he wanted a glass of water.” She explained that she’d felt herself to be a child, she was a child, she was naïve, so young. And Jerome, aged thirty-six, had been a full-fledged adult. Having married Jerome when he was thirty-nine, I can attest that he was still in most ways a child, as he continues to be. At thirty-nine, the only dinner he could make was eggplant parmesan. He would ruin suede sneakers in the washing machine. He’d never registered to vote. I’m wary of the narrative that suggests men mature so slowly that they pair best with younger women; I just mean that Jerome in particular was not terribly grown-up in his thirties. Jerome took an interest in her work, Jasmine said to the next person who sat down, a woman with a squirmy toddler. He asked Jasmine about her own art over dinner, told her it sounded exciting. They began sleeping together, he introduced her to friends in the art world, he was a shitty boyfriend. For instance: He broke up with her on her birthday, begged her forgiveness the next morning. He left used condoms on her floor. He told her he hated wearing condoms at all. He ordered a pizza for them, but it had pepperoni, because he’d forgotten she didn’t eat pork. He told her he couldn’t be monogamous. She didn’t like having sex in the morning, but he did, so she agreed to it but didn’t enjoy it as much, and he knew she didn’t enjoy it as much but he still asked for it, and she obliged. Once, he woke her at four in the morning and they had sex because he asked, but she kept drifting off and so he stopped. I kept waiting for the bombshell, the moment when he would pin her down or hit her or threaten to ruin her career—the thing I wouldn’t recognize as Jerome, that would forever change my sense of him; the thing that would make me divorce him for good and get custody of the kids; the thing that would derail his career and lead to his unanimous public censure. But forty-five minutes in, she was wrapping things up (circling the bench again like a lioness) and it had gotten no worse than undesirable—but consensual—morning sex. She looked at the camera for the first time, and she said, “Have you ever lost something somewhere, a book or a necklace, and you—it feels like you left an arm back there, or an ear? You’re missing a part of yourself, and—I left a part of myself in Denver in 2003. I left parts of myself all over this country. What I left back there, it was—” And here she made a fist in front of her stomach, and I understood it as a pit, a missing pit in her core. “—I can’t ever find it.” Fair enough. Her trauma was real. (This was, incidentally, what so many of the Twitter comments said. I see you, Jasmine, and I see your trauma.) I felt ancient, from some elderly


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

the Citadel. It will be the peasants in their villages, the poison runners in the streets. People like you.” He said it like it bothered him. She hoped it did. Gabriel appealing to her sense of greater good—did she even have that? She wanted to—and Anton appealing to her sense of self-preservation. Death on one end, blackmail at the other. “This leads us nicely to the second part of your assignment,” Anton said, as if following a carefully constructed script. “Necromancy is not the only skill you possess that is useful to us. You are also an accomplished spy.” “Accomplished might be pushing it,” Lore muttered. Anton continued as if he hadn’t heard. “We have reason to believe that someone within the Court of the Citadel is passing information on to Kirythea. Possibly the Sun Prince himself.” Lore’s eyes widened until they ached. “You want me to spy on the fucking Sun Prince?” “We just want you to stay near him,” Anton said. He gestured to her. “You’re a pretty enough woman, and Bastian likes pretty people. Insinuating yourself into his good graces once you’re established as part of the court shouldn’t be an issue.” She knew what all those words meant individually, but strung together like that, she had a hard time following. “I don’t—what do you mean, part of the court—” “Things will be clearer once we speak to my brother.” Anton glanced upward, as if he could see straight through the ceiling to the sunshine outside and use it to tell the time. “Which we should go do as soon as possible. The Consecration ceremony begins in just a few hours.” His eye came back to rest on her, the handsome side of his face perfectly peaceful. “So what will it be, Lore? The Isles, or the court?” Put so baldly, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. “Fine. I’ll do it.” Gabriel almost looked relieved. Anton inclined his head, like her answer was exactly what he expected. “Come on, then,” he said, headed toward the door. “The Sainted King doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” CHAPTER FIVE And Nyxara, hungry for power, did attempt to take Apollius’s rightful place—thus, He cast Her down, over the sea and the Golden Mount where They dwelt, and over the Fount that had made them gods. Where She landed, the earth blackened into coal, and where He bled, the ground grew jewels like fruit. And They were known from this point as the Buried Goddess and the Bleeding God. —The Book of Holy Law, Tract 3 Apparently, Lore’s oversize man’s shirt and muddy breeches weren’t suitable for an audience with His Royal Majesty, August Arceneaux, the Sainted King and Apollius’s Blessed. Outside of the interrogation room, Anton had waved her down a small hallway. “Donations,” he said simply, gesturing to Gabriel that he should follow. “Find something that fits. Preferably on the conservative side.” Now Lore stood in a giant closet, stuffed to the brim with sumptuous clothing that no one outside of the Citadel could possibly use. On the conservative


ordinary; (adj, n) ANTONYMS: (adj, adv) right; (adv) unacceptable native; (n) citizen, local perfectly, properly, suitably, aided: (adj) power, favored alienation: (n) estrangement, appropriately, correctly, well; (adj) aiding: (adj) healthy, subventitious, abalienation, disaffection, dislike, okay, correct, good subsidiary, serviceable, auxiliary, separation, transfer, breach, frenzy, amused: (adj) amusing, smiling, convenient insanity, conveyance; (adj) madness tickled pink, pleased, diverted ailment: (n) complaint, affection, alight: (v) light, land, perch, amusing: (adj) humorous, fun, disease, trouble, condition, ill, dismount, get down, settle, get off, pleasant, entertaining, risible, disorder, sickness, affliction; (adj, n) descend; (adj) ablaze, burning, comical, diverting, enjoyable, infirmity; (v) distemper blazing. ANTONYM: (v) mount laughable, agreeable, pleasing. airily: (adv) gaily, breezily, allot: (v) assign, distribute, apportion, ANTONYMS: (adj) tragic, boring, cheerfully, visionarily, ethereally, dispense, grant, deal, administer, unpleasant, unfunny, tiring, grim, slightly, flippantly, freshly, jauntily, portion, allow, set, split. depressing, sad, annoying, heavy, sprightly, lively ANTONYMS: (v) retain, disallow, serious airing: (n, v) drive, ride, outing; (n) keep, refuse, reject, take analytical: (adj) rational, curious, aeration, stroll, saunter, walk, allowable: (adj, v) permissible; (adj) inquisitive, systematic, critical, expedition, improvement, turn, justifiable, acceptable, lawful, logical, methodical, judicious, journey permitted, tolerable, bearable, perceptive, prognostic, airy: (adj) light, windy, aery, aerial, passable, sufferable, legal; (v) mathematical. ANTONYMS: (adj) ethereal, insubstantial, sprightly, allowed. ANTONYMS: (adj) synthetic, synthetical, disorganized, perky, volatile, aeriform, aired. inexcusable, inadmissible, chaotic, unsystematic, intuitive ANTONYMS: (adj) airless, hot, intolerable ancestor: (n) forerunner, forefather, massive, wooden, weighty, alloy: (n) amalgam, admixture, blend, parent, father, precursor, substantial, stifling, sluggish, mixture, fusion, compound; (adj, v) antecedent, forebear, forbear, ponderous, musty, lumbering sophisticate; (v) devalue, mix, prototype, ancestry, ascendant. akin: (adj) near, like, allied, debase, deteriorate. ANTONYMS: ANTONYMS: (n) descendant, equivalent, alike, similar, analogous, (v) clean, clear, separate successor, offspring, progeny parallel, cognate, kindred, almighty: (adj) omnipotent, ancestral: (adj) family, patrimonial, corresponding. ANTONYMS: (adj) powerful, potent, great, supreme; heritable, genetic, linear, patriarchal, unconnected, alien, disconnected, (adj, n) divine; (n) lord, Jehovah, familial, lineal, inherited, dissimilar, different deity, God, godhead. ANTONYMS: inheritable, ethnic alacrity: (n) rapidity, speed, (adj) ineffectual, insignificant, lay, ancestry: (n) origin, descent, birth, promptness, activity, preparedness, powerless, lowly derivation, extraction, family, velocity, haste, swiftness, quickness, aloes: (n) physic, aloe; (adj) gall and pedigree, lineage, line, heredity, expedition; (adj) life. ANTONYMS: wormwood, quassia, rue breed. ANTONYMS: (n) (n) aversion, reservation, reluctance, aloft: (adj, adv) overhead; (adv) up, descendants, posterity indifference, hesitance, dullness, on high, over, aloof, upwards, anew: (adv) again, newly, lately, 258 The Scarlet Letter recently, over again, once more, new delicious, appetising, luscious, once again, new; (adj) only antiquary: (n) antiquarian, expert, savory, palatable, scrumptious, yesterday, the other day, just now archaeologist, antiquist alluring, exquisite; (adj, v) angelical: (adj) seraphic, cherubic, antiquated: (adj) old, aged, tantalizing, spicy. ANTONYMS: heavenly, saintly, saintlike, sainted, antediluvian, archaic, obsolete, (adj) tasteless, unsavory, sickening, lovable, good, angelic ether, sweet, musty, old-fashioned, outdated, nauseating, inedible, distasteful, beatific dowdy, outmoded, antique. repulsive, revolting, unappealing anguish: (n, v) pain, ache; (n) ANTONYMS: (adj) new, appliances: (n) equipment, rig, torment, agony, torture, distress, contemporary, fresh, modernistic, hardware, rigging, outfit, tackle, misery, suffering, despair, grief, recent, current tackling sorrow. ANTONYMS: (n) pleasure, antique: (adj) old, antiquated,


