one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling; but of course I knew them both directly. "Mind!" said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: "I took him! I give him up to you! Mind that!" "It's not much to be particular about," said the sergeant; "it'll do you small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs there!" "I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good than it does now," said my convict, with a greedy laugh. "I took him. He knows it. That's enough for me." The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over. He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from falling. "Take notice, guard - he tried to murder me," were his first words. "Tried to murder him?" said my convict, disdainfully. "Try, and not do it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here - dragged him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag him back!" The other one still gasped, "He tried - he tried - to - murder me. Bear - bear witness." "Lookee here!" said my convict to the sergeant. "Single-handed I got clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got clear of these death-cold flats likewise - look at my leg: you won't find much iron on it - if I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let him go free? Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at the bottom there;" and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his manacled hands; "I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should have been safe to find him in my hold." The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his companion, repeated, "He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead man if you had not come up." "He lies!" said my convict, with fierce energy. "He's a liar born, and he'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it." The other, with an effort at a scornful smile - which could not, however, collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression - looked at the soldiers, and looked


some little time later Hugo left his guests to carry food and drink -- with other worse things, perchance -- to his captive, and so found the cage empty and the bird escaped. Then, as it would seem, he became as one that hath a devil, for, rushing down the stairs into the dining-hall, he sprang upon the great table, flagons and trenchers flying before him, and he cried aloud before all the company that he would that very night render his body and soul to the Powers of Evil if he might but overtake the wench. And while the revellers stood aghast at the fury of the man, one more wicked or, it may be, more drunken than the rest, cried out that they should put the hounds upon her Whereat Hugo ran from the house, crying to his grooms that they should saddle his mare and unkennel the pack, and giving the hounds a kerchief of the maid's, he swung them to the line, and so off full cry in the moonlight over the moor. "Now, for some space the revellers stood agape, unable to understand all that had been done in such haste. But anon their bemused wits awoke to the nature of the deed which was like to be done upon the moorlands. Everything was now in an uproar, some calling for their pistols, some for their horses, and some for another flask of wine. But at length some sense came back to their crazed minds, and the whole of them, thirteen in number, took horse and started in pursuit. The moon shone clear above them, and they rode swiftly abreast, taking that course which the maid must needs have taken if she were to reach her own home. "They had gone a mile or two when they passed one of the night shepherds upon the moorlands, and they cried to him to know if he had seen the hunt. And the man, as the story goes, was so crazed with fear that he could scarce speak, but at last he said that he had indeed seen the unhappy maiden, with the hounds upon her track. 'But I have seen more than that,' said he, 'for Hugo Baskerville passed me upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels.' So the drunken squires cursed the shepherd and rode onward. But soon their skins turned cold, for there came a galloping across the moor, and the black mare, dabbled with white froth, went past with trailing bridle and empty saddle. Then the revellers rode close together, for a great fear was on them, but they still followed over the moor, though each, had he been alone, would have been right glad to have turned his horse's head. Riding slowly in this fashion they came at last upon the hounds. These, though known for their valour and their breed, were whim- pering in a cluster at the head of a deep dip or goyal, as


presence left Park Lane. Through the crush, Miss de Vries saw the big motor car roll away from the curb. A roar went up in the front hall, men and women peeling off their gloves, letting out enormous sighs of relief, shouting for more champagne. The band began hammering the drums. There was a bang as a flashbulb went out in one of the electroliers, and people screamed in delight. Miss de Vries felt her neighbors crushing her, touching her, all over her. She didn’t budge. Lord Ashley bounded up the front steps, saying in a careless voice to Miss de Vries, “Christ, what a drag that must have been for ma’am. At least you had me here. She wouldn’t have said a word otherwise.” The world grew dark. Miss de Vries could feel her father’s eyes on her back, his portrait looming over her at its usual furious angle. In that moment she loathed Lord Ashley. She urged herself not to let the feeling take root. Anything less than joy would count as failure. There was a gleam of pink satin, a scent of almonds and rose water. Lady Montagu was hurrying past. “Terrible headache, must dash, forgive, forgive... Splendid evening, goodnight to you all!” Miss de Vries felt a hand on her elbow. Lockwood, bruised and angry eyed. “Thank his lordship for the dance,” he said. “It will be expected.” Lord Ashley was throwing back his head and bellowing with laughter, rubbing his thighs, making an obscene joke. She didn’t wish to thank him. He should have been thanking her, for saving him. “No,” she replied. Ashley was taking her triumph, polluting it, making it his own. “I’m going to bed.” Lockwood’s eyes narrowed. “There are still a good many people to speak to...” “I’ve concluded all my business. And I’m tired.” She looked at Lord Ashley, then looked away. She tried to summon up the sweet tang of success. It tasted bitter. She made for the stairs, the scarlet peonies raging overhead, and she didn’t glance back. 36 2:00 a.m. Without Mrs. King, Winnie was going to have to manage the next step herself. She was at the other side of the house, in the guest suites on the second floor. She put the box of matches back in her pocket and peered at the smoke machine, wiping the sweat from her brow. The Janes started stuffing sheets around the bedroom door frame, bunging up the cracks, to contain the smoke. Not that there seemed to be much smoke at all. “How long will it take?” Winnie asked. The machines were working, pistons pumping, air bubbling in the water towers. But the cigarettes were releasing only little wisps of smoke. “We come back every couple of minutes to replace the cigarettes,” said Jane-two. “And we’ve checked the gauges. They’re set to double.” “None of that means anything to me.” “It means you should get ready,” said Jane-one firmly. * * * Alice had slipped into Miss de Vries’s bedroom. She envisioned the other women looking for her, growing angry


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

ready to leave when I saw this blue spark in the water, and then another. When the waves crashed it was like there were hundreds of fireflies in the surf.” “Oh, I know this one.” She snaps her fingers, trying to recall the word. “Bioluminescence. It’s algae, right?” “Right. Some types of algae use bioluminescence to avoid predators, so when it’s disturbed by something moving through the water, or even something getting too close, it produces this burst of blue light to scare them off.” I point. “Look over there.” She leans in and follows my gaze to where a surfer is leisurely cutting across the surface on their way to the shore, leaving a swirl of blue light in their wake. “It doesn’t look real,” she says. “I remember the amazement on Stevie’s face and how I wanted to bottle that moment and experience it over and over again.” Fizzy looks up at me. “That’s the answer you should have given me in your office.” “Answer to what?” “When I asked you about what gave you joy.” My eyes move like magnets to her mouth. “But then how would I have monopolized all your time these past several weeks?” She laughs. “Besides,” I say, “I never asked you what brings you joy.” Fizzy leans into me, bumping my shoulder. “This. Hanging out with you.” “But before I became the best thing that ever happened to you?” “Jess and Juno. My family. Travel.” She inhales deeply. “Sex. Writing.” “Still feeling stuck?” She nods. “I can’t remember the last time I opened a Word doc.” “To be fair, you’ve been busy. There’s this whole reality show we’re planning.” “But maybe that’s a convenient excuse.” She picks up a small piece of seaweed and drags it across the sand. “Every idea I come up with fizzles before I can even get started.” “I don’t pretend I understand what this is like, but is it something you’ve been able to talk about in therapy?” “Oh, for sure,” she says. “But I got so tired of going over the same thing and not getting anywhere. I would do little writing exercises, but they felt pointless.” She stares out at the water for a long moment. “I know I’ll be okay if I don’t write again. I know that the death of my writing wouldn’t be the death of me. But I miss that me. I liked that me, and I’m not sure how to find her. Focusing on it in therapy started to make it worse, if that makes sense.” “It does.” “I’m normally pretty self-aware and can work through most things, but this—” She shakes her head. “It’s got me beat. I’d all but lost interest in any man until yo—” She pauses, and then squints out at the ocean. “Until, you know, the show.” Until you, she was going to say. My heart twists uncomfortably. She clears her throat. “But yeah, love stories. My current brain block.” “Maybe your brain needs to live one for a change.” “Look at you, producer.” She smiles over


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

your confidence. Think what you might do with a million helpers--" The Invisible Man interrupted Kemp. "There are footsteps coming upstairs," he said in a low voice. "Nonsense," said Kemp. "Let me see," said the Invisible Man, and advanced, arm extended, to the door. Kemp hesitated for a second and then moved to intercept him. The Invisible Man started and stood still. "Traitor!" cried the Voice, and suddenly the dressing-gown opened, and sitting down the Unseen began to disrobe. Kemp made three swift steps to the door, and forthwith the Invisible Man--his legs had vanished--sprang to his feet with a shout. Kemp flung the door open. As it opened, there came a sound of hurrying feet downstairs and voices. With a quick movement Kemp thrust the Invisible Man back, sprang aside, and slammed the door. The key was outside and ready. In another moment Griffin would have been alone in the belvedere study, a prisoner. Save for one little thing. The key had been slipped in hastily that morning. As Kemp slammed the door it fell noisily upon the carpet. Kemp's face became white. He tried to grip the door handle with both hands. For a moment he stood lugging. Then the door gave six inches. But he got it closed again. The second time it was jerked a foot wide, and the dressing-gown came wedging itself into the opening. His throat was gripped by invisible fingers, and he left his hold on the handle to defend himself. He was forced back, tripped and pitched heavily into the corner of the landing. The empty dressing- gown was flung on the top of him. Halfway up the staircase was Colonel Adye, the recipient of Kemp's letter, the chief of the Burdock police. He was staring aghast at the sudden appearance of Kemp, followed by the extraordinary sight of clothing tossing empty in the air. He saw Kemp felled, and struggling to his feet. He saw him rush forward, and go down again, felled like an ox. Then suddenly he was struck violently. By nothing! A vast weight, it seemed, leapt upon him, and he was hurled headlong down the staircase, with a grip at his throat and a knee in his groin. An invisible foot trod on his back, a ghostly patter passed downstairs, he heard the two police officers in the hall shout and run, and the front door of the house slammed violently. He rolled over and sat up staring. He saw, staggering down the staircase, Kemp, dusty and dishevelled, one side of his face white from a blow, his lip bleeding, holding a pink dressing-gown and some underclothing in his arms. "My God!" cried Kemp, "the game's up! He's gone!" Chapter 25 The Hunting of the Invisible Man For a space Kemp was too inarticulate to make Adye understand the swift things that had just happened. The two men stood on the landing, Kemp speaking swiftly, the grotesque swathings of Griffin still on his arm. But presently Adye began to grasp something of the situation. "He's mad," said Kemp; "inhuman.


