a dream and a serious work ethic, while so many just show up with millions of Silicon Valley dollars and state-of-the-art equipment, and they never truly understand the finer transformations that take place within the grape. But August continues to try and fail and try again—and eventually he’s going to get it. I know he is. And when he does, it’s going to be amazing, because he’s doing it by hand. By the sweat of his brow. It’s going to mean something more than money.” She’d gotten so lost in her speech, she didn’t realize Ingram had lowered his glass to the table and was regarding her seriously. Minus the smirk for once. “We should all be so lucky to have someone believe in us the way you believe in your husband, Ms. Vos.” “Mrs. Cates,” she corrected with a flustered smile. And there was no way not to be flustered when August was using his grip on her hand to pull her closer, all but physically dragging her into his lap. “Stop it,” she whispered. “No.” His voice had thickened. “People sit on other people’s laps at barbecues.” “I told you, this isn’t a barbecue,” she whispered back, laughter in her voice. “Barbecues don’t have salad plates.” “I don’t acknowledge salads. I see nothing.” Outright giggling now, Natalie slapped at his tugging hand and August finally settled for having their chairs pressed together, their outer thighs flush. Finished with their impromptu play fight, they tore their eyes off each other and found the room riveted. “Anyway,” Natalie said seriously, with a quick smooth of her hair, “I foresee great things.” “So do I,” August agreed, looking down at her. But she had a feeling they weren’t talking about the same thing at all and the possibility made her heart hammer. Made it hard to look at him directly. He was so much. Corinne finally broke into the extended silence they’d left in their wake. “So, Ingram. Julian and I have been looking into the value of aerial crop monitoring. Of course, I’m not sure this is the season for it. We’re in a rebuilding year after all.” Julian sighed and set down his wine. “Yes, we’re in a rebuilding year, but that’s even more of a reason to make use of the technology . . .” Natalie perked up. Ever since Julian had brought up VineWatch, she’d been examining their company history and playing with numbers and statistics. To be honest, she’d been doing this research while she should have been working on strategy for her upcoming client meeting. The one taking place in New York on Friday—four days from now. She couldn’t help but be fascinated, though. “Natalie,” August said suddenly, “aren’t they talking about the company you’ve been stalking on your laptop for the last few days?” Everyone’s attention swung toward Natalie. He’d . . . noticed what she was doing on her laptop? “Uh . . .” Beneath the table, August placed his hand on her thigh and the warmth was somehow exactly what she needed. “Yes. I


give me time,' replied the Jew, soothingly. 'Here it is! All safe!' As he spoke, he drew forth an old cotton handkerchief from his breast; and untying a large knot in one corner, produced a small brown-paper packet. Sikes, snatching it from him, hastily opened it; and proceeded to count the sovereigns it contained. 'This is all, is it?' inquired Sikes. 'All,' replied the Jew. 'You haven't opened the parcel and swallowed one or two as you come along, have you?' inquired Sikes, suspiciously. 'Don't put on an injured look at the question; you've done it many a time. Jerk the tinkler.' These words, in plain English, conveyed an injunction to ring the bell. It was answered by another Jew: younger than Fagin, but nearly as vile and repulsive in appearance. Bill Sikes merely pointed to the empty measure. The Jew, perfectly understanding the hint, retired to fill it: previously exchanging a remarkable look with Fagin, who raised his eyes for an instant, as if in expectation of it, and shook his head in reply; so slightly that the action would have been almost imperceptible to an observant third person. It was lost upon Sikes, who was stooping at the moment to tie the boot-lace which the dog had torn. Possibly, if he had observed the brief interchange of signals, he might have thought that it boded no good to him. 'Is anybody here, Barney?' inquired Fagin; speaking, now that that Sikes was looking on, without raising his eyes from the ground. 'Dot a shoul,' replied Barney; whose words: whether they came from the heart or not: made their way through the nose. 'Nobody?' inquired Fagin, in a tone of surprise: which perhaps might mean that Barney was at liberty to tell the truth. 'Dobody but Biss Dadsy,' replied Barney. 'Nancy!' exclaimed Sikes. 'Where? Strike me blind, if I don't honour that 'ere girl, for her native talents.' 'She's bid havid a plate of boiled beef id the bar,' replied Barney. 'Send her here,' said Sikes, pouring out a glass of liquor. 'Send her here.' Barney looked timidly at Fagin, as if for permission; the Jew reamining silent, and not lifting his eyes from the ground, he retired; and presently returned, ushering in Nancy; who was decorated with the bonnet, apron, basket, and street-door key, complete. 'You are on the scent, are you, Nancy?' inquired Sikes, proffering the glass. 'Yes, I am, Bill,' replied the young lady, disposing of its contents; 'and tired enough of it I am, too. The young brat's been ill and confined to the crib; and--' 'Ah, Nancy, dear!' said Fagin, looking up. Now, whether a peculiar contraction of the Jew's red eye-brows, and a half closing of his deeply-set eyes, warned Miss Nancy that she was disposed to be too communicative, is not a matter of much importance. The fact is all we need care for here; and the fact is, that she suddenly checked herself, and with several gracious smiles upon Mr. Sikes, turned the conversation to other matters. In about ten minutes' time, Mr. Fagin


doing that.” She really believed that, Winnie thought. She was holding on tight to it. “Well. Better to get it out in the open now, then.” Mrs. King’s arm went rigid. “Mrs. Bone knows,” she said. “She’s known from the start. She’s as much connected to him as I am. She’s his sister.” Winnie halted. This time the shock felt like pain, not like weakness. She drew her arm away. Mrs. King at least had the grace to look uneasy. “It was best you didn’t know,” she said. Winnie felt as if she’d like to scream. “For heaven’s sake, Dinah.” She put a hand to her head, feeling an ache starting there. “You should have told me. You should have told me years ago.” Mrs. King just shook her head. Winnie sighed. “This discussion has unsettled us both. Let’s go back.” And so they did, not speaking. Winnie gave full but silent vent to her feelings. It was unpardonable that Dinah should have kept so great a secret from her. But that question nagged at her. Didn’t you guess? She pictured Mrs. King, that playful, sideways tilt to her expression. It was so entirely like the old master that it made Winnie’s legs feel weak. She understood quite clearly what must have happened. Mr. de Vries had got himself a bastard. Most gentlemen would have sent the mother a stipend, or at any rate a warning letter, or simply run away. He had gone one better. He had hired the child on as his housemaid. It astonished her, the audacity of it. It was the kind of breathtaking self-assurance that made her burn with envy. Here, then, were the secret things of which she could never speak. Mr. de Vries was brutal, he steamrollered people, he was unendingly brash, twisted up in his crimson silks and canary-yellow buttons. But he was gentle with Winnie. He treated her with courtesy. “My dear Winnie Smith,” he used to say, grinning at her. “The cleverest person in this house.” For clever she was, clever she dubbed herself, so well educated and reliable and nicely spoken. She spent hours in Mr. de Vries’s company, taking dictation, acting amanuensis. He gave her little gifts, an allowance, he even had her mother over for tea when Father died. His charm was extraordinary. And she thought she’d deserved it. She devoted her soul to that house. She’d admired Mr. de Vries tremendously: of course he was vulgar, but at least he was honest about it. Her shame hardened in her gut. She linked arms with Mrs. King. “I’m sorry I never guessed,” she said. Mrs. King turned, face drawn. She looked almost scared of what Winnie might say to her. It twisted Winnie’s heart, made tears prick in her eyes. “I didn’t want you to guess,” Mrs. King said. “I wouldn’t have let you.” She squeezed Winnie’s arm. “Don’t mention it to the others,” she added. Winnie let out a breath. “We oughtn’t to be keeping secrets, Dinah.” The anxiety left Mrs. King’s expression. It was replaced with something


there. Illyrio whispered to them. "Those three are Drogo's bloodriders, there," he said. "By the pillar is Khal Moro, with his son Rhogoro. The man with the green beard is brother to the Archon of Tyrosh, and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont." The last name caught Daenerys. "A knight?" "No less." Illyrio smiled through his beard. "Anointed with the seven oils by the High Septon himself." "What is he doing here?" she blurted. "The Usurper wanted his head," Illyrio told them. "Some trifling affront. He sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night's Watch. Absurd law. A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel." "I shall wish to speak with Ser Jorah before the night is done," her brother said. Dany found herself looking at the knight curiously. He was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. Instead of silks and cottons, he wore wool and leather. His tunic was a dark green, embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standing on two legs. She was still looking at this strange man from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder. "Over there, sweet princess," he whispered, "there is the khal himself." Dany wanted to run and hide, but her brother was looking at her, and if she displeased him she knew she would wake the dragon. Anxiously, she turned and looked at the man Viserys hoped would ask to wed her before the night was done. 32 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN The slave girl had not been far wrong, she thought. Khal Drogo was a head taller than the tallest man in the room, yet somehow light on his feet, as graceful as the panther in Illyrio's menagerie. He was younger than she'd thought, no more than thirty. His skin was the color of polished copper, his thick mustachios bound with gold and bronze rings. "I must go and make my submissions," Magister Illyrio said. "Wait here. I shall bring him to you." Her brother took her by the arm as Illyrio waddled over to the khal, his fingers squeezing so hard that they hurt. "Do you see his braid, sweet sister?" Drogo's braid was black as midnight and heavy with scented oil, hung with tiny bells that rang softly as he moved. It swung well past his belt, below even his buttocks, the end of it brushing against the back of his thighs. "You see how long it is?" Viserys said. "When Dothraki are defeated in combat, they cut off their braids in disgrace, so the world will know their shame. Khal Drogo has never lost a fight. He is Aegon the Dragonlord come again, and you will be his queen." Dany looked at Khal Drogo. His face was hard and cruel, his eyes as cold and dark as onyx. Her brother hurt her sometimes, when she woke the dragon, but he did not frighten her the way this man frightened


