people love jumping to conclusions, especially scandalous conclusions, and that’s exactly what they’ll do even if nobody knows about Nick’s private life. While it’s normal enough for young men to have roommates, it isn’t normal for a man in Andy’s situation—a man who owns his own apartment and whose father has multiple spare rooms. But Andy isn’t going to leave. He hates living alone; he likes living with Nick and Nick likes it, too. Andy’s mother never went in much for motherly advice, but one thing she was fond of saying was that if you want something, you have to grit your teeth and jump in with both feet—that it matters less how you land than that you get there in the first place. Andy had always grimly thought to himself that this was exactly what you’d expect from the life philosophy of a person who went to war zones for a living. Andy was happy shrugging his way through life. Right now, though, there isn’t anything his father could possibly say to dissuade Andy from staying in Nick’s spare room. He remembers his parents hollering at one another, his father shouting that Andy’s mother was going to get herself killed, his mother shouting back that at least she stood for something, and Andy thinking, disloyally, that his father was right. And he had been right, in the end. He and his father have never really fought—even their disagreements about Andy’s future at the Chronicle are just conversations. Conversations they both hate, but still just conversations. He grips the arms of his chair, braced for the full force of his father’s wrath. Instead he gets a half smile and a sigh, neither of which he can begin to decipher but which leave him with the distinct impression that his father doesn’t particularly care what kind of mess Andy makes of his life. * * * The story, as Andy and everybody else know it, goes like this. Andy’s grandfather, Andrew Fleming I, arrived at Ellis Island round about 1890 with a nickel in his pocket or whatever they call nickels in Scotland. He spent the next few years doing honest upstanding American capitalist things that definitely had nothing to do with any of the waterfront gangs that ran half the city in those days. Somewhere around the turn of the century he met an enterprising young reporter named Cecilia Marks, who was making a name for herself by getting thrown into prisons in order to interview murderers, stowing away on steamships, chaining herself to various legislative buildings, and in general making herself irresistible to the likes of Andrew Fleming I, who had never met a danger he didn’t want to embrace with both arms. When the paper that employed Miss Marks threatened to fold, Andrew did the only sensible thing a man could do in that situation and bought the paper. Suitably wooed, Miss Marks became Mrs. Fleming, even though in the newspaper she retained her old byline. The paper succeeded; more papers were acquired; a son was produced, staid and responsible


11.

D WYER’S OPS ROOM was a box wrapped in desert camo. The floor was

thick black plastic made of interlinked pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle. It

made a weird noise when you walked across it. The focal point of the room,

indeed the whole camp, was the main wall, which featured a giant map of

Helmand Province, with pins (yellow, orange, green, blue) representing

units of the battle group.

I was greeted by Corporal of Horse Baxter. Older than me, but my

coloring. We exchanged a few wry cracks, a rueful smile about involuntary

membership in the League of Redheaded Gentlemen. Also, the Balding

Brotherhood. Like me, Baxter was fast losing coverage on top.

I asked where he was from.

County Antrim.

Trish, eh?

Sure.

His lilting accent made me think he could be kidded. I gave him a hard

time about the Irish, and he returned fire, laughing, but his blue eyes looked

unsure. Crikey, I’m taking the piss out of a prince.

We got down to work. He showed me several radios stacked along a desk

under the map. He showed me the Rover terminal, a pudgy little laptop with

compass points stenciled along the sides. These radios are your ears. This

Rover is your eyes. Through them I’d make a picture of the battlefield, then

try to control what happened in and above it. In one sense I'd be no different

from the air-traffic controllers at Heathrow: I’d spend my time guiding jets

to and fro. But often the job wouldn’t even be that glamorous: I’d be a

security guard, blearily monitoring feeds from dozens of cameras, mounted

on everything from recon aircraft to drones. The only fighting I’d be doing

would be against the urge to sleep.

Jump in. Have a seat, Lieutenant Wales.

I cleared my throat, sat down. I watched the Rover. And watched.

Minutes passed. I turned up the volume on the radios. Turned it down.

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with Cariad about a work client they’ve tellingly nicknamed Cruella, and I’m happy to sip my drink and listen in. I’m glad Cam is also new here, so the attention isn’t on me. “So what do you do, Maddie?” Jennifer asks. Spoke too soon. “I recently started working at Orange Tree Publishing.” They all stare until Jo says, “It’s a publishing company.” “Oh,” Cariad says. “What do you do there?” “I just started, so it’s mainly admin.” I pause to take a drink in the hopes that that was enough information, but their silence lasts longer than my sip does. “I’m an editorial assistant,” I say, and I try to make my job sound as interesting as possible by stealing bits from other skill sets. Thankfully, the mention of photo briefs takes us back to Cruella and her impossible-to-execute-on-her-budget advertisement ideas. The margaritas Jo brought must be strong because after a glass and a half it feels like I’ve stepped out and into the sun to watch the goose bumps on my arms fade. “It’s about time!” Jo suddenly announces. “I love this song! Come dance with me,” and she grabs my hand. “Oh, I can’t dance,” I tell her as she drags me from out behind our table and into the middle of the room. “What? Of course you can dance! You’re Black!” “She’s got you there,” Jennifer says, shuffling past us with Cariad behind her. We’re now in the middle of the dance floor (the zigzag space) encircled by strangers. Someone’s come up behind me and it might be Maybe-Daniel, but it’s quite dark; the way the lights bounce across the rooms affords only sudden glimpses of those nearby. This must be a breeding ground for predators. I shake my head. “It’s fine.” I know no one can hear me above the music and their own singing, so I say louder, “Maddie, it’s fine! Just go with it!” I don’t dance in public. I think I dance well when I’m alone, but that’s maybe because I can’t see what I’m doing. However, I must be really good because two songs in and I feel eternal. Everyone sings along. I can only join in on the chorus, but I use those four or five lines to shine, and I mean, solo-concert-in-the-shower shine. I don’t know if I’m in time with the music, but I’m enjoying myself. The girls grow more animated as I do or maybe it’s the other way around. One of us is feeding from the other, and I like to think it’s me giving them energy. When the fourth song ends, I push my way to the bar for another drink because alcohol is the secret to the fun I’m having. I order another pitcher for the table, but then ask the bartender to surprise me with something. I missed the name of it, but when my drink comes out it’s got orange and yellow layers. I take a sip and it hits the back of my throat before leaving a warming sensation behind. I’m a third in


for this. Possibly orchestrated the errands keeping everyone occupied. Our reckoning had dawned, and I wasn’t turning away. “Pick your weapon,” I said. “Let’s finish this.” Malice shone behind Vaun’s wide grin. “Ah, there it is. So much pride for such a raggedy little orphan girl.” He didn’t spare the weapons lined on the chest a look. “Bare-fisted combat. There won’t always be a weapon to save you, will there?” “You talk too much for someone who’s meant to be seen and not heard.” We circled each other. I bounced on the springy mats, glancing at Palia’s and Niyar’s shapes on the wall. The bird soared overhead, wings catching on the breeze as the magic reset, and the scene played anew. “Conditions?” “Try not to die.” Vaun rolled his shoulders. “His Highness has plans hinging on your continued existence.” The people moving in the walls around us meant less than nothing to him. He had threatened my friends, terrorized me every spare moment he could. Countless Jasadis had died at his hateful sword. “I’m going to enjoy this,” I said. I sprang first, aiming for his stomach. Getting him on the floor and disoriented was all I needed to end this victoriously. From there, it would be a simple matter of gouging out his eyes. Arin’s training was for a Champion; Hanim’s, for a survivor. Vaun twisted out of reach, slamming his fist into the side of my head. I staggered, blinking back white sparks, and laughed. “Is that it? Come now, Vaun. Where’s your passion?” I attacked again. My blow met its mark, and he grimaced. Vaun fought well. Almost too well. By the time I was wiping blood from my chin, I knew he’d been paying attention. Listening to the guards’ conversations about my progress, memorizing my weaknesses. We fell into a violent pattern; I lunge, he swings, I either reel back or land my own blow. He was counting on my impatience swelling and causing a slip. His strategy might have worked if my opponent had been anyone else. Vaun’s patience rivaled mine in fragility. It was a matter of who broke first. “All this for your precious Heir? I’ll admit, he’s not the sharpest spade in the armory, but he’s not utterly useless. He can fight his own battles.” The gibe came out garbled. He’d split my lip with his elbow a few rounds ago. Vaun’s nostrils flared. An insult to Arin always affected him in disproportionate amounts. I leapt forward. His nose cracked against my fist. He snapped my arm back hard enough to pop and kicked me in the chest, sending me sprawling. I scrambled up. Gritting my teeth, I wrenched my arm back into its socket. “Honestly, I find his incompetence thrilling. I’m here because he cannot manage to do his sole duty as Commander and capture Jasadis.” This was too easy. Surely Vaun would see through these adolescent tricks. He reddened. “Keep his name out of your filthy mouth.” I saw it, then. The fastest route to the finish. “But he likes my mouth,”


remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she put both arms round his neck and kissed him. If the roof of the house had suddenly flown off, the old gentleman wouldn't have been more astonished. But he liked it. Oh, dear, yes, he liked it amazingly! And was so touched and pleased by that confiding little kiss that all his crustiness vanished, and he just set her on his knee, and laid his wrinkled cheek against her rosy one, feeling as if he had got his own little grand daughter back again. Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride. When she went home, he walked with her to her own gate, shook hands cordially, and touched his hat as he marched back again, looking very stately and erect, like a handsome, soldierly old gentleman, as he was. When the girls saw that performance, Jo began to dance a jig, by way of expressing her satisfaction, Amy nearly fell out of the window in her surprise, and Meg exclaimed, with up-lifted hands, "Well, I do believe the world is coming to an end. -------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Chapter" I.7 Amy's Valley of Humiliation "That boy is a perfect cyclops, isn't he?" said Amy one day, as Laurie clattered by on horseback, with a flourish of his whip as he passed. "How dare you say so, when he's got both his eyes? And very handsome ones they are, too," cried Jo, who resented any slighting remarks about her friend. "I didn't day anything about his eyes, and I don't see why you need fire up when I admire his riding." "Oh, my goodness! That little goose means a centaur, and she called him a Cyclops," exclaimed Jo, with a burst of laughter. "You needn't be so rude, it's only a `lapse of lingy', as Mr. Davis says," retorted Amy, finishing Jo with her Latin. "I just wish I had a little of the money Laurie spends on that horse," she added, as if to herself, yet hoping her sisters would hear. "Why?" asked Meg kindly, for Jo had gone off in another laugh at Amy's second blunder. "I need it so much. I'm dreadfully in debt, and it won't be my turn to have the rag money for a month." "In debt, Amy? What do you mean?" And Meg looked sober. "Why, I owe at least a dozen pickled limes, and I can't pay them, you know, till I have money, for Marmee forbade my having anything charged at the shop." "Tell me all about it. Are limes the fashion now? It used to be pricking bits of rubber to make balls." And Meg tried to keep her countenance, Amy looked so grave and important. "Why, you see, the girls are always buying them, and unless you want to be thought mean, you must do it too. It's nothing but limes now, for everyone is


a company.” He props himself up on his elbow and gazes down at me. “Why do you say that?” “Because it’s not something that has ever appealed to me.” “You’re more than capable, Anastasia.” 181/551 “I like to read books, Christian. Running a company will take me away from that.” “You could be the creative head.” I frown. “You see,” he continues, “running a successful company is all about embra- cing the talent of the individuals you have at your disposal. If that’s where your talents and your interests lie, then you structure the company to enable that. Don’t dismiss it out of hand, Anastasia. You’re a very capable woman. I think you could do anything you wanted if you put your mind to it.” Whoa! How can he possibly know that I’d be any good at this? “I’m also worried it will take up too much of my time.” Christian frowns. “Time I could devote to you.” I deploy my secret weapon. His gaze darkens. “I know what you’re doing,” he murmurs, amused. Damn it! “What?” I feign innocence. “You’re trying to distract me from the issue at hand. You always do that. Just don’t dismiss the idea, Ana. Think about it. That’s all I ask.” He leans down and kisses me chastely, then skims his thumb down my cheek. This argument is going to run and run. I smile up at him—and something he said earlier today pops un- bidden into my mind. “Can I ask you something?” My voice is soft, tentative. “Of course.” “Earlier today you said if I was angry with you, I should take it out on you in bed. What did you mean?” He stills. “What did you think I meant?” Holy shit! I should just say it. “That you wanted me to tie you up.” His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Um . . . no. That’s not what I meant at all.” “Oh.” I’m surprised by my slight twinge of disappointment. “You want to tie me up?” he asks, obviously reading my expression cor- rectly. He sounds shocked. I blush. “Well . . .” “Ana, I—” he stops, and something dark crosses his face. 182/551 “Christian,” I whisper, alarmed. I move so that I am lying on my side, propped up on my elbow like him. I caress his face. His eyes are large and fearful. He shakes his head sadly. Shit! “Christian, stop. It doesn’t matter. I thought that’s what you meant.” He takes my hand and places it on his pounding heart. Fuck! What is it? “Ana, I don’t know how I’d feel about you touching me if I were restrained.” My scalp prickles. It’s like he’s confessing something deep and dark. “This is still too new.” His voice is low and raw. Fuck. It was just a question, and I realize that he’s come a long way, but he still has a long way to go. Oh, Fifty, Fifty, Fifty. Anxiety grips my heart. I lean over and he freezes, but I plant a soft kiss at the corner of


seat over, where the young girl was now buried under a pile of coats. But no, it was only one coat. A camel hair coat. Judy’s coat, with a bloody hand sticking out from a sleeve. Marion stepped forward, yelling for help, pointing down to where Judy’s inert body, the red ribbon still in her hair, lay across the lap of the screaming young girl. CHAPTER FOURTEEN DECEMBER 1992 The sedan slices through the canyons of midtown, but north of Times Square a couple of roads are blocked off and we are rerouted, first east, then back west. I can tell Piper is getting more anxious, checking her watch every thirty seconds and letting out a few sighs. On Fifty-Third Street, the traffic comes to a dead halt. I look out the window. The terrain is completely unfamiliar, but I know where I am. The ghosts of buildings past hover over the minimalist architecture of the museum on one side of the street and the hulking black skyscraper on the other, like mirages. I can almost hear Mrs. Fleming’s throaty laugh and the cacophony of overstimulated boardinghouse girls as they tumble down the steep front steps. “I have to get out of the car,” I say. “What?” Piper says, startled. She and the driver exchange a worried look. “Open the door,” I demand. He pulls over as much as is possible in standstill traffic, and I open the door and let myself out before he has a chance to do it for me. Piper gets out as well and hurries to my side. The rain has eased, become more of a mist. I can feel droplets on my cheeks and nose, but they’re light, like kisses. I point across the street to the museum. “I used to stay at a girls’ boardinghouse right there,” I say. “When was this?” asks Piper, although I can tell she’s just placating me, hoping I’ll get back in the car. “When I was a Rockette.” As the sweet memories keep popping up, I need to breathe in the acrid air of New York as a counterpoint. “Let the car go,” I tell Piper. “Go where?” “Wherever. We can walk the rest of the way.” “Can you?” Her concern only makes me more stubborn. “Of course.” She and the driver speak quietly off to the side, and then he withdraws a large umbrella from his trunk and hands it over to her before getting back into the sedan. We head to Sixth Avenue. The sidewalks are crowded and for a few seconds I wonder if I’ve made a mistake, letting the car go. Then Piper offers me her arm. I take it, and the umbrella as well, holding it in my free hand as a cane. “Tell me more about this boardinghouse,” Piper says. “It was called the Rehearsal Club and was for women who were in show business.” “What a wonderful idea,” says Piper. “I wish they had something like that now. I live in the East Village and it’s always a little scary when I


of them again!" "I won't have them now," she answered. "I shall connect them with you, and hate them." She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a be- ginner, then laughed and threw it from her. "And lis- ten," she continued provokingly, commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion. But his self-love would endure no further torment. I heard, and not altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue. The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin's sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had of balancing the account and repaying its effects on the inflictor. He afterwards gath- ered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his countenance what anguish it was to offer that sac- rifice to spleen. I fancied that as they consumed he re- called the pleasure they had already imparted and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had an- ticipated from them, and I fancied I guessed the in- citement to his secret studies also. He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and, instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise him- self had produced just the contrary result. "Yes, that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!" cried Catherine, sucking her dam- aged lip, and watching the conflagration with indig- nant eyes. "You'd better hold your tongue now," he answered fiercely. And his agitation precluded further speech. He ad- vanced hastily to the entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But ere he had crossed the door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulder, asked,--- "What's to do now, my lad?" "Naught, naught," he said, and broke away to en- joy his grief and anger in solitude. Heathcliff gazed after him and sighed. "It will be odd if I thwart myself," he muttered, un- conscious that I was behind him. "But when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more. How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to see him." He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in. There was a restless, anxious expression in his countenance I had never remarked there before, and he looked sparer in person. His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately es- caped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone. "I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lock- wood," he said, in reply to my greeting, "from selfish motives partly. I don't think I could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I've wondered more than once what brought you here." "An idle whim, I fear, sir," was my answer, "or else an


was permitted to leave. As Yotam turned to descend the hill and return to work, he saw a handsome hiker from a previous encounter. They’d spoken at the summit, sharing stories, and he’d felt a connection, but he’d been too shy to ask the man out on a date. He stood, lingering, preparing what he might say, summoning the courage, until he saw that the man wasn’t alone. He was with a partner, and as they neared the summit, they rested on each other’s shoulder, admiring the view. Yotam waved to him, forcing a smile. ‘Nice to see you again,’ he said, as he passed them by. ANTARCTICA MCMURDO CITY THE ROSS ICE SHELF SAME DAY DUE TO THE IMPORTANT NATURE of his work, Yotam was housed in one of the original base buildings – the Manhattan of McMurdo residential real estate. Inside, the living quarters were arranged like small college dorm rooms with a narrow single bed, a shelf for books and a small triple-glazed window. Only a handful of people on the continent didn’t share their space; the majority lived not only with their own family but with multiple families and various children, biological, adopted and adapted, often sleeping at different times of the day so that beds were in constant use, one exhausted person slipping into the residual warmth of another person’s sleep. Being granted your own space was a privilege that Yotam didn’t want any longer. He wanted to share his space and his warmth. Devoted to his work, with no family and no partner, Yotam had been allowed to live this way because his work was his child, not as a figure of speech – his work was a new kind of life. Leaving his building, he commuted to work on cross-country skis handmade from moso bamboo, the supply of which came from a farmed forest growing inside the steel belly of a super-tanker, conditions optimized so that the trees grew ten inches a day under the permanent glow of artificial lights powered by the wind turbines on deck. The ecosystem had been devised by a Taiwanese horticulturist who’d created the only woodland space in Antarctica. This indoor bamboo forest, aside from producing vital materials for skis, was also one of the most popular spots for lovestruck couples to go on a date, with the scenic benches overlooking the bamboo forest currently having a wait list of six months for a thirty-minute slot. Yotam had reserved a slot of his own, hoping that he’d meet someone and be able to suggest the bamboo forest as a first date. The ski lanes were busy this morning with commuters enjoying the clement conditions. During the winter McMurdo citizens would be forced into sheltered passageways, a network of protected pedestrian highways where cramped lines of people shuffled north and south, east and west, under the cover of an elongated igloo corridor. But on a clear day like today, with glorious sunshine, everyone was outside, trekking or skiing or riding on husky-drawn sleighs delighted by the sight of the sun, tirelessly


