“No.” “Donna—” “Not any faster than you. Actually breaking it—that’s fiddly. Boring. I’m sure someone can do it. I’m not interested.” “Not interested why?” “Because I’m fucking lazy, Cal. I’m lazy and I’m an addict and I like it that way. It would take days of sobriety. Long enough for my hangover to catch up with me. Long enough to remember all the things I drink to forget. Maybe even long enough that I’ll start thinking about stopping. And it’s not necessary. They’ll be perfectly simple words. Tricksy, maybe, but simple. They’ll be memorable and meaningful. Who hid this and why?” “I’m not sure.” “Did they want it buried forever?” “Very much not.” “Was it someone’s insurance? Were they scared of it getting out before time?” “I think they wanted someone to carry on where they left off. Contingency.” “Then it’ll be guessable, won’t it? All you have to do is be the person they want, not the person they’re hiding from.” “That’s what I wanted the file to tell me.” “Well, then you’re shit out of luck, aren’t you? Buy me another.” “No.” “One more, Cal.” “What do I get?” “My gratitude, of course.” I buy her another because otherwise she’ll cry. Then I go back to the office and send the food order before I forget. I sit at my desk and think about Peter and Lillian until it’s time. * * * — The Heraklion is the biggest tower as you walk along the Chersenesos east shore, the one that gets the sun in the morning. On the west side, where people love sunsets, there’s the Perseid. It’s the same building facing the other way, except that the Heraklion is where Athena has a penthouse. The security is a lot better than it is on my apartment. “She dropped by my place,” I tell Ken the doorman. “Yes, sir,” Ken says. “It was a movie scene. She sat behind my desk. Surprised me.” “That must have been very dramatic, sir.” “I figured I could pay her back. Just head right on up.” “Yes, sir.” “You’re good with that?” “Of course, sir.” “So I can go right on up?” “As soon as she confirms, sir.” There are sixteen Tonfamecasca apartments in this building. Figure Ken has seen some shit. Figure Ken is not remotely interested in mine. I wait for Athena to confirm. * * * — “Come on in, Cal,” she says. She has a shoe in one hand, something from that Portuguese designer, custom-made for her. The heels have to be flared just before the stiletto tip or the weight of her body will put them through most engineered hardwoods. “I’m just getting ready.” “I don’t mean to intrude.” “You’re not. Come on in. I’ve got about forty minutes.” She’s wearing a blue silk thing that looks like she stole midnight and wrapped it around her shoulders. I go to sit down in the living room. “I’m not getting dressed out there, Cal.” “I thought you were done.” “This is a bathrobe. Don’t be an ass, get in


the flowers we sent her and thanks us, but even from the other side of a screen I can see that the online shop I ordered from has failed us. More than half the blooms are wilted. * * * May rolls around, and toward the end of one particularly long day, I text a friend: I think Mom forgot my birthday. It’s understandable, I think. It’s more and more difficult for her to talk on the phone or over Skype. She’s on pain meds that are only available to the dying, the kind of medication she refused when she first started hospice care, and she is sleeping more often. I wouldn’t be surprised if she no longer keeps close track of the days. I’m about to head upstairs to get ready for bed when my phone rings. Mom flashes on the screen. My breath catches. When I answer, she doesn’t even say hello. We both know why she is calling. “Happy birthday to you . . .” She sings with as much life as she can, more than I’ve heard from her in days. I wonder if I should tell her to save her strength. I know this call is an effort. But I also know that she called because she believes this is important: she’s my mother, and she has a job to do. After I left home, my parents called on every birthday to sing to me—Dad in his gravelly baritone, Mom enthusiastic and slightly off-key—and she has continued the tradition alone since he died. She always sends me a card, too, and sometimes flowers, but the birthday call is the most important part of the long-distance celebration: sacrosanct, for all that I have taken it for granted. “Happy birthday to you . . .” After she sings the first two lines, she takes a shuddery breath and surprises me with an edit. “Your mom didn’t forget your birthday, and she really loves you.” Tears are rolling down my face. My husband, sitting next to me on the couch—close enough to have heard my mother singing—reaches over to take my hand, squeezing it hard. All of us know it’s the last birthday call. I manage to thank her with only a little wobble in my voice. “Well, of course,” she says. “I just woke up from a nap and thought, I’d better call Nikki. I’m glad I made it in time.” 21 The week after Mother’s Day, her hospice nurse calls me. “She had a great day! She’s such a fighter—she has a real chance at more quality time.” It seems too good to be true, but of course I am desperate to believe it after so many bleak days. When I get ahold of Mom, my husband and kids join me in crowding around my phone. I tell her how glad we are to hear she’s had a good day and that we wish we were with her. She speaks slowly, with some effort, and sometimes forgets to hold the tablet at the right angle, so we can


