they were water-barrels, or barrels of pork or biscuit," said George. "Let's go round the other part of the ship again- where the cabins are. Isn't it strange to see bunks there that sailors have slept in- and look at that old wooden chair. Fancy it still being here after all these years! Look at the things on those hooks too- they are all rusty now, and covered with seaweedy stuff- but they must have been the cook's pans and dishes!" It was a very queer trip round the old wreck. The children were all on the look-out for boxes which might contain bars of gold- but there didn't seem to be one single box of any kind anywhere! They came to a rather bigger cabin than the others. It had a bunk in one corner, in which a large crab rested. An old bit of furniture looking rather like a tablet with two legs, all encrusted with greyish shells, lay against the bunk. Wooden shelves, festooned with grey-green seaweed, hung crookedly on the walls of the cabin. "This must have been the captain's own cabin," said Julian. "It's the biggest one. Look, what's that in the corner?" "An old cup!" said Anne, picking it up. "And here's half of a saucer. I expect the captain was sitting here having a cup of tea when the ship went down." This made the children feel rather queer. It was dark and smelly in the little cabin, and the floor was wet and slippery to their feet. George began to feel that her wreck was really more pleasant sunk under the water than raised above it! "Let's go," she said, with a shiver. "I don't like it much. It is exciting, I know- but it's a bit frightening too." They turned to go. Julian flashed his torch round the little cabin for the last time. He was about to switch it off and follow the others up to the deck above when he caught sight of something that made him stop. He flashed his torch on to it, and then called to the others. "I say! Wait a bit. There's a cupboard here in the wall. Let's see if there's anything in it!" The others turned back and looked. They saw what looked like a small cupboard let in level with the wall of the cabin. What had caught Julian's eye was the keyhole. There was no key there, though. "There just might be something inside," said Julian. He tried to prise open the wooden door with his fingers, but it wouldn't move. "It's locked," he said. "Of course it would be!" "I expect the lock is rotten by now," said George, and she tried too. Then she took out her big strong pocket-knife and inserted it between the cupboard door and the cabin-wall. She forced back the blade- and the lock of the cupboard suddenly snapped! As she had said, it was quite rotten. The door swung open, and the children saw a shelf inside with a few curious things on it. There


weakness. My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all: or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life. Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were - most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner. "Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen." "Is she?" "Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her." At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame. "She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's what she did," said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it: "she Ram-paged out, Pip." "Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal. "Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she's been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a- coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you." I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me - I often served as a connubial missile - at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg. "Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys." "I have


was a compliment, that there was nothing odd about my face, that I still looked nice without any makeup on. Looking at Cam, I understand what he was getting at. “I’m still new around here,” says Cam, “but it’s a great area. The commute is easy and there’s shops and bars everywhere.” “My two previous flatmates moved out to move in with their partners,” adds Jo. Cam rolls her eyes and says, “Social convention strikes again.” “You wouldn’t move in with a partner?” I ask her. “Oh, I would,” she says, “but I like to indulge in hypocrisy every now and again.” Cam leaves shortly after to meet a friend for dinner and it’s just Jo and me. I suddenly remember what Shu said about threateningly pretty flatmates. As Jo speaks about the decline of our government and whether Eton College is worth all the praise if this is what it keeps churning out, I consider her. She has big, pale blue eyes, round cheeks, and an easy smile, with a needle-thin gap in her front teeth. She has on a giant blue jumper, gray leggings, pink socks, and her feet swing inches from the floor. Am I threatened by her? No. Not because she isn’t pretty—it’s because … well, why should I be threatened when I don’t have a Lydia, a partner to protect? Why should I feel threatened when I don’t see myself having someone to shelter against the harsh vicissitudes that is other female beauty? I think of Ben who has yet to call or text. “I think that’s enough about me,” Jo says. “Cam, even though she moved in only last week, is great, as you saw. She can be a little sarcastic, but aren’t we all? She’s not much of a girly-girl, but I kind of like that. I can throw enough glitter around for the three of us. Are you very girly?” “Oh.” I frown. “I’m not actually sure.” Jo tilts her head, and I wonder if I’ve failed the interview. She smiles. “Still finding out who you are?” she asks. I consider her question. “I think I’m just starting to learn, actually.” * * * On my way home, Jo messages to say that after a phone call with Cam, they’ve decided the room is mine if I want it. And I do—the only problem is, they need someone ASAP. My options are to miss out on the room or start paying rent in a week’s time. Although it’s a great flat, this isn’t a decision to take lightly. I really have to consider whether— Mum Ghana Maddie a friend of mine has a son who is now single. His girlfriend died enough time ago. I’ll give him your number so the 2 of you can talk. Thanks. I send Jo the deposit straight from my savings account. * * * It’s not my day to give Dad his dinner and medication, but I text Dawoud that I will tonight, though if he can still come to put Dad to bed that would be great.


while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before. "Incomparably beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God!" I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despair- ing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assur- ance of the endless and shadowless hereafter---the eter- nity they have entered---where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its full- ness. I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so regretted Catherine's blessed release. To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in seasons of cold re- flection, but not then, in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitants. Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir? I'd give a great deal to know. I declined answering Mrs. Dean's question, which struck me as something heterodox. She proceeded,---- Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to think she is; but we'll leave her with her Maker. The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air. The servants thought me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch; in re- ality, my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the larches all night he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange--unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton. If he had come nearer he would probably be aware, from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer doors, that all was not right within. I wished yet feared to find him. I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over; but how to do it I did not know. He was there --at least a few yards farther in the park---leant against an old ash tree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell pattering round him. He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels pass- ing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke. "She's dead!" he said. "I've not waited for you to learn that.


five-pound note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally of the discovery awakened his merriment. 'Hallo, what's that?' inquired Sikes, stepping forward as the Jew seized the note. 'That's mine, Fagin.' 'No, no, my dear,' said the Jew. 'Mine, Bill, mine. You shall have the books.' 'If that ain't mine!' said Bill Sikes, putting on his hat with a determined air; 'mine and Nancy's that is; I'll take the boy back again.' The Jew started. Oliver started too, though from a very different cause; for he hoped that the dispute might really end in his being taken back. 'Come! Hand over, will you?' said Sikes. 'This is hardly fair, Bill; hardly fair, is it, Nancy?' inquired the Jew. 'Fair, or not fair,' retorted Sikes, 'hand over, I tell you! Do you think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, give it here!' With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note from between the Jew's finger and thumb; and looking the old man coolly in the face, folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief. 'That's for our share of the trouble,' said Sikes; 'and not half enough, neither. You may keep the books, if you're fond of reading. If you ain't, sell 'em.' 'They're very pretty,' said Charley Bates: who, with sundry grimaces, had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question; 'beautiful writing, isn't is, Oliver?' At sight of the dismayed look with which Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ectasy, more boisterous than the first. 'They belong to the old gentleman,' said Oliver, wringing his hands; 'to the good, kind, old gentleman who took me into his house, and had me nursed, when I was near dying of the fever. Oh, pray send them back; send him back the books and money. Keep me here all my life long; but pray, pray send them back. He'll think I stole them; the old lady: all of them who were so kind to me: will think I stole them. Oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back!' With these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jew's feet; and beat his hands together, in perfect desperation. 'The boy's right,' remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting his shaggy eyebrows into a hard knot. 'You're right, Oliver, you're right; they WILL think you have stolen 'em. Ha! ha!' chuckled the Jew, rubbing his hands, 'it couldn't have happened better, if we had chosen our time!' 'Of course it couldn't,' replied Sikes; 'I know'd that, directly I see him coming through Clerkenwell, with the books under his arm. It's all right enough. They're soft-hearted psalm-singers, or they wouldn't have taken him in at all; and they'll ask no questions after him,


a good while, everything was so still and lonesome. As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. Afterwards Jim said the witches be- witched him and put him in a trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by saying some- thing to it; but he never told what it was he said to it. Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they had, just for a sight of that five- center piece; but they wouldn't touch it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill- top we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We


