Free! BLOOM: I say, look ... STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? O MERDE ALORS! (HE CRIES, HIS VULTURE TALONS SHARPENED) Hola! Hillyho! (SIMON DEDALUS' VOICE HILLOES IN ANSWER, SOMEWHAT SLEEPY BUT READY.) SIMON: That's all right. (HE SWOOPS UNCERTAINLY THROUGH THE AIR, WHEELING, UTTERING CRIES OF HEARTENING, ON STRONG PONDEROUS BUZZARD WINGS) Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those halfcastes. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! (HE MAKES THE BEAGLE'S CALL, GIVING TONGUE) Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy! (THE FRONDS AND SPACES OF THE WALLPAPER FILE RAPIDLY ACROSS COUNTRY. A STOUT FOX, DRAWN FROM COVERT, BRUSH POINTED, HAVING BURIED HIS GRANDMOTHER, RUNS SWIFT FOR THE OPEN, BRIGHTEYED, SEEKING BADGER EARTH, UNDER THE LEAVES. THE PACK OF STAGHOUNDS FOLLOWS, NOSE TO THE GROUND, SNIFFING THEIR QUARRY, BEAGLEBAYING, BURBLBRBLING TO BE BLOODED. WARD UNION HUNTSMEN AND HUNTSWOMEN LIVE WITH THEM, HOT FOR A KILL. FROM SIX MILE POINT, FLATHOUSE, NINE MILE STONE FOLLOW THE FOOTPEOPLE WITH KNOTTY STICKS, HAYFORKS, SALMONGAFFS, LASSOS, FLOCKMASTERS WITH STOCKWHIPS, BEARBAITERS WITH TOMTOMS, TOREADORS WITH BULLSWORDS, GREYNEGROES WAVING TORCHES. THE CROWD BAWLS OF DICERS, CROWN AND ANCHOR PLAYERS, THIMBLERIGGERS, BROADSMEN. CROWS AND TOUTS, HOARSE BOOKIES IN HIGH WIZARD HATS CLAMOUR DEAFENINGLY.) THE CROWD: Card of the races. Racing card! Ten to one the field! Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay! Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one! Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! Ten to one bar one! Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey! I'll give ten to one! Ten to one bar one! (A DARK HORSE, RIDERLESS, BOLTS LIKE A PHANTOM PAST THE WINNINGPOST, HIS MANE MOONFOAMING, HIS EYEBALLS STARS. THE FIELD FOLLOWS, A BUNCH OF BUCKING MOUNTS. SKELETON HORSES, SCEPTRE, MAXIMUM THE SECOND, ZINFANDEL, THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER'S SHOTOVER, REPULSE, THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT'S CEYLON, PRIX DE PARIS. DWARFS RIDE THEM, RUSTYARMOURED, LEAPING, LEAPING IN THEIR, IN THEIR SADDLES. LAST IN A DRIZZLE OF RAIN ON A BROKENWINDED ISABELLE NAG, COCK OF THE NORTH, THE FAVOURITE, HONEY CAP, GREEN JACKET, ORANGE SLEEVES, GARRETT DEASY UP, GRIPPING THE REINS, A HOCKEYSTICK AT THE READY. HIS NAG ON SPAVINED WHITEGAITERED FEET JOGS ALONG THE ROCKY ROAD.) THE ORANGE LODGES: (JEERING) Get down and push, mister. Last lap! You'll be home the night! GARRETT DEASY: (BOLT UPRIGHT, HIS NAILSCRAPED FACE PLASTERED WITH POSTAGESTAMPS, BRANDISHES HIS HOCKEYSTICK, HIS BLUE EYES FLASHING IN THE PRISM OF THE CHANDELIER AS HIS MOUNT LOPES BY AT SCHOOLING GALLOP) PER VIAS RECTAS! (A YOKE OF BUCKETS LEOPARDS ALL OVER HIM AND HIS REARING NAG A TORRENT OF MUTTON BROTH WITH DANCING COINS OF CARROTS, BARLEY, ONIONS, TURNIPS, POTATOES.) THE GREEN LODGES: Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour! (PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY PASS BENEATH THE WINDOWS, SINGING IN DISCORD.) STEPHEN: Hark! Our friend noise in the street. ZOE: (HOLDS UP HER HAND) Stop! PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY: Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire relish


staring at her, blue eyes sad. She was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. Alex’s heart was suddenly racing. She had to be hallucinating, another symptom of her literal hangover from hell. She knew better, but a wild hope entered her head before she could stop it. What if Hellie had somehow found her through the Veil? What if she had felt Alex’s presence in the underworld and crossed over to find her at last? But Grays always looked the way they had in death, and Alex would never forget Hellie’s pallid skin, the drying vomit on her shirt. “Mercy,” Alex whispered, “do you see that girl under the Tiffany window?” Mercy craned her neck. “Why is she staring at you? Do we know her?” No, because Alex had erased every bit of her old life, the good right along with the bad. She hadn’t propped a photo of Hellie on top of her dresser. She’d never even spoken her name to Mercy. And the girl standing there beneath all those angels-not-angels couldn’t be Hellie because Hellie was dead. The blond girl drifted toward the back door of the lecture hall. This felt like a test, and Alex knew damn well she should stay right where she was, pick up her pen, pay attention, take notes. But she couldn’t not follow. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered to Mercy, and grabbed her coat, leaving her bag and books behind. It’s not her. She knew that. Of course she knew that. She pushed the door open onto High Street. Dusk was falling, the November night coming on early. Alex hesitated, standing on the curb, watching the girl cross the street. The blacktop looked like a river and she didn’t want to wade in. The High Street bridge seemed to float over it, its winged stone women reclining gently against the arch. The architect had been a Bonesman. He’d designed and built their tomb as well. She couldn’t remember his name. “Hellie?” she called, halting, uncertain, afraid. But of what? That the girl would turn or that she wouldn’t? The girl didn’t stop, just crossed into the alley beside Skull and Bones. Let her go. Alex stepped into the street and jogged after her, following the polished gold of her hair up the steps, into the sculpture garden where she’d talked to Michelle only a week ago. Hellie stood beneath the elms, a yellow flame in the blue light of dusk. “I missed you,” she said. Alex felt something tear loose inside of her. This wasn’t possible. Mercy had seen this girl. She wasn’t a Gray. “I missed you too,” Alex said. Her voice sounded wrong, hoarse. “What is this? What are you?” “I don’t know.” Hellie gave the smallest shrug. It had to be an illusion. A trap. What had they done in hell that could make this possible? There was danger here. There had to be. Wishes didn’t just get granted. Death was final, even if your soul continued on—to the Veil or heaven or hell or purgatory or some demon realm.


the ravine, which the river forms, opened before me, and I began to ascend the mountain that overhangs it. Soon after, I entered the valley of Chamounix. This valley is more wonderful and sublime, but not so beautiful and picturesque as that of Servox, through which I had just passed. The high and snowy mountains were its immediate boundaries, but I saw no more ruined castles and fertile fields. Immense glaciers approached the road; I heard the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche and marked the smoke of its passage. Mont Blanc, the supreme and magnificent Mont Blanc, raised itself from the surrounding aiguilles, and its tremendous dome overlooked the valley. A tingling long-lost sense of pleasure often came across me during this journey. Some turn in the road, some new object suddenly perceived and recognized, reminded me of days gone by, and were associated with the lighthearted gaiety of boyhood. The very winds whispered in soothing accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. Then again the kindly influence ceased to act--I found myself fettered again to grief and indulging in all the misery of reflection. Then I spurred on my animal, striving so to forget the world, my fears, and more than all, myself--or, in a more desperate fashion, I alighted and threw myself on the grass, weighed down by horror and despair. At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix. Exhaustion succeeded to the extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured. For a short space of time I remained at the window watching the pallid lightnings that played above Mont Blanc and listening to the rushing of the Arve, which pursued its noisy way beneath. The same lulling sounds acted as a lullaby to my too keen sensations; when I placed my head upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it as it came and blessed the giver of oblivion. Chapter 10 I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious presence-chamber of imperial nature was broken only by the brawling waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillized it. In some degree, also, they diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the


His eyes widened, his mouth opening to reply, but right then—thank the gods—a street vendor stepped between them, a particularly loud woman in a colorful headscarf who shoved pillowcases into Io’s chest. “Touch it, lady,” the vendor said. “You won’t lay your cheek on fabric softer than this.” “Very soft,” Io agreed, running a hand over the pillowcases. Some of her wariness, her quiet fury, eased away from her. Gods, she was tired. Getting angry, staying angry, was exhausting. “Thank you, ma’am,” Edei said to the woman. Glancing over his shoulder, he placed a hand on Io’s back and mumbled, “Let’s get some coffee.” They entered the souk, the food court of the market. The smells hit Io first: fish and seafood and spices, syrupy sweets and salepi brewed on makeshift fires. Then came the sounds, vendors calling out goods and haggling prices, ice dripping into the paved street, children stepping in front of them to offer cheese and fruit and candied nuts to taste. At a narrow coffee stall, Edei dropped a few coins into the vendor’s palm for two cups of dark coffee, brewed Kurkz style. As they blew on it, Edei kept glancing at her. Glancing at the crowd. At her. A question was coming. Dread pooled in Io’s stomach. What if he asked the right question, the one Io had been fearing and hoping someone would ask for years? Whose wickedness did you have to tolerate, Io? Could she answer with the truth, about her family, about Thais? But Edei asked, “Are you safe, Io?” Safe? It took her by surprise. In all the imagined confessions, to Ava, to Rosa, to Amos, even to Thais, she had never pictured them asking this. Safety was a luxury Io had never had time to consider, like bubble baths or decorative plants. No one had asked her before. She hadn’t even asked herself. Only Edei Rhuna had noticed the need to ask. Was she safe? The bully of her childhood had been gone for two years. The narrow-minded people who hated and scared her, she had learned to deal with. But there were still a few daggers that could slip through her armor: a woman rolled in a white carpet, dead by her hand. Five unnerving Muses, accusing her of a crime she hadn’t yet committed. A boy calling her kind evil. She felt guilt: for killing Drina Savva, for not severing the fate-thread when she was supposed to. For not telling him. This was an abuse of power, too. Was she destiny’s victim or another bully? She couldn’t decide, couldn’t choose one way or the other, and she hated that. No, she wasn’t safe, not from her shame. But here, in this moment, with Edei, with his question, she . . . “I’m trying to be,” she replied honestly. She downed her coffee in one gulp, scalding her insides. He nodded, once and sharp. “I could help with that, if you’d like.” “Um—” She choked. “Yes. Thank you.” A knot inside Io became undone, its yarn unspooling, her careful loops