through the trees. It hadn’t, and he moved on to the chest and back. The cheek. He saved the leg for last. Hap sat on the table, legs hanging down, watching Vic’s every move. He’d removed his clothing at Vic’s request, questioning why Vic had placed a blanket over his bare lap. Vic lifted Hap’s leg, extending it, hearing the metal bones underneath the wood creak. The knee joint locked, and Vic soon saw why. On the inner part of his knee, the piece of wood was slightly too large. An easy mistake, but also an easy fix. He lifted a small tool from his work bench, lifting it so Hap could see. “This is a short bent.” Hap frowned. “What is it f-for?” “Shaving wood. Your knee is catching. It’s why you keep stumbling. I can fix it if you want.” “Does the patient need to be sedated?” Nurse Ratched asked. “I can help, if need be.” “No,” Victor said, and turned in time to see her slowly retracting a metal mallet back inside her. “It won’t hurt.” “H-hurt,” Hap repeated. “You w-will not h-hurt me unless I d-do something to make you.” What Dad had said, not quite word for word, but close enough. Then, “What is h-hurt?” “Ow,” Vic cried after Nurse Ratched thumped him on the head. “What was that for?” “You know what,” she said. “Hap, that was a demonstration of pain.” Hap scowled at all of them. “Fine. Do it. I n-need to have full range of mmotion. It’s a hazard if I d-don’t have it because you are f-fragile.” “He is,” Nurse Ratched said as Vic glared at her. “So breakable. It really is a flawed design, if you think about it. Humans are so squishy.” Vic rolled his eyes, and then sank to his knees in front of Hap. He motioned for Nurse Ratched to hold Hap’s leg in place as he wiped the sweat away from his brow. He thanked Rambo when the vacuum pulled down the magnifying glass, flipping through the different sizes until he found the right one. “Ready?” he asked Hap. Hap didn’t respond. Vic lowered the tool, pressing it against the side of the knee joint, ready to shave off a small piece until it fit better. “Ow,” Hap said. Vic startled. He looked up, eyes wide. Hap stared down at him. “Ow,” he said again. “That h-hurt.” Vic was incredulous. “What? It did? How can it—I don’t understand. That shouldn’t have—” “P-practice,” Hap said. “I was p-practicing. Ow. Pain. Hurt.” He grimaced, face twisting before smoothing out. “You can’t do that,” Vic said. “Wh-why?” “Because it didn’t hurt. I hadn’t even started yet.” Hap nodded. “I w-will wait until you s-start.” Vic sat back up on his knees, grabbing the short bent. “That’s not how I— just hold still. Don’t move.” Hap froze. He didn’t blink. His mouth hung open slightly. “What happened?” Vic asked. He raised his hand up and waved it in front of Hap’s face. No reaction. “Is he dead?” Rambo whispered nervously. “Did we


time, indirect character of the man seemed to be brought out in a kind of spiritual relief. Such an effect may occasionally be observed in pictures of antique date. They acquire a look which an artist (if he have anything like the complacency of artists nowadays) would never dream of presenting to a patron as his own characteristic expression, but which, nevertheless, we at once recognize as reflecting the unlovely truth of a human soul. In such cases, the painter's deep conception of his subject's inward traits has wrought itself into the essence of the picture, and is seen after the superficial coloring has been rubbed off by time. While gazing at the portrait, Hepzibah trembled under its eye. Her hereditary reverence made her afraid to judge the character of the original so harshly as a perception of the truth compelled her to do. But still she gazed, because the face of the picture enabled her--at least, she fancied so--to read more accurately, and to a greater depth, the face which she had just seen in the street. "This is the very man!" murmured she to herself. "Let Jaffrey Pyncheon smile as he will, there is that look beneath! Put on him a skull-cap, and a band, and a black cloak, and a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other,--then let Jaffrey smile as he might,--nobody would doubt that it was the old Pyncheon come again. He has proved himself the very man to build up a new house! Perhaps, too, to draw down a new curse!" Thus did Hepzibah bewilder herself with these fantasies of the old time. She had dwelt too much alone,--too long in the Pyncheon House, --until her very brain was impregnated with the dry-rot of its timbers. She needed a walk along the noonday street to keep her sane. By the spell of contrast, another portrait rose up before her, painted with more daring flattery than any artist would have ventured upon, but yet so delicately touched that the likeness remained perfect. Malbone's miniature, though from the same original, was far inferior to Hepzibah's air-drawn picture, at which affection and sorrowful remembrance wrought together. Soft, mildly, and cheerfully contemplative, with full, red lips, just on the verge of a smile, which the eyes seemed to herald by a gentle kindling-up of their orbs! Feminine traits, moulded inseparably with those of the other sex! The miniature, likewise, had this last peculiarity; so that you inevitably thought of the original as resembling his mother, and she a lovely and lovable woman, with perhaps some beautiful infirmity of character, that made it all the pleasanter to know and easier to love her. "Yes," thought Hepzibah, with grief of which it was only the more tolerable portion that welled up from her heart to her eyelids, "they persecuted his mother in him! He never was a Pyncheon!" But here the shop-bell rang; it was like a sound from a remote distance,--so far had Hepzibah descended into the sepulchral depths of her reminiscences. On entering the shop, she found


gently on the cheek. Her sister didn’t feel like marble anymore. She had warm skin, warm as any other human’s, warm as Alice’s own. “You’re marvelous,” she said, solemnly, meaning it. Mrs. King laughed, startled. “Heavens,” she said. “I’m not.” Something shifted in her expression, something dark. “How can I be? Knowing who I come from?” She meant her father. Alice hesitated. The women were skirting around it, avoiding it. This topic felt too enormous, too dangerous, to discuss. They were both waiting for Mrs. King to set it out for them, explain what it meant, tell them what they were supposed to think. And yet she hadn’t done so. She seemed to have turned inward, growing fretful, as if there were something constantly on her mind. Alice was still trying to compose the right reply when Mrs. King pulled away. Her eyes were on the gravestones behind Alice. A small temple had been erected there, a flashy memorial. “What is it?” Alice said. Mrs. King closed her eyes. “I need to see Mr. Shepherd.” 41 Winnie had to tell the conductor to stop at her station. It was hardly a station at all—it was more like a halt. The train would have steamed right through otherwise. It took nearly two hours to get there from London. “I want the slow train,” she told them in the ticket office. She wanted to watch the countryside unfolding at its own pace. She wanted to be sure that she’d picked the right spot. She took a seat in a first-class carriage. Important journeys deserved suitable investment. They also deserved expensive millinery. I can’t make a good hat, she told herself stolidly, but I can buy one. She purchased a slanted-cartwheel hat with magenta tips, a big boxy centerpiece, and rosettes all around the brim. It made her look a little like a banker and a little like a prize pony. It was quite something. She wondered if they would treat her differently at the station and, of course, they didn’t. She could have stood in the middle of the terminus throwing banknotes up into the air, and people would have ignored her. She was still herself. She wasn’t the queen. “All right, madam?” said the conductor as she stepped down onto the platform. “Yes, thank you,” she said, feeling her rosettes flapping, but he was back up on his plate, raising his hand to the guard, and the train was already huffing into motion. When the last carriage had turned the corner the noise suddenly died away, and there was only birdsong left behind. Winnie unpinned her hat and felt the sun on her neck. “This is the right place,” she said out loud, testing the fact. She’d copied out the particulars, but she didn’t need to check them: she’d committed them to memory. Take a right at the station, follow the road till it comes to a fork, then head uphill. I trust myself, she thought, setting off down the lane. I know where I’m going. A horse chestnut stood sentinel at the


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned -- but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced -- all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here -- they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad." On Harry's other side, Percy Weasley and Hermione were talking about lessons ("I do hope they start right away, there's so much to learn, I'm particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it's supposed to be very difficult -- "; "You'll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing -- "). Harry, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor McGonagall was talking to Professor Dumbledore. Professor Quirrell, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin. It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Quirrell's turban straight into Harry's eyes -- and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry's forehead. "Ouch!" Harry clapped a hand to his head. "What is it?" asked Percy. "N-nothing." The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher's look -- a feeling that he didn't like Harry at all. "Who's that teacher talking to Professor Quirrell?" he asked Percy. "Oh, you know Quirrell already, do you? No wonder he's looking so nervous, that's Professor Snape. He teaches Potions, but he doesn't want to -- everyone knows he's after Quirrell's job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Snape." Harry watched Snape for a while, but Snape didn't look at him again. At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Dumbledore got to his feet again. The hall fell silent. "Ahem -- just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. "First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well." Dumbledore's twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Weasley twins. "I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. "Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch. "And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of


the end of the First Age chose to be numbered among Men, and became the first King of Nmenor (called Tar-Minyatur), living to a very great age. The name means 'Star-foam'. 305, 315, 322, 328-32, 336, 354, 360 Elu Sindarin form of Elw. 58,103, 125, 288 Eluchl 'Heir of Elu (Thingol)', name of Dior, son of Beren and Lthien. See Dior. Elurd Elder son of Dior; perished in the attack on Doriath by the sons of Fanor. The name means the same as Eluchl. 290, 292 Elurn Younger son of Dior; perished with his brother Elurd. The name means 'Remembrance of Elu (Thingol)'. 290,292 Elvenhome See Eldamar. Elves See especially 37-9, 48-51, 53, 99, 121, 326-7; and see also Children of Ilvatar, Eldar; Dark Elves. Elves of the Light: see Calaquendi. Elw Surnamed Singollo 'Greymantle'; leader with his brother Olw of the hosts of the Teleri on the westward journey from Cuivinen, until he was lost in Nan Elmoth; afterwards Lord of the Sindar, ruling in Doriath with Melian; received the Silmaril from Beren; slain in Menegroth by the Dwarves. Called (Elu) Thingol in Sindarin. See Dark Elves, Thingol. 53-8, 60-1, 103, 289 Elwing Daughter of Dior, who escaping from Doriath with the Silmaril wedded Erendil at the Mouths of Sirion and went with him to Valinor; mother of Elrond and Elros. The name means 'Star-spray'; see Lanlhir Lamath. 122, 178, 291-3, 302, 304-10, 315 Emeldir Called the Man-hearted; wife of Barahir and mother of Beren; led the women and children of the House of Bor from Dorthonion after the Dagor Bragollach. (She was herself also a descendant of Bor the Old, and her father's name was Beren; this is not stated in the text.) 187, 194 Emyn Beraid The Tower Hills' in the west of Eriador; see Elostirion. 360-2 Enchanted Isles The islands set by the Valar in the Great Sea eastwards of Tol Eressa at the time of the Hiding of Valinor. 118, 306 Encircling Mountains See Echoriath. Encircling Sea See Ekkaia. Endor 'Middle Land', Middle-earth. 101 Engwar 'The Sickly', one of the Elvish names for Men, 119 El Called the Dark Elf; the great smith who dwelt in Nan Elmoth, and took Aredhel Turgon's sister to wife; friend of the Dwarves; maker of the sword Anglachel (Gurthang); father of Maeglin; put to death in Gondolin. 104,158-65, 247 Enw One of the mightiest of the Maiar; called the Herald of Manw; leader of the host of the Valar in the attack on Morgoth at the end of the First Age. 24, 309-14, 321, 353 Ephel Brandir 'The encircling fence of Brandir', dwellings of the Men of Brethil upon Amon Obel; also called the Ephel. 266, 270-2 Ephel Dath 'Fence of Shadow', the mountain-range between Gondor and Mordor; also called the Mountains of Shadow. 361-2, 368 Erchamion 'One-handed', the name of Beren after his escape from Angband. 222, 225, 242, 292 Erech A hill in the west of Gondor, where was the Stone of Isildur (see The Return of the King V 2). 361 Ered Engrin 'The Iron Mountains' in the