surprise, emblematic, diagnostic, diacritical, ANTONYM: (adv) trustingly marvel, stupefaction, confusion, demonstrative, characteristic askew: (adj) lopsided, cockeyed, consternation, awe, alarm, startle. armour: (n) armature, buckler, crooked, oblique, askant, ANTONYMS: (n) calmness, belief, armour plate, cataphract catawampus; (adj, adv) wrong, contempt armourer: (n) maker, manufacturer, crookedly; (adj, v) wry; (adv) skew, astray: (adj, adv) adrift, off course; artificer agley. ANTONYMS: (adj) level, (adj) lost, wrong, disoriented, awry; arouse: (v) wake, stir, agitate, excite, plumb, true, centered, aligned, even (adv) amiss, widely, far, afield, awaken, stimulate, anger, kindle, asperity: (adj, n) acerbity; (n) aside. ANTONYM: (adj) accurate provoke, raise; (n, v) rouse. austerity, hardship, rigor, bitterness, attaching: (n) fastening; (adj) ANTONYMS: (v) calm, dampen, rigidity, severity, grimness, adhesive stifle, sedate, quiet, pacify, bore, rigorousness, rigour, ruggedness. attachment: (n) appendix, addition, allay, lull, quench, suppress ANTONYMS: (n) softness, amenity, accessory, adherence, regard, link, aroused: (adj) ablaze, aflame, dullness, mildness, friendliness bond, fitting, devotion, liking, passionate, hot, agitated, inflamed, aspire: (v) aim, lust, hanker, crave, connection. ANTONYMS: (n) susceptible, tense, fascinated, plan, hope, want, rise, purpose, aversion, estrangement, repulsion, emotional, elated wish, long. ANTONYM: (v) wallow separation, dislike arrayed: (adj) armored, panoplied, aspiring: (adj) aspirant, wishful, attain: (v) make, reach, achieve, clothed, clad, armed; (v) habited, enterprising, envious, desirous, acquire, gain, strike, catch, arrive at, accustomed coming; (v) aspire, vaulting. find, obtain, come to. ANTONYMS: artistically: (adv) ingeniously, ANTONYM: (adj) desperate (v) lose, fail, abandon, surrender, pleasingly, inventively, aspiringly: (adv) wishfully, differ imaginatively, creatively, elegantly, enterprisingly attained: (adj) attains, attaint, originally, resourcefully, assemblage: (n) meeting, collection, reached, complete, earned, fulfilled productively, innovatively, congregation, set, multitude, crew, attaining: (v) attain, achieve; (n) harmoniously confluence, gathering, gang, attainment ascend: (n, v) mount; (v) arise, scale, convention, convocation. attainments: (n) knowledge, learning, uprise, climb, go up, come up, ANTONYMS: (v) dispersal, achievement, menticulture, culture increase, elevate; (n) ascending, scattering attendant: (n) companion, follower, ascent. ANTONYMS: (v) descend, assert: (v) allege, affirm, say, claim, assistant, escort, subordinate, drop, decline, fall, lower, set, sink declare, swear, show, avow, aver, employee, guide, varlet; (adj) ascending: (adj) uphill, rising, maintain, argue. ANTONYMS: (v) accompanying, concomitant, assurgent, climbing, ascendent; (n) reject, controvert, repress, refute incidental. ANTONYMS: (n) ascension, ascent, rise, advance, assign: (v) allot, delegate, consign, superior, boss; (adj) absent, movement; (v) go up ascribe, appoint, place, allocate, unrelated, significant ascends: (v) ascend, uprise appropriate; (n, v) allow, apply, attentive: (adj) assiduous, diligent, ascent: (n) ascension, climb, give. ANTONYMS: (v) relieve, heedful, watchful, observant, ascending, elevation, hill, incline, discharge, discredit, divest, refuse, advertent, mindful, careful, aware, advance, grade; (n, v) rise; (v) take alert, respectful. ANTONYMS: (adj) ascend, uprise. ANTONYMS: (n) assignable: (adj) negotiable, unfocused, negligent, neglectful, fall, drop, declivity alienable, conveyable, allocatable, forgetful, heedless, unobservant, ascertain: (v) determine, find out, movable, referable, exchangeable, rude, unprepared, unconscious, 260 The Scarlet Letter uncaring, inconsiderate authoritative. ANTONYMS: (adj) await: (v) anticipate, abide, bide, attestation: (n) affirmation, evidence, bogus, fake, unrealistic, false, tarry, wait, attend, look, hope, confirmation, attest, assertion, spurious, phony, counterfeit, approach, loom, come on. certificate, proof, affidavit, dishonest, unauthorized, ANTONYM: (v) doubt verification, profession, approbation unbelievable, imitation awaited: (adj) expected, appointed, attire: (n, v) array,


caretaker of Carr’s San Juan Island home called on my way here. He said that Carr requested to be alone on the property last weekend, so he didn’t see who Carr was with. There are three security cameras outside the home, so I’m going to see if we can get a warrant for the footage from last weekend.” Ethan follows after him, trying to think of a reason to keep his partner from requesting the warrant. He could insist on being the one to check the footage, but if he lies about the contents and is found out, he’ll be looking at prison time. Jonah turns. “What if he told this woman about his plan to murder his wife? We’ll never know if we don’t ask her. Who knows, maybe she even helped him plot it.” Ethan stops. “I know,” Jonah adds. “I just hope he wasn’t preying on some teenager up there.” “That seems like something that happens down in Los Angeles, Jonah. Not the San Juans.” Jonah turns around. “Maybe. Maybe not. You coming back to homicide now?” “Actually, I wanted to interview the firefighters who responded to Carr’s 911 call. See if they noticed anything unusual about his behavior.” Jonah stops after unlocking his Ford. “I’ll join you.” “The medic’s report said they were dispatched from Fire Station 29.” “Meet you there.” Ethan pulls out his phone after getting behind the wheel. He attaches the three recovered photos from Chelsea’s phone in an email to the FBI agent he spoke to earlier that week. After sending the email, he opens the message from the local crime reporter. Hey Ethan, Got any updates for me about your investigation into Chelsea Carr’s death? Ethan hits Reply and then Attach File. His finger hovers over the last image sent by TESU, with the girl on Carr’s lap, facing away from the camera. He might never be able to charge Carr with murder, but leaking a photo like this would go a long way in ruining his life. Chapter 35 Sloane looks at the clock on her microwave before pulling a mug out of the cupboard. Being at home, alone with her thoughts, is worse than being at work. Even though all day long she walks past the room where Chelsea died, she can still lose herself in a trauma or full code throughout the day. Here, the minutes crawl at an agonizingly slow pace. She drops a tea bag into her mug as her kettle heats on the stove. Ethan was already gone when she awoke this morning. He didn’t seem to buy her story last night about what happened to her car. She wonders if she should’ve come up with something better. She couldn’t tell him the truth, but she also can’t afford for him to think she’s lying to him. She thought reading the novel Ethan gifted her in bed would convince him she was fine. He knew she never read when she was stressed. But maybe it would’ve been more convincing to have appeared rattled from the accident. She


But who? And why? Collet wondered if maybe this were the reason Fache had told him not to take action yet. Maybe Fache realized there were more people involved tonight than just Langdon and Sophie. And if Langdon and Neveu arrived in the armored truck, then who drove the Audi? Hundreds of miles to the south, a chartered Beechcraft Baron 58 raced northward over the Tyrrhenian Sea. Despite calm skies, Bishop Aringarosa clutched an airsickness bag, certain he could be ill at any moment. His conversation with Paris had not at all been what he had imagined. Alone in the small cabin, Aringarosa twisted the gold ring on his finger and tried to ease his overwhelming sense of fear and desperation. Everything in Paris has gone terribly wrong. Closing his eyes, Aringarosa said a prayer that Bezu Fache would have the means to fix it. 183 CHAPTER 64 Teabing sat on the divan, cradling the wooden box on his lap and admiring the lid's intricate inlaid Rose. Tonight has become the strangest and most magical night of my life. "Lift the lid," Sophie whispered, standing over him, beside Langdon. Teabing smiled. Do not rush me. Having spent over a decade searching for this keystone, he wanted to savor every millisecond of this moment. He ran a palm across the wooden lid, feeling the texture of the inlaid flower. "The Rose," he whispered. The Rose is Magdalene is the Holy Grail. The Rose is the compass that guides the way. Teabing felt foolish. For years he had traveled to cathedrals and churches all over France, paying for special access, examining hundreds of archways beneath rose windows, searching for an encrypted keystone. La clef de vote-a stone key beneath the sign of the Rose. Teabing slowly unlatched the lid and raised it. As his eyes finally gazed upon the contents, he knew in an instant it could only be the keystone. He was staring at a stone cylinder, crafted of interconnecting lettered dials. The device seemed surprisingly familiar to him. "Designed from Da Vinci's diaries," Sophie said. "My grandfather made them as a hobby." Of course, Teabing realized. He had seen the sketches and blueprints. The key to finding the Holy Grail lies inside this stone. Teabing lifted the heavy cryptex from the box, holding it gently. Although he had no idea how to open the cylinder, he sensed his own destiny lay inside. In moments of failure, Teabing had questioned whether his life's quest would ever be rewarded. Now those doubts were gone forever. He could hear the ancient words... the foundation of the Grail legend: Vous ne trouvez pas le Saint-Graal, c'est le Saint-Graal qui vous trouve. You do not find the Grail, the Grail finds you. And tonight, incredibly, the key to finding the Holy Grail had walked right through his front door. While Sophie and Teabing sat with the cryptex and talked about the vinegar, the dials, and what the password might be, Langdon carried the rosewood box across the room to a well-lit table to get a better look