root, one by one. I will never forgive you, Electra said. She knows that, in moments of pain, some words are spoken with a harshness that is not truly meant. But even so, words can grow roots inside one’s heart. You can bury them, hoping they will wither and die, but roots keep finding something to latch on to. A bird darts through the shadows, flying away from the trees and up toward the mountain peaks. She takes a crocus and presses it against her heart, then walks inside. Aileen is lighting the torches in her bedroom when Clytemnestra comes in. “Your fingers are still broken,” she says gently. “I need to tend them.” Clytemnestra sits on the stool and puts her hand into her servant’s. Aileen takes it with care, as if she were handling a newborn baby. “You are not surprised I killed him,” Clytemnestra says. Aileen takes a piece of linen and wraps it around the fingers as tightly as she can. “He was a cruel man,” she says. “And yet Electra hates me for it.” “You can’t have justice and everyone’s approval,” Aileen says, touching her queen’s thumb carefully, trying to move it. I don’t want everyone’s approval, just my daughter’s. “Electra knows what her father was,” Aileen continues, “but I think she would have wanted you to show him mercy.” “Would you have shown him mercy?” Aileen makes a knot to keep the linen tight around her hand. “I have never been in your position. I wouldn’t make a good queen.” Under the torches, her hair is so bronze it seems to catch fire. There is nothing for a while, only the sound of their breaths in the warm air. “An envoy came for you today,” Aileen says finally. “You were busy with the elders so he gave me the news.” “From Sparta?” “Yes, but not from Orestes. From your sister.” Clytemnestra stares at her, frozen. “She is alive and well,” Aileen says. “Menelaus has forgiven her.” Menelaus has forgiven her. She walks to the window, her hand clutched to her chest. The relief is so strong it is taking her breath away. Her sister, “burning men to death with her beauty.” She has heard the warriors who walked on the Trojan fields speak of Helen: the “bringer of agony,” “the scourge of Greece.” What is left of the girl who was afraid to speak in front of her father? Who followed Clytemnestra everywhere? Who couldn’t lie, not even when her sister asked her to? She has survived a war that destroyed a city—a war that she started—and now is at home, safe in the arms of her brother. Clytemnestra holds on to the image, refusing to let it slip away. And Menelaus? She can hear Helen’s voice, as she used to when they were little. Do not worry about him, Sister. I can take care of myself. Clytemnestra almost laughs. Lately kings and heroes have dropped like flies, but just as her grandmother predicted so long ago, queens outlive them all. * * * Dawn in


I’d looked up how long it would take for a body to become a skeleton, and my best guess was that it would have happened within a year or two of lying in the Grotto, so that matched. And that was the “quiet summer.” It was all just guesswork. How had Liv figured this out? I started to bookmark the page and close it out, and then I froze. I hadn’t looked at the username the niece had created to post on the message board. Persephone McAllister. The name on the dead woman’s bracelet wasn’t hers. It was her niece’s. A remembrance of the girl she left behind but never forgot. I pulled up the case entry again, heart beating fast and hard. The attached photo showed a young woman in a cotton sundress, smirking a little at the camera. She had brown, wavy hair and a slender build—Stahl’s type. The look in her eye hinted at an urge to wander, a restlessness that had wound its brambles around my own heart. It was her. It was Persephone. “Found you,” I whispered. She smiled that coy little smile at me, her weight balanced on her back foot, entirely aware of the camera. I almost felt like I recognized her. Like if I passed her in the street, I would have waved. I’d been nine years old when she left home, and she was nineteen—a decade older, not someone I would have spent any time with. A decade younger than I was now. Had Stahl offered her a ride? Had he dragged her into the woods, hidden her away where no one could find her? I shuddered. I understood what Cass meant, now, when she said she wanted to tell Persephone that she’d had a daughter. He’s dead, I wanted to whisper to those bones. I’d found Persephone, just as Liv had, and this must be how Liv had felt, too, like she had searched the underworld for her ghost and sighted her at last. Jessi wasn’t Persephone but Eurydice, and Liv was Orpheus, guiding her back toward the surface only to—foolishly, inevitably—look back as she had been forbidden to do, and now both of them were lost below. Or had Orpheus been lost with his bride? I couldn’t remember anymore. We’d known all the stories by heart back then, small-town girls who could recite the names of all nine Muses and the lineage of ancient heroes, but that was a long time ago. I rubbed my hands over my arms, suddenly cold. Her name was Jessi. She wasn’t Persephone at all. Inexplicable grief passed over me like a shadow—mourning for the thing we’d imagined her to be. She hadn’t been our talisman, our goddess, our protector. She had been a girl, so much younger than I was now, who died in the forest and was lost. Who was missed. Who was mourned. My first instinct was to call Liv. My second was to call Cass. But Liv was gone, and Cass—I’d told her I wouldn’t go looking. I’d broken my promise. My


I said, and I could hear Orson heaving a pointed sigh of frustration behind me. “Alan.” “Somehow I don’t believe you, Alan,” he said. “What I do believe is that you”—he pointed at Orson—“broke my daughter’s heart.” “Fuck,” whispered Orson, loud enough for only me to hear, and then too quickly Jonathan DeCroix was upon him, shoving him against the wall, delivering a quick but impactful blow to his stomach. It was horrifying to watch. “I’m sorry!” I said, hoping this would somehow fix things, but of course it didn’t. Orson sunk to the floor, breathless. “Get out,” Jonathan DeCroix said. “Both of you. And give my daughter back everything that belongs to her.” So we left, Orson stooped with his arm over my shoulder, our coats stealthily packed with silverware and gold fixtures. When we got back to our apartment, I helped Orson to his bed, where he collapsed, chest heaving. I sat next to him and kissed him on the forehead. “I’m sorry,” I said. He waved his hand at me. “It’s fine. We both fucked up in the moment.” This didn’t feel true, but I was grateful to him for saying it. “Can I get you anything?” He turned on his side, wincing in pain. “Maybe some ice?” I went to kitchen and filled a bag with ice from the freezer. I thought of him shoved against the wall, the way his face had crumpled, the look of terror in his eyes. I never wanted him to feel that way again. In his bedroom, I held the ice against his stomach and he squeaked out a high-pitched sigh and then closed his eyes, nodding as if I’d just made a very intelligent point. “I need to sleep,” he said. “But can you—do you think you can start unloading the stuff?” I did. In a week, we made roughly $100,000 for the recording equipment and all of Orson’s new clothes and shoes. I sent a $10,000 check to my parents that month. Don’t worry about it, I told them when they texted me in a panic. I got a raise. I’m the manager now. * * * I usually went to a coffee place around the street from our apartment called The Creamery. I liked it because they were known for their heavy cream and I took my coffee beige. The baristas there knew me by name, and typically greeted me with a chorus of “Hello, stranger!” to which I shouted back, “Come on, I’m no stranger!” My favorite barista was a woman named Adelaide, who confessed to being a chronic nail biter and was involved in a polyamorous knitting circle. Adelaide was there that morning, and she smiled toothily at me and began preparing my usual. I stood in line, checking my bank account on my phone. It was fuller than it had ever been. “Ezra!” Adelaide called, and I retrieved my milked-up espresso from her, exchanged a few words about RPGs and knitting, respectively, and then turned around to find Jamie standing in front of me. She was


and her treatment options, helped her take steps to ensure that she could remain secure in her home for as long as she wanted, asked her to voice her final wishes while she still could. Yet I felt precious little relief, now that the job was done. I had been living beyond my parents’ help or easy reach for more than half my life. I had learned how to take care of myself; since I was sixteen, I had been telling them about my choices, only rarely asking them what I should do. While I had been living independently of them, they had also been living independently of me: I was not someone they had regularly consulted when weighing a decision, big or small. They did not rely on me for day-to-day assistance. Even when my mother learned that she was dying, she did not want to uproot what was left of her life and come live with me. I had thought it my responsibility to try to step into my father’s place somehow, even if I had to do so from afar; supporting Mom however she needed, helping her make crucial decisions and live on her own terms for as long as she could, was now my job, wasn’t it? But we’d had so little time to figure out our relationship, learn what it would be without my father. In her view, I was a child, her child—an adult, perhaps, but not a peer. It was not possible for me to replace my dad as her adviser, her right hand. She did not think about leaning on or drawing strength from me, but of protecting me, lifting me up. To her, that was what it meant to be my mother. 18 Life is anything but normal when your mother is dying. I drag the knowledge that I will lose mine through every day, every moment. And yet the first two months of 2020 are normal compared with what will follow. There are so many things I can and do take for granted, like my children’s health, my family’s safety, our daily routines of work and school, my ability to get on a plane and fly anywhere. I travel to Oregon and back again. I attend a conference at the end of February, around the time my mother begins hospice care: I hug colleagues, shake dozens of hands, eat elbow to elbow with strangers in crowded rooms, not knowing that in a few weeks all of this will feel like a fantasy borrowed from another universe. By March, we can’t go an hour without hearing of another emergency cancellation. Businesses, basketball games, book tours, baby showers—every aspect of life, it seems, has been disrupted by COVID-19. The kids’ schools close. We’re asked to stay home, shelter in place, but when the request comes from overburdened nurses and doctors wearing trash bags instead of the medical-grade PPE they need, it sounds more like a plea. We no longer see anyone outside our immediate household, unless it’s over a screen. My best friend one


