fire up when I admire his riding." "Oh, my goodness! That little goose means a centaur, and she called him a Cyclops," exclaimed Jo, with a burst of laughter. "You needn't be so rude, it's only a `lapse of lingy', as Mr. Davis says," retorted Amy, finishing Jo with her Latin. "I just wish I had a little of the money Laurie spends on that horse," she added, as if to herself, yet hoping her sisters would hear. "Why?" asked Meg kindly, for Jo had gone off in another laugh at Amy's second blunder. "I need it so much. I'm dreadfully in debt, and it won't be my turn to have the rag money for a month." "In debt, Amy? What do you mean?" And Meg looked sober. "Why, I owe at least a dozen pickled limes, and I can't pay them, you know, till I have money, for Marmee forbade my having anything charged at the shop." "Tell me all about it. Are limes the fashion now? It used to be pricking bits of rubber to make balls." And Meg tried to keep her countenance, Amy looked so grave and important. "Why, you see, the girls are always buying them, and unless you want to be thought mean, you must do it too. It's nothing but limes now, for everyone is sucking them in their desks in schooltime, and trading them off for pencils, bead rings, paper dolls, or something else, at recess. If one girl likes another, she gives her a lime. If she's mad with her, she eats one before her face, and doesn't offer even a suck. They treat by turns, and I've had ever so many but haven't returned them, and I ought for they are debts of honor, you know." "How much will pay them off and restore your credit?" asked Meg, taking out her purse." "A quarter would more than do it, and leave a few cents over for a treat for you. Don't you like limes?" "Not much. You may have my share. Here's the money. Make it last as long as you can, for it isn't very plenty, you know." "Oh, thank you! It must be so nice to have pocket money! I'll have a grand feast, for I haven't tasted a lime this week. I felt delicate about taking any, as I couldn't return them, and I'm actually suffering for one." Next day Amy was rather late at school, but could not resist the temptation of displaying, with pardonable pride, a moist brown-paper parcel, before she consigned it to the inmost recesses of her desk. During the next few minutes the rumor that Amy March had got twenty-four delicious limes (she ate one on the way) and was going to treat circulated through her `set', and the attentions of her friends became quite overwhelming. Katy Brown invited her to her next party on the spot. Mary Kingsley insisted on lending her her watch till recess, and Jenny Snow, a satirical young lady, who had basely twitted Amy upon her limeless state, promptly


too hoarse for my sobs to make much of a sound, the tears keep coming, silently drifting down my cheeks. All I can think about is how, at the end, I wasn’t with her. She was the kind of mother who deserved to have her child there when she died. Knowing that I had her steadfast support, that she loved and believed in me no matter what, made me so much braver than I would have been otherwise. It made risks feel smaller; it made it possible for me to trust myself a little more. Like any mother and child, we’d had our conflicts, our weaknesses, our outright failures, but there had never been a serious or lasting rift between us. Her faith in me was a safety net I couldn’t see until it was gone. I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. Without both of them. I never deserved them, I think. They were wrong to love me. But every time I try to hate myself, tell myself that I am a worthless daughter, I swear I can hear her voice in my head. It feels new. Don’t say that, she says. Don’t even think it. * * * We’re nearly two months into the pandemic, but the funeral home representative tells me they’ve never set up a live stream for a funeral and aren’t sure whether they can. We’re looking into it. My mother’s priest has privacy concerns about filming the service, and adds that it was already very difficult to choose who among my mother’s many church friends could attend. Only twenty-five people may be present. An additional person filming, he points out, “will take a place that could have gone to another mourner.” I catch my breath in a painful gasp and let the silence stretch. I don’t want to get angry. I don’t have the energy for it, or for smoothing things over afterward. Mom’s church had been her home, the parish community her family. When she got too sick to work, they took up a collection to help, which my proud mother accepted because she knew it was a gift of love and not charity. I’ll always be grateful to her church for being there for her when I wasn’t, doing what I couldn’t. But I’m her only child. “You have four spots you wouldn’t have if my husband, my kids, and I were able to be there,” I say at last. “Can’t you just think of the person filming as taking my place?” There’s a brief pause. “Of course,” he says, sounding somewhat chastened. “You’re absolutely right. I’m sure we can work something out.” * * * When I’m not talking with the priest, or the funeral home, or the home health-care agency that tells me to please watch for at least two more bills, I wait for the darkness to close over me. The way it did in the months after my father died. The way it did last Christmas, when I realized it was likely my last with my mother.


society was obviously less desirable than his. On an afternoon in October or the beginning of No- vember, a fresh, watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds---dark gray streamers, rapidly mounting from the west and bod- ing abundant rain---I requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of showers. She refused, and I unwillingly donned a cloak and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park---a formal walk which she generally affected if low-spirited (and that she invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary)---a thing never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly on. There was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye, I could detect her raising a hand and brush- ing something off her cheeks. I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure. The soil was too loose for the latter, and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer Miss Cath- erine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew there was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs---my nursery lore---to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young ones to fly; or nestling with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express. "Look, miss!" I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one twisted tree; "winter is not here yet. There's a little flower up yonder---the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up and pluck it to show to papa?" Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trem- bling in its earthy shelter, and replied at length,--- "No, I'll not touch it. But it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen?" "Yes," I observed---"about as starved and sackless as you. Your cheeks are bloodless. Let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low I dare say I shall keep up with you." "No," she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and ever and anon her hand was lifted to her averted face. "Catherine, why are you crying, love?"


it is partially my fault that you're in trouble." "I'm sorry? It's your fault Saunire is trying to frame me?" "Saunire wasn't trying to frame you. It was a mistake. That message on the floor was meant for me." Langdon needed a minute to process that one. "I beg your pardon?" "That message wasn't for the police. He wrote it for me. I think he was forced to do everything in such a hurry that he just didn't realize how it would look to the police." She paused. "The numbered code is meaningless. Saunire wrote it to make sure the investigation included cryptographers, ensuring that I would know as soon as possible what had happened to him." 49 Langdon felt himself losing touch fast. Whether or not Sophie Neveu had lost her mind was at this point up for grabs, but at least Langdon now understood why she was trying to help him. P.S. Find Robert Langdon. She apparently believed the curator had left her a cryptic postscript telling her to find Langdon. "But why do you think his message was for you?" "The Vitruvian Man," she said flatly. "That particular sketch has always been my favorite Da Vinci work. Tonight he used it to catch my attention." "Hold on. You're saying the curator knew your favorite piece of art?" She nodded. "I'm sorry. This is all coming out of order. Jacques Saunire and I..." Sophie's voice caught, and Langdon heard a sudden melancholy there, a painful past, simmering just below the surface. Sophie and Jacques Saunire apparently had some kind of special relationship. Langdon studied the beautiful young woman before him, well aware that aging men in France often took young mistresses. Even so, Sophie Neveu as a "kept woman" somehow didn't seem to fit. "We had a falling-out ten years ago," Sophie said, her voice a whisper now. "We've barely spoken since. Tonight, when Crypto got the call that he had been murdered, and I saw the images of his body and text on the floor, I realized he was trying to send me a message." "Because of The Vitruvian Man?" "Yes. And the letters P.S." "Post Script?" She shook her head. "P.S. are my initials." "But your name is Sophie Neveu." She looked away. "P.S. is the nickname he called me when I lived with him." She blushed. "It stood for Princesse Sophie" Langdon had no response. "Silly, I know," she said. "But it was years ago. When I was a little girl." "You knew him when you were a little girl?" "Quite well," she said, her eyes welling now with emotion. "Jacques Saunire was my grandfather." 50 CHAPTER 14 "Where's Langdon?" Fache demanded, exhaling the last of a cigarette as he paced back into the command post. "Still in the men's room, sir." Lieutenant Collet had been expecting the question. Fache grumbled, "Taking his time, I see." The captain eyed the GPS dot over Collet's shoulder, and Collet could almost hear the wheels turning. Fache was fighting the urge to go check on Langdon. Ideally, the subject of


and suffering.' 'You will,' said Rose, after a pause, 'take some money from me, which may enable you to live without dishonesty--at all events until we meet again?' 'Not a penny,' replied the girl, waving her hand. 'Do not close your heart against all my efforts to help you,' said Rose, stepping gently forward. 'I wish to serve you indeed.' 'You would serve me best, lady,' replied the girl, wringing her hands, 'if you could take my life at once; for I have felt more grief to think of what I am, to-night, than I ever did before, and it would be something not to die in the hell in which I have lived. God bless you, sweet lady, and send as much happiness on your head as I have brought shame on mine!' Thus speaking, and sobbing aloud, the unhappy creature turned away; while Rose Maylie, overpowered by this extraordinary interview, which had more the semblance of a rapid dream than an actual occurance, sank into a chair, and endeavoured to collect her wandering thoughts. CHAPTER XLI CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE Her situation was, indeed, one of no common trial and difficulty. While she felt the most eager and burning desire to penetrate the mystery in which Oliver's history was enveloped, she could not but hold sacred the confidence which the miserable woman with whom she had just conversed, had reposed in her, as a young and guileless girl. Her words and manner had touched Rose Maylie's heart; and, mingled with her love for her young charge, and scarcely less intense in its truth and fervour, was her fond wish to win the outcast back to repentance and hope. They purposed remaining in London only three days, prior to departing for some weeks to a distant part of the coast. It was now midnight of the first day. What course of action could she determine upon, which could be adopted in eight-and-forty hours? Or how could she postpone the journey without exciting suspicion? Mr. Losberne was with them, and would be for the next two days; but Rose was too well acquainted with the excellent gentleman's impetuosity, and foresaw too clearly the wrath with which, in the first explosion of his indignation, he would regard the instrument of Oliver's recapture, to trust him with the secret, when her representations in the girl's behalf could be seconded by no experienced person. These were all reasons for the greatest caution and most circumspect behaviour in communicating it to Mrs. Maylie, whose first impulse would infallibly be to hold a conference with the worthy doctor on the subject. As to resorting to any legal adviser, even if she had known how to do so, it was scarcely to be thought of, for the same reason. Once the thought occurred to her of seeking assistance from Harry; but this awakened the recollection of their last parting, and it seemed unworthy of her to call him back, when--the tears rose to her eyes as she pursued this train


