professor who had once dismissed her writing. Iris’s smile lingered, thinking about Attie’s words on the front page and how many people in Oath had most likely read them. From the corner of her eye, she saw Roman reaching into his bag again. There was another crinkle of paper, and she resisted looking at him until he spoke. “Did you think I wouldn’t bring one for you, Winnow?” “What do you mean?” she asked, a touch defensively. She finally glanced at him to see he was extending another rolled newspaper to her. “Read it for yourself,” he said. She accepted the paper, slowly unrolling it. Another edition of the Inkridden Tribune, from a different day. But this time, it was Iris’s article on the front page. THE UNEXPECTED FACE OF WAR by INKRIDDEN IRIS Her eyes passed over the familiar words—A war with the gods is not what you expect it to be—and her vision blurred for a moment as she gathered her composure. She swallowed and rolled the paper back up, extending it to Roman, who was watching her with an arched brow. “Inkridden Iris,” he said, his rich drawl making her sound like a legend. “Oh, Autry fumed for days when he saw it, and Prindle cheered, and suddenly the city of Oath is reading about a not-so-distant war and realizing it is only a matter


I wonder when it’s gonna happen and what embarrassing thing I’ll be wearing when it does, and if anyone is gonna see me dying and think I look stupid. I started thinking about death so much that when the pandemic hit and every news report was like, “Bye, fat people!” I added Kirsten to my bank account, which is a thing I never thought I’d do because what if she decides to get cute? I don’t even like sharing popcorn with her at the movies, but if someone coughed into my mouth and I died from it, I didn’t want her to be tasked with that olden-times gay shit where she has to go through a bunch of headachy paperwork just to withdraw whatever money I have to cremate me before she moves on to her new nonfat wife who loves nonfat lattes and also being alive. Sob. But never in all my fatalistic daydreaming did it ever occur to me that I would go down to hell doing a dumb-ass bit. I am very good in an emergency. One of the things that made me so good at my animal hospital job is that I am unflappable in a crisis, which is a quality I didn’t even know I possessed until the first time someone ran in screaming with an injured, bloody pet, and instead of crawling under the desk to tremble and cry, I took the shrieking dog from its owner and ran it back for a doctor to start working on it. I sat at the front desk, literally the first semi-friendly face people would see (you gotta withhold the exuberant friendliness until you gauge whether the client approaching the desk is cool or an asshole), and I can’t count how many times over fourteen years someone was shoving a wounded half-dead (or sometimes fully dead) animal at my face while screaming “HELP ME” in all caps. I never freaked out or got scared. I just assessed what was going on as quickly as I could (hit by car, attacked at the dog park, consumed a pan of weed brownies) and did whatever was supposed to happen next without falling apart. I mean, who does that help? Maybe that’s why I was so cool and relaxed in the face of my own demise? Either the doctors were gonna fix me or not, no use panicking and wailing about it, may as well try to have a good time while gasping out these final jokes. If only I could apply that to my living life. My airway was clear enough not to need intubation, so I laid there with my eyes shut and tried not to say anything as the doctors and nurses went about their business of injecting me with antihistamines and Pepcid and enough prednisone to knock down a horse. I opened my eyes a crack to watch the doctor make marks on my hands to track the swelling, and even though it would’ve been the perfect time to make that Ball Park hot dog joke, I didn’t.


a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying some- thing to it; but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five- center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill- top we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says: "Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood." Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And


class="Apple-converted-space">

was guilty of an even more egregious vehicular crime than her husband.

Every day Mrs. R parked her car in Mummy’s old spot.

244

https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.me/Afghansalarlibrary

I can still see her gliding into that space, right where my mother’s green

BMW used to be. It was wrong of me, and I knew it was wrong, but on

some level I condemned Mrs. R for it.

64.

I WAS AN UNCLE. Willy and Kate had welcomed their first child, George, and

he was beautiful. I couldn’t wait to teach him about rugby and Rorke’s

Drift, flying and corridor cricket—and maybe give him a few pointers about

how to survive life in the fishbowl.

Reporters, however, used this joyous occasion as an opportunity to ask

me...if I was miserable.

What?

The baby had moved me one link down the chain of succession, making

me fourth from the throne instead of third. So reporters said, Bad luck, eh?

You must be joking.

There must be some misgivings.

Couldn t be happier.

A half-truth.

I was delighted for Willy and Kate, and I was indifferent to my place in

the order of succession.

But nothing to do with either thing, I wasn’t anywhere close to happy.

65.

A I traveled to that war-torn country, an official visit, and went

specifically to several places where daily life had been poisoned by

land mines, including one town believed to be the most heavily mined place

in all of Africa.

August 2013.