fire up an anagram maker and try that. Go carpophore hobo And so on. I fall asleep again there, in the chair, and if I dream again, when I wake I don’t remember. * * * — Standing in the lobby of Roddy’s building waiting for the elevator. “Jerelyn?” “Yes, my darling.” “Roddy ever talk about old movies with you? The Marx Brothers?” “I don’t think so.” Someone’s holding the elevator on floor six. Jerelyn says the Millers are going away for a long weekend. “Mr. Miller never learned to pack light.” The light doesn’t move. “How about Rufus?” “How about him, what?” “You think he could have done it?” “Why would you think so?” I tell Jerelyn about the hair. She makes a face. “That is disgusting.” “It is, isn’t it?” “That man.” “You think he did it?” “Yes. Absolutely. Arrest him.” “You think?” “No, but now I absolutely wish that I did. Hair. Oh my god. My hair?” “Everyone’s hair. But probably women he finds attractive.” “Now I’m offended as well as revolted. Personally and on behalf of the sisterhood.” “You don’t need to take a vote?” “There is a mystical democratic connection which binds all women together. Also: do you hear what you just told me?” She shudders, then laughs. “Collecting hair. Eeeeyuch.” The elevator arrives, and I step in. * * * — I walk into Roddy Tebbit’s apartment and look around. I look for old media: discs and optical storage, even tape. I look for a backup hard drive. Something more accessible than the genetic stash, something for every day. Usually when you do this you’re looking for the disreputable collection, the ordinary things someone doesn’t want you to know. The cheap bikini snaps, the long-cherished personal nudes with old lovers. Sometimes it’s a fetish. Sometimes it’s darker than that. Roddy Tebbit doesn’t have much of anything to be nervous about, that I can find. I go into the bric-a-brac again looking for pictures, for history. Postcards from Italy: a bronze boar from Florence, the Vatican in Rome. An appallingly erotic Psyche and Eros. Three or four of Canova’s Perseus Triumphant, holding Medusa’s head in one hand and that weird hooked sword in the other. I remember the picture of Roddy in Susan Green’s sketchbook. I was wrong: not Achilles. And not Medusa, in Susan’s drawing, but a bearded Zeus. Figure it’s a stand-in for Stefan. We’ve all felt like that from time to time. Roddy Tebbit had lost his wife. Everyone says so. You’d think he’d keep something. But when someone dies—especially when someone dies and their spouse is going to live for a whole other lifetime—often the survivor doesn’t need or want to be reminded. You think of widows’ houses as full of pictures of the dead, but many times they’re not. Many times they look towards the future as if the past is just last winter’s snow. I keep looking. Some arthouse snaps of another city, could be anywhere, just as easily Istanbul as Denver. Come to that it could be both: holiday snaps


shock and pleasure merging in her expression. “Brad!” But she’s grinning like she can’t help herself. “What? You started it with all the hugging!” “People can hear us!” “So whisper,” I tease. Of course, I don’t really expect her to announce her feelings in public like this— But she does. “Fine. I love you, too, obviously.” And then—even though we have seconds before our parents rush over to crowd us, even though our friends are already swarming with congratulations—she grabs the back of my neck and kisses me. Hard. My heart grows wings and flies away. Me and Celine, we’ve been best friends. We’ve been enemies. We’ve even been a secret. But right now? We’re everything. Anything. Whatever we want. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Obsessive-compulsive disorder runs in my family, so I wasn’t surprised when it finally kicked down the door of my brain, waltzed right in, and made itself at home. Upon receiving my diagnosis, I tutted a bit, panicked a bit, made several emergency cups of tea, and finally decided I’d better stick the whole thing in a book. Which brings me to the first person I’d like to thank: Bradley Graeme, the hero of this novel, who’s been dealing with OCD for years and is enviably sensible about it. I have no idea if I’ll ever be as good at coping as Brad is, but I do know that writing him inspired me to take better care of myself. So…cheers, mate. Couldn’t have done it without you. I also couldn’t have done this without the help of numerous real people. Thank you to my mother for steering me through the angsty Celine years and giving me a name to be proud of; to my baby sisters, Truly and Jade, for being delightful pudding cups; to my best friend, Cairo Aibangbee, for supporting me through multiple creative breakdowns and assuring me that I did in fact still know how to write and had not actually lost my grasp of the English language. Thank you to Chessie Penniston-Hill for her creative (and teenage) perspective, to Aaliyah Hibbert and Orla Wain for helping me to seem Young and Hip, and to Adjani Salmon for answering my emergency spelling questions. Thank you to the wonderful authors and literal inspirations (I know, but seriously, it’s true) I’ve had the privilege of befriending since my career began. Therese Beharrie, Kennedy Ryan, Dylan Allen, Ali Williams, and so many more—your books, your kindness, your friendship, and your invaluable advice get me through every single project. I am so lucky to know you. Many thanks to my incredible agent, Courtney Miller-Callihan, for always having my back, finding solutions, and reducing my professional anxiety by a solid 90 percent just by existing. (You exist in a very badass manner.) Thank you also to the whole team at Joy Revolution who worked to make this story happen. Nicola and David Yoon, Bria Ragin, Wendy Loggia, Beverly Horowitz, Barbara Marcus, Casey Moses, Mlle Belamour, Ken Crossland, Lili Feinberg, Colleen Fellingham, Tamar Schwartz, Jillian Vandall, Adrienne Waintraub, Katie Halata, Shameiza Ally, Elizabeth Ward, Caitlin


hand and moved it up and down. “Whoa,” Rambo whispered as Hap let go. “Nurse Ratched, did you hear that? He loves me too!” “Th-that’s not what I said.” “It is. And you can’t take it back!” “I am going to die in this box,” Nurse Ratched said. Bernard stepped forward, extending an arm toward the screen. He tapped it once more, and the crate walls rose around Nurse Ratched and Rambo. The last Vic saw of them was Rambo waving frantically. “Goodbye,” Vic said quietly as the lid closed over them. Bernard motioned toward another crate set farther back. “This one is yours.” “And it’ll allow for air to move freely through it?” the Coachman asked. Bernard frowned. “Yes. As discussed. It’s meant for transporting florae and faunae.” He looked at Vic and Hap before his head spun toward the Coachman. “Why is that necessary? Are they transporting something alive?” “What?” the Coachman said, sounding outraged. “I take umbrage with your tone, sir. I would never allow something so—” “You look familiar,” Bernard said to Hap. “Have we met before?” Hap lowered his head, his hood falling around his face. “N-no.” “Hmm,” Bernard said. “Coachman, this better not come back on me.” “Of course it won’t,” the Coachman said. “There is nothing to come back on you. I don’t know what’s going through that circle you call a head, but I am an upstanding citizen. Everything I do is aboveboard, and—” “I don’t want to know any more,” Bernard said, turning to Hap. “Can you climb inside? If not, I can dismantle the crate for easier access.” “It’s f-fine,” Hap muttered. He pulled his pack off as he climbed over the ledge of the crate, settling his back against the side. He slunk down, legs stretching until his feet were flat against the opposite side. He set his pack next to him as he wiggled down farther. “Why did you go first?” Vic asked, suddenly unsure. The box was much smaller now that Hap was inside. Hap stared up at him. “I’m b-bigger than you.” “Heaven,” he heard Rambo warbling from the other crate. “I’m in heaven.” “Maybe I should get my own crate.” “Get inside,” Bernard said. “We’re running out of time.” Vic sighed as he turned his pack around to his front. He pushed his helmet off his face as he climbed gingerly into the box, careful to avoid Hap. “Ow,” Hap said when Vic stepped on his leg. Vic stared down at him, spluttering apologies. “That was a j-joke,” Hap said, and Vic swore he saw the curve of a smile, there and gone in a flash. “You’re not funny,” Vic told him as he climbed the rest of the way into the box. “I don’t know who told you that, but they lied.” “It was me!” Rambo shouted. “I told him that!” “Be quiet,” Bernard said, slapping the top of the box. “Okay!” Vic settled down against Hap, his back to Hap’s front. He kept his legs inside of Hap’s. He was stiff, back arched until Hap


figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind's eye, that I thought: "No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct, Yet," suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, "youare not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you at any rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last night remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice!"     I well remembered all language, glance and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed. I was now in the school-room. Adle was drawing. I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.     "Qu'avez-vous, mademoiselle?" said she; "Vos doigts tremblent comme le feuille, et vos joues sont rouges; mais, rouges come des cerises!"     "I am hot, Adle, with stooping!" She went on sketching, I went on thinking.     I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and she spoke truth; I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had more color and more flesh; more life, more vivacity; because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.     "Evening approaches," said I, as I looked toward the window. "I have never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before night; I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient."     When dusk actually closed, and when Adle left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he often sent for me at seven and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well