and die by sunset. She had run through the smoke and the fire and the agony with Roman, his hand in hers. They had both tasted Death, brushed shoulders with it. They had scars on their skin and on their souls from that fractured moment, and now Iris saw more than she had before. She saw the light, but she also saw the shadows. Time was precious here. If she wanted this with Roman, then why shouldn’t she grasp it, claim it with both hands? “I suppose you’ll have to ask me and find out,” she said. And just when she thought she couldn’t be surprised by anything else, Roman began to kneel. Right there in the center of the street, halfway up the hill. He was about to ask her. He was truly about to ask her to be his wife, and Iris gasped. He winced as his knee found the cobblestones, a glint of pain in his eyes. Iris glanced down, beyond their linked hands. Blood was seeping through the right leg of his jumpsuit. “Kitt!” she cried, urging him to stand again. “You’re bleeding!” “It’s nothing, Winnow,” he said, but he was beginning to look pale. “I must have pulled a stitch.” “Here, sit down.” “In the road?” “No, over here on this crate.” Iris guided him to the closest front yard. It must have been the O’Briens’ property, because there were multiple cats sunbathing on the dead grass, and she remembered Marisol talking about how most of Avalon Bluff worried those felines would get them all bombed one day. “I must have failed to mention that I’m allergic to cats,” Roman said, frowning as Iris forced him to sit on the overturned milk crate. “And I’m more than capable of walking back to Marisol’s.” “No, you’re not,” Iris argued. “The cats will leave you alone, I’m sure. Wait here for me, Kitt. Don’t you dare move.” She began to step away, but he snagged her hand, dragging her back to him. “You’re leaving me here?” He made it sound as if she were abandoning him. Her heart rose in her throat when she recalled how she had left him in the trenches. She wondered if that day haunted him the way it did her. Every night when she lay in the dark, remembering. You and I … we need to stay together. We’re better this way. “Only for a moment,” Iris said, squeezing his fingers. “I’ll run and fetch Peter. He has a lorry, and he can give us a ride to the infirmary, so a doctor can look at your—” “I’m not going back to the infirmary, Iris,” Roman stated. “They’re overworked and there’s no room for me with something as minor as a pulled stitch. I can fix it myself, if Marisol has a needle and thread.” Iris sighed. “All right. I’ll take you to the B and B, so long as you don’t move while I’m gone.” Roman relented with a nod. He relinquished her hand, albeit slowly, and Iris broke into a run, flying


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

"The Invisible Man is coming! The Invisible Man." Chapter 16 In the Jolly Cricketers The Jolly Cricketers is just at the bottom of the hill, where the tram-lines begin. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black- bearded man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and conversed in American with a policeman off duty. "What's the shouting about?" said the anaemic cabman going off at a tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. "Fire, perhaps," said the barman. Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the neck of his coat torn open, rushed in, made a convulsive turn, and attempted to shut the door. It was held half open by a strap. "Coming!" he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. "He's coming. The 'Visible Man! After me! For Gawd's sake! Elp! Elp! Elp!" "Shut the doors," said the policeman. "Who's coming? What's the row?" He went to the door, released the strap, and it slammed. The American closed the other door. "Lemme go inside," said Marvel, staggering and weeping, but still clutching the books. "Lemme go inside. Lock me in--somewhere. I tell you he's after me. I give him the slip. He said he'd kill me and he will." "You're safe," said the man with the black beard. "The door's shut. What's it all about?" "Lemme go inside," said Marvel, and shrieked aloud as a blow suddenly made the fastened door shiver and was followed by a hurried rapping and a shouting outside. "Hullo," cried the policeman, "who's there?" Mr. Marvel began to make frantic dives at panels that looked like doors. "He'll kill me--he's got a knife or something. For Gawd's sake!" "Here you are," said the barman. "Come in here." And he held up the flap of the bar. Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was repeated. "Don't open the door," he screamed. "Please don't open the door. Where shall I hide?" "This, this Invisible Man, then?" asked the man with the black beard, with one hand behind him. "I guess it's about time we saw him." The window of the inn was suddenly smashed in, and there was a screaming and running to and fro in the street. The policeman had been standing on the settee staring out, craning to see who was at the door. He got down with raised eyebrows. "It's that," he said. The barman stood in front of the bar-parlour door which was now locked on Mr. Marvel, stared at the smashed window and came round to the two other men. Everything was suddenly quiet. "I wish I had my truncheon," said the policeman, going irresolutely to the door. "Once we open, in he comes. There's no stopping him." "Don't you be in too much hurry about that door," said the anaemic cabman, anxiously. "Draw the bolts," said


Dave to enjoy the moments, live for the moments, because in this line of work, that was all he, all that all of them, really had. “Coming around, Deep-Throat … On my mark, bank to starboard. Over.” Ryder fell in behind the scout fighter and was lucky enough to get a quick weapons lock, which was confirmed by the telltale triple beep. In that instant, that nanosecond before his thumb could depress the joystick’s firing pad, Ryder saw that the Ziu fighter had fired first—Deep-Throat’s Arrow exploded, an incredible fireball that Ryder was forced to fly into and through. He gulped back shock—fought mind-numbing guilt and a momentary paralysis of total disbelief. Oh God … Dave … No time for this. Fight. I can grieve later … Ryder blinked tear-filled eyes as the vicious exchange continued—fast and furious, fighters on both sides locked in a deadly dance. Chapter 5 Alternate Universe… USS Adams Major Vivian Leigh Doc Viv made her way toward her quarters from HealthBay. She shook her head as if erasing pictures from an old-fashioned Etch-a-Sketch, trying to get rid of the horror of watching crew members—friends—dying. She hadn’t made it to Julie in time, and her friend had died as a result. A myocardial infarction. Treatable—curable, in fact. But now she was dead. Viv would have to call Julie’s husband and tell him he had lost his wife, and his two teenage sons had lost their mom. She felt as if she were walking through quicksand, each step a Herculean feat. Her head was tilted down, its weight too heavy to carry upright. She noticed a familiar scuff on the lower bulkhead, a sign that her room was just a couple of steps away. The hatch door slid open upon her approach, her shoulders softening as she stepped into her inner sanctum. As resplendent as her quarters were, the surroundings made her feel a tad uncomfortable. An ornate gilded mirror above the inlaid mahogany Edwardian dresser held her reflection. She looked despondent. Viv jerked away, unable to accept that version of herself. She smelled the faint scent of sage and remembered one of the crew had gone through her quarters to rid the space of Varapin ghosts. She looked at the impressive painting with the gold-laden frame. Ghosts don’t exist, so why bother with those kinds of shenanigans? “Don’t look at me like that.” She scowled at the woman depicted in muted oils. The austere lady was wearing a frilly cobalt frock, giving her a Mona Lisa smile. “I know. I know. I need to get it together. Actually, what I really need is some sleep. Viv threw herself on her queen-sized bed, getting lost in the gold and crimson brocade comforter. Whoever had decorated her quarters had gotten the firmness of her mattress just right. Extra soft. The tightness in her body immediately began to loosen. Eyes closed, she moaned like a dog getting its belly rubbed. Drifting off, she pushed away horrific memories from HealthBay. When she awoke, she checked her Jadoo ring messages. Good. Got some