into Mattingly,” Mom says. “You’re clearly very intelligent.” “He is,” I say, right as he says, “I was a student athlete.” “Well, to get into medical school, anyway,” Dad says. I full-body wince, but Wyn squeezes my knee reassuringly. “I’m actually not a med student,” he says. “He’s in law school, Phil,” Mom says, irritable. “That’s Sabrina and Parth,” I say. “Wyn works at the bookstore and does furniture repair.” You know, I think, the one I’m engaged to. But I think it with a smile that hopefully says, No big deal that you don’t remember the slightest thing about the love of my life. “Oh.” Mom tries to smile pleasantly. She and my dad exchange the briefest of looks, allies for a second. “Have you thought about the wedding at all?” Eloise asks. “Oh, I’m sure it’s way too early for that,” Mom says. “Harriet’s still got a couple of years of medical school. And then she’ll have to do a long residency.” Anxiety gurgles through my gut. “We’re figuring it out.” Under the table, Wyn’s hand finds mine, and he laces our fingers together. He drags the pad of his thumb over the callus where I burnt my index finger with Sabrina and Cleo on our first trip to the cottage. I got you. “We’re not in a rush,” Wyn says. “I don’t want to do anything that gets in the way of Harriet’s career.” It’s the perfect answer for my parents. My chest relaxes at my mom’s pleased smile. Eloise downs her glass of wine and sets her napkin on the table. “I should get going,” she says. “I’ve got work early in the morning.” “Who gets their makeup done early in the morning?” Mom asks, like it’s an entirely innocent question and not a thinly veiled expression of two decades’ worth of disappointment. “Brides.” Eloise pulls her denim jacket off the back of her chair. “Like Harriet.” Mom starts to stand. “At least let me put some leftovers together for you.” Eloise holds her off, insists she’s too busy the next couple of days and won’t get around to eating them, and Mom sags a little but relents. After quick waves and nice to meet yous, Eloise sees herself out. “More wine?” Mom says. We have another glass, sitting around the cleared table. Some of the awkwardness and tension fades as we sip, largely because Wyn brings up the research position I’ve scored for the summer, how proud he is of me. “You know,” Dad says, “we never had to worry about Harriet. Never even had a rebellious phase.” “Never got a detention,” Mom says, “had perfect grades, got plenty of scholarships. No matter how stressful anything else was, we always knew Harriet was fine.” Wyn gives me a look I can’t read, a tenderness around his mouth but concern in his brow. He’s good at getting them talking about themselves too: Mom talks about her receptionist job at the dentist’s office—“Of course it’s not brain surgery,” she says brightly, “but it’s fast-paced work, and it keeps me


obvious lie because he’s standing there in a towel, dripping wet. “I thought about waking you, but you looked . . .” He breaks off, his face doing something complicated. “No, it’s good. I needed the sleep.” Nick stares for a minute, clutching the bagels and papers to his chest like a life preserver. “I’ll.” He clears his throat. “Coffee.” He disappears into the kitchen. Nick is weird sometimes. That’s all. Today he’s just weirder than usual. Andy gets dressed and when he goes back to the kitchen, there’s coffee and a bagel waiting for him next to the Times Sunday supplement and a freshly sharpened pencil. He’s on his second cup of coffee, halfway through his bagel, reading an article about yet another atrocity Robert Moses wants to commit in Lower Manhattan, when he realizes Nick hasn’t said a word the whole time. He isn’t even looking at the newspaper open in front of him. “Okay, out with it,” Andy says, folding up his paper and tossing it aside. “What’s eating you?” Nick makes a noise, a single syllable of confusion. “Nothing?” “Oh my God, stop. Don’t lie to me. Do you need me to get out of here for a few hours? I could visit my dad.” “Why would you think that?” Nick looks like he’s been slapped. “Because—you’re not acting like you want me here!” Andy knows he isn’t being fair. Nick’s unusually silent for one meal and Andy’s jumping to conclusions. He’s not being fair at all. The truth is that after last night, Andy feels like his body has been rearranged in some subtle way and that now it belongs to Nick; it’s a stupid thought but he’s having it anyway. He’s worried that what they did somehow ruined things, and that this is why Nick can’t look at him normally, as if everything they were to one another hinged on a secret No Sodomy clause that neither of them knew about. He’s just filled with dumb ideas this morning, but they’re the only ideas he has, so he’s keeping them. “I always want you here!” Nick’s on his feet now. He steps around the table and kneels in front of Andy. “That’s the problem.” “Care to explain that?” “Not really.” Andy sighs. Operating on the idea that if a man’s kneeling at your feet, he probably isn’t cross with you, Andy touches Nick’s cheek. Nick presses into the touch. “Try anyway.” “I should have tried to get you and Emily back together.” Andy is too stunned to come up with anything more incisive than “What?” “That would have been best for everyone, right? You loved one another and you could have made it work again. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about being found out.” He strokes a thumb over Nick’s perfect cheekbone. “I’m not worried about that.” “Christ, Andy. You should be.” “We’re careful.” “Come on, Andy. There are going to be rumors. The two of us living together? Neither of us dating women? What happens when those rumors start?” Andy doesn’t have an answer.


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

“Language, Your Grace,” Bastian said softly. One blue eye burned rage as Gabe flicked it to the prince, then back to Lore. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said finally. “The simplest answer is usually the right one, and the simplest answer is that Kirythea is doing this, somehow. Trying to start a war so they can finally take over Auverraine, too.” “Everything is always going to come back to Kirythea with you.” Bastian tapped his fingers on the glass. “Perhaps you’re not the most impartial party to evaluate this, Remaut.” The Presque Mort’s hands tightened into fists. He took a step closer to the table. “Gabe,” Malcolm cautioned. The sound of his name from his old friend was enough to make Gabe’s shoulders soften, just slightly. He looked away from Bastian, ran a weary hand over his face. “I haven’t been able to raise a body other than the one Anton and August chose,” Lore said quietly. “And they didn’t want me to be present when they started asking questions. Maybe the point wasn’t the questions, but the raising. Maybe they tampered with it somehow. How, I don’t know.” She cut her hand toward the book under the glass. “But it seems there’s a lot we don’t know.” “Then the solution is to find a body they haven’t chosen for you.” Bastian looked at the floor, lips twisted thoughtfully. “One of the ones they’ve hidden away somewhere.” “Exactly.” Lore slid a glance to Gabe, still quiet, still looming. “So, essentially, we’re back at where we started.” “With the added bonus of a slowly dying King, it seems,” Malcolm added. With a sigh, he sat at the table. “Apparently I’m in this now, and seeing as I have no desire for an extended stay on the Isles, I’m going to make myself useful and read this damn book.” He raised a brow at Gabe. “You cross-reference the Compendiums on the table over there. It’ll keep you occupied, and it might turn up something new. I’ve stared at them until the words run together.” “What should I do?” Bastian asked brightly. “I wouldn’t dare give orders to a prince.” “Come on, Malcolm, are you salty about the Burnt Isles threat? I understand, but my hands are tied, here. Pardon the poor choice of words.” Malcolm’s dark eyes rolled to the ceiling, as if beseeching Apollius for a moment of peace. “You look through the lecture notes. See if you can find anything.” Everyone fell to their tasks with quiet focus. Lore hadn’t been given a job, and didn’t necessarily want to ask for one, so she drifted over to Gabe, taking a seat next to him at the other long table. “I’m sorry,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say. “For what?” He didn’t look at her, eye fixed to a glass-protected page, but he wasn’t reading. Just staring. “I don’t know.” A sigh, and she folded her hands on the table, rested her head on them. “You’re right that August and Anton wouldn’t bring me here to find out the