no means; you must say why." "Well, because he is handsome and pleasant to be with." "Bad!" was my commentary. "And because he is young and cheerful." "Bad still." "And because he loves me." "Indifferent, coming there." "And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the great- est woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband." "Worst of all. And now, say how you love him." "As everybody loves. You're silly, Nelly." "Not at all---answer." "I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now!" "And why?" "Nay, you are making a jest of it. It is exceedingly ill-natured. It's no jest to me!" said the young lady, scowling and turning her face to the fire. "I'm very far from jesting, Miss Catherine," I replied. "You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing---you would love him with- out that probably; and with it you wouldn't, unless he possessed the four former attractions." "No; to be sure not. I should only pity him---hate him, perhaps, if he were ugly and a clown." "But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world---handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is. What should hinder you from loving them?" "If there be any, they are out of my way. I've seen none like Edgar." "You may see some. And he won't always be hand- some and young, and may not always be rich." "He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would speak rationally." "Well, that settles it. If you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton." "I don't want your permission for that---I shall marry him; and yet you have not told me whether I'm right." "Perfectly right, if people be right to marry only for the present. And now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respecta- ble one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy. Where is the obstacle?" "Here, and here!" replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead and the other on her breast; "in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart I'm convinced I'm wrong." "That's very strange. I cannot make it out." "It's my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain it. I can't do it distinctly, but I'll give you a feeling of how I feel." She seated herself by me again; her countenance grew sadder and graver, and her clasped hands trem- bled. "Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?" she said suddenly, after some minutes' reflection. "Yes; now and then," I


I toss my old phone into the garbage. As I walk back to my car, I call the Arbutus Care Home and give them my new phone number. After that, I contact Rachelle Graham’s receptionist and give her the same information. And then I drive. Since my mom vanished, I’ve been desperate to participate in her search. If she is truly lost—not abducted—she will make her way to a familiar place. A place with good memories and positive energy. Somewhere she will feel safe and comfortable. I drive to my childhood home in Ballard and cruise through the neighborhood until I spot our old house. Despite significant updates, I recognize it. But would my mother? And would she come here? While there were some happy times, this is where her marriage to my dad fell apart. It might not be the place or the time she wants to revisit. I drive toward the university and the Intramural Activities pool where she did her twice-weekly swims. There are a handful of students and retirees milling about out front, but none of them are Melanie Sinclair. And there’s no point going inside. She wouldn’t be admitted without a membership card, and she hasn’t had one for years. I drive on, toward her apartment building, the tower where we lived post-divorce. Though I circle the block several times, she is nowhere to be seen. Tears of frustration are blurring my vision, and I pull the car to the side of the road. My mom is not in any of these familiar locations because Benjamin has her. He took her to hurt me, to keep me in Seattle, searching for her, so that he could get to me. Digging in my purse, I extract the ring of keys I found in that box. They are useless. My mother is locked away behind some unknown door, and I can’t find her. After blowing my nose and dabbing at my eyes, I pull back onto the street. I haven’t eaten today, and while I have no appetite, I know that I must. If I’m going to find my mom, outsmart my husband, I need to stay strong. Sharp. Healthy. I drive to a fast-food restaurant and order a wilted chicken salad. I’m seated at a corner table, when the unfamiliar ring of my new cell phone startles me. Only two people have this number. Ignoring the glowers of a woman at a nearby table, I grab it and answer. “It’s Greta Williams calling from the—” I cut her off. “Did you find my mother, Greta? Is she okay?” “We found her,” she says, and I hear the catch in her voice. “I’m so sorry, Hazel. Your mother was found dead.” The world goes dark, silent, like I have fallen down a deep well of pain and loss. I want to scream and thrash and rail against this news, but I am paralyzed. My face is wet with tears, though I don’t realize I’m crying. A wounded moan seeps out of me, my fist pressed to my lips. “Hazel?”


more and harder work. Jane, Ruby, Josie, Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the stirrings of ambition, were content to take up the Second Class work. Anne was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in a room with fifty other students, not one of whom she knew, except the tall, brown-haired boy across the room; and knowing him in the fashion she did, did not help her much, as she reflected pessimistically. Yet she was undeniably glad that they were in the same class; the old rivalry could still be carried on, and Anne would hardly have known what to do if it had been lacking. "I wouldn't feel comfortable without it," she thought. "Gilbert looks awfully determined. I suppose he's making up his mind, here and now, to win the medal. What a splendid chin he has! I never noticed it before. I do wish Jane and Ruby had gone in for First Class, too. I suppose I won't feel so much like a cat in a strange garret when I get acquainted, though. I wonder which of the girls here are going to be my friends. It's really an interesting speculation. Of course I promised Diana that no Queen's girl, no matter how much I liked her, should ever be as dear to me as she is; but I've lots of second-best affections to bestow. I like the look of that girl with the brown eyes and the crimson waist. She looks vivid and red-rosy; there's that pale, fair one gazing out of the window. She has lovely hair, and looks as if she knew a thing or two about dreams. I'd like to know them both-know them well-well enough to walk with my arm about their waists, and call them nicknames. But just now I don't know them and they don't know me, and probably don't want to know me particularly. Oh, it's lonesome!" It was lonesomer still when Anne found herself alone in her hall bedroom that night at twilight. She was not to board with the other girls, who all had relatives in town to take pity on them. Miss Josephine Barry would have liked to board her, but Beechwood was so far from the Academy that it was out of the question; so miss Barry hunted up a boarding-house, assuring Matthew and Marilla that it was the very place for Anne. "The lady who keeps it is a reduced gentlewoman," explained Miss Barry. "Her husband was a British officer, and she is very careful what sort of boarders she takes. Anne will not meet with any objectionable persons under her roof. The table is good, and the house is near the Academy, in a quiet neighborhood." All this might be quite true, and indeed, proved to be so, but it did not materially help Anne in the first agony of homesickness that seized upon her. She looked dismally about her narrow little room, with its dull-papered, pictureless walls, its small iron bedstead and empty bookcase; and a horrible choke came


she was named. I kneel next to Meiling and ask White Jade, “Will you let me look?” White Jade shifts her anguished gaze from me to Meiling and then back to me. She bites her upper lip and nods. I carefully pull up White Jade’s gown, revealing her lower leg. Instantly I’m in my mother’s room after she collapsed and I saw her naked limb for the first time. But instead of having red streaks running up the calf, White Jade’s leg is bent at an unnatural angle. “It’s broken,” Meiling says. Indeed, one spot has bulged into the shape of a steep mountain. The bone looks like it could break through the skin at any second. “Poppy,” I call, knowing she must be nearby. She steps into view. “Go get Grandmother. Hurry!” “And my mother as well,” Meiling adds. “Bring them both.” White Jade whimpers. “It hurts…” I sit back on my haunches, trying to figure out what to do. “Maybe we should try to pull it straight,” I say to Meiling. “I once saw a bonesetter do just that,” she agrees. Hearing this, White Jade whimpers again. “I’m scared that if we don’t do something, the bone will tear through the skin.” My mind goes again to my mother, and I add, “If that happens, infection will come. But if we pull the bone—” “You will do no such thing!” Grandmother’s voice comes out as sharp as cut glass. “You two girls step away right now!” Meiling and I scramble to our feet and back away. Midwife Shi kneels next to the concubine, but Grandmother keeps her distance. “This is not the type of affliction physicians like your grandfather and I treat.” “I know,” I say. “We just—” “I don’t want to hear a single excuse. I’ve sent Inky to find a bonesetter. Now all we can do is wait.” With that, Grandmother turns away—disappointed or angry with me, maybe both. When the bonesetter arrives, Midwife Shi scoots behind White Jade, wraps her arms around the concubine, and clutches her opposite wrists with each hand drawn across her chest. The bonesetter cups White Jade’s calf with one hand and, without telling her what he’s going to do, quickly pulls her ankle with his other hand. White Jade screams, but the bone is once again—to my eyes at least—in place. I exchange glances with Meiling. He’s done exactly what we’d planned to do. As he wraps the concubine’s leg in a support made of cloth and bamboo, Grandmother steps forward. “Servants will carry you to your quarters,” she tells White Jade. “As soon as you’re settled, I will come with a tea to help ease your pain.” Sweat glistens on White Jade’s forehead. She reaches her hand out to Grandmother, who doesn’t take it. “What will this mean for me?” she asks. In these words, her deepest fear is revealed: about her future ability to entrance Grandfather with her beautiful lily-foot walk. “I cannot say,” Grandmother answers. * * * A few hours later, Lady Huang goes into labor. Grandmother still


natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his.     I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backward and forward on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house from the gray hollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to me to that sky expanded before me a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orbs seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight-dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened a side door, and went in.     The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose two-leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It revealed, too, a group near the mantel-piece; I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, among which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adle, when the door closed.     I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too, but no candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like it that I went forward and said: "Pilot," and the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a candle; and I wanted, too, to get an account of this visitant. Leah entered.     "What dog is this?"     "He came with master."     "With whom?"     "With master Mr. Rochester he is just arrived."     "Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?"     "Yes, and Miss Adle; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for a surgeon: for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle is sprained."     "Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?"


moment. They were soon in full progress, after a preparatory hitch or two, which rejoiced the hearts of those who hated machinery. The work sped on till breakfast time, when the thresher was stopped for half an hour; and on starting again after the meal the whole supplementary strength of the farm was thrown into the labour of constructing the straw-rick, which began to grow beside the stack of corn. A hasty lunch was eaten as they stood, without leaving their positions, and then another couple of hours brought them near to dinner-time; the inexorable wheel continuing to spin, and the penetrating hum of the thresher to thrill to the very marrow all who were near the revolving wire-cage. The old men on the rising straw-rick talked of the past days when they had been accustomed to thresh with flails on the oaken barn-door; when everything, even to winnowing, was effected by hand-labour, which, to their thinking, though slow, produced better results. Those, too, on the corn-rick talked a little; but the perspiring ones at the machine, including Tess, could not lighten their duties by the exchange of many words. It was the ceaselessness of the work which tried her so severely, and began to make her wish that she had never some to Flintcomb-Ash. The women on the corn-rick--Marian, who was one of them, in particular--could stop to drink ale or cold tea from the flagon now and then, or to exchange a few gossiping remarks while they wiped their faces or cleared the fragments of straw and husk from their clothing; but for Tess there was no respite; for, as the drum never stopped, the man who fed it could not stop, and she, who had to supply the man with untied sheaves, could not stop either, unless Marian changed places with her, which she sometimes did for half an hour in spite of Groby's objections that she was too slow-handed for a feeder. For some probably economical reason it was usually a woman who was chosen for this particular duty, and Groby gave as his motive in selecting Tess that she was one of those who best combined strength with quickness in untying, and both with staying power, and this may have been true. The hum of the thresher, which prevented speech, increased to a raving whenever the supply of corn fell short of the regular quantity. As Tess and the man who fed could never turn their heads she did not know that just before the dinner-hour a person had come silently into the field by the gate, and had been standing under a second rick watching the scene, and Tess in particular. He was dressed in a tweed suit of fashionable pattern, and he twirled a gay walking-cane. "Who is that?" said Izz Huett to Marian. She had at first addressed the inquiry to Tess, but the latter could not hear it. "Somebody's fancy-man, I s'pose," said Marian laconically. "I'll lay a guinea he's after Tess." "O no. 'Tis a ranter pa'son who's been sniffing after her


when he was supposed to speak calmly to both of his parents? He sat in silence, staring at his Kito sandals and fighting the urge to play with the Velcro strap. Where were all the arguments he had prepared, all those reasonable words he could have spoken instead of whining “Is it fair?” like the small boy his parents still thought he was? Why had they all fled down his throat instead of coming out of his lips like he wanted them to? He began to cry again, quietly this time, sniffling without sobbing. He did not notice that his father was back in the car until it shuddered and screeched to a start. Ẹniọlá reached for the door. His father gripped his wrist. “Come on, wipe your cheeks first before you go down. Don’t let anyone see you crying.” That evening, Ẹniọlá’s father gave him a new copy of Ugo C. Ugo’s book of practice questions for common entrance examinations. For a few moments, he thought he’d at last prevailed against his parents, but his happiness lasted only until his father began to speak. “Look, you can write the exams now if you want, but”—he held up a finger—“but if you wait for a year and complete primary six, which, as I have told you times without number, is an essential part of the six-three-three-four system of education—very essential part of it, I tell you. Even though most schools are just doing things anyhow these days. Anyway, if you do this right and stay on till primary six, you can go to the federal government college in Ìkìrun. The choice is yours.” Ẹniọlá had wanted to attend the Federal Unity school in Ìkìrun since Collins, whose family lived in the flat upstairs, had gone off to secondary school there three years before, returning during every holiday with stories of fun and freedom that Ẹniọlá knew would not be possible if he went to a school that was close to home. Whenever he mentioned the school, his mother had always said she would never allow him to go to that or any boarding school. She often went on and on about how he was too young, his seniors could bully him, he might join a bad gang, and he would surely return home without any manners or sense. Now that his father had somehow managed to convince her to let him attend the Unity school, Ẹniọlá did not have to think twice before agreeing to stay in primary school for one more year. After his father’s promise, it was easier for him to listen as his classmates bragged about secondary school. He could also tell them about how he would attend a Federal Unity school. A year after they all went off to secondary school, yes. But was any of them even going to a boarding school? A Unity school? Ẹniọlá found a way to bring up the Unity school almost every day, retelling the stories Collins had shared with him until he could see that some of his friends had become


truly venerable tract of forest land, one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval date, wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and where enormous yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man grew as they had grown when they were pollarded for bows. All this sylvan antiquity, however, though visible from The Slopes, was outside the immediate boundaries of the estate. Everything on this snug property was bright, thriving, and well kept; acres of glass-houses stretched down the inclines to the copses at their feet. Everything looked like money--like the last coin issued from the Mint. The stables, partly screened by Austrian pines and evergreen oaks, and fitted with every late appliance, were as dignified as Chapels-of-Ease. On the extensive lawn stood an ornamental tent, its door being towards her. Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in a half-alarmed attitude, on the edge of the gravel sweep. Her feet had brought her onward to this point before she had quite realized where she was; and now all was contrary to her expectation. "I thought we were an old family; but this is all new!" she said, in her artlessness. She wished that she had not fallen in so readily with her mother's plans for "claiming kin," and had endeavoured to gain assistance nearer home. The d'Urbervilles--or Stoke-d'Urbervilles, as they at first called themselves--who owned all this, were a somewhat unusual family to find in such an old-fashioned part of the country. Parson Tringham had spoken truly when he said that our shambling John Durbeyfield was the only really lineal representative of the old d'Urbervillefamily existing in the county, or near it; he might have added, what he knew very well, that the Stoke-d'Urbervilles were no more d'Urbervilles of the true tree then he was himself. Yet it must be admitted that this family formed a very good stock whereon to regraft a name which sadly wanted such renovation. When old Mr Simon Stoke, latterly deceased, had made his fortune as an honest merchant (some said money-lender) in the North, he decided to settle as a county man in the South of England, out of hail of his business district; and in doing this he felt the necessity of recommencing with a name that would not too readily identify him with the smart tradesman of the past, and that would be less commonplace than the original bald stark words. Conning for an hour in the British Museum the pages of works devoted to extinct, half-extinct, obscured, and ruined families appertaining to the quarter of England in which he proposed to settle, he considered that D'URBERVILLE looked and sounded as well as any of them: and d'Urberville accordingly was annexed to his own name for himself and his heirs eternally. Yet he was not an extravagant-minded man in this, and in constructing his family tree on the new basis was duly reasonable in framing his inter-marriages and aristocratic links, never inserting a single title above a rank of strict moderation. Of this work of imagination poor Tess and