a word’s meaning within context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the book; Synonyms and antonyms are extracted from Webster’s Online Dictionary. Definitions of remaining terms as well as translations can be found at www.websters-online- dictionary.org. Please send suggestions to websters@icongroupbooks.com The Editor Webster’s Online Dictionary www.websters-online-dictionary.org 1 PSAT® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation neither of which sponsors or endorses this book; SAT® is a registered trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE®, AP® and Advanced Placement® are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved. Nathaniel Hawthorne 3 EDITOR'S %NOTE Nathaniel Hawthorne was already a man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when "The Scarlet Letter" appeared. He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather sombre life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. Its colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his "Twice-Told Tales" and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. Even his college days at Bowdoin did not quite break through his acquired and inherited reserve; but beneath it all, his faculty of divining men and women was exercised with almost uncanny prescience and subtlety. "The Scarlet Letter," which explains as much of this unique imaginative art, as is to be gathered from reading his highest single achievement, yet needs to be ranged with his other writings, early and late, to have its last effect. In the year that saw it published, he began "The House of the Seven Gables," a later romance or prose-tragedy of the Puritan-American community as he had himself known it - defrauded of art and the joy of life, "starving for symbols" as Emerson has it. Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864. The following is the table of his romances, stories, and other works: Thesaurus divining: (adj) oracular; (n) dowsing. musing, brooding; (v) philosophical, tactlessness, coarseness, heaviness, marvelously: (adj, adv) astonishingly, sedate. vulgarity. amazingly, strangely; (adv) superbly, prescience: (n) forecast, precognition, uncanny: (adj) weird, eerie, strange, magnificently, wondrously, anticipation, prevision, ghostly, unearthly, unnatural, terrifically, fantastically, foreknowledge, forethought, vision, eldritch, mysterious, odd, frightful, marvellously, excellently, presentiment, prediction, hunch, hideous. ANTONYMS: (adj) normal, miraculously. ANTONYMS: (adv) insight. common, ordinary. abysmally, terribly, unremarkably, stories: (n) tale. uncongenial: (adj) unfriendly, hostile, incompetently, mildly, poorly. subtlety: (n) refinement, elegance, incongenial, cold, unfit, unsuited, meditative: (adj, v)


he had remained within propriety over the years, but that had been when she was employed in his brother’s house. In his business boastings, he had made it clear he was a man who didn’t often take no for an answer. If she finally found her way to the Winthrops’ home, would he be there waiting for her? “Are you sure?” she whispered. Rebecca nodded. “Robert Granger and his wife are decent people, but his brother . . . none of us belowstairs liked him. Us maids, in particular. He always looked at us like . . .” Lucy didn’t want to know how he looked at them; she had been on the receiving end of plenty of his looks, and she didn’t like it at all. “What am I to do?” she asked. “Without a recommendation, finding employment anywhere else will be difficult, if not impossible. You know that.” Rebecca took hold of her hand. “We can stay here a while longer.” Jaw dropping, Lucy tore her hand free. “We can’t—” “Only until Mr. Granger has tried finding you, as I know he will. It shouldn’t take him more than a day or two to arrive at the Winthrops’ and find you missing. Then he’ll move on.” “But—” “Where else can you go?” As harsh as the question sounded, Lucy knew it was a good one. Rebecca knew well the difficulties of living without money, and seeing as Lucy had little, she couldn’t afford a journey of any considerable length. Remaining nearby without some sort of place to hide, like here with the Calloways, would make it easier for Mr. Granger to find her. She didn’t want to believe she was in as much danger as Rebecca said she was, but she had little proof to back an argument. She had never felt safe around Mr. Granger. But could she really lie to this family? They had been so kind to her so far, and perhaps if she told them the truth, they might help her. As if she knew what Lucy was thinking, Rebecca shook her head. “I don’t think you can tell them, miss. Everyone downstairs says the Calloways don’t like trouble; they’d sooner throw you out than get mixed up with something of this sort.” Well, that couldn’t possibly be true, but Lucy didn’t know the family well enough to say with confidence how they might react if she told them she was being pursued, particularly because she would have to admit to her lie in doing so. What reason would they have to trust her at that point? They didn’t have any reason now, and surely Lord Calloway would care more about his family’s station than the liar who had infiltrated his estate. He would be the one she had to convince if she wanted assistance, and he rather frightened her. She had never seen the same intensity she had seen in his eyes. “I think we shouldn’t be too hasty,” Rebecca said. “You don’t have to decide right this minute. Besides, imagine if you really were