the Zona Rosa,” he explained. “There’s always a clientele for watches, and I know a guy who is good at fixing them.” They walked past a stall full of Nazi memorabilia. It had jackets emblazoned with red armbands and swastikas, Nazi war medals, old pistols, helmets, even flags and an Adolf Hitler doll. Montserrat stopped and stared at the display. She supposed it hadn’t been that hard for Hitler’s followers to make it to America, not with greedy people willing to harbor them. Some of those mass murderers must have been flush with Jewish loot, with the belongings of the poor Romani they tried to exterminate, and the coins stolen from the corpses of disabled people. And so they’d come to the Americas, to be greeted with open arms by Perón and others like him. “You told us Ewers might have been a Nazi,” Montserrat said as Urueta stood next to her, a blue plastic market bag dangling from his wrist. He was carrying a couple of watches he’d bought in it. “Was he an agent in Mexico, like the actress you mentioned?” “I still find it hard to believe there were actual Nazi spies in Mexico,” Tristán said, brushing a lock of hair away from his face. Montserrat saw Urueta and herself reflected in the dark lenses. “They had their sympathizers. Ever heard of the Gold Shirts? They were around in the thirties, and even later. Rubén Moreno Padrés organized two anti-Semitic meetings right here in La Lagunilla back in 1940. They handed out a lot of leaflets that year, accusing the president of allowing Jewish immigrants into the country and leading it to its ruin. But I can tell you Ewers didn’t join flashy demonstrations of that sort, and he wasn’t with any particular group. It was more…well, it stretches farther back. Ewers was into runes and magic and film. All of it, combined.” “Runes?” They strolled next to a vendor displaying rugs and others selling heavy rotary telephones from the fifties. “There were many magic systems in Europe in the early part of the century. Krumm-Heller, the physician I told you about before, he studied runes and also developed a therapeutic system based on scents.” “A belief in nice-smelling candles sounds innocent enough to me,” Tristán said. He was taking off his glasses now, biting at their arm. “Krumm-Heller also believed that certain races were inferior to others.” “That is definitely not innocent,” Tristán added, shaking his head. He put the sunglasses on again. “Was every occultist a racist?” “Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who founded the Theosophical Society, also talked about higher and inferior races and the evolution of humans. Guido von List conceived of a magical runic alphabet and thought humanity had entered a cycle of decadence and was firmly in favor of eugenics. Then we have Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, who was also an occultist and believed the Aryan people were threatened by lower races.” “But was he a Nazi, then?” Montserrat asked. “You haven’t answered that question.” “Maybe he was a soldier,” Tristán ventured. “Wehrmacht.” “No, he


his trousers' pocket and laid them on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, disc by disc, into the till. --Thank you, sir. Another time. A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze after an instant. No: better not: another time. --Good morning, he said, moving away. --Good morning, sir. No sign. Gone. What matter? He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim: planters' company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish government and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel and construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your name entered for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten down and the balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15. Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it. He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silverpowdered olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Olives are packed in jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin's parade. And Mastiansky with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron's basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild perfume. Always the same, year after year. They fetched high prices too, Moisel told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant old times. Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain, Gibraltar, Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them barefoot in soiled dungarees. There's whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do you? Doesn't see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back is like that Norwegian captain's. Wonder if I'll meet him today. Watering cart. To provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven. A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far. No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's, clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world. Desolation. Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

heavy protection. "It's either really valuable or really dangerous," said Ron. "Or both," said Harry. But as all they knew for sure about the mysterious object was that it was about two inches long, they didn't have much chance of guessing what it was without further clues. Neither Neville nor Hermione showed the slightest interest in what lay underneath the dog and the trapdoor. All Neville cared about was never going near the dog again. Hermione was now refusing to speak to Harry and Ron, but she was such a bossy know-it-all that they saw this as an added bonus. All they really wanted now was a way of getting back at Malfoy, and to their great delight, just such a thing arrived in the mail about a week later. As the owls flooded into the Great Hall as usual, everyone's attention was caught at once by a long, thin package carried by six large screech owls. Harry was just as interested as everyone else to see what was in this large parcel, and was amazed when the owls soared down and dropped it right in front of him, knocking his bacon to the floor. They had hardly fluttered out of the way when another owl dropped a letter on top of the parcel. Harry ripped open the letter first, which was lucky, because it said: DO NOT OPEN THE PARCEL AT THE TABLE. It contains your new Nimbus Two Thousand, but I don't want everybody knowing you've got a broomstick or they'll all want one. Oliver Wood will meet you tonight on the Quidditch field at seven o'clock for your first training session. Professor McGonagall Harry had difficulty hiding his glee as he handed the note to Ron to read. "A Nimbus Two Thousand!" Ron moaned enviously. "I've never even touched one." They left the hall quickly, wanting to unwrap the broomstick in private before their first class, but halfway across the entrance hall they found the way upstairs barred by Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy seized the package from Harry and felt it. "That's a broomstick," he said, throwing it back to Harry with a mixture of jealousy and spite on his face. "You'll be in for it this time, Potter, first years aren't allowed them." Ron couldn't resist it. "It's not any old broomstick," he said, "it's a Nimbus Two Thousand. What did you say you've got at home, Malfoy, a Comet Two Sixty?" Ron grinned at Harry. "Comets look flashy, but they're not in the same league as the Nimbus." "What would you know about it, Weasley, you couldn't afford half the handle," Malfoy snapped back. "I suppose you and your brothers have to save up twig by twig." Before Ron could answer, Professor Flitwick appeared at Malfoy's elbow. "Not arguing, I hope, boys?" he squeaked. "Potter's been sent a broomstick, Professor," said Malfoy quickly. "Yes, yes, that's right," said Professor Flitwick, beaming at Harry. "Professor McGonagall told me all about the special circumstances, Potter. And what model is it?" "A Nimbus Two Thousand, sir," said Harry, fighting not


presence or departure; but I started and bade her hush. "Why?" she asked, gazing nervously round. "Joseph is here," I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his cart-wheels up the road, "and Heathcliff will come in with him. I'm not sure whether he were not at the door this moment." "Oh, he couldn't overhear me at the door," said she. "Give me Hareton while you get the supper, and when it is ready ask me to sup with you. I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that Heathcliff has no notion of these things. He has not, has he? He does not know what being in love is?" "I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you," I returned; "and if you are his choice, he'll be the most unfortunate creature that ever was born. As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all. Have you considered how you'll bear the separation, and how he'll bear to be quite deserted in the world? Because, Miss Catherine------" "He quite deserted! we separated!" she exclaimed with an accent of indignation. "Who is to separate us, pray? They'll meet the fate of Milo. Not as long as I live, Ellen---for no mortal creature. Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, that's not what I intend---that's not what I mean! I shouldn't be Mrs. Linton were such a price demanded! He'll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime. Edgar must shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least. He will, when he learns my true feelings towards him. Nelly, I see now--you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? Whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my broth- er's power." "With your husband's money, Miss Catherine?" I asked. "You'll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon; and, though I'm hardly a judge, I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife of young Linton." "It is not!" retorted she; "it is the best! The others were the satisfaction of my whims; and for Edgar's sake, too---to satisfy him. This is for the sake of one who com- prehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and my- self. I cannot express it, but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning. My great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be. And if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger---I should not seem a part


are they on board?’ Atto had silenced these doubters, making it clear he wouldn’t countenance the idea of leaving Liza or her family behind. As the boat pushed clear, it left a wall of people on the edge of the docks. Some jumped, clinging onto the side, while others missed, falling into the water. Liza looked down at one man hanging onto the rail and offered her hand. He took it, but he was so heavy she was almost pulled overboard, her father grabbing her waist just in time. The man lost his grip, and she was forced to watch him fall into the frothy water around the side of the boat. Away from the coast, they joined a flotilla of fishing boats setting sail, an armada of refugees following alien instructions, without government assistance or guidance of any kind. Nearby, one of the fishing boats began to list, overloaded with people. There were cries for help as it keeled over, emptying the deck-load of passengers into the water, the screams for help tearing at the heart of everyone who could hear. No one asked if they could help them. They all knew the answer was no. The voices calling for help grew faint, as the armada of fishing boats turned south. ATLANTIC OCEAN WEST AFRICAN COASTLINE MAURITANIA TWO WEEKS LATER AS SOME OF THE STRONGEST and healthiest of the passengers, Liza and her family were near the bow, lashed to the side to prevent them being swept overboard. Having endured days of Atlantic storms, with twenty-foot waves breaking across the deck, washing three people overboard, they were now travelling through calmer waters off the coast of Mauritania, sheltering from the sweltering sun under improvised canopies tied together from spare clothes, a mosaic of shirts and hoodies. No one had packed any sunscreen and there were countless examples of essential items that were suddenly no longer available. With less than sixteen days left to reach Antarctica, they were running low on fuel and fresh water. There’d been almost no time to prepare for the journey, leaving the port had been a frantic scramble, and Atto’s father, a man with a deep sense of humanity, had prioritized people over supplies, believing he could catch fish for food and find more fuel. With the passing of the storm and the return of tropical blue skies, they could once again see the alien vessels, designed without any apparent concern for aerodynamics, or obedience to the laws of physics, floating effortlessly, ascending and descending, reaching the outer edge of the Earth’s atmosphere, on the brink of space, and then coming back down, stopping a few hundred metres above the ocean, causing the water underneath them to bubble. They showed no signs of menace; more like a hallucination than an invasion. Several joined together, not with crashes and clangs like brash human machines, but in mid-air assembling into a single unit, no longer curved and smooth, but resembling an Escher lithograph, interconnecting stairways to nowhere, a giant optical illusion slowly spinning in the sky. Made aware by