you’re mad obvious about it,” Jordan says, “and you tell me right away—you don’t shut up about it—and then you spend a couple months spacing out while you daydream about your converted loft and your kitchen garden and your seventy-five adopted children—” “Jordan,” I groan, flopping back onto the bed. What is he, a bloody modern history book? “Stop dredging up the past. I’m very nearly a mature adult and I only did that with, like, five people.” “I know,” he says. “That’s why I thought this thing with Celine—you know, you trying to act like you’re not into her at all, and being friends with her, and finally admitting that you watch her TikToks, meant you had real, big boy, serious feelings for her.” I don’t say anything; I’m too busy freaking out. “But, hey,” Jordan says cheerfully. “What do I know?” “Nothing. You know nothing, Jordan Snow.” See, my strategy is: if I ignore this, it will go away. Which is literally the opposite of what Dr. Okoro would tell me to do, but she’s not the boss of me, so there. “Are you telling me you’re not in love with Celine?” “No,” I say firmly. “No, you’re not in love with her, or no you’re not telling me you’re not in love with her because you are?” “What…No, as in, no, I’m not in love with her! Obviously!” Someone rings the doorbell. I pop up out of bed and plaster myself to my window because I’m waiting for my paperback copy of Black Leopard, Red Wolf, but instead of the postman, I see a familiar scarlet coat. “Crap.” “What?” Jordan demands. “Celine’s here!” “At your house?” “No, at the Eiffel Tower. Yes, at my house.” “The Eiffel Tower?” he echoes dryly. “Seriously, Brad?” “Shut up! What do I do?” My room is a hideous mess and I’m wearing glasses instead of contacts and I have a halo of frizz around my head because I’ve been lazing around in bed all day without my do-rag. This is why people aren’t supposed to just show up unannounced. “I haven’t put my washing away!” “Just…throw it in the closet and close the door.” “Jordan,” I say, aghast. “Okay, fine, put it in your sister’s room.” Now, that…that could work. I snatch up the basket of washing and tiptoe across the hall. Downstairs, the front door opens, and I hear Dad’s voice. Thank God. He can talk for England. “Maybe she’s not even here to see you,” Jordan says as I sneak into Em’s room. It’s colder than the rest of the house and half empty. I put my washing down and get out of there sharpish. “Aren’t your parents friends?” he asks. “Maybe she’s come to pick something up.” Ohhh. “Maybe,” I say, my heart slowing. And dropping. Stupid heart. Then I hear Dad say, “Brad’s in his room,” and it bounces back to life. “Nope,” I correct, rushing back across the hall. “Definitely here for me!” My brother Mason sticks his big, square head out of the bathroom door. His hair


pay me for the lesson." "Oh, it doesn't matter," said Philip. This was something new and very interesting, and he felt that it was of greater import than trigonometry, which he never could understand. It was like a window on life that he had a chance of peeping through, and he looked with a wildly beating heart. "No, you can keep your dirty money," said Wharton. "But how about your dinner?" said Philip, with a smile, for he knew exactly how his master's finances stood. Wharton had even asked him to pay him the two shillings which the lesson cost once a week rather than once a month, since it made things less complicated. "Oh, never mind my dinner. It won't be the first time I've dined off a bottle of beer, and my mind's never clearer than when I do." He dived under the bed (the sheets were gray with want of washing), and fished out another bottle. Philip, who was young and did not know the good things of life, refused to share it with him, so he drank alone. "How long are you going to stay here?" asked Wharton. Both he and Philip had given up with relief the pretence of mathematics. "Oh, I don't know. I suppose about a year. Then my people want me to go to Oxford." Wharton gave a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. It was a new experience for Philip to learn that there were persons who did not look upon that seat of learning with awe. "What d'you want to go there for? You'll only be a glorified schoolboy. Why don't you matriculate here? A year's no good. Spend five years here. You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They're both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in England you get neither: you're ground down by convention. You can't think as you like and you can't act as you like. That's because it's a democratic nation. I expect America's worse." He leaned back cautiously, for the chair on which he sat had a ricketty leg, and it was disconcerting when a rhetorical flourish was interrupted by a sudden fall to the floor. "I ought to go back to England this year, but if I can scrape together enough to keep body and soul on speaking terms I shall stay another twelve months. But then I shall have to go. And I must leave all this"--he waved his arm round the dirty garret, with its unmade bed, the clothes lying on the floor, a row of empty beer bottles against the wall, piles of unbound, ragged books in every corner--"for some provincial university where I shall try and get a chair of philology. And I shall play tennis and go to tea-parties."


these kids remained, forever drinking in the woods, forever overexposed. I couldn’t imagine what good the shots did Omar’s case, why his family would put them up online, but then this archive seemed comprehensive. I recognized almost all the kids. Robbie Serenho. He’s in many of the night’s photos, in his gold Granby Ski sweatshirt, jeans, Red Sox cap. Bendt Jensen, our Danish exchange student, Lancelot to Beth’s Guinevere. Everyone was in love with him. Vishwas Singh, the kid we called Fizz—so named because freshman year he’d shaken a bottle of wine, like salad dressing, before opening it. When people laughed, screamed at him to stop, he said, confidently, “No, it’s beer you don’t shake.” He somehow still became popular, got elected class president our sophomore year. In one photo he’s holding a cigarette in each hand, arms out like a scarecrow. Rachel Popa, Beth Docherty, and Donna Goldbeck, posing like Charlie’s Angels. Beth, like Bendt and Sakina John and Mike Stiles, is fresh from the Camelot stage. Sakina still wears her Morgan le Fay makeup, the long wings of eyeliner. The fact that Mike’s cast had just come off put a speed limit on the night; the group couldn’t have run down the trail either there or back. Dorian Culler. There’s a shot of just him, leaning against a tree, eyes closed, long eyelashes against pale cheeks, mouth open to talk. He might have been good-looking, if he weren’t so terrible. Asad Mirza—a devout Muslim back then, so there was at least one sober account of the mattress party. A few other skiers and ski-adjacent people whose faces didn’t mean much to me anymore. The kid taking the pictures was Jimmy Scalzitti—a skier who’d used one of the expensive yearbook Pentaxes for curtain-call shots of Camelot, also unhelpfully shown on the website. He then used most of the rest of the film in the woods. He must have started shooting only once he was drunk enough not to think twice about documenting underage drinking with a school camera. The kids had built a flashlight bonfire, meaning they’d turned on their Granby-issued pocket lights and some bigger heavy-duty ones and arranged them like kindling in a big pile, illuminating the clearing. I’d seen one of these shots before, the one they showed on Dateline: Robbie looking over his shoulder at the camera, Sakina and Beth leaning together laughing in the background, Dorian twisting his hands into some joke approximation of a gang sign. There are beer bottles in that shot, a few cigarette glows: the perfect visual encapsulation of mild teenage debauchery. I remembered that the film was still in the Pentax, and still in Jimmy’s dorm room, when the State Police started nosing around; that was when Jimmy brought the film to Geoff and asked if he could develop it before his interview. “I just want to clear the air for Serenho,” Geoff told us he said. He asked Geoff if there was a way to cut any alcohol and cigarettes from the shots—but then the school promised disciplinary immunity for


on to checking other things. When the rest of the staff arrived, they gently led me back out to the waiting area, saying they could work faster that way. The faceless tech I’d met the first day said they’d be running blood work and chemistries, checking red and white cells and platelets and kidney and liver function. “We’ll know a lot more in a few hours,” she said. “You can go home. We’ll call you when we get the results.” “I’ll stay here, if that’s all right.” The faceless tech nodded. “Sure.” Then she held out a folded lab coat to me. “Dr. Addison said you might say that. And he thought you might be … cold.” And so I put it on and stayed. I think I was hungry, but I didn’t notice. I hadn’t had any coffee that morning, and I did notice the caffeine headache creeping up the back of my neck. I didn’t have anything to do—hadn’t even brought my phone—so I just squeezed over and over on that little spot between your thumb and forefinger that’s supposed to be a pressure point for relieving tension. Pressing on one hand, then the other … waiting for it to work. It didn’t really work. I kept expecting—any minute—for Dr. Addison to come striding out like a TV doctor and tell me that everything was fixed. Instead, at noon, he came out and told me they wanted to give Peanut a blood transfusion. That didn’t sound good. I worked my pressure points even harder. “The labs came back,” he said, “and we’ve diagnosed him with IMHA, which stands for immune-mediated hemolytic anemia.” Oh god. More medical terms. I shook my head. “What is that?” “His immune system is attacking his own red blood cells. His hematocrit was at twelve when it should be closer to fifty. That’s why he’s panting. He can’t get enough oxygen.” All I could ask was, “Why is this happening?” It was probably more of a rhetorical, big-picture, why-is-my-whole-life-falling-apart-all-at-once question than a medical one. But Dr. Addison answered it anyway, all earnest: “We don’t know what causes it,” he said. “It’s idiopathic. All of a sudden, the immune system just goes haywire and starts attacking itself.” “Is it curable?” I asked. “It’s life-threatening,” he said, “but it can be cured. The survival rate is thirty to seventy percent.” Thirty to seventy percent? What a useless piece of information. “I really was hoping for just a flat yes.” “We’re going to give him everything we’ve got,” Dr. Addison promised. “He looks like a fighter.” At that, I felt tears flooding up in my chest. “The thing is…” I said then, trying to push my voice to sound normal through the tightness in my throat. “The thing is … I can’t lose him. Do you know what I mean? I can’t.” Dr. Addison nodded, and I could sense a new tenderness about him. “The blood transfusion should help a lot,” he said next. “Give him the energy he needs to fight.” I nodded, my face wet again. “I