Nancy's thoughts, to show that she's a gentle, sensitive girl, insecure and confused about Godfrey's courtship. Then you see her through the eyes of the fashionable, town-bred Gunn sisters. They see that she is pretty, well-mannered, and neatly dressed. Nevertheless, she disapproves of their low-cut dresses, and they disapprove of her country dialect--she is clearly part of her country environment. You can see the signs of hard work on Nancy's hands. In general, Eliot describes Nancy's looks and character in glowing terms. Her only faults, Eliot tells you, are a touch of pride and inflexibility. Having a positive view of Nancy may make you feel more kindly toward the upper class in general (notice that the men at the Rainbow, too, speak well of the Lammeters). It may also give you more sympathy for Godfrey. She seems to be a good influence on him. On the other hand, are her moral standards too high? She keeps Godfrey at arm's length because she's heard bad rumors about him. Even after Molly has died and he is free to marry Nancy, Godfrey is reluctant to tell her about Molly because he fears her disapproval. Later, Nancy's strict code also keeps her from agreeing to adopt a child, which creates the only unhappiness in her marriage to Godfrey. As you read, consider: Is Nancy a good moral example or are her strict principles a flaw in her character? ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: DOLLY WINTHROP Dolly represents Raveloe's values of what an individual should be. She's hardworking, skillful, and so efficient that she has time left over to care for her neighbor Silas. She doesn't hesitate to give advice and get involved with other people's lives. She is motherly, not only toward her own child Aaron but toward Eppie. As a wife, she's tolerant of her husband's drinking but fairly independent. She knows she's no scholar, but she earns great respect from Silas for her ability to see matters clearly, almost instinctively. Dolly's friendship with Silas demonstrates concretely how the village gradually accepts him. But Dolly serves another function, too--she is the spokesperson for Raveloe religion, holding it up against Silas' Lantern-Yard beliefs. Dolly believes in religion without knowing the fine points of doctrine. While the rituals of the church comfort her, she concentrates on good deeds here on Earth rather than on a relationship with God. Her concept of God is almost pagan, a fuzzy vision of "Them up above." But with true peasant wisdom, she sees a divine pattern in events, working out over long years. She makes Silas look upon his life with this kind of long-range view, showing him that all his sorrows were simply a path leading to his finding Eppie. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: EPPIE On the title page of Silas Marner, George Eliot placed a quotation from Wordsworth's poem "Michael": A child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts. In the novel, that prophecy is fulfilled by Eppie, the abandoned child that Silas Marner adopts. Symbolically, she is the