already filling the room, a rich hot smell which seemed like an emanation from his early childhood, but which one did occasionally meet with even now, blowing down a passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing itself mysteriously in a crowded street, sniffed for an instant and then lost again. 'It's coffee,' he murmured, 'real coffee.' 'It's Inner Party coffee. There's a whole kilo here,' she said. 'How did you manage to get hold of all these things?' 'It's all Inner Party stuff. There's nothing those swine don't have, nothing. But of course waiters and servants and people pinch things, and--look, I got a little packet of tea as well.' Winston had squatted down beside her. He tore open a corner of the packet. 'It's real tea. Not blackberry leaves.' 'There's been a lot of tea about lately. They've captured India, or something,' she said vaguely. 'But listen, dear. I want you to turn your back on me for three minutes. Go and sit on the other side of the bed. Don't go too near the window. And don't turn round till I tell you.' Winston gazed abstractedly through the muslin curtain. Down in the yard the red-armed woman was still marching to and fro between the washtub and the line. She took two more pegs out of her mouth and sang with deep feeling: They sye that time 'eals all things, They sye you can always forget; But the smiles an' the tears acrorss the years They twist my 'eart-strings yet! She knew the whole drivelling song by heart, it seemed. Her voice floated upward with the sweet summer air, very tuneful, charged with a sort of happy melancholy. One had the feeling that she would have been perfectly content, if the June evening had been endless and the supply of clothes inexhaustible, to remain there for a thousand years, pegging out diapers and singing rubbish. It struck him as a curious fact that he had never heard a member of the Party singing alone and spontaneously. It would even have seemed slightly unorthodox, a dangerous eccentricity, like talking to oneself. Perhaps it was only when people were somewhere near the starvation level that they had anything to sing about. 'You can turn round now,' said Julia. He turned round, and for a second almost failed to recognize her. What he had actually expected was to see her naked. But she was not naked. The transformation that had happened was much more surprising than that. She had painted her face. file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (78 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt She must have slipped into some shop in the proletarian quarters and bought herself a complete set of make-up materials. Her lips were deeply reddened, her cheeks rouged, her nose powdered; there was even a touch of something under the eyes to make them brighter. It was not very skilfully done, but Winston's standards in such matters were not high. He had never before seen or imagined a woman of the Party with cosmetics on her face. The improvement in her appearance was


to make it into a copy of another country." She smiled across the table. "Do you suppose Christopher Columbus would have taken all that trouble just to go to the Opera with the Selfridge Merrys?" Archer changed colour. "And Beaufort--do you say these things to Beaufort?" he asked abruptly. "I haven't seen him for a long time. But I used to; and he understands." "Ah, it's what I've always told you; you don't like us. And you like Beaufort because he's so unlike us." He looked about the bare room and out at the bare beach and the row of stark white village houses strung along the shore. "We're damnably dull. We've no character, no colour, no variety.--I wonder," he broke out, "why you don't go back?" Her eyes darkened, and he expected an indignant rejoinder. But she sat silent, as if thinking over what he had said, and he grew frightened lest she should answer that she wondered too. At length she said: "I believe it's because of you." It was impossible to make the confession more dispassionately, or in a tone less encouraging to the vanity of the person addressed. Archer reddened to the temples, but dared not move or speak: it was as if her words had been some rare butterfly that the least motion might drive off on startled wings, but that might gather a flock about it if it were left undisturbed. "At least," she continued, "it was you who made me understand that under the dullness there are things so fine and sensitive and delicate that even those I most cared for in my other life look cheap in comparison. I don't know how to explain myself"--she drew together her troubled brows-- "but it seems as if I'd never before understood with how much that is hard and shabby and base the most exquisite pleasures may be paid." "Exquisite pleasures--it's something to have had them!" he felt like retorting; but the appeal in her eyes kept him silent. "I want," she went on, "to be perfectly honest with you--and with myself. For a long time I've hoped this chance would come: that I might tell you how you've helped me, what you've made of me--" Archer sat staring beneath frowning brows. He interrupted her with a laugh. "And what do you make out that you've made of me?" She paled a little. "Of you?" "Yes: for I'm of your making much more than you ever were of mine. I'm the man who married one woman because another one told him to." Her paleness turned to a fugitive flush. "I thought-- you promised--you were not to say such things today." "Ah--how like a woman! None of you will ever see a bad business through!" She lowered her voice. "IS it a bad business--for May?" He stood in the window, drumming against the raised sash, and feeling in every fibre the wistful tenderness with which she had spoken her cousin's name. "For that's the thing we've always got to think of-- haven't we--by your own showing?" she insisted.


with staggering, incurable insecurity. The resulting personality is astoundingly annoying, but I sympathize with these kids. They’re just like myself, ten years ago. A well-phrased barb right now could irreparably destroy their confidence. But the right words of encouragement could help them fly. This summer, I’ve decided I’ll try to be that for them. I’ll put the rest of the world aside. I’ll stop checking Twitter, stop browsing Reddit, and stop agonizing over my own writing. I’ll focus on doing this one thing that I might be good at. The introductions go well. I use the same icebreakers I’ve picked up over years of creative writing classes: What’s your favorite book? (“Voice and Echo,” declares Skylar Zhao, citing Athena’s debut. “Lolita,” Christina responds, chin jutted out as if in challenge. “By Nabokov?”) What’s a book that would be perfect if you could rewrite the ending? (“Anna Karenina,” declares Johnson. “Only Anna wouldn’t kill herself.”) We construct a short story by going around the room, each adding a sentence to the one that came before. We speed-revise that story in under five minutes. We play with different interpretations of the same line of dialogue: “I never said that we should kill him!” By the end of the hour, we’re all laughing and making inside jokes. We are no longer quite so scared of one another. I round out the session by hosting an AMA about the publishing industry—they’re all eager to know what it’s like to query agents, to have a book go to auction, and to work with a real, actual editor. The clock strikes four. I give them some homework—rewrite a passage by Dickens using no adverbs or adjectives—and they cheerfully slide their laptops into their backpacks as they stand up to leave. “Thanks, Junie,” they tell me on their way out the door. “You’re the best.” I smile and nod at each one of them as they depart, feeling like a wise, kind mentor. THAT NIGHT I SCARF DOWN A SALAD FROM THE DINING HALL, THEN head to the nearest coffee shop and scribble out a half-dozen story ideas—descriptive paragraphs, experimental structures, crucial bits of dialogue, whatever comes to mind. I write so fast my hand cramps. I’m buzzing with creative energy. My students made stories seem so rich, elastic, full of infinite variations. Maybe my gears aren’t irreparably jammed. Maybe I only needed to remember how good it feels to create. After an hour of scribbling, I sit back to survey my work, scanning the pages for anything I might expand into an outline. On second glance, though, these ideas don’t seem quite as fresh or scintillating. They are, in fact, slightly modified versions of my students’ writing samples. A girl who can’t get her mother’s approval no matter how well she does at school. A boy who hates his aloof, taciturn father, until he learns the sort of war trauma that shaped his father’s past. A pair of siblings who travel to Taiwan for the first time and reconnect with their heritage, even though they can’t pronounce anything


last of my family. I want to know what they died for. I’m owed that at least.’ Yotam replied, as gently as he could: ‘We’ve all lost someone. Most of us have lost everyone. And none of us are owed anything.’ THE ROSS ICE SHELF WELFARE STAFF CABIN SAME DAY THOUGH THEY’D ONLY BEEN TOGETHER for a short period of time, Yotam had grown attached to Copper and he was concerned that he might cry when forced to return him today. Intense emotional reactions were often early indicators of someone struggling with life on the ice, people who wept when they couldn’t find a missing mitten or when they spilled their hot drink. For twenty years he’d been emotionally disciplined – a detached figure, stable and temperamentally consistent. Yet entering the support cabin, approaching the welfare team, he was on the brink of tears. ‘I’m here to return Copper.’ Before he could say another word, they informed him that they’d decided Copper should stay with him for the time being. The team had witnessed numerous employees lose their minds over the years and it was clear that they were taking pre-emptive steps to preserve his sanity. By way of softening the explanation, they said: ‘You live alone.’ ‘I’ve always lived alone.’ Rather than saying, It’s starting to show, they remarked: ‘He likes you.’ Since Yotam wanted nothing more than to keep Copper, he stopped trying to argue and instead crouched down, rubbing the dog’s thick red coat. ‘Seems like you’re staying with me.’ Looking up at the welfare officers, he asked: ‘Can I take him down to the chambers?’ ‘No dog has ever made it past the first few steps. Including plenty tougher than that old softie.’ Yotam whispered: ‘From one softie to another, there’s nothing to be afraid of.’ Arriving at the entrance, he checked on Copper. The dog was pressed tight against him, his fur raised, his ears pricked up. Yotam took the first steps slowly, waiting for Copper to howl or pull on his lead. But he followed by his side, descending to the halfway point with not even so much as a growl. Yotam glanced over his shoulder, back up the stairs, observing the line of Russian security officers watching, no doubt having taken bets on how far he’d get. Reaching the last step, Copper sniffed the air. The breeze carried pungent smells which even an ordinary-born person with limited senses found startling, from a fetid carrion stench to an intoxicating pheromone perfume. Yet still Copper didn’t try to run back to the surface, and Yotam wondered if all the other dogs had taken their cue not from the presence of ice-adapted species but from their owners’ emotions. Perhaps he was the only ordinary-born person not afraid of these Cold People, the only person who believed their integration would be a success. For a long time, he’d been convinced that many of the teams not only harboured doubts about the viability of integrating these radically adapted species, but on some deeper level they despised them. Heading into the