dislike?--this left her indeed at a loss. "With a determination--indescribable. With a kind of fury of intention." I made her turn pale. "Intention?" "To get hold of her." Mrs. Grose--her eyes just lingering on mine--gave a shudder and walked to the window; and while she stood there looking out I completed my statement. "THAT'S what Flora knows." After a little she turned round. "The person was in black, you say?" "In mourning--rather poor, almost shabby. But--yes--with extraordinary beauty." I now recognized to what I had at last, stroke by stroke, brought the victim of my confidence, for she quite visibly weighed this. "Oh, handsome--very, very," I insisted; "wonderfully handsome. But infamous." She slowly came back to me. "Miss Jessel--WAS infamous." She once more took my hand in both her own, holding it as tight as if to fortify me against the increase of alarm I might draw from this disclosure. "They were both infamous," she finally said. So, for a little, we faced it once more together; and I found absolutely a degree of help in seeing it now so straight. "I appreciate," I said, "the great decency of your not having hitherto spoken; but the time has certainly come to give me the whole thing." She appeared to assent to this, but still only in silence; seeing which I went on: "I must have it now. Of what did she die? Come, there was something between them." "There was everything." "In spite of the difference--?" "Oh, of their rank, their condition"--she brought it woefully out. "SHE was a lady." I turned it over; I again saw. "Yes--she was a lady." "And he so dreadfully below," said Mrs. Grose. I felt that I doubtless needn't press too hard, in such company, on the place of a servant in the scale; but there was nothing to prevent an acceptance of my companion's own measure of my predecessor's abasement. There was a way to deal with that, and I dealt; the more readily for my full vision--on the evidence--of our employer's late clever, good-looking "own" man; impudent, assured, spoiled, depraved. "The fellow was a hound." Mrs. Grose considered as if it were perhaps a little a case for a sense of shades. "I've never seen one like him. He did what he wished." "With HER?" "With them all." It was as if now in my friend's own eyes Miss Jessel had again appeared. I seemed at any rate, for an instant, to see their evocation of her as distinctly as I had seen her by the pond; and I brought out with decision: "It must have been also what SHE wished!" Mrs. Grose's face signified that it had been indeed, but she said at the same time: "Poor woman--she paid for it!" "Then you do know what she died of?" I asked. "No--I know nothing. I wanted not to know; I was glad enough I didn't; and I thanked heaven she was well out of this!" "Yet you had, then, your idea--" "Of her real reason for leaving? Oh, yes--as to that. She couldn't


concentration could hurt not only herself but also the other dancers, Marion steeled her mind and her body as she fell backward, ever so slowly, to the floor. At the final beat they all turned their heads out to the audience to give the salute. As the lights went down, Marion’s attention was drawn to where Peter was sitting. A man in an usher’s uniform stood right next to him, whispering and gesturing. Peter said something back, shook his head, but then the usher took his arm. Marion had to get backstage to change costumes for the next number, but she got one more look back before she disappeared into the wings. Peter’s seat was empty. The usher had forced him out. That only left Tommy, who was all the way at the back of the theater. Unless he, too, had been removed. Marion’s mind raced as she changed backstage into a long robe with a hood for the nativity scene. What was she going to do now? Her breathing became strained. It was as if she couldn’t pull in enough oxygen to keep her heart pumping. The Rockette standing next to her looked over, worried. “Are you okay?” So far, none of the other dancers had said anything about Marion taking Bunny’s place. Replacements happened all the time, and most of the girls probably didn’t even know she’d left the troupe. Marion panted, one hand on her hip. “I can’t breathe.” This was no time to be keeling over. The dancer who was in charge of leading out the camel—a good-natured creature called Cornelius—moved closer. “Is everything all right?” she asked. Cornelius nudged his way over as well, as if interested in the answer. Marion shook her head. No, everything was quite wrong, in fact. Just then, the camel sneezed, spraying Marion directly in the face with wet strands of mucus. She straightened up, stunned, and wiped her face with her robe while the dancers around her erupted in giggles. While unwelcome, the shower of slime pulled her right out of her panic attack. She silently thanked the camel as the music swelled and they all marched back onstage. From her position far stage right, Marion got a good look at Martinek. He was still there. She was supposed to be facing upstage, gazing up at the manger where the baby Jesus lay, like all the other dancers. But since the hood kept her face in shadow, she cheated out, keeping her eyes on their target. Martinek slowly leaned down and fumbled with something at his feet, then straightened back up. He’d removed the bomb from the briefcase. Marion held her breath as he reached into his coat. Everyone around Martinek was gazing up at the stage, at the animals and the nativity tableau. Having live animals onstage hypnotized the Radio City audiences, as one never knew if a sheep might balk or a donkey might decide to do his business right as the baby Jesus was lifted into the air. The latter had happened during a couple of shows, and


a callsign … How about Quicksilver? Or Metalman? Maybe—” “Enough. You’re not getting a callsign,” I said. “What can you tell us about this ship?” We had now come full circle around the vessel and were starting our second. “She’s not an old ship, ten, eleven years old at the most. As you can see, looks nothing like our typical elongated Hamilton Class Dreadnought. This particular vessel, a highly advanced prototype, supposed to be the first of an entirely new class of spacecraft, is one that went missing some eight years ago. This, my friend, is the long-lost, thought to have been destroyed by the Grish, EUNF’s USS Lincoln.” Feeling exhilarated, taking in her sleek, bird-of-prey-like lines, I said, “The SpaceWing. Oh yeah, I’ve heard of her. Over.” “Me too,” Ryder said. “Believe she was one of a kind. Never went into full production. Over.” Akari brought up the most relevant question. “So, what happened to her? She looks to be in prime condition, not so much as a scratch or blemish to her hull. Over.” “She’s been well protected by this monster-sized asteroid,” I said. “I’m still in disbelief we found her. Over.” “No,” Ryder said. “You found her, Brigs. Maritime and celestial rules apply when it comes to finding long-lost abandoned ships—finders keepers, losers weepers. Over.” “Hardy, what else can you tell us—” “I’m going with Quicksilver. Over.” I dragged a palm down my face. “Fine, Quicksilver, what else can you tell us about this vessel? We’ll need to access her somehow.” “Captain, this is Bosun Polk. Just an update … sensors are working again, and a full sweep shows no other vessels, living beings, or movement, for that matter, in the area. Except for that warship you found, wherever we are, we’re alone. Bad news: Adams’ quansporter is down. Coogong’s trying to figure out why. Over.” “Copy that, Bosun. Concentrate in-depth sensor sweeps on USS Lincoln here. Ready an away team with full battle suits. We should probably get Max and team involved. Over.” “Roger that, sir. Out.” With Hardy seated at the controls, the others had been filing into the old beat-to-shit Hub Gunther over the last ten minutes or so. Larger than a shuttle and more equipped for battle if necessary, the old mining craft seemed to follow Quintos’s crew from ship to ship. Like a loyal old dog, she might not have a lot of pep in her step these days, but she was true and steadfast. Sergeant Max Dryer plopped down next to Hardy in the copilot’s seat, while the rest of the Marines, Wanda, Grip, Ham, and Hock, settled into the seedy and threadbare seats behind. All wore combat suits, their helmet faceplates retracted. “Smells like an old shoe in here,” Wanda said from behind. Hardy looked to the still-open hatch. “We expecting others?” Max shook his head. “No. We have Sonya coming along virtually via our helmet comm links.” Hardy attempted a shrug and looked back at Grip. “Someone left the barn doors open.” Grip made a face. Big and ridiculously muscular, the


no, no. I ignore it, even as I understand all the obvious reasons she doesn’t want to tell me. Mary. Her missing suitcase. Her corpse buried in the sand. The big difference between Mary’s situation and mine is that she left with Lenora’s story when others were here, mistakenly believing the cover of night would keep her safe. But right now, in broad daylight, there’s no one else at Hope’s End. It’s just me and Lenora and an opportunity to finish what we started. I’m ready to tempt fate one last time. And Lenora’s going to be along for the ride whether she wants to or not. I run back into the house, take the service stairs two at a time, and burst into Lenora’s room. At the desk, I grab a fresh sheet of paper and roll it into the typewriter carriage. Because Lenora might use more than one piece, I take a whole stack, setting the paper on top of the typewriter before hoisting it off the desk. Carrying the typewriter down the stairs is harder than moving it to Lenora’s bed. The greater distance puts more strain on my arms, and the typewriter feels heavier with each passing step. To keep the blank pages on top from slipping, I bend forward and use my chin as a paperweight. At the service stairs, I realize I can’t see where I’m going. I take each step slowly, dropping blindly from one to the next. At one point I misstep and knock into the cracked wall, jostling loose a chunk of plaster that falls onto the staircase. I crunch over it on my way to the bottom. After clearing the stairs, I shuffle through the kitchen, the typewriter getting heavier and heavier. My arms feel like jelly. My legs do, too. In the dining room, I huff a sigh of relief when I realize I never closed the French doors on my way inside. That’s at least one thing I won’t need to deal with. Tired and heaving, I carry the typewriter onto the terrace. Lenora’s there. Not on the grass, where I’d left her, but right there on the terrace, sitting in her wheelchair and staring at the sea. “How did you—” My voice leaves me when I see them. Mrs. Baker and Archie, Carter and Jessie. They all stand off to the side of the terrace, their expressions as varied as their personalities. Carter’s is concerned. Jessie looks mildly surprised. Archie’s face is blank. And Mrs. Baker? She’s pissed. Clearly busted, I lower the typewriter. The blank pages come loose and catch the breeze. I watch them swirl and skid across the terrace before taking flight. Over the railing. Off the cliff. Into the churning water far below. My mother would have died if I hadn’t entered her room, a fact made clear by Dr. Walden, the family physician. What wasn’t clear was if she drank all the laudanum by accident or did it on purpose. Everyone else swore it had to have been accidental. I, on the other hand,