“Welcome to Mycenae, Lord Aegisthus,” Orestes says with a dazzling smile as he sits next to Electra. Clytemnestra takes the place at the head of the table. “Thank you,” Aegisthus replies. “It must feel strange to be back here after all these years,” Orestes says. Aegisthus tilts his head. “I didn’t think the queen would accept me.” “My mother is a woman of many virtues,” Orestes replies, choosing a piece of mutton. “Strength, wisdom, bravery, generosity. She has them all.” Aegisthus studies him, trying to understand whether he is mocking or not. “Where do you come from, my lord?” Chrysothemis asks him. “The forest,” Aegisthus replies. “Did you survive on goat’s milk? Did you hunt?” “Something like that.” “I once heard of a man who lived in the forest for so long that naiads came for him. They left the ponds and marshes and gave him food and shelter. But when he wanted to leave, they held him captive. They were jealous, you see.” There is eagerness in Chrysothemis’s voice, as there has been ever since her father left—a constant need to tell stories cheerfully to avoid grief or struggle, any outburst of violence. She is like a blanket of glittering snow: she buries ugliness beneath it until it melts and she must find another cover. “My daughter knows the most wonderful stories,” Clytemnestra says. “Do you want to tell some, Chrysothemis? Perhaps you can entertain our guest.” “Of course.” Chrysothemis smiles. “There was the one about Boreas and the stallion . . .” She speaks so fast, so excitedly that she forgets to eat. Aegisthus listens, frowning, and barely touches any food. At times, his gaze flickers to Clytemnestra and she pretends to be absorbed in her daughter’s story, laughing on cue. She wants to ask him questions, to spill stories from him and know what lies behind that troubled face. But she doubts he would talk. A man like him probably hasn’t talked in his entire life. She imagines his thoughts crawling inside him, like worms in the earth, doomed to stay in the shadows. Helen would have charmed him with her beauty and subtle cleverness, softening him until he opened like a peach. Castor would have mocked him, pricked him with words like needles until he talked. Timandra and Polydeuces wouldn’t have tried. “He is dangerous,” they would have said. “Better get rid of him.” And they would have been right. He is dangerous, but she can’t get rid of him, so she has to find a way to crack him. She must dirty her hands and dig into the earth until she finds those wriggling worms. * * * She walks back through the corridors alone. The noises of the palace are dying out, fading like sounds underwater. She has ordered Aegisthus to be escorted back to the guests’ quarters, and now all she can think about is whether he will be able to sleep. She knows she won’t—she must keep cautious and awake. When she reaches her room, a familiar figure emerges from the shadows. Leon. “I


and school fees. He’d gone for days without food before and would gladly do so this week to avoid begging in the streets again. “Three thousand two hundred and ninety,” Ẹniọlá’s mother said. “We made 3,290 naira yesterday.” It had been almost nine p.m. by the time they all got home the previous evening, and Ẹniọlá’s mother had refused to count money in the dark. They’d been on the street twice since Ẹniọlá’s mother suggested it. Last Sunday and yesterday. Today would be the third day. “Today will be better than yesterday,” Ẹniọlá’s mother said, folding the bills she’d just counted. “People are more generous on Sundays. Remember last Sunday? Six thousand o, almost six thousand in total.” His mother also believed people were more generous on Fridays. That, fresh from Jummat, most people were eager to do good deeds. After their first outing last Sunday, she had suggested they all go and beg in front of the central mosque that Friday, but Ẹniọlá’s father found his voice and insisted that the children should be in school instead. When his mother did not argue, Ẹniọlá had wondered if she was simply too surprised by his father sounding as if he cared about something for the first time in a while. Ẹniọlá assumed that she went to the mosque while he was at school but did not ask her about it. He’d noticed crayfish in the soup that night and tried to enjoy it without thinking about how wasteful it was for them to eat like that, since the landlord’s rent was not completely paid off and not a naira of his or Bùsọ́lá’s school fees had been paid. “So, 10,000 naira deposit to keep us in school, and 25,000 balance for the landlord. That’s 35,000 naira. Minus this 3,290, you have 31,710 naira. We have 31,710 naira to go,” Bùsọ́lá said, flipping a page and scribbling in her notebook. She was intent on completing all her homework before leaving the house that morning. “It’s not that much.” Ẹniọlá’s mother gave the money she just counted to his father. “We paid the landlord five thousand naira on Friday.” Although Ẹniọlá’s father never went begging with the rest of his family, all the money they got was always handed over to him. He took the notes to their landlord upstairs, paying in instalments and pleading for an extension on the ultimatum the man had given them. None had been granted yet, but since today was just over a week since the landlord’s angry visit, the family assumed that the partial payments had appeased him somewhat. Yesterday, Bùsọ́lá had complained that nothing was being set aside for their school fees. “So, 26,710,” Bùsọ́lá said. “Okay.” Ẹniọlá’s mother spread out a scarf on the bed and flattened the wrinkles with her palm. Bùsọ́lá chewed her Biro. “Or 36,710 naira.” “What?” Ẹniọlá’s mother said. “Thirty-six thousand seven hundred and ten naira if you want to pay our school fees in full.” Bùsọ́lá shut her notebook. “Nobody is going to be that generous.” “We’re not paying school fees