actually fallen in love. Liza stood up abruptly, as though there were an emergency of some kind. ‘We have some free time before dinner?’ Her mother nodded. ‘We’re meeting in the hotel lobby at nine.’ ‘The thing is I haven’t bought any presents. For my friends. Back home.’ With each elaboration the lie felt more absurd, as though she was proposing something improbable like a rocket trip to Mars. Her dad asked: ‘Do you have any money?’ Like so many lies, it floundered at the first test. ‘No, I don’t think I do.’ Her sister playfully tapped the table, enjoying this excruciating performance. ‘Hard to buy presents if you don’t have any money.’ Her dad took out his wallet, handing her a fifty-euro note. Her mom assessed the overly generous amount but decided against saying anything and Liza felt enormous gratitude, conscious that they could have made this exit even more awkward. ‘See you at nine. I won’t be late.’ Her sister was having too much fun to allow her to slip away. ‘You might be. I mean, who knows what might happen? I might be late. Dad might be late. Mom might be late.’ ‘Well, I won’t be.’ As Liza walked away, folding the money, she heard her sister call out: ‘I hope you find something nice!’ She’d only walked a few paces when she felt a tap on her arm and turned around, surprised to see that the tour guide had caught up with her. ‘I’m pretending to give you advice on buying presents.’ ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Giving you a word of warning. Those handsome boatmen are notorious. They flatter beautiful American girls, beautiful French girls, beautiful girls from all over the world. They take them out on the water at sunset and it’s so romantic. They tell them how special they are, except they do it every day, every week, every tourist season. When you step onto his boat, what feels special to you will be a joke to everyone else.’ She wanted to make it clear that this man had no right to talk to her in this way. Instead, she said: ‘Thank you for the warning but I am actually buying presents for my friends.’ ‘Then be careful – there are a lot of fakes out there.’ She descended the hill, increasingly angry at the guide’s intervention, passing gift shop after gift shop, imagining her family watching from their picturesque vantage point, following her route through the city with the tour guide making snide remarks about how she’d missed all the best stores and wondering where she could be heading. Maybe she was making a fool of herself. Almost certainly the boatman would be busy with other tourists, or he’d made the same offer to twenty prettier women that day. Nonetheless, she was going to try. She was taking a chance. She needed to take more chances romantically. Her younger sister, who was always in a relationship of one kind or another, sometimes two at once, speculated that she gave off the impression of not needing


with stiff fore legs. His most conspicuous trait was an ability to scent the wind and forecast it a night in advance. No matter how breathless the air when he dug his nest by tree or bank, the wind that later blew inevitably found him to leeward, sheltered and snug. And not only did he learn by experience, but instincts long dead became alive again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the youth of the breed, to the time the wild dogs ranged in packs through the primeval forest and killed their meat as they ran it down. It was no task for him to learn to fight with cut and slash and the quick wolf snap. In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him, and the old tricks which they had stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolflike, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stiffness, and the cold, and dark. Thus, as token of what a puppet thing life is, the ancient song surged through him and he came into his own again; and he came because men had found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a gardener's helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife and divers small copies of himself. Chapter III The Dominant Primordial Beast The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under the fierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn cunning gave him poise and control. He was too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not only did he not pick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible. A certain deliberateness characterized his attitude. He was not prone to rashness and precipitate action; and in the bitter hatred between him and Spitz he betrayed no impatience, shunned all offensive acts. On the other hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous rival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He even went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly to start the fight which could end only in the death of one or the other. Early in the trip this might have taken place had it not been for an unwonted accident. At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness had forced them to grope for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse. At their


of heartache. But he figured a performer only gets better after doing several shows, and maybe it was the same with affection. It’s honed, not found. She spoke before he could explain himself. “Bones heal a lot better when you’re eighteen. You get to be our age, then you must be careful,” she said, her voice strained, thinking of how they both had a lousy record when it came to human hearts. “We’re not children to be playing house.” He huffed, bruised by her refusal. He hadn’t expected her to swoon, but this felt like a military siege; he’d have to fight tooth and nail for her. But it only emboldened him, made him realize he’d have to dig deep, and he wouldn’t be able to do things in halves. “Call me immature then, because it sounds reasonable to me,” he said, spreading his arms. “It’s twenty years of foreplay, Momo. Do you want to wait a few more decades until I can’t masticate my own food? ’Cause I’ll love you until then and feed you pureed prunes, but it would be a shame to start living together at eighty-nine and die of a heart attack the first time we have sex.” “That is the most disgusting declaration I’ve ever heard,” she said flatly, and then she couldn’t help it, she laughed. Tristán laughed, too, and now he felt stupid, but he supposed that was fine. It was okay to be stupid when it came to Montserrat. “It is, isn’t it?” he said. They hugged. She clung tightly to him, tighter than she’d ever held him. His arms wrapped around her, chasing shadows away. “What do you want me to say? I recite dialogue, I can’t write it,” he whispered, his voice soft against her ear. “You’re a silly tomato,” she blurted, not even knowing what she said. She was forgetting the meaning of words and how to speak them. “A silly tomato!” She could feel his smile, but her face was buried against his chest, and he was running a hand through her hair. She couldn’t bear to look at him. “You can’t drive my car, I won’t let you. I won’t do your laundry, I won’t sew your buttons, and if you don’t pick up after yourself, I’ll toss you out,” she said, whip-quick. “I’ll cook. Believe me, we’ll live longer,” he said, his fingers sliding down her cheek, tipping up her chin. “You’re an asshole,” she said. “You going to kiss me or what?” he asked, voice husky, and was rewarded with the tremor of her lashes. “At least I’m not the only nervous one,” he said, savoring the startled look on her face as she stared up at him. She wanted to punch him. “You probably kiss like in the movies and I’ll die of embarrassment.” “Well, fuck me, I kiss well, yes. That’s a plus. Now who’s the silly tomato?” he asked, stepping back and arching an eyebrow at her. “Wanna make out in your car tonight?” She did punch him on the arm then, not hard,


are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement might improve them, all the same." "You're mistaken, Mrs. Linton," said I. "They humour you. I know what there would be to do if they did not. You can well afford to indulge their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your desires. You may, however, fall out at last over some- thing of equal consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very capable of being as ob- stinate as you." "And then we shall fight to the death, shan't we, Nelly?" she returned, laughing. "No; I tell you I have such faith in Linton's love that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate." I advised her to value him the more for his affection. "I do," she answered; "but he needn't resort to whin- ing for trifles. It is childish; and instead of melting into tears because I said that Heathcliff was now worthy of any one's regard, and it would honour the first gentle- man in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it for me, and been delighted from sympathy. He must get accustomed to him, and he may as well like him. Considering how Heathcliff has reason to object to him, I'm sure he behaved excellently." "What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?" I inquired. "He is reformed in every respect, apparently---quite a Christian---offering the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!" "He explained it," she replied. "I wonder as much as you. He said he called to gather information concern- ing me from you, supposing you resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to ques- tioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living, and finally desired him to walk in. There were some persons sitting at cards. Heathcliff joined them. My brother lost some money to him; and finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again in the evening, to which he consented. Hindley is too reckless to select his acquaintance pru- dently. He doesn't trouble himself to reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured. But Heathcliff affirms his principal rea- son for resuming a connection with his ancient per- secutor is a wish to install himself in quarters at walk- ing distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together, and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton. He means to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights; and doubtless my brother's covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms. He was always greedy, though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other." "It's a nice place for a young man to fix


wind sitting in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but no more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon's door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman's gentleman that had but come from Mr Moore's the writer's (that was a papish but is now, folk say, a good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to crush a cup of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and so both together on to Horne's. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford's journal sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon jun., scholar of my lady of Mercy's, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will. Madden, T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D. Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, be having dreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be for a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading her belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term, the midwives sore put to it and can't deliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop that is a shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very heavy more than good and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, they say, but God give her soon issue. 'Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear, and Lady day bit off her last chick's nails that was then a twelvemonth and with other three all breastfed that died written out in a fair hand in the king's bible. Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the sacrament and is to be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or