I should want her to know this." Paul recognized the death thoughts in his father's words, spoke quickly: "Nothing's going to happen to you, sir. The--" "Be silent, Son." Paul stared at his father's back, seeing the fatigue in the angle of the neck, in the line of the shoulders, in the slow movements. "You're just tired, Father." "I am tired," the Duke agreed. "I'm morally tired. The melancholy degeneration of the Great Houses has afflicted me at last, perhaps. And we were such strong people once." Paul spoke in quick anger: "Our House hasn't degenerated!" "Hasn't it?" The Duke turned, faced his son, revealing dark circles beneath hard eyes, a cynical twist of mouth. "I should wed your mother, make her my Duchess. Yet . . . my unwedded state gives some Houses hope they may yet ally with me through their marriageable daughters." He shrugged. "So, I . . . " "Mother has explained this to me." "Nothing wins more loyalty for a leader than an air of bravura," the Duke said. "I, therefore, cultivate an air of bravura." "You lead well," Paul protested. "You govern well. Men follow you willingly and love you." "My propaganda corps is one of the finest," the Duke said. Again, he turned to stare out at the basin. "There's greater possibility for us here on Arrakis than the Imperium could ever suspect. Yet sometimes I think it'd have been better if we'd run for it, gone renegade. Sometimes I wish we could sink back into anonymity among the people, become less exposed to . . . " "Father!" "Yes, I am tired," the Duke said. "Did you know we're using spice residue as raw material and already have our own factory to manufacture filmbase?" "Sir?" "We mustn't run short of filmbase," the Duke said. "Else, how could we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn't tell them?" "You should get some rest," Paul said. Again, the Duke faced his son. "Arrakis has another advantage I almost forgot to mention. Spice is in everything here. You breathe it and eat it in almost everything. And I find that this imparts a certain natural immunity to some of the most common poisons of the Assassins' Handbook. And the need to watch every drop of water puts all food production--yeast culture, hydroponics, chemavit, everything--under the strictest surveillance. We cannot kill off large segments of our population with poison--and we cannot be attacked this way, either. Arrakis makes us moral and ethical." Paul started to speak, but the Duke cut him off, saying: "I have to have someone I can say these things to, Son." He sighed, glanced back at the dry landscape where even the flowers were gone now--trampled by the dew gatherers, wilted under the early sun. "On Caladan, we ruled with sea and air power," the Duke said. "Here, we must scrabble for desert power. This is your inheritance, Paul. What is to become of you if anything happens


says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's a secret. And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl. --Bye bye all, says Martin. And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car. ---Off with you, says Martin to the jarvey. The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so did they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters. And they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave the waves. But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him. --Let me alone, says he. And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls out of him: --Three cheers for Israel! Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody nothing. Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it would. And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over his eye starts singing IF THE MAN IN THE MOON WAS A JEW, JEW, JEW and a slut shouts out of her: --Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister! And says he: --Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God. --He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead. --Whose God? says the citizen. --Well, his uncle was


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

a pernicious effect upon him; upon the same principle that too much oats are bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said to feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was a man whom prosperity harmed. Though concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey I had my own private surmises, yet touching Nippers I was well persuaded that whatever might by his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a temperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless. When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerk it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were a perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him; I plainly perceive that for Nippers, brandy and water were altogether superfluous. It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiar cause—indigestion—the irritability and consequent nervousness of Nippers, were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon he was comparatively mild. So that Turkey’s paroxysms only coming on about twelve o’clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at one time. Their fits relieved each other like guards. When Nippers’ was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa. This was a good natural arrangement under the circumstances. Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. His father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office as student at law, errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very spicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning when business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere wafers—indeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny—the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his


other firemen another place, and the Salamander . . . ? He gazed at the immense engine. That would have to go, too. Well, he thought, let's see how badly off you are. On your feet now. Easy, easy . . . there. He stood and he had only one leg. The other was like a chunk of burnt pine-log he was carrying along as a penance for some obscure sin. When he put his weight on it, a shower of silver needles gushed up the length of the calf and went off in the knee. He wept. Come on! Come on, you, you can't stay here! A few house-lights were going on again down the street, whether from the incidents just passed, or because of the abnormal silence following the fight, Montag did not know. He hobbled around the ruins, seizing at his bad leg when it lagged, talking and whimpering and shouting directions at it and cursing it and pleading with it to work for him now when it was vital. He heard a number of people crying out in the darkness and shouting. He reached the back yard and the alley. Beatty, he thought, you're not a problem now. You always said, don't face a problem, bum it. Well, now I've done both. Good-bye, Captain. And he stumbled along the alley in the dark. A shotgun blast went off in his leg every time he put it down and he thought, you're a fool, a damn fool, an awful fool, an idiot, an awful idiot, a damn idiot, and a fool, a damn fool; look at the mess and where's the mop, look at the mess, and what do you do? Pride, damn it, and temper, and you've junked it all, at the very start you vomit on everyone and on yourself. But everything at once, but everything one on top of another; Beatty, the women, Mildred, Clarisse, everything. No excuse, though, no excuse. A fool, a damn fool, go give yourself up! No, we'll save what we can, we'll do what there is left to do. If we have to burn, let's take a few more with us. Here! He remembered the books and turned back. Just on the off chance. He found a few books where he had left them, near the garden fence. Mildred, God bless her, had missed a few. Four books still lay hidden where he had put them. Voices were wailing in the night and flashbeams swirled about. Other Salamanders were roaring their engines far away, and police sirens were cutting their way across town with their sirens. Montag took the four remaining books and hopped, jolted, hopped his way down the alley and suddenly fell as if his head had been cut off and only his body lay there. Something inside had jerked him to a halt and flopped him down. He lay where he had fallen and sobbed, his legs folded, his face pressed blindly to the gravel. Beatty wanted to die. In the middle of the crying Montag knew it


lunch at a tavern with time-clouded windows and a boot scraper by the door. A woman in colonial petticoats and Birkenstocks led them to a table. “Go see if you can find the mermaid,” Maud told Ella and Louise, pointing to a hearth covered in cornflower-blue-and-white Delft tile. She’d read about the building the night before to collect details that might intrigue them. In the car, she’d spilled out a history lesson about the people who first had lived by the river, the arrival of the Dutch, the Hudson River School of painting, realizing too late that Ella was wearing earbuds and hadn’t heard a thing. “What do I win?” Ella said. She’d spotted the mermaid languishing on a bed of kelp and tulips. “Lunch?” Maud said. She was so happy to be with them. She’d almost started crying when she saw them walk off the plane. Louise wore her fluorescent-orange backpack on her chest, a stuffed turtle peering its head out of the front pocket. Ella was chewing gum for her stopped-up ears, but her jaw stilled and she smiled when Maud ran up to them. “Let’s play the anachronism game,” Louise said now. “Too tired.” Ella perused the menu. The girls had slept through the flight but were still on California time. “You go first,” Maud told Louise. Looking around the room, Louise began: ice in the water, granulated sugar on the tables, the server’s braces. “The air-conditioning,” Maud added. Ella laid down the menu. “I think I’ll just get a piece of cornbread.” “At least try the cider,” Maud said. “Does it have alcohol?” “If it did, they wouldn’t serve it to you.” “I was just asking.” Ella rolled her eyes. She could slip so easily from the childish pleasure over finding the mermaid—“Look! Right there in the corner,” she’d said to Louise—to adolescent scorn. In a couple of years, with that same group of girls from her school, would she be drinking and partying as Maud’s sister, Annette, had done? Maud doubted Ella would follow her mother’s example and hide out in the library. After lunch, she drove the girls to Montgomery Place. “All that fruit’s for us,” she announced when she parked by the orchard. “I already bought the jamming jars.” At Monk’s House, the three of them used to spend summer afternoons picking peaches, gooseberries, and plums, and canning, pickling, and preserving cucumbers and beans. “And that’s our creek.” By the cottage, Gabriel’s truck was gone. He was out for the day, on a dig with an archaeologist from a nearby college. Hope they love it! he’d texted Maud that morning. “It does look like Monk’s!” Ella said as she walked into the farmhouse. “Told you,” Maud said. “Only missing the hedgehog in the walls. Surprises on your pillows when you find your room.” She’d spent the previous few afternoons getting the house ready. She refreshed the wildflowers in a mason jar on the coffee table, the columbines like red umbrellas in a storm of periwinkle forget-me-nots. She’d washed the girls’ sheets, cleared the dead stink


mansions of the Dwarves of Durin's race in the Misty Mountains (Hadhodrond, Moria). See Khazd; dm is probably a plural or collective, meaning 'excavations, halls, mansions'. 42, 104, 354 Khm Son of Mm the Petty-dwarf, slam by one of Trin's outlaw band. 249 King's Men Nmenreans hostile to the Eldar and the Elendili. 328-9, 332 Kinslaying, The The slaying of the Teleri by the Noldor at Alqualond. 98, 100-1, 120, 130, 152, 154, 166, 169, 188 Ladros The lands to the northeast of Dorthonion that were granted by the Noldorin Kings to the Men of the House of Bor. 177 Laer C Beleg 'The Song of the Great Bow', made by Trin at Eithel Ivrin in memory of Beleg Cthalion. 256 Laiquendi 'The Green-elves' of Ossiriand. 110 Lalaith 'Laughter', daughter of Hrin and Morwen who died in childhood. 242 Lammoth 'The Great Echo', region north of the Firth of Drengist, named from the echoes of Morgoth's cry in his struggle with Ungoliant. 89-90, 123 Land of Shadow See Mordor. Land of the Dead that Live See Dor Firn-i-Guinar. Land of the Star Nmenor. 339, 341 Lanthir Lamath 'Waterfall of Echoing Voices', where Dior had his house in Ossiriand, and after which his daughter Elwing ('Star-spray') was named. 289 Last Alliance The league made at the end of the Second Age between Elendil and Gil-galad to defeat Sauron. 364 Laurelin 'Song of Gold', the younger of the Two Trees of Valinor. 34, 64, 82, 114-6, 151 Lay of Leithian The long poem concerning the lives of Beren and Lthien from which the prose account in The Silmarillion was derived. Leithian is translated 'Release from Bondage'. 195, 198, 203, 206-8, 226 Legolin The third of the tributaries of Gelion in Ossiriand. 147 lembas Sindarin name of the waybread of the Eldar (from earlier lennmbass 'journey-bread'; in Quenya coimas 'life-bread'). 247, 251, 256 Lenw The leader of the Elves from the host of the Teleri who refused to cross the Misty Mountains on the west-ward journey from Cuivinen (the Nandor); father of Denethor. 56, 108 Lhn River in Eriador flowing into the sea in the Gulf of Lhn.354, 360 Linaewen 'Lake of birds', the great mere in Nevrast. 141 Lindon A name of Ossiriand in the First Age; see 147. After the tumults at the end of the First Age the name Lindon was retained for the lands west of the Blue Mountains that still remained above the Sea: 354, 355, 359, 370 Lindri Mother of Inzilbth. 331 Little Gelion One of the two tributary branches of the river Gelion in the north, rising in the Hill of Himring. 146 Loeg Ningloron 'Pools of the golden water-flowers'; see Gladden Fields. lmelindi Quenya word meaning 'dusk-singers', nightingales. 57 Lmion 'Son of Twilight', the Quenya name that Aredhel gave to Maeglin. 159 Lonely Isle See Tol Eressa. Lord of Waters See Ulmo. Lords of the West See Valar. Lorellin The lake in Lrien in Valinor where the Vala Est sleeps by day. 21 Lorgan Chief of the Easterling Men in Hithlum after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, by whom