it, and soon she paced a soil so contrasting with that above it that the difference was perceptible to the tread and to the smell. It was the heavy clay land of Blackmoor Vale, and a part of the Vale to which turnpike-roads had never penetrated. Superstitions linger longest on these heavy soils. Having once been forest, at this shadowy time it seemed to assert something of its old character, the far and the near being blended, and every tree and tall hedge making the most of its presence. The harts that had been hunted here, the witches that had been pricked and ducked, the green-spangled fairies that "whickered" at you as you passed;--the place teemed with beliefs in them still, and they formed an impish multitude now. At Nuttlebury she passed the village inn, whose sign creaked in response to the greeting of her footsteps, which not a human soul heard but herself. Under the thatched roofs her mind's eye beheld relaxed tendons and flaccid muscles, spread out in the darkness beneath coverlets made of little purple patchwork squares, and undergoing a bracing process at the hands of sleep for renewed labour on the morrow, as soon as a hint of pink nebulosity appeared on Hambledon Hill. At three she turned the last corner of the maze of lanes she had threaded, and entered Marlott, passing the field in which as a club-girl, she had first seen Angel Clare, when he had not danced with her; the sense of disappointment remained with her yet. In the direction of her mother's house she saw a light. It came from the bedroom window, and a branch waved in front of it and made it wink at her. As soon as she could discern the outline of the house--newly thatched with her money--it had all its old effect upon Tess's imagination. Part of her body and life it ever seemed to be; the slope of its dormers, the finish of its gables, the broken courses of brick which topped the chimney, all had something in common with her personal character. A stupefaction had come into these features, to her regard; it meant the illness of her mother. She opened the door so softly as to disturb nobody; the lower room was vacant, but the neighbour who was sitting up with her mother came to the top of the stairs, and whispered that Mrs Durbeyfield was no better, though she was sleeping just then. Tess prepared herself a breakfast, and then took her place as nurse in her mother's chamber. In the morning, when she contemplated the children, they had all a curiously elongated look; although she had been away little more than a year their growth was astounding; and the necessity of applying herself heart and soul to their needs took her out of her own cares. Her father's ill-health was the same indefinite kind, and he sat in his chair as usual. But the day after her arrival he was unusually bright. He had a rational scheme for living, and Tess asked him


Is there any feeling more painful than regret? It spreads like a fever, invisible, and you can do nothing to fight it. Mother is dead too, so the envoys from Sparta tell me. It must have been the wine. To me, she had been dead for quite a long time. I only remember glimpses of her hunting and fighting when I was little, but I think you, Helen, Castor, and Polydeuces had the best of her. She was tamed after a while. You should never be tamed. Your men don’t bend to you because you are someone else’s wife: they do it because they respect your power. So rule them, keep their respect, make sure they are loyal and faithful to their last day. Then you will have a city and an army at your will. Echemus always told me that some men are destined for greatness and others aren’t. He believed the gods decided that and we had no power in the matter. That is probably why he did nothing to earn his kingdom or the love of his people and also why he will die and wither into obscurity. Agamemnon, Calchas, and Odysseus, on the other hand, know that one doesn’t grow powerful thanks to the gods: they take matters into their own hands and fight to have their names written into eternity. It is no wonder they have survived for so long: they are cruel and cunning. Although they are very different from one another, they have something in common—they believe they are special because no one but them sees the horrible things that need to be done. They believe others shy away from the brutal nature of life but that they are clever enough to see and act upon it. This is also what they tell everyone else: we have no choice, the gods demand it, war is a brutal affair, and we can’t win unless we too are brutal. These are all lies. They had a choice. The gods didn’t need Iphigenia to die for a whiff of wind. You don’t win wars by sacrificing little girls. You do it by killing your opponents. You taught me that. Your sister Timandra My dear Clytemnestra, I am writing these words, which you will never read, sitting by a window in Troy, looking at the battlefield. It is a wasteland of broken wheels, circling crows, and putrefying bodies. Sometimes a severed arm is lying on the muddy ground, detached from everything else, as if it doesn’t remember where it belongs. I can see the battle from here every day, but I can’t hear it. It is strange to look at the fighting and dying men. Their mouths are open, but it is as if no sound comes out. Sometimes I think this is how the unburied must feel, wandering around the world, destined not to hear and not to be heard. What a wretched state. Heroes come and go on the plain, but I haven’t seen Castor and Polydeuces. I used to look for their heads among the spears