The Sunday stillness both of the approaches and of the interior, in which I met no one, fairly excited me with a sense of opportunity. Were I to get off quickly, this way, I should get off without a scene, without a word. My quickness would have to be remarkable, however, and the question of a conveyance was the great one to settle. Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties and obstacles, I remember sinking down at the foot of the staircase--suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step and then, with a revulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than a month before, in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the specter of the most horrible of women. At this I was able to straighten myself; I went the rest of the way up; I made, in my bewilderment, for the schoolroom, where there were objects belonging to me that I should have to take. But I opened the door to find again, in a flash, my eyes unsealed. In the presence of what I saw I reeled straight back upon my resistance. Seated at my own table in clear noonday light I saw a person whom, without my previous experience, I should have taken at the first blush for some housemaid who might have stayed at home to look after the place and who, availing herself of rare relief from observation and of the schoolroom table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself to the considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was an effort in the way that, while her arms rested on the table, her hands with evident weariness supported her head; but at the moment I took this in I had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, her attitude strangely persisted. Then it was--with the very act of its announcing itself-- that her identity flared up in a change of posture. She rose, not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grand melancholy of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood there as my vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was all before me; but even as I fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image passed away. Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing her--"You terrible, miserable woman!"--I heard myself break into a sound that, by the open door, rang through the long passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air. There was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine


is said to be a gift of Earth--and Eppie is part of that natural bounty. If Silas is like the poor old woodcutter in a fairy tale, then Eppie is like the woodcutter's daughter--a beautiful, golden-haired girl who's really a princess in disguise. George Eliot turns the fairy tale on its head, though, because this princess doesn't meet a handsome prince. When her real father shows up to offer her a life of riches, she rejects him in favor of the poor old woodcutter. The man she marries is simply a brawny young gardener, Aaron Winthrop, whom she loves more like a brother than a lover. But in this novel's scheme of things, that means she will live happily ever after. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: DUNSTAN CASS If Godfrey is not the villain of this novel, perhaps his younger brother Dunstan is. Godfrey's sins are all passive--he decides not to do something--whereas Dunstan actually commits bad deeds. He squanders the money Godfrey lends him, then he destroys Godfrey's horse while hunting. Finally, he steals Silas' money. What motivates Dunstan? Eliot shows you the twists and turns of his reasoning, just as she does Godfrey's. Both think selfishly, but while Godfrey is aware of moral considerations, Dunstan just calculates what he can get away with. Eliot shows him mostly in upperclass settings, so his vices seem a product of his class. Yet even his own family and friends don't seem to care when Dunstan disappears. His nickname, Dunsey, sounds like "dunce," and Dunstan doesn't seem very bright. He allows himself to be propelled by circumstances, which he thinks of as "luck." He doesn't plot to rob Silas, but when the opportunity comes his way, he takes it. Soon after, however, he falls into the stone-pit and is drowned. Is this bad luck--or a fitting punishment for his crime? ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: SQUIRE CASS In Squire Cass, Eliot embodies what she sees as the worst characteristics of the English gentry--the upper class of country society. He bullies his sons and he patronizes the common people of Raveloe. He's dull-witted and narrow-minded. He isn't hard-working and his pleasures are crude--eating red meat, swilling ale, and making lewd jokes. (Note that his last name sounds like the word "crass.") Squire Cass is a great man in the community because of his hereditary position. The poor never question his wasteful life. But Eliot does, just as she questions the way he has raised his sons. Godfrey wishes his father had disciplined him more. You'll have to decide whether you blame Squire Cass for the tragic events brought about by his wayward sons. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: AARON WINTHROP When Aaron first comes with his mother Dolly to visit Silas, he's still a small child. Silas regards him as an alien creature, but this encounter foreshadows the impact Eppie will have upon Silas. When he's grown up, Aaron becomes Eppie's sweetheart (although she doesn't seem sexually attracted to him). Like Eppie, he is in touch with nature, a gifted gardener. Some readers think Aaron is a cardboard figure, a stereotype


intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more and they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing and deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island, she to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain, with burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries and the anthem UT NOVETUR SEXUS OMNIS CORPORIS MYSTERIUM till she was there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is in their MAID'S TRAGEDY that was writ for a like twining of lovers: TO BED, TO BED was the burden of it to be played with accompanable concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed, but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran very high in those days and the custom of the country approved with it. Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to whom mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it will go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. ORATE, FRATRES, PRO MEMETIPSO. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian of dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo and from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon and my sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for ever in


matter?” she said, bright as a button. * * * It was about to begin. Mrs. King watched the guests swarming in. They came in crocodile formation, leaving their opera cloaks and mantles and shawls behind in their motors. They entered with flushed faces, feasting their eyes on the house and on each other. They wore ruffs, headdresses, sleeves the size of hot-air balloons, hoopskirts, powdered wigs, boots with curled toes—really, London knew how to do a costumed ball. In several cases they were already three sheets to the wind. Good, thought Mrs. King. She had changed into her own costume in a tent in the garden, alongside the other entertainments. A Roman tunic-dress of white cotton, the waist armored and plated in gold, a scarlet cloak thrown over the shoulders. White patent leather boots, gold buckles, toes plated with metal. She echoed when she moved. Mr. Whitman himself had dressed her. “Can you breathe?” he murmured as he fastened her mask. It was made of copper, light and beveled, the metal warm against her skin. “Perfectly,” she told him. She didn’t need to look at herself in the glass. She buttoned her gloves, hearing the crack of new leather. “Our fine empress,” Mr. Whitman said, and he sent her on her way. The orchestra had taken up position in the ballroom, playing a waltz at full tilt. Buglers and trumpeters stood at the top of the stairs, blasting an intermittent tattoo every time a clutch of guests reached the saloon floor. The band in the street pounded their drums, sounding cowbells and gongs for good measure, and the whole thing made Mrs. King’s head ache. Even better, she thought. The air was perfumed so thickly with orchids that the scent got stuck in the back of her throat. The gigantic wall of red peonies rose all the way up the stairs. “Mrs. King?” One of the waiters they’d hired had glided up to her, eyes averted. “Yes?” “Message for you, from one of the ladies.” “Go on.” “She says, ‘You’ve got something up your little bird.’” “I beg your pardon?” “That’s the message, Mrs. King.” She ignored it: she’d spotted William by the ballroom doors, as straight-backed as a Beefeater, brushed and shimmering in white tie and tails. His eyes were blank. How do we do it? Mrs. King wondered. It almost bewildered her. The bowing and scraping and the chores that made mincemeat of your dignity: carrying trays, answering call bells. You unraveled yourself, polishing butter knives, waiting for something to happen to your life. It had felt like a stomach punch when she turned thirty-five. I’m never, never, ever going backward, she told herself. She would be like a shark: forward motion or death, nothing else. “Nice stockings,” she said, sidling up to William. His eyes widened. She wondered if he would struggle to recognize her voice, muffled behind her mask, but he knew her at once. He controlled his expression, but his tone betrayed his astonishment. “Dinah?” he said. “Don’t make a fuss,” she murmured, standing close. She


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Dont read it, darling—

I cut him off. I wasn’t about to hear that nonsense again.

Also, I wasn’t a boy anymore.

I tried a new argument. I reminded Pa that these were the same shoddy

bastards who’d been portraying him as a clown all his life, ridiculing him

for sounding the alarm about climate change. These were his tormentors,

his bullies, and now they were tormenting and bullying his son and his

son’s girlfriend—did that not inspire his outrage? Why have I got to beg

you, Pa? Why is this not already a priority for you? Why is this not

causing you anguish, keeping you up at night, that the press are treating

Meg like this? You adore her, you told me so yourself. You bonded over

your shared love of music, you think she’s funny and witty, and impeccably

mannered, you told me—so why, Pa? Why?

I couldn’t get a straight answer. The conversation went in circles and

when we hung up I felt—abandoned.

Meg, meanwhile, reached out to Camilla, who tried to counsel her by

saying this was just what the press always did to newcomers, that it would

all pass in due time, that Camilla had been the bad guy once.

The implication being what? Now it was Meg’s turn? As if it were

apples to apples.

Camilla also suggested to Meg that I become Governor General of

Bermuda, which would solve all our problems by removing us from the

red-hot center of the maelstrom. Right, right, I thought, and one added

bonus of that plan would be to get us out of the picture.

In desperation I went to Willy. I took advantage of the first quiet

moment I’d had with him in years: The end of August 2017, at Althorp.

Twentieth anniversary of Mummy’s death.