first night they met, when she’d clocked the navy tat and deemed him the strong, capable, heroic type. Ever since then, however, he’d more or less become the loudmouth goofball to whom she was nursing a destructive attraction. She should have found it exasperating that he walked into the bar as if trying to establish himself as the alpha. All swaggering and huge and scanning the place for trouble—and the exits. Oh. That’s right. You’re marrying a SEAL. There had to be two dozen women in the bar, but his gaze didn’t stop on any of them. Not until it landed on her. Oh, this was bad. She was two cocktails deep and the memory of his knowing fingers was too fresh. Also, dammit. Something akin to joy leapt inside her at his appearance. As if a suppressed part of her was happy to see the jerk. “I can’t believe he picked the same bar as me. An axe-throwing bar,” Hallie murmured to Natalie’s left. “Next he’ll be getting his septum pierced and vaping.” “Well, I’m not about to be the fifth wheel.” Lavinia drained her drink and plonked the empty glass on the table. “The husband is due his bimonthly shag anyway.” She saluted them on her way toward the door, calling over the noise, “I will see you at the wedding on Saturday. I’ll be the only one in a fascinator, since you Americans refuse to respect their majesty.” “Bye, Lavinia,” Hallie called, drawing Julian’s notice. Julian’s eyes widened slightly and he gravitated toward Hallie, as if entranced, a smile curving his mouth. As much as listening to her brother and his girlfriend slam the headboard into the wall every morning had scarred her for life, Natalie could admit to swooning just a little at the straight-edged professor’s reaction to spotting the troublemaker gardener. But as Julian and Hallie reunited with quiet murmurs to her left, she could see only August. Obviously. His head almost brushed the low pendant light that hung from the ceiling. One did not miss a being so enormous. In fact, a lot of women in Jed’s were having the same problem. Some women really went for the whole muscle-bound hero thing, apparently. Natalie tried not to care. She really did. But when a young woman fanned herself in Natalie’s periphery, she found herself pushing up out of her chair and planting one on August’s surprised mouth. “Hi,” she said brightly, brushing back her hair. “You’re here.” “Yeah.” His gaze ping-ponged between her mouth and eyes. “Can we try that again? I wasn’t expecting it. My tongue is ready now.” “I don’t think this is an appropriate time for tongue.” “When will it be?” Natalie dropped her head back so she could groan at the ceiling. “Literally thirty seconds into this conversation and I’m exhausted.” “You think you’re tired now?” He winked. “Wait until after tongue time.” “Don’t ever say ‘tongue time’ again. Or I swear to God.” August chuckled, his hand settling into the curve of her waist naturally, brushing his thumb up and down


know I sort of mentioned this, but I’ve been thinking that maybe you are right.” “I so often am,” she joked. “But what am I right about?” “I think it’s high time I got away in the off-season; it’s high time I spent more time with you and Henry and hopefully a new baby or two. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to move to Aunt Gracie’s from September through late March or so.” Daphne squealed and clapped her hands. “Nothing could make me happier, June.” “Well, that makes me happy.” I smiled. “Facing the possibility of losing camp has made me consider what a different life could look like. I can have hope. But I also need a plan B.” Daphne sighed. “June, I love you, but honest to God, if you had just told me your Paycheck Protection application was denied…” I cringed just thinking about all the money I left on the table. “You were just so busy, and it was a pandemic. You had Henry at home and were trying to work, and I didn’t want to bother you.” What a misstep that had been. And while there was no use crying over spilt milk, that was a huge, life-altering glass of milk that I should have fought harder for. Daphne shook her head. “Well, it’s too late now. We move forward,” she said. “We move forward,” I repeated, resolutely. I truly didn’t know what moving forward would look like. But right then and there I vowed that, no matter what happened with Holly Springs, whether plan A materialized or I had to face plan B, I wouldn’t waste another moment ruminating over what might have been. Lanier TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD Hard Things To: daphne@millerlaw.com; lanier@bookmasters.com Dear Songbirds: Do you remember the fight we had on the archery field when we were fourteen? (A very dangerous place to have a fight, by the way…) I don’t remember what it was about, but I do remember running to June, crying that my two best friends and I weren’t best friends anymore. She sat me down and said, “No, no, no, Mary Stuart. You, Lanier, and Daphne have an unbreakable bond. When you’re best friends, you’re a little broken after every argument. But you grow back even stronger.” She was right then; she’s right now. I just want to remind both of you how much I love you. And I’m mostly just saying this to butter you up because I need you this week. Daphne: I need to change my last name! Help! That paperwork gives me nightmares. Lanier: It’s my mother-in-law’s birthday next week. Could you put together an awesome gift basket for her? Your favorite new reads, a cookbook, candle, notebook—whatever. You know the drill. Love you both. FWAFS, Mary Stuart This morning, I had plenty of time to make a gift basket for Mary Stuart, and it wasn’t hard at all. In fact, I was very grateful because her purchases were only my fourth sale of the day, and it was already


in love. I hadn’t dated anyone since my divorce, which had become official a few months after I’d arrived at TNO. Unlike in the dynamic with my ex-husband, Elliot and I shared a shorthand, a general sensibility, and the same incredibly weird schedule. After holding in my feelings for seven months, I half-drunkenly confessed my love to him at the after-party following the season finale of my second year, he rebuffed me, I cried to a writer named Stephanie while she ate a plate of grilled sesame shrimp and scallions, and I never again was close to Elliot. For the subsequent seven years, while frequently attending the same meetings and passing each other in the studio, we’d spoken only when necessary. But I neither longed for nor resented him, as I’d always sensed he believed. Though I’d been hurt and humiliated by his rejection, it had, I soon realized, freed me and offered clarity. I would never again risk poisoning TNO for myself by falling for or trying to date anyone there. And this decision made me see that there was a different way I wrote when, even subconsciously, I was seeking male approval, male sexual approval: a more coy way, more reserved, more nervous about being perceived as angry or vulgar. It was the syntactical equivalent of dressing up as a sexy zombie for Halloween. From my third season on, I’d embraced my anger and vulgarity. I’d been a gross zombie. I began writing about ostensibly female topics—camel toe and wage inequity, polycystic ovary syndrome and Jane Austen, Do-si-dos and Trefoils and mammograms and shapewear and Dirty Dancing and the so-called likeability of female politicians. By October of that year, I’d written my first viral sketch, Nancy Drew and the Disappearing Access to Abortion, in which Henrietta played the amateur detective. By December, I’d written my second, My Girlfriend Never Farts, which was a digital short that interspersed men at a bachelor party remarking on how their girlfriends and wives always smelled great and were hairless interspersed with shots of the women grunting and sweating as they moved a couch up a staircase, writhing on the toilet with explosive diarrhea, and giving instructions to an aesthetician who was waxing their buttholes. I didn’t try to be disgusting for the sake of being disgusting, but I didn’t try not to be disgusting. A few years after not reciprocating my feelings, Elliot appeared to develop an almost identical friendship with another new female writer except that I had the impression they were hooking up, but it didn’t last. The same season that Elliot became head writer, Nicola Dornan was a musical guest on the show, they began dating, and a year after that, they got married. This development did seem to vindicate his apparent belief that he shouldn’t have settled for me. Quite a few people from TNO had been invited to the wedding, and I hadn’t been one of them. All of which was to say, as we stood in the hallway outside his office, below a framed photo of a legendary


to do. “Where was Tea Cake’s family?” I would ask. “And what did Janie’s friend Pheoby do while Janie was gone?” I would later explore more purposefully deliberate questions about the book in a freshman English class at Barnard College, where Zora had also been a student in the 1920s. Hers were among the books in a glass case in the Barnard library that also highlighted other famous alumnae xvi Foreword authors, including the poet, playwright, and novelist Ntozake Shange. Each time I walked by that glass case, I felt my dream of becoming an author growing more and more attainable, partly because Zora and Ntozake were black women, like me. “Zora has lived in my country,” I happily told one of my classmates, “and now I am living in hers.” I liked to think that Zora was drawn to Haiti partly because of the many similarities between Haitian and Southern African-American culture. Zora was from an all-black town, run and governed by black people, and I was from a black republic, where Frederick Douglass had resided and where Katherine Dun- ham had studied and danced. In Tell My Horse, Zora finds an equivalent for the cunning Brer Rabbit of the Uncle Remus stories in Haiti’s sly Ti Malis of popular lore. And in the rural belief that our dead will one day return to Ginen, Africa, she uncovered echoes of the strong convictions of many of those who were forced on board slave ships for points of no return. There were so many things that I found familiar in Their Eyes Were Watching God: the dead-on orality in both the nar- ration and dialogue; the communal gatherings on open porches at dusk; the intimate storytelling (krik? krak!); the communal tall-tale sessions, both about real people who have erred (zen) and fictional folks who have hilariously blundered (blag). Her description of the elaborate burial of Janie’s pet mule reminded me of an incident that she detailed in Tell My Horse, in which Haitian president Antoine Simon ordered an elaborate Catholic funeral at the national Foreword xvii cathedral for his pet goat Simalo, something many Haitians would laugh about for years. In class at Barnard, we gladly raised structural questions about Their Eyes Were Watching God. Was it a love story or an adventure story? We decided it could be both, as many other complex novels are. Besides, don’t adventures often include romance? And aren’t all exciting romances adven- tures? We brought up issues that concerned us as young femi- nists and womanists. Was Janie Crawford a good female role model or was she solely defined by the men in her life? Many of us argued that Janie did not have to be a role model at all. She simply had to be a fully realized and com- plex character, which she was. She certainly manifested a will of her own in spite of the efforts of her grandmother and her two first husbands to dominate her, leaving her first husband when life with him grew unbearable, and taking off with Tea Cake


