day. As soon as Wyn removes his arm from around my shoulders, I scooch my chair sideways under the pretense of grabbing the open prosecco to refill my glass. “To Grocery Gladiators,” Kimmy joins in. To drinking your body weight in wine and hoping you wake up and realize this was all a dream, I think. Across the table, Cleo’s looking at me thoughtfully, a little divot between her delicate brows. I force a smile and lift my flute in her direction. “To that one guy at Murder, She Read who still gives us the student discount.” Cleo’s mouth quirks faintly, like she’s not fully convinced by my display, but she clinks her glass—water; Cleo gave up alcohol years ago because it irritated her stomach—to mine anyway. “May we always be so lucky, and so youthful.” “Shoot, bottle’s empty,” Sabrina says from the end of the table. I lurch to my feet before Wyn can volunteer. He starts to rise anyway, and I shove him back down in his chair. “You stay here and relax, honey,” I say, acidly sweet. “I’ll get the wine.” “Thanks, Har,” Sab calls as I beeline for the back doors. “Door should be open!” Another facet of Mr. Armas’s upgrade to the cottage: he had the old stone cellar converted to a top-of-the-line vault for his immense and immensely expensive wine collection. It’s password protected and everything, though Sabrina always leaves it open so any of us can run down and grab something. Too quickly I find a bottle whose label matches the one on the table. I’m guessing that means it’s not a thousand-dollar prosecco, but with Sabrina, you never know. She might’ve pulled out all the stops for us, regardless of whether our unrefined palates are able to appreciate said pulled stops. It makes my heart twinge, thinking of this perfect final week she’s planned for us and my utter inability to enjoy it. One day. Let them have one perfect day, and tomorrow we’ll come clean. By the time I get back upstairs, everyone’s laughing, the very picture of a laid-back best friends’ trip. Wyn’s gaze snags on mine, and his dimpled smile doesn’t fall or even falter. He’s fine! No big deal that his ex-fiancée’s here, or that we’re essentially staying in a honeymoon suite with an extreme every-surface-here-is- specifically-designed-with-fucking-in-mind vibe! No discernible reaction to my presence. This time, the zing that goes down my spine feels less like a zipper undone and more like angry flame on a streak of gasoline. It’s not fair that he’s fine. It’s not fair that being here with me doesn’t feel like having his heart roasted on a spit, like it does for me. You can do this, Harriet. If he’s fine, you can be too. For your friends. I set the wine bottle on the table as I round it and come to stand behind Wyn, sliding my hands down his shoulders to his chest, until my face is beside his and I can feel his heartbeat in my hands, even and unbothered. Not good


that at the end of two years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the university. When I had arrived at this point and had become as well acquainted with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as depended on the lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my residence there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident happened that protracted my stay. One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of natural philosophy which relate to physiology. Unless I had been animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this study would have been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this darkness a sudden light broke in upon me --a light so brilliant and wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a secret. Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more certainly


admire his taste," I remarked, "if it is indeed a fact that he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as this Miss Turner." "Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly, insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a registry office? No one knows a word of the matter, but you can imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth. It was with his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that point. It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious trouble and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them. I think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all that he has suffered." "But if he is innocent, who has done it?" "Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with someone at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would return. The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry 'Cooee!' before he knew that his son had returned. Those are the crucial points upon which the case depends. And now let us talk about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all minor matters until to-morrow." There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke bright and cloudless. At nine o'clock Lestrade called for us with the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe Pool. "There is serious news this morning," Lestrade observed. "It is said that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is despaired of." "An elderly man, I presume?" said Holmes. "About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This business has had a


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

Why was it that when he thought of Cranly he could never raise before his mind the entire image of his body but only the image of the head and face? Even now against the grey curtain of the morning he saw it before him like the phantom of a dream, the face of a severed head or death-mask, crowned on the brows by its stiff black upright hair as by an iron crown. It was a priest-like face, priest-like in its palor, in the wide winged nose, in the shadowings below the eyes and along the jaws, priest-like in the lips that were long and bloodless and faintly smiling; and Stephen, remembering swiftly how he had told Cranly of all the tumults and unrest and longings in his soul, day after day and night by night, only to be answered by his friend's listening silence, would have told himself that it was the face of a guilty priest who heard confessions of those whom he had not power to absolve but that he felt again in memory the gaze of its dark womanish eyes. Through this image he had a glimpse of a strange dark cavern of speculation but at once turned away from it, feeling that it was not yet the hour to enter it. But the nightshade of his friend's listlessness seemed to be diffusing in the air around him a tenuous and deadly exhalation and He found himself glancing from one casual word to another on his right or left in stolid wonder that they had been so silently emptied of instantaneous sense until every mean shop legend bound his mind like the words of a spell and his soul shrivelled up sighing with age as he walked on in a lane among heaps of dead language. His own consciousness of language was ebbing from his brain and trickling into the very words themselves which set to band and disband themselves in wayward rhythms: The ivy whines upon the wall, And whines and twines upon the wall, The yellow ivy upon the wall, Ivy, ivy up the wall. Did anyone ever hear such drivel? Lord Almighty! Who ever heard of ivy whining on a wall? Yellow ivy; that was all right. Yellow ivory also. And what about ivory ivy? The word now shone in his brain, clearer and brighter than any ivory sawn from the mottled tusks of elephants. IVORY, IVOIRE, AVORIO, EBUR. One of the first examples that he had learnt in Latin had run: INDIA MITTIT EBUR; and he recalled the shrewd northern face of the rector who had taught him to construe the Metamorphoses of Ovid in a courtly English, made whimsical by the mention of porkers and potsherds and chines of bacon. He had learnt what little he knew of the laws of Latin verse from a ragged book written by a Portuguese priest. Contrahit orator, variant in carmine vates. The crises and victories and secessions in Roman history were handed on to him in the trite words IN TANTO DISCRIMINE and he had


get hurt." "What can he do more than he has? I'll tell him what's what. You let me carry the conch, Ralph. I'll show him the one thing he hasn't got." Piggy paused for a moment and peered round at the dim figures. The shape of the old assembly, trodden in the grass, listened to him. "I'm going to him with this conch in my hands. I'm going to hold it out. Look, I'm goin' to say, you're stronger than I am and you haven't got asthma. You can see, I'm goin' to say, and with both eyes. But I don't ask for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don't ask you to be a sport, I'll say, not because you're strong, but because what's right's right. Give me my glasses, I'm going to say--you got to!" Piggy ended, flushed and trembling. He pushed the conch quickly into Ralph's hands as though in a hurry to be rid of it and wiped the tears from his eyes. The green light was gentle about them and the conch lay at Ralph's feet, fragile and white. A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy's fingers now flashed on the delicate curve like a star. At last Ralph sat up straight and drew back his hair. "All right. I mean--you can try if you like. We'll go with you." "He'll be painted," said Sam, timidly. "You know how he'll be--" "--he won't think much of us--" "--if he gets waxy we've had it--" Ralph scowled at Sam. Dimly he remembered something Simon had said to him once, by the rocks. "Don't be silly," he said. And then he added quickly, "Let's go." He held out the conch to Piggy who flushed, this time with pride. "You must carry it." "When we're ready I'll carry it--" Piggy sought in his mind for words to convey his passionate willingness to carry the conch against all odds. "I don't mind. I'll be glad, Ralph, only I'll have to be led." Ralph put the conch back on the shining log. "We better eat and then get ready." They made their way to the devastated fruit trees. Piggy was helped to his food and found some by touch. While they ate, Ralph thought of the afternoon. "We'll be like we were. We'll wash--" Sam gulped down a mouthful and protested. "But we bathe every day!" Ralph looked at the filthy objects before him and sighed. "We ought to comb our hair. Only it's too long." "I've got both socks left in the shelter," said Eric, "so we could pull them over our heads like caps, sort of." "We could find some stuff," said Piggy, "and tie your hair back." "Like a girl!" "No. 'Course not." "Then we must go as we are," said Ralph, "and they won't be any better." Eric made a detaining gesture. "But they'll be painted! You know how it is." The others nodded. They understood only too well the liberation into savagery that the concealing paint brought. "Well, we won't be painted," said


and that it was given to another man; and no less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done any thing to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and I may perhaps have sometimes spoken my opinion _of_ him, and _to_ him, too freely. I can recall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort of men, and that he hates me.'' ``This is quite shocking! -- He deserves to be publicly disgraced.'' ``Some time or other he _will_ be -- but it shall not be by _me_. Till I can forget his father, I can never defy or expose _him_.'' Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed them. ``But what,'' said she after a pause, ``can have been his motive? -- what can have induced him to behave so cruelly?'' ``A thorough, determined dislike of me -- a dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father's uncommon attachment to me, irritated him I believe very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood -- the sort of preference which was often given me.'' ``I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this -- though I have never liked him, I had not thought so very ill of him -- I had supposed him to be despising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as this!'' After a few minutes reflection, however, she continued, ``I _do_ remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of his resentments, of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition must be dreadful.'' ``I will not trust myself on the subject,'' replied Wickham, ``_I_ can hardly be just to him.'' Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, ``To treat in such a manner, the godson, the friend, the favourite of his father!'' -- She could have added, ``A young man too, like _you_, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiable'' -- but she contented herself with ``And one, too, who had probably been his own companion from childhood, connected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner!'' ``We were born in the same parish, within the same park, the greatest part of our youth was passed together; inmates of the same house, sharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. _My_ father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Philips, appears to do so much credit to -- but he gave up every thing to be of use to the late Mr. Darcy, and devoted all his time to the care of the Pemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most intimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged. himself to be under the greatest