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

might not have made us invisible to these creatures, it certainly made us less interesting. We kept our pace slow and aimless, as if we were merely off for a stroll. There was no reason for these Folk to think differently—apart from the one with the stars in his face, it was clear that none of them had ever considered the possibility that a mortal could evade their magic. Perhaps none ever had. At first I was relieved to put the fair behind us. But we hadn’t been walking through the wilderness for long before I realized that it wasn’t right. The footprints I had left petered out, as if someone had followed behind me with a broom and swept them away, and though we walked for an hour or more, we saw no sign of the little camp Wendell and I had made. The dawn didn’t come. The aurora shone above us in all its colours, the stars clustered like swarms of bright bees in an undulating garden. I walked with my hands shoved in the pockets of my ridiculous faerie cloak. At one point, my fingers brushed something cold and smooth. I drew it out, and found myself holding a compass. In all honesty, I was too weary to appreciate this impossible magic. “I suppose the cloak gives the wearer what they need,” I told Lilja, my voice almost dismissive—well, after all, what we really needed was a door, and you couldn’t fit that in a pocket. She took the compass and used it to guide us south and east, from whence Bambleby and I had come. “Is there anything else in there?” she said. I dug around in the pockets again, but my hands were empty when I withdrew them. She swallowed and turned back to the compass. I made us keep going, even as hours passed and it became clearer and clearer that we were still tangled up in the faerie world, like a fly struggling in a web. Shadow felt it too. He growled and paced ahead of us and then back again, his nose snuffling at the snow, searching for a way out, like a fold in a stage curtain he might slide beneath. We had to rest after a while, if only out of sheer exhaustion. I drew Lilja and Margret into my ridiculous cloak, which had an itchy, prickly sort of warmth, as if the garment were irritated by the use I made of it. It made me yearn all the more for my old cloak, even though Bambleby had made it ostentatious. But at least I found a flask of water in the pocket of the faerie cloak, which we shared among the three of us. It seems clear that the cloak was indeed enchanted to supply its owner with whatever he or she requires, though it doles out those gifts in a most miserly way—some food would have been nice, along with the water, or a lantern and some flint. Perhaps it is only miserly when forced to serve mortals. Margret was


said she didn’t want to hear it. Then she apologized, and we cried. So this was October. And October was when I stopped eating, my veganism a convenient cover. It was when I started smoking like cigarettes were my only oxygen. It was when I began starving my body to the point that, by spring, I couldn’t row a Girl Scout canoe, let alone compete in sprint season. From this distance, it was clear: I had been in the process of erasing my body. It wasn’t that a boob grab was the worst that could happen to me. I had survived far worse. It was just one thing too much. And then when Thalia died—the way her body had been mangled—the way she’d been tossed in the water—the way every girl was just a body to be used, to be discarded—the way that if you had a body, they could grab you—if you had a body, they could destroy you— And I ended up by that tree in the woods. And I ended up hurting myself in slower ways, too. Loretta Young didn’t understand that Clark Gable had raped her. She considered their daughter a “walking mortal sin” until, in her eighties, she learned about date rape by watching Larry King Live and realized her inability to fend him off hadn’t been her fault. I decided to tell the Loretta Young story to my film class that afternoon. It was something to send them off into the world with. For now, I was at the door of Quincy 212, my podcasters waiting inside for our last meeting. I had a lot of news for them. I took my coat off, fixed my hair. When I opened the door, the sun shone behind them and they were made of light. 60 Saturday morning, Anne drove me to the airport while Fran took the boys to tumbling class. On NPR, they were talking about the news story—the one where the small-town mayor killed himself the day after his former secretary reported him for sexual harassment. Or rather, the one where the chef hanged himself in his empty restaurant because the rape charges were about to be filed. The one where the ex-husband showed up at her door and said he’d already swallowed pills, and unless she took him back he wouldn’t let her drive him to the hospital. I’d brainstormed conversation topics ahead of time, lest the hour and a half in the car grow awkward, but it turned out Anne had an agenda. We were only turning out of the campus drive when she said, “The thing with Fran is she’s just so protective of the school.” I had picked up a piece of purple onion skin from the passenger seat, a stowaway from some grocery trip, and now I folded it into smaller and smaller pieces, felt its fibers crack cleanly each time. I said, “She wants me to drop it. I’m aware.” “I know it comes out as her disagreeing with you, telling you you’re making things up. She doesn’t want