I wore the same protective gear my mother had worn when she visited

Angola on her historic trip. | even worked with the same charity that had

invited her: Halo Trust. I was deeply frustrated to learn from the charity’s

245


He tapped irritably at a control panel. Trillian quietly moved his hand before he tapped anything important. Whatever Zaphod's qualities of mind might include - dash, bravado, conceit - he was mechanically inept and could easily blow the ship up with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. "Zaphod," she said patiently, "they were floating unprotected in open space ... you wouldn't want them to have died would you?" "Well, you know ... no. Not as such, but ..." "Not as such? Not die as such? But?" Trillian cocked her head on one side. "Well, maybe someone else might have picked them up later." "A second later and they would have been dead." "Yeah, so if you'd taken the trouble to think about the problem a bit longer it would have gone away." "You'd been happy to let them die?" "Well, you know, not happy as such, but ..." "Anyway," said Trillian, turning back to the controls, "I didn't pick them up." "What do you mean? Who picked them up then?" "The ship did." "Huh?" "The ship did. All by itself." "Huh?" "Whilst we were in Improbability Drive." "But that's incredible." "No Zaphod. Just very very improbable." "Er, yeah." "Look Zaphod," she said, patting his arm, "don't worry about the aliens. They're just a couple of guys I expect. I'll send the robot down to get them and bring them up here. Hey Marvin!" In the corner, the robot's head swung up sharply, but then wobbled about imperceptibly. It pulled itself up to its feet as if it was about five pounds heavier that it actually was, and made what an outside observer would have thought was a heroic effort to cross the room. It stopped in front of Trillian and seemed to stare through her left shoulder. "I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed," it said. Its voice was low and hopeless. "Oh God," muttered Zaphod and slumped into a seat. "Well," said Trillian in a bright compassionate tone, "here's something to occupy you and keep your mind off things." "It won't work," droned Marvin, "I have an exceptionally large mind." "Marvin!" warned Trillian. "Alright," said Marvin, "what do you want me to do?" "Go down to number two entry bay and bring the two aliens up here under surveillance." With a microsecond pause, and a finely calculated micromodulation of pitch and timbre - nothing you could actually take offence at - Marvin managed to convey his utter contempt and horror of all things human. "Just that?" he said. "Yes," said Trillian firmly. "I won't enjoy it," said Marvin. Zaphod leaped out of his seat. "She's not asking you to enjoy it," he shouted, "just do it will you?" "Alright," said Marvin like the tolling of a great cracked bell, "I'll do it." "Good ..." snapped Zaphod, "great ... thank you ..." Marvin turned and lifted his flat-topped triangular red eyes up


had given him the earliest information of it. ``I must ask whether you were surprised?'' said Elizabeth. ``Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.'' ``That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.'' And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case. ``On the evening before my going to London,'' said he, ``I made a confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together.'' Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend. ``Did you speak from your own observation,'' said she, ``when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?'' ``From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection.'' ``And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him.'' ``It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.'' Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted. __ CHAPTER XVII (59) ``MY dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?'' was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor any thing else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. The evening passed quietly, unmarked by any thing extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy


explanation of them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my mysterious woe. Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression of unbounded wonder, "My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My dear son, I entreat you never to make such an assertion again." "I am not mad," I cried energetically; "the sun and the heavens, who have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not sacrifice the whole human race." The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts. He wished as much as possible to obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my misfortunes. As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them. By the utmost self-violence I curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness, which sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world, and my manners were calmer and more composed than they had ever been since my journey to the sea of ice. A few days before we left Paris on our way to Switzerland, I received the following letter from Elizabeth: My dear Friend, It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle dated at Paris; you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may hope to see you in less than a fortnight. My poor cousin, how much you must have suffered! I expect to see you looking even more ill than when you quitted Geneva. This winter has been passed most miserably, tortured as I have been by anxious suspense; yet I hope to see peace in your countenance and to find that your heart is not totally void of comfort and tranquillity. Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable a year ago, even perhaps augmented by time. I would not disturb you at this period, when so many misfortunes weigh upon you, but a conversation that I had with my uncle previous to his departure renders some explanation necessary before we meet. Explanation! You may possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain? If you really say this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied. But you are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet be pleased with this explanation; and in a probability of this being the case, I dare not any longer postpone writing what, during your absence, I have often wished to express to you but have never