in formal robes stand lined against the walls. In front of us on a raised platform are two thrones, one of which is occupied. The emperor… Miss Zhao and I are pushed forward. When the man holding my shoulder lets go, I drop to the ground—Miss Zhao beside me—in total submission. “I have striven to make the palace a place of good thought and proper acts.” The emperor’s voice is not at all what I might have imagined, if I’d ever given a moment’s thought to it. He sounds like a regular man—like my husband or my grandfather—only the words he forms with his ordinary voice make my body shiver. “I have but one wife. Empress Zhang is the moon to my sun. One day long from now she will become the empress dowager, helping our son as he rules China. But you”—he lifts a finger to gesture at Meiling—“have offended her eyes with your vile act. I am outraged on behalf of the empress, who had to witness such pollution in the Great Within.” Meiling soundlessly weeps. “I have discussed the offense with my counselors at the Board of Punishments, as well as with those who oversee the Lodge of Ritual and Ceremony,” the emperor continues. “Together they have recommended that the offending party be immediately put to death. Since you are a woman, I see no reason to prolong your suffering in the ways that might serve as a caution to others. Decapitation will be swift and painless.” Just then a pair of double doors opens. The empress enters, followed by Lady Liu, Widow Bao, and some of the other ladies who provide company in the Great Within. “Husband,” Empress Zhang says with a formal bow. Then she mounts the royal dais and sits on her throne. One of the ladies arranges the empress’s robes so they splay about her, making her look simultaneously small in the ocean of embroidered brocade and equal in dignity and power to the emperor. The other women fan out on either side of Miss Zhao and me. “You should be with our son,” the emperor says. “You should be doing the month.” “Yes, Husband” comes Empress Zhang’s reply. “I have left my bed so I might appeal to you.” “Please continue.” When Empress Zhang begins, I realize she’s about to reveal the side of herself known as the Compassionate One. I pray that it works. “The midwife put the birth of the next emperor above the safety of herself and her child,” the empress says. “What does this matter when she insulted your eyes?” “I beg you to show benevolence.” The emperor is not swayed. “I have made my decision.” Empress Zhang gestures to the line of women before her. “Each one of us implores you—” With those words spoken, I find my courage. “I would like to say a few words on the midwife’s behalf.” The emperor looks startled. Some of the men in their grand robes grumble their displeasure. “Empress Zhang truly is the Compassionate One,” I say. “And you are the


simply said to tell you that he is much impressed. I asked if that was all and he said: "Well, tell him that the Treasury is greatly relieved." Then he rang off.' Bond grinned with pleasure. What most warmed him was that M himself should have rung up Mathis. This was quite unheard of. The very existence of M, let alone his identity, was never admitted. He could imagine the flutter this must have caused in the ultra-security-minded organization in London. 'A tall thin man with one arm came over from London the same day we found you,' continued Mathis, knowing from his own experience that these shop details would interest Bond more than anything else and give him most pleasure, 'and he fixed up the nurses and looked after everything. Even your car's being repaired for you. He seemed to be Vesper's boss. He spent a lot of time with her and gave her strict instructions to look after you.' Head of S, thought Bond. They're certainly giving me the red carpet treatment. 'Now,' said Mathis, 'to business. Who killed Le Chiffre?' 'SMERSH,' said Bond. Mathis gave a low whistle. 'My God,' he said respectfully. 'So they were on to him. What did he look like?' Bond explained briefly what had happened up to the moment of Le Chiffre's death, omitting all but the most essential details. It cost him an effort and he was glad when it was done. Casting his mind back to the scene awoke the whole nightmare and the sweat began to pour off his forehead and a deep throb of pain started up in his body. Mathis realized that he was going too far. Bond's voice was getting feebler and his eyes were clouding. Mathis snapped shut his shorthand book and laid a hand on Bond's shoulder. 'Forgive me, my friend,' he said. 'It is all over now and you are in safe hands. All is well and the whole plan has gone splendidly. We have announced that Le Chiffre shot his two accomplices and then committed suicide because he could not face an inquiry into the union funds. Strasbourg and the north are in an uproar. He was considered a great hero there and a pillar of the Communist Party in France. This story of brothels and casinos has absolutely knocked the bottom out of his organization and they're all running around like scalded cats. At the moment the Communist Party is giving out that he was off his head. But that hasn't helped much after Thorez's breakdown not long ago. They're just making it look as if all their big shots were gaga. God knows how they're going to unscramble the whole business.' Mathis saw that his enthusiasm had had the desired effect. Bond's eyes were brighter. 'One last mystery,' Mathis said, 'and then I promise I will go.' He looked at his watch. 'The doctor will be after my skin in a moment. Now, what about the money? Where is it? Where did you hide it? We too have been over your room


him with a cynical light. As the Duke watched, the moon dipped beneath the Shield Wall cliffs, frosting them, and in the sudden intensity of darkness, he experienced a chill. He shivered. Anger shot through him. The Harkonnens have hindered and hounded and hunted me for the last time, he thought. They are dung heaps with village provost minds! Here I make my stand! And he thought with a touch of sadness: I must rule with eye and claw--as the hawk among lesser birds. Unconsciously, his hand brushed the hawk emblem on his tunic. To the east, the night grew a faggot of luminous gray, then seashell opalescence that dimmed the stars. There came the long, bell-tolling movement of dawn striking across a broken horizon. It was a scene of such beauty it caught all his attention. Some things beggar likeness, he thought. He had never imagined anything here could be as beautiful as that shattered red horizon and the purple and ochre cliffs. Beyond the landing field where the night's faint dew had touched life into the hurried seeds of Arrakis, he saw great puddles of red blooms and, running through them, an articulate tread of violet . . . like giant footsteps. "It's a beautiful morning. Sire," the guard said. "Yes, it is." The Duke nodded, thinking: Perhaps this planet could grow on one. Perhaps it could become a good home for my son. Then he saw the human figures moving into the flower fields, sweeping them with strange scythe-like devices--dew gatherers. Water so precious, here that even the dew must be collected. And it could be a hideous place, the Duke thought. =========================== "There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh." -from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan The Duke said: "Paul, I'm doing a hateful thing, but I must." He stood beside the portable poison snooper that had been brought into the conference room for their breakfast. The thing's sensor arms hung limply over the table, reminding Paul of some weird insect newly dead. The Duke's attention was directed out the windows at the landing field and its roiling of dust against the morning sky. Paul had a viewer in front of him containing a short filmclip on Fremen religious practices. The clip had been compiled by one of Hawat's experts and Paul found himself disturbed by the references to himself. "Mahdi!" "Lisan al-Gaib!" He could close his eyes and recall the shouts of the crowds. So that is what they hope, he thought. And he remembered what the old Reverend Mother had said: Kwisatz Haderach. The memories touched his feelings of terrible purpose, shading this strange world with sensations of familiarity that he could not understand. "A hateful thing," the Duke said. "What do you mean, sir?" Leto turned, looked down at his son. "Because the Harkonnens think to trick me by making me distrust your mother. They don't know that I'd sooner distrust myself." "I don't understand, sir." Again,


from the crowd and mounted the porch. “Evenin’, Miz Starks.” “Good evenin’.” “You reckon you gointuh like round here?” “Ah reckon so.” “Anything Ah kin do tuh help out, why you kin call on me.” “Much obliged.” There was a long dead pause. Janie was not jumping at her chance like she ought to. Look like she didn’t hardly know he was there. She needed waking up. “Folks must be mighty close-mouthed where you come from.” “Dat’s right. But it must be different at yo’ home.” He was a long time thinking but finally he saw and stum- bled down the steps with a surly “’Bye.” “Good bye.” That night Coker asked him about it. “Ah saw yuh when yuh ducked back tuh Starks’ house. Well, how didju make out?” Their Eyes Were Watching God 45 “Who, me? Ah ain’t been near de place, man. Ah been down tuh de lake tryin’ tuh ketch me uh fish.” “Umph!” “Dat ’oman ain’t so awfully pretty no how when yuh take de second look at her. Ah had to sorta pass by de house on de way back and seen her good. ’Tain’t nothin’ to her ’ceptin’ dat long hair.” “Umph!” “And anyhow, Ah done took uhlikin’ tuh de man. Ah wouldn’t harm him at all. She ain’t half ez pretty ez uh gal Ah run off and left up in South Cal’lina.” “Hicks, Ah’d git mad and say you wuz lyin’ if Ah didn’t know yuh so good. You just talkin’ to consolate yo’self by word of mouth. You got uh willin’ mind, but youse too light behind. A whole heap uh men seen de same thing you seen but they got better sense than you. You oughta know you can’t take no ’oman lak dat from no man lak him. A man dat ups and buys two hundred acres uh land at one whack and pays cash for it.” “Naw! He didn’t buy it sho nuff?” “He sho did. Come off wid de papers in his pocket. He done called a meetin’ on his porch tomorrow. Ain’t never seen no sich uh colored man befo’ in all mah bawn days. He’s gointuh put up uh store and git uh post office from de Goven’ment.” That irritated Hicks and he didn’t know why. He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different. He wasn’t ready to think of colored people in post offices yet. He laughed bois- terously. 46 Zora Neale Hurston “Y’all let dat stray darky tell y’all any ole lie! Uh colored man sittin’ up in uh post office!” He made an obscene sound. “He’s liable tuh do it too, Hicks. Ah hope so anyhow. Us colored folks is too envious of one ’nother. Dat’s how come us don’t git no further than us do. Us talks about de white man keepin’ us down! Shucks! He don’t have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down.” “Now who said Ah didn’t want de man tuh git us uh