if I can do this. I know, dear boy. Which is why I must warn you. With all great tasks comes sacrifice. The upload will not work unless you are connected to the neural network. And you yourself are not capable of such a thing. You lack the necessary components. He jerked his head back. What? She turned toward the others. Nurse Ratched. Hap. Rambo. It must be one of you. One of you must do what Victor cannot. One of you must upload the virus. And with that, you will lose all you have known. No, Vic said, No. I won’t let you. I won’t let you do this. They are my friends. You can’t— I will do it, Nurse Ratched said. You won’t, he snarled, head and heart breaking. She ignored him. She rolled toward the Blue Fairy. I will do this. They bowed before her. Are you sure? Yes. I am quite capable. No! Vic cried. Nurse Ratched, listen to me. There has to be another way. There has to be— All is not lost, the Blue Fairy said. We can help her. I can download her consciousness. A duplicate, if you will. Once the task is complete, and her memory wiped, you can return her to her current state. She will remember you. She will remember all of you. You can’t promise that. You can’t promise anything. It could go wrong. Everything could go wrong, and she could— Nurse Ratched touched his cheek with one of her tentacles. I have made my choice, Victor. I know what I am doing. Please do not take this away from me. You brought me back once. I know you can do it again. All I ask is that you do not leave me behind. I hate this city. It smells bad. I want to see the forest again. Nurse Ratched. I … I know. But I do this for you. Because of what you’ve done for me. Let me help you. Let me help Rambo and Hap. Let me help Gio. He wiped his eyes. I can’t lose you. You will not, she said. I am not done with you yet. When you are old and gray, you will need me to monitor your health to ensure you live longer than any human ever has. I will be by your side. I promise. “I promise,” he said as the alarms blared around them, as Dad and Hap fought with devastating blows, as Rambo screamed for Nurse Ratched to hurry, you need to hurry, they’re coming, they’re coming! Nurse Ratched stopped in front of Victor. He looked up at her. On her screen were the words YOU ARE MY FRIEND. She said, “When you found me, it was the greatest day of my life, though I did not know it then. I have watched you grow into the man you have become. In the end, that is all that matters. In case this does not work, in case you cannot bring me back, I need you to know that you are precious


the sheltering in Tube file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (88 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt stations, the piles of rubble everywhere, the unintelligible proclamations posted at street corners, the gangs of youths in shirts all the same colour, the enormous queues outside the bakeries, the intermittent machine-gun fire in the distance--above all, the fact that there was never enough to eat. He remembered long afternoons spent with other boys in scrounging round dustbins and rubbish heaps, picking out the ribs of cabbage leaves, potato peelings, sometimes even scraps of stale breadcrust from which they carefully scraped away the cinders; and also in waiting for the passing of trucks which travelled over a certain route and were known to carry cattle feed, and which, when they jolted over the bad patches in the road, sometimes spilt a few fragments of oil-cake. When his father disappeared, his mother did not show any surprise or any violent grief, but a sudden change came over her. She seemed to have become completely spiritless. It was evident even to Winston that she was waiting for something that she knew must happen. She did everything that was needed--cooked, washed, mended, made the bed, swept the floor, dusted the mantelpiece--always very slowly and with a curious lack of superfluous motion, like an artist's lay-figure moving of its own accord. Her large shapely body seemed to relapse naturally into stillness. For hours at a time she would sit almost immobile on the bed, nursing his young sister, a tiny, ailing, very silent child of two or three, with a face made simian by thinness. Very occasionally she would take Winston in her arms and press him against her for a long time without saying anything. He was aware, in spite of his youthfulness and selfishness, that this was somehow connected with the never-mentioned thing that was about to happen. He remembered the room where they lived, a dark, close-smelling room that seemed half filled by a bed with a white counterpane. There was a gas ring in the fender, and a shelf where food was kept, and on the landing outside there was a brown earthenware sink, common to several rooms. He remembered his mother's statuesque body bending over the gas ring to stir at something in a saucepan. Above all he remembered his continuous hunger, and the fierce sordid battles at mealtimes. He would ask his mother naggingly, over and over again, why there was not more food, he would shout and storm at her (he even remembered the tones of his voice, which was beginning to break prematurely and sometimes boomed in a peculiar way), or he would attempt a snivelling note of pathos in his efforts to get more than his share. His mother was quite ready to give him more than his share. She took it for granted that he, 'the boy', should have the biggest portion; but however much she gave him he invariably demanded more. At every meal she would beseech him not to be selfish and to remember that his little sister was sick and also


for the detectives to stand. “Let’s go.” “We need you to surrender Chelsea’s phone,” Ethan says. “And the keys to her Belltown apartment.” “Do you have a warrant?” the attorney asks. Jonah reaches inside his suit pocket. “We do.” He extends the folded paper toward Carr’s attorney who snatches it out of his hands. He looks over the warrant with a frown. “I’ll bring them to your car. As soon as you two see yourselves out.” Carr covers his face with his hands, and it takes all of Ethan’s willpower to extinguish the image of them traveling down Sloane’s back. Ethan keeps his eyes trained on Carr, his shoulders heaving with each dramatic sob, as he pushes back his chair. “I loved her so much,” Carr manages to say between sobs. The attorney makes a show of impatience with a deep sigh as he gestures toward the open doorway. Ethan looks back at Carr before following Jonah out of the room. If he learned one thing from their interview, it was this: the app founder is almost as good an actor as Sloane. Chapter 23 Sloane moves her salad around with a plastic fork in the ER breakroom, tuning out the upbeat chatter from the two nurses and medical resident at the other end of the table. She hadn’t slept a minute the night before. Instead, she spent the night tossing and turning, trying to force the images of Brody—and his dead wife—from her mind. She doesn’t feel like eating even though she skipped breakfast that morning, not wanting to risk bumping into Ethan in the kitchen. Laughter breaks out from a pretty blonde nurse fresh out of nursing school, whose name escapes Sloane. Sloane glances in the nurse’s direction and sees the resident showing her something on his phone. She strains to read the nurse’s name badge that’s clipped to her scrubs. Rachel. Her heart sinks. Of course, it is. Sloane looks away, willing herself to eat a bite of tasteless iceberg lettuce. The breakroom door swings open. She turns to see Logan striding toward her. “Hey.” He leans his hand on the chair beside her. Sloane has yet to apologize for yelling at him yesterday about the Narcan, but he seems to have forgiven her. “Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to clarify an order you wrote for the patient in trauma room five, Daniel Salazar. “He was in the motorcycle accident,” Logan adds, seeing the look of confusion on Sloane’s face. “Oh, right.” Sloane sets down her fork. “Sure.” “You wrote the Epi 1:1,000 to be given IV. But from the dosage, I’m guessing you wanted it to be IM.” “I did?” “Yeah.” She leans back against her chair as a twist forms in her gut. She’s never made a medication error before. “Good catch. Sorry, yes. I meant IM.” Although, they both knew it was more than a good catch. If he hadn’t caught her mistake, it could have put the patient into V-tach. Or worse, V-fib. He nods. “Go ahead and give it IM. I’ll change the


asking is ... has the big Z finally flipped? Beeblebrox, the man who invented the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, ex-confidence trickster, once described by Eccentrica Gallumbits as the Best Bang since the Big One, and recently voted the Wort Dressed Sentinent Being in the Known Universe for the seventh time ... has he got an answer this time? We asked his private brain care specialist Gag Halfrunt ..." The music swirled and dived for a moment. Another voice broke in, presumably Halfrunt. He said: "Vell, Zaphod's jist zis guy you know?" but got no further because an electric pencil flew across the cabin and through the radio's on/off sensitive airspace. Zaphod turned and glared at Trillian - she had thrown the pencil. "Hey," he said, what do you do that for?" Trillian was tapping her fingers on a screenful of figures. "I've just thought of something," she said. "Yeah? Worth interrupting a news bulletin about me for?" "You hear enough about yourself as it is." "I'm very insecure. We know that." "Can we drop your ego for a moment? This is important." "If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now." Zaphod glared at her again, then laughed. "Listen," she said, "we picked up those couple of guys ..." "What couple of guys?" "The couple of guys we picked up." "Oh, yeah," said Zaphod, "those couple of guys." "We picked them up in sector ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha." "Yeah?" said Zaphod and blinked. Trillian said quietly, "Does that mean anything to you?" "Mmmmm," said Zaphod, "ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha. ZZ 9 Plural Z Alpha?" "Well?" said Trillian. "Er ... what does the Z mean?" said Zaphod. "Which one?" "Any one." One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid. He was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly was so - but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act. He proffered people to be puzzled rather than contemptuous. This above all appeared to Trillian to be genuinely stupid, but she could no longer be bothered to argue about it. She sighed and punched up a star map on the visiscreen so she could make it simple for him, whatever his reasons for wanting it to be that way. "There," she pointed, "right there." "Hey ... Yeah!" said Zaphod. "Well?" she said. "Well what?" Parts of the inside of her head screamed at other parts of the inside of her head. She said, very calmly, "It's the same sector you originally picked me up in." He looked at her and then looked back at the screen. "Hey, yeah," he said, "now that is wild. We should


husband, I can’t imagine the courage it took and I wanted to say thank you for trusting me with it.’ She looked at me, as though slightly relieved. ‘And I should have told you about Isabelle. Honestly, I don’t know why I didn’t.’ I said this although, at that moment, it was crystal clear to me why I hadn’t wanted her to know. My feelings grew stronger every time I saw her, but there was nothing either of us could do about it. She was vulnerable and I had made commitments. The end. ‘I hope we can carry on our friendship,’ I said, sounding like something out of a Jane Austen novel. Yet it was the best I could do and I really meant it. Her friendship meant more to me than I realised and if I couldn’t have anything else, it would have to be enough. ‘Are they doughnuts?’ ‘What?’ Of all the things I had imagined she might say, that was not one of them. She hunkered down on the rough ground with its patchy grass and weeds, crossed her legs and opened the box of doughnuts I’d bought, whilst taking a large gulp of coffee. ‘Of course we can be friends, you big eejit!’ she said between bites, sugar all over her lips. I sat down beside her and leaned my back against the gable wall. I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. ‘I mean, besides Madame Bowden, you’re the only friend I’ve made since coming here.’ ‘Oh, I see, so it’s more a lack of options thing?’ I said, taking the lid off my coffee and blowing on the liquid, which was already stone cold. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’ She shrugged and all but concealed a malevolent grin. Banter. A safe harbour. I got stuck into a custard doughnut, grateful that we were back on a firm footing. I didn’t know why she had confided in me and I wasn’t sure why I had told her about the darkest times in my life, but perhaps the trick was not to question it. Not to put a label on it, as clichéd as it sounded. ‘Any luck with the manuscript?’ I made a mental note that whenever I showed up at Martha’s window, I should bring sugar. Her mood was positively upbeat. ‘Um, no, not really. A colleague found something about her brother, Lyndon. He was a soldier – a general or something – in the war. It’s strange,’ I said, tearing a chocolate doughnut into two halves and offering her one. ‘You’d think a woman like her who’d been rubbing shoulders with Hemingway and contacting one of the top book dealers in America would leave some sort of trace, wouldn’t you?’ She took her time to think about it and once she had satisfactorily munched the last of the doughnut and wiped her hands on her jeans, she looked me square in the eye. ‘You think it’s strange that a woman has been silenced? Forgotten about? Written out of history? Henry, what have they been teaching you?’