the invitations were supposed to go out. Today was, in many ways, the point of no return. And despite Bryce’s showing up at camp and apologizing, I still felt torn. I missed Rich. He looked at me in the way I wanted, the way Bryce didn’t. But I was thirty years old. Did you base a life on a look? Maybe that was childish. And the idea of calling the wedding off—especially without my two best friends to help me wade through the heartache and fallout—made me feel nauseous. As I circled The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels in the Scholastic catalog (okay, they were for me. But they totally held up!) the door to the store burst open and I pinned on a smile. “Welcome to Bookmasters!” My brother strode in, wearing his full-on scrubs and white doctor’s coat, his face deathly stern. He literally looked like he might have left a patient open on the table. My mind flooded with worst-case scenarios: Mom was dead. The invitations had killed her! Dad had a heart attack. Daphne! Oh my God. Was Daphne okay? “You!” he yelled, storming toward the desk. Uh-oh… So maybe, just maybe, Daphne had told him what I had said. Traitor. Although I knew I deserved it. “All night and all morning I’ve been running over it in my head: Why would Daphne break up with me?” I was stunned. “She broke up with you?” It was like he didn’t even hear me. “Why would she suddenly change her mind about the life we had planned together, about the family we were going to make, about how we were finally going to get married—” “Wait,” I interrupted him. “You were going to get married?” “Um, yes. Married. Bride and groom, rings, vows. You should know since your wedding is the only thing you’ve been capable of talking about the past six months.” “And Daphne knew about this? I mean, like, she was on board with the plan? She was actually thinking about marrying you?” “I was quitting my job to move here to be with her!” Damn. He was worked up. But, also, whoa. I didn’t know it was actually this serious. And I had no idea Daphne would break up with him because of me. Again. I bit my lip as shame washed over me for what felt like the millionth time. And I really saw my brother. He wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a grown-ass man, a renowned surgeon. And I didn’t trust him to pick his own girlfriend? Or, well, future wife, as it were. I still wasn’t ready to admit to my part in this, though. And I wasn’t sure what, exactly, Daphne had told him. “Well, I’m sorry,” I said. “But I don’t control Daphne. I don’t see what this has to do with me.” He leaned over the counter and peered at me. “Oh, you don’t? You don’t see what it has to do with you? Because see, Lanier, as I was going over and over this in my mind, I realized


suddenly it leapt aside and vanished. He saw the revolver lying on the path outside, and then the little weapon sprang into the air. He dodged back. The revolver cracked just too late, and a splinter from the edge of the closing door flashed over his head. He slammed and locked the door, and as he stood outside he heard Griffin shouting and laughing. Then the blows of the axe, with their splitting and smashing accompaniments, were resumed. Kemp stood in the passage trying to think. In a moment the Invisible Man would be in the kitchen. This door would not keep him a moment, and then-- A ringing came at the front door again. It would be the policemen. He ran into the hall, put up the chain, and drew the bolts. He made the girl speak before he dropped the chain, and the three people blundered into the house in a heap, and Kemp slammed the door again. "The Invisible Man!" said Kemp. "He has a revolver, with two shots--left. He's killed Adye. Shot him anyhow. Didn't you see him on the lawn? He's lying there." "Who?" said one of the policemen. "Adye," said Kemp. "We came round the back way," said the girl. "What's that smashing?" asked one of the policemen. "He's in the kitchen--or will be. He has found an axe--" Suddenly the house was full of the Invisible Man's resounding blows on the kitchen door. The girl stared towards the kitchen, shuddered, and retreated into the dining-room. Kemp tried to explain in broken sentences. They heard the kitchen door give. "This way," cried Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled the policemen into the dining-room doorway. "Poker," said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. He handed a poker to each policeman. He suddenly flung himself backward. "Whup!" said one policeman, ducked, and caught the axe on his poker. The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney Cooper. The second policeman brought his poker down on the little weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent it rattling to the floor. At the first clash the girl screamed, stood screaming for a moment by the fireplace, and then ran to open the shutters--possibly with an idea of escaping by the shattered window. The axe receded into the passage, and fell to a position about two feet from the ground. They could hear the Invisible Man breathing. "Stand away, you two," he said. "I want that man Kemp." "We want you," said the first policeman, making a quick step forward and wiping with his poker at the Voice. The Invisible Man must have started back. He blundered into the umbrella stand. Then, as the policeman staggered with the swing of the blow he had aimed, the Invisible Man countered with the axe, the helmet crumpled like paper, and the blow sent the man spinning to the floor at the head of the kitchen stairs. But the second policeman, aiming behind the axe with his poker, hit something soft that snapped. There was a sharp exclamation


a very large farm, either English or colonial, you will be invaluable as a wife to me; better than a woman out of the largest mansion in the country. So please--please, dear Tessy, disabuse your mind of the feeling that you will stand in my way." "But my history. I want you to know it--you must let me tell you--you will not like me so well!" "Tell it if you wish to, dearest. This precious history then. Yes, I was born at so and so, Anno Domini----" "I was born at Marlott," she said, catching at his words as a help, lightly as they were spoken. "And I grew up there. And I was in the Sixth Standard when I left school, and they said I had great aptness, and should make a good teacher, so it was settled that I should be one. But there was trouble in my family; father was not very industrious, and he drank a little." "Yes, yes. Poor child! Nothing new." He pressed her more closely to his side. "And then--there is something very unusual about it--about me. I--I was----" Tess's breath quickened. "Yes, dearest. Never mind." "I--I--am not a Durbeyfield, but a d'Urberville--a descendant of the same family as those that owned the old house we passed. And--we are all gone to nothing!" "A d'Urberville!--Indeed! And is that all the trouble, dear Tess?" "Yes," she answered faintly. "Well--why should I love you less after knowing this?" "I was told by the dairyman that you hated old families." He laughed. "Well, it is true, in one sense. I do hate the aristocratic principle of blood before everything, and do think that as reasoners the only pedigrees we ought to respect are those spiritual ones of the wise and virtuous, without regard to corporal paternity. But I am extremely interested in this news--you can have no idea how interested I am! Are you not interested yourself in being one of that well-known line?" "No. I have thought it sad--especially since coming here, and knowing that many of the hills and fields I see once belonged to my father's people. But other hills and field belonged to Retty's people, and perhaps others to Marian's, so that I don't value it particularly." "Yes--it is surprising how many of the present tillers of the soil were once owners of it, and I sometimes wonder that a certain school of politicians don't make capital of the circumstance; but they don't seem to know it.... I wonder that I did not see the resemblance of your name of d'Urberville, and trace the manifest corruption. And this was the carking secret!" She had not told. At the last moment her courage had failed her, she feared his blame for not telling him sooner; and her instinct of self-preservation was stronger than her candour. "Of course," continued the unwitting Clare, "I should have been glad to know you to be descended exclusively from the long-suffering, dumb, unrecorded rank and file of the English nation, and not from the self-seeking few who made themselves powerful


so she accepted the hug and treated her like another aunt. It reminded Louise of the way her mom had so easily accepted other people’s attention. She remembered how at ease that had always seemed to make them feel. Each of them threw a handful of dirt on Freddie’s coffin, and somehow Brody managed to slip and fall in the hole, although, fortunately, he didn’t break anything, and as the service wound down, it turned out that Constance happened to have a bunch of cans of hard seltzer and two bottles of wine in her minivan, and people poured one into the other, and the funeral home didn’t seem to be telling them to leave, so they stood around the open grave and kept talking. Mercy told Louise about a precious little house she couldn’t move for love or money because the sellers were in denial that their attic was full of bats. Barb and Aunt Gail read headstones and gossiped about dead people they knew. Constance and Mark got into an argument about evolution while Poppy played hide-and-seek in the tombstones with the other kids. She was finally old enough to play with Constance and Mercy’s younger ones, and as their shrieks rang out over the dead bodies lying underground, and Aunt Honey began to deliver a soliloquy about what Freddie had been like as a child, Louise slipped away from the tent and stood over to one side, watching her family. “Hey,” Mark said, coming toward her, holding out an extra can of hard seltzer. “Hey,” she said, taking it. “You feeling okay?” He looked pale and clammy. Their night at the house had traumatized his surgical site and the doctors had had to shave down some damaged tissue in his right arm. It hadn’t been fun. “It just hurts a little,” he said. “And by ‘a little’ I mean ‘a lot’ and also ‘all the time.’ ” They stood next to each other, watching Aunt Honey hold court, listening to the kids playing among the graves. “Do you think he’s happy?” Louise asked. “Freddie?” Mark asked. “After all that, he’d better be.” “And Pupkin?” she asked. Over by the tent, Aunt Honey cackled loudly and everyone standing in the circle around her laughed. “I hope so,” Mark said. “How’re the renovations coming?” Louise asked. Mercy had told them not to expect much from the house. In fact, she’d told them it probably wouldn’t sell for a while. “You find a cadaver in the backyard,” she’d said, “suddenly everyone wants to knock a hundred thousand off the asking price. Maybe we’ll find someone who’s deaf and blind and doesn’t read the newspapers, or maybe someone from LA, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up that we’ll find a real buyer anytime soon.” That hadn’t stopped Mark from taking out a loan and starting to renovate. He’d told Louise he needed something to do and there wasn’t much of a market for one-armed bartenders. “Look, we need to talk about something,” Mark said. Oh, no, Louise thought. I can’t take more