like. I prefer to get home to Dad. I take a seat on the ground floor at the end of a row and settle in. * * * I can hear Dad talking as I let myself in from church and I think maybe Dawoud has come even though he’s not due, but when I step into the living room, there’s no one but Dad there. His eyes are wide, and he’s speaking in Twi. I can’t grasp what he’s saying because it’s too broken. I hope he’s speaking to me, but, no, he’s staring into the corner, a blank patch on our living room wall, and talking to someone who is not there. “Dad?” He doesn’t stop talking and staring. “Dad? Who are you talking to?” The corners of his mouth pull down. He blinks and slowly extends his arm, as far as he can, to point at the empty space. “My … my sis … ter,” he says. “Auntie Mabel? Is she here?” “No. No. Re … Rebecca.” I swallow. My aunt Rebecca died in Ghana when I was three years old. “No, Dad,” I say softly. “She’s not here.” I wave into the space and repeat myself, but he continues to frown and point at the blank wall. He leans his head back and still staring says quietly, “My sister Rebecca.” I go over to him and gently shake his arm. “Dad?” He blinks and finally looks at me. He looks at the wall and then to me again. He closes his eyes and a tear runs down his cheek. I hold his hand. “Sorry, Dad,” I say quietly. “I … I’m sorry.” I dab his cheek with my coat sleeve and then kiss his forehead. I sit there, cradling his shaking right hand with both of mine until he falls asleep. I leave the room and pull my phone from my pocket. My hands are shaking as I call Dr. Appong’s direct line. I tell him about the hallucination, and he assures me it isn’t rare for the medication Dad’s on, but for my peace of mind, he’ll come by tomorrow to check on him. “Not today?” “I’m not in the office today, I’m afraid.” “Right! Sorry, it’s Sunday. I forgot again. I’m sorry. It’s just…” I pinch the bridge of my nose to block the fresh tears. “Will tomorrow be too late?” “Maddie, everything is fine.” His tone is reassuring, with confidence bolstered by decades of medical practice, and patient. Or it could be pity. I still remember the frown on his face the day he came to see Dad and asked where Mum was. I told him it was just me at the moment and that’s when he gave me his direct line. When he left I swore I could see him shaking his head as he walked away. “You say he’s not displaying any other symptoms?” “No, he’s a bit tired though.” “That’s normal. You don’t need to worry. You can call me again if something else happens, but he should be okay, all right?”


to be re-united with him, this ceremony would be held to ascertain that she had not been unfaithful to him during the time of their separation. iyi-uwa: a special kind of stone which forms the link between an ogbanje and the spirit world. Only if the iyi-uwa were discovered and destroyed would the child not die. jigida: a string of waist beads. kotma: court messenger. The word is not of Ibo origin but is a corruption of "court messenger." kwenu: a shout of approval and greeting. ndichie: elders. nna ayi: our father. nno: welcome. nso-ani: a religious offence of a kind abhorred by everyone, literally earth's taboo. nza: a very small bird. obi: the large living quarters of the head of the family. obodo dike: the land of the brave. ochu: murder or manslaughter. ogbanje: a changeling,- a child who repeatedly dies and returns to its mother to be reborn. It is almost impossible to bring up an ogbanje child without it dying, unless its iyi-uwa is first found and destroyed. ogene: a musical instrument; a kind of gong. oji odu achu-ijiji-o: (cow i. e., the one that uses its tail to drive flies away). osu: outcast. Having been dedicated to a god, the osu was taboo and was not allowed to mix with the freeborn in any way. Oye: the name of one of the four market days. ozo: the name of one of the titles or ranks. tufia: a curse or oath. udu: a musical instrument; a type of drum made from pottery. uli: a dye used by women for drawing patterns on the skin. umuada: a family gathering of daughters, for which the female kinsfolk return to their village of origin. umunna-: a wide group of kinsmen (the masculine form of the word umuada). Uri: part of the betrothal ceremony when the dowry is paid. The End ABOUT THE AUTHOR Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village of Ogidi, one of the first centres of Anglican missionary work in Eastern Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran War. He was appointed Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely abroad. From 1972 to 1976, and again in 1987 to 1988, Mr. Achebe was Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and also for one year at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Cited in the London Sunday Times as one of the "1,000 Makers of the Twentieth Century" for defining "a modern African literature that was truly African" and thereby making "a major contribution to world literature," has published novels, short stories, essays, and children's books. His volume of poetry, Christmas in Biafra, written during the Biafran War, was the joint winner of the first Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Of his novels, Arrow of God is winner of the New Statesman-Jock Campbell Award, and


we?" "All right, then; come along." So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "Jim !" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says: "Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put ALL of 'em in a bad fix -- for the sheriff 'll get 'em. Quick -- hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and --" "Oh, my lordy, lordy! RAF'? Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke loose en gone I -- en here we is!" CHAPTER XIII. WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd GOT to find that boat now -- had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too -- seemed a week be- fore we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he could go any further -- so scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, and says: "Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!" He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and set down. It was Packard. Then Bill HE come out and got in. Packard says, in a low voice: "All ready -- shove off!" I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says: "Hold on -- 'd you go through him?" "No. Didn't you?" "No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet." "Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money." "Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?" "Maybe he won't. But we got to have it


say this, John Silver suits me.” “The man’s a perfect trump,” declared the squire. “And now,” added the doctor, “Jim may come on board with us, may he not?” “To be sure he may,” says squire. “Take your hat, Hawkins, and we’ll see the ship.” Chapter 9. Powder and Arms. THE HISPANIOLA lay some way out, and we went under the figureheads and round the sterns of many other ships, and their cables sometimes grated underneath our keel, and sometimes swung above us. At last, however, we got along- side, and were met and saluted as we stepped aboard by the mate, Mr. Arrow, a brown old sailor with earrings in his ears and a squint. He and the squire were very thick and friendly, but I soon observed that things were not the same between Mr. Trelawney and the captain. This last was a sharp-looking man who seemed angry with Contents everything on board and was soon to tell us why, for we had hardly got down into the cabin when a sailor followed us. “Captain Smollett, sir, axing to speak with you,” said he. Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 72 73 “I am always at the captain’s orders. Show him in,” said “No,” said Dr. Livesey, “I don’t.” the squire. “Next,” said the captain, “I learn we are going after trea- The captain, who was close behind his messenger, entered sure—hear it from my own hands, mind you. Now, treasure at once and shut the door behind him. is ticklish work; I don’t like treasure voyages on any account, “Well, Captain Smollett, what have you to say? All well, and I don’t like them, above all, when they are secret and I hope; all shipshape and seaworthy?” when (begging your pardon, Mr. Trelawney) the secret has “Well, sir,” said the captain, “better speak plain, I believe, been told to the parrot.” even at the risk of offence. I don’t like this cruise; I don’t like “Silver’s parrot?” asked the squire. the men; and I don’t like my officer. That’s short and sweet.” “It’s a way of speaking,” said the captain. “Blabbed, I mean. “Perhaps, sir, you don’t like the ship?” inquired the squire, It’s my belief neither of you gentlemen know what you are very angry, as I could see. about, but I’ll tell you my way of it— life or death, and a “I can’t speak as to that, sir, not having seen her tried,” said close run.” the captain. “She seems a clever craft; more I can’t say.” “That is all clear, and, I dare say, true enough,” replied Dr. “Possibly, sir, you may not like your employer, either?” says Livesey. “We take the risk, but we are not so ignorant as you the squire. believe us. Next, you say you don’t like the crew. Are they But here Dr. Livesey cut in. not good seamen?” “Stay a bit,” said he, “stay a bit. No use of such questions “I don’t like them, sir,” returned Captain Smollett. “And I as that but to produce ill feeling. The captain


schedules and colorcoding all her notes. Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same. "Hermione, the exams are ages away." "Ten weeks," Hermione snapped. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel." "But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded her. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it A." "What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me..." Unfortunately, the teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. It was hard to relax with Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood or practicing wand movements. Moaning and yawning, Harry and Ron spent most of their free time in the library with her, trying to get through all their extra work. "I'll never remember this," Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing down his quill and looking longingly out of the library window. It was the first really fine day they'd had in months. The sky was a clear, forget-me-not blue, and there was a feeling in the air of summer coming. Harry, who was looking up "Dittany" in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, didn't look up until he heard Ron say, "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?" Hagrid shuffled into view, hiding something behind his back. He looked very out of place in his moleskin overcoat. "Jus' lookin'," he said, in a shifty voice that got their interest at once. "An' what're you lot up ter?" He looked suddenly suspicious. "Yer not still lookin' fer Nicolas Flamel, are yeh?" "Oh, we found out who he is ages ago," said Ron impressively. "And we know what that dog's guarding, it's a Sorcerer's St -- " "Shhhh!" Hagrid looked around quickly to see if anyone was listening. "Don' go shoutin' about it, what's the matter with yeh?" "There are a few things we wanted to ask you, as a matter of fact," said Harry, "about what's guarding the Stone apart from Fluffy -- " "SHHHH!" said Hagrid again. "Listen -- come an' see me later, I'm not promisin' I'll tell yeh anythin', mind, but don' go rabbitin' about it in here, students aren' s'pposed ter know. They'll think I've told yeh -- " "See you later, then," said Harry. Hagrid shuffled off. "What was he hiding behind his back?" said Hermione thoughtfully. "Do you think it had anything to do with the Stone?" "I'm going to see what section he was in," said Ron, who'd had enough of working. He came back a minute later with a pile of books in his arms and slammed them down on the table. "Dragons!" he whispered. "Hagrid was looking up stuff about dragons! Look at these: Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland; From