The girl with auburn hair was indeed beautiful, and the young man had a cheery smile on his face. Montserrat did a little math in her head and realized Urueta was now sixty-one. It surprised her. He looked older, worn down. The booze had carved his face with a rough hand. Tristán peered down at the pictures. “You were awfully young to be directing movies at that age,” he said. Montserrat could recognize the note of rehearsed admiration in her friend’s voice, but Urueta was immediately taken by the compliment. “They called me ‘The Kid.’ I had three movies under my belt by then. It runs in the family. My mother was a script girl, my father was a cinematographer. I grew up playing around the prop department. I knew anyone there was to know in the movie business.” “Including Alma Montero?” “She was a friend of the family.” “Was Ewers a friend of the family, too?” Montserrat turned the page of the album. There were more pictures of Urueta, some alone, others with people she did not recognize. Her fingers drifted across the edges of the photographs. “No. I met Ewers through Alma. In 1960, I had shot three films. Yes, low-budget horror films, but I knew I’d get bigger projects soon enough. Unfortunately, I had developed what you’d call a little bit of a credit problem. I owed money, and it kept me awake at night. Alma heard about this and told me she was going to be financing a film and wanted to shoot the following year. She would pay me a decent salary, and when the movie was done she’d get me in touch with her old Hollywood friends so I could try my luck there. Turn three more pages and you’ll see him,” Urueta said, pointing at the album. Montserrat did as he said. She turned those three pages and there he was. The picture startled her, not because there was anything unusual about Ewers’s appearance, but because his face had been half hidden in the other picture she’d seen, as if he feared the camera. But there was nothing shy about Ewers in this photograph. In fact, the photo dripped with self-possession. Ewers was seated with his hands resting on his thighs, and he was leaning forward. His legs were spread wide. His face might have been bland if it hadn’t been for his firm mouth and the piercing blue eyes that stared at the viewer. Something in the tightness of the jaw, in the sharp slope of the eyebrows, demanded attention. There was a trace of rancor in those features. This was a hungry man. “He looks like a dude who would stab you in an alley and go through your pockets for spare change,” Tristán said, peering down at the picture. “He looks pissed.” “I don’t think I ever thought that exactly, but he made a vivid impression on everyone who met him, although in the beginning I admit I assumed he was a garden-variety gigolo.” “How come?” “Ewers changed his biography and age


Cinna thinks about this a moment. “Why don’t you just be yourself?” “Myself? That’s no good, either. Haymitch says I’m sullen and hostile,” I say. “Well, you are . . . around Haymitch,” says Cinna with a grin. “I don’t find you so. The prep team adores you. You even won 121 over the Gamemakers. And as for the citizens of the Capitol, well, they can’t stop talking about you. No one can help but admire your spirit.” My spirit. This is a new thought. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it suggests I’m a fighter. In a sort of brave way. It’s not as if I’m never friendly. Okay, maybe I don’t go around lov- ing everybody I meet, maybe my smiles are hard to come by, but I do care for some people. Cinna takes my icy hands in his warm ones. “Suppose, when you answer the questions, you think you’re addressing a friend back home. Who would your best friend be?” asks Cin- na. “Gale,” I say instantly. “Only it doesn’t make sense, Cinna. I would never be telling Gale those things about me. He already knows them.” “What about me? Could you think of me as a friend?” asks Cinna. Of all the people I’ve met since I left home, Cinna is by far my favorite. I liked him right off and he hasn’t disappointed me yet. “I think so, but —” “I’ll be sitting on the main platform with the other stylists. You’ll be able to look right at me. When you’re asked a ques- tion, find me, and answer it as honestly as possible,” says Cin- na. “Even if what I think is horrible?” I ask. Because it might be, really. “Especially if what you think is horrible,” says Cinna. “You’ll try it?” 122 I nod. It’s a plan. Or at least a straw to grasp at. Too soon it’s time to go. The interviews take place on a stage constructed in front of the Training Center. Once I leave my room, it will be only minutes until I’m in front of the crowd, the cameras, all of Panem. As Cinna turns the doorknob, I stop his hand. “Cinna . . .” I’m completely overcome with stage fright. “Remember, they already love you,” he says gently. “Just be yourself.” We meet up with the rest of the District 12 crowd at the elevator. Portia and her gang have been hard at work. Peeta looks striking in a black suit with flame accents. While we look well together, it’s a relief not to be dressed identically. Hay- mitch and Effie are all fancied up for the occasion. I avoid Haymitch, but accept Effie’s compliments. Effie can be tire- some and clueless, but she’s not destructive like Haymitch. When the elevator opens, the other tributes are being lined up to take the stage. All twenty-four of us sit in a big arc throughout the interviews. I’ll be last, or second to last since the girl tribute precedes the boy from each district. How I wish I


goin’ outa here and Ah ain’t gointuh hush. Naw, you gointuh listen tuh me one time befo’ you die. Have yo’ way all yo’ life, trample and mash down and then die ruther than tuh let yo’self heah ’bout it. Listen, Jody, you ain’t de Jody ah run off down de road wid. You’se whut’s left after he died. Ah run off tuh keep house wid you in uh wonderful way. But you wasn’t satisfied wid me de way Ah was. Naw! Mah own mind had tuh be squeezed and crowded out tuh make room for yours in me.” Their Eyes Were Watching God 103 “Shut up! Ah wish thunder and lightnin’ would kill yuh!” “Ah know it. And now you got tuh die tuh find out dat you got tuh pacify somebody besides yo’self if you wants any love and any sympathy in dis world. You ain’t tried tuh pacify nobody but yo’self. Too busy listening tuh yo’ own big voice.” “All dis tearin’ down talk!” Jody whispered with sweat globules forming all over his face and arms. “Git outa heah!” “All dis bowin’ down, all dis obedience under yo’ voice—dat ain’t whut Ah rushed off down de road tuh find out about you.” A sound of strife in Jody’s throat, but his eyes stared unwillingly into a corner of the room so Janie knew the futile fight was not with her. The icy sword of the square-toed one had cut off his breath and left his hands in a pose of agoniz- ing protest. Janie gave them peace on his breast, then she studied his dead face for a long time. “Dis sittin’ in de rulin’ chair is been hard on Jody,” she muttered out loud. She was full of pity for the first time in years. Jody had been hard on her and others, but life had mis- handled him too. Poor Joe! Maybe if she had known some other way to try, she might have made his face different. But what that other way could be, she had no idea. She thought back and forth about what had happened in the making of a voice out of a man. Then thought about herself. Years ago, she had told her girl self to wait for her in the looking glass. It had been a long time since she had remembered. Perhaps she’d better look. She went over to the dresser and looked hard at her skin and features. The young girl was gone, but a hand- 104 Zora Neale Hurston some woman had taken her place. She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there. She took careful stock of herself, then combed her hair and tied it back up again. Then she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see, and opened up the window and cried, “Come heah people! Jody is dead. Mah husband is gone from me.” 9 Joe’s funeral was the finest thing Orange County had


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

but also you refused to allow her to treat you as a guest. If you do not admit kindness from others, you cannot be surprised when they fail to offer any.” “I don’t see what that has to do with your arm,” I muttered, more to end the conversation than anything. To my surprise, he did not persist in arguing the point, merely gave a breath of laughter and went to fix tea. Within the span of a single day, I learned more of the ways of the Ljosland Folk than I gleaned during the entirety of my research heretofore. In the space of two weeks, I may have gathered enough material for not only a chapter, but an entire book. To summarize broadly: the interactions of mortal Ljoslanders with the common fae follow established patterns seen on the continent. Offerings are left for them, most often in the form of food; those with wealth and status are expected to leave trinkets, with mirrors and singing boxes being especially favoured. Mortals will sometimes enter into bargains with the common fae— like my bargain with Poe—but this is seen as dangerous given their unpredictability, and a road taken only by the desperate or foolhardy. None of the common fae of Ljosland dwell within households; that is the key difference. As for the courtly fae, they are wholly unique. They are, above all else, elusive. Few mortals have laid eyes on them—of the villagers of Hrafnsvik, Thora alone makes that claim, and she only spied them once from a distance a very long time ago, whilst playing with her schoolfellows in the woods. Their courts move with the snows, and they dwell for much of the year in the mountainous north and interior of the country, where winter never rests. They love music and hold elaborate balls in the wilderness, particularly upon frozen lakes, and if you hear their song drifting on the icy wind, you must stop your ears or burst into song yourself, or be drowned by it and swept insensible into their realm. For they are also hungry. They have a particular fondness for youth in love. Those who are drawn into their dances are invariably found wandering alone the next day, alive but hollow. It was not always so; it is said that the courtly fae of Ljosland were once a peaceable people, if somewhat standoffish with mortals. No one is certain when the change occurred, but this behaviour has persisted for many generations. Auður is the only living victim of the courtly fae in Hrafnsvik. But another boy was taken last winter, two girls the winter before that, and three years ago, a child of fifteen. Victims of these Folk are continually drawn to the winter wilderness after their abduction, and will wander into the night in their shifts or shirtsleeves when their guardians are distracted, to be found frozen a little distance from town. The “tall ones,” it seems, have no interest in taking them back. It seems clear these creatures are increasingly drawn to Hrafnsvik, though it