was standing at a dead stop on the stairs, paralyzed by sudden revelation. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! Sophie was looking back at him. It can't be that simple, Langdon thought. But he knew of course that it was. 66 There in the bowels of the Louvre... with images of PHI and Da Vinci swirling through his mind, Robert Langdon suddenly and unexpectedly deciphered Saunire's code. "O, Draconian devil!" he said. "Oh, lame saint! It's the simplest kind of code!" Sophie was stopped on the stairs below him, staring up in confusion. A code? She had been pondering the words all night and had not seen a code. Especially a simple one. "You said it yourself." Langdon's voice reverberated with excitement. "Fibonacci numbers only have meaning in their proper order. Otherwise they're mathematical gibberish." Sophie had no idea what he was talking about. The Fibonacci numbers? She was certain they had been intended as nothing more than a means to get the Cryptography Department involved tonight. They have another purpose? She plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out the printout, studying her grandfather's message again. 13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5 O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! What about the numbers? "The scrambled Fibonacci sequence is a clue," Langdon said, taking the printout. "The numbers are a hint as to how to decipher the rest of the message. He wrote the sequence out of order to tell us to apply the same concept to the text. O, Draconian devil? Oh, lame saint? Those lines mean nothing. They are simply letters written out of order." Sophie needed only an instant to process Langdon's implication, and it seemed laughably simple. "You think this message is... une anagramme?" She stared at him. "Like a word jumble from a newspaper?" Langdon could see the skepticism on Sophie's face and certainly understood. Few people realized that anagrams, despite being a trite modern amusement, had a rich history of sacred symbolism. The mystical teachings of the Kabbala drew heavily on anagrams-rearranging the letters of Hebrew words to derive new meanings. French kings throughout the Renaissance were so convinced that anagrams held magic power that they appointed royal anagrammatists to help them make better decisions by analyzing words in important documents. The Romans actually referred to the study of anagrams as ars magna-"the great art." Langdon looked up at Sophie, locking eyes with her now. "Your grandfather's meaning was right in front of us all along, and he left us more than enough clues to see it." Without another word, Langdon pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and rearranged the letters in each line. O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint! was a perfect anagram of... Leonardo da Vinci! The Mona Lisa! 67 CHAPTER 21 The Mona Lisa. For an instant, standing in the exit stairwell, Sophie forgot all about trying to leave the Louvre. Her shock over the anagram was matched only by her embarrassment at not having deciphered the message herself. Sophie's expertise in complex cryptanalysis had caused her to overlook simplistic word games, and yet she knew she


heels and ignored him as he yelled, “You’re not even that hot! Your tits are tiny and your makeup is shit!” The following day I told Francesca, who made a gagging noise on the phone, asked the million-dollar question (“God, Elsie. Why are men?”), and blocked him from the client database. For the following fake dates, I made an effort to do better makeup and use push-up bras. As a people pleaser and a graduate student, I was primed to take all sorts of constructive criticism to heart. And that was the end of it. Or just an intermission? Because when Austin looks at me and snorts and says, “No, she’s not,” the temperature around me drops. I look into Austin’s resentful eyes, and my nerves screech. My brain ices over and then shatters into a million tiny razor-sharp fragments that crash noisily into my skull. I know that I am fucked. Well and truly fucked. Monica gasps. “For God’s sake, Voight’s about to spill his wineglass on my Fendi chair.” She scurries away, and I cannot breathe. “What are you doing here?” Austin takes a step closer, and the smell hits: he’s been drinking. I’m going to puke in the cow skull. “Hi, Austin. How are you?” I sound solid, I think. Self-assured, but he ignores me. “Honestly, it’s a good move. You kind of sucked as a hooker.” My shoulder blades make sudden contact with something hard and warm. I must have physically recoiled. And pushed back into— Jack is behind me. Witnessing all of this. Cross-referencing notes about how terrible I am with Austin. Shit. Shit—“What did you just say?” he asks. “You ever hire her?” He points at me with his chin. I can’t see Jack’s face, but I hear the frown in his voice. “Elsie is a physicist.” Austin laughs. It blends seamlessly with the chatter in the background, because people are still eating. Drinking. Arguing. While my professional life falls apart. “Dude, no way. Elsie here is, like, an escort.” Anger bleeds into my panic and I stiffen. “This is incorrect,” I hiss. “Not that there would be anything wrong with it, but Faux is a fake-dating app, which you’d know if you read the terms and conditions you agreed to when you signed up. But you’re too busy whacking balls around with a crowbar to learn basic literacy or how to treat your fellow humans with respect. Step away from me, or—” “At least I’m not some kind of hooker who doesn’t even bother to fuck her clients—” “Hey.” Jack’s palm closes around my arm and pulls me back into him, like I’m an unruly child who might walk into traffic. His voice is low and menacing, and I feel it reverberate through my own skin. “Austin. You heard her. She asked you to step away.” Austin lets out an ugly laugh. “This is my house.” “Then go to your room and play with your Transformers figurines. Leave her alone.” “Jack, I paid her to go out with me. You don’t understand—” “I understand what


this sum was their total capital; yet they laid it unhesitatingly against Matthewson's six hundred. The team of ten dogs was unhitched, and Buck, with his own harness, was put into the sled. He had caught the contagion of the excitement, and he felt that in some way he must do a great thing for John Thornton. Murmurs of admiration at his splendid appearance went up. He was in perfect condition, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, and the one hundred and fifty pounds that he weighed were so many pounds of grit and virility. His furry coat shone with the sheen of silk. Down the neck and across the shoulders, his mane, in repose as it was, half bristled and seemed to lift with every movement, as though excess of vigor made each particular hair alive and active. The great breast and heavy fore legs were no more than in proportion with the rest of the body, where the muscles showed in tight rolls underneath the skin. Men felt these muscles and proclaimed them hard as iron, and the odds went down to two to one. "Gad, sir! Gad, sir!" stuttered a member of the latest dynasty, a king of the Skookum Benches. "I offer you eight hundred for him, sir, before the test, sir; eight hundred just as he stands." Thornton shook his head and stepped to Buck's side. "You must stand off from him," Matthewson protested. "Free play and plenty of room." The crowd fell silent; only could be heard the voices of the gamblers vainly offering two to one. Everybody acknowledged Buck a magnificent animal, but twenty fifty-pound sacks of flour bulked too large in their eyes for them to loosen their pouch-strings. Thornton knelt down by Buck's side. He took his head in his two hands and rested cheek on cheek. He did not playfully shake him, as was his wont, or murmur soft love curses; but he whispered in his ear. "As you love me, Buck. As you love me," was what he whispered. Buck whined with suppressed eagerness. The crowd was watching curiously. The affair was growing mysterious. It seemed like a conjuration. As Thornton got to his feet, Buck seized his mittened hand between his jaws, pressing in with his teeth and releasing slowly, half-reluctantly. It was the answer, in terms, not of speech, but of love. Thornton stepped well back. "Now, Buck," he said. Buck tightened the traces, then slacked them for a matter of several inches. It was the way he had learned. "Gee!" Thornton's voice rang out, sharp in the tense silence. Buck swung to the right, ending the movement in a plunge that took up the slack and with a sudden jerk arrested his one hundred and fifty pounds. The load quivered, and from under the runners arose a crisp crackling. "Haw!" Thornton commanded. Buck duplicated the manoeuvre, this time to the left. The crackling turned into a snapping, the sled pivoting and the runners slipping and grating several inches to the side. The sled was broken out. Men were


and cheeses. One wine cooler holds chardonnays and pinot grigios and champagnes, while the other is reserved for superb cabernet sauvignons. In various cabinets of the bar, he finds a selection of nibbles—canned nuts, pretzels, crackers of several kinds—as well as glassware, flatware, plates, and a variety of cloth napkins. He opens a can of almonds. Another of macadamia nuts. Prepares a plate of cheeses surrounded by crackers. After putting the food on a table beside an armchair that faces the view, he opens a bottle of Caymus cabernet. He pours a few ounces into Riedel stemware, returns to the chair, puts the bottle on the table beside the cheese, and sits with the wineglass in both hands, close to his nose, enjoying the aroma before taking a sip. “To Shelby, who will not be forgotten or go unavenged,” he says, with the intention of getting pleasantly drunk. He doesn’t know if he can get drunk anymore, since rising from the table in the makeshift morgue, but damn if he isn’t determined to give it a try. Over the past four busy days, sleep has eluded him. He doesn’t appear to need it any longer, as though the hours that he spent in death—or something like it—have provided all the sleep he’ll need henceforth. He wonders why, of fifty-five victims, only he came back to life. He suspects that something unique in his genome provided him with protection. However, with the forces surely arrayed against him, the why of his resurrection is not his primary concern. MICHAEL MULTITASKS The wind flows swift out of the north, and the sky swoons low and pregnant, with rain soon to break. The sea is a gray mystery in which the varied population of that world, in the billions, swims its plains and valleys, crawls its lightless floors and the slopes of its submerged mountains, unseen and indifferent to the land-born who build great cities and the weapons to destroy them. In his armchair, facing the big library windows, Michael savors the austere vista and the cabernet sauvignon and the cheeses, as he tracks the items he hopes to receive in the mail this afternoon. Four days earlier, twenty minutes after he had slipped out of Beautification Research, he had been sitting on a bench in a park six blocks from that facility, adapting with surprising speed to his reanimation and to the strange power that came with it. He could not go home again. He dared not. He had no money, no phone, only the clothes he wore. However, because of what he’d become, anything he would ever need could be obtained with minimal risk and effort. Six hours after he rose from the cafeteria table where he’d been placed to await autopsy, he’d taken refuge in a house in the flats of Beverly Hills. The owners, Roger and Mary Pullman, were vacationing in Austria, having swapped homes with an Austrian couple, Heinz and Erika Gurlitzer; the details of their arrangement were easily accessed in the records of the company that provided this service. After