a thinker, and was certainly of a thoughtful turn, but, with his own path to discover, had perhaps hardly yet reached the point where an educated man begins to think. The true value of his character lay in that deep consciousness of inward strength, which made all his past vicissitudes seem merely like a change of garments; in that enthusiasm, so quiet that he scarcely knew of its existence, but which gave a warmth to everything that he laid his hand on; in that personal ambition, hidden--from his own as well as other eyes--among his more generous impulses, but in which lurked a certain efficacy, that might solidify him from a theorist into the champion of some practicable cause. Altogether in his culture and want of culture,--in his crude, wild, and misty philosophy, and the practical experience that counteracted some of its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for man's welfare, and his recklessness of whatever the ages had established in man's behalf; in his faith, and in his infidelity. in what he had, and in what he lacked,--the artist might fitly enough stand forth as the representative of many compeers in his native land. His career it would be difficult to prefigure. There appeared to be qualities in Holgrave, such as, in a country where everything is free to the hand that can grasp it, could hardly fail to put some of the world's prizes within his reach. But these matters are delightfully uncertain. At almost every step in life, we meet with young men of just about Holgrave's age, for whom we anticipate wonderful things, but of whom, even after much and careful inquiry, we never happen to hear another word. The effervescence of youth and passion, and the fresh gloss of the intellect and imagination, endow them with a false brilliancy, which makes fools of themselves and other people. Like certain chintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they show finely in their first newness, but cannot stand the sun and rain, and assume a very sober aspect after washing-day. But our business is with Holgrave as we find him on this particular afternoon, and in the arbor of the Pyncheon garden. In that point of view, it was a pleasant sight to behold this young man, with so much faith in himself, and so fair an appearance of admirable powers,--so little harmed, too, by the many tests that had tried his metal,--it was pleasant to see him in his kindly intercourse with Phoebe. Her thought had scarcely done him justice when it pronounced him cold; or, if so, he had grown warmer now. Without such purpose on her part, and unconsciously on his, she made the House of the Seven Gables like a home to him, and the garden a familiar precinct. With the insight on which he prided himself, he fancied that he could look through Phoebe, and all around her, and could read her off like a page of a child's story-book. But these transparent natures are often deceptive in their depth; those pebbles at the bottom of the fountain


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers. I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, the other by myself. According to my humor I threw open these doors, or closed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Within three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a dome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were conjoined. At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically. It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to verify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily imagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether intolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet Byron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand. Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance, I sat with my head


this floor clean. Resnick took the broom and immediately began shoving it into the mass of wires and cables within the console. Sparks crackled and flashed from inside. Smoke started to rise from the console board. “I think it’s on fire,” Aubrey said. “You think,” Resnick said sarcastically, getting to his feet. They all glanced to the monitors, the now-unshielded asteroid, and USS Adams continuing its winding trek through the asteroid field. “We’ve done all we can here, people. Time to go,” Resnick said. “What about him?” Aubrey said, pointing to the now somewhat more subdued Liquilid. Pristy bent over, looked at the chair’s still intact wheels. “We should take him with us.” “Are you crazy!” Dr. Kline said. “She’s right,” Resnick said. “Killing him, leaving the body wouldn’t be easily explained, and leaving him alive, well … he’ll talk.” “But don’t we have to get him down to the lower level? Where we arrived from, to enter back into the ringularity portal?” Derrota asked. Pristy was losing patience. “We’ll take turns pushing … let’s go.” But Resnick was engrossed in his ChronoLink, this time speaking with someone. “Just make sure the timing is perfect … There can be no question, no suspicion, Church. Have I made myself clear?” “Crystal,” came the voice at the other end. “What was that all about?” Pristy asked. “Eavesdropping is impolite, Captain Pristy.” “So is keeping secrets. What were you telling Captain Church?” Resnick almost smiled. “That his and his crew’s mission was done here. That it was time for Portent’s untimely demise