LOLOLOLOL Dad: Okay. Want to talk more when you get home? Brad: if Celine’s doing it, i def can Mum: I thought you said it sounded like a disgusting nightmare trail of doom and darkness? Brad: that doesn’t sound like me at all Mason: yes it does you DRAMA KING Brad: i changed my mind Brad: there’s a scholarship Dad: A scholarship for camping in the woods? Brad: a full one Mum: Well, as long as you WANT to do it. Brad: yeahhhh, now you’re on my side CHAPTER FOUR CELINE I get in. Obviously. My application is shit-hot. I adapt the personal statement I’ve been writing for Cambridge, make more of a fuss about my social media channels because I know Katharine values entrepreneurial spirit, and have Mum check everything for me. I’m still not telling her Dad’s involved, though. It couldn’t be more irrelevant. I mean, yes, there will be that celebration ball at the end of the program for Explorers and sponsors to mingle, but I doubt he’ll be there and if he is, he’ll be too busy vomiting with shame and regret to hold a conversation. Giselle thinks I’m bonkers, committing to some experimental enrichment program in the woods, but there’s a scholarship and career connections on offer, and only the best are chosen, so here I am: proving once again that I’m the best. I bear that in mind as I sink—and sink, and sink—into the saggy bed I’ve just been assigned at Sherwood Forest’s Visitor Cabin. This place is basically an old and underfunded dorm with dingy shared bathrooms and decorative logs stuck to the exterior. Across the room, a girl whose name might be Laura, or Aura, or possibly Rory (to say she mumbles would be an understatement) flicks blue eyes at me from beneath her shaggy hair, then looks away. “Be careful,” Mum is saying on the phone. “Behave yourself. And stick with Brad.” Oh, yeah. Bradley got in too. I don’t groan at the reminder because I am very mature, but I do wrinkle my nose down at the dingy brown carpet. “I know what you’re thinking”—Mum laughs like she can see my expression—“but he’s a good boy, and he’s more cautious than you. Take care of each other. Especially while your wrist is still healing!” Yeah…about that “wearing a cast for six to eight weeks” thing? Apparently, it’s eight weeks for me. I’ll be free next Monday, a week after this expedition. Bradley’s fault. Obviously. “I mean it, Celine,” Mum says, turning stern. “I guarantee Maria is telling him the same thing.” Not bloody likely. When we stepped off the coach twenty minutes ago, Bradley was already surrounded by people as always, grinning and relaxed, because he managed to make friends during the coach ride while I sat on my own listening to Frank Ocean’s Blonde and texting Michaela. I bet he’s chatting away to his little ginger roommate right now. My roommate is glued to her phone with an expression that suggests she’s either Googling How to kill your BEP roomie


introducing the idea of the breakup to her, slowly guiding her toward the expectation that we don’t belong together and that it has nothing to do with the physical distance caring for her requires. It doesn’t. Not anymore. The thought pings through me, a drunken, angry pinball rebounding back and forth between my ribs. He’s happy. He might’ve gone to Montana for his mom, but he’s there for himself now. She must see how happy he is. She must know he’s ready to let go of me. I sink onto the edge of the bed, tears pouring down my cheeks out of nowhere. I don’t know why, but it feels like a whole separate breakup. Accepting, now, the truth: That he’s moved on. That all these moments I cling to, like little mental life rafts, are just memories for him. The truth is, I don’t know what this text means. I can talk myself in and out of worrying about it all day, but it’s not my business. Just like I told him my life wasn’t his business. I won’t ask. I can’t. If he wants to tell me, he will, but it’s been a long time since Wyn has given me any answers. Much longer than five months. I take a shuddering breath, square my shoulders, and get into the shower. Where I cry some more. Stupid, stupid, stupid heart. Don’t you know he hasn’t been yours to cry over for a long time? 26 DARK PLACE SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA A GRAYING ONE-BEDROOM apartment we talk about painting robin’s-egg blue. The one we found online and, despite its cramped kitchen and small windows, believed we could turn into a home. The one where we will finally plan our wedding, after years of putting it off. He’d hardly batted an eye when, after that first trip to my parents’ house, I’d broached the possibility of waiting to get married until I finished school. It wasn’t about what my mom said in the kitchen the night she met him, except inasmuch as I wanted her to see she was wrong. I wanted her to see how well Wyn loved me, how patient and kind and good he was. We can take our time, he promised, and when things didn’t come together, wedding-wise, during my final year at Columbia, it was obvious we’d have to plan it after we moved out to my residency. It takes a few months to find my footing at the hospital. Or hospitals, rather. They have us bounce around, get experience in a lot of different environments. I’d thrived in medical school, like I’d always thrived in college and high school, but this is different. Things move too quickly, and I’m always trying to catch up. My feet and knees hurt from standing all day, and my brain can’t seem to store a map of any one hospital floor without blending it into another, so I’m always the tiniest bit late. Four weeks in, a fourth-year named Taye, with big dark curls and a model-esque stature, catches me by


to his attorney to hold on to during the investigation. According to Carr, Chelsea hadn’t been at the home since they separated two months ago. But the laptop was what Ethan was mainly after. After being booked into evidence, it would be taken directly to TESU to see if they could extract anything that could prove Carr’s guilt. From the data TESU was able to extract from Chelsea’s phone, along with her cell records, the estranged couple hadn’t had much in the way of communication in the last two months. No threats. No mention of Carr’s criminal extracurricular activities with his pal Mason Hachette. The few texts they’d exchanged could be chalked up to any couple on the brink of divorce. “Hey, Marks.” Ethan looks away from the image of Chelsea to see Jonah moving through the living room toward him. “Find anything?” Jonah looks beyond Ethan at the view of Lake Washington through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him. “Wow. Not a bad view. Think I’ll ever afford a place like this on my detective’s salary?” Ethan shakes his head, ignoring his partner’s second question. “No. Just Carr’s laptop and phone. Hopefully they will have what we need. How did it go with Carr’s assistant?” “His former assistant. When I reached out this morning to see if she’d meet with me, she said she quit after hearing the allegations against her boss. She wasn’t aware of Chelsea being in possession of incriminating photos and hadn’t witnessed any threats between Chelsea and Carr. But she did say Brody Carr was having an affair. As recent as last weekend.” Ethan feels like a rock has been dropped into his stomach. “Carr’s assistant heard him on the phone last week having an intimate conversation with a woman. And she knew it definitely wasn’t Chelsea.” Ethan swallows, remembering Sloane’s laughter while on the phone in the bathroom. “Does she know if Carr has a second phone?” Jonah shakes his head. “He was in the other room, so she didn’t see what phone he was using. As far as she’s aware, he only has one. But Carr flew his float plane to his home on San Juan Island last weekend, and his assistant said the woman went with him.” “Did she see them?” “No, but Carr had her order a bikini and woman’s wetsuit to be delivered to his home on the island. There’s a full-time caretaker who lives on the property, so he might be able to tell us more. I’m waiting for him to call me back. It would be worth interviewing this woman, if we can find out who she is. Maybe Carr shared his plan with her to get rid of his wife.” Jonah cracks a smile. “He seems like the kind of guy to unload his deep, dark secrets during some late-night pillow talk.” Ethan stares out the window, picturing Sloane lying next to Brody at his island home, discussing how to get Chelsea out of the picture. “Or maybe Carr will just give us her name.” Jonah slaps Ethan on the