fighting terrorists. Well, Afghanistan and Syria just so happened to be the places where we were fighting terrorists, they told him. If we pulled out too fast, extremist operatives would be able to carry out their plots with impunity, and Trump would get blamed for it by the public. The national security ramifications didn’t matter to the president, but the political implications mattered to him a great deal. I could tell that Trump’s careless handling of military decisions weighed on General Kelly. Amid the internal debates, he made a speech in New York City about honoring U.S. service members. As Kelly spoke, I was sitting close to the stage, reviewing his written remarks, when I realized he was going off script. He brought up the death of his son Robert, who had been killed several years earlier by a land mine in Afghanistan. The room went quiet. When a parent loses a son or daughter in combat, Kelly explained, they are visited in person by a U.S. military casualty officer who delivers the news. In November 2010, there was a knock on John Kelly’s door from his close friend, Joseph Dunford, who was then the number two of the Marine Corps. That morning General Dunford had volunteered to personally break the terrible news to Kelly and his wife Karen. As soon as they saw their friend’s face at the door, they knew that it meant their lives would be forever changed. “It’s a kind of grief that is unbearable to the mind and antagonizing to the heart,” Kelly recounted. He had been on the other side of the doorway many times in the past, comforting families. In those moments, grieving mothers and fathers asked him whether the sacrifice was worth it—“worth the life of someone they brought into the world, raised and nurtured, and looked forward to seeing grow up… meeting husbands and wives… having kids of their own,” he said. Kelly had felt ill-equipped to answer such a heartbreaking question without having experienced it himself. “I learned I was right,” he said. Until he received the knock on the door himself, he had no idea how deep the grief could go. The day Kelly buried his own son at Arlington National Cemetery, he described the feeling of emptiness in his heart. He arrived at an answer to the question other parents asked themselves in mourning. Was it worth it? “Robert volunteered to risk everything—including himself—to serve our country,” Kelly explained. “So was it worth his life? That wasn’t up to me. My son answered the question for me.” When it came time to deliver options on Afghanistan, Kelly was worried that Trump was unprepared. The thick briefing memo that had landed on the president’s desk was beyond the man’s comprehension or reading ability, truly. I was asked to boil the fifty- or sixty-page document down to a page or two—in the president’s voice. So overnight in my office, I stayed awake writing a Wikipedia-style 101 about why America was in Afghanistan and what was at stake, all in the Trumpian vernacular.


Mercy’s finger, but the web above the courtyard still hung thick with melancholy. It took them the better part of an hour to pull it down with a broom they borrowed from the janitor’s closet, and transfer it into the waters of the basin, where they watched it dissolve. They were all weeping uncontrollably by the time they were rid of the damned thing. They had left the body for last. Eitan Harel lay facedown in the mud and melting snow. Turner retrieved his Dodge and waited for them by the York Street entrance. The tempest Dawes had brewed was still hot enough to manage the cameras, but there was nothing magical or arcane about the act of putting a corpse in a trunk. It was a cold act, ugly in its transformation: the body made cargo. Mercy hung back, clutching her salt sword, as if it might ward against the truth of what they’d done. “You said you weren’t going to help clean up our messes,” Alex noted when the work was finished, and they piled into the Dodge, damp and weary, dawn still hours away. Turner only shrugged and gunned the engine. “This is my mess too.” The door to Il Bastone sprang open before they reached the top of the steps. The lights were on, the old radiators pumping heat through every room. In the kitchen, Dawes had lined up thermoses of leftover avgolemono that they drank in greedy swallows. There were plates of tomato sandwiches and hot tea spiked with brandy. They stood at the kitchen counter, eating in silence, too tired and battered to talk. Darlington couldn’t help but think of how rarely the dining room at Il Bastone had been used, of how few meals he’d shared with Michelle Alameddine or Dean Sandow, of how few conversations he’d had with Detective Abel Turner. They’d let Lethe atrophy, let its secrecy and ritual make them strangers to each other. Or maybe that was the way Lethe had always been intended to function, toothless and powerless, bumbling along with a sense of their own importance, a sop to the university while the societies did as they pleased. At last, Mercy set her mug down and said, “Is it done?” The girl was brave, but tonight had been too much for her. The magic, the spells, the strange objects had all been a kind of play. Now she had helped to kill a man, and the weight of that was no easy thing to carry, no matter the justification. Darlington knew that well. Alex had warned them that there would be a moment when she needed their defense, when she would ask them to fight for her without question. They’d done it—because they were desperate, and because for all their noble protestations, none of them wanted to suffer for eternity. Mercy had been eager to go along with the plan, to wear her salt armor, to face a very human monster. Maybe she regretted that now. But this was not the time to be gentle. “It’s not over,” he


painkillers that they should chuck them all, that pot was healthier. It seemed part of his being into meditation, breathing. He got the football team doing vinyasas. The pot talk never felt like a big deal. And even if it was more than talk: Every other kid on campus had a Ziploc of weed, or at least of oregano they’d been sold as weed. Ronan Murphy, that slick little kid from Bronxville, was the one everyone actually bought from, and he sold much more than pot. After Omar’s arrest, I certainly believed he was selling to students, if only because everyone else said so. I’d wondered in the years since why he would jeopardize his career that way—but then, why would he jeopardize his career by stalking a student? “I do think my mother would have lived longer,” Sheila Evans said, “were it not for the stress. She had deep vein thrombosis, and that’s not helped by worry. He was her first grandbaby. She used to get mad if I’d bathed him before she came over, she was so eager to do it.” She swallowed in a way that dimpled her chin; she was holding in so much it was a wonder she didn’t implode, turn to a tiny pebble of grief. “My mother left us in 2008,” she said. I took my laptop with me into bed. “My own sister fell out with all of us. She wasn’t sure of Omar’s innocence. We haven’t spoken in years. I started with a family,” she said. Her voice had started cracking, and she paused until she had control. “A healthy, functional family, and—you know, I ended with a shambles. It’s the ruins of a family.” The dosage of my antidepressant is such that I haven’t cried actual tears in a decade, but there are times when I want so badly to cry that I make all the noises of crying, press my fists into my eyes so I feel something similar. The absence of tears hurts more—or makes whatever hurts hurt more—than if I could just sob. In any case: That’s what I was doing, on my bed. There was a childish bitterness to it all that I only slowly identified beneath the sympathy: Sheila Evans, unlike my own mother, hadn’t abandoned her remaining child. I hated that I was thinking about myself rather than becoming a pure vessel to absorb Sheila’s grief, but the truth is that while anyone with a heart would have felt it break right then, my heart cracked along familiar fault lines. Since I shouldn’t be thinking about myself, I stuffed the recognition down into the subterranean, into the dank, loamy places where it might take root. Instead of working it all out, I went to sleep. #1: OMAR EVANS In the morning I couldn’t remember what I dreamed, except that it was troubling, that it was about water, that I dreamed about texting friends about the dream. I didn’t feel rested in the slightest. I knew, as the sun finally came through the blinds, that I couldn’t


bedroom each night to brood over it.     In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the will I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester's present residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.     I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope followed renewed effort; it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.     A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer approached; Diana tried to cheer me; she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment; and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him I could not resist him.     One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly-felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take It, almost certain that the long looked-for tidings were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.     St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me; words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlor; Diana was practicing her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said: "We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed." And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully-understood crisis in a patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs,


shoulders, her eyes flashing, the mus- cles of her neck and arms standing out preternaturally. I made up my mind for broken bones at least; but she only glared about her for an instant, and then rushed from the room. The master directed me to follow. I did, to her chamber door. She hindered me from going farther by securing it against me. As she never offered to descend to breakfast next morning, I went to ask whether she would have some carried up. "No!" she replied peremptorily. The same question was repeated at dinner and tea, and again on the morrow after, and received the same answer. Mr. Linton, on his part, spent his time in the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife's occupations. Isa- bella and he had had an hour's interview, during which he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper hor- ror for Heathcliff's advances; but he could make noth- ing of her evasive replies, and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily, adding, however, a sol- emn warning that if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of re- lationship between herself and him. CHAPTER XII. While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and almost always in tears, and her brother shut himself up among books that he never opened---wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague expectation that Catherine, repenting her con- duct, would come of her own accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation---and she fasted pertina- ciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet, I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body. I wasted no condolences on miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress; nor did I pay much attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady's name, since he might not hear her voice. I determined they should come about as they pleased for me; and though it was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint dawn of its progress, as I thought at first. Mrs. Linton on the third day unbarred her door, and having finished the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying. That I set down as a speech meant for Edgar's ears. I believed no such thing, so I kept it to myself, and brought her some tea and dry toast. She ate and drank eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and groaning. "Oh, I will die," she exclaimed, "since no one cares anything about me. I wish I had not taken that." Then a good while after I heard her murmur, "No, I'll not die--- he'd be glad---he does not love me at all---he