books—Creatures of the Sea—there’d been a drawing of one with the outline of a man next to it, shown for scale. The beast dwarfed the man, a great monstrosity that Vic couldn’t believe actually existed. He’d never seen the ocean, though he could imagine how vast it had to be if it held creatures such as this. He couldn’t remember what it was called; Nurse Ratched did not have that problem. “A whale,” she said. “It is a whale.” But it wasn’t rising from the depths of any sea. It was flying toward them. The whale moved up and down as if swimming through the air. The top of it was black, the underbelly white with thick lines that ran along the length. It didn’t have eyes. Instead, across the middle of its head was a row of glass that wrapped around the front to either side. The flippers were thick and massive as they rose and fell. The horizontal tail moved up and down, propelling the beast forward. Its great mouth was closed. “What is that?” Rambo cried as the sound grew louder. “Is that a fish? How is a fish flying?” Vic couldn’t answer. He was struck dumb. Now that it was closer, Vic could see the lines underneath weren’t part of the flesh of the creature. They were panels. It wasn’t alive at all. It was a machine. A massive machine that dwarfed even the Old Ones. Across the side, above the flipper, were three white words in the black of the metal skin. THE TERRIBLE DOGFISH The flying machine stopped above the Scrap Yards, hovering in place. Air began to whip ferociously as it lowered toward the earth, scrap heaps collapsing in showers of dust and sparks. With a magnificent groan, the whale’s mouth dropped open, the lower jaw folding down and back. The throat of the whale was metal and lined with what looked like railed walkways. Vic squinted against the dust blowing, sure he could see movement inside the whale’s mouth on the platforms, though it was too far away for him to make out what exactly it was. As he looked on, black cables dropped from the whale’s mouth. At the tip of each cable was a flat, circular disc, large enough to carry people or machines. They lowered toward the ground where the three figures stood. In silence, they watched as the humanoid figures inspected the area around them as the discs reached the ground near them. The crouched figure scooped up what looked like dirt, letting it filter through his fingers. Lifting his head, he looked directly at them. Vic flattened himself to the ground, heart in his throat. He counted to five in his head and looked out into the Scrap Yards once more … … in time to see the smooth men stepping onto the discs and rising up and up toward the whale. Once inside, the mouth of the whale closed. It remained suspended in air. “Victor,” Nurse Ratched said, “we need to move while we still can.” Vic was


behind you in the soprano section—I saw the look on her face. It wasn’t just admiration; she looked nervous for you, deeply invested in your success. Naturally, the rumors about Thalia and some teacher transferred onto you. They also transferred onto Mr. Dar, and onto Mr. Wysockis, her tennis coach. Perhaps because Thalia was the kind of person to touch any man she was talking to on the shoulder. We believed it all, if only so we’d have gossip. (I certainly contributed to it, sharing with Fran and Carlotta every time I came to your classroom and found her already there, sprawled on the couch with her shoes off.) It was for the social clout of gossip that we also spread—and even believed—stories about teachers with crushes on students, teachers who’d check out girls’ legs. But they couldn’t all be true, and as the years passed I came to understand they’d been immature fantasies, related to our certainty that the world revolved around us. I thought of the Follies rehearsal senior year when we were all called out of the theater by Bendt Jensen, our Danish exchange student. You might not remember Bendt, who was only there one year; the reason I remember him myself is that he was gorgeous, an unquestioned fact. A swoop of blond hair that looked drawn on, a chin cleft. Bendt was late to rehearsal that night, and when you asked why, he’d stood there, embarrassed and wide-eyed, and explained that there were, he didn’t quite know how to say, but there were . . . lots of little UFOs outside? And as soon as the words were out he reddened, but everyone was ready to believe him, already out of their seats, already jumping off the stage, you calling after us with fake upset that masked your real upset. We tumbled outside and stood on the steps, on the sidewalk below, staring out at the empty hill behind the theater, the one where the off-season baseball boys would play Wiffle ball. It was still the tail end of summer, but late enough that full New Hampshire dark had descended. “There were—” Bendt said, and he seemed to try, unsuccessfully, to laugh at himself. “There were like a hundred little—I don’t know what—there!” And he pointed in triumph to the sudden illumination of dozens of tiny flickering lights at the forest’s edge. “Dude,” someone said. “You’ve never seen fireflies?” Apparently he hadn’t. Poor Bendt had never even heard of them, was completely new to the idea that a living thing could illuminate like that. I remember, in the hilarity that followed, thinking that I understood. That, my God, if you’d never known something like this existed, yes, your mind would jump to the nearest, strangest, most terrifying associations. “They light up to attract mates,” someone said, and explained that what we were seeing was essentially a firefly nightclub. We ran around until we caught a few that we could show Bendt up close. Max Krammen smashed one on the sidewalk and spread the glow with his sneaker


She glanced over her shoulder to see the nurse standing at the foot of his bed. “Yes. I was with him when it happened,” Iris whispered, beginning to back away. She could see Attie at the corner of her eye, waiting in the doorway. “Then he must be here because of you,” the nurse said, moving closer to take his pulse. “I’m sure he’ll want to see and personally thank you tomorrow.” “No,” Iris said. “I’m here because of him.” And that was all the lump in her throat would allow her to say. She turned and left the room, her breaths turning shallow and quick, and she thought she might faint in the corridor until she glanced up and saw someone striding toward her with purpose. Long black hair was escaping a braid. Blood was splattered on her skirts and fire shone in her brown eyes. Marisol. “There you are!” Marisol cried, and Iris worried she was in trouble until she realized that that Marisol was crying. Tears shone on her cheeks. “My gods, I have been praying every day for you!” One moment, Iris was standing uncertain, trembling in the hall. The next, Marisol had embraced her, weeping into her matted hair. Iris sighed—she was safe, she was safe, she could let down her guard and breathe—and she held to Marisol, struggling to hide the tears that surged. She didn’t think she could cry anymore, but when Marisol leaned back and framed her face, Iris let her tears fall. “When’s the last time you ate, Iris?” Marisol asked, tenderly wiping her tears away. “Come, I’m taking you home and feeding you. And then you can take a shower and rest.” She reached for Attie’s hand, holding both girls close. Marisol led them home. Iris wanted a shower first. While Marisol and Attie prepared hot cocoa and a late-night meal in the kitchen, Iris trudged upstairs to the lavatory. The adrenaline that had kept her going since that afternoon—a day that felt like years ago, a day when the sky was blue and the storm clouds were building and the trenches were full of heavy silence and the Sycamore Platoon was alive—was utterly gone. She could suddenly feel the keen edge of her exhaustion. She carried a candle into her bedroom. She dropped the bags from her back to the floor, where they lay like two heaps on the rug. She stripped, shivering as the bloodstained linen peeled off her skin. A quick shower, Marisol had told her. Because it was the middle of the night, and they must always be ready for the hounds to come. Iris washed by candlelight. It was dark and warm, the steam curling up from the tiles, and she stood in the shower, her eyes closed and her skin burning as she scrubbed. She scrubbed as if she could wash it all away. Her ears still held a faint ring; she wondered if it would ever fade. She knocked something off the soap ledge. The clang made her jump, her heart faltering. She almost cowered,


to manage. Not someone who liked surprises. You didn’t charge into Mrs. Bone’s territory without due preparation, and a good reason to call. But Mrs. King was nothing if not prepared, and she had the best proposition in town. The heat gave the lane a whirring, jangled energy. It smelled like old things, manure and wrinkled fruit and drains. Everyone seemed dislocated, running in packs, a sea of flat caps. Mrs. King heard the distant dandle-dandle-rum-tum-tum of music, spied a fiddler balanced on a stool. It gave her a queer twist in the chest. She always felt it, coming home. Concentrate, Dinah, she told herself. She pulled out her purse, flipped a coin between her fingers. Studied the market stalls, separating herself from the crowd. The stallholders clocked her. Eyes swiveled sideways, nostrils flared. Mrs. King raised her hand, shielding her eyes from the sun. She knew she looked strange to them. Not a lady, not a schoolmistress. Not a nurse, not a cook. An anomaly. Tightly buckled, hat tipped low over her eyes. A touch of stain on her lips—red, the color of garnets. Armored. She folded her arms. And waited. It didn’t take long. The message must have been transmitted through the walls; it must have gone rippling down the back alleys. The door to the pawnshop opened with a bang. It startled the stallholders, the bell clanging in the air. A woman wearing widow’s weeds emerged squinting into the sunlight. Mrs. King straightened. “Mrs. Bone,” she called. Mrs. Bone was strong, compact, cunningly built. Perhaps fifty years old, at a guess. Sunshine didn’t suit her. It drained her, made her look as if she’d been hiding in the cellar. You’d overlook her altogether if you didn’t know any better. Which was just the way she liked it. Her eyes narrowed, and Mrs. King saw her mind working: the click-click-click of the gears. “Well, well,” Mrs. Bone called back, voice hoarse. “Aren’t we highly favored?” The stallholders repositioned themselves. Casual, heads turned, gazing up at the sky as if it fascinated them. Mrs. King crossed the street. Followed the old rules. Ducked her chin half an inch. Scraped one boot behind the other. Kiss to the cheek, kiss to the hand. “Good day, Mrs. Bone.” Up close Mrs. Bone carried the same scent as always: rose water and hair that smelled of wood shavings. “How can I help you, dear?” she murmured into Mrs. King’s ear. Mrs. King didn’t fall for that. Whatever your trouble, whatever the jam, you didn’t ask Mrs. Bone for help. Help was for the birds. You presented her with a proposition, nicely packaged, nothing else. Mrs. King straightened up, assessed the terrain. There was a skinny-looking chap leaned up against a lamppost, head buried in his newspaper. Frayed cuffs, bare ankles. Not a detective. A scout, a lookout. And not employed by Mrs. Bone. Her men didn’t dress like scarecrows. Mrs. King scanned the street. Another lad at the corner, by the pub. A third under the guttering. Mrs. King considered this with interest. These