We rowed the little boat out to the island. (The bridge had been

removed, to give my mother privacy, to keep intruders away.) We each had

a bouquet of flowers, which we set on the grave. We stood there awhile,

having our own


be fooled by those. Because Slisset Twos are far more dangerous, and, frankly, nearly impossible to destroy. But it is their massive, dreadnought-sized warships, the red ships, you’ll need to watch out for. There’s not much I can tell you about those. Since you are watching this feed, you have everything, our sensor readings, my previous log entries, all that. Lincoln is under current attack; we’ve been boarded by enemy nanite constructs. It is not so much a matter of if we can hold the enemy at bay, but for how long.” Shit. I paused the feed once more to reach out to Coogong. “Yes, Captain.” “Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, drop it and get to my ready room. Seems we need to get a team back to Lincoln and find something called a quantum flux reverser. Maybe you can tell me what the hell we’ll be looking for.” Chapter 25 Liquilid Empire Star System Portent Captain Gail Pristy Ten minutes later, back in their fatigues, Pristy and her team followed Resnick through the ringularity. They emerged into a spacious compartment with glistening white bulkheads, deck, and deckhead above, at odds with the rough-hewn cavern they’d left. Her team stood, looking at their surroundings. Derrota glanced around nervously. Aubrey acted like a kid at an amusement park, but like Pristy herself, was assessing any possible threats as she checked out the room. Resnick strode toward the other side of the compartment, to a seemingly blank bulkhead. Suddenly, a hidden panel slid open. On the other side stood a woman in black fatigues, wearing similar combat armor to Resnick’s. She held a shredder-style energy weapon, pointed at his chest. Her breath caught in surprise, and she lowered the weapon. “You have a death wish, General?” she asked, but a broad smile replaced her previous uneasy expression. “Thought I’d never see you again.” “Don’t count your blessings yet, Lieutenant,” Resnick warned, but smiled, clapping a hand onto her armored shoulder as he hurried past her. “Introduce yourself and take them to Deck 2’s conference room. I’ll be on the bridge updating the captain.” “Roger that.” The lieutenant stepped into the compartment. “Welcome to Portent. I’m Lieutenant Bethany Chan, Marine platoon leader.” “Captain Gail Pristy of USS Hercules, and apparently, side-hustle time-traveling agent,” Pristy said as she took in the lieutenant’s almond-skin tones and Asian features. She turned to her team. “These are Petty Officer Second-Class Aubrey Laramie and Stephan Derrota.” “Welcome to Time Corps,” said Lieutenant Chan, nodding at each. “This way, please.” She led them through passageways as pristine as the compartment’s bulkheads, as did the bank of GravLifts. After a short walk down another passageway, a door slid open, and they filed inside the conference room. Like the rest of the ship, the walls shone white and spotless. The table and chairs were battleship gray, much to the relief of Pristy’s eyes, but neither scuffed nor worn. She muttered to Stephan, “They keep this place clean and neat, don’t they?” “OCD levels of clean,” Derrota agreed. Pristy, Aubrey, and Derrota sat


it up online it said hold, but I wanted it to be haunt; and about the Dairy Queen chain and how he’d never been to one, and I said that was because he’d never lived in the Midwest; and about how I’d never been to In-N-Out Burger, and he said that was because I’d never lived in California. By then, it was almost three-thirty my time and I felt like the teenager I’d never been, drugged on lust and conversation. Just before we hung up, I said, “Usually I hate talking on the phone, but I don’t hate talking on the phone to you.” “I’ll try not to let that go to my head.” He sounded very happy, and I felt a squeezing around my heart. Wasn’t this all too good to be true? For the last week, whenever I hadn’t actively been writing an email to or reading an email from Noah, as I’d scrambled eggs or dragged the trash and recycling bins to the curb, I’d often pulled my phone from my pocket and reread both the messages he’d sent me and the ones I’d sent him, especially if I was waiting for a response; more than once I read all the emails, in order, in their entirety. I also had continuously composed future emails in my head and assessed almost any experience I was having—not, admittedly, that I was having many—through the filter of whether they’d be worth describing to Noah. And now we’d spoken and it hadn’t ruined everything! He added, “Can I call you again tomorrow night?” “You definitely can,” I said. “Can I email you seven times before I call you tomorrow night?” “I’m hoping you will.” This was when he said, “I almost suggested facetiming now instead of calling. What are your feelings about facetime?” “It depends on the face in question.” After a pause, I said, “In your case, I’m pro.” He laughed. “What a relief.” Then he said, “Good night, Sally. This was very fun.” “I agree,” I said. “Good night, Noah.” But he didn’t email the next day; instead, at noon my time, he texted, Hope it’s OK I just ordered these for you, followed by a screenshot of a pink pillow that said Good Vibes Please in white cursive, followed by another screenshot of an orange pillow that said Good Vibes Welcome with an image of a sun below the words, followed by another text that said It was hard to decide so I got both. I texted back, That’s an incredible coincidence because I just ordered this for you, and sent a screenshot of a distressed wooden sign that said In this house, we keep it real, we give hugs, and we dance badly. He texted back, Truly amazing because for your kitchen I just ordered, followed by a screenshot of a different distressed wooden sign that said ’Bout to Stir Up Some Shit and featured an image of a whisk. And then we texted for three hours and then we talked again that night from 10 p.m. to 2


say that the white man's medicine was quick in working. Mr. Brown's school produced quick results. A few months in it were enough to make one a court messenger or even a court clerk. Those who stayed longer became teachers,- and from Umuofia labourers went forth into the Lord's vineyard. New churches were established in the surrounding villages and a few schools with them. From the very beginning religion and education went hand in hand. Mr. Brown's mission grew from strength to strength, and because of its link with the new administration it earned a new social prestige. But Mr. Brown himself was breaking down in health. At first he ignored the warning signs. But in the end he had to leave his flock, sad and broken. It was in the first rainy season after Okonkwo's return to Umuofia that Mr. Brown left for home. As soon as he had learned of Okonkwo's return five months earlier, the missionary had immediately paid him a visit. He had just sent Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, who was now called Isaac, to the new training college for teachers in Umuru. And he had hoped that Okonkwo would be happy to hear of it. But Okonkwo had driven him away with the threat that if he came into his compound again, he would be carried out of it. Okonkwo's return to his native land was not as memorable as he had wished. It was true his two beautiful daughters aroused great interest among suitors and marriage negotiations were soon in progress, but, beyond that, Umuofia did not appear to have taken any special notice of the warrior's return. The clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognisable. The new religion and government and the trading stores were very much in the people's eyes and minds. There were still many who saw these new institutions as evil, but even they talked and thought about little else, and certainly not about Okonkwo's return. And it was the wrong year too. If Okonkwo had immediately initiated his two sons into the ozo society as he had planned he would have caused a stir. But the initiation rite was performed once in three years in Umuofia, and he had to wait for nearly two years for the next round of ceremonies. Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Mr. Brown's successor was the Reverend James Smith, and he was a different kind of man. He condemned openly Mr. Brown's policy of compromise and accommodation. He saw things as black and white. And black was evil. He saw the world as a battlefield in which the children of light were locked in mortal conflict with the sons of darkness. He spoke in his sermons about sheep and goats and about wheat and tares. He believed in slaying the prophets


professional. “Yes, I’m doing okay.” She waited, but he didn’t respond right away. “Is something wrong?” He gestured for her to take a seat. “I’m wondering if we should have insisted you take more time off, after what happened.” “It was my decision to come back, I wanted to come back. I want to dance.” She didn’t mention that she had to dance if she wanted to continue supporting herself, to afford her room and board at the Rehearsal Club. “We’re worried about you. I don’t blame you, after what you experienced. But it appears that you’re struggling to fit in with the rest of the dancers onstage. I hate having to say this—I feel awful—but Mr. Leonidoff asked me to talk to you, and I promised I would.” “Okay.” She felt queasy. Mr. Leonidoff tended to let Russell handle the day-to-day business of the Rockettes. The fact that he was the impetus behind this conversation didn’t bode well. “Sometimes new Rockettes have a hard time adjusting to the role. The restrictions of this style of dance can feel stifling for some. You’re a terrific dancer, don’t get me wrong, but there are times you stand out from the crowd. I think you know what I’m talking about.” “I know I’m getting more notes than any of the other dancers. I’m sorry for letting you down. I want to be better, I do.” If she lost this job, she’d have to completely start over: find an agent who would send her out on auditions, try to please producers and casting directors. She’d seen enough of her fellow residents at the Rehearsal Club go through the cycle of audition and rejection to know that it took serious resilience to tread the boards of Broadway. There was no way she’d be up to it right now. Or, of course, she could take the easy way out and move home, agree to marry Nathaniel. But the image of Lucille’s stash of boxes in the attic was never far from Marion’s thoughts: Lucille, who’d been so eager to have a career in the theater and then had to give it all up. Marion was forging ahead as a way of carrying on Lucille’s legacy, and most of the time that made all the heartache worthwhile. “I’m sorry, Russell. I hate to disappoint you, and I promise I’ll pull it together. I have a week off, so that will give me more than enough time to refocus and tighten up my dancing. Please, give me another chance.” Russell smiled. “Of course, my dear. Go home and rest, and I’ll see you in a week. I want to make sure we’re not pushing you too fast, that’s all.” “I truly appreciate it. And I won’t disappoint you.” The theater was practically empty by the time she made it to the stage door; the security guard gave her a nod as she passed by. Outside, the air was cold and a few flurries skittered under the streetlights. “Marion.” She turned to see Peter leaning against the building a few