going to ask you to take a walk with me." I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just than, when Wemmick anticipated me. "I know your engagements," said he, "and I know you are out of sorts, Mr. Pip. But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a kindness. It ain't a long walk, and it's an early one. Say it might occupy you (including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. Couldn't you stretch a point and manage it?" He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little to do for him. I said I could manage it - would manage it - and he was so very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. At his particular request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half-past eight on Monday morning, and so we parted for the time. Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday morning, and was received by Wemmick himself: who struck me as looking tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two glasses of rum-and-milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty. When we had fortified ourselves with the rum-and-milk and biscuits, and were going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put it over his shoulder. "Why, we are not going fishing!" said I. "No," returned Wemmick, "but I like to walk with one." I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We went towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said suddenly: "Halloa! Here's a church!" There was nothing very surprising in that; but a gain, I was rather surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea: "Let's go in!" We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked all round. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, and getting something out of paper there. "Halloa!" said he. "Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put 'em on!" As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side door, escorting a lady. "Halloa!" said Wemmick. "Here's Miss Skiffins! Let's have a wedding." That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves, a pair of white. The Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for the altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it necessary to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to


coincidence. He reminded himself again to stop making conjectures and focus on the task at hand. Namely, ridding himself of this tedious fop and getting back to work. “Calloway!” Forester’s clear voice echoed through the entry hall, preceding him by only a moment. He came to rest at Simon’s side, looking out to the doorstep, where the strange man still stood, seeing as Simon hadn’t bothered to let him in. “Who’s this well-dressed specimen?” While the stranger stood a little taller, Simon forced back a laugh. Forester spent enough time in Society to recognize a dandy when he saw one, and Simon knew for a fact that Forester cared little for them. There was more to a man than the clothes on his back, and Forester had been known to subtly knock vain men down a peg or two without them realizing he had done it. That tongue of his was used for more than spinning falsehoods. “Mr. Jonathan Granger, at your service,” the man said, offering a bow. Then he frowned. “Did you—did you say Calloway?” His eyes flitted about the entryway again, this time with a different gleam in his gaze. Envy. Desire. Greed. “I had no idea—you’re Calloway?” Simon had just about reached his limit, even with Forester here. “There’s usually a Lord before that, but yes.” Forester coughed, though it sounded suspiciously like a laugh. He knew too well how little Simon cared for titles and prestige. If Simon could have gone his whole life without using his birthright to intimidate someone or get his way, he would have died happy. But England put a good deal of stock in the power of nobility, and his name had saved a business on more than one occasion when Simon had first taken over after the death of his father. “This man has lost his governess,” Simon said to his friend. Granger’s eyes went wide, a bit of color popping up in his face. “Not my . . . that is to say . . .” “I understand,” Forester said with mock solemnity. “I too would be lost without my governess. How would I know how to be a proper member of Society if I did not have her there to show me the way? How unfortunate for you, Mr. Granger, to lose such a valuable asset to your life. Might we be of assistance?” He must have pushed the jest just a little too far, because Granger shifted his stance, growing more angry than embarrassed. “And you are?” If he were being proper, Simon would have made the introductions, but he simply stood there at the door and let Forester take the lead, knowing it would be far more entertaining if he did. Anyone who dressed as carefully as Granger would be well enough acquainted with London Society to know exactly who stood before him. Forester offered a little bow. “Mr. Nick Forester,” he said as pompously as he could. “I imagine you’ve heard of me.” Simon might have been offended that Granger’s reaction this time around was far


the thing is, it never works. He probably asked his mother a dozen times not to take a dangerous assignment, and she never listened, because she went where the story was. That was her priority, not her son’s worry. He isn’t sure why he expected any different from Nick. * * * After finding the photographs on Monday morning, the rest of the week is quiet. It isn’t even strained, because Andy won’t let it be, and Nick meets him halfway. Andy’s heart is working double time, but he thinks he’s doing a good job of hiding it. On Friday, Andy lingers after the usual morning meeting. He watches as the editors file out of the room, the last one shutting the door behind him. He’s been meaning to ask his father about expanding the Sunday supplement. Right now it’s a Frankenstein’s monster of syndicated columns, recipes, television listings, and a seemingly random assortment of features. Andy wants to know what it would cost to turn it into a proper magazine—a magazine with the Chronicle’s editorial perspective and the cachet to be financed by something other than ads for department store underwear sales. What he’s not comfortable saying—what he’s not even sure he’s comfortable thinking—is that the Chronicle’s editorial perspective is something he can change. If—God help them all—he’s this paper’s publisher, then that’s very much in his job description. And he’s not sure he can separate his own perspective from the paper’s. He’s not sure he should. Right now Andy’s perspective is shaped by too many things to count: the values he had passed on to him by his parents, the things he saw in Washington, the fact that Nick’s been shutting the curtains before so much as cooking dinner in case someone across the street has a telephoto lens. For now, though, he’s only asking about budgets. But his father speaks first. “Have you decided whether to put your mother’s apartment on the market?” Andy had offhandedly mentioned this plan last week, but the idea of actually getting rid of all his mother’s things is daunting both physically and emotionally. And he’s a little hesitant to sell the apartment without Nick having said— Well, Andy isn’t sure what he’s expecting Nick to say. He isn’t expecting an engraved invitation to spend the rest of their lives together, but he needs to know that Nick actually wants him to stay. That isn’t quite accurate—it’s pretty obvious that Nick does want him there, but deciding to settle down with someone can’t possibly be as simple as Andy not moving out. He feels like there ought to be a conversation, some kind of confirmation that what they’re doing actually is settling down. He’s had this thought so many times that the phrase settling down has ceased to carry any meaning. “Not yet,” Andy says. “I wondered if you needed help finding a new place to live.” “I don’t,” Andy says, feeling churlish for not offering any more information than that. His father is trying. His father takes off his glasses and polishes them.


hardwood floor. The shelves waiting to be filled with my books. “And another second to marvel at the splendor of my future office.” Jack shakes his head and smiles, almost wistful. “Sorry, Elsie. It won’t be your office.” The thought is bloodcurdling. “You’re not sorry. And you don’t know the future. I’m outpunning you, Jack. The teaching demonstration—it went really well. And I didn’t even steal Volkov’s mother’s milk. I have a chance.” He studies me for a long moment, silent. Then asks again, “Will you be all right?” “Yeah, I just need a second to—” “No, I mean . . . will you be okay? If you lose Greg—because I will tell him about you. And if you don’t get this job. Will you still be . . . fine?” I can’t immediately decipher his tone. Then I do and burst out laughing. He’s worried. He seems genuinely worried about my well-being and state of mind. Which is surprisingly nice and maybe a tad amusing, until I realize why: he’s convinced that I’ll fail. And that makes me feel . . . something. A mix of anger and fear and something else, reminiscent of the carefree joy that comes from dancing on the graves of enemies who dared to underestimate me. “What will you do if I get this job, Jack?” I lean forward. My face is a couple of inches from his. “Pull out your hair? Ask for the manager? Leave the department and become a Zumba instructor?” He doesn’t pull back. Instead he watches me even more intently, like I’m a critter in the palm of his hand, and I contemplate the possible scenarios, the same ones that must be filling his head, too. Jack Smith-Turner and Elsie Hannaway. Esteemed colleagues. Office neighbors. Academic foes. Oh, I could make his life so hard. Spread the rumor that he wraps his entire mouth around the water fountain. Put a nest of killer cicadas in the lowest drawer of his desk. Push him outside bare-eyed during an eclipse. The sky’s the limit, and I want to see him suffer. I want to see him lose. I want to see him sweat it. I want to see him cry, because he lost and I won. But perhaps I won’t. Because: “If you get the job . . .” He leans close. That slice of eye burns bright blue, and his mouth curves. “I’ll make do.” “While crying yourself to sleep because I’m not George?” “Not everyone wants you to be someone else, Elsie.” He’s wrong about that, but I can smell his skin. It’s good in a way that’s primeval. Almost evolutionary. I hate it. “And I definitely wouldn’t want you to be George.” “And why is that?” He presses his lips together. He’s even closer now. Surprisingly earnest. “It would be a waste.” “A waste of what?” “Of you.” My heart skips. Stumbles. Restarts with a gallop. What does he even— “Jack! Dr. Hannaway—here you are. My meeting just ended.” Volkov appears in the doorframe. “I’m so sorry for running late.”