For nine years, the child had been kept docile and dependent, in awe of her granduncle. Another silver Noziken. Dumai looked at them all, the whole belfry of courtiers. Her father had summoned her because she owed allegiance to no one. Now she saw that no one owed allegiance to her, either. I am alone. She stood at a great distance from herself. I am alone, with my foot in the fishnet. No, not alone. Outside, a dragon waited for her. The stone was tucked between her breasts. And when she heard the words in her head, they did not belong to a god, or a woman in a dream. It was her own voice. What are you doing? As that question filled her mind, a weight lifted. She did not have to fight this battle. She did not have to stand here and try to outwit the River Lord. She did not have to become like him – and she had come so close, some days. This court had made her reckless, untrusting and hard; it had almost made her cruel. Now she remembered the godsinger of Mount Ipyeda, who had wished for nothing more than the life she already had. That godsinger had needed no throne to serve Kwiriki, or to help the people of Seiiki. After all, she had known Kwiriki before she ever set eyes on his throne. You are a kite, a rainbow, a rider. The realisation tilted the corners of her lips. Where have you ever belonged but the sky? Before she could think better of it, she walked towards the throne and knelt, taking Suzumai by the hand. ‘Your Majesty,’ she said, ‘I love and respect you, as your big sister. I will not ask for the Rainbow Throne. You have every right to sit on it, too.’ She touched her cheek. ‘I must leave again, for a little while, but I will always come back.’ Suzumai swallowed, eyes shimmering. ‘You promised you wouldn’t go away again.’ ‘I know.’ Dumai tightened her hold on her hand. ‘I’m sorry. Will you keep me safe?’ ‘Yes,’ Suzumai whispered. Dumai looked at the River Lord, whose face betrayed his curiosity. He was trying to predict her next move. ‘I do not wish to fight you when an enemy threatens our island. I would not seek to divide it from within,’ Dumai said, rising to face him. ‘My mother was once a . . . provincial, as you say. She worked the barley fields of Afa. Her father was its governor, long ago.’ At last, understanding barbed his gaze. She wondered if he had ever guessed who Unora was, or if she had disappeared from his notice as soon as she was stripped of her nobility. ‘As a godsinger, as a rider, and as a princess, I serve them,’ Dumai told him. ‘It is they who will suffer most in this time of fire. I have the means to defend them. I must use it.’ Beside her, Nikeya released a breath. The River Lord watched Dumai without speaking. She


attractive young woman always drew eyes away from the work at hand. The man on the radio said, "Agent Neveu insisted on speaking to you immediately, Captain. I tried to stop her, but she's on her way into the gallery." Fache recoiled in disbelief. "Unacceptable! I made it very clear-" For a moment, Robert Langdon thought Bezu Fache was suffering a stroke. The captain was mid-sentence when his jaw stopped moving and his eyes bulged. His blistering gaze seemed fixated on something over Langdon's shoulder. Before Langdon could turn to see what it was, he heard a woman's voice chime out behind him. "Excusez-moi, messieurs." Langdon turned to see a young woman approaching. She was moving down the corridor toward them with long, fluid strides... a haunting certainty to her gait. Dressed casually in a knee-length, cream-colored Irish sweater over black leggings, she was attractive and looked to be about thirty. Her thick burgundy hair fell unstyled to her shoulders, framing the warmth of her face. Unlike the waifish, cookie-cutter blondes that adorned Harvard dorm room walls, this woman was healthy with an unembellished beauty and genuineness that radiated a striking personal confidence. 36 To Langdon's surprise, the woman walked directly up to him and extended a polite hand. "Monsieur Langdon, I am Agent Neveu from DCPJ's Cryptology Department." Her words curved richly around her muted Anglo-Franco accent. "It is a pleasure to meet you." Langdon took her soft palm in his and felt himself momentarily fixed in her strong gaze. Her eyes were olive-green-incisive and clear. Fache drew a seething inhalation, clearly preparing to launch into a reprimand. "Captain," she said, turning quickly and beating him to the punch, "please excuse the interruption, but-" "Ce n'est pas le moment!" Fache sputtered. "I tried to phone you." Sophie continued in English, as if out of courtesy to Langdon. "But your cell phone was turned off." "I turned it off for a reason," Fache hissed. "I am speaking to Mr. Langdon." "I've deciphered the numeric code," she said flatly. Langdon felt a pulse of excitement. She broke the code? Fache looked uncertain how to respond. "Before I explain," Sophie said, "I have an urgent message for Mr. Langdon." Fache's expression turned to one of deepening concern. "For Mr. Langdon?" She nodded, turning back to Langdon. "You need to contact the U.S. Embassy, Mr. Langdon. They have a message for you from the States." Langdon reacted with surprise, his excitement over the code giving way to a sudden ripple of concern. A message from the States? He tried to imagine who could be trying to reach him. Only a few of his colleagues knew he was in Paris. Fache's broad jaw had tightened with the news. "The U.S. Embassy?" he demanded, sounding suspicious. "How would they know to find Mr. Langdon here?" Sophie shrugged. "Apparently they called Mr. Langdon's hotel, and the concierge told them Mr. Langdon had been collected by a DCPJ agent." Fache looked troubled. "And the embassy contacted DCPJ Cryptography?" "No, sir," Sophie said, her voice firm. "When I called the


how easy it is to talk to him, this guy I didn’t know only an hour and a half ago. “I guess I just thought I’d be . . . well, more successful by now,” I say, brushing this off with a hollow laugh. “So there it is. It’s not that I want to be famous or anything. I just want to create something I can be proud of. You know?” “I do,” he says quietly, his eyes heavy on mine, the soft creases on either side of them making him seem weary for the first time all evening. We finish our pizza and continue wandering. As his self-appointed tour guide, I go deep into Seattle lore, pointing out the Jimi Hendrix statue on the intersection of Broadway and Pine, the movie theater that used to be a Masonic temple. At one point, he holds out his phone, beckoning me closer to see what’s on the screen. “I googled ‘dearly beloved.’ You can say it at a funeral, too.” I exaggerate a groan. “I hate being wrong.” “Would a churro make it better?” he asks, gesturing to a food truck on the next block, and I instantly brighten. We take our churros to a bench in Cal Anderson Park, which even this late is full of people picnicking, drinking, dancing to music blaring from phones and mini speakers. “I’m kind of glad that bartender’s guinea pigs were such agents of chaos,” I say. “Or we might not have met.” “God bless Ricardo and Judith.” Drew nudges his churro out of the paper to take a bite. As he does this, his jeans brush against mine, our hips just barely touching. My lungs catch on an inhale, and when I finally let out a breath, I can sense the heat of him not just along my thigh but in the tips of my toes, the back of my neck. He’s half a foot taller than I am, but all night, he’s carried his height with a quiet kind of grace I’m not used to. He doesn’t slouch, but he doesn’t lord it over those of us who are vertically challenged. We could spread out if we wanted to; the bench is big enough. It quickly becomes evident that neither of us wants to. This whole thing is surreal. There’s no desire to check my phone for the time or chart an escape route, the way I might if I’m at a gathering that’s gotten too people-y. When I’m on deadline, I’m laser-focused, but I sent off a final revision of the personal trainer’s book last week, and now I’m waiting for my agent to submit me to other gigs, browsing job websites, sitting in that strange void of what’s next. This is the first time since that mistake with Wyatt that I’ve felt at home in my own skin. Maybe since before then, if I’m being honest. “Seattle is winning me over,” Drew says. “I might even be a little sad to leave tomorrow.” When he says it, there’s an inexplicable twinge in


note of tragedy into this comic evening. The men don't react to the news of his robbery at first. When Silas accuses Jem Rodney, Jem seems more annoyed than afraid. Jem's one of the poorer customers, sitting far from the fire, yet he is more accepted here than Silas is. Once they've absorbed what's going on, the men at the pub treat Silas kindly. Eliot moves inside his mind to describe the effect of this. A vague sensation of blurry faces, voices, and the fire's warmth unlocks Silas' heart, and a new kind of feeling starts to grow inside him (note the plant imagery). The news transforms Silas' reputation: The superstitious villagers imagine that the Devil robbed Silas, so he must not be one of the Devil's helpers. Everyone chimes in with his own opinion. Mr. Snell, the peacemaker, tries to convince Silas of Jem's innocence. And Mr. Macey, who believes in authority, starts talking about the proper legal proceedings. NOTE: MEMORY Mr. Macey's remark about accusing the innocent arouses Silas' memory of his own false accusation years ago. The force of memory is important for George Eliot. Remembering his mother's death helped Silas rediscover his herbal medicines to cure Sally Oates in Chapter 2. He tried to forget his past in Lantern-Yard, but remembering it is good for him now, giving him compassion for Jem. Silas is jolted by Mr. Macey's words into withdrawing his accusation of Jem. This takes a great effort, however--it's excruciating to give up his hope of recovering his money. The men around him don't seem to understand his inarticulate pain. Mr. Macey makes a dry joke about Silas' money being in Hell. Dowlas the farrier suggests that Silas missed the thief's footprints because of his poor eyesight ("eyes... like an insect's," he says). Officiously, Dowlas lays out the procedure for inspecting the premises and offers to serve as a deputy. But at least he's willing to get involved. Everyone in the room, in fact, agrees that it's their duty as respectable men to take action. How would the men of your neighborhood act if a local eccentric came running to them wildly for help? Of course, the men get bogged down in another silly quarrel, over whether the farrier can serve as a deputy. (As a veterinarian, he usually puts on airs of being a doctor, and doctors are traditionally excused from constables' duties.) Imagine Silas sitting there, shivering and waiting for them to resolve this dispute. How would you feel in his place? ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 8 The other side of Raveloe--the gentry's world--seems unconnected to the goings-on at the Rainbow. Eliot briefly mentions Godfrey, returning from his party to find that Dunstan hasn't come home. This doesn't seem very important. In the morning, however, Godfrey is swept up in the news about Silas, just as everyone else in town is. Think about hometown crime cases that are covered on your local television news. They unfold with new evidence daily. This is what happens in Raveloe. A tinder-box is discovered near the stonepit, and