doesn’t need to think about it. the night she left My stomach suddenly drops. Mary knew everything about the night of the murders—including who did it, how they did it, why they did it. And the day she learned all that, she— Jumped. That’s what I should be thinking, since it’s what Detective Vick said happened. Yet it feels wrong. Like a lie. Instead, a different word ricochets through my brain. Died. That’s the brutal truth. And it can’t be a coincidence. “Did Mary ever tell you why it needed to be a secret?” Lenora types instead of taps. yes She then adds three more words to the line. she was scared I glance again to the page beside the typewriter, onto which Lenora had typed the same answer to a different question. As I do, a thought occurs to me. Something I should have considered sooner but was likely too scared myself to contemplate. But now there’s no avoiding it. “Lenora, did you really think Mary left?” I study her face—the key to all her emotions. Even the ones she’s trying to hide. This time, though, she doesn’t even attempt to disguise the way she feels. Sadness clouds her features as she taps once against the typewriter. No. “You thought she jumped?” Another single tap. One that kicks my pulse up a notch. “Do—” I swallow. My mouth, suddenly dry from fear, can barely get the word out. “Do you think what happened to Mary is because of what you told her?” Two taps from Lenora confirm my worst fear. She thinks Mary was murdered. Swirling within that dreadful realization is another, smaller thought. One brought about by another quick glimpse of the page next to the typewriter. “What did Mary do with the pages the two of you typed?” Lenora responds with a confused look. “She helped you write the whole story.” I think about the pages the two of us have typed, now sitting with Lenora’s pill bottles in the lockbox under my bed. If Mary and Lenora had typed for weeks, why haven’t I seen any evidence of it? Every piece of paper inside the desk is blank, and I saw no sign of typed pages anywhere else in Lenora’s room or mine. “That must have been a thick stack. What did Mary do with them?” Lenora’s reply—she hid them—doesn’t help me. “Do you know where?” This time, her response provides a bit more clarity. in her room A bad feeling skitters down my back. What had once been Mary’s room is now my room—and the truth about the murders has been hidden there all this time. A truth that might have gotten Mary killed. The rest of the evening passes with agonizing slowness. I bathe, dress, and lift Lenora into bed, the whole time telling myself that we could be mistaken. Maybe Mary really did jump. Maybe she had deep wells of despair within her that she could no longer control. Maybe this is just another sad chapter in the overall tragic story of Hope’s End. Or


dozen couturiers in the world can achieve. There was a thin necklace of diamonds at her throat and a diamond clip in the low vee which just exposed the jutting swell of her breasts. She carried a plain black evening bag, a flat object which she now held, her arm akimbo, at her waist. Her jet black hair hung straight and simple to the final inward curl below the chin. She looked quite superb and Bond's heart lifted. 'You look absolutely lovely. Business must be good in the radio world!' She put her arm through his. 'Do you mind if we go straight into dinner?' she asked. 'I want to make a grand entrance and the truth is there's a horrible secret about black velvet. It marks when you sit down. And, by the way, if you hear me scream tonight, I shall have sat on a cane chair.' Bond laughed. 'Of course, let's go straight in. We'll have a glass of vodka while we order our dinner.' She gave him an amused glance and he corrected himself: 'Or a cocktail, of course, if you prefer it. The food here's the best in Royale.' For an instant he felt nettled at the irony, the light shadow of a snub, with which she had met his decisiveness, and at the way he had risen to her quick glance. But it was only an infinitesimal clink of foils and as the bowing matre d'htel led them through the crowded room, it was forgotten as Bond in her wake watched the heads of the diners turn to look at her. The fashionable part of the restaurant was beside the wide crescent of window built out like the broad stern of a ship over the hotel gardens, but Bond had chosen a table in one of the mirrored alcoves at the back of the great room. These had survived from the Edwardian days and they were secluded and gay in white and gilt, with the red silk-shaded table and wall lights of the late Empire. As they deciphered the maze of purple ink which covered the double folio menu, Bond beckoned to the sommelier. He turned to his companion. 'Have you decided?' 'I would love a glass of vodka,' she said simply, and went back to her study of the menu. 'A small carafe of vodka, very cold,' ordered Bond. He said to her abruptly: 'I can't drink the health of your new frock without knowing your Christian name.' 'Vesper,' she said. 'Vesper Lynd.' Bond gave her a look of inquiry. 'It's rather a bore always having to explain, but I was born in the evening, on a very stormy evening according to my parents. Apparently they wanted to remember it.' She smiled. 'Some people like it, others don't. I'm just used to it.' 'I think it's a fine name,' said Bond. An idea struck him. 'Can I borrow it?' He explained about the special martini he had invented and his search for a name for it. 'The Vesper,' he said. 'It sounds perfect and it's


are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade?journals." "Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag. "Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well?read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me." The door to the parlour opened and Mildred stood there looking in at them, looking at Beatty and then at Montag. Behind her the walls of the room were flooded with green and yellow and orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to some music composed almost completely of trap?drums, tom?toms, and cymbals. Her mouth moved and she was saying something but the sound covered it. Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning. "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these." "Yes." Montag could lip?read what Mildred was saying in the doorway. He tried not to look at her mouth, because then Beatty might turn and read what was there, too. "Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on


and they seemed to yield results. And she’d always had a hankering for that sort of game. She believed in magic, in a special power controlling the universe. Besides, he was handsome. Charming.” “What happened?” “He wasn’t quite as charming anymore.” “He had a new girlfriend, was that it?” Marisa stubbed her cigarette in the ashtray. Her manicured hands now toyed with the glass, which was practically empty. “He wanted power, that’s what my aunt said. No, I don’t know the specifics of what that means, but I do know his cult and his spells were making her nervous. Ewers was becoming reckless. It’s one thing to cut off a rooster’s head, and another to steal a corpse from a cemetery. “He was always trying to perfect his magic. When he died, my aunt destroyed his things because some of the people in that cult were crazy. True fanatics who would have done God knows what with his possessions. She thought he’d died, and that magic nonsense should die with him. Abel passed away, right? Well, you should ask Clarimonde Bauer and José López about that, they were his most beloved disciples and they both are practicing magicians to this very day.” “You’re kidding,” Tristán said. “What, they’re still following his teachings?” “Clarimonde Bauer kept reprinting his works for years and years. She only stopped with the book because she fell into financial duress. José López still goes around with a flask of graveyard dirt under his shirt and a chicken foot to cast hexes. And if you look around the city, you’ll see Ewers’s runes pop up here and there, among the graffiti.” “His runes,” Montserrat said. “You mean his cult is still active?” “My aunt doesn’t only spend time in Acapulco because of the weather. A few years ago, when she had that stroke, she felt it was related to Ewers. That someone or some people were casting spells using his magic system. She saw runes on an abandoned building, not far from here, and recognized them. Since then, she tries to stay away from Mexico City as much as she can. There is still magic in these streets, magic Ewers once wielded. His congregation may not be as numerous as it was when he was alive, and Clarimonde’s money does not stretch as far as it once did. But there are always true believers who recall the good old days.” Tristán felt a shiver go down his spine. He remembered an empty lot near his apartment, surrounded by a tall wooden fence that was plastered with posters for concerts, boxing matches, and even pornographic movies. Sometimes, the posters were covered with graffiti before another wave of posters camouflaged the scribblings. He wondered if, underneath layers of cheap paper and colorful ink, there were symbols of old magic, like corpses bricked into walls. “Would your aunt have contact information for Clarimonde and José?” Montserrat asked. “No, she wouldn’t. Clarimonde married and I think remarried, but that must have been a long time ago.” “And she became a publisher?” “Sure, I


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

off their language and took another Stephen said. They allowed a handful of foreigners to subject them. Do you fancy I am going to pay in my own life and person debts they made? What for? --For our freedom, said Davin. --No honourable and sincere man, said Stephen, has given up to you his life and his youth and his affections from the days of Tone to those of Parnell, but you sold him to the enemy or failed him in need or reviled him and left him for another. And you invite me to be one of you. I'd see you damned first. --They died for their ideals, Stevie, said Davin. Our day will come yet, believe me. Stephen, following his own thought, was silent for an instant. --The soul is born, he said vaguely, first in those moments I told you of. It has a slow and dark birth, more mysterious than the birth of the body. When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets. Davin knocked the ashes from his pipe. --Too deep for me, Stevie, he said. But a man's country comes first. Ireland first, Stevie. You can be a poet or a mystic after. --Do you know what Ireland is? asked Stephen with cold violence. Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow. Davin rose from his box and went towards the players, shaking his head sadly. But in a moment his sadness left him and he was hotly disputing with Cranly and the two players who had finished their game. A match of four was arranged, Cranly insisting, however, that his ball should be used. He let it rebound twice or thrice to his hand and struck it strongly and swiftly towards the base of the alley, exclaiming in answer to its thud: --Your soul! Stephen stood with Lynch till the score began to rise. Then he plucked him by the sleeve to come away. Lynch obeyed, saying: --Let us eke go, as Cranly has it. Stephen smiled at this side-thrust. They passed back through the garden and out through the hall where the doddering porter was pinning up a hall notice in the frame. At the foot of the steps they halted and Stephen took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it to his companion. --I know you are poor, he said. --Damn your yellow insolence, answered Lynch. This second proof of Lynch's culture made Stephen smile again. --It was a great day for European culture, he said, when you made up your mind to swear in yellow. They lit their cigarettes and turned to the right. After a pause Stephen began: --Aristotle has not defined pity and terror. I have. I say-- Lynch halted and said bluntly: --Stop! I won't listen! I am sick. I was out last night on a yellow drunk with Horan and Goggins. Stephen went