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

and peered into a dairy to see the time. The clock in the dairy told him that it was five minutes to five but, as he turned away, he heard a clock somewhere near him, but unseen, beating eleven strokes in swift precision. He laughed as he heard it for it made him think of McCann, and he saw him a squat figure in a shooting jacket and breeches and with a fair goatee, standing in the wind at Hopkins' corner, and heard him say: --Dedalus, you're an antisocial being, wrapped up in yourself. I'm not. I'm a democrat and I'll work and act for social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes in the United States of the Europe of the future. Eleven! Then he was late for that lecture too. What day of the week was it? He stopped at a newsagent's to read the headline of a placard. Thursday. Ten to eleven, English; eleven to twelve, French; twelve to one, physics. He fancied to himself the English lecture and felt, even at that distance, restless and helpless. He saw the heads of his classmates meekly bent as they wrote in their notebooks the points they were bidden to note, nominal definitions, essential definitions and examples or dates of birth or death, chief works, a favourable and an unfavourable criticism side by side. His own head was unbent for his thoughts wandered abroad and whether he looked around the little class of students or out of the window across the desolate gardens of the green an odour assailed him of cheerless cellar-damp and decay. Another head than his, right before him in the first benches, was poised squarely above its bending fellows like the head of a priest appealing without humility to the tabernacle for the humble worshippers about him. 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


ran now, the guards could catch him. “Yes, you, with the full face,” the captain called out, tapping his visor. “Come here!” “Is there a problem?” Yassen asked as he approached. “No full visors allowed on the dock, except for the guard,” the captain said. “I didn’t know it was a crime to wear a full visor,” Yassen said. His voice was cool, perhaps a bit too nonchalant because the captain slapped the cup out of Yassen’s hand. The spilled tea hissed against the metal planks. “New rules,” the captain said. “Only guards can wear full visors. Everybody else has to go half.” His subordinates snickered. “Looks like he’s fresh off the boat, Cap. You got to cut it up for him,” one said. Behind his visor, Yassen frowned. He glanced at the merchant leaning against the fortunes stall. The man wore a bored expression, as if the interaction before him was nothing new. But then the merchant bent forward, pressing his hands to the counter, and Yassen saw the sign of the bull tattooed there. Samson’s men were watching. “All right,” Yassen said. He would give them a show. Prove that he wasn’t as useless as the whispers told. He unclipped his visor as the guards watched. “But you owe me another cup of tea.” And then Yassen flung his arm out and rammed the visor against the captain’s face. The man stumbled back with a groan. The other two leapt forward, but Yassen was quicker; he swung around and gave four quick jabs, two each on the back, and the officers seized and sank to their knees in temporary paralysis. “Blast him!” the captain cried, reaching for his gun. Yassen pivoted behind him, his hand flashing out to unclip the captain’s helmet visor. The captain whipped around, raising his gun… but then sunlight hit the planks before him, and the brass threw off its unforgiving light. Blinded, the captain fired. The air screeched. The pulse whizzed past Yassen’s right ear, tearing through the upper beams of a storefront. Immediately, merchants took cover. Someone screamed as the crowd on both docks began to run. Yassen swiftly vanished into the chaotic fray, letting the crowd push him toward the dock’s edge, and then he dove into the sea. The cold water shocked him, and for a moment, Yassen floundered. His muscles clenched. And then he was coughing, swimming, and he surfaced beneath the dock. He willed himself to be still as footsteps thundered overhead and soldiers and guards barked out orders. Yassen caught glimpses of the captain in the spaces between the planks. “All hells! Where did he go?” the captain yelled at the merchant manning the stall of wild tales. The merchant shrugged. “He’s long gone.” Yassen sank deeper into the water as the captain walked overhead, his subordinates wobbling behind. Something buzzed beneath him, and he could see the faint outlines of a dark shape in the depths. Slowly, Yassen began to swim away—but the dark shape remained stationary. He waited for the guards to pass and then sank beneath


in with the chance to win a full university scholarship….’ ” My mouth is numb. My throat is dry. My nerves are fried. “I need a drink.” Michaela is a dancer; she never goes anywhere without a disgustingly heavy two-liter flask of water. “Here ya go,” she says brightly, and causes a small earthquake by slamming it on the table. “Where did you get this?” I demand between desperate gulps, shaking the Golden Leaflet of Opportunity. “Mr. Darling’s office.” “Mr. Darling’s— Minnie. It’s the first day of school. How are you on his shit list already?” “I’m not,” she says primly. “It was a preliminary warning. You know: Focus on school this year, Michaela, or you’ll die homeless under a bridge by twenty-five. The usual morale-boosting stuff.” “Oh, babe. That’s not true. He’s just jealous of your fabulous hair and giant brain.” “Stop. You know I don’t listen to him. I have bigger plans.” It’s true. She’s going to be like Jessica Alba in my older sister’s favorite film, Honey, except much cooler and actually Black. Then she winks and taps the paper. “And so do you.” No, I don’t: focusing on school is my big plan, because that’s how you get into Cambridge, which is how you get an excellent law degree and take over the world. But I’ve done the research and read the forums: companies—including law firms—fall all over themselves to hire Breakspeare Enrichment Program alums because the program produces uniquely driven and capable candidates with work ethics and abilities worthy of Katharine’s own reputation. It’s not like other enrichment programs where you memorize textbooks and complete work experience. In this one, you’re put out into the wilderness where you try to survive and, ideally, thrive, for what I’m sure are completely logical reasons. (It is true that I’m hazy on details, but I trust that Katharine knows what she’s doing.) Nature isn’t really my thing—not anymore. But I would gargle pond water to get within three feet of this opportunity for the clout alone, never mind the scholarship. So it turns out this is it: my new agenda for the last year of school. Goodbye, Latin Club, and farewell to volunteering at the animal hospital. It’s time to make space for camping with Katharine. Apparently, anyone interested in the details can attend a meeting in Nottingham later this week. I flip the leaflet over, searching for a map, but instead I see a QR code labeled “RSVP” and the logos of all the companies involved. The list is long. Some are huge, like Boots; some are small but powerful, like Games Workshop; and I see plenty of law firms, too, which is— Oh. My dad’s firm is a sponsor. Minnie sees my face, then follows my gaze. “What? What?” She squints at the page. “Wear your glasses, Michaela,” I mutter sharply. “Not with these lashes.” She bats her falsies at me (I think I feel a breeze), then reads “ ‘Lawrence, Needham and Soro, corporate law, established 1998.’ ” I swallow hard. My throat is dry again. I


a glutton. He was just as happy to go on a walk as he was to spend the entire day napping. He loved a good squeaky toy, but he lost interest at exactly the same rate I did. He loved me madly—leaping in circles whenever I came back home from anywhere—but without taking it too far. Without, say, suffering from separation anxiety and eating my shoes. His self-esteem was solid. His fashion sense was legendary. His sense of humor was totally deadpan. I preferred him to most people even in normal times, is what I’m saying. But of course, even more so now, when “most people” were the last thing on earth I wanted to see. And so when I woke up way too early on Sunday morning and set out his favorite breakfast dish—torn pieces of croissant from his favorite French bakery—but he sat still and stared at me … my heart dropped in my chest. I just knew, you know? I sensed in an instant something was wrong. I tried coaxing him over, holding up a piece and taking a nibble myself, hoping he’d come take it. (He didn’t.) I tried picking him up and setting him in front of the dish, like that might inspire him to dive in. (It didn’t.) I tried giving the dish ten seconds in the microwave, like that might make it seem fresh-baked and more appealing. (Kind of the opposite.) But nothing. All Peanut wanted to do was hold himself still like a statue. I squeaked his squeaky squirrel, but he just stared at me, like, Really? I tossed it across the room and ran after it like we were racing, but he just blinked at me, like, Please. And when I finally picked up his leash and jangled it at him and watched him fully not respond, that’s when I called the vet. The new vet—because it was closest. They weren’t even open yet, but I told the answering service it was an emergency. They said they’d page one of the vets to meet me at the clinic. And here’s how worried about Peanut I was: I didn’t even think to request Dr. Addison. * * * IT WAS A small clinic, not some big 24-hour place. But they did have weekend hours. They were open only from eight to noon on Sundays, but I wrapped Peanut up in his favorite velour blanket, cradled him in my arms, power walked the entire two blocks over because I still wasn’t allowed to run for skull-related reasons, and was sitting on the bench by the clinic doors at 7:45. My heart was wheezing. I don’t even think it was pumping blood at that point—just straight adrenaline and a dark feeling of dread that Peanut was dying. Which was unacceptable. Even though he was fourteen years old. This was no joke. I’d done a pretty impressive set of mathematical calculations involving the life spans of all the different dog breeds he was a mix of, and by every analysis, I was guaranteed at least two more


‘Your timing is perfect. And it’s made me realize something.’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘We’re all going.’ Atto turned to her. ‘We’re all going where?’ ‘To McMurdo.’ ‘How are we going to do that?’ ‘I don’t know how.’ ‘Shall we talk about this another time?’ ‘Sure, we can talk another time. But there’s nothing to talk about.’ ‘How about the fact that we’re not allowed to go?’ ‘They can’t stop me.’ ‘They can stop you. There is no way they’re going to allow us to go with Echo.’ Liza cut him short: ‘Don’t tell me there’s not a way. We found a way from Lisbon to Antarctica on a fishing boat and an oil tanker. We can find a way from Hope Town to McMurdo City. I don’t care what the rules are. This family is not going to be split up. All four of us are getting on that transport. We’re all going to McMurdo City.’ PART FOUR TWENTY YEARS EARLIER ISRAEL BEN GURION INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TWENTY KILOMETRES NORTHWEST OF JERUSALEM 6 AUGUST 2023 YOTAM DROVE HIS MERKAVA MARK Four tank down the middle of Highway One at its top speed of sixty kilometres per hour, shunting aside gridlocked traffic in a race to secure Ben Gurion International Airport. Turning off the highway at the airport perimeter, he smashed through razor-wire fencing, driving directly onto the runway and into the path of a twin-engine commercial airliner attempting to take off. Despite being given repeated instructions to shut down its engines, the Iberia Airways flight was returning to Madrid on the command of the Spanish government, who were behaving the same as every other government in the world right now, trying to gather as many planes as possible. With a comparatively small international airport, Israel couldn’t afford to lose any of these planes. Shots were fired across the pilot’s windscreen and when that warning was ignored, Yotam drove the tank directly under the aircraft’s nose, crashing into the front wheels, wedging underneath it like a doorstop. Better to damage a plane than lose it, since each plane had become unfathomably precious – capable of carrying thousands of people to safety. The result of these efforts was a small fleet given the scale of the task – the evacuation of an entire country. In contrast, Dubai with a population of only three million had an airport terminal dedicated to the world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380 – an aircraft that had fallen out of favour in recent years but which, in this crisis, was now the most coveted plane on the planet. China and the United States had the advantage of having the largest civilian airline fleets in the world, with eight of the top ten airlines by fleet size; America Airlines alone operated over two thousand planes. It was clear that the survivors of this alien occupation would be disproportionately represented by the two most powerful countries in the world. Many nations were struggling with the limitation of having small airlines and a small navy. Israel was in the middle of global rankings