time some people knew they've got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us." Ralph could no longer ignore his speech. The blood was hot in his cheeks. "You haven't got the conch," he said. "Sit down." Jack's face went so white that the freckles showed as clear, brown flecks. He licked his lips and remained standing. "This is a hunter's job." The rest of the boys watched intently. Piggy, finding himself uncomfortably embroiled, slid the conch to Ralph's knees and sat down. The silence grew oppressive and Piggy held his breath. "This is more than a hunter's job," said Ralph at last, "because you can't track the beast. And don't you want to be rescued?" He turned to the assembly. "Don't you all want to be rescued?" He looked back at Jack. "I said before, the fire is the main thing. Now the fire must be out--" The old exasperation saved him and gave him the energy to attack. "Hasn't anyone got any sense? We've got to relight that fire. You never thought of that, Jack, did you? Or don't any of you want to be rescued?" Yes, they wanted to be rescued, there was no doubt about that; and with a violent swing to Ralph's side, the crisis passed. Piggy let out his breath with a gasp, reached for it again and failed. He lay against a log, his mouth gaping, blue shadows creeping round his lips. Nobody minded him. "Now think, Jack. Is there anywhere on the island you haven't been?" Unwillingly Jack answered. "There's only--but of course! You remember? The tail-end part, where the rocks are all piled up. I've been near there. The rock makes a sort of bridge. There's only one way up." "And the thing might live there." All the assembly talked at once. "Quite! All right. That's where we'll look. If the beast isn't there we'll go up the mountain and look; and light the fire." "Let's go." "We'll eat first. Then go." Ralph paused. "We'd better take spears." After they had eaten, Ralph and the biguns set out along the beach. They left Piggy propped up on the platform. This day promised, like the others, to be a sunbath under a blue dome. The beach stretched away before them in a gentle curve till perspective drew it into one with the forest; for the day was not advanced enough to be obscured by the shifting veils of mirage. Under Ralph's direction, they picked up a careful way along the palm terrace, rather than dare the hot sand down by the water. He let Jack lead the way; and Jack trod with theatrical caution though they could have seen an enemy twenty yards away. Ralph walked in the rear, thankful to have escaped responsibility for a time. Simon, walking in front of Ralph, felt a flicker of incredulity--a beast with claws that scratched, that sat on a mountain-top, that left no tracks and yet was not fast enough to catch Samneric. However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before


if it's watery like that, it'll turn to rain." The telephone rang and Atticus left the breakfast table to answer it. "That was Eula May," he said when he returned. "I quote- 'As it has not snowed in Maycomb County since 1885, there will be no school today.'" Eula May was Maycomb's leading telephone operator. She was entrusted with issuing public announcements, wedding invitations, setting off the fire siren, and giving first-aid instructions when Dr. Reynolds was away. When Atticus finally called us to order and bade us look at our plates instead of out the windows, Jem asked, "How do you make a snowman?" "I haven't the slightest idea," said Atticus. "I don't want you all to be disappointed, but I doubt if there'll be enough snow for a snowball, even." Calpurnia came in and said she thought it was sticking. When we ran to the back yard, it was covered with a feeble layer of soggy snow. "We shouldn't walk about in it," said Jem. "Look, every step you take's wasting it." I looked back at my mushy footprints. Jem said if we waited until it snowed some more we could scrape it all up for a snowman. I stuck out my tongue and caught a fat flake. It burned. "Jem, it's hot!" "No it ain't, it's so cold it burns. Now don't eat it, Scout, you're wasting it. Let it come down." "But I want to walk in it." "I know what, we can go walk over at Miss Maudie's." Jem hopped across the front yard. I followed in his tracks. When we were on the sidewalk in front of Miss Maudie's, Mr. Avery accosted us. He had a pink face and a big stomach below his belt. "See what you've done?" he said. "Hasn't snowed in Maycomb since Appomattox. It's bad children like you makes the seasons change." I wondered if Mr. Avery knew how hopefully we had watched last summer for him to repeat his performance, and reflected that if this was our reward, there was something to say for sin. I did not wonder where Mr. Avery gathered his meteorological statistics: they came straight from the Rosetta Stone. "Jem Finch, you Jem Finch!" "Miss Maudie's callin' you, Jem." "You all stay in the middle of the yard. There's some thrift buried under the snow near the porch. Don't step on it!" "Yessum!" called Jem. "It's beautiful, ain't it, Miss Maudie?" "Beautiful my hind foot! If it freezes tonight it'll carry off all my azaleas!" Miss Maudie's old sunhat glistened with snow crystals. She was bending over some small bushes, wrapping them in burlap bags. Jem asked her what she was doing that for. "Keep 'em warm," she said. "How can flowers keep warm? They don't circulate." "I cannot answer that question, Jem Finch. All I know is if it freezes tonight these plants'll freeze, so you cover 'em up. Is that clear?" "Yessum. Miss Maudie?" "What, sir?" "Could Scout and me borrow some of your snow?" "Heavens alive, take it all! There's an old peach basket


the occasional shift at Odile’s café, although Malia cheerily took on most of the work while Florence relaxed on the sofa, dozing or listening to Natalie repeat that she was better off without a fiancé. Apparently, Brandon had called round again to beg her to accept his pathetic apologies, but she would never have him back as long as she lived. She had other fish to fry. Josie spent a lot of time in the cemetery talking to Harry; it was cool there and afterwards she’d sit under the willow tree, thinking of the good times. Occasionally she’d meet Fergal and he’d persuade her to have a drink in the beer garden of The Sun. Minnie was enjoying life despite the heatwave. She loved every moment from the second she woke in the morning, Jensen’s arm across her body as he slumbered, and she sidled out of bed to take a cup of tea in the garden alone, to their evening together after he came back from the Playhouse. They’d drink beer and sit outside, breathing in night-scented stock and talking about the classics until the stars were high diamonds in the midnight sky. Now they were sitting in the deer park in Magdalen College, surrounded by gold and russet trees. They had wandered through old cloisters, past the quadrangle bursting with the rising voices of new students, and he was excitedly pointing at the roe deer. Minnie smiled indulgently; she had seen it all before, although to her it was much more than a tourist attraction. Oxford was lodged deep in her heart; it had changed her life and she felt bound to it. Jensen took her hand in his, almost speaking her thoughts aloud. ‘The tranquillity, the beauty, Minnie – it’s just breathtaking, the way this place exudes culture and tradition. It’s almost impossible to think that it’s normal for you to live in such an incredible place, and this is your home.’ ‘It is,’ Minnie said. ‘I love it.’ ‘You came to Magdalen as a student?’ Minnie was impressed that he’d pronounced it correctly, Mawdlin. ‘Oh, no – women weren’t allowed here in those days. I was at St Hilda’s. I had a couple of boyfriends who were students here. I won’t tell you their names. One’s quite infamous, in the House of Lords now, I believe.’ Jensen smiled. ‘You’ve lived an incredible life, Minnie.’ ‘I’m still living it…’ Minnie gazed at a deer that had wandered from the group, moving towards them. ‘There’s so much more I want to do…’ ‘There is.’ Jensen’s eyes glowed behind the gold-rimmed glasses. ‘You know, Minnie, I never thought I’d meet anyone I felt this way about.’ ‘After your wife?’ Jensen shook his head. ‘Pamela and I were close, we had the kids, and now she’s gone, I miss her. But you and I are different.’ ‘How different?’ ‘We connect completely.’ Jensen ruffled his white hair. ‘Mind, body and spirit – I mean, look at you. There’s no one like you.’ Minnie gazed down at herself in the floral dress and green


crowded; all the performers did excellently well, but Anne was the bright particular star of the occasion, as even envy, in the shape of Josie Pye, dared not deny. "Oh, hasn't it been a brilliant evening?" sighed Anne, when it was all over and she and Diana were walking home together under a dark, starry sky. "Everything went off very well," said Diana practically. "I guess we must have made as much as ten dollars. Mind you, Mr. Allan is going to send an account of it to the Charlottetown papers." "Oh, Diana, will we really see our names in print? It makes me thrill to think of it. Your solo was perfectly elegant, Diana. I felt prouder than you did when it was encored. I just said to myself, `It is my dear bosom friend who is so honored.'" "Well, your recitations just brought down the house, Anne. That sad one was simply splendid." "Oh, I was so nervous, Diana. When Mr. Allan called out my name I really cannot tell how I ever got up on that platform. I felt as if a million eyes were looking at me and through me, and for one dreadful moment I was sure I couldn't begin at all. Then I thought of my lovely puffed sleeves and took courage. I knew that I must live up to those sleeves, Diana. So I started in, and my voice seemed to be coming from ever so far away. I just felt like a parrot. It's providential that I practiced those recitations so often up in the garret, or I'd never have been able to get through. Did I groan all right?" "Yes, indeed, you groaned lovely," assured Diana. "I saw old Mrs. Sloane wiping away tears when I sat down. It was splendid to think I had touched somebody's heart. It's so romantic to take part in a concert, isn't it? Oh, it's been a very memorable occasion indeed." "Wasn't the boys' dialogue fine?" said Diana. "Gilbert Blythe was just splendid. Anne, I do think it's awful mean the way you treat Gil. Wait till I tell you. When you ran off the platform after the fairy dialogue one of your roses fell out of your hair. I saw Gil pick it up and put it in his breast pocket. There now. You're so romantic that I'm sure you ought to be pleased at that." "It's nothing to me what that person does," said Anne loftily. "I simply never waste a thought on him, Diana." That night Marilla and Matthew, who had been out to a concert for the first time in twenty years, sat for a while by the kitchen fire after Anne had gone to bed. "Well now, I guess our Anne did as well as any of them," said Matthew proudly. "Yes, she did," admitted Marilla. "She's a bright child, Matthew. And she looked real nice too. I've been kind of opposed to this concert scheme, but I suppose there's no real harm in it after all. Anyhow, I was proud of