scanning the paper, mouth moving silently with the words. She spoke offhandedly, but there was something in the ferocity of that gaze that held Alice’s attention. “Lord Ashley, from Fairhurst. Mr. Lockwood will accompany us.” The names meant nothing to Alice. “Very good, Madam.” She began to carry the fabric away. “Oh, Alice?” Alice turned. Miss de Vries’s eyes were on her again. The light had changed, grown yellowish. It made Madam look softer, gentler. “You’re doing splendidly,” she said. It was so unexpected, so entirely unlike Madam’s usual cool, disinterested tone, that Alice felt wrong-footed. She didn’t think anyone had praised her handiwork before. They paid her wages—that was all. Even Mrs. King never said well done. Alice didn’t mind being buttered up a little. She rather felt she deserved it. “Thank you,” she said in reply, and she was startled to hear the catch in her voice, as if Madam’s good opinion mattered to her more than she had realized. 12 The same afternoon Hyde Park. Winnie was studying her wristwatch, concentrating, her notebook open on her knee. “How’s the timing?” asked Mrs. King. Winnie held up a finger, waited. Then took a breath. “By my calculations we’ll get those crates from the dome to the floor in less than a minute.” “Well, crack a smile, then, Winnie. That’s good news.” Winnie lifted her head. The sun slanted across her face, drawing out the lines around her eyes. Neither of them had slept properly in days. Their list of tasks seemed to grow longer by the hour. So did their debts. Winnie had just returned from an appointment on Curtain Road, bringing back a bill of sale for three dozen Parenty’s smoking machines. She’d looked flushed, pleased with herself. “Not a bad price,” Mrs. King had told her encouragingly. Of course she could have got them a better deal herself, buying on credit as they were. But there was no need to upset Winnie. Mrs. King had spent the night going through the Inventory with two monocled gentlemen brought in—and paid for—by Mrs. Bone. They smelled extraordinarily of fox fur and cheese, and knew everything about art. The prices they quoted made Mrs. King’s heart expand. She decided she and Winnie deserved a treat. “I’m buying you an ice,” she said to Winnie. “I don’t care for ices.” “I’m paying,” Mrs. King said. “Fine.” Now they sat together near the bandstand. Park Lane glistened between the trees, tantalizingly close. Mrs. King licked her ice cream with relish. “How’s Hephzibah getting on with her stagehands?” she said, rubbing her mouth with her hand. Winnie rolled her eyes. “You know Hephzibah.” They’d put Hephzibah to work on Mrs. Bone’s men: training their accents, fixing their manners, straightening their posture. She would be responsible for directing them through the house, on the night of the ball. “Is she terrifying everybody?” “She’s terrifying me. She thinks she’s Sarah Bernhardt.” “Perhaps she’s better.” Winnie lowered her voice. “This is a robbery, not opening night at the Coliseum.” “It could be both.” “I’m serious.” “And so


humming a tune.     "Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me, "you are quite pale with your vigils; don't you curse me for disturbing your rest?"     "Curse you? No, sir."     "Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?"     "Whenever I can be useful, sir."     "For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? To you I can talk of my lovely one, for now you have seen her and know her."     "Yes, sir."     "She's a rare one, is she not, Jane?"     "Yes, sir."     "A strapper a real strapper, Jane; big brown and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! there's Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket."     "As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying cheerily: "Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise; I rose at four to see him off."       |Go to Contents |               Chapter XXI     PRESENTIMENTS are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly-estranged relatives; asserting, notwithstanding their alienation the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man.     When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either to one's self or one's kin. The saying might have worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the death-bed of her little sister.     Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with


was wide open in a smothered scream. “Restoring neural pathways,” the Blue Pixie said. “Yes, yes. Fix them all. I can see it. It is here. It is here.” “Show me,” the Blue Fairy whispered. “Good,” a familiar voice said from one of the screens off to their right, the image blurred, out of focus. “He’s coming online. Systems seem to be running efficiently. There is … ah. Okay. Hold on. There seems to be—what is that? Why is he—okay. A glitch. We’ll have to keep an eye on it. Set reminder to run diagnostics once complete. Is he … awake? Open your eyes. Yes, that’s it. Slowly, slowly.” The pale yellow faded. The image solidified. There, staring back at them, was Victor’s father. He looked exactly the same as Vic had seen only a moment before on the Blue Fairy’s screen. He was frowning as he leaned toward them. It was dizzying, his face distorted as if seen through a fish-eye lens. He said, “Hello. Give yourself a moment. You are being born, and these things take time. My designation is Gio. Can you tell me yours?” Vic didn’t understand what he was seeing, not until another voice spoke. It was only then that he realized what this was. Dad wasn’t looking at a camera. He was looking at Hap. They were seeing through Hap’s eyes. “Designation,” Dad said again. “HARP 217,” Hap said, voice flat and mechanical. “Good,” Dad said. “HARP 217, you’re doing fine. There was a glitch, but we’ll iron that out. Can you stand for me?” The Hap on the screen looked at his hands, holding them up in front of his face. They were smooth. No wood. Only synthetic skin. He wiggled his fingers and— A skip. A jump. The screens filled with static and when the image reappeared, Hap seemed to be standing, Dad circling around him. “What was that?” the Blue Fairy asked. “Corrupted data,” the Blue Pixie said. “Some pathways were completely obliterated.” “Can you fix them?” “I’m trying.” “Try harder.” “The glitch seems to have been a one-off,” Dad said. “An anomaly. It happens, though we’ll keep an eye on it just to be sure. How do you feel?” “Feel?” Hap asked in that odd voice. “Yes. Feel.” “I do not understand.” The screens fritzed. “You have a purpose,” Dad said as he moved down a white hallway, Hap following behind him. “Do you know what that is?” “Yes,” Hap said. “My protocols are clear.” “Good.” Dad seemed distracted. “It will be difficult work, but you’re the pinnacle of your line. All those that have come before you gave us the tools to make you who you are. You will—ah. Hello. What brings you here?” Hap turned his head. A smooth man stood before them, in the same uniform Vic had seen them in at the compound and then again at the Land of Toys, the symbol of the fox and cat on his chest. “Is this the latest model?” he asked in that queer, flat voice. “It is,” Dad said. “He’s—”


I had played this coming conversation in my head from the moment the Mufsid left the river. “How can you sense magic?” Arin paused. Amusement crept into his face. It baffled me, how much he seemed to enjoy being cornered or outpaced. Every exchange with the Nizahl Heir was a game. A battle of wills on a blood-soaked field with him as the last man standing. “You want to trade?” “Yes.” I pointed an innocent smile at him. “You told me every truth has its time. Let this be yours.” “I could force it from you. Painfully.” Front strike. Obvious and easy to block. Too easy. “We only have three weeks left until we leave for Lukub. My magic still isn’t working. You cannot afford to waste training time while I recover from your torture.” “But I can afford your friends’ time.” He tipped his head. “Who shall I start with, Sefa or the boy?” “You will not have my full cooperation if you torture them. You might even run the risk of motivating them to escape, which would be a waste of your resources and loss of a training tool.” I was enjoying myself. I had had little opportunity to be truly cunning in Mahair. It felt like flexing a muscle I had forgotten existed. I had never met anyone quite as still as Arin of Nizahl. The man could be carved from stone. “I have a theory.” I raised a brow. “Congratulations.” He ignored me. “I propose a different trade. Tell me about the Jasadi by the river, and I will share my theory behind your attack in Essam.” Oh, a fatal blow. I pulled at the frayed ends of my gown while I considered my options. Learning why he possessed a strange sensitivity to magic was important, but not urgent. It would not serve me unless he also mentioned how one could develop an immunity to his touch. But the person who attacked me in Essam knew me, knew my history with Hanim, and wanted to kill me for it. A sigh escaped my lips. “I accept your trade.” And so he once again remained alone on the battlefield, my shadow of resistance chased to oblivion. He knit his hands over his stomach. Leaned back. “Next time, you might have more to bargain with.” “I don’t need your consolation.” “Would you prefer my mockery?” “Just your theory. Or your well-crafted lie. They are probably one and the same.” Thunder cracked over his expression, bright and startlingly violent. Oh, I had pierced his granite layers, had I? “I do not lie. Who do you think you are, that I would tarnish my integrity to fool you?” “I am your Champion. Your student. You work hard to provoke my magic into existence.” This time, it was me who remained calm. “I have unfortunate news about your integrity, Commander.” The ripple of anger dissolved as quickly as it appeared. His expression smoothed into the mask I had learned to approach with extreme caution, and Teta Palia’s old caution rang in my ear.


part of her isn’t gone, because I feel her love and experience her care like a living thing. I hear her voice speaking to me. And though my father felt so far from me after he died, he no longer feels so distant, lost beyond my reach—it’s as if she has given a part of him back to me now that they are wherever they are, together, my ancestors by love and choice if not by blood. * * * In October, on what would have been my mother’s sixty-ninth birthday, I write her a letter and buy a nice meal to eat at home with my family—nothing fancy, nothing my mom had ever made for me, just something I know she would have enjoyed. (She always, until her final days, ate quickly and with much gusto, a trait I’m sure I got from her.) I can’t visit her grave, with the headstone I chose to match my dad’s, but I send flowers to the cemetery. I order them from the same florist who designed my mother’s memorial flowers, and she promises to use the same colors. The two arrangements are made in different seasons, with different flowers in bloom, so of course they cannot be exactly the same. Nor can a livestreamed funeral provide the same experience, the same companionship or comfort, as one you’re able to attend in person. But neither this life-changing loss nor the depth of gratitude I feel because I had her as a parent can be undermined by the unforeseen, by disease, or by distance. She was my mother. I will miss her forever. In this way, both her absence and my grief are precisely what they would have been, even in an ordinary time. 23 My parents moved into their manufactured home the same year my husband and I moved to North Carolina for his graduate program. I found out they were moving when my mother called and asked me what I wanted to do with my stuff, meaning everything that hadn’t fit in two suitcases and four media-mail boxes when I went to college. Most of my childhood belongings were still stored in my parents’ garage. I told her she was welcome to donate, sell, or toss anything she liked, though I harbored a hope of one day retrieving my old dollhouse for my then-theoretical children to play with. When a friend asked if I minded that my parents were selling the home I’d grown up in, I scoffed. The last person to live in my childhood bedroom hadn’t even been me, but a friend of mine—my parents, with typical openhandedness, had let her stay with them rent-free for a year and a half after her own parents kicked her out. There were things about the house I’d been fond of: the sprawling, shady backyard that had once contained my rickety old swing set; my room with its blue walls and bursting bookshelves and my cat’s favorite scratching post; the minuscule spare bedroom that I was eventually permitted to turn into a writing space,