part—little black lace gloves with a single button at each wrist. The only downside to this outfit is the lack of pockets, but I’ve shoved my phone and some cash down my cleavage. Hopefully I won’t forget it’s there and worry that I’m having a heart attack when it vibrates like I did last time. The Explorers’ Ball is held in a modestly sized room with swooping ceilings and white-linen-covered tables. Perfectly round pearlescent balloons with champagne-colored confetti inside them float above us. Below, things are a lot less serene: I look out at the sea of unfamiliar faces and feel my palms prickle beneath my gloves. Parents are easy to spot—they look proud and are taking enthusiastic advantage of the free punch. Professionals are easy to see too—they look serious and intimidating, like the future itself. I don’t see Brad. “Maria and the boys are here already,” Mum says, patting the little blue clutch where her phone lives. “Shall we look around? Or do you want to go and find your friends on your own, Celine?” I know what she’s really asking: Do you want to separate, when we don’t know if your father’s here? I take a little breath and make my choice. “You guys find Maria. I’m going to explore and, you know, network.” If I can work up the nerve to approach an actual adult and sell my professional skills. Maybe that will come later in the night while we eat dinner. I know we’ve all been seated according to our professional interests…. My stomach leaps with nerves and I decide to focus on one thing at a time. First things first: find Brad. We separate and I wind through the crowd, spotting Raj in a dove-gray suit talking with an older lady wearing thick black-framed glasses. There’s that Vanessa girl, holding court with what seems like half the professionals in the building. Impressive. There’s Holly and Zion, huddled together by the punch—Zion gives me a wave; Holly offers a smoky-eyed smize—and Aurora and Sophie are waving at me from across the room. I’m practically running toward them when Katharine Breakspeare appears in front of me like the angel Gabriel—you know, mystical and too fabulous to look at. I blink like a fish to clear my eyes. “Ah, Celine,” she says cheerfully, “just the person I’d hoped to see. May I have a moment of your time?” I agree so fast I almost choke on it. “My— Yes! Yes, of course! Hello, Katharine—er, Ms. Breakspeare—” Her mouth twitches. “Katharine is fine.” My cheeks heat up, but I keep my spine straight. “Right, thank you.” Katharine’s famous blowout is bouncing around the structured shoulders of her floor-length red gown. The gauzy fabric covers her from wrist to ankle but it’s tight and constructed out of bold, slashing lines. She looks like a general. A gorgeous general with a personal stylist. I file this look away for my immensely successful future while she steers us toward the edge of the room, where a floor-to-ceiling window looks out on the streetlamp-lit


words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then hear chords a bit off: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks, over barrels, through wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood you're in. Still always nice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls learning. Two together nextdoor neighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos for that. BLUMENLIED I bought for her. The name. Playing it slow, a girl, night I came home, the girl. Door of the stables near Cecilia street. Milly no taste. Queer because we both, I mean. Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went. It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a boy in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. Queenstown harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the moonlight with those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such music, Ben. Heard as a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole. Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying. Down the edge of his FREEMAN baton ranged Bloom's, your other eye, scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. Heigho! Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking ... Hope he's not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his FREEMAN. Can't see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear sir. Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I put? Some pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline IMPOSS. To write today. Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting fingers on flat pad Pat brought. On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accep my poor litt pres enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the gulls. Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne's. Is eight about. Say half a crown. My poor little pres: p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you despise? Jingle, have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught? You naughty too? O, Mairy lost the string of her. Bye for today. Yes, yes, will tell you. Want to. To keep it up. Call me that other. Other world she wrote. My patience are exhaust. To keep it up. You must believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True. Folly am I writing? Husbands don't. That's marriage does, their wives. Because I'm away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she found out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If they don't see. Woman. Sauce for the gander. A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden


doing is respecting their wishes.” Louise stood up. The roaring voices on the other side of the door sounded louder. She felt the floor buckle under her feet and tilt to one side. Brody laid one hand on her arm. “Don’t!” she said, and he froze. Then he crammed something small and hard and sharp into her hand. She looked down at the thick white envelope. “Your mom wanted you to have this,” he said, but Louise wasn’t listening; she was already grabbing the doorknob and pulling herself out of the room and into the wall of her parents’ friends, neighbors, and family. They all looked like strangers to her. Constance, standing to one side of the door, saw her leave the study. “Louise,” she said, but Louise threw herself into the crowd, staggering toward the light coming in through the door to the back porch. “Louise!” She lurched through the crowd. Feet pounded on the floor. She stumbled into people’s drinks. She heard the ceiling collapsing. She felt the floor splintering, boards tumbling into the yard below. She grabbed the handle of the sliding door and hauled it open and stepped onto the back porch with the smokers. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she said, shoving her way down the stairs like she needed to throw up, trying to inhale oxygen through their nicotine fog. Her head hurt so much she couldn’t see. She needed to find her car. She turned to cut beneath the house to the front yard. “Louise!” Constance grabbed her by the arm and spun her around. “What!” Louise snapped, breathing hard. “Brody told me,” Constance said and looked into Louise’s eyes with her washed-out blue ones. “I’m sorry.” Louise threw herself against Constance’s chest and felt her cousin’s arms go around her. She’d been going to split it with him. She just wanted to be left in charge so everything got done the right way. She just wanted them to part on good terms, but he hated her. Louise’s tears took her by surprise. She was crying, she was finally crying, but not over her parents. She was crying because there was no one left in her family except Mark, and he hated her so much. Constance rocked her gently from one foot to the other as Louise cried into her chest. “We all loved your mama and daddy,” Constance whispered, stroking Louise’s hair as Louise cried harder. “Sh, sh, sh, sh, it’s all going to be okay. It’s all going to be fine.” You know, Louise, her dad said, statistically, and there’s a lot of variance in these numbers, but in general, from a strictly scientific point of view, everything turns out okay an improbable number of times. Not anymore. Her dad was dead. Her mom had picked her brother. Her brother hated her. There was nothing left here for Louise anymore. She pushed herself away from Constance, wiping her face. Constance handed her a Kleenex. She blew her nose and almost gave Constance the Kleenex back, then realized how gross that was and bunched it


scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person. You and I, Thufir, of all those who love the Duke, are most ideally situated to destroy the other's place. Could I not whisper suspicions about you into the Duke's ear at night? When would he be most susceptible to such whispering, Thufir? Must I draw it for you more clearly?" "You threaten me?" he growled. "Indeed not. I merely point out to you that someone is attacking us through the basic arrangement of our lives. It's clever, diabolical. I propose to negate this attack by so ordering our lives that there'll be no chinks for such barbs to enter." "You accuse me of whispering baseless suspicions?" "Baseless, yes." "You'd meet this with your own whispers?" "Your life is compounded of whispers, not mine, Thufir." "Then you question my abilities?" She sighed. "Thufir, I want you to examine your own emotional involvement in this. The natural human's an animal without logic. Your projections of logic onto all affairs is unnatural, but suffered to continue for its usefulness. You're the embodiment of logic--a Mentat. Yet, your problem solutions are concepts that, in a very real sense, are projected outside yourself, there to be studied and rolled around, examined from all sides." "You think now to teach me my trade?" he asked, and he did not try to hide the disdain in his voice. "Anything outside yourself, this you can see and apply your logic to it," she said. "But it's a human trait that when we encounter personal problems, those things most deeply personal are the most difficult to bring out for our logic to scan. We tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that's really chewing on us." "You're deliberately attempting to undermine my faith in my abilities as a Mentat," he rasped. "Were I to find one of our people attempting thus to sabotage any other weapon in our arsenal, I should not hesitate to denounce and destroy him." "The finest Mentats have a healthy respect for the error factor in their computations," she said. "I've never said otherwise!" "Then apply yourself to these symptoms we've both seen: drunkenness among the men, quarrels--they gossip and exchange wild rumors about Arrakis; they ignore the most simple--" "Idleness, no more," he said. "Don't try to divert my attention by trying to make a simple matter appear mysterious." She stared at him, thinking of the Duke's men rubbing their woes together in the barracks until you could almost smell the charge there, like burnt insulation. They're becoming like the men of the pre-Guild legend, she thought: Like the men of the lost star-searcher, Ampoliros--sick at their guns--forever seeking, forever prepared and forever unready. "Why have you never made full use of my abilities in your service to the Duke?" she asked. "Do you fear a rival for your position?" He glared at her, the old eyes blazing. "I know some of the training they give you Bene Gesserit . . . " He broke off, scowling. "Go ahead, say it,"