a cop are you tonight?” “You know exactly how much of a cop I am. What’s going on?” She sighs. “I burned down the lab,” she says, and we turn the corner. 4 This is how much of a cop I am. A long time ago when I first started working with the department there was a moment when maybe Musgrave and I might have had something. I’d blown in from—well, never mind. I did some fairly crazy things after Athena got her first dose, and I made some surprising friends. Musgrave and I were younger, dumber and hotter. We weren’t dating and we weren’t sleeping together, but we were thinking about it and we both knew that. I went to Musgrave’s house one night because she called me. It wasn’t the kind of call that says to shower before you go. I went anyway. I found her ex’s brain on the wall and the rest of him on the hall carpet. I found Musgrave holding the gun. She wouldn’t call the department. She wouldn’t say why. I found out later his brother was a captain in another town. I thought about what to do for about five seconds and realised I didn’t care. I liked Musgrave. I didn’t know the ex. There was no way to tell what happened, even if she wanted to say. Could be she’d lie, she just killed him. Could be he tried to kill her. No way to be sure. Not for me, not for anyone. Not for a jury or a tribunal. Which would mean she got fired. In the movies gangsters throw bodies into the lake, but in real life they swell up and escape unless you get that exactly right. You need a canvas bag and weights and a depth map and buying all those things at once can be hard to explain down the line. On the other hand there’s a natural spa hotel on the far shore called the Alaric where rich lawyers take people they shouldn’t, and kids from the bridge area think they’ll have their honeymoon. It has indoor-outdoor pools in the main garden and wooden hot tubs by the cabins among the trees. Back another three hundred metres there’s a section they don’t put in the brochure where what comes up out of the rock is mostly acid. The pools there look every bit as beautiful, but you really don’t want to bathe in them. A guy named Marlowe keeps the grounds and makes sure no one goes in. Marlowe and I get along fine. I never talk to Musgrave about that night and she never brings it up. Everyone assumes we slept together. Everyone assumes it was bad sex and we didn’t want to do it any more. They mostly assume that last part was my fault. * * * — I drive us to her house. I have only ever been inside that one time. Musgrave has a little remote on the dash and the garage door opens. I drive in. Musgrave heats a tin of


tonight? Braids or my Kim Kardashian wig?” “Braids?” Bezi asks. “You have time to do that?” “It’s a wig. It’s already braided up and everything.” Bezi presses her lips together. “Please tell me it’s not one of them Tyler Perry wigs. I can’t let you walk around like that.” “I mean, Madea’s lace is always melted to the gods.” “And everybody else’s wigs look like hot garbage.” “It’s not that bad.” Bezi looks skeptical. I laugh so hard, little tears roll out of my eyes. “I promise! It’s not that bad, and even if it was, it’ll be dark. Nobody will be able to tell it’s not real.” Bezi points to the camera. “If I see you running through the woods lookin’ like Omarion, I’m breaking up with you.” “Damn, really?” I say, laughing. I pull her close and kiss her again. She presses her forehead against mine, and I can feel her heart pounding as she presses her body close to mine. “Okay. Maybe I won’t break up with you, but I’ll never forgive you for it.” “We can’t just throw away two years together because of a bad wig,” I say. Bezi puckers her lips and raises her eyebrows. “You sure about that?” I laugh, kiss her one more time, and then turn and head out the door to get ready. “Hey, Charity,” Bezi calls after me. I glance back at her, and she narrows her eyes. “Be careful,” she says. “You know what happens to Black folks in slasher movies.” “I’m the final girl,” I say. “Guaranteed to survive the night.” “You better,” she says before closing the door. CHAPTER 4 That night, as the clock strikes eight and the game begins, the remaining staff, alongside Bezi and Paige, play their roles to perfection. All the guests meet their gruesome “deaths” at the hands of Kyle’s mask-wearing, machete-wielding alter ego. All except one. The young blond guy who was scared to death straight out of the gate. He started off by immediately abandoning his friends. Bezi was tracking him on the camera but then lost sight of him on the campgrounds for about thirty minutes. I don’t find him until she cues up the phantom footsteps and he scrambles out from under a supply shed. I’m leading him to the finish to let him know he’s won. He stayed hidden and avoided Kyle the entire night. It’s not necessary. I was gonna let him live regardless, but this guy hid for most of the game, and while his friends are probably gonna hate him for abandoning them, he’s a special kind of winner—another final survivor. Just like me. “Come on!” I yell frantically. “I—I think the people who work here took things too far! I’m really hurt!” The guy stares wide-eyed at my arm as I hold it tight against my body, fake blood dripping off my fingertips. “They can’t do that!” he screams, his voice cracking. “Wait. Can they do that? Can they hurt you?” “I—I don’t know. I didn’t think so.” I clench my jaw and turn


it off because love is a capitalist construct or some bullshit like that.” He shrugs. “But when I was younger, I was in a couple of relationships where the interest didn’t match up, and . . . It’s better to be upfront. So no one gets hurt.” “I see.” I picture a boy being told by his mother that he’s not her son anymore. Then growing up to hate the idea of telling a woman that she’s not his girlfriend anymore. It makes sense, this determination of his. It also makes my heart heavy. “What about you?” he asks. “Me?” “Do you date?” I smile. “For a living.” “Right. How did that start?” “Oh.” I go back to tracing patterns on the glass. “In college. It’s kind of a depressing story. Does not pair well with cheese.” I let out a nervous laugh, hoping he’ll laugh, too. Instead he asks, “Why depressing?” Honesty. Honesty. It’s a thing that I can probably manage. “Because . . . I didn’t know.” “You didn’t know you were dating someone?” “No.” I swallow. “I didn’t know it was fake.” His attention shifts. Still on me, still focused, but more cautious. Gentle. Land mine territory. “You didn’t.” I’ve never spoken aloud about what happened, not even with Cece, because . . . I’m still not sure how it could have happened to me. It’s been years, and it still doesn’t feel like my story. I’ve always been so guarded. So careful-footed. And when I stumbled, I didn’t just skin a knee. I fell facedown and knocked out all my teeth. “When I was a sophomore, this guy I knew moved abroad. The place he rented was cheap, so I took over his rent. That’s how I met J.J. He was the roommate.” I push the glass away. “I’d seen him around the Physics Department, and I thought he was an okay guy. Though he was planning on becoming an experimentalist.” “Should have tipped you off.” I laugh. “We spent almost one entire year politely ignoring each other. Ideal roommate situation. Then he broke up with his girlfriend.” I sigh. “It was messy. Twenty-year-old messy, you know? There were still feelings, but she’d met someone else, and . . . All I know is that a couple weeks later she came over to pick up her stuff, and she found J.J. and me having dinner together while watching something on TV. She went ballistic. She was so jealous, which was hilarious, since J.J. and I were sitting ten feet apart and I was having chickpeas—officially the least romantic food. But that’s how J.J. got the idea that we should pretend to be together so she’d get even more jealous and . . . I don’t know, race through Boston Logan to confess her undying love? It was a fuzzy plan. But I said yes, because . . .” “Because you weren’t any better than you are now at saying no?” “Hey—no personal callouts.” He smiles, and I continue. “We started the ruse, and . . . we didn’t


nothing to do with it." "All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don't affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject. You would not turn a hair. You would not believe that you were doing anything wrong. On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want you to do is simply what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body must be less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence against me. If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be discovered unless you help me." [91] "I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me." "Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before you came I almost fainted with terror. No! don't think of that. Look at the matter purely from the scientific point of view. You don't inquire where the dead things on which you experiment come from. Don't inquire now. I have told you too much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were friends once, Alan." "Don't speak about those days, Dorian: they are dead." "The dead linger sometimes. The man up-stairs will not go away. He is sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. Alan! Alan! if you don't come to my assistance I am ruined. Why, they will hang me, Alan! Don't you understand? They will hang me for what I have done." "There is no good in prolonging this scene. I refuse absolutely to do anything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me." "You refuse absolutely?" "Yes." The same look of pity came into Dorian's eyes, then he stretched out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. He read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the table. Having done this, he got up, and went over to the window. Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and opened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale, and he fell back in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. He felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow. After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round, and came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder. "I am so sorry, Alan," he murmured, "but you leave me no alternative. I have a letter written