the funeral he was as drunk road. He was plainly blind, for he tapped before him with a as ever; and it was shocking, in that house of mourning, to stick and wore a great green shade over his eyes and nose; and hear him singing away at his ugly old sea-song; but weak as he was hunched, as if with age or weakness, and wore a huge he was, we were all in the fear of death for him, and the doc- old tattered sea-cloak with a hood that made him appear posi- tor was suddenly taken up with a case many miles away and tively deformed. I never saw in my life a more dreadful- was never near the house after my father’s death. I have said looking figure. He stopped a little from the inn, and raising the captain was weak, and indeed he seemed rather to grow his voice in an odd sing-song, addressed the air in front of weaker than regain his strength. He clambered up and down him, “Will any kind friend inform a poor blind man, who has stairs, and went from the parlour to the bar and back again, lost the precious sight of his eyes in the gracious defence of and sometimes put his nose out of doors to smell the sea, his native country, England—and God bless King George!— holding on to the walls as he went for support and breathing where or in what part of this country he may now be?” hard and fast like a man on a steep mountain. He never par- “You are at the Admiral Benbow, Black Hill Cove, my ticularly addressed me, and it is my belief he had as good as good man,” said I. forgotten his confidences; but his temper was more flighty, “I hear a voice,” said he, “a young voice. Will you give me and allowing for his bodily weakness, more violent than ever. your hand, my kind young friend, and lead me in?” Contents He had an alarming way now when he was drunk of drawing I held out my hand, and the horrible, soft-spoken, eyeless his cutlass and laying it bare before him on the table. But creature gripped it in a moment like a vise. I was so much Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 26 27 startled that I struggled to withdraw, but the blind man pulled went out of him and left him staring sober. The expression of me close up to him with a single action of his arm. his face was not so much of terror as of mortal sickness. He “Now, boy,” he said, “take me in to the captain.” made a movement to rise, but I do not believe he had enough “Sir,” said I, “upon my word I dare not.” force left in his body. “Oh,” he sneered, “that’s it! Take me in straight or I’ll “Now, Bill, sit where you are,” said the beggar. “If I can’t break your arm.” see, I can hear a finger stirring. Business is business. Hold


in the studio, we’d spoken only when necessary. But I neither longed for nor resented him, as I’d always sensed he believed. Though I’d been hurt and humiliated by his rejection, it had, I soon realized, freed me and offered clarity. I would never again risk poisoning TNO for myself by falling for or trying to date anyone there. And this decision made me see that there was a different way I wrote when, even subconsciously, I was seeking male approval, male sexual approval: a more coy way, more reserved, more nervous about being perceived as angry or vulgar. It was the syntactical equivalent of dressing up as a sexy zombie for Halloween. From my third season on, I’d embraced my anger and vulgarity. I’d been a gross zombie. I began writing about ostensibly female topics—camel toe and wage inequity, polycystic ovary syndrome and Jane Austen, Do-si-dos and Trefoils and mammograms and shapewear and Dirty Dancing and the so-called likeability of female politicians. By October of that year, I’d written my first viral sketch, Nancy Drew and the Disappearing Access to Abortion, in which Henrietta played the amateur detective. By December, I’d written my second, My Girlfriend Never Farts, which was a digital short that interspersed men at a bachelor party remarking on how their girlfriends and wives always smelled great and were hairless interspersed with shots of the women grunting and sweating as they moved a couch up a staircase, writhing on the toilet with explosive diarrhea, and giving instructions to an aesthetician who was waxing their buttholes. I didn’t try to be disgusting for the sake of being disgusting, but I didn’t try not to be disgusting. A few years after not reciprocating my feelings, Elliot appeared to develop an almost identical friendship with another new female writer except that I had the impression they were hooking up, but it didn’t last. The same season that Elliot became head writer, Nicola Dornan was a musical guest on the show, they began dating, and a year after that, they got married. This development did seem to vindicate his apparent belief that he shouldn’t have settled for me. Quite a few people from TNO had been invited to the wedding, and I hadn’t been one of them. All of which was to say, as we stood in the hallway outside his office, below a framed photo of a legendary TNO alum from the first season dressed as the Easter bunny—many such photos adorned the halls—I knew that Elliot was saying he hoped someday I could get over him. I tried to sound persuasively non-defensive as I said, “Really and truly, Elliot, the Danny Horst Rule sketch isn’t about you. It’s not revenge for you marrying Nicola.” The expression on his face was sympathetic and disbelieving, which made me realize I’d have vastly preferred unsympathetic and believing. Somberly, he said, “You have good qualities, Sally. You’re not out of the game unless you think you are.” I was filled with such loathing for him that it almost retroactively tainted the wise yet not


gathered together and set as signs in the heavens of Arda: Wilwarin, Telumendil, Soronm, and Anarrma; and Menelmacar with his shining belt, that forebodes the Last Battle that shall be at the end of days. And high in the north as a challenge to Melkor she set the crown of seven mighty stars to swing, Valacirca, the Sickle of the Valar and sign of doom. It is told that even as Varda ended her labours, and they were long, when first Menelmacar strode up the sky and the blue fire of Helluin flickered in the mists above the borders of the world, in that hour the Children of the Earth awoke, the Firstborn of Ilvatar. By the starlit mere of Cuivinen, Water of Awakening, they rose from the sleep of Ilvatar; and while they dwelt yet silent by Cuivinen their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven. Therefore they have ever loved the starlight, and have revered Varda Elentri above all the Valar. In the changes of the world the shapes of lands and of seas have been broken and remade; rivers have not kept their courses, neither have mountains remained steadfast; and to Cuivinen there is no returning. But it is said among the Elves that it lay far off in the east of Middle-earth, and northward, and it was a bay in the Inland Sea of Helcar; and that sea stood where aforetime the roots of the mountain of Illuin had been before Melkor overthrew it Many waters flowed down thither from heights in the east, and the first sound that was heard by the Elves was the sound of water flowing, and the sound of water falling over stone. Long they dwelt in their first home by the water under stars, and they walked the Earth in wonder; and they began to make speech and to give names to all things that they perceived. Themselves they named the Quendi, signifying those that speak with voices; for as yet they had met no other living things that spoke or sang. And on a time it chanced that Orom rode eastward in his hunting, and he turned north by the shores of Helcar and passed under the shadows of the Orocarni, the Mountains of the East. Then on a sudden Nahar set up a great neighing, and stood still. And Orom wondered and sat silent, and it seemed to him that in the quiet of the land under the stars he heard afar off many voices singing. Thus it was that the Valar found at last, as it were by chance, those whom they had so long awaited. And Orom looking upon the Elves was filled with wonder, as though they were beings sudden and marvellous and unforeseen; for so it shall ever be with the Valar. From without the World, though all things may be forethought in music or foreshown in vision from afar, to those who enter verily into E each in its time shall be met at unawares as something new and unforetold. In the


aide scrambled to put together the legal, operational, and moral case for not outsourcing core military functions. Fortunately, the proposal died. “Next time we won’t be so lucky,” a person familiar with the discussions told me, envisioning a Trump-like future president. “We’ll have a military run by mercenaries.” A privatized force. Weaponized for political purposes. Policing U.S. city streets. If that’s how the shield and the sword of government are recast, then Tom Warrick’s caricature of the Next Trump commanding his own forces doesn’t seem so hyperbolic. “A junior gestapo,” as he put it, is exactly what it would be. * * * When I reflect on the nightmare scenario—of an American president hijacking the military for nefarious ends—I like to believe there are safety valves. That’s the type of moment when the Twenty-Fifth Amendment gets invoked, isn’t it? Surely the president’s cabinet would save the day by ejecting him from office if he tried to turn the armed forces against the American people. But I know better. The Next Trump’s cabinet will be stacked with loyalists. If they think about flipping, they’ll be watched. Top officials are routinely tracked so they can be whisked away in the event of a crisis. A paranoid president would use those same security measures as a trip wire to determine whether his cabinet was convening—and conspiring—against him. We can protect our institutions up to a point with obvious remedies. Congress can curtail the two-hundred-year-old law that allows a president to deploy the military on U.S. soil, and legislators should make it harder for the White House to misuse the armed forces. As far as guarding against isolationism, Congress should craft a new Marshall Plan to advance U.S. influence abroad, to protect global trade routes, to defend the territorial integrity of democratic allies, to resist the spread of autocracy, and to prevent meddling in our republic, especially if we want this to be another American century. * * * Up to this point, I’ve outlined the many plausible ways the Next Trump might dismantle the guardrails of our democracy. He or she will almost certainly do much of the damage piecemeal, a form of low-level democratic vandalism. Other possibilities (such as turning the American military against the citizenry) would catalyze a more drastic civic implosion. Despite these dangers, I don’t think another MAGA presidency will be America’s ultimate undoing. At least it won’t be the only factor. If our republic fails, the demise will follow the fabled path of other self-defeated democracies throughout world history. In other words, we’ll do it ourselves. Chapter 7 THE CITIZEN … [M]en are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages. —ALEXANDER HAMILTON, FEDERALIST NO. 6, 1787 PART I The trilling of insects came from all directions, as I set off along the familiar countryside. Back home in Indiana for Independence Day 2020, I was


faced. Which, of course, wasn’t true in the least. He knew deep down that his words would offer little solace to the admiral. His mind flashed back to his last conversation with the admiral, one that had shaken him to his core, the intense electric shock that had incapacitated him. The memory only fueled his frustration, reminding him of his vulnerability and the weight of the admiral’s expectations. “Admiral, please, the battle continues … We should at least wait before—” “I should never have entrusted you with such an important post. It is time we bring our red ships into the battle, finish off these trespassers once and for all … I suggest you get your affairs in order, Commander. No, things do not bode well for you.” The admiral’s feed blinked out. Lu-puk continued to stare at the blank display. How could he face his crew, knowing that he had led them into failure once again? Yet, amidst the turmoil within, a flicker of determination sparked in Lu-puk’s eyes. He knew that dwelling on the loss would not change the outcome. There was still work to be done, lessons to be learned, and a future to shape. He couldn’t allow this defeat to define him or his team. Straightening his serpentine posture, Commander Lu-puk addressed his scattered crew, his voice steady but laced with a newfound resolve. “Get back in here … all of you!” He waited as his command center crew slunk back into the compartment and retook their post stations. Lu-puk said, “How much control do we still have over what is left of those nanites fluttering around there in space?” Remote Operator #5 answered, “Without a central power supply, the nanites have little time left before they become inert, sir. It is why they are currently incapable of reforming.” “If you were to direct them toward the interloper’s starships … the humans’ shields … Could we utilize—” Remote Operator #2 interjected with renewed enthusiasm, “Yes! More than enough power … a simple, directed signal transmission and our squad of Slissets will be resurrected, ready to defeat the enemy.” Remote Operator #5, looking to gain favor over the meddlesome Operator #2, said, “Perhaps there will be a better objective for our re-energized nanite forces, sir. These advanced nanites all are adaptable … All have the latest hull drilling, hull breaching capabilities.” Lu-puk’s eyes widened; his forked tongue flicked. “Tell me more …” Chapter 37 Liquilid Empire Star System USS Adams Captain Galvin Quintos Chen said, “Captain, we’re being hailed by Wrath.” “On display,” I said. Captain Loggins, Commander F. Stanly, and Science Officer Lieutenant Trevor Mandyport were huddled together on Wrath’s bridge, looking as if the three of them were having a tense conversation. Loggins held up a restraining palm to the two others. “Ah, Captain Quintos, we have a serious problem.” Akari spun around and offered up a confused shrug. I wanted to tell Loggins I couldn’t handle another “serious” problem right now. My problem-solving capabilities had been exceeded and he’d just have to wait. Like, forever. “What