It felt as if spring had blossomed into midsummer by the time the eithrals retreated. The shadows fled, the air warmed, the light brightened, the wind returned, and the grass sighed against Iris’s shoulders and legs. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear shouting as life slowly returned to Avalon Bluff. It took her a few more moments to quell her fear, to be confident enough to move again, to trust that the threat was gone. She winced as she pushed upward, her wrists and shoulders numb from holding herself frozen. A slight groan escaped her as she sat back on Roman’s waist, her hands tingling with pins and needles. The pain was good; it reminded her of how furious she was at him, for arriving unannounced in the middle of a siren. How his utter foolishness had nearly killed them both. Iris glared down at him. He was still watching her attentively, as if waiting for her to lift the command over him, and a smirk played across his lips. “What the hell are you doing here, Kitt?” she demanded, shoving his chest. “Have you lost your mind?” She felt his hands slide down her back, resting on the curve of her hips. If she wasn’t so exhausted and stiff from the harrowing encounter they had miraculously survived, she would have knocked away his touch. She would have slapped him. She might have kissed him. He only smiled as if he had read her mind, and said, “It’s good to see you again too, Winnow.” {26} Outshine What was she supposed to do with him? Iris had no idea, but her stomach was in knots as she pushed away from Roman’s lithe body, standing with a wobble. She crossed her arms and watched as he rose with a slight groan. It felt like she had swallowed sunlight —there was a warm humming in her body that intensified the longer she regarded Roman—and she realized that she was actually pleased to see him. But her pride remained in place like a shield; she would never let him know such a thing. “Do I need to ask you again, Kitt?” she asked. He took his time brushing stray grass and dirt from his jumpsuit before he glanced up at her. “Perhaps. Profanity is quite becoming on you.” She gritted her teeth but managed to hold back another curse, cracking her neck instead. “Do you have any idea how much danger we were in? Because you decided to walk across a field during a siren?” That sobered him and he gazed at her. A cloud passed over the sun. Shadows fell again, and Iris flinched, as if an eithral’s wings were the cause. “Those were eithrals, weren’t they?” Roman’s voice was thick. Iris nodded. “You’re familiar with the old myths?” “A few. I slept through most of my mythology classes.” She had a hard time imagining that. Roman Competitive Kitt, who wanted to be the best at everything. “I take it the siren warns of their approach?” he asked. “Yes, among other things,” she


me out to him the lowest creature--!" I winced at the fair show of the scene in Mrs. Grose's face; she looked for a minute as if she sharply saw them together. "And him who thinks so well of you!" "He has an odd way--it comes over me now," I laughed,"--of proving it! But that doesn't matter. What Flora wants, of course, is to get rid of me." My companion bravely concurred. "Never again to so much as look at you." "So that what you've come to me now for," I asked, "is to speed me on my way?" Before she had time to reply, however, I had her in check. "I've a better idea--the result of my reflections. My going WOULD seem the right thing, and on Sunday I was terribly near it. Yet that won't do. It's YOU who must go. You must take Flora." My visitor, at this, did speculate. "But where in the world--?" "Away from here. Away from THEM. Away, even most of all, now, from me. Straight to her uncle." "Only to tell on you--?" "No, not `only'! To leave me, in addition, with my remedy." She was still vague. "And what IS your remedy?" "Your loyalty, to begin with. And then Miles's." She looked at me hard. "Do you think he--?" "Won't, if he has the chance, turn on me? Yes, I venture still to think it. At all events, I want to try. Get off with his sister as soon as possible and leave me with him alone." I was amazed, myself, at the spirit I had still in reserve, and therefore perhaps a trifle the more disconcerted at the way in which, in spite of this fine example of it, she hesitated. "There's one thing, of course," I went on: "they mustn't, before she goes, see each other for three seconds." Then it came over me that, in spite of Flora's presumable sequestration from the instant of her return from the pool, it might already be too late. "Do you mean," I anxiously asked, "that they HAVE met?" At this she quite flushed. "Ah, miss, I'm not such a fool as that! If I've been obliged to leave her three or four times, it has been each time with one of the maids, and at present, though she's alone, she's locked in safe. And yet--and yet!" There were too many things. "And yet what?" "Well, are you so sure of the little gentleman?" "I'm not sure of anything but YOU. But I have, since last evening, a new hope. I think he wants to give me an opening. I do believe that--poor little exquisite wretch!--he wants to speak. Last evening, in the firelight and the silence, he sat with me for two hours as if it were just coming." Mrs. Grose looked hard, through the window, at the gray, gathering day. "And did it come?" "No, though I waited and waited, I confess it didn't, and it was without a breach of the silence or so much as a faint allusion to his


stops, like we’re floating outside time and space. I fumble my phone out and flip through my pictures. Aside from a handful of targeted ads for murder mystery TV shows I wanted to remember to watch, there isn’t much to get through before I make it to shots of my last few projects. A mug, two different vases, another bowl that doesn’t really look butt-like at all. Or hardly, anyway. I pass him my phone. He studies it, his tongue tracing over his bottom lip as he slowly flips through the pictures. We’ve done at least one full rotation on the Ferris wheel by the time he reaches the last one and starts flipping back the other way, pausing on each, zooming in to see the details of the glazes. “This one.” He’s staring at the smaller of the vases, streaked with shades of green, blue, purple, and brown, a horizon of earthy colors. My heart squeezes. “That one’s called Hank.” He looks up, face open, with the expression that used to make me think of quicksand, a face that could pull you in and never let you go. “You named it?” he says. “After my dad?” “Isn’t that humiliating?” I try to pull my phone away. He doesn’t let go. “Why would it be humiliating?” “Because I’m not Michelangelo,” I say. “My vases don’t need names.” He holds the phone up. “This one needs a fucking name, and that name is Hank.” I reach for it again, but he yanks it out of reach, goes back to staring at the screen, creases rising from the insides of his brows. Quietly, he says, “It looks like him.” “You don’t have to say that, Wyn,” I reply. “It’s a vase, by an amateur.” “It looks like Montana,” he says. “The colors are exactly right.” “Or maybe you’re just really high,” I say. “I am definitely really high,” he says. “But I’m also right.” Our eyes snag, warmth gathering at my core. I hold my hand out. He sets my phone in it. “Did you show this to my mom?” he asks. I shake my head. “I was thinking about giving it to her.” “Let me buy it,” he says. I laugh. “What? Definitely not.” “Why not?” “Because it’s not worth anything,” I say. “It is to me,” he says. “Then you can pay for shipping,” I say. “It will be from both of us.” “Okay. I’ll pay for shipping.” After a pause, he says, “How’d you get into it?” “Ceramics?” He nods. I let out a breath. “It was about a week after we broke up. I was walking home from a shift, and I was a couple blocks from ou—my apartment.” I correct myself at the last second, but my face flames anyway. I hadn’t wanted to go home that day. I’d scrubbed in on another rough surgery. The patient pulled through, but I’d felt sick ever since. All I wanted was to be wrapped up in Wyn’s arms, and I knew if I walked into our apartment, there’d be shadows of


hard over his mouth from behind, muffling his scream. The hand over the boy's mouth was snow-white, and he smelled alcohol. The prim man in the tuxedo calmly produced a very small revolver, which he aimed directly at the boy's forehead. The altar boy felt his groin grow hot and realized he had wet himself. "Listen carefully," the tuxedoed man whispered. "You will exit this church silently, and you will run. You will not stop. Is that clear?" The boy nodded as best he could with the hand over his mouth. "If you call the police..." The tuxedoed man pressed the gun to his skin. "I will find you." The next thing the boy knew, he was sprinting across the outside courtyard with no plans of stopping until his legs gave out. 241 CHAPTER 86 Like a ghost, Silas drifted silently behind his target. Sophie Neveu sensed him too late. Before she could turn, Silas pressed the gun barrel into her spine and wrapped a powerful arm across her chest, pulling her back against his hulking body. She yelled in surprise. Teabing and Langdon both turned now, their expressions astonished and fearful. "What...?" Teabing choked out. "What did you do to Rmy!" "Your only concern," Silas said calmly, "is that I leave here with the keystone." This recovery mission, as Rmy had described it, was to be clean and simple: Enter the church, take the keystone, and walk out; no killing, no struggle. Holding Sophie firm, Silas dropped his hand from her chest, down to her waist, slipping it inside her deep sweater pockets, searching. He could smell the soft fragrance of her hair through his own alcohol-laced breath. "Where is it?" he whispered. The keystone was in her sweater pocket earlier. So where is it now? "It's over here," Langdon's deep voice resonated from across the room. Silas turned to see Langdon holding the black cryptex before him, waving it back and forth like a matador tempting a dumb animal. "Set it down," Silas demanded. "Let Sophie and Leigh leave the church," Langdon replied. "You and I can settle this." Silas pushed Sophie away from him and aimed the gun at Langdon, moving toward him. "Not a step closer," Langdon said. "Not until they leave the building." "You are in no position to make demands." "I disagree." Langdon raised the cryptex high over his head. "I will not hesitate to smash this on the floor and break the vial inside." Although Silas sneered outwardly at the threat, he felt a flash of fear. This was unexpected. He aimed the gun at Langdon's head and kept his voice as steady as his hand. "You would never break the keystone. You want to find the Grail as much as I do." "You're wrong. You want it much more. You've proven you're willing to kill for it." Forty feet away, peering out from the annex pews near the archway, Rmy Legaludec felt a rising alarm. The maneuver had not gone as planned, and even from here, he could see Silas was uncertain how to