out to hug her, but Ella slipped closer to the door. “How can I help you feel better?” she said. And be less of a drag, she thought. “I don’t want to go to that camp anymore.” “It’s the best camp around.” “Five stars on campers.com,” Louise said. “Whatever,” Ella said. Instead of calling Peter, Maud talked the problem through with Gabriel that night. “I should have known better.” She sighed. “When we got there the first day and the counselors were singing a good-morning song, Ella looked like she might kill someone. I wanted them to love it here so much.” “Can she skip it?” “And stay around here all day? No way. She needs structure. She’d just be on her phone.” The camp that Louise and Ella attended did offer a half-day horseback riding program for teens. But, Maud explained to Gabriel, in that case she’d have to pick up Ella at noon and then return again three hours later for Louise. Her workday would be chopped in two. “It sounds like the pain of having her unhappy in camp might be worse than the pain of picking her up early,” Gabriel said. “You might be right.” When, the next morning, she proposed the plan to Peter, he grunted. “Is it safe for her to be alone at Montgomery Place in the afternoons?” “I’m so close by. The director is in and out of her office. Construction’s done in the mansion, so no one else is around these days.” “What about that guy?” “What guy?” Did he mean Gabriel? Peter hadn’t mentioned him since that phone call on the porch. “The one that helps you. She told me he freaks her out.” “Chris? She’s misinterpreting signals. I hope you reinforced that with her.” “I’ve never met the man,” Peter said icily. “I’m simply reporting what our daughter said.” “Anyway, I was going to tell Ella to stay inside when she’s alone. That’ll be one of the rules.” If Ella were a boy, Maud thought after hanging up, would they have had that conversation? During her childhood, she used to ride her bike, helmetless, all over Burlingame. The risks existed—that man at the swimming pool—but her parents didn’t seem to register them. After school, they had no idea where she was, and as long as she showed up for dinner, no one worried. Even if she was late, no one worried; instead, they yelled at her for not checking her watch. Maybe her parents’ generation had been naive about the dangers, but parenting now seemed to demand an unhealthy level of paranoia. That afternoon, she offered Ella a deal. She could switch to the camp’s half-day horseback riding program. “But your dad and I don’t want you on your phone or watching TV all afternoon, so you’re going to have to figure out a project.” Ella leaped up from the couch and hugged her. “I’ll read half a book a week.” “A book a week.” “Thanks, Mom,” Ella said, hugging Maud again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” By the following


his stories of four p.m. social hours, bland barbecues with ancient neighbors. He’d caddy in the summer and write masterpiece letters to his Granby friends, cartoons in the margins. Since Geoff was on my mind, I asked if Mr. Levin remembered him. I brought him up partly as an antidote to Dorian Culler, a reminder to myself that not every boy at Granby had been a jerk. “We struggled through geometry together,” I said, when really Geoff swung an A despite our note-passing, and grew up to be a noted economist. Geoff essentially lived in the Granby darkroom. The nearest Rite Aid was in Kern, so Geoff processed film not only for the yearbook and the Sentinel but had a side hustle for kids who wanted personal shots developed. Even photography students had to sign up on the darkroom schedule, but Geoff finagled a key and unlimited use in exchange for maintenance. I’d find him there during free periods or after dinner. I’d perch on the table and we’d talk, red light illuminating our faces like campfire. Mr. Levin said, “I remember every student. You’d think my brain would be full after thirty years, but no.” “I don’t even remember last year’s students,” Fran said. “Quiz him!” called one of the young teachers from the end of the table. “We should go get, like, the 1970 yearbook!” Mr. Levin cleared his throat and asked exactly how old they thought he was. A ruckus, then, of laughter and teasing. Mr. Levin was born in 1962. One woman at the table coached crew, and was thrilled to learn I’d rowed. “I wish you were here in warm weather!” she said. “We’d get you out with us!” It was in that same dining hall that Karen King and Laura Tamman had stopped me with a survey, the first week of school. They asked how much I’d grown in the past year. “Not much,” I said, bewildered, and they seemed unduly pleased. They asked if I considered myself a leader or follower, if I was a morning person. Then Laura said, “You’d be perfect for crew.” I hadn’t arrived early for preseason—had signed up for PE instead, not understanding that PE was for hard-core smokers and kids with heart issues, that preseason was when everyone bonded and forged friend groups. I told them I’d never been in a boat and my arms weren’t strong. I didn’t add that crew seemed like something for girls named Ashley. I didn’t add that I was overweight (only a bit, but enormously so in my mind) and worried I’d tip the boat. “No one has experience,” Karen said. “That’s the beauty.” She said I’d have a year to row novice, with and against girls who’d never rowed before. She explained it was about your core and legs. She got me out of PE that afternoon to try the erg, which turned out to be a rowing machine like the one in the Robesons’ basement. The crew girls were hilarious and tough, kids who made fun of the sports where you


for a time." "Gone away! When was you married, then? The day you said?" "Yes, Tuesday, mother." "And now 'tis on'y Saturday, and he gone away?" "Yes, he's gone." "What's the meaning o' that? 'Nation seize such husbands as you seem to get, say I!" "Mother!" Tess went across to Joan Durbeyfield, laid her face upon the matron's bosom, and burst into sobs. "I don't know how to tell 'ee, mother! You said to me, and wrote to me, that I was not to tell him. But I did tell him--I couldn't help it--and he went away!" "O you little fool--you little fool!" burst out Mrs Durbeyfield, splashing Tess and herself in her agitation. "My good God! that ever I should ha' lived to say it, but I say it again, you little fool!" Tess was convulsed with weeping, the tension of so many days having relaxed at last. "I know it--I know--I know!" she gasped through her sobs. "But, O my mother, I could not help it! He was so good--and I felt the wickedness of trying to blind him as to what had happened! If--if--it were to be done again--I should do the same. I could not--I dared not--so sin--against him!" "But you sinned enough to marry him first!" "Yes, yes; that's where my misery do lie! But I thought he could get rid o' me by law if he were determined not to overlook it. And O, if you knew--if you could only half know how I loved him--how anxious I was to have him--and how wrung I was between caring so much for him and my wish to be fair to him!" Tess was so shaken that she could get no further, and sank a helpless thing into a chair. "Well, well; what's done can't be undone! I'm sure I don't know why children o' my bringing forth should all be bigger simpletons than other people's--not to know better than to blab such a thing as that, when he couldn't ha' found it out till too late!" Here Mrs Durbeyfield began shedding tears on her own account as a mother to be pitied. "What your father will say I don't know," she continued; "for he's been talking about the wedding up at Rolliver's and The Pure Drop every day since, and about his family getting back to their rightful position through you--poor silly man!--and now you've made this mess of it! The Lord-a-Lord!" As if to bring matters to a focus, Tess's father was heard approaching at that moment. He did not, however, enter immediately, and Mrs Durbeyfield said that she would break the bad news to him herself, Tess keeping out of sight for the present. After her first burst of disappointment Joan began to take the mishap as she had taken Tess's original trouble, as she would have taken a wet holiday or failure in the potato-crop; as a thing which had come upon them irrespective of desert or folly; a chance external impingement to be borne with; not a lesson. Tess retreated upstairs and beheld


Old Clem! One day soon after the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the impatient movement of her fingers, "There, there, there! Sing!" I was surprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed her over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy, that she took it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in her sleep. After that, it became customary with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would often join in; though the whole strain was so subdued, even when there were three of us, that it made less noise in the grim old house than the lightest breath of wind. What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms? Perhaps, I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had not previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which I had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly fail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger to be put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of him. Besides: that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time went on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but, I told poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though I think I know now. Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind, that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him - as it were, to operate upon - and he would drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, "Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be for ever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, Mum, with respections to this boy!" And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way - which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do - and


you didn't have to go through all this. "Mr. Jem," Reverend Sykes demurred, "this ain't a polite thing for little ladies to hear..." "Aw, she doesn't know what we're talkin' about," said Jem. "Scout, this is too old for you, ain't it?" "It most certainly is not, I know every word you're saying." Perhaps I was too convincing, because Jem hushed and never discussed the subject again. "What time is it, Reverend?" he asked. "Gettin' on toward eight." I looked down and saw Atticus strolling around with his hands in his pockets: he made a tour of the windows, then walked by the railing over to the jury box. He looked in it, inspected Judge Taylor on his throne, then went back to where he started. I caught his eye and waved to him. He acknowledged my salute with a nod, and resumed his tour. Mr. Gilmer was standing at the windows talking to Mr. Underwood. Bert, the court reporter, was chain-smoking: he sat back with his feet on the table. But the officers of the court, the ones present- Atticus, Mr. Gilmer, Judge Taylor sound asleep, and Bert, were the only ones whose behavior seemed normal. I had never seen a packed courtroom so still. Sometimes a baby would cry out fretfully, and a child would scurry out, but the grown people sat as if they were in church. In the balcony, the Negroes sat and stood around us with biblical patience. The old courthouse clock suffered its preliminary strain and struck the hour, eight deafening bongs that shook our bones. When it bonged eleven times I was past feeling: tired from fighting sleep, I allowed myself a short nap against Reverend Sykes's comfortable arm and shoulder. I jerked awake and made an honest effort to remain so, by looking down and concentrating on the heads below: there were sixteen bald ones, fourteen men that could pass for redheads, forty heads varying between brown and black, and- I remembered something Jem had once explained to me when he went through a brief period of psychical research: he said if enough people- a stadium full, maybe- were to concentrate on one thing, such as setting a tree afire in the woods, that the tree would ignite of its own accord. I toyed with the idea of asking everyone below to concentrate on setting Tom Robinson free, but thought if they were as tired as I, it wouldn't work. Dill was sound asleep, his head on Jem's shoulder, and Jem was quiet. "Ain't it a long time?" I asked him. "Sure is, Scout," he said happily. "Well, from the way you put it, it'd just take five minutes." Jem raised his eyebrows. "There are things you don't understand," he said, and I was too weary to argue. But I must have been reasonably awake, or I would not have received the impression that was creeping into me. It was not unlike one I had last winter, and I shivered, though the night was hot. The feeling grew until the atmosphere in the courtroom