Prim. “Did I ever tell you about how I got Prim’s goat?” I ask. Pee- ta shakes his head, and looks at me expectantly. So I begin. But carefully. Because my words are going out all over Panem. And while people have no doubt put two and two together that I hunt illegally, I don’t want to hurt Gale or Greasy Sae or the butcher or even the Peacekeepers back home who are my customers by publicly announcing they’d breaking the law, too. Here’s the real story of how I got the money for Prim’s goat, Lady. It was a Friday evening, the day before Prim’s tenth birthday in late May. As soon as school ended, Gale and I hit the woods, because I wanted to get enough to trade for a present for Prim. Maybe some new cloth for a dress or a hair- brush. Our snares had done well enough and the woods were flush with greens, but this was really no more than our aver- age Friday-night haul. I was disappointed as we headed back, even though Gale said we’d be sure to do better tomorrow. We were resting a moment by a stream when we saw him. A young buck, probably a yearling by his size. His antlers were 264 just growing in, still small and coated in velvet. Poised to run but unsure of us, unfamiliar with humans. Beautiful. Less beautiful perhaps when the two arrows caught him, one in the neck, the other in the chest. Gale and I had shot at the same time. The buck tried to run but stumbled, and Gale’s knife slit his throat before he knew what had happened. Mo- mentarily, I’d felt a pang at killing something so fresh and in- nocent. And then my stomach rumbled at the thought of all that fresh and innocent meat. A deer! Gale and I have only brought down three in all. The first one, a doe that had injured her leg somehow, almost didn’t count. But we knew from that experience not to go dragging the carcass into the Hob. It had caused chaos with people bidding on parts and actually trying to hack off pieces themselves. Greasy Sae had intervened and sent us with our deer to the butcher, but not before it’d been badly damaged, hunks of meat taken, the hide riddled with holes. Although everybody paid up fairly, it had lowered the value of the kill. This time, we waited until dark fell and slipped under a hole in the fence close to the butcher. Even though we were known hunters, it wouldn’t have been good to go carrying a 150-pound deer through the streets of District 12 in daylight like we were rubbing it in the officials’ faces. The butcher, a short, chunky woman named Rooba, came to the back door when we knocked. You don’t haggle with Rooba. She gives you one price, which you can take or leave, but it’s a fair price. We took her offer on the deer and she threw in a couple


himself. But he is willing to let Dolly, an experienced mother, teach him the "mysteries" of child care. ("Mystery" here means "sacred rites" as well as "unknown questions.") One piece of advice she gives him troubles him, though. She insists he bring the child into the church. Dolly believes in christening the same way she believes in giving children their shots ("noculation")--to protect them from every possible harm. Silas is baffled because he doesn't know the word "christening" (in Lantern-Yard it was called "baptism"). As he speaks of his own religion in a low voice, he still seems bitter. But he agrees to do whatever is good for the child. As he thus moves beyond his own interests, his memory is reawakened. He decides to name the baby Hepzibah, after his mother and sister--though Dolly suggests he shorten it to Eppie. She wishes Silas good luck--which she says comes to anyone who does the right deeds. Since no one knows whether Eppie's been baptized, the rector has to decide which is riskier--possibly baptizing her twice, or possibly not baptizing her at all. (Remember Mr. Macey's concern over the Lammeter's wedding ceremony?) He decides to baptize her, and Silas goes to church for the ceremony. With the spirit of faith dead inside him, he can't interpret what's going on, but he goes for Eppie's sake. NOTE: GOLD Eliot compares Eppie to the gold that she has replaced in Silas' life. The gold is hidden and cold, but Eppie is associated with nature, sunlight, growing things, and bird songs. While the gold carried his thoughts inward, Eppie forces them outward. While the gold isolated him, Eppie demands ties to other people. The gold made him blind and deaf, but Eppie awakens his senses. To carry this beyond metaphor, Eliot shows Silas and Eppie actually going out into the sunshiny day, picking flowers in a meadow, listening to birds. Eliot suggests that Silas is like an insect--an old fly, sluggish after a long winter, who now basks in the spring sunshine. Out in the meadow with Eppie, Silas rediscovers an important part of his past--herbs. Eliot points out that Silas' regeneration is not so much a matter of learning new things as coming to terms with the past and opening up his feelings, like a blooming flower. Dolly warns Silas that children must be disciplined. She recommends either spanking or shutting them up in the coal-closet (as she does with Aaron). Silas hates the idea of punishing Eppie. One day, however, while he's busy weaving, she gets hold of his scissors and cuts the strip of cloth that ties her to the loom so she can't run away. She runs outside, attracted as usual by the bright light. When Silas can't find her, he's as terrified as he was when he lost his gold. He searches around the stone-pit frantically, imagining the worst. Then he searches the meadow and the neighboring field, straining his weak eyes. Finally he finds her beside a shallow pond, playing happily in the mud, oblivious to the panic he's just


house of her ancestors; and he considered her only prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir. He had no idea that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself, nor had any one, I believe. No doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us. I, for my part, began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in pursu- ing his object. I could not picture a father treating a dy- ing child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this ap- parent eagerness, his efforts redoubling the more im- minently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threat- ened with defeat by death. CHAPTER XXVI. Summer was already past its prime when Edgar reluctantly yielded his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our first ride to join her cousin. It was a close, sultry day, devoid of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain; and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guide- stone by the crossroads. On arriving there, however, a little herd-boy, dispatched as a messenger, told us that--- "Maister Linton wer just o' this side th' Heights, and he'd be mitch obleeged to us to gang on a bit further." "Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle," I observed. "He bade us keep on the Grange land, and here we are off at once." "Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him," answered my companion; "our excursion shall lie towards home." But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile from his own door, we found he had no horse, and we were forced to dismount and leave ours to graze. He lay on the heath awaiting our ap- proach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards. Then he walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately exclaimed,--- "Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying a ramble this morning. How ill you do look!" Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment. She changed the ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm, and the congratulation on their long-postponed meeting to an anxious inquiry whether he were worse than usual. "No; better---better!" he panted, trembling, and re- taining her hand as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes wandered timidly over her, the hollow- ness round them transforming to haggard wildness the languid expression they once possessed. "But you have been worse," persisted his cousin--- "worse than when I saw you last. You are thinner, and------" "I'm tired," he interrupted hurriedly. "It is too hot for walking; let us rest here. And in the morning I often feel sick. Papa says I grow so fast." Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined


in this way, but nobody has to know that. They just need to know that I’m carefree and reckless and willing to destroy my future employment prospects for a laugh. Have you ever met some uptight bozo but then found out that they have some ugly, moronic tattoo, and that makes you want to be their best friend? That’s the power of randomly picking a piece of shitty body art off a wall and having it stabbed into your skin, where it will remain for the rest of your life: you can make friends, terrify your enemies, and one day overhear a seventh grader say, “She won’t make eye contact with me or listen when I talk, but she looks really scary and cool.” we used to get dressed up to go to red lobster We waited three-plus hours for diet salad. I went to the fancy mall fifty-three miles away, ostensibly for a bar of fancy soap. I mean, it wasn’t about the soap as much as it was about needing an excuse to spend a Saturday morning any place other than my house. But an overpriced chunk of glycerin was as good a reason as any. I dragged my friend Emily with me because looking at stuff I can’t afford alone makes me depressed. When we got there, the mall parking lot was surprisingly packed for a non-last-minute-holiday-shopping day, and I cursed my poor planning as I was forced to park several miles away from the closest door. I locked the car and was nearly mowed down by a horde of people rushing toward the gleaming mall doors—dozens and dozens of people clawing at and climbing over one another to get to the entrance first, tearing at each other’s clothes, teeth gnashing and dripping with thick saliva. I stopped a man as he threatened to knock the walker out of a frail woman’s hands and said, “Dude? What in the world is going on here today?” He looked at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head, then dove to his left to avoid a pair of sprinting college kids whose shoes pounded the ground so hard sparks shot out from beneath them. “We finally got a Cheesecake Factory!” he shouted. “And today is the grand opening!” A freshly constructed Cheesecake Factory, the uncontested ruler of the reheated, prepackaged mall chains, opening only an hourlong car ride and a half a tank of gas away from where I live? And I just so happened to want a block of twig-and-berries natural soap on the day of its grand opening? My karma was obviously right. I fought my way through the throngs of people in sensible gym shoes clustered around the door, dragging Emily’s tiny limp body behind me, and made my way to the host, who informed me that there could be a wait of “several hours” between me and a plate of Roadside Sliders. I watched frustrated packs of tweens sighing and grimacing at their watches, angrily punching orders like “mom get me NOW, k?” into their phones


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

empty downs with the wind swaying and remote green-pointed furze bushes. "Am I drunk?" said Mr. Marvel. "Have I had visions? Was I talking to myself? What the--" "Don't be alarmed," said a voice. "None of your ventriloquising me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rising sharply to his feet. "Where are yer? Alarmed, indeed!" "Don't be alarmed," repeated the voice. "You'll be alarmed in a minute, you silly fool," said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "Where are yer? Lemme get my mark on yer-- "Are you buried?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, after an interval. There was no answer. Mr. Thomas Marvel stood bootless and amazed, his jacket nearly thrown off. "Peewit," said a peewit, very remote. "Peewit, indeed!" said Mr. Thomas Marvel. "This ain't no time for foolery." The down was desolate, east and west, north and south; the road with its shallow ditches and white bordering stakes, ran smooth and empty north and south, and, save for that peewit, the blue sky was empty too. "So help me," said Mr. Thomas Marvel, shuffling his coat on to his shoulders again. "It's the drink! I might ha' known." "It's not the drink," said the voice. "You keep your nerves steady." "Ow!" said Mr. Marvel, and his face grew white amidst its patches. "It's the drink," his lips repeated noiselessly. He remained staring about him, rotating slowly backwards. "I could have swore I heard a voice," he whispered. "Of course you did." "It's there again," said Mr. Marvel, closing his eyes and clasping his hand on his brow with a tragic gesture. He was suddenly taken by the collar and shaken violently and left more dazed than ever. "Don't be a fool," said the voice. "I'm--off--my--blooming--chump," said Mr. Marvel. "It's no good. It's fretting about them blarsted boots. I'm off my blessed blooming chump. Or it's spirits." "Neither one thing nor the other," said the voice. "Listen!" "Chump," said Mr. Marvel. "One minute," said the voice penetratingly,--tremulous with self-control. "Well?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, with a strange feeling of having been dug in the chest by a finger. "You think I'm just imagination? Just imagination?" "What else can you be?" said Mr. Thomas Marvel, rubbing the back of his neck. "Very well," said the voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going to throw flints at you till you think differently." "But where are yer?" The voice made no answer. Whiz came a flint, apparently out of the air, and missed Mr. Marvel's shoulder by a hair's breadth. Mr. Marvel, turning, saw a flint jerk up into the air, trace a complicated path, hang for a moment, and then fling at his feet with almost invisible rapidity. He was too amazed to dodge. Whiz it came, and ricocheted from a bare toe into the ditch. Mr. Thomas Marvel jumped a foot and howled aloud. Then he started to run, tripped over an unseen obstacle, and came head over heels into a sitting position. "Now," said the voice, as a third stone curved upward and hung in the air above the tramp. "Am I imagination?" Mr.