meanly housed in other capitals. Madame Olenska's own dwelling was redeemed from the same appearance only by a little more paint about the window-frames; and as Archer mustered its modest front he said to himself that the Polish Count must have robbed her of her fortune as well as of her illusions. The young man had spent an unsatisfactory day. He had lunched with the Wellands, hoping afterward to carry off May for a walk in the Park. He wanted to have her to himself, to tell her how enchanting she had looked the night before, and how proud he was of her, and to press her to hasten their marriage. But Mrs. Welland had firmly reminded him that the round of family visits was not half over, and, when he hinted at advancing the date of the wedding, had raised reproachful eye-brows and sighed out: "Twelve dozen of everything--hand-embroidered--" Packed in the family landau they rolled from one tribal doorstep to another, and Archer, when the afternoon's round was over, parted from his betrothed with the feeling that he had been shown off like a wild animal cunningly trapped. He supposed that his readings in anthropology caused him to take such a coarse view of what was after all a simple and natural demonstration of family feeling; but when he remembered that the Wellands did not expect the wedding to take place till the following autumn, and pictured what his life would be till then, a dampness fell upon his spirit. "Tomorrow," Mrs. Welland called after him, "we'll do the Chiverses and the Dallases"; and he perceived that she was going through their two families alphabetically, and that they were only in the first quarter of the alphabet. He had meant to tell May of the Countess Olenska's request--her command, rather--that he should call on her that afternoon; but in the brief moments when they were alone he had had more pressing things to say. Besides, it struck him as a little absurd to allude to the matter. He knew that May most particularly wanted him to be kind to her cousin; was it not that wish which had hastened the announcement of their engagement? It gave him an odd sensation to reflect that, but for the Countess's arrival, he might have been, if not still a free man, at least a man less irrevocably pledged. But May had willed it so, and he felt himself somehow relieved of further responsibility--and therefore at liberty, if he chose, to call on her cousin without telling her. As he stood on Madame Olenska's threshold curiosity was his uppermost feeling. He was puzzled by the tone in which she had summoned him; he concluded that she was less simple than she seemed. The door was opened by a swarthy foreign-looking maid, with a prominent bosom under a gay neckerchief, whom he vaguely fancied to be Sicilian. She welcomed him with all her white teeth, and answering his enquiries by a head-shake of incomprehension led him through the narrow hall into a low firelit drawing-


Easy to off-load. But her bed was her great luxury; it was very important. It simply had to be nice. The windows were shuttered and bolted. She didn’t need to peek outside to know there were men watching the house. Mr. Murphy’s boys. There’d very nearly been a skirmish with his men behind the shop. She thanked her lucky stars it hadn’t come to anything. Intimidation was one thing. Outright assaults were another. They demanded retaliation. And Mrs. Bone didn’t have the resources to retaliate at present. But soon she would, if this job were worth it, if it passed her test. She climbed out of her black dress and put on a tea gown. She had a fine collection of those. This one was the color of ripe peaches, edged with ermine. She lit a cigarette, gave it a few good puffs. It was nice to have a smoke in private. Then she hauled open her closet and started rifling through her dresses. “No good,” she muttered. “Too nice. No, no, no.” She had to push right to the back of the closet. Dragged out boots and stays. Found a neat, sad blouse, much mended. A long coarse skirt of indeterminate color. “Perfect,” she said with a wry sigh. “Oh, very nasty.” She’d look just like a daily woman, wearing that. She stubbed out her cigarette and tried it on. * * * Next, resources. She summoned a ragged-looking boy, who sat before her, head in his hands, bawling with rare splendor. He kicked his heels on the floor. Mrs. Bone counted her fingers. “And your ma. And your pa. And your Aunt Eilidh. And your cousin Gerry. And you, too.” The boy’s howls grew louder. “Now don’t start. You know what you owe.” “I don’t know nothing ’bout that!” “Well, you’d better run home and ask your pa, then, hadn’t you? Tell him Mrs. Bone got her ledger out.” He lifted his head at the word ledger. Mrs. Bone opened the book and licked a finger, keeping her eye on him. “Let’s see. Where’s your name in here?” The boy switched off his tears. She saw him calculating whether he could run for it. He realized he couldn’t. Sensible lad. “What do you want?” he said, mutinous. “I’d like repaying—that’s what I’d like. But I’m willing to make some alternative arrangements. For now.” “What sort of arrangements?” “Men,” said Mrs. Bone, digging a stare into him. “Your brothers. All six of them. And you. Seven’s my lucky number.” “What you need us for?” Mrs. Bone slapped the desk with the ledger. “That’s for me to know, and you to find out.” The boy untangled himself from the chair. He sniffled, rubbing his eyes. “They’ll ask me whether you can pay.” “Whether I can pay?” She leaned right into his face. “Wasn’t you listening? I’ll come for your ma, and your pa, and you, too.” He scrambled out of the chair. “I’ll tell ’em,” he said. Mrs. Bone nodded, done with him. “Then ta-ta, my love, and off you tumble.” *


mountain. Together, they chanted One! Two! Three! and crashed the log on to the great pile. Then they stepped back, laughing with triumphant pleasure, so that immediately Ralph had to stand on his head. Below them, boys were still laboring, though some of the small ones had lost interest and were searching this new forest for fruit. Now the twins, with unsuspected intelligence, came up the mountain with armfuls of dried leaves and dumped them against the pile. One by one, as they sensed that the pile was complete, the boys stopped going back for more and stood, with the pink, shattered top of the mountain around them. Breath came evenly by now, and sweat dried. Ralph and Jack looked at each other while society paused about them. The shameful knowledge grew in them and they did not know how to begin confession. Ralph spoke first, crimson in the face. "Will you?" He cleared his throat and went on. "Will you light the fire?" Now the absurd situation was open, Jack blushed too. He began to mutter vaguely. "You rub two sticks. You rub--" He glanced at Ralph, who blurted out the last confession of incompetence. "Has anyone got any matches?" "You make a bow and spin the arrow," said Roger. He rubbed his hands in mime. "Psss. Psss." A little air was moving over the mountain. Piggy came with it, in shorts and shirt, laboring cautiously out of the forest with the evening sunlight gleaming from his glasses. He held the conch under his arm. Ralph shouted at him. "Piggy! Have you got any matches?" The other boys took up the cry till the mountain rang. Piggy shook his head and came to the pile. "My! You've made a big heap, haven't you?" Jack pointed suddenly. "His specs--use them as burning glasses!" Piggy was surrounded before he could back away. "Here--let me go!" His voice rose to a shriek of terror as Jack snatched the glasses off his face. "Mind out! Give 'em back! I can hardly see! You'll break the conch!" Ralph elbowed him to ne side and knelt by the pile. "Stand out of the light." There was pushing and pulling and officious cries. Ralph moved the lenses back and forth, this way and that, till a glossy white image of the declining sun lay on a piece of rotten wood. Almost at once a thin trickle of smoke rose up and made him cough. Jack knelt too and blew gently, so that the smoke drifted away, thickening, and a tiny flame appeared. The flame, nearly invisible at first in that bright sunlight, enveloped a small twig, grew, was enriched with color and reached up to a branch which exploded with a sharp crack. The flame flapped higher and the boys broke into a cheer. "My specs!" howled Piggy. "Give me my specs!" Ralph stood away from the pile and put the glasses into Piggy's groping hands. His voice subsided to a mutter. "Jus' blurs, that's all. Hardly see my hand--" The boys were dancing. The pile was so


There is no reason for my internal organs to be blowing away in the winds of my desolation. I am completely fine. “Well,” Celine says. Her voice is so pretty. Like shiny metal. I am very okay right now. “Gosh,” she says after a moment. I manage to be patient and reasonable for another 0.3 seconds. “Not to pressure you, but I would love a few complete sentences right now.” She sits down on the bed very suddenly. Actually, it’s possible she fell. “Are you sure?” I almost fall at that. “Am I sure?” “That you, er…like me,” she whispers. I count to eight. “Celine. WHY WOULD I NOT BE SURE?” “Well, I don’t know!” She throws up her hands. “This all just seems very out of the blue—” “It is not—” “We’ve only been friends again for forty-nine days,” she says, then adds guiltily, “give or take.” I stare. “You’ve been counting?” She lifts her chin, defensive. “Haven’t you?” “Well, of course I’ve been counting. That’s my thing! I count things! And I like you, remember? What have you been counting for?” She folds her arms and shrugs. I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this. “YOU LIKE ME BACK.” “Shut up!” she whispers. “Your brother is probably lurking outside like a sneaky alligator.” I’m so busy losing my mind I don’t even have time to enjoy the nonsense coming out of her mouth. “Why the hell did you decide to argue with me about this? You impossible human being! Do you realize we could’ve been making out this whole time?” Her whole body perks up like a meerkat. “Well, do you want to?” “Of course I want to! Why do you think I even said anything?” “Your heart was burning with tender sentiment?” she suggests dryly. God, she is so annoyingly fantastic. “I was being assertive.” “I see.” She considers this for a second. “My turn?” This takes the wind out of my sails and I finally absorb the truth: the person I like simultaneously likes me back, and anyone who’s ever liked anyone knows that that almost never happens. Also, the person is Celine, which is like adding rocket fuel to a firework. Or to me. There is rocket fuel in me. “Okay,” I say, but what I mean is: Yes, definitely your turn, do something please, right now. She bites her lip and grabs my wrist and pulls me forward. Closer. To her. I shuffle over with all the grace and dignity of a Labrador puppy. My right knee touches her left. She leans into me and she smells like a holiday. I can see the texture of her skin. I can count her eyelashes. I can— “Brad,” she says softly, smiling, for real this time. “You’re supposed to close your eyes.” But she’s so pretty. “You first.” “On three.” I’m laughing as we count. One, two, three. My world is dark and Celine-scented. I feel her breath against my mouth as she speaks. “You’re right,” she says. “I do like you too.” Fuck yeah. “We should talk