the fire young in the hearth. Glorian entered to find only three of the Dukes Spiritual waiting for her. ‘Your Grace,’ Lady Brangain said quietly. They all dipped their heads. ‘Forgive us for disturbing you at this hour. We thought it right that you heard as soon as possible.’ ‘Where is the Lord Protector?’ Glorian asked her. ‘He rode out with Lord Damud and Lady Gladwin before dawn. They are on their way to instruct the earls and barons of the northern provinces, so they can muster your people to defend our queendom. He should be back before long.’ ‘What is it you need to tell me?’ ‘There is no easy way to say this,’ Lade Edith said softly. ‘Prince Therico of Yscalin is dead.’ The words woke her like a fall through ice. ‘How?’ ‘As I believe you were informed, the wyrms flew south after their attack on the Leas. From what we understand, they fell upon the Yscali port of Tagrida and burned it almost to the ground. Prince Therico was aboard one of the ships docked there.’ It took Glorian a moment to digest the news. He had been just days away from Inys. ‘May he find his place at the Great Table.’ She caved into a chair. ‘Sixteen is no age to die.’ ‘No, Your Grace.’ ‘What is to be done, then?’ Glorian finally asked. ‘You all agreed that I should have an heir as soon as possible.’ ‘There is a way to remedy the situation quickly,’ Lord Randroth said, dabbing his nose. ‘A proposal that Lord Robart wishes us to submit for your consideration.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Your late mother made arrangements for you to wed Prince Therico, but the contract includes a clause. In the event of his death, the heir to Inys may wed another relative of Queen Rozaria of Yscalin – in the first or second degree, specifically – within the next month.’ ‘Usually the clause is included because one of the parties has some illness, or partakes in dangerous pursuits,’ Lade Edith said. ‘A sensible precaution. Prince Therico had a fragile constitution.’ Lord Randroth set the document in question on the table. ‘Two members of the House of Vetalda who fit the description were, tragically, killed with him. However, there is another, who is free to wed. If you were to accept him, it would mean we could proceed as planned. We would not have to seek other candidates or negotiate favourable terms, which will prove almost impossible in wartime. We would preserve our historic union with Queen Rozaria.’ ‘I thought all her other grandchildren married,’ Glorian said. ‘You had it right, Queen Glorian.’ Lade Edith loosened their collar, looking a little faint. ‘Forgive me. I truly do not believe we should consider this, but the Lord Protector—’ ‘—is in favour,’ Lord Randroth finished. ‘He knows the man well, and vouches for his conduct.’ Glorian nodded. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Prince Guma Vetalda.’ Florell, who had been waiting outside the Council Chamber, now ventured into it. ‘Prince Guma,’ she echoed. ‘Lord Randroth, you can’t possibly be


soon to see the distant shaft of its headlights. The night was still and clear. Only out at sea there must be a light summer mist for at intervals he could hear the fog-horns lowing like iron cattle down the coast. As he drove, whipping the car faster and faster through the night, with the other half of his mind he cursed Vesper, and M for having sent her on the job. This was just what he had been afraid of. These blithering women who thought they could do a man's work. Why the hell couldn't they stay at home and mind their pots and pans and stick to their frocks and gossip and leave men's work to the men. And now for this to happen to him, just when the job had come off so beautifully. For Vesper to fall for an old trick like that and get herself snatched and probably held to ranson like some bloody heroine in a strip cartoon. The silly bitch. Bond boiled at the thought of the fix he was in. Of course. The idea was a straight swop. The girl against his cheque for forty million. Well, he wouldn't play: wouldn't think of playing. She was in the Service and knew what she was up against. He wouldn't even ask M. This job was more important than her. It was just too bad. She was a fine girl, but he wasn't going to fall for this childish trick. No dice. He would try and catch the Citron and shoot it out with them and if she got shot in the process, that was too bad too. He would have done his stuff - tried to rescue her before they got her off to some hideout - but if he didn't catch up with them he would get back to his hotel and go to sleep and say no more about it. The next morning he would ask Mathis what had happened to her and show him the note. If Le Chiffre put the touch on Bond for the money in exchange for the girl, Bond would do nothing and tell no one. The girl would just have to take it. If the commissionaire came along with the story of what he had seen, Bond would bluff it out by saying he had had a drunken row with the girl. Bond's mind raged furiously on with the problem as he flung the great car down the coast road, automatically taking the curves and watching out for carts or cyclists on their way into Royale. On straight stretches the Amherst Villiers supercharger dug spurs into the Bentley's twenty-five horses and the engine sent a high-pitched scream of pain into the night. Then the revolutions mounted until he was past 110 and on to the 120 mph mark on the speedometer. He knew he must be gaining fast. Loaded as she was the Citron could hardly better eighty even on this road. On an impulse he slowed down to seventy, turned on his fog-lights, and dowsed the


crazy power, before I dare to do what needs to be done. During that time, for Shelby, I want to know you and John are all right. He was my best friend. I owe him. There’s nothing else I can do for him.” He wants her to sell this house and move somewhere that drive-by shootings are rare, where gangbangers don’t rule the streets. Where she and John can’t be found, where they’ll be safe. A month ago, Aleem Sutter came back into her life. He’s now the boss dog of the Vigs in this county. Having a gang-age son who’s living straight is embarrassing to him and suggests to his homeboys that he bends to the will of a woman. He’s sniffing around the edges of their lives, wary of Nina, but he’s rapidly growing bolder. “I give up my accounting, how do I say I earned this money?” “Stop using a credit card. When you pay cash, your wealth becomes invisible.” “Some things can only be paid by check or such.” “Each month, deposit what cash you need in your account.” “The IRS, they’ll smell out the discrepancy sooner or later.” “You won’t have to deal with the IRS anymore.” “That’s a nice dream.” “I’ve set it up so the IRS’s computerized records will show you paying quarterly and filing annually, but you won’t ever pay again.” “What do I say when they audit me?” “I’ve set it up so they never will.” “You set it up.” “You saw what I can do.” “Yeah, okay, but . . . sweet Jesus.” “I’ve coded your IRS file with an automatic audit reject.” “How does that work?” “A few hundred people in government are so powerful they’ve exempted themselves from audits. I tucked you among them.” “How do they get away with that?” “It’s a tight-held secret. Besides, people who tell them they can’t do something—those people meet with grave misfortune.” “Corruption everywhere.” “We’re playing their game only to bring them to justice.” She stares into her mug. Reflected in the dark brew, her eyes swell and shrink freakishly with the movement of the liquid, as if some force that speaks only through symbol and suggestion is warning her that what she is doing will deform her vision and her soul. Michael says, “Aleem has seen a lawyer.” “What do you mean?” “The GPS record for his Cadillac Escalade is accessible to me. Yesterday, Aleem parked for forty-seven minutes at the building occupied by Bucklin and Aimes, a law firm that vigorously defends gangbangers like them. He’s got another appointment there today.” “This has something to do with me?” “Mr. Bucklin enters notes about meetings on his laptop. In this case, I don’t respect attorney-client privilege. I snooped. Aleem was there to discuss what paternal rights he has regarding John.” Nina’s heart quickens. “Rights? None. He has no rights. What dime did he ever give me? What birthday did he bring John a present? None. He’s never as much as spoken to the boy.” “It’s not that simple. The law doesn’t always