the more ambiguous “flatmate.” Grace: Absolutely not Erin: Is he tall? Olu: Depends how close you are. If she’s your best friend then no but if you just know her like if you saw her on the street you might not even wave, then it’s fine Megan: Were they official or was it some kind of 2 week thing Debs: How did they end things? If he cheated on her that means you don’t care about her feelings or how the relationship affected her. If it was amicable then I don’t see why not Maddie Jo’s ex (casual sex, no relationship I think) asked me out to dinner. Should I go? Shu Who’s Jo? Nia Is he nice? Maddie Jo’s my flatmate I think so Nia You could use some nice Shu The one we don’t like? Go for it. You and her ain’t even close so why not? Maddie Well, if we look at Dante’s Inferno, the ninth circle of Hell is reserved for women who betray other women. Shu Who the fuck is Dante Inferno? Nia If you want to feel less guilty maybe you should talk to Jo See how she feels But you know you don’t have to say yes when a guy asks you out Right? Maddie I know Shu I have to get back to work. I’ll check in later Maddie Sorry, Shu. I forget you don’t like group chats Nia You don’t have to date if you don’t want to. If it were me, after the couple of months you’ve had, I’d move to the woods Maddie It has been pretty full on, huh? Nia Talk to Jo Update us Shu If she tries to swing at you lemme know After work I find Jo in the garden sat in a chair with her head back, appealing to the lowering sun. “Mind if I sit?” With trepidation, she responds, “Sure.” Her top is off-shoulder and thin blue veins trail her skin, whilst brown freckles fill in the gaps. I think about how I’ve only noticed how many freckles she has nearing the end of my time here. “Firstly, I’m going to be moving out to live with my friend Nia.” She looks at me. “Why aren’t you telling this to Cam, too?” “She already knows.” Jo pushes her mouth down and shrugs subtly. “Secondly, Sam came into OTP. We’re hoping to publish his next set of illustrations. He asked me to have dinner with him and I’m going to say yes.” Jo breathes through her nose, and rubs her left eye with the heel of her palm. “I knew it,” she says. “He kept looking at you.” She turns away to stare at the ground. Where Sam sat only yesterday. “Here, in the garden for my birthday. I thought you were genuinely oblivious, then you went to ‘stretch your legs’ and he followed.” I hear her quote marks. “That is what happened, at least on my end,” I tell her. “It wasn’t orchestrated.” “You sure?” “Why would we do that?” Jo returns her attention to


forgetting to be dignified and jumping up quickly. "Let's go out to the orchard and get some of the Red Sweetings, Diana. Marilla says we can have all that are left on the tree. Marilla is a very generous woman. She said we could have fruit cake and cherry preserves for tea. But it isn't good manners to tell your company what you are going to give them to eat, so I won't tell you what she said we could have to drink. Only it begins with an R and a C and it's bright red color. I love bright red drinks, don't you? They taste twice as good as any other color." The orchard, with its great sweeping boughs that bent to the ground with fruit, proved so delightful that the little girls spent most of the afternoon in it, sitting in a grassy corner where the frost had spared the green and the mellow autumn sunshine lingered warmly, eating apples and talking as hard as they could. Diana had much to tell Anne of what went on in school. She had to sit with Gertie Pye and she hated it; Gertie squeaked her pencil all the time and it just made her-Diana's-blood run cold; Ruby Gillis had charmed all her warts away, true's you live, with a magic pebble that old Mary Joe from the Creek gave her. You had to rub the warts with the pebble and then throw it away over your left shoulder at the time of the new moon and the warts would all go. Charlie Sloane's name was written up with Em White's on the porch wall and Em White was AWFUL MAD about it; Sam Boulter had "sassed" Mr. Phillips in class and Mr. Phillips whipped him and Sam's father came down to the school and dared Mr. Phillips to lay a hand on one of his children again; and Mattie Andrews had a new red hood and a blue crossover with tassels on it and the airs she put on about it were perfectly sickening; and Lizzie Wright didn't speak to Mamie Wilson because Mamie Wilson's grown-up sister had cut out Lizzie Wright's grown-up sister with her beau; and everybody missed Anne so and wished she's come to school again; and Gilbert BlytheBut Anne didn't want to hear about Gilbert Blythe. She jumped up hurriedly and said suppose they go in and have some raspberry cordial. Anne looked on the second shelf of the room pantry but there was no bottle of raspberry cordial there . Search revealed it away back on the top shelf. Anne put it on a tray and set it on the table with a tumbler. "Now, please help yourself, Diana," she said politely. "I don't believe I'll have any just now. I don't feel as if I wanted any after all those apples." Diana poured herself out a tumblerful, looked at its bright-red hue admiringly, and then sipped it daintily. "That's awfully nice raspberry cordial, Anne," she said. "I didn't know raspberry cordial was so nice." "I'm real


themselves, the big, heavy, solid unrealities, such as gold, landed estate, offices of trust and emolument, and public honors. With these materials, and with deeds of goodly aspect, done in the public eye, an individual of this class builds up, as it were, a tall and stately edifice, which, in the view of other people, and ultimately in his own view, is no other than the man's character, or the man himself. Behold, therefore, a palace! Its splendid halls and suites of spacious apartments are floored with a mosaic-work of costly marbles; its windows, the whole height of each room, admit the sunshine through the most transparent of plate-glass; its high cornices are gilded, and its ceilings gorgeously painted; and a lofty dome--through which, from the central pavement, you may gaze up to the sky, as with no obstructing medium between--surmounts the whole. With what fairer and nobler emblem could any man desire to shadow forth his character? Ah! but in some low and obscure nook, --some narrow closet on the ground-floor, shut, locked and bolted, and the key flung away,--or beneath the marble pavement, in a stagnant water-puddle, with the richest pattern of mosaic-work above,--may lie a corpse, half decayed, and still decaying, and diffusing its death-scent all through the palace! The inhabitant will not be conscious of it, for it has long been his daily breath! Neither will the visitors, for they smell only the rich odors which the master sedulously scatters through the palace, and the incense which they bring, and delight to burn before him! Now and then, perchance, comes in a seer, before whose sadly gifted eye the whole structure melts into thin air, leaving only the hidden nook, the bolted closet, with the cobwebs festooned over its forgotten door, or the deadly hole under the pavement, and the decaying corpse within. Here, then, we are to seek the true emblem of the man's character, and of the deed that gives whatever reality it possesses to his life. And, beneath the show of a marble palace, that pool of stagnant water, foul with many impurities, and, perhaps, tinged with blood,--that secret abomination, above which, possibly, he may say his prayers, without remembering it,--is this man's miserable soul! To apply this train of remark somewhat more closely to Judge Pyncheon. We might say (without in the least imputing crime to a personage of his eminent respectability) that there was enough of splendid rubbish in his life to cover up and paralyze a more active and subtile conscience than the Judge was ever troubled with. The purity of his judicial character, while on the bench; the faithfulness of his public service in subsequent capacities; his devotedness to his party, and the rigid consistency with which he had adhered to its principles, or, at all events, kept pace with its organized movements; his remarkable zeal as president of a Bible society; his unimpeachable integrity as treasurer of a widow's and orphan's fund; his benefits to horticulture, by producing two much esteemed varieties of the pear and to agriculture, through the


included. “Banoffee pie ice-cream sundae,” he announces. “You’ve got caramelized bananas, crumbled cookies and shortbread, salted caramel sauce, and the ever humble vanilla ice cream.” I smile at his enthusiasm. “You know, Ben, as the night proceeds, the less I believe you’re really single.” I take the sundae he offers me. “Somewhere upstairs, behind one of your many doors, is a thriving harem.” “You couldn’t be further from the truth,” he says. “Can you imagine me having to make this dinner five or six more times?” This time when he sits at the table, he pulls out the chair next to him. When I’m seated, he uses his leg to drag the chair closer to him, but I stick my spoon in my sundae. I think of Cam’s friend being ghosted by the man who brought her flowers and then shortly after had his hand in someone else’s hair. I have to ask. “Are you single, Ben?” He doesn’t waver. “I am. Are you?” “Of course I am. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” Ben tilts his head. “You have this real innocent thing about you.” I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or not; I don’t know whether I want him to think I am or not. So I sit and eat my ice cream. “I think the opposite of you,” I finally admit. “Not that you’re not-innocent, but rather … experienced.” I twirl a finger around the kitchen. “You’ve done this before. It’s been such a smooth night, there’s no doubt you’ve done this before.” “I don’t deny it,” he says. I have to wait for him to swallow his ice cream before he continues. “Last year, I came out of a four-year relationship.” Four years? “What happened? If you don’t mind me asking.” “We grew apart,” he says. “It took me a while to accept that, sometimes, nothing is wrong.” He looks calm as he says it, maybe a little sad even. “Growing up and apart—it can happen.” “Growing up” catches me off guard because he’s thirty-four. He’s already grown up, but then I realize how naive that sounds. I don’t think you turn thirty and become immune to mistake-making or lesson-learning. You grow wiser (supposedly) but never omniscient. There’s always something you need to be taught, and so you keep learning and you keep growing up—until you’re dead. But I don’t know that feeling and I’m having difficulty imagining it. Ben has experienced real love, having a partner, another half. He’s grown older with someone, experienced life with them, years, milestones, celebrations as well as lamentations. It’s a mature response to the end of all of that, to the end of four years with someone you no longer see. “Do you date much, Maddie?” I don’t want to tell him my last date was eight years ago at Nando’s and that my ex had brought his friends along so we could all share the platter. But his response was so honest I can’t find it in me to lie. “No, not much at all,” I admit.