her emotions. She swallowed and blinked away the welling of tears. Will I ever have a real home? Chapter 55 Liquilid Empire Star System Asteroid Command Center Captain Gail Pristy No sooner had the six of them arrived than Resnick was busy checking his ChronoLink. For the umpteenth time, Pristy wondered what the hell that was all about. If destiny was so set in stone, chiseled into the annals of space-time, then what the hell was he looking for? The four others, Derrota, Dr. Kline, LaSalle, and Petty Officer Aubrey Laramie, were far less concerned by Resnick’s actions than they were by their surroundings. It was a subterranean space that dwarfed the one below Lost Tombstone by a factor of a hundred. Everyone squinted against the flashing, strobing lights, complementary colors seeming to be changing value, red to green, yellow to purple, and so on. Prior to stepping into the subterranean ringularity, Resnick had relayed what their final mission would entail. And that after this, the services of the five of them would no longer be required. Whatever that meant … Derrota looked about the vast space with an expression of “ahh.” Pristy joined him. “What are we looking at here, Stephan?” “Simply put, this is the basis, the root cause, of so much suffering, so many deaths.” The others gathered around them, including Resnick. The flux generator loomed above, a breathtaking sight. Derrota continued, “My assumption is the core there … those glowing concentric rings, they’re designed to both harness and manipulate energy. Flux, the key principle at work here, allows the alteration of space-time curvature.” He looked to Resnick for affirmation. “Close enough, Mr. Derrota … The resulting gravity and electromagnetism differentials are key aspects of the generator. That is what keeps unsuspecting starships from jumping away or utilizing wormhole manufacturing technology.” Aubrey said, “It is here that the spider spins her web, waits for her naïve prey to wander into her intricate trap, ignorant of the impending doom that lurks in the shadows.” All eyes went to the petty officer second-class. She looked back at them. “What?” Dr. Kline said, “Well put, Aubrey. Almost poetic.” Superintendent LaSalle added, “… and creepy as hell.” Electromagnetic fields suddenly crackled above them with a flurry of small lightning bolts, as if to punctuate LaSalle’s comment. Resnick straightened, catching sight of something or someone off in the distance. He put a finger to his lips before gesturing the group to take several steps back and move behind one of the large support pillars that were prevalent throughout the cavern. In a hushed voice, he said, “They’re just now coming back on duty.” Pristy said, “Who’s—” Irritated, Resnick shushed her. “Liquilids, who else?” She hated being shushed. I’m not a child, you pompous jerk. “We’re running late. We need to do what we came here to do and get out.” Dr. Kline, looking exasperated, said, “That thing, this flux generator, is huge. There’s no way we can destroy it. We’d need a bomb or something.” Resnick made a face. “Did you not listen to


detail or build on his punchline or chop the head off a chicken. He put his hands on his hips and stood in front of me and I wanted to kiss him, or at the very least hold him, but the unspoken distance between us remained. The old days were the old days and this was now. “I’m glad you liked it,” I said. “It was really inspiring,” Emily said. “It really was.” Orson got close enough to me to muss my hair: his touch was warm. “Do you want to stay for the day and help out? Take a break from New York?” “That would be nice.” We were met with applause at the stairhead. There were camera flashes, repeated requests to be told what to do. Orson shouted above the adoration: “Live each day as if it were the next one!” The words were repeated back loudly, and as we descended the steps and walked through the living room the NuLifers stood aside to let us pass, silt permitting the progression of a stream. Some even reached out to touch Orson, which didn’t seem to bother him. The reception outside was even louder than it had been inside. The lawn bordering the house had been trod into a thick mud, and we waded through it to get to the front of the crowd. I didn’t even care that I was destroying a pair of loafers: I just wanted to follow Orson, to be as close to him as possible. Orson picked up a bullhorn sitting on the patio’s edge and spoke into it. “Friends! Can you listen to me for a moment?” The din settled like dust. Orson gestured to me. I smiled timidly. “This is Ezra Green. Do you all recognize him?” Some scattered cheers, mostly restless confusion. “He’s the CFO of NuLife. He’s a very, very wise person. He happened to give a speech the other day about the very things we’re talking about here at Wholeness.” He turned to me. “Ezra, would you be willing to reprise your performance?” I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves and Orson handed me the bullhorn. Then I repeated what I could remember of my speech. I even took off my shoe again. When I finished, the applause was head splitting. “Ezra Green!” Orson shouted as loudly as he could over the noise. Emily stood between us, applauding eagerly for me. I’d outdone her. I’d commanded his audience. “Okay, friends,” he said. “You’ve heard some words of wisdom. Now spend some time meditating on them. We have plenty of work to do.” A final and energetic round of applause. Orson grabbed Emily’s hand and led us to the side of the farmhouse, which was still slippery and wet with mud but offered us some degree of privacy. “That was genius, Ez,” he said. “Thank you.” “True bliss looks like magic from a distance,” he intoned, and I winced at the fact that he was repeating one of our corporate slogans. But at least he was repeating it to