"... the Answer!" "The answer?" said Deep Thought. "The answer to what?" "Life!" urged Fook. "The Universe!" said Lunkwill. "Everything!" they said in chorus. Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection. "Tricky," he said finally. "But can you do it?" Again, a significant pause. "Yes," said Deep Thought, "I can do it." "There is an answer?" said Fook with breathless excitement." "A simple answer?" added Lunkwill. "Yes," said Deep Thought. "Life, the Universe, and Everything. There is an answer. But," he added, "I'll have to think about it." A sudden commotion destroyed the moment: the door flew open and two angry men wearing the coarse faded-blue robes and belts of the Cruxwan University burst into the room, thrusting aside the ineffectual flunkies who tried to bar their way. "We demand admission!" shouted the younger of the two men elbowing a pretty young secretary in the throat. "Come on," shouted the older one, "you can't keep us out!" He pushed a junior programmer back through the door. "We demand that you can't keep us out!" bawled the younger one, though he was now firmly inside the room and no further attempts were being made to stop him. "Who are you?" said Lunkwill, rising angrily from his seat. "What do you want?" "I am Majikthise!" announced the older one. "And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!" shouted the younger one. Majikthise turned on Vroomfondel. "It's alright," he explained angrily, "you don't need to demand that." "Alright!" bawled Vroomfondel banging on an nearby desk. "I am Vroomfondel, and that is not a demand, that is a solid fact! What we demand is solid facts!" "No we don't!" exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. "That is precisely what we don't demand!" Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, "We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!" "But who the devil are you?" exclaimed an outraged Fook. "We," said Majikthise, "are Philosophers." "Though we may not be," said Vroomfondel waving a warning finger at the programmers. "Yes we are," insisted Majikthise. "We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons, and we want this machine off, and we want it off now!" "What's the problem?" said Lunkwill. "I'll tell you what the problem is mate," said Majikthise, "demarcation, that's the problem!" "We demand," yelled Vroomfondel, "that demarcation may or may not be the problem!" "You just let the machines get on with the adding up," warned Majikthise, "and we'll take care of the eternal verities thank you very much. You want to check your legal position you do mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we? I mean what's the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives us


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

that characterizes all mortals. My stomach twisted at the realization that this creature was the first of the courtly fae I had ever questioned. I was uncertain if the feeling was excitement or terror. “You tricked me,” the changeling said crossly. “You have it backwards,” I said, adjusting the sleeves of my coat. I had turned it inside out before entering the house, enabling me to see through any illusion the faerie chose to show me. “I merely sidestepped your own attempt at trickery. Would your true mother be pleased to know how you welcome a guest?” “Go away.” He was angry, and not just at my evasion of his enchantment. He had not liked me mentioning his faerie dam. “I am going to ask you a few questions,” I said. “I would recommend ready answers. I am aware of the cruelty you are inflicting upon your foster parents, and it has not inclined me to be generous with you.” Another blast of winter wind greeted this statement. The beams rattled in the ceiling. “Are you happy to be the cause of suffering?” “I don’t care,” the child snapped. For he was a child, for all his power, and he glared at me with a child’s stubbornness. “I don’t want to be here. I want my forest. I want my family.” “And what has become of your family, that they should send you to live among mortals?” I was particularly interested in the answer to this question, for most of what we know of changelings is guesswork. It is the habit of courtly fae to leave changelings in the hands of mortal parents for a period of months or years, and then swap them again without ceremony (if the changeling has not died in the interim, which is not uncommon), but no one knows precisely why they engage in this behaviour. The leading theory suggests a motive of idle amusement. The changeling’s lovely face twisted. He leaned forward. “If you do not go away, I will fill Mord’s thoughts with such horrors that he will wish he was dead. I will give Aslaug dreams of burning and rending and the screams of everyone she cares for echoing in the night.” A shudder ran through me, but I maintained my bland demeanour. Wordlessly, I withdrew the handful of salt and began scattering it about the room. “What’s that?” he said, interest replacing fury in the space of a breath. He pinched some between his fingers, smelled it. “Salt? Why are you doing that?” I stopped, silently cursing. Salt binds faeries, but perhaps in Ljosland it works only on the common fae, or not at all. I withdrew the iron nail. “You can’t kill me,” he said. “No,” I agreed. To kill a changeling is to kill the child it has replaced. They are always bound together by a powerful enchantment that neither time nor distance can dispel. “I can hurt you, though.” I gave Shadow a signal, and he snapped at the child’s foot, distracting him. I thrust the nail into the changeling’s


able to secure his services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his story. Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the father of the girl consented to the match. He saw his mistress once before the destined ceremony; but she was bathed in tears, and throwing herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her, confessing at the same time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that her father would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured the suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instantly abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his money, on which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life; but he bestowed the whole on his rival, together with the remains of his prize-money to purchase stock, and then himself solicited the young woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover. But the old man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her inclinations. "What a noble fellow!" you will exclaim. He is so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy which otherwise he would command. Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am wavering in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly: you know me sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the safety of others is committed to my care. I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to "the land of mist and snow," but I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and woeful as the "Ancient Mariner." You will smile at my allusion, but I will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something at work in my soul which


'Oh, ghastly rubbish. They're boring, really. They only have six plots, but they swap them round a bit. Of course I was only on the kaleidoscopes. I was never in the Rewrite Squad. I'm not literary, dear--not even enough for that.' He learned with astonishment that all the workers in Pornosec, except the heads of the departments, were girls. The theory was that men, whose sex instincts were less controllable than those of women, were in greater danger of being corrupted by the filth they handled. 'They don't even like having married women there,' she added. Girls are always supposed to be so pure. Here's one who isn't, anyway. She had had her first love-affair when she was sixteen, with a Party member of sixty who later committed suicide to avoid arrest. 'And a good job too,' said Julia, 'otherwise they'd have had my name out of him when he confessed.' Since then there had been various others. Life as she saw it was quite simple. You wanted a good time; 'they', meaning the Party, wanted to stop you having it; you broke the rules as best you could. She seemed to think it just as natural that 'they' should want to rob you of your pleasures as that you should want to avoid being caught. She hated the Party, and said so in the crudest words, but she made no general criticism of it. Except where it touched upon her own life she had no interest in Party doctrine. He noticed that she never used Newspeak words file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (72 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt except the ones that had passed into everyday use. She had never heard of the Brotherhood, and refused to believe in its existence. Any kind of organized revolt against the Party, which was bound to be a failure, struck her as stupid. The clever thing was to break the rules and stay alive all the same. He wondered vaguely how many others like her there might be in the younger generation people who had grown up in the world of the Revolution, knowing nothing else, accepting the Party as something unalterable, like the sky, not rebelling against its authority but simply evading it, as a rabbit dodges a dog. They did not discuss the possibility of getting married. It was too remote to be worth thinking about. No imaginable committee would ever sanction such a marriage even if Katharine, Winston's wife, could somehow have been got rid of. It was hopeless even as a daydream. 'What was she like, your wife?' said Julia. 'She was--do you know the Newspeak word GOODTHINKFUL? Meaning naturally orthodox, incapable of thinking a bad thought?' 'No, I didn't know the word, but I know the kind of person, right enough.' He began telling her the story of his married life, but curiously enough she appeared to know the essential parts of it already. She described to him, almost as though she had seen or felt it, the stiffening of Katharine's body as soon as he touched her, the way in which


was only an hour long, which left me with a lot of unoccupied late-afternoon hours. Make an appointment with an allergist to help you deal with all the smells. I have “I spent the entire eighties blowing rails” interior nasal cartilage, and it’s due to one thing: a potent combination of Bath & Body Works body mist and Old Spice Wolfpenis—that’s one of the scents, right?—that hangs like a fog over every communal living space in my house. My mom used to lose her voice anytime someone sprayed air freshener in the room she was in (cut to: child me lugging an enormous pink can of strawberry Money House Blessing and just straight up saturating the air with that shit), and she would get so mad while I laughed and laughed. And now my karmic punishment is that I live with several walking clouds of clashing smells. I’m all for kids having choices until they choose to live their lives surrounded by a Pigpen-style smog of a mall fragrance called something like “Hawaiian Breeze Sunshine Coconut Kiss,” and yeah, I’m a hypocrite. I spent many high school days gagging everyone around me with the cloying smell of Victoria’s Secret Pear Glacé, whose accented e made me feel extremely worldly and special. Which is why I don’t say anything. I just grimace to myself while purchasing Flonase by the case, and leave a window cracked even in the winter. As a result I appear to be chill and relaxed even though inside my head I am screaming. Do not expect thanks for literally any kindness you show them. If a tree falls on a teenage boy and you walk by and lift it off him, saving his life, just walk away without saying a word and buy yourself a beer, because the acknowledgment or gratitude you might expect will never come, and if you stand towering over him, and ask for it, you will look like a groveling simp. Cool people don’t need supplication from a little bitch who can’t vote and smells like milk!!!!!!!!! Get control over the reactive muscles in your face that want to twist into an agonized internal scream as you watch your own terrible adolescent behaviors demonstrated by someone else’s child. For the rest of my life, I will never, ever forget the day my mother and I stood inside a Lane Bryant that’s now a Chipotle in downtown Evanston, and I threw a tantrum because she didn’t have money to give me to buy something at the Barnes & Noble that turned into a Pret a Manger that’s now a T-Mobile and also to buy me new jeans that didn’t have a friction hole in the crotch. I very dramatically stormed out and walked around downtown looking in store windows at stuff I couldn’t afford (everything!) before ending up at the library looking at (free) books for a few hours before walking all the way home, because I didn’t have the kind of mom who would wait for me or even look for me to make sure