into the Church: or perhaps I shall express my meaning more strictly, if I say the Choir. But there was no vacancy for a tenor in the venerable Pile for which this city is so justly eminent; and he has - in short, he has contracted a habit of singing in public-houses, rather than in sacred edifices.' 'But he means well,' said Mrs. Micawber, tenderly. 'I dare say, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'that he means particularly well; but I have not yet found that he carries out his meaning, in any given direction whatsoever.' Master Micawber's moroseness of aspect returned upon him again, and he demanded, with some temper, what he was to do? Whether he had been born a carpenter, or a coach-painter, any more than he had been born a bird? Whether he could go into the next street, and open a chemist's shop? Whether he could rush to the next assizes, and proclaim himself a lawyer? Whether he could come out by force at the opera, and succeed by violence? Whether he could do anything, without being brought up to something? My aunt mused a little while, and then said: 'Mr. Micawber, I wonder you have never turned your thoughts to emigration.' 'Madam,' returned Mr. Micawber, 'it was the dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years.' I am thoroughly persuaded, by the by, that he had never thought of it in his life. 'Aye?' said my aunt, with a glance at me. 'Why, what a thing it would be for yourselves and your family, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber, if you were to emigrate now.' 'Capital, madam, capital,' urged Mr. Micawber, gloomily. 'That is the principal, I may say the only difficulty, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' assented his wife. 'Capital?' cried my aunt. 'But you are doing us a great service - have done us a great service, I may say, for surely much will come out of the fire - and what could we do for you, that would be half so good as to find the capital?' 'I could not receive it as a gift,' said Mr. Micawber, full of fire and animation, 'but if a sufficient sum could be advanced, say at five per cent interest, per annum, upon my personal liability - say my notes of hand, at twelve, eighteen, and twenty-four months, respectively, to allow time for something to turn up -' 'Could be? Can be and shall be, on your own terms,' returned my aunt, 'if you say the word. Think of this now, both of you. Here are some people David knows, going out to Australia shortly. If you decide to go, why shouldn't you go in the same ship? You may help each other. Think of this now, Mr. and Mrs. Micawber. Take your time, and weigh it well.' 'There is but one question, my dear ma'am, I could wish to ask,' said Mrs. Micawber. 'The climate, I believe, is healthy?' 'Finest in the world!' said my aunt. 'Just so,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'Then my question


the ass-kisser knows it. “You want a piece of that quiff,” Aleem says, “better catch her soon. Longer it takes, more likely I’ll break her neck ’fore you can strip her down for action.” “I’m up for that,” Kuba says. “Up for that? Up for what?” “Do what you need, then so will I, just so she’s still warm.” “Man, you’re spookier than dead trees.” Grinning, Kuba admits, “I got my ways.” In the passenger seat, John sits at attention, the phone a rectangle of light in his hands. “What’s Michael doing?” “Saving us.” “How can you be so sure?” “You’ll see.” “Nothing’s happening.” “Only been a minute since he answered our post.” “‘The ninth hour.’” “Is it ever.” The vast orchard seems to span a burnt-out world, the black and haggard trees with their tortuous rickrack of branches standing to monument the death of humanity in a last war of all against all, the gangbangers’ SUVs like robotic scourges prowling the aftermath to eradicate remaining survivors. Nina has never been so terrified as she is now. These barren but ordered woods evoke horrors as diverse as scenes in a James Cameron movie and Golgotha falling into midday darkness. Yet in peril, as also in loss and grief, she sees, as she always does, moments of strange beauty. Sweeping light silvers the water streaming down black bark. The air is briefly but richly diamonded with wind-tossed raindrops. For a moment, the twigwork of backlit branches seems to form logograms that float in the air with mystical meaning, like comforting messages in some language that she has known in a previous life and will know again in a life to follow this one. Some might say that it’s a fault—but she thinks it is a gift—to perceive beauty and the hope that it represents in even the ugliest moments of life. Nothing is more desperate, with more potential for horror, than being pursued by Aleem and seven of his cold-eyed barbarians swanked out in their ornamental gold, each with two knives and more lethal surgeries to his credit than a death-camp doctor. If they take John, they will bring to bear their formidable powers of persuasion and intimidation as well as all the temptations of the flesh to turn him, warp him, corrupt him. He’ll resist. He is a good kid. But he is only a kid. And even if he resists to the point where they lose patience with him, he’ll end up in an unmarked grave. Such deranged men mock virtue, but in fact they fear it and won’t long tolerate its presence among them. As a gang boss, Aleem can’t afford for his legions to reach the conclusion that from his seed has sprung a young man of integrity and rectitude. Earlier this very day, he had said, I’ll kill you ’fore I see you brought down from a full man to some pathetic crawlin’ thing that shames me ’fore the world. That had not just been roo-rah. He meant it. Likewise, she entertains no illusions about her own fate


out from the broken patio doors, Pupkin held high on one arm. “Kakawewe!” Pupkin cheered in triumph, dancing in the air. The puppet golem turned toward Pupkin, and Pupkin pointed at Louise. It turned back toward her and began to plod across the yard. Louise looked, but there was nowhere to go. Her hole wasn’t deep enough. The thing kept coming. It was at Mark’s pile of lumber now. Her whole life came down to this. Louise grabbed her shovel and slammed it back into the hole, scooping out dirt faster, throwing shovelfuls aside, her shoulders burning, the small of her back aching. When she looked up, the puppet golem had closed half the distance between them. She looked back at the hole. It was barely any deeper. She didn’t have enough time. She had no more choices. She turned to face the golem, gripping the shovel with both hands, holding it in front of her like a spear. It took two more thudding steps forward and Louise felt her sense of perspective warp. It looked like it should be farther away, but it stood taller than her, taller than Mark, at least seven feet high. Something flickered and died behind her breastbone. She couldn’t fight this thing, but even so she braced her legs and adjusted her grip, because she didn’t have a choice. I’m going to fight Mom’s puppets, Louise thought. Four weeks ago I was a product designer with a child and now I am going to fight my mom’s puppets with a shovel and . . . oh, God, Mom and Dad, please help me now. The thing took another step, and she heard something at the edge of her hearing, voices begging, screaming, gabbling in pain inside her head. Thunder rumbled, closer now, but the screaming in her ears sounded both closer and farther away than the thunder, and that’s when she realized it was the puppets; the puppets were screaming. She knew their names, she had seen her mom make every single one of them, she’d used some of them to perform her mom’s shows, and they had been happy for so long, and warm, and safe, and cared for, and now they had lost their creator and grief had twisted them into this deranged thing and she didn’t want to do this. “You’re hurting them,” Louise called to Pupkin, the wind tearing her words away. “This is wrong. What you’re doing is wrong.” The puppet golem took another step and the screaming inside Louise’s head made the left side of her face throb, and now it was in striking distance. It swung an arm at her, slow and clumsy, and she stepped back and felt the wind from it brush past her face, as powerful as a passing car. It was too big. It had too much mass. The second it got its hands on her, she was done. I don’t want to hurt them. She’d tire them out, she thought over the sound of screaming puppets inside her head. She darted to the left,


admittedly out of the blue. He taps the textbook. “Passage. Focus.” “Just answer the question.” His mum and mine are unfortunately best friends, so I have been made aware—entirely against my will—that Bradley wants to study law too. And if I’m forced to spend three extra years in his presence while dealing with the pressures of my demanding degree, I’m liable to snap and push him off a bridge. He flicks a dark look at me. “Applications aren’t due for ages.” I should be relieved, because, no, most of them aren’t, but Oxbridge applications are. Except…“Why aren’t you applying to Cambridge?” I don’t want him to, obviously. But he could almost certainly get in, so why wouldn’t he try? Bradley rolls his eyes. The sun is low and the windows in this room are massive, so he looks like the human embodiment of whiskey and woods and an ancient sepia Instagram filter. It’s honestly atrocious. “Why would I?” he asks. “Just to spend another three years being the only Black kid in the room?” I scowl. “Hello, I’m literally sitting right here.” “Hello, it’s a turn of phrase. There are six of us in the entire year. What, do you like that or something?” “I’d like it better if there were five.” The worst thing about being a minority is occasionally needing to back Bradley up in public. Like that time last year when someone from a rival school said something vile to him during a football tournament and I had to throw a bottle of Coke at the guy (as a matter of principle). “Nothing changes if we don’t make it change.” “It’s not my job to change their minds,” he says, which is all right for him. He has a soon-to-be-successful scientist for an older sister, and his little brother, who’s signed to the Forest Academy, will probably end up playing for England at the World Cup or some such rubbish, and both of their parents are useful human beings with a sense of duty and loyalty. Brad can afford to go to a second- or third-rate university and have a second- or third-rate career because he has a perfect family and zero single-parent pressure and no shitty absent father to shame into oblivion. My older sister swears up and down she’s going to be the next Georgia O’Keeffe, but who knows how long that’ll take? Until then, I’m the only one who can prove our worth. I’m the only one who can pay Mum back for years of blood and sweat. (Bangura women don’t do tears.) But all I say is “Hmm,” and then I focus on my textbook. “Hmm?” he repeats. “What’s hmm?” As if I’m about to explain. I needle him instead. “You don’t think you could get in?” He scoffs at the ceiling. “Of course I could get in—” “Well, it’s not exactly of course, is it?” “If you can get in, I can get in,” he says stonily. “We got the same grades last year.” “Almost,” I correct lightly. Like I said, our mums are