unimportant score of millions of outsiders in civilized society, persons who were neither University men nor churchmen; but they were to be tolerated rather than reckoned with and respected. They were both dutiful and attentive sons, and were regular in their visits to their parents. Felix, though an offshoot from a far more recent point in the devolution of theology than his father, was less self-sacrificing and disinterested. More tolerant than his father of a contradictory opinion, in its aspect as a danger to its holder, he was less ready than his father to pardon it as a slight to his own teaching. Cuthbert was, upon the whole, the more liberal-minded, though, with greater subtlety, he had not so much heart. As they walked along the hillside Angel's former feeling revived in him--that whatever their advantages by comparison with himself, neither saw or set forth life as it really was lived. Perhaps, as with many men, their opportunities of observation were not so good as their opportunities of expression. Neither had an adequate conception of the complicated forces at work outside the smooth and gentle current in which they and their associates floated. Neither saw the difference between local truth and universal truth; that what the inner world said in their clerical and academic hearing was quite a different thing from what the outer world was thinking. "I suppose it is farming or nothing for you now, my dear fellow," Felix was saying, among other things, to his youngest brother, as he looked through his spectacles at the distant fields with sad austerity. "And, therefore, we must make the best of it. But I do entreat you to endeavour to keep as much as possible in touch with moral ideals. Farming, of course, means roughing it externally; but high thinking may go with plain living, nevertheless." "Of course it may," said Angel. "Was it not proved nineteen hundred years ago--if I may trespass upon your domain a little? Why should you think, Felix, that I am likely to drop my high thinking and my moral ideals?" "Well, I fancied, from the tone of your letters and our conversation--it may be fancy only--that you were somehow losing intellectual grasp. Hasn't it struck you, Cuthbert?" "Now, Felix," said Angel drily, "we are very good friends, you know; each of us treading our allotted circles; but if it comes to intellectual grasp, I think you, as a contented dogmatist, had better leave mine alone, and inquire what has become of yours." They returned down the hill to dinner, which was fixed at any time at which their father's and mother's morning work in the parish usually concluded. Convenience as regarded afternoon callers was the last thing to enter into the consideration of unselfish Mr and Mrs Clare; though the three sons were sufficiently in unison on this matter to wish that their parents would conform a little to modern notions. The walk had made them hungry, Angel in particular, who was now an outdoor man, accustomed to the profuse DAPES INEMPTAE of the dairyman's somewhat


He stood straighter and straighter and looked Ben Weatherstaff in the face. "I'm your master," he said, "when my father is away. And you are to obey me. This is my garden. Don't dare to say a word about it! You get down from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss Mary will meet you and bring you here. I want to talk to you. We did not want you, but now you will have to be in the secret. Be quick!" Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still wet with that one queer rush of tears. It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from thin straight Colin standing on his feet with his head thrown back. "Eh! lad," he almost whispered. "Eh! my lad!" And then remembering himself he suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and said, "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he descended the ladder. CHAPTER XXII WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary. "Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door under the ivy. Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet spots on his cheeks and he looked amazing, but he showed no signs of falling. "I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he said it quite grandly. "I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered Dickon. "An' tha's stopped." "Yes, I've stopped," said Colin. Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said. "Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply. Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin. "Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these 'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot a clump of crocuses in the grass. Colin looked down at them. "Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic than that there--there couldna' be." He drew himself up straighter than ever. "I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet away from him. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here. I can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will sit down, but not before. Bring a rug from the chair." He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was wonderfully steady. When he stood against the tree trunk it was not too plain that he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight that he looked tall. When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath. "What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proud face. But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this: "You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could!


and various teachers still around), so I wouldn’t be the only other voice on her show. We met at seven in an empty study room in Dwyer Hall, a sleek, glassy Upper Campus dorm that hadn’t existed in the ’90s. I sat on a plush couch under a whiteboard, and Britt set her phone on a table in front of me, opened to the recording app I’d had the kids download. Britt wore a creamy fisherman’s sweater and skinny jeans and what looked like the same Frye boots Fran had in 1994. She said, “I’d love to start with the timeline.” I went through the basics. Thalia and I were roommates from 1993 to 1994. She died in March of ’95. Omar was arrested that spring, but the details of the case didn’t come out till summer, when we were all spread back out across the country, packing for college. The internet was nascent; I didn’t have my first email account till that September. I told Britt about the snail mail news clippings, feeling ancient. Omar’s trial was ’97, his appeal ’99. After the appeal failed, a lot of nothing. The occasional mention on true crime shows, because, you know, dead white girl at a boarding school. More than that: pretty, rich, dead white girl. If only she’d also been blond. Each story a recap: Remember this gruesome case? The details hazier with each retelling, the verdict more obvious. They caught the guy who did it, thank God. Look at this photo of him after years and years in prison, bulked up and dead in the eyes. Doesn’t he look like a murderer? Then, in 2005, the Dateline special, the occasion for which was the tenth anniversary of Thalia’s death and a growing Free Omar movement online. Dateline gave some time to his defenders—particularly the actress I remembered for her smallish role in Spider-Man, who’d briefly made it her pet cause—but mostly focused on the pile of evidence: The DNA, his pool access. His confession, even if retracted. That drawing in the directory. Even if he hadn’t been the “older guy” Thalia mentioned to her friends: Three skiers claimed they’d heard Omar joke about a fantasy of tying Thalia to the weight bench. “Omar was fun,” I told Britt. “He’d blast music in the weight room and then he’d run around holding his fist out like a microphone to get you to solo.” This wasn’t relevant to the timeline, but it felt important. “He didn’t have the same boundaries a teacher would have. I guess when you’re icing people’s groins things get a little personal.” Britt nodded as I talked. Then she said, “I was actually wondering about the timeline of that night.” “Oh.” I was relieved, because I hadn’t known what I’d say next. I wasn’t about to mention you—certainly not on the record—but my mental deck was getting shuffled in uncomfortable ways. Why, for instance, had I thought so much about Thalia over the years, but so little about Omar? I wanted to defend myself from the very question. I


had been caught mid-flight, in suspended motion, the pilot on the safe side of the golden boundary with the passengers on the wrong side. Even higher, a passenger jet could be seen jutting out. These people and planes hadn’t been decapitated or cleaved in two, they’d been trapped within this golden flypaper, still blinking and breathing, in a state of shock but alive. A moment later the people on the wrong side of the border, the people who hadn’t made it across the line in time, began to change, their pupils glowing, then their skin and hair, as bright as the embers of a fire until their bodies lost cohesion, breaking apart into dense swarms of firefly-sized parcels of light, swirling up from the balconies of the cruise ships, thick plumes from the vent holes of the super-tanker. The solitary sailor on the desk of the submarine, who’d been saluting his colleagues on shore, was swept away by a gust of wind – the winter sky so full of embers that the sea was turned red with the reflected light. Last to break apart were the people trapped in the wall, leaving behind holes in the golden veil in the shape of their bodies. Even if they’d only had the tip of their shoe caught, no leeway was granted, no mercy was given; you were either on the right side of the line or you weren’t. In a matter of minutes, it was over, the largest genocide ever committed, handled neatly and efficiently and without a drop of blood. One survivor, a woman, picked herself up from the black stone beach, sick with grief at her husband being lost when he was only a few yards behind her. In fury, she ran at the gold glass wall, hitting it with her fists. To her surprise it shattered, collapsing like shards of golden ice. The helicopter and the plane fell like stones, crashing into the shoreline. With the golden veil gone, the survivors on shore surveyed the ghost armada of empty ships bobbing in the waves. DAY ONE ANTARCTICA TRINITY PENINSULA 5 SEPTEMBER LIZA STOOD SILENT ON SHORE trying to fathom what she’d witnessed – the planet purged of people on every continent except this one, not with bullets or bombs, but carried out instead with the inappropriate grace of a spectacular light display, in no way commensurate with the scale of this crime. The crowds around her, drawn from every part of the world, were all that remained of humanity. All that they had left were the possessions they’d brought with them, a pocket full of vitamin pills and a backpack of spare clothes. Some dropped to their knees, praying for salvation. Others began to meekly explore their new homeland, trying to figure out if it could support them. Most did nothing, perhaps wondering why they’d made the journey here, realizing that this wasn’t the end of their hardship; it was the beginning. If they were waiting for guidance, there were no instructions from their occupiers, no additional orders, no sign of