in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for to hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't have to light it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they call a "crossing"; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being still a little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always run the channel, but hunted easy water. This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, lay- ing on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it warn't often that we laughed -- only a little kind of a low chuckle. We had mighty good weather as a general thing, and noth- ing ever happened to us at all -- that night, nor the next, nor the next. Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful spread of lights at two o'clock that still night. There warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep. Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o'clock at some little village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to say, anyway. Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new


bandage, met invisible fingers. He recoiled at the touch and his colour changed. "Keep steady, Kemp, for God's sake! I want help badly. Stop!" The hand gripped his arm. He struck at it. "Kemp!" cried the Voice. "Kemp! Keep steady!" and the grip tightened. A frantic desire to free himself took possession of Kemp. The hand of the bandaged arm gripped his shoulder, and he was suddenly tripped and flung backwards upon the bed. He opened his mouth to shout, and the corner of the sheet was thrust between his teeth. The Invisible Man had him down grimly, but his arms were free and he struck and tried to kick savagely. "Listen to reason, will you?" said the Invisible Man, sticking to him in spite of a pounding in the ribs. "By Heaven! you'll madden me in a minute! "Lie still, you fool!" bawled the Invisible Man in Kemp's ear. Kemp struggled for another moment and then lay still. "If you shout I'll smash your face," said the Invisible Man, relieving his mouth. "I'm an Invisible Man. It's no foolishness, and no magic. I really am an Invisible Man. And I want your help. I don't want to hurt you, but if you behave like a frantic rustic, I must. Don't you remember me, Kemp?--Griffin, of University College?" "Let me get up," said Kemp. "I'll stop where I am. And let me sit quiet for a minute." He sat up and felt his neck. "I am Griffin, of University College, and I have made myself invisible. I am just an ordinary man--a man you have known--made invisible." "Griffin?" said Kemp. "Griffin," answered the Voice--"a younger student, almost an albino, six feet high, and broad, with a pink and white face and red eyes--who won the medal for chemistry." "I am confused," said Kemp. "My brain is rioting. What has this to do with Griffin?" "I am Griffin." Kempt thought. "It's horrible," he said. "But what devilry must happen to make a man invisible?" "It's no devilry. It's a process, sane and intelligible enough--" "It's horrible!" said Kemp. "How on earth--?" "It's horrible enough. But I'm wounded an in pain, and tired --Great God! Kemp, you are a man. Take it steady. Give me some food and drink, and let me sit down here." Kemp stared at the bandage as it moved across the room, then saw a basket chair dragged across the floor and come to rest near the bed. It creaked, and the seat was depressed the quarter of an inch or so. He rubbed his eyes and felt his neck again. "This beats ghosts," he said, and laughed stupidly. "That's better. Thank Heaven, you're getting sensible!" "Or silly," said Kemp, and knuckled his eyes. "Give me some whisky. I'm near dead." "It didn't feel so. Where are you? If I get up shall I run into you? There! all right. Whisky? Here. Where shall I give it you?" The chair creaked and Kemp felt the glass drawn away from him. He let go by an effort; his instinct was all


Room number eight of the Mister Hypnos dream palace was in chaos. Officers were coming in, pointing their guns at Io and Rosa first, then at the struggling bodies on the bed. Three figures wrestled on the silk coverlets: Edei, Bianca, and . . . Aris Lefteriou. Next to Io, her friend was shaking uncontrollably. “Rosa, are you all right?” “He—gods.” Rosa was trembling. “He barged in, forced me to put him in Bianca’s dream. I don’t know what you guys were seeing, but moments after he joined you, you all started convulsing, eyes rolling back. I couldn’t wake you. I had to—” She raised the pitcher. She had to jolt them awake with the freezing water. “Lefteriou woke first and gave out some call. I guess the other cops must have been waiting in the corridor outside the room, because next thing I knew they were breaking down the door and—shit!” Io glimpsed the shimmer of a gun raised to the ceiling. A shot followed, cracking through their skulls. Everyone in the room froze, Edei and Aris and Bianca in a tangled mess on the bed. At the door stood Luc Saint-Yves, his arm still raised. A lit cigar hung from his mouth, curling smoke into the room. The Police Commissioner’s gaze slid to Io. “We had an inkling you might be planning something, dear sister-in-law, so we sent Aris to follow you. I hope you don’t mind. It looks like we arrived just in time.” He leveled the gun at Bianca’s head. “Arrest her.” The officers sprang into action, removing Edei and Aris Lefteriou from the bed and forcing Bianca’s arms behind her back. She had stopped struggling the moment Saint-Yves burst through the door; she kept her chin up and her legs steady as the leeches led her out of the room. Io found herself wishing the woman would look at her, with defeat or remorse or even hatred. But Bianca Rossi was a queen to her fall. PART III ONE TO CUT CHAPTER XXXI AN EXPOSÉ THE WORLD WAS bouncing. Io forced her sleepy lids apart: on the pillow next to her lay Thais, head propped on her arm, still bobbing from having jumped on the bed. “Wake up, little idiot. It’s past noon. Don’t you want to be awake on the most glorious day Alante has ever seen?” Io rolled to face the narrow window. All she saw was gray. “It’s smoggy.” “This glory is not weather related. Look!” Thais waved news-papers and glossy magazines in front of Io’s face and began reading the headlines. “Rossi Revealed as Keres-Born: Details on Her Arrest. Mob Queen of the Silts? Luc Doesn’t Think So. Liberator of the Silts Today, Mayor Tomorrow! And here’s the one by our very own, newly minted senior writer of The Truth of Alante, and my personal favorite: The Keres-Born Conspiracy: An Exposé on Bianca Rossi’s Part in the Moonset Riots.” A smile spread on Io’s lips. Gods, she had forgotten how Thais’s happiness felt. A firework of light and warmth ricocheting off everything around


kind of fascinated by it. “Um . . . okay, fine. For the entire month that we’re married, you’re not allowed to complain about how long I take to do my makeup.” “Done.” Thank God she hadn’t made an issue about the wine thing. He didn’t want to explain out loud why he was so defensive about the operation. “But we kiss to seal the wager.” “You can’t just make up rules as you go, rat king. A handshake seals it.” He scoffed into his beer. “Someone’s scared.” “Oh, I’m scared?” Speaking of pride. “Pretty sure I’m the one who climbed into that shower. Or did you forget?” Tits. Beautiful, beautiful tits. “Princess, that is a core memory. It’ll be with me in the fucking afterlife.” She tossed her sex hair. “Good.” So flippant. Except he caught her blush. Did she like knowing he’d remember their shower for eternity? Yeah. She did. “Get over here and kiss me.” She snorted, gripping the front of his shirt and pulling him down. But she hesitated before their lips could touch. Wetting hers and staring at his. “Fine.” As if it was no big deal. Right before their mouths met, however, she looked up at him and proved herself wrong. It was a very big deal. They kissed in the middle of the bar like they were alone. August absently set his beer onto the closest table so he could finally, blessedly, sink all ten fingers into her hair and go to fucking town on that mouth. Tongue, lips, teeth. He used everything at his disposal to make her moan while they slanted their parted mouths, sampled, took deeply. And deeper still. I’m going to figure us out, he told her with the kiss, meaning it with every breath in his body. I’m going to marry you, make this work. When they pulled back for air, Natalie looked more than a little startled. Hell, he was startled, too. Every time they kissed, he needed more. More of her. She gathered air into her lungs with their lips still only inches apart. “We better stop—” “Before I carry you into the back alley and rip those panties down again?” He dragged her bottom lip down with his thumb. “Yeah. Guess we better.” Natalie knocked his hand aside and marched past him toward the axe-throwing booth, her gait more than a little unsteady. “W-we were just sealing the wager.” “Whatever you need to tell yourself, princess,” he drawled, picking his drink back up and following in her wake. A few moments later, when August picked up his first axe, he didn’t even put his beer down. He looked Natalie right in the eye and threw a bull’s-eye, then drained his pint glass while she and Hallie stared at him with their jaws on the ground. “What the . . .” Natalie sputtered. “You just—” August pointed to himself. “SEAL. Remember?” He signaled the passing waitress with his empty glass. “Word to the wise, never make a bet with one of us. Especially when weapons are involved. What