they are curious: both are disappointed." "I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do everything you say." "Whom are you in love with?" said Lord Henry, looking at him with a curious smile. "With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing. Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "That is a rather common-place dbut," he murmured. "You would not say so if you saw her, Harry." "Who is she?" "Her name is Sibyl Vane." "Never heard of her." "No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius." "My dear boy, no woman is a genius: women are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. They represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as we men represent the triumph of mind over morals. There are only two kinds of women, the plain and the colored. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try to look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try to talk brilliantly. Rouge and esprit used to go together. That has all gone out now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known her?" "About three weeks. Not so much. About two weeks and two days." "How did you come across her?" "I will tell you, Harry; but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it. After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you. You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins. As I lounged in the Park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one who passed me, and wonder with a mad curiosity what sort of lives they led. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There was an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations. "One evening about seven o'clock I determined to go out in search of some adventure. I felt that this gray, monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its splendid sinners, and its sordid sins, as [25] you once said, must have something in store for me. I fancied a thousand things. "The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful night when we first dined together, about the search for beauty being the poisonous secret of life. I don't know what I expected, but I went out, and wandered eastward, soon


Havisham?" "It is Havisham." This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite to him, I faced my green and yellow friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a maid-servant whom I had never seen in all my comings and goings, but who, for anything I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole time. After dinner, a bottle of choice old port was placed before my guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the vintage), and the two ladies left us. Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers under that roof, I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept his very looks to himself, and scarcely directed his eyes to Estella's face once during dinner. When she spoke to him, he listened, and in due course answered, but never looked at her, that I could see. On the other hand, she often looked at him, with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his face never, showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took a dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower, by often referring in conversation with me to my expectations; but here, again, he showed no consciousness, and even made it appear that he extorted - and even did extort, though I don't know how - those references out of my innocent self. And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him of general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that really was too much for me. He cross-examined his very wine when he had nothing else in hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted the port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his glass again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and cross-examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I had known the wine to be telling him something to my disadvantage. Three or four times I feebly thought I would start conversation; but whenever he saw me going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his hand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me to take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn't answer. I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her in the danger of being goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her cap - which was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop - and strewing the ground with her hair - which assuredly had never grown on her head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss Havisham's room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels from her dressing-table into Estella's hair, and about her bosom and arms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick


and dragging Bezi along behind me. I stumble over my own feet as we reach the end. From behind us, the hatch creaks open. I climb up the ladder under the boathouse, and Bezi scrambles up after me as footsteps echo down the tunnel, rumbling toward us. Bezi moves to the door, but I stop. “Wait,” I say, panting. “For what?” Bezi shrieks. I grab an oar from the rack beside the stacked-up canoes and hold it high above my head. There’s a scuffling at the bottom of the ladder, and then the blond woman I saw in the woods sticks her head out of the hatch. I bring the oar down as hard as I can, and it lands right on the top of her head with a sickening crack. She slumps forward, her torso on the ground in the boathouse, her legs hanging down the hatch. She groans and then lapses into unconsciousness as blood pools on the dusty floor under her head. “Oh my god!” Bezi screams. I lift the oar again, preparing to bring it down on the next person who pops up, but there’s no one. It’s quiet. I toss the oar aside and loop my arms under the woman’s armpits. “Help me, Bezi!” Bezi grabs the woman’s collar, and we wrench her up and out of the hatch. Bezi slams the trapdoor closed and slides a canoe over it as I tie the woman’s hands and feet with a length of 550 cord we keep in the boathouse. She’s breathing, but the blood is still flowing from her head in crimson rivulets. I move to the door and peer out. The front doors of the Western Lodge are sitting open and the window overlooking the front porch is shattered. I cup my hand over my earpiece. “Kyle?” The static crackles and pops, and then Kyle’s voice comes out. “I’m here.” “Is the generator working? Can you see anything on the cameras?” “Yeah,” he says. “And somebody was in here when I showed up.” “What? Are you okay?” “No,” Kyle says, his voice trembling. “I—I had to hurt him. He jumped on me and—and . . .” “Kyle, listen to me,” I say. “It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do.” He sighs into the mic. “I don’t think he’s dead, but I used my knife. Charity, am I gonna go to jail?” My heart breaks open, and I’m so angry that he even has to think about that when all he did was defend himself against somebody who was probably trying to kill him. I worry that maybe Sheriff Lillard will say this is all our fault, that defending ourselves against these people is somehow worse than them trying to kill us. “Don’t worry about that right now,” I say to him and to myself. “I need to know if you can see anything on the cameras.” There’s a pause. “Some of the screens are out,” he says, his voice choked with fear and worry. “Two people are turning over the staff cabins.”


yesterday? What an imbecile. Fighting another laugh, Lucy glanced behind her. “Aren’t you afraid of the scandal that might come if we’re discovered here alone?” Simon moved in closer, though he worried what might happen if he touched her, so he kept an appropriate distance. Perhaps this was only a dream. “I suppose I would be forced to marry you,” he said with a wavering voice. He cleared his throat, hoping that would help. Lucy cocked her head. “Are you afraid of me, Simon?” His stomach dipped. “Immensely.” “Why?” Her suppressed grin only touched half her mouth, and it was driving Simon mad. “You make me nervous,” he admitted. The vulnerability felt good to admit. “I never know how to act around you.” “This coming from the man who chased down a coach to propose to me just yesterday?” Technically, she hadn’t given him an answer to that proposal, which was part of the reason he hesitated now. Lucy never said anything she didn’t mean. Did that mean she didn’t want to marry him? She crossed the distance between them and put a hand on his chest, sending shivers throughout his entire body. “Why weren’t you afraid yesterday?” she asked, probably thinking it was an easy question to answer. It wasn’t. The answer was terrifying. “I had already lost you,” he said quietly, “so the risk wasn’t there. Now I fear I will scare you off again.” Moving in closer, Lucy didn’t stop until she was close enough that her skirts brushed his knees. “You didn’t scare me off.” “I did, and you know it.” “I lied to you about everything, so perhaps we can call it even?” She asked the question in jest, but Simon could feel the real fear behind her words. She worried he wouldn’t forgive her for her deceit. He would have thought his proposal yesterday would have eased her worries, but perhaps he needed to be a little clearer. Swallowing his nerves, he took both her hands, enveloping them in each of his and holding them to his chest. “Lucy Hayes, I don’t blame you for anything that happened, and I never will. Do you believe me?” He punctuated that question with a brief kiss because he hoped it would convince her but also because he really wanted to kiss her. She smiled against his lips. “I might need more convincing. I told a good many lies.” Simon kissed her again. “So does Forester.” “Do you kiss him too?” “He has never let me.” As soon as those words left his mouth, Simon made a face of alarm, his eyes wide as his face burned hot. “Oh heavens, that sounded—” Lucy cut him off, grabbing his jacket and pulling him in for a kiss that stole his breath. For a moment, he forgot what they were even talking about, but when his fingers got tangled in her hair, he reluctantly fell back into reality as he tried to free himself. Laughing, Lucy undid the pins holding her hair up. Seeing her long hair down like that nearly


the lowdown on Peanut. “But painting makes you feel better.” “Not anymore.” “I refuse to believe that.” “I painted a hundred faces the other night, and it was pure torture.” Sue took that in. “Okay. If that’s how it is right now.” “That’s how it is right now.” “Take some you time, then. Binge-watch something.” “I can’t watch TV anymore,” I said. Sue was aghast. “Why not?” “Because of the face blindness.” “I keep forgetting about that.” “I can’t tell the characters apart.” “Wow,” Sue said, “what a nightmare.” “It’s been a nightmare this whole time!” “But now I really get it.” “That’s what made you get it?” “That,” Sue conceded, “and those images you texted me of upside-down faces. I, like, couldn’t recognize any of those people. Not one. And then you sent the right-side-up version, and I was like, ‘Oh! There’s Michelle Obama! And Julie Andrews! And Liam Hemsworth!’” “Are you telling me,” I said, “that if Liam Hemsworth walked past you with his face upside down, you wouldn’t even know?” “I’d have no idea.” “Welcome to my life. I pass a hundred Liam Hemsworths a day.” Sue sighed like she was really getting it. Then she said, “It’s his loss, though. Never forget that.” * * * SO THAT’S HOW I spent my me time for the next few days: trying to shrink the edema in my fusiform face gyrus through sheer force of will and delivering meals of international delicacies to my beloved dog several times a day as he fought for his life in the ICU. I confess that, after that first day, I always got a little gussied up before heading to the vet clinic. “It’s for Peanut,” I told Sue on the phone. “He wouldn’t want to see me looking dowdy.” But, in truth, I had to redeem those baby-doll pajamas. In general, I made it a rule to never not be okay in front of anyone. Especially not future husbands. All I could do was hope that Dr. Addison had been far too fixated on Peanut that first morning to really notice the falling-apart me. I mean, he probably hadn’t missed the copious sobbing. But maybe he saw that all the time anyway. The point was, some things couldn’t be helped. But from now on, I would not burst into any more tears at that clinic. I would show up looking a hundred percent “Fine, thank you, and yourself?” As a point of pride. Which was the only saving grace on the evening of Peanut’s third overnight stay there, when the pad Thai I’d ordered from his favorite spot got held up in traffic during delivery—and, desperately trying to move fast when I was still forbidden to run, I race-walked the two blocks in a ridiculous pair of heels—only to arrive just as Dr. Addison was locking up. I knew it was him with certainty. Because all the other vets in the practice were female. Also because of his godlike glow. “I’m so sorry,” I said, out of breath. “The delivery was late.” I


As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone at his fine lineaments fixed in study I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducing permanently to his happiness, or hers. I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes Christian and Pagan her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold, cumbrous column, gloomy, and out of place.     "This parlor is not his sphere," I reflected; "the Himalayan ridge, or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp, would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate they cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked that he will speak and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary's career I see it now."     "They are coming! they are coming!" cried Hannah, throwing open the parlor door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary's soft cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughed kissed me then Hannah; patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight, asked eagerly if all was well; and, being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.     They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night-air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful fire-light. While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from the parlor. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlor, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.     I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. They were