leave the seat of his power?" "A hundred reasons. Duty. Honor. He yearns to write his name large across the book of history, to get away from his wife, or both. Perhaps he just wants to be warm for once in his life." A GAME OF THRONES 73 "His wife is Lady Arryn's sister. It's a wonder Lysa was not here to greet us with her accusations." Bran looked down. There was a narrow ledge beneath the window, only a few inches wide. He tried to lower himself toward it. Too far. He would never reach. "You fret too much. Lysa Arryn is a frightened cow." "That frightened cow shared Jon Arryn's bed." "If she knew anything, she would have gone to Robert before she fled King's Landing." "When he had already agreed to foster that weakling son of hers at Casterly Rock? I think not. She knew the boy's life would be hostage to her silence. She may grow bolder now that he's safe atop the Eyrie." "Mothers." The man made the word sound like a curse. "I think birthing does something to your minds. You are all mad." He laughed. It was a bitter sound. "Let Lady Arryn grow as bold as she likes. Whatever she knows, whatever she thinks she knows, she has no proof." He paused a moment. "Or does she?" "Do you think the king will require proof?" the woman said. "I tell you, he loves me not." "And whose fault is that, sweet sister?" Bran studied the ledge. He could drop down. It was too narrow to land on, but if he could catch hold as he fell past, pull himself up . . . except that might make a noise, draw them to the window. He was not sure what he was hearing, but he knew it was not meant for his ears. "You are as blind as Robert," the woman was saying. "If you mean I see the same thing, yes," the man said. "I see a man who would sooner die than betray his king." "He betrayed one already, or have you forgotten?" the woman said. "Oh, I don't deny he's loyal to Robert, that's obvious. What happens when Robert dies and Joff takes the throne? And the sooner that comes to pass, the safer we'll all be. My husband grows more restless every day. Having Stark beside him will only make him worse. He's still in love with the sister, the insipid little dead sixteen-year-old. How long till he decides to put me aside for some new Lyanna?" Bran was suddenly very frightened. He wanted nothing so much as to go back the way he had come, to find his brothers. Only what would he tell them? He had to get closer, Bran realized. He had to see who was talking. The man sighed. "You should think less about the future and more about the pleasures at hand." "Stop that!" the woman said. Bran heard the sudden slap of flesh on flesh, then the man's laughter. 74 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Bran pulled


shyly. "Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will do what my Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke it and sing something quite low." "I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily. Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she leaned against the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a very low little chanting song in Hindustani. "That is nice," he said more drowsily still, and she went on chanting and stroking, but when she looked at him again his black lashes were lying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast asleep. So she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without making a sound. CHAPTER XIV A YOUNG RAJAH The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not stopped pouring down. There could be no going out of doors. Martha was so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery. She came bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she was doing nothing else. "What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down. "Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say." "I have. I have found out what the crying was," said Mary. Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled eyes. "Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!" "I heard it in the night," Mary went on. "And I got up and went to see where it came from. It was Colin. I found him." Martha's face became red with fright. "Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying. "Tha' shouldn't have done it--tha' shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble. I never told thee nothin' about him--but tha'll get me in trouble. I shall lose my place and what'll mother do!" "You won't lose your place," said Mary. "He was glad I came. We talked and talked and he said he was glad I came." "Was he?" cried Martha. "Art tha' sure? Tha' doesn't know what he's like when anything vexes him. He's a big lad to cry like a baby, but when he's in a passion he'll fair scream just to frighten us. He knows us daren't call our souls our own." "He wasn't vexed," said Mary. "I asked him if I should go away and he made me stay. He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool and talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens. He wouldn't let me go. He let me see his mother's picture. Before I left him I sang him to sleep." Martha fairly gasped with amazement. "I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested. "It's as if tha'd walked straight into a lion's den. If he'd been like he is most times he'd have throwed himself into one of his tantrums and roused


need him to overcommit. Trouble is, he doesn’t have to do that to kill me. “You’re pathetic,” I tell him. “You know it took hardly any time at all to get your blood out of my carpet, it was so fucking thin.” He throws a punch, and I slip it, just. Shake my head as if that was what I had in mind. “Pathetic.” I try to make my voice sound like Stefan’s. Pretty sure he says the same thing to Maurice every day at the office. It must be working because the next punch is much bigger. It’d take my head clean off if I let it land. I sag under it, feeling the oblique muscles on the gunshot side tear a little more. I dodge again, and again, try not to vomit, and finally I see him wind up, and then at last he lets it go. I don’t slip this one. I stand straight, twist at the hip, and use my right hand to guide his directly into the path of my left. With the corkscrew sticking out between my fingers so it drives hard in between the bones and sticks. Maurice screams. I drag the corkscrew back and he tries to follow. I’m pulling him around with his agony, with the feeling of violation, the metal lodged in him. Part of him wants it out, part of him knows that would be fine, he can get it fixed, but deep inside the animal that lives in all of us can’t let a hand just get torn apart like a chicken bone. It takes training and practice to make sacrifices like that, or you have to believe in your own death, and Maurice has none of those things. I fire off a couple of knees and an elbow while we’re dancing, weak as hell because I can’t rely on the muscles in my trunk, then wrench back the other way and feel the corkscrew come loose, bringing a chunk of something he probably needs. I slap him, open his hands like a window, and bring in my left with the blood still all over it. I’m going to tracheotomise the fucker as amateur as I know how. And that is how I’m going to win. Like Sam says, you go hard early. Except I don’t. I don’t win. I’m just a little too slow. I can’t twist right now, so I have to stretch my arm, and the point stops short. A couple of centimetres, not more. Maurice catches my hand and makes a sound like pure joy. He puts a couple into my ribs and I feel them crack. Then he throws me through the glass doors onto the deck. He’s laughing, but it’s not like Stefan. It’s just a big, dangerous asshole laughing while he takes me down. * * * — He follows me out onto the balcony, into the wind and the dark, and stalks me across the pine floor. It’s slippery with hail, half melted and half set into ice. I’m not sure I


guidebook to tell you how to stitch it back together. But time will slowly heal you, as it is doing for me. There are good days and there are difficult days. Your grief will never fully fade; it will always be with you—a shadow you carry in your soul—but it will become fainter as your life becomes brighter. You will learn to live outside of it again, as impossible as that may sound. Others who share your pain will also help you heal. Because you are not alone. Not in your fear or your grief or your hopes or your dreams. You are not alone. {13} An Unfair Advantage It was strange returning to the office. Nothing about it had changed; her desk was still covered in classifieds and obituaries, the five teapots were brewing, the smoke still danced from editors’ fingertips, the typebars ticked like heartbeats. It was almost surreal to Iris, to return to something that felt outwardly so familiar when she felt inwardly so different. Her life had been irrevocably altered, and she was still trying to adjust to what it would mean for her in the days to come. Living in that flat alone. Living without her mother. Living this new, unbalanced cycle, day in and day out. Grief is a long, difficult process, especially when it is so racked by guilt. She sat at her desk and prepared her typewriter, craving a distraction. Anything to keep her mind off of— “You feeling better today, Winnow?” Sarah asked, stopping by on her way to Zeb’s office. Iris nodded but kept her eyes on her paper. “Much. Thanks for asking, Prindle.” She was relieved when Sarah moved on. Iris didn’t think she could withstand speaking about her mother just yet, so she set her focus like iron and worked. But she knew the moment Roman walked into the office. She knew it like a cord was bound between the two of them, even though she refused to look at him. He must have sensed she was ignoring him. He eventually walked to her cubicle and leaned on the wood, watching her type. “You look well today, Winnow.” “Are you implying I looked ill before, Kitt?” In the past, he would have returned her snark and left. But he continued to silently stand in her space, his eyes all but burning through her, and she knew he wanted her to look at him. She cleared her throat, her attention riveted to her work. “You know, if you wanted to type up the classifieds so badly, you could just say so. You don’t have to hover over me.” “Why didn’t you say anything?” he asked, and she was surprised he sounded irritated, or angry, or perhaps a mix of both. “What do you mean?” “Why didn’t you tell someone you were feeling ill the other day? You just … left, and none of us knew where you went or what had happened.” “It’s really none of your business, Kitt.” “It is, because people here were worried about you, Winnow.” “Yes, they’re