Daenerys then, and she gave the filly her head. The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings. When she pulled up before Magister Illyrio, she said, "Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind." The fat Pentoshi stroked his yellow beard as he repeated her words in Dothraki, and Dany saw her new husband smile for the first time. The last sliver of sun vanished behind the high walls of Pentos to the west just then. Dany had lost all track of time. Khal Drogo commanded his bloodriders to bring forth his own horse, a lean red stallion. As the khal was saddling the horse, Viserys slid close to Dany on her silver, dug his fingers into her leg, and said, "Please him, sweet sister, or I swear, you will see the dragon wake as it has never woken before." The fear came back to her then, with her brother's words. She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready for what was about to happen to her. They rode out together as the stars came out, leaving the khalasar and the grass palaces behind. Khal Drogo spoke no word to her, but drove his stallion at a hard trot through the gathering dusk. The tiny silver bells in his long braid rang softly as he rode. "I am the blood of the dragon," she whispered aloud as she followed, trying to keep her courage up. "I am the blood of the dragon. I am the blood of the dragon." The dragon was never afraid. A GAME OF THRONES 95 Afterward she could not say how far or how long they had ridden, but it was full dark when they stopped at a grassy place beside a small stream. Drogo swung off his horse and lifted her down from hers. She felt as fragile as glass in his hands, her limbs as weak as water. She stood there helpless and trembling in her wedding silks while he secured the horses, and when he turned to look at her, she began to cry. Khal Drogo stared at her tears, his face strangely empty of expression. "No," he said. He lifted his hand and rubbed away the tears roughly with a callused thumb. "You speak the Common Tongue," Dany said in wonder. "No," he said again. Perhaps he had only that word, she thought, but it was one word more than she had known he had, and somehow it made her feel a little better. Drogo touched her hair lightly, sliding the silver-blond strands between his fingers and murmuring softly in Dothraki. Dany did not understand the words, yet there was warmth in the tone, a tenderness she had never expected from this man. He put his finger under her chin and lifted her head, so she was looking up into his eyes. Drogo towered over her as he towered over everyone. Taking her lightly under the arms, he lifted her and seated her on a rounded rock beside the stream. Then he sat


be able to help us, then. Who else?” Ethan asked, squinting in the sunlight. “Cody Benham,” I said reluctantly. “The guy who saved you?” Ethan’s eyebrows raised. “More than once,” I said, half to myself. “He and Oscar used to be friends.” “But not anymore?” “Not anymore,” I confirmed. I could pinpoint the end of that friendship to the minute. The smell of gasoline and asphalt in the air, fingertips bruising my ribs. “Do you have his number?” Ethan asked. “Would he talk to you?” “Yes. To both,” I said. Cody had his job. A pregnant wife. He’d gotten out of Chester in a way few of us ever managed, and I didn’t want to drag him back into this. “You don’t have to do this,” Ethan said, seeing my expression. “You could walk away. Or tell the police what you know, and let them handle it.” I shook my head. I had to finish the work Liv had started. “I’m not going to stop now,” I said. “I’ll call him.” * * * Cody picked up right away. “I was so sorry to hear about Olivia,” he said as soon as I told him who it was. “Are you back in Seattle yet?” “No, I’m staying in Chester for a while,” I said. I sat in my motel room, alone, too conscious of Ethan’s presence two rooms away. “I’ve got to head back to Seattle for the weekend for work, but otherwise I’m planning to stick around. Until the funeral, at least.” “Have they set a date?” “They’re still waiting for the body to be released,” I said. “I see.” He paused. “I didn’t know Olivia very well. She didn’t talk to me like you did.” “I don’t remember talking to you. I remember trying to talk and stammering a lot,” I admitted. He gave a low chuckle. “You were a sweet kid. Too smart for your own good. All three of you, really, each in your own way.” There was an intimacy to talking like this, just Cody’s voice and mine, like the world had narrowed down to the reality we shared. Those brief moments where our lives had intersected, which it seemed like no one else would really understand. I didn’t want to break that sense of shared reality, but I had to. “Cody, I’m hoping you can help me with something.” “Anything you need,” he said immediately. “Did you know a girl named Jessi Walker?” I asked. There was silence on the other end of the line. “I think she was friends with Oscar.” “Yeah,” Cody said finally. “I know Jessi. Knew her, I guess. I haven’t seen her since— God. Must be almost twenty-five years. Why are you asking about Jessi?” “There’s a chance she might have been one of Stahl’s victims,” I said. “Jessi’s not dead,” he said. “Is she?” Uncertainty made his voice crack. “She was reported missing. After she left town no one ever saw her again,” I told him. “My dad said she hung around with Oscar, and I figured if she spent


AND WASHING--extra."' `You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; `living at the bottom of the sea.' `I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. `I only took the regular course.' `What was that?' inquired Alice. `Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic-- Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.' `I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say. `What is it?' The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. `What! Never heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed. `You know what to beautify is, I suppose?' `Yes,' said Alice doubtfully: `it means--to--make--anything-- prettier.' `Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, `if you don't know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.' Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said `What else had you to learn?' `Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers, `--Mystery, ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used to come once a week: HE taught us Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.' `What was THAT like?' said Alice. `Well, I can't show it you myself,' the Mock Turtle said: `I'm too stiff. And the Gryphon never learnt it.' `Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon: `I went to the Classics master, though. He was an old crab, HE was.' `I never went to him,' the Mock Turtle said with a sigh: `he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.' `So he did, so he did,' said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn; and both creatures hid their faces in their paws. `And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject. `Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the next, and so on.' `What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice. `That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon remarked: `because they lessen from day to day.' This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a little before she made her next remark. `Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday?' `Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle. `And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly. `That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a very decided tone: `tell her something about the games now.' CHAPTER X The Lobster Quadrille The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper across his eyes. He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for a minute or two sobs choked his voice. `Same as if he had a bone in his throat,' said the Gryphon: and it set to work shaking him and punching him in the back. At last the Mock Turtle recovered his voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, he went on again:-- `You may not have lived much under the sea--' (`I haven't,' said Alice)--`and perhaps you were never even introduced


to town with the resolution of hunting for them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he _had_ _another_ motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days in town, before he was able to discover them; but he had something to direct his search, which was more than we had; and the consciousness of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us. There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Edward-street, and has since maintained herself by letting lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him as soon as he got to town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. Wickham indeed had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the wished-for direction. They were in ---- street. He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been his design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment, on account of some debts of honour, which were very pressing; and scrupled not to lay all the ill-consequences of Lydia's flight on her own folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He


right-hand wall. "Somewhere over... there." He smiled. "Not your first visit to Rosslyn, I see." 292 The code, Langdon thought. He had forgotten that little bit of lore. Among Rosslyn's numerous mysteries was a vaulted archway from which hundreds of stone blocks protruded, jutting down to form a bizarre multifaceted surface. Each block was carved with a symbol, seemingly at random, creating a cipher of unfathomable proportion. Some people believed the code revealed the entrance to the vault beneath the chapel. Others believed it told the true Grail legend. Not that it mattered-cryptographers had been trying for centuries to decipher its meaning. To this day the Rosslyn Trust offered a generous reward to anyone who could unveil the secret meaning, but the code remained a mystery. "I'd be happy to show..." The docent's voice trailed off. My first code, Sophie thought, moving alone, in a trance, toward the encoded archway. Having handed the rosewood box to Langdon, she could feel herself momentarily forgetting all about the Holy Grail, the Priory of Sion, and all the mysteries of the past day. When she arrived beneath the encoded ceiling and saw the symbols above her, the memories came flooding back. She was recalling her first visit here, and strangely, the memories conjured an unexpected sadness. She was a little girl... a year or so after her family's death. Her grandfather had brought her to Scotland on a short vacation. They had come to see Rosslyn Chapel before going back to Paris. It was late evening, and the chapel was closed. But they were still inside. "Can we go home, Grand-pre?" Sophie begged, feeling tired. "Soon, dear, very soon." His voice was melancholy. "I have one last thing I need to do here. How about if you wait in the car?" "You're doing another big person thing?" He nodded. "I'll be fast. I promise." "Can I do the archway code again? That was fun." "I don't know. I have to step outside. You won't be frightened in here alone?" "Of course not!" she said with a huff. "It's not even dark yet!" He smiled. "Very well then." He led her over to the elaborate archway he had shown her earlier. Sophie immediately plopped down on the stone floor, lying on her back and staring up at the collage of puzzle pieces overhead. "I'm going to break this code before you get back!" "It's a race then." He bent over, kissed her forehead, and walked to the nearby side door. "I'll be right outside. I'll leave the door open. If you need me, just call." He exited into the soft evening light. Sophie lay there on the floor, gazing up at the code. Her eyes felt sleepy. After a few minutes, the symbols got fuzzy. And then they disappeared. When Sophie awoke, the floor felt cold. "Grand-pre?" There was no answer. Standing up, she brushed herself off. The side door was still open. The evening was getting darker. She walked outside and could see her grandfather standing on the porch of a nearby stone house directly