You still wanted that, right?” Yes. I did. I said, “I don’t want them to kill him. I don’t—” “No, I know.” I said, “It’s out of my hands now. Which feels good. Or at least it’s supposed to feel good.” Geoff pulled me onto him, stroked my hair. For context, I suppose I do need to explain here that Geoff and I had found ourselves in my bed. I don’t feel like telling you more than that. It’s none of your business. Geoff said, “What do you think the Serenhos are doing right now?” I couldn’t imagine. All I knew was that Robbie had lawyers, and probably his lawyers had lawyers. He was well-connected, after all. A Granby alum. 35 When I arrived for freshman year in August of ’91, Severn Robeson walked me around the unchanged parts of campus. The dining hall, Old Chapel, New Chapel, the library. He walked me into Couchman, his old dorm, to my excruciating embarrassment. Surely I wasn’t allowed in here. But no one looked at us twice; maybe they assumed I was dropping off my brother. The broad wooden window frames in the Couchman common were carved within an inch of their lives—initials, dates, names. With visible pleasure, Severn found, in the corner of one frame, the initials SDR. “There I am!” he said. “Ah, that’s gratifying. Like I never left.” I’d seen plenty of graffiti back in Indiana, but that was the vandalism of the bored, the desperate, those trapped in a horrible town and ready to desecrate it. This, though—this was a thing of beauty, these lasting marks. Like someone had summitted a mountain and wanted to leave a mark, to say I was here. I think about this a lot. When someone asks if I liked boarding school, I can no longer base my answer, my judgment, on the people I knew. Once, I might have thought of you. I might have thought of any number of people who weren’t what I once believed. But I can still love the place itself, as a place, as smells and echoes and angles of light, as surfaces etched deep with their own history. If Mike Stiles first knew he belonged at Granby when he saw those memorial plaques, I felt something similar in the Couchman common. It wasn’t destiny I felt—just that this was a place where someone could claim a small corner, a place where, by the end of four years, I’d be able to say I was part of something. Somewhere on campus, I’d find a place to leave a piece of myself. I was here. I was here. 36 Alder and Britt and Geoff all individually related the bizarre scene that had rolled out Thursday morning, the same morning I’d spent lying in bed staring at CNN, at global calamities that made the entire state of New Hampshire feel microscopic. Robbie, his face pale and swollen, had taken the stand with his lawyer right behind him—“hovering over him like a puppeteer,” Geoff said. Britt said, “I had no idea they


the admirable preacher was looking down from the sacred pulpit upon an audience whose very inmost spirits had yielded to his control. The sainted minister in the church! The woman of the scarlet letter in the marketplace! What imagination would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both! Thesaurus awaited: (adj) expected, appointed, enlivening, recuperative, sunburnt: (adj) brown, burnt, gloomy, scheduled, forthcoming, prospective. reanimating, promoting fiery, sallow, adust. conceiving: (n) fantasy, daydream; recuperation, giving life. surmise: (n, v) guess; (v) suppose, (adj) imaginant, original. ANTONYM: (adj) soothing. suspect, presume, imagine, divine, languidly: (adv) languorously, scorching: (adj) hot, sweltering, doubt; (n) hypothesis, supposition, listlessly, wearily, lethargically, scalding, baking, broiling, boiling, speculation, assumption. slowly, dreamily, limply, weakly, sultry, stifling, torrid; (v) fiery, ANTONYMS: (n) knowledge, torpidly, indolently, impassively. flaming. ANTONYMS: (adj) cold, measurement. ANTONYMS: (adv) dynamically, fresh, cool. worn-out: (adj) stale, trite, threadbare, vigorously. sear: (v) burn, char, cauterize, parch, worn, hackneyed, jaded, old, run- reviving: (adj) bracing, restorative, scald, brand, fry, singe, broil; (adj, v) down, dilapidated, disabled, beat. renewing, refreshing, revival, brisk, dry; (adj) sere. yielded: (v) yold, yolden. Nathaniel Hawthorne 239 CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER The eloquent voice, on which the souls of the listening audience had been borne aloft as on the swelling waves of the sea, at length came to a pause. There was a momentary silence, profound as what should follow the utterance of oracles. Then ensued a murmur and half-hushed tumult, as if the auditors, released from the high spell that had transported them into the region of another's mind, were returning into themselves, with all their awe and wonder still heavy on them. In a moment more the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the church. Now that there was an end, they needed more breath, more fit to support the gross and earthly life into which they relapsed, than that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame, and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his thought.% In the open air their rapture broke into speech. The street and the market- place absolutely babbled, from side to side, with applauses of the minister. His hearers could not rest until they had told one another of what each knew better than he could tell or hear. According to their united testimony, never had man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this day; nor had inspiration ever Thesaurus eloquent: (adj) glib, fluent, persuasive, lecturer, clergyman, evangelist, themselves: (pron) myself, itself, expressive, meaningful, significant, pastor, priest, sermonizer, revivalist, yourself; (n) yourselves. graphic, vivid, speaking, forcible, gospeler, preachers. transported: (adj) ecstatic, rapt, elated, moving. ANTONYMS: (adj) swelling: (n) protuberance, lump, inspirited, spellbound, exultant, incoherent, innocent, swell, intumescence, growth, puffed up, proud, delighted, elate; straightforward, weak. projection, prominence, bulge, (adv) on cloud nine. ANTONYM: fragrance: (n, v) aroma, perfume, dropsy; (adj, v) inflated; (adj) (adj) dejected. scent, smell; (n) bouquet, odor, growing. ANTONYM: (n) decline. utterance: (n) pronunciation, essence, odour, redolence, sweetness; testimony: (n,


trailing down the corridor. It was thrown by a man who walked softly down the passage with a candle held in his hand. He was in shirt and trousers, with no covering to his feet. I could merely see the outline, but his height told me that it was Barrymore. He walked very slowly and circumspectly, and there was something indescribably guilty and furtive in his whole appearance. I have told you that the corridor is broken by the balcony which runs round the hall, but that it is resumed upon the farther side. I waited until he had passed out of sight and then I followed him. When I came round the balcony he had reached the end of the farther corridor, and I could see from the glimmer of light through an open door that he had entered one of the rooms. Now, all these rooms are unfurnished and unoccupied so that his expedition became more mysterious than ever. The light shone steadily as if he were standing motionless. I crept down the passage as noiselessly as I could and peeped round the corner of the door. Barrymore was crouching at the window with the candle held against the glass. His profile was half turned towards me, and his face seemed to be rigid with expectation as he stared out into the blackness of the moor. For some minutes he stood watching intently. Then he gave a deep groan and with an impatient gesture he put out the light. Instantly I made my way back to my room, and very shortly came the stealthy steps passing once more upon their return journey. Long afterwards when I had fallen into a light sleep I heard a key turn somewhere in a lock, but I could not tell whence the sound came. What it all means I cannot guess, but there is some secret business going on in this house of gloom which sooner or later we shall get to the bottom of. I do not trouble you with my theories, for you asked me to furnish you only with facts. I have had a long talk with Sir Henry this morning, and we have made a plan of campaign founded upon my observations of last night. I will not speak about it just now, but it should make my next report interesting reading. Chapter 9 Second Report of Dr. Watson THE LIGHT UPON THE MOOR Baskerville Hall, Oct. 15th. MY DEAR HOLMES: If I was compelled to leave you without much news during the early days of my mission you must acknowledge that I am making up for lost time, and that events are now crowding thick and fast upon us. In my last report I ended upon my top note with Barrymore at the window, and now I have quite a budget already which will, unless I am much mistaken, considera- bly surprise you. Things have taken a turn which I could not have anticipated. In some ways they have within the last forty- eight hours become much clearer and


been gradual. The challenge was whether McMurdo could compress an evolutionary process that normally took millions of years, to be the first species to achieve evolution as rapid as their extinction. Echo’s teacher was Professor Lili, originally an academic from Shanghai and one of the oldest people in Hope Town. Seventy years old, the only survivor from her family, she’d lost four fingers to frostbite in the first winter on the ice. She lived on the school premises, sleeping in the library, under a Van Gogh original. There were no computers in the school; computers were as fragile as people, vulnerable to the cold and could only be maintained in specially built accommodation, forcing the teachers to pass on information through story-telling and hard copies of texts, handled with as much care as sacred scrolls, since they couldn’t be replaced. There were no publishing houses, no timber for paper and no new books. Utterly devoted to her class of ice-adapted children, Professor Lili bid farewell to them: ‘Class, this is our last lesson. You will now graduate to McMurdo City and I might never see you again. Our time together is at an end. I will miss you very much. It’s been an honour teaching you. I will try my best to follow your progress in McMurdo and perhaps one day I might visit you. Let me say this – if our future is to be people like you, then I feel hope.’ As the ice-adapted students left this stone classroom for the last time, Professor Lili asked Echo to stay behind. The other children felt no jealousy despite the favouritism, accustomed to the way ordinary-borns were drawn to her. Alone, Professor Lili took Echo’s hand, an inappropriate thing for a teacher to do but Lili had never touched her remarkable skin and this was her last chance. With frost-damaged fingers, she held her student’s powerful hands, studying them like a fortune teller. ‘Do you remember the lesson I taught? About San Nicolas Island? The population had declined until finally only one woman remained on the island. She’d survived in isolation, alone for eighteen years.’ Echo nodded. ‘Yes, I remember the lesson. She was the last of her kind.’ ‘Echo, you’re the first of your kind and the last. I don’t know what kind of genetic advances they’ve made in McMurdo. I don’t know what this new generation of Cold People will be like. But I do know that you’re special. More special than even the scientists realize.’ As she said goodbye, Professor Lili, a woman who’d once enjoyed promenades by the Huangpu River with her husband and her two children, felt like she was losing her family for a second time. Echo gave her mentor a hug, feeling her fragile body in her powerful arms. Her teacher was crying. Waiting for the professor to stop, she wondered how such sensitive, delicate creatures had survived for so long. THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA HOPE TOWN WORDIE HOUSE SAME DAY WORDIE HOUSE WAS ONE OF Hope Town’s most prestigious properties, now occupied by one of