wind, and they shall gather the captivity of the sand.' " "A very moving quotation," the Duke said. "Turn your crew over to a lieutenant. Have him give a short drill on water discipline, then bed the men down for the night in the barracks adjoining the field. Field personnel will direct them. And don't forget the men for Hawat." "Three hundred of the best, Sire." He took up his spacebag. "Where shall I report to you when I've completed my chores?" "I've taken over a council room topside here. We'll hold staff there. I want to arrange a new planetary dispersal order with armored squads going out first." Halleck stopped in the act of turning away, caught Leto's eye. "Are you anticipating that kind of trouble, Sire? I thought there was a Judge of the Change here." "Both open battle and secret," the Duke said. "There'll be blood aplenty spilled here before we're through." " 'And the water which thou takest out of the river shall become blood upon the dry land,' " Halleck quoted. The Duke sighed. "Hurry back, Gurney." "Very good, m'Lord." The whipscar rippled to his grin. " 'Behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go I forth to my work.' " He turned, strode to the center of the room, paused to relay his orders, hurried on through the men. Leto shook his head at the retreating back. Halleck was a continual amazement--a head full of songs, quotations, and flowery phrases . . . and the heart of an assassin when it came to dealing with the Harkonnens. Presently, Leto took a leisurely diagonal course across to the lift, acknowledging salutes with a casual hand wave. He recognized a propaganda corpsman, stopped to give him a message that could be relayed to the men through channels: those who had brought their women would want to know the women were safe and where they could be found. The others would wish to know that the population here appeared to boast more women than men. The Duke slapped the propaganda man on the arm, a signal that the message had top priority to be put out immediately, then continued across the room. He nodded to the men, smiled, traded pleasantries with a subaltern. Command must always look confident, he thought. All that faith riding on your shoulders while you sit in the critical seat and never show it. He breathed a sigh of relief when the lift swallowed him and he could turn and face the impersonal doors. They have tried to take the life of my son! =========================== Over the exit of the Arrakeen landing field, crudely carved as though with a poor instrument, there was an inscription that Muad'Dib was to repeat many times. He saw it that first night on Arrakis, having been brought to the ducal command post to participate in his father's first full staff conference. The words of the inscription were a plea to those leaving Arrakis, but they fell with dark import on the eyes of a boy who had just


a moment, to gather my courage. Rue has given specific instructions on how to reach the best spying place near the lake from this point. Remember, I tell myself. You’re the hunter now, not them. I get a firmer grasp on my bow and go on. I make it to the copse Rue has told me about and again have to 212 admire her cleverness. It’s right at the edge of the wood, but the bushy foliage is so thick down low I can easily observe the Career camp without being spotted. Between us lies the flat expanse where the Games began. There are four tributes. The boy from District 1, Cato and the girl from District 2, and a scrawny, ashen-skinned boy who must be from District 3. He made almost no impression on me at all during our time in the Capitol. I can remember almost nothing about him, not his costume, not his training score, not his interview. Even now, as he sits there fiddling with some kind of plastic box, he’s easily ignored in the pres- ence of his large and domineering companions. But he must be of some value or they wouldn’t have bothered to let him live. Still, seeing him only adds to my sense of unease over why the Careers would possibly leave him as a guard, why they have allowed him to live at all. All four tributes seem to still be recovering from the track- er jacker attack. Even from here, I can see the large swollen lumps on their bodies. They must not have had the sense to remove the stingers, or if they did, not known about the leaves that healed them. Apparently, whatever medicines they found in the Cornucopia have been ineffective. The Cornucopia sits in its original position, but its insides have been picked clean. Most of the supplies, held in crates, burlap sacks, and plastic bins, are piled neatly in a pyramid in what seems a questionable distance from the camp. Others are sprinkled around the perimeter of the pyramid, almost mimicking the layout of supplies around the Cornucopia at the 213 onset of the Games. A canopy of netting that, aside from dis- couraging birds, seems to be useless shelters the pyramid it- self. The whole setup is completely perplexing. The distance, the netting, and the presence of the boy from District 3. One thing’s for sure, destroying those supplies is not going to be as simple as it looks. Some other factor is at play here, and I’d better stay put until I figure out what it is. My guess is the py- ramid is booby-trapped in some manner. I think of concealed pits, descending nets, a thread that when broken sends a poi- sonous dart into your heart. Really, the possibilities are end- less. While I am mulling over my options, I hear Cato shout out. He’s pointing up to the woods, far beyond me, and without turning I know that Rue must have set the first campfire. We’d made sure to gather enough green


out. When the ghost of Professor Binns told them to put down their quills and roll up their parchment, Harry couldn't help cheering with the rest. "That was far easier than I thought it would be," said Hermione as they joined the crowds flocking out onto the sunny grounds. "I needn't have learned about the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct or the uprising of Elfric the Eager." Hermione always liked to go through their exam papers afterward, but Ron said this made him feel ill, so they wandered down to the lake and flopped under a tree. The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were tickling the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows. "No more studying," Ron sighed happily, stretching out on the grass. "You could look more cheerful, Harry, we've got a week before we find out how badly we've done, there's no need to worry yet." Harry was rubbing his forehead. "I wish I knew what this means!" he burst out angrily. "My scar keeps hurting -- it's happened before, but never as often as this." "Go to Madam Pomfrey," Hermione suggested. "I'm not ill," said Harry. "I think it's a warning...it means danger's coming..." Ron couldn't get worked up, it was too hot. "Harry, relax, Hermione's right, the Stone's safe as long as Dumbledore's around. Anyway, we've never had any proof Snape found out how to get past Fluffy. He nearly had his leg ripped off once, he's not going to try it again in a hurry. And Neville will play Quidditch for England before Hagrid lets Dumbledore down." Harry nodded, but he couldn't shake off a lurking feeling that there was something he'd forgotten to do, something important. When he tried to explain this, Hermione said, "That's just the exams. I woke up last night and was halfway through my Transfiguration notes before I remembered we'd done that one." Harry was quite sure the unsettled feeling didn't have anything to do with work, though. He watched an owl flutter toward the school across the bright blue sky, a note clamped in its mouth. Hagrid was the only one who ever sent him letters. Hagrid would never betray Dumbledore. Hagrid would never tell anyone how to get past Fluffy...never...but -- Harry suddenly jumped to his feet. "Where're you going?" said Ron sleepily. "I've just thought of something," said Harry. He had turned white. "We've got to go and see Hagrid, now." "Why?" panted Hermione, hurrying to keep up. "Don't you think it's a bit odd," said Harry, scrambling up the grassy slope, "that what Hagrid wants more than anything else is a dragon, and a stranger turns up who just happens to have an egg in his pocket? How many people wander around with dragon eggs if it's against wizard law? Lucky they found Hagrid, don't you think? Why didn't I see it before?" "What are you talking about?" said Ron, but Harry, sprinting across the grounds toward the forest, didn't answer. Hagrid was sitting in an armchair outside his house; his trousers and


a coma. But she died two days later.” Sloane fingered the woven strap of her wedge-heeled sandals in her hand. “After experiencing what it’s like to lose someone you love, I find purpose in being able to prevent that from happening to someone else. When I can.” She also craves the control and the feeling of belonging in society she gets from being a physician when she never had any of those things growing up. But that’s probably better kept to herself for now. “I’m sorry about your mom.” Ethan grabbed her hand as a ferry pulled into the dock at the end of the beach. It was the first time they touched, but there was something familiar about the feeling of her hand in his. “Thanks. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone fifteen years.” She turned, meeting his denim blue-eyed gaze. “On a lighter note,” she said, changing the subject, “your homicide partner seems…nice.” She bit her lower lip as a smile pulled at her mouth. Ethan laughed, and a dimple formed on one side of his face as he stuck his spoon into what was left of his shaved ice. “Oh, you noticed his super bubbly personality?” He shook his head. “Oh, man. Did you know when I got up to the fourth floor that day to interview our shooting victim, he had locked himself in the elevator?” Now it was her turn to laugh. “Wait, how does that even happen? Aren’t there buttons you can push to get out?” “He took a patient transport elevator, thinking it would be quicker. But he didn’t realize you needed a hospital keycard to get to another floor. He pushed so many buttons at once in his impatience to get upstairs that it locked up. It took a hospital maintenance worker over a half hour to get him out. So, I ended up interviewing our victim alone. “I hope I never get like that,” he added when Sloane’s laughter faded. “Bruce is just waiting to retire. Trying to squeeze the last of his full paychecks before he goes out on his pension. It’s a job to him, nothing more.” Sloane thought of seeing Ethan talking with victims’ families in the ER. He seemed to genuinely care for them. A bald eagle dove into the water straight out from where they stood. After a splash it emerged with a small salmon wriggling between its talons. “But it’s not for you.” He shrugged. “It’s what gets me up in the mornings. My mission.” He took the last bite from his now melted shaved ice. “Homicide victims don’t have a voice. It’s my job to speak for them.” Sloane admired the square lines of his jaw as Ethan gazed at the city lights illuminating the darkening skyline across the Sound. It was the first time she’d met someone who seemed to match her ambition. And Ethan’s wasn’t selfish-driven; he was purpose-driven. There was an intensity in his voice when he talked about his work. He was different. And she liked it. Chapter 12 The flight