and had given his nerves and card-sense a thorough work-out. He had got the geography of the Casino clear in his mind. Above all, he had been able to observe Le Chiffre at the tables and to note ruefully that he was a faultless and lucky gambler. Bond liked to make a good breakfast. After a cold shower, he sat at the writing-table in front of the window. He looked out at the beautiful day and consumed half a pint of iced orange juice, three scrambled eggs and bacon and a double portion of coffee without sugar. He lit his first cigarette, a Balkan and Turkish mixture made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street, and watched the small waves lick the long seashore and the fishing-fleet from Dieppe string out towards the June heat-haze followed by a paper-chase of herring-gulls. He was lost in his thoughts when the telephone rang. It was the concierge announcing that a Director of Radio Stentor was waiting below with the wireless set he had ordered from Paris. 'Of course,' said Bond. 'Send him up.' This was the cover fixed by the Deuxime Bureau for their liaison man with Bond. Bond watched the door, hoping that it would be Mathis. When Mathis came in, a respectable business-man carrying a large square parcel by its leather handle, Bond smiled broadly and would have greeted him with warmth if Mathis had not frowned and held up his free hand after carefully closing the door. 'I have just arrived from Paris, monsieur, and here is the set you asked to have on approval - five valves, superhet, I think you call it in England, and you should be able to get most of the capitals of Europe from Royale. There are no mountains for forty miles in any direction.' 'It sounds all right,' said Bond, lifting his eyebrows at this mystery-making. Mathis paid no attention. He placed the set, which he had unwrapped, on the floor beside the unlit panel electric fire below the mantelpiece. 'It is just past eleven,' he said, 'and I see that the Compagnons de la Chanson should now be on the medium wave from Rome. They are touring Europe. Let us see what the reception is like. It should be a fair test.' He winked. Bond noticed that he had turned the volume on to full and that the red light indicating the long waveband was illuminated, though the set was still silent. Mathis fiddled at the back of the set. Suddenly an appalling roar of static filled the small room. Mathis gazed at the set for a few seconds with benevolence and then turned it off and his voice was full of dismay. 'My dear monsieur - forgive me please - badly tuned,' and he again bent to the dials. After a few adjustments the close harmony of the French came over the air and Mathis walked up and clapped Bond very hard on the back and wrang his hand until Bond's fingers ached. Bond smiled back at him. 'Now, what the hell?'


more than one knife had been used. “What about the weapon?” I say. “They never found it, right?” “Correct.” “Were the police certain only one knife was used?” “As certain as they could be,” Detective Vick says. “No other knife seemed to be missing from the kitchen, and the stab wounds on both Winston and Evangeline Hope were roughly the same width, suggesting only one weapon was used.” “Did they notice anything out of the ordinary about the place? Anything at all?” “Just that Virginia Hope’s room had recently been cleaned. One of the cops smelled floor polish when they brought her upstairs.” I touch my temples, the headache growing. It’s so bad I’m surprised my skull hasn’t fractured yet, forming a crack as big as the one now running across the terrace at Hope’s End. “Since they couldn’t prove—or disprove—that Ricardo did it, and since they couldn’t do the same with Lenora, the case just stalled?” “Correct,” Detective Vick says. “Sound familiar?” Anger flashes through me like lightning. Electric. Searing. “Fuck you,” I tell Detective Vick, which might be illegal. I’m not up to date on laws against swearing at police detectives. If it is a crime, Detective Vick makes no move to do anything about it as I yank open the door to my Escort and slide behind the wheel. “I don’t blame you, you know,” he says before I can slam the door shut. “Your mother was suffering. I understand that. My own parents suffered when their time came. But I didn’t break the law to try to end it.” “Neither did I.” I’m on the verge of tears, and I don’t know if it’s from rage or grief or the fact that everything about the past six months has been too damn much. When I got to Hope’s End, I threw myself into learning Lenora’s story because I was desperate to change my own pathetic existence by focusing on someone else’s. But then I found Mary dead, and things have only spiraled since then. “I didn’t make my mother take those pills,” I say, swiping at a tear before it can fall because I’ll be damned if I cry in front of Detective Vick. “She killed herself. Mary didn’t. And someone smarter than you would understand that.” The detective’s nostrils flare. The only sign I’ve gotten to him. Unlike me, he knows how to keep his emotions in check. “Kit, for the last time, Mary Milton wasn’t murdered.” “How can you be so sure of that?” Detective Vick removes a piece of paper from inside his jacket. A photocopy of a page made ragged and faint from water damage. Thrusting it at me, he says, “Because of this.” My hands go numb as I read the single sentence typed across the page. “What is this?” “A copy of Mary Milton’s suicide note,” Detective Vick says. “I told you we found it with her body.” I scan the page a second, third, fourth time, hoping each pass will produce a different meaning. But it all reads the same every


supply cabin. He is too close, and I can’t risk staying here. Above me, the moon is just a sliver of silver hanging in the sky, but I’m thankful. I lost my flashlight, and the moon is now the only thing lighting the path in front of me as I push toward the main lodge. The boathouse comes into view. I suck in a chest full of chilly nighttime air and let out a bloodcurdling scream. It carries in the clear, quiet dark. Three people burst from the boathouse. They’re tripping all over one another, and the woman is screaming her face off. The two dudes with her look pretty shaken up. “Help me!” I scream. I limp toward them, panting, clutching my side. “Please help me!” The woman runs up to me and grabs me by the shoulders, digging her nails into my skin. “I gotta get out of here!” she shrieks. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this! I can’t do this.” She has a raised welt on the side of her face, and her bottom lip is split open. “It’s just the three of you left?” I ask as I try to catch my breath. “Yeah,” says one of the other guys. His gaze darts from me to the lake, which is flat calm and looks like a giant black mirror reflecting the silvery sliver of moon in the sky. Somewhere behind me, a branch snaps, like something heavy is crushing it underfoot. My heart slams in my chest. The woman leans over and puts her hands on her knees. She doesn’t appear to have heard the sound. Her back is to the woods when suddenly, he’s there. His dark-blue coveralls are smudged with dirt, making him almost impossible to see against the backdrop of towering pines. His six-foot-eight frame looms in the shadows like a ghost. His mask is horrifying in the dark. It’s a dingy white color, smeared with red and mud. There’s a crack running up the right side. His massive hand grips the handle of a machete, its blade slick with blood. He stalks forward, and the woman doesn’t even see him until it’s too late. He grabs her from behind, lifting her up off the ground. He disappears with her kicking and screaming into the Mason Lodge, a smaller cabin we mostly use for storage. I don’t move. I can’t. One of the guys makes a break for it and bolts toward the camp entrance. The other guy just stands there as a thin film of sweat blankets his forehead. I grab his arm, and he snaps out of whatever terror-induced trance he’s in and starts hollering as loud as he can. “Come on!” I yell. The dirt road that leads to the camp’s main entrance seems too long, and the screams of the terrified woman echo all around us as we race down it. The timbers of the giant sign that flank the entry gate materialize out of the dark. The other man is already there. “Brandon!” he screams. “Get


in the bathroom stalls of bars and clubs and, just once, a department store. Few if any questions were asked. I always offered to pay, which torqued some people off. I should never have offered to pay. People reported that Emily had relocated from her mansion in LA to the Farm, where she and Orson were sharing a “modest home” together. There was a photo of it: an Enner house not unlike any other Enner house, a split-level with a garage and a garret and a bay window in the living room—I’d been in hundreds of them before but had never imagined that Orson and Emily would share one. In the photo, the two of them stood in their driveway, Orson in a black-and-red flannel with a full beard and Emily in leggings and a fleece jacket, her hair a tawny brown—quite possibly her natural color, but there was no way of knowing—her cheeks rouged from the Oswego cold. There were other photos of them too: leaving clubs hand in hand, attending galas, posing with other celebrities. I read the tweets about them: It’s L. Ron Hotboy and Lady Barnum Do they milk cows on the Farm? Or just investors? I think of him as a fancy millennial Koresh Honestly if he looks like that all the time I want in on the hustle I began building the NuLife Centers in Urmau and employed thousands of Urmanese in the manufacture of Bliss-Minis. For every Urmanese NuLife Center I opened, I opened one in the States, until most major U.S. cities had brick-and-mortar places where people could buy their Bliss-Minis and have them repaired. They could take crash courses in Synthesis or be Synthesized by “Superiors” we employed for $50K a year. The Synthesized paid the Synthesizers, who in turned paid us, and all this money trickled back up toward corporate, toward me, sitting in my office in New York losing patches of my vision to the flawed machinery of my eyes. Every time I had an attack—and they became increasingly frequent in 2017—it felt like things got a little dimmer. I couldn’t stop loving him. I funneled money into the Farm, and more and more people gave up their lives to live in Enner houses and take his cure. On her weekly visits to the property, Brianna took videos for the corporate Instagram of Orson Synthesizing people, or of him sitting at the heads of eager circles and instructing people to repeat his words back to him, or of Emily leading people in some kind of obscure dance ritual. There were tents on the property, hundreds, people either visiting for a few weeks or waiting for their Enner houses to be built, people who wanted so badly to be close to Orson that they’d forfeited almost everything for the chance to glimpse him emerging from the farmhouse, dressed in a work shirt and jeans and sandals, his arms spread wide. “Good morning, friends!” he’d bellow. “Who’s ready for a day of healing?” And his devotees would roar with enthusiasm. They cut him