was told that I couldn’t file a complaint, because I wasn’t the victim. It fizzled into nothing. And Elsie, I was . . .” His eyes hold mine for a second, and I see everything. He was young and he was tired. He was sad. He was angry. He was lonely; he was alone; he was the odd Smith out. He was helpless. He wanted revenge. “Then I wrote the article.” His big shoulders rise and fall. “I used what I knew of physics to make it believable, and I still didn’t think it’d get accepted. But somehow it did, and when I read that Laurendeau was removed as editor . . .” He shakes his head. “It didn’t make me feel any better about the fact that I couldn’t remember shit of my mother, or about the things Caroline did to me.” His eyes are full of sorrow. “So I stopped thinking about it. And whenever someone reminded me, I ignored them. Until I met you.” My expression hardens. “Because I kept bringing it up.” “No, Elsie.” His voice is calm, firm. “Because the idea of Laurendeau doing to you what he did to my mother terrified me.” I scoff. “Why didn’t you warn me, then? We talked about him. About your mother. You had countless opportunities.” There’s a piece of me, somewhere in the back of my head, that knows how much Jack’s admission of vulnerability must have cost. But the larger piece thought this was the first relationship in my life based on honesty, and now . . . I feel incredibly stupid. “You lied to me. Over and over.” “Would you have believed me if I’d told you?” he asks, taking a single step closer. “In fact, do you believe me now?” “I . . .” I glance away, suddenly flustered. “I believe that you believe it. But . . . maybe you misinterpreted the diaries. It must have been a misunderstanding, because he would never . . . I owe him so much, and . . .” Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. “This is precisely why I didn’t tell you. You idolize him and weren’t ready to hear any of this. If I’d brought it up, I would have hurt you, and you would have pulled back.” “That’s not for you to decide! And anyway, why do you think I spent my life lying to people, Jack?” I explode. “Why do you think I never told Laurendeau that I hate teaching, or Cece that her movies are worse than a Windows screen saver, or Mom that I’m a real fucking human being? Because I’m afraid that if I hurt them with the truth, then they’ll leave me. Why is it only a good excuse when it comes to you?” I walk away from the table, away from Jack. Take a deep breath, willing myself to calm down, staring at the streetlights shining over the rooftop snow. Jack lied to me. After everything, he was the one to lie to me. Not about a movie or


to lengthen. “I think I’ll go to bed, sweetheart,” she said finally. “Is that all right?” “What do I care?” Ella said. Twenty minutes later, Maud heard Ella walk down the hall and stand at the door. Twenty minutes after that, when she tiptoed to the girls’ room, Ella was asleep. By the orchard, Gabriel sat in the dark. Even if the girls were to look through the windows of the farmhouse, Maud thought, as she made her way over the grass, they’d see only nebulous shapes. She sat in the chair next to Gabriel and took the hand that waited for hers on the armrest. All thoughts of the tension with Ella disappeared. “Can we just go over there?” Gabriel said, nodding at the orchard. “You know how we’d end up,” she said. “Rolling around on rotten cherries.” His middle finger traced a circle in her palm. “Always the grown-up.” “Someone has to be,” she said softly. Gabriel squeezed her fingers. “Maud, I’ve never felt this way.” “I haven’t either,” she said. “But where can it go?” “I’ll do anything to make it work. I’ll drop out of the dig in Turkey. I’ll find something in California.” “You can’t do that. That dig is too important to you.” Her heart flipped; his saying he’d do so meant everything. “When I go back, I’m facing at least a year of hell,” she said. “Then I’ll wait a year,” he said. “I’ll wait as long as it takes.” “This is crazy, you realize.” She squeezed his hand back. “No, it’s not. We’re good together. You know that.” Inside, after checking on the sleeping girls, Maud collected herself and called Peter. “Ella’s having such a rough time,” she told him. “She still doesn’t like camp. She misses her friends. Maybe she and Louise should fly back home with you when you come this weekend.” She’d had the idea between the table and the front door. “It’s only a three-week difference if they come back with you as planned,” Peter said. “It’s not just that she’s unhappy here. Managing her is starting to interfere with my work. I can’t focus. I want to finish up well. Can you handle it? I’ll fly back a week early, so I’ll only be apart from them for two weeks.” The wait for his reply felt interminable. “Of course I can handle it,” Peter said. “They’re my children.” She told him she’d make calls to find a camp in Marin that would take Louise during the day and see if there was a spot in the camp Ella had attended last summer. “I thought she hated camp,” Peter said. “She liked that one. Or I’ll find something else.” She said she’d call the airline to change the girls’ tickets to match his flight home. She suggested that they tell the girls together when he arrived. Peter agreed. Hanging up, she couldn’t believe how smoothly that had gone. She’d have two weeks alone with Gabriel. Two weeks to see if this impossible feeling was real. Her mother called the next


secrets, who you always run to first? What is so wrong with me that I’m not good enough for Huff?” Lanier looks as if she’s going to burst open. “We’re back here again, the two of you keeping secrets from me. Do you know how it feels for the two people you love the most to just leave you totally out in the cold?” I feel as if the wind has been knocked out of me. “No, that’s great, Daphne, let’s just go right back there. Call me in six months when he’s dying to get married and you’re on the verge of falling apart. Can’t wait to clean that up. Again.” I am expecting her to be upset, so I’m trying to maintain my composure despite my heart beating out of my chest. “I seriously don’t know how you could even say that. You, of all people, know how much I’ve changed.” “You’ve changed? Is that why you didn’t tell us about Huff? Is that why you aren’t telling me whatever you know about Bryce?” She pauses, and I’m flooded with shock. “I know you know something, Daphne.” I want to respond, but my mind is a total blank. So I give Lanier the perfect window to add, “It isn’t fair to pretend with Huff that you’re going to settle down and then break his heart when you can’t handle a change in your routine. It isn’t fair.” She takes a breath. “And I know you need that routine. If this disrupts that, I hope and pray to God that you never relapse because I have never—not ever—seen an enabler as bad as Huff.” “He was not an enabler!” My calm facade has shattered. Lanier takes a deep breath, and I feel myself start to relax. “I’m sorry. I’m overreacting. But, damn, Daphne. You and Huff together was the literal definition of chaos and destruction. Please don’t bring my brother into that again.” I rush off toward the cabin. I have to because she doesn’t deserve to see me cry. I hear Mary Stuart calling behind me, but I can’t turn around. I can’t stop. I spend the first few minutes of my walk in cold shock, listing all the reasons in my head why Lanier is wrong. She is wrong. I love Huff, and he loves me. My past never has and never will have a bearing on my future because I will never go back to where I was. I can’t believe that I have spent all this time stressing and worrying about possibly losing my career for a person who doesn’t even think I’m good enough to be with her brother. I have always thought of Lanier as my family. So it breaks my heart in a million ways to realize that she could never really see me as a part of hers. Lanier TRUE BLUE IT’S HARD TO TELL WHO’S an addict in college. Because at mixers and cocktail parties, Tuesday DJ nights and football game days, Thursday nights—a sacred going-out night—and weekends, there is always an


simple and direct, although to us, who had no means in the beginning of knowing the motives of his actions and could only learn part of the facts, it all appeared exceedingly complex. I have had the advantage of two conversations with Mrs. Stapleton, and the case has now been so entirely cleared up that I am not aware that there is anything which has remained a secret to us. You will find a few notes upon the matter under the heading B in my indexed list of cases." "Perhaps you would kindly give me a sketch of the course of events from memory." "Certainly, though I cannot guarantee that I carry all the facts in my mind. Intense mental concentration has a curious way of blotting out what has passed. The barrister who has his case at his fingers' ends and is able to argue with an expert upon his own subject finds that a week or two of the courts will drive it all out of his head once more. So each of my cases displaces the last, and Mlle. Carere has blurred my recollection of Baskerville Hall. To-morrow some other little problem may be submitted to my notice which will in turn dispossess the fair French lady and the infamous Upwood. So far as the case of the hound goes, however, I will give you the course of events as nearly as I can, and you will suggest anything which I may have forgotten. "My inquiries show beyond all question that the family por- trait did not lie, and that this fellow was indeed a Baskerville. He was a son of that Rodger Baskerville, the younger brother of Sir Charles, who fled with a sinister reputation to South America, where he was said to have died unmarried. He did, as a matter of fact, marry, and had one child, this fellow, whose real name is the same as his father's. He married Beryl Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa Rica, and, having purloined a considerable sum of public money, he changed his name to Vandeleur and fled to England, where he established a school in the east of Yorkshire. His reason for attempting this special line of business was that he had struck up an acquaintance with a consumptive tutor upon the voyage home, and that he had used this man's ability to make the undertaking a success. Fraser, the tutor, died however, and the school which had begun well sank from disre- pute into infamy. The Vandeleurs found it convenient to change their name to Stapleton, and he brought the remains of his fortune, his schemes for the future, and his taste for entomology to the south of England. I learned at the British Museum that he was a recognized authority upon the subject, and that the name of Vandeleur has been permanently attached to a certain moth which he had, in his Yorkshire days, been the first to describe. "We now come to that portion of his life which has proved to be of such intense