never answered my prayers. Perhaps the old gods will." "As you wish, boy," Mormont said. Sam took his seat again, as did Jon. "We have placed each of you in an order, as befits our need and your own strengths and skills." Bowen Marsh stepped forward and handed him a paper. The Lord Commander unrolled it and began to read. "Haider, to the builders," he began. Haider gave a stiff nod of approval. "Grenn, to the rangers. Albett, to the builders. Pypar, to the rangers." Pyp looked over at Jon and wiggled his ears. "Samwell, to the stewards." Sam sagged with relief, mopping at his brow with,a scrap of silk. "Matthar, to the rangers. Dareon, to the stewards. Todder, to the rangers. Jon, to the stewards." The stewards? For a moment Jon could not believe what he had heard. Mormont must have read it wrong. He started to rise, to open his mouth, to tell them there had been a mistake . . . and then he saw Ser Alliser studying him, eyes shiny as two flakes of obsidian, and he knew. The Old Bear rolled up the paper. "Your firsts will instruct you in your duties. May all the gods preserve you, brothers." The Lord Commander favored them with a half bow, and took his leave. Ser Alliser went with him, a thin smile on his face. Jon had never seen the masterat-arms took quite so happy. "Rangers with me," Ser Jaremy Rykker called when they were gone. 456 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Pyp was staring at Jon as he got slowly to his feet. His ears were red. Grenn, grinning broadly, did not seem to realize that anything was amiss. Matt and Toad fell in beside them, and they followed Ser Jaremy from the sept. "Builders," announced lantern-jawed Othell Yarwyck. Haider and Albett trailed out after him. Jon looked around him in sick disbelief. Maester Aemon's blind eyes were raised toward the light he could not see. The septon was arranging crystals on the altar. Only Sam and Darcon remained on the benches; a fat boy, a singer . . . and him. Lord Steward Bowen Marsh rubbed his plump hands together. "Samwell, you will assist Maester Aemon in the rookery and library. Chett is going to the kennels, to help with the hounds. You shall have his cell, so as to be close to the maester night and day. I trust you will take good care of him. He is very old and very precious to us. "Dareon, I am told that you sang at many a high lord's table and shared their meat and mead. We are sending you to Eastwatch. It may be your palate will be some help to Cotter Pyke when merchant galleys come trading. We are paying too dear for salt beef and pickled fish, and the quality of the olive oil we're getting has been frightful, Present yourself to Borcas when you arrive, he will keep you busy between ships." Marsh turned his smile on Jon. "Lord Commander Mormont has requested you for his


When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I don't wish it professionally spoken about." Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand, until the moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in it ring. Upon this, the Aged - who I believe would have been blown out of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows - cried out exultingly, "He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. The interval between that time and supper, Wemmick devoted to showing me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several manuscript confessions written under condemnation - upon which Mr. Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a roasting-jack. There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in bed, it seemed as if


stared at him. I didn’t want to believe that he would do anything to me. But the dread in my chest made every breath ache. I oriented myself. “This way,” I said. I angled toward the pond trail. If I could get there, there was at least a chance there would be another human being nearby. And even the chance of it might be some protection. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe I needed protecting from Cody. Not really. “You and Jessi were close?” I asked. “We were. You remind me a lot of her, actually,” he said. “That blend of wounded and untouchable. She didn’t have much in the way of support. Her parents were checked out. Her sister had her own kid to worry about, so Jessi was left on her own. And she was managing. But it was messy.” “I can see why I remind you of that,” I said. The woods had gone silent with the intrusion of our voices. I wanted to reach into my pocket and check the phone, but Cody was right next to me. “Oscar said that he thought you two might have a thing.” “I certainly would have jumped at the chance. But Jessi wasn’t interested.” “I can’t imagine choosing Big Jim over you.” “I wasn’t such a catch back then,” he said with a pained shake of the head. “There was a reason Oscar and I were friends. I spent every weekend drunk off my ass. Most of the week, too. Trust me, I wasn’t boyfriend material. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t know if I ever could have gotten Gabriella to give me as much as a second glance.” “What did I have to do with it?” I asked. “I always wanted to protect you,” he said. “You were like the little sister I always wanted. Seeing you there, all torn up, and then realizing that you were still breathing—it was like something in me broke and then came back together whole all in the same moment. I promised myself I’d keep looking after you, as much as I could.” The boulder was just up ahead. Another few steps and it would be in sight. “Is that why you asked Big Jim to have Ethan Schreiber investigated?” I asked. He halted, rocking his weight back. I stopped, arms crossed against the chill, and half turned to face him. “I thought he was just using you to get a story. I didn’t imagine he would end up being Stahl’s son.” “Then you knew about that.” “I heard, yeah,” he said. “Why have Big Jim hire them? Why not handle it yourself?” I asked. “You’ve got to have resources, with your work.” “I didn’t want to get directly involved,” he said, sounding—embarrassed? “It’s sort of like meeting your little sister’s boyfriend on the steps with the shotgun, isn’t it?” “Were you having me followed?” I asked. I waited for him to deny it. His mouth opened, shut. “Why would I have you followed?” he asked at last, unconvincing. “Someone from


his head against the wall, to kick over the table, and hurl the inkpot through the window--to do any violent or noisy or painful thing that might black out the memory that was tormenting him. Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your own nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom. He thought of a man whom he had passed in the street a few weeks back; a quite ordinary-looking man, a Party member, aged thirty-five to forty, tallish and thin, carrying a brief-case. They were a few metres apart when the left side of the man's face was suddenly contorted by a sort of spasm. It happened again just as they were passing one another: it was only a twitch, a quiver, rapid as the clicking of a camera shutter, but obviously habitual. He remembered thinking at the time: That poor devil is done for. And what was frightening was that the action was quite possibly unconscious. The most deadly danger of all was talking in your sleep. There was no way of guarding against that, so far as he could see. He drew his breath and went on writing: I went with her through the doorway and across a backyard into a basement kitchen. There was a bed against the wall, and a lamp on the table, turned down very low. She---- His teeth were set on edge. He would have liked to spit. Simultaneously with the woman in the basement kitchen he thought of Katharine, his wife. Winston was married--had been married, at any rate: probably he still was married, so far as he knew his wife was not dead. He seemed to breathe again the warm stuffy odour of the basement kitchen, an odour compounded of bugs and dirty clothes and villainous cheap scent, but nevertheless alluring, because no woman of the Party ever used scent, or could be imagined as doing so. Only the proles used scent. In his mind the smell of it was inextricably mixed up with fornication. When he had gone with that woman it had been his first lapse in two years or thereabouts. Consorting with prostitutes was forbidden, of course, but it was one of those rules that you could occasionally nerve yourself to break. It was dangerous, but it was not a life-and-death matter. To be caught with a prostitute might mean five years in a forced-labour camp: not more, if you had committed no other offence. And it was easy enough, provided that you could avoid being caught in the act. The poorer quarters swarmed with women who were ready to sell themselves. Some could even be purchased for a bottle of gin, which the proles were not supposed to drink. Tacitly the Party was even inclined to encourage prostitution, as an outlet for instincts which could not be altogether suppressed. Mere debauchery did not matter very much, so long as it was furtive and joyless and only involved the women of a submerged and despised class. The unforgivable crime


to do. Mind you don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go "     "A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go further. Don't shut the door oh, don't, for God's sake!"     "I must; the rain is driving in "     "Tell the young ladies. Let me see them "     "Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't make such a noise. Move off."     "But I must die if I am turned away."     "Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any followers housebreakers or such-like anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.     This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering a throe of true despair rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned I wrung my hands I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this specter of death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavored to regain.     "I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence."     These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there dumb and still.     "All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want."     "Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was near what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud, long knock, the newcomer appealed to the door.     "Is it you, Mr. St. John?" cried Hannah.     "Yes yes; open quickly."     "Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come in your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman I declare she is not gone yet! laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say!"     "Hush, Hannah! I have a word to


manipulating her voice, her movements. People in this place talked of her as though she were remarkable: preternaturally calm, wise, serene. But the Janes just thought that Madam was a bully. She liked it when the under-footmen dropped things. She winced when they opened their mouths, as if their breath stank. She isolated people, gave them pointless tasks. “There’s a piece of paper I need,” she said to Jane-one. “A letter. I’ve no notion where I put it. Find it, will you?” A single piece of paper, in a house as vast as this, with countless drawers and closets? Jane-two marked it in her logbook of risks that very night. “She’s always inspecting things. She’ll know if we move something. This could cause a grave problem.” Jane-one was practicing her handstands. It helped her concentrate. She could ponder the house’s tiniest parts, its atoms. She could picture millions of threads, long strings of numbers. Drapes and blinds and bulbs and figurines and carpet grips and candles. “You worry too much,” she said from the floor. 17 One week to go Mrs. King had left this chore for as long as she could, but it could wait no longer. There was only a week to go. It was time to see William. Certain appointments thrilled her. Some of them amused her. Some of them were tedious but necessary. This was quite different. It involved the digging up and dusting off of feelings. Winnie eyed her from the other side of Mrs. Bone’s inventions room. “Something’s put you out of sorts,” she said. “Not in the least,” said Mrs. King briskly, fastening her gloves. “Who did you say you were going to see?” Best not to obfuscate. “William,” she said. “You’re not serious.” Mrs. King buckled her belt, gave it a fierce tug. “It’s about the tiniest little thing. I wouldn’t even have mentioned it if you hadn’t asked.” Winnie’s hackles were up in seconds. “Tell me,” she said. Her temper was growing frayed. She’d been quick to anger ever since she’d discovered Mrs. King’s secret. Trust was such a precious thing. It broke so easily. There was no neat mending of it. “No,” she said firmly. “I won’t.” If she’d been sleeping properly, she might have kept her own cool. She might have taken Winnie further into her confidence. Winnie of all people would have understood. She was sympathetic to affairs of the heart. But Mrs. King was growing tired and edgy and she was running out of time. Winnie stood aside to let her pass. What else could she have done? Wrestled Mrs. King to the ground? She’d never win in a struggle, and they both knew it. “Good morning, then,” she said, voice tight. “Good morning,” Mrs. King replied, voice tighter. * * * Mrs. King stood outside the garden door on Park Lane. The heat was rising, scorching the door handle. Around here, in the shadow of the house, the world had grown quiet, as if it had run out of breath. The cypress trees sagged, quite still. The sky