it dearly, and I'll come, if you are quite sure nobody will hear me, and be disturbed," she added, fearing to be rude, and trembling at her own boldness as she spoke. "Not a soul, my dear. The house is empty half the day, so come and drum away as much as you like, and I shall be obliged to you." "How kind you are, sir!" Beth blushed like a rose under the friendly look he wore, but she was not frightened now, and gave the hand a grateful squeeze because she had no words to thank him for the precious gift he had given her. The old gentleman softly stroked the hair off her forehead, and, stooping down, he kissed herr, saying, in a tone few people ever heard . . . "I had a little girl once, with eyes like these. God bless you, my dear! Good day. madam." And away he went, in a great hurry. Beth had a rapture with her mother, and then rushed up to impart the glorious news to her family of invalids, as the girls were not home. How blithely she sang that evening, and how they all laughed at her because she woke Amy in the night by playing the piano on her face in her sleep. Next day, having seen both the old and young gentleman out of the house, Beth, after two or three retreats, fairly got in at the side door, and made her way as noiselessly as any mouse to the drawing room where her idol stood. Quite by accident, of course, some pretty, easy music lay on the piano, and with trembling fingers and frequent stops to listen and look about, Beth at last touched the great instrument, and straightway forgot her fear, herself, and everything else but the unspeakable delight which the music gave her, for it was like the voice of a beloved friend. She stayed till Hannah came to take her home to dinner, but she had no appetite,and could only sit and smile upon everyone in a general state of beatitude. After that, the little brown hood slipped through the hedge nearly every day, and the great drawing room was haunted by a tuneful spirit that came and went unseen. She never knew that Mr. Laurence opened his study door to hear the old-fashioned airs he liked. She never saw Laurie mount guard in the hall to warn the servants away. She never suspected that the exercise books and new songs which she found in the rack were put there for her especial benefit, and when he talked to her about music at home, she only thought how kind he was to tell things that helped her so much. So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn't always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped. Perhaps it was because she was so grateful for this blessing that a greater was given her. At any rate she deserved both. "Mother, I'm going to work Mr. Laurence a pair of slippers.


it, too,’ she said, almost too soft to hear. ‘I will think of being yours.’ Their noses brushed. ‘I will think of having you in my arms every night.’ Dumai could hardly think at all. Her heart was beating at her breastbone. When Nikeya kissed her, all else faded into the dark, even the rock beneath them. She was soaring. Nikeya walked them farther into the spring. Dumai hitched her into her arms, feeling a tireless pull between her thighs, a call to draw Nikeya close. (No, she reminded herself, drunk with need. No, I am the one at the end of the hook.) Nikeya grasped her hair, and the strength of her touch was a confirmation. The spring washed around their waists, reaching their shoulders. Dumai longed to touch her as the water did, covering all of her, all at once. Nikeya sighed into her neck. Even wordless, desire lay thick on her voice, and Dumai imagined her in bed – their bed, for a ruler and consort. A bed that was also a harbour. The thought pushed away the other picture, made her deepen the kiss. They lost their footing, and Nikeya laughed against her lips. It had been so long since she had heard a laugh like that, sweet and carefree. Somehow, they reached the shore, and Dumai laid her on their clothes. Nikeya gazed up at her, the love so clear in her eyes that Dumai wondered how she had ever missed it. ‘I had a dream,’ Nikeya whispered, ‘that you were still a godsinger, and I was your shrine.’ I had the same dream, Dumai wanted to say, but her throat was dry from wanting. Instead, she spoke with touch. She cradled a breast as if it were sacred, a river pearl in the shell of her palm. Nikeya pressed her close, one hand on her shoulder and the other on her waist. Time lost all boundaries, all meaning. Dumai had never done this, except in sweet and secret dreams, but Nikeya was the silver moon that told her where to go. The undertows of her body, her small and tender sounds, her limbs – those were the only guides Dumai needed. She watched pleasure wash over her, break on her, and it was a sight more breathtaking than dawn on Mount Ipyeda. Dumai kissed her once more, and though she had never bathed in the sea, she knew how the waves would taste in her mouth. Dumai smoothed a strand of hair from her brow. Nikeya smiled, her eyes sparkling in their old way. She draped a leg across Dumai, tipping her on to her back, and sat across her hips, hand sliding low, the touch a startling promise. With the other, she interlocked their fingers. ‘Do you trust me?’ Her voice was soft as evening prayer. ‘Yes,’ Dumai told her. ‘I trust you now.’ Nikeya lifted their twined fingers to her cheek. These might be the very last days of the world – they had no time to waste on waiting. Nikeya captured her lips


Kristi and kill her? Why? She drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk and the kitten batted at them. Kristi, lost in thought, barely noticed. Mandel Jarvis throwing everything away to hunt Kristi down didn’t seem right either. Not at this moment in time. She remembered thinking someone had been waiting by her house the other night, how Dave had bristled at a figure in the alley. Mandel? Was that his style to go lurking in the shadows? He’d killed one person—well, that anyone knew about—he wasn’t a serial killer, so why go after Kristi now? Again, it didn’t make sense. As for Ned Zavala, the “Bayou Butcher,” he was more likely. Anyone who could cut people into pieces . . . and he was mean. Major chip on his shoulder. She didn’t buy his mother recanting her testimony and placing the blame on her recently deceased husband, no matter how unhinged and brutal Corrin Hebert had been. She picked up her notes on the Bayou Butcher and found her notes that Zavala had indeed threatened not only her, but her father as well. “You’ll regret this,” he’d yelled to Bentz, and he’d been led in chains out of the courtroom once the verdict had come down. “I’ll see to it! You’ll regret the day you were born.” And when Kristi’s book had come out, she’d received letters from him while he’d been incarcerated. All on lined paper, all in pencil. She found those letters in a file now and looked through them. Five in all, the first being furious and threatening and then less so. She’d received the last one two years before he’d been released and nothing since. And his letters had been written in a stiff printing. As if he were still in grade school. There were some references to God and Jesus, but no specific Bible verses were included. If Zavala were the killer, again the question was, what would have set him off? Why would he sneak around in the pouring rain to attack her and murder Jay? Again she thought of the prerelease of the TV movie. Was that enough to ignite him? She leaned back in her desk chair. Did it make sense? Did anything? Her head was beginning to pound with the thoughts swirling through it. She felt like she was treading water, moving ever faster and getting nowhere. She scraped her hair away from her face and searched in a drawer until she found a rubber band. As she formed a loose bun with her fingers and snapped the band into place, she saw a copy of The God Complex and Murder lying under an open spiral notebook. “Hamilton Cooke,” she said aloud, and picked up the book. He was a cold one. She remembered meeting his eyes this morning when he’d walked into the green room at the station. If looks could kill . . . Yeah, she’d be dead already. He hated her, and Reggie, she, too, despised Kristi and let her know it, but would either of them


Hap whispered. Vic stopped in front of Hap, taking his hands and holding them tightly. “The horns. The piano. The drums and the hi-hat. Miles Davis. It’s blue. It’s a kind of blue. Listen.” He couldn’t remember it all. His mind was still shorting out, his breaths still ragged. But he hummed what he could. “Blue in Green.” The muted trumpet, that sharp metallic sound, the flutter of piano keys. His voice was cracked, his head full of fireworks. He swayed from side to side as he held onto Hap. Distantly, he was aware that Nurse Ratched had begun to play the very song he was humming. And though it had no words, Rambo joined in, his voice soft and low. “Butterfly,” Hap said faintly. “Nice. Pretty.” Vic didn’t know how long it lasted. It felt like hours, though it was only minutes. Incrementally, Hap relaxed, bit by bit. It started in his legs and rolled its way through his hips and chest. He sagged against Vic, his face buried in Vic’s neck. The music faded as Vic whispered, “There. See? All is well. We’re okay. You’re okay. I’ve got you.” Hap clutched at him, teeth bared against Vic’s throat. “You saved us. Right?” He jostled Hap. “You saved us. Thank you. The blood. If that had hit the floor…” “If it h-had hit the f-f-floor, it w-would have triggered an alarm. But—” “Then you did what you had to,” Vic said fiercely. “You protected us.” Hap didn’t look relieved when he pulled back, but his haunted expression had softened. His eyes searched Vic’s, and what he found there must have been enough. He turned toward the HARP. “It’s g-gone offline. Someone wwill notice soon. We h-have to hurry.” He bent over, sliding his hands underneath the arms of the HARP, pieces of his head falling back to the floor. Hap pulled the HARP farther into the room. Rambo followed behind him, scooping up the pieces that remained. Vic stepped out into the hall, looking left and right to make sure they were still alone. They were. He picked up his pack from the ground. Something shifted inside, a metallic clink that caused him to pause. He frowned as he lifted the pack, shaking it from side to side. The sound was louder, broken. His eyes widened as he opened the pack furiously. “Victor?” Nurse Ratched asked. “Your heart rate has elevated drastically. What is wrong?” He barely heard her. “No,” he muttered. “No, please, no, where is it, where is it, where is it—” He closed his hand around a familiar cloth and yanked. He’d grabbed the wrong side. The cloth opened as he pulled it out, spraying the remains of the heart onto the floor. That sound. That terrible crunch he’d heard when he’d smashed the pack against the HARP without thinking. It’d been the newly constructed heart breaking once more. The wood had split into four distinct pieces, two of which fell to the floor, the remaining two back into the pack. Wires dangled uselessly. One of the gears