to happen. And if it did, he’d overpower her. That wouldn’t be a problem. She was a weakling. Easy prey. And a temporary release. But there was still more to come, the ultimate triumph. His heart began pounding at the thought of it, of ending Samantha’s life. His blood tingled with anticipation at the image of watching her fight tooth and nail, then, of course, lose the battle, and as she realized her death was not just imminent but fated, the fear overcoming her. Then, oh, then she would begin to plead, to beg, to bargain with him. Her fingers would twist in the fold of his cassock as she cried and swore that she would do anything—absolutely anything—he wanted if he just spared her and— “Where are you taking me?” the whore’s voice—Luna’s tinny little whine—interrupted his fantasy. He snapped back to the present and caught a glimpse of the speedometer. What!?! The needle was hovering near ninety! If he wasn’t careful he’d blow through a speed trap and catch the notice of a roadside cop lying in wait. No, no, no! Everything would be ruined! Starting to sweat, he eased off the gas as they reached the far end of the bridge. Calm down. Take it slow. Enjoy the moment. “I asked you where the fuck are you taking me?” the whore demanded in a show of defiance he hadn’t expected. She was facing him, her terror still evident, but some other emotion—anger?—burning in those round eyes. So she was tougher than he’d thought. Good. He liked a little fight in them and up to this point she’d been a nearly petrified, weak little sniveling creature. But maybe not. Maybe there was a little grit deep inside that tiny body. He felt the thrumming deep inside, the anticipation racing through his blood, the thought of what was coming, the beads of the home-made rosary, cut glass strung on piano wire, pressing into the soft flesh of her throat. His cock hardened a bit at the thought of what was to come and the glorifying, spiritual act that was still just a precursor to his final, ultimate sanctification. That could only come with Samantha. And it would. Soon. “Very soon,” he whispered under his breath, though he hated this departure from his regular routine. Though necessary as they had to get out of the city quickly, it didn’t feel right, like a scratchy sweater that rubbed and chafed. “What?” his terrified captive asked, quaking in her fear again as the lights of the city disappeared behind them. She was twisting in her seat, looking back through the rear window as New Orleans faded into darkness. “What will come very soon?” “You will see, my child,” he said, telling himself that a change of plan, an altering of routine was good, would keep those who would thwart him guessing. He just had to get his mind around it and he would. They were close now and he could feel that special little thrum in his veins, the twitching of his cock as


through the dressing room, Poppy reaches in to place a lantern on the bench. “I’ll be right here, Little Miss,” she says with a bow. By the time I’m under the quilts with Maoren, Poppy has rolled out her bedding in the first antechamber and lain down. I do not know—nor do I want to know—what she thinks of the sounds Maoren and I make as we begin to perform bedchamber affairs. He takes one of my feet in the palm of his hand. He caresses the silk. He admires the embroidery, saying, “When I see the beautiful petals you stitched, I’m reminded that in every step you take your golden lilies bloom beneath you.” He brings my slippered foot to his nose so he can appreciate its aroma. But mostly it’s as I’ve always been told. My feet are physical proof of the pain I suffered to give him this treasure so dear to him. He’ll never see them naked, but he knows from the books that taught him about bedroom affairs that hidden beneath the binding cloth is the deep cleft formed where my toes meet my heel. I could not have known this when Respectful Lady told me about the importance of this attribute when I was a girl, but now I understand that the shape and depth of this fissure are titillating to my husband. I have not yet needed to twist myself into the strange positions I saw in the books Miss Zhao showed me before marriage, but Maoren must have seen or read some of those same volumes, because he’s attentive to my desires and makes sure I find pleasure. Afterward, as we lie curled together, our Blood and Essence mingled, I have the courage to ask, “Would you allow me to invite my friend Meiling for a visit?” He answers as he always does—with patience and the exact same words: “That is for my mother to decide.” Tonight, I press him further. “I miss sharing confidences with Meiling. For many years, our hearts beat together as one.” “My mother would say that now your heart should only beat with mine,” he says sympathetically. After a moment, he adds, “But I will speak to her.” * * * The next morning, I complete all the usual rituals for my mother-in-law and then return to my room. I take the package Poppy brought to me from my drawer. Grandmother has written a short note: You are correct in your diagnosis and plan for treatment. Proceed. I mix the ingredients and set the pot on the brazier to brew. The medicinal smell that fills the room instantly carries me to my grandparents’ pharmacy. The aroma both lightens and deepens my homesickness. I return my attention to the other items I requested from Grandmother. By the time Yining enters, I have everything ready. “I want to share a secret with you,” I say. “I’m a young doctor.” She giggles. “That’s not a secret. Everyone knows.” This must mean Lady Kuo has forbidden others to talk to me about this


of, and yet something felt incomplete. ‘The tree!’ ‘I’m awake, I’m awake,’ Henry responded to my scream, one eye still shut, his hair standing on end. ‘It’s gone.’ ‘Okay. The very fact of the tree growing here was odd in the first place, but this is just … what are you doing?’ I was getting dressed. Fast. ‘Well, aren’t you coming?’ Henry blinked, then reluctantly pulled on his jeans. I ran up the stairs ahead of him. ‘Martha? Were these words always here on the stairs? Strange things are found …’ he shouted up, but I had found something stranger still. I had expected to find the hallway of number 12 Ha'penny Lane at the top of the stairs, where it always was. Instead, I found myself standing in a place I had never fully believed existed up to that point – Opaline’s Bookshop. Daylight streamed in through the glass shopfront, creating rays of sunshine, glittering with dust motes falling like confetti. I hardly dared breathe in case the whole thing would evaporate. Slowly, I let my eyes readjust to what was in front of me. There were wooden bookcases from floor to ceiling lined with soft green moss and with ivy creeping along the edges. Fallen leaves swept silently across the tiled floor, and floating overhead were toy hot-air balloons. It felt as though the place had just woken up from a long slumber, like Rip Van Winkle, and was shaking off the years of hibernation. I blinked, but it did not disappear. The scent of warm wood and paper filled the air, along with a sweetness like a golden September apple. It was full of brightly coloured antique books and curiosities, all waiting for our arrival. I’d come home. Henry bumped into me at the top of the stairs and then took in the view. ‘Please tell me you’re seeing this and I’m not having an episode.’ ‘It’s real, Henry.’ I turned to look at him and smiled. ‘I’m seeing it, but I can’t believe it,’ he whispered. ‘How is this possible?’ I took a long, deep breath and tried to think of the last lines in Opaline’s book. ‘Maybe it was I who was lost all along and not the bookshop.’ I reached out for Henry’s hand and he clasped it tightly. ‘We did it,’ I said. ‘We found the bookshop.’ His smile was beautiful and unguarded, like that of a little child. ‘Look at this,’ he said, pointing to the stained-glass panels at the top of the windows that were like nothing I’d ever seen and yet inexplicably familiar. ‘Is that—?’ Henry stepped closer and pointed to a design at the very edge. A woman, wearing a long coat and trousers, with very short hair, holding hands with a soldier. Epilogue The rain had eased off outside and the bank of grey clouds that had huddled over the city like a lumpy duvet was breaking apart and revealing small, irregular windows of blue sky. ‘Is all of that really true?’ asked the little boy, openly stuffing a teacake


the chief--" "--you got to go for your own good." "The chief and Roger--" "--yes, Roger--" "They hate you, Ralph. They're going to do you." "They're going to hunt you tomorrow." "But why?" "I dunno. And Ralph, Jack, the chief, says it'll be dangerous--" "--and we've got to be careful and throw our spears like at a pig." "We're going to spread out in a line across the island--" "--we're going forward from this end--" "--until we find you." "We've got to give signals like this." Eric raised his head and achieved a faint ululation by beating on his open mouth. Then he glanced behind him nervously. "Like that--" "--only louder, of course." "But I've done nothing," whispered Ralph, urgently. "I only wanted to keep up a fire!" He paused for a moment, thinking miserably of the morrow. A matter of overwhelming importance occurred to him. "What are you--?" He could not bring himself to be specific at first; but then fear and loneliness goaded him. "When they find me, what are they going to do?" The twins were silent. Beneath him, the death rock flowered again. "What are they--oh God! I'm hungry--" The towering rock seemed to sway under him. "Well--what--?" The twins answered his question indirectly. "You got to go now, Ralph." "For your own good." "Keep away. As far as you can." "Won't you come with me? Three of us--we'd stand a chance." After a moment's silence, Sam spoke in a strangled voice. "You don't know Roger. He's a terror." "And the chief--they're both--" "--terrors--" "--only Roger--" Both boys froze. Someone was climbing toward them from the tribe. "He's coming to see if we're keeping watch. Quick, Ralph!" As he prepared to let himself down the cliff, Ralph snatched at the last possible advantage to be wrung out of this meeting. "I'll lie up close; in that thicket down there," he whispered, "so keep them away from it. They'll never think to look so close--" The footsteps were still some distance away. "Sam--I'm going to be all right, aren't I?" The twins were silent again. "Here!" said Sam suddenly. "Take this--" Ralph felt a chunk of meat pushed against him and grabbed it. "But what are you going to do when you catch me?" Silence above. He sounded silly to himself. He lowered himself down the rock. "What are you going to do--?" From the top of the towering rock came the incomprehensible reply. "Roger sharpened a stick at both ends." Roger sharpened a stick at both ends. Ralph tried to attach a meaning to this but could not. He used all the bad words he could think of in a fit of temper that passed into yawning. How long could you go without sleep? He yearned for a bed and sheets--but the only whiteness here was the slow spilt milk, luminous round the rock forty feet below, where Piggy had fallen. Piggy was everywhere, was on this neck, was become terrible in darkness and death. If Piggy were to come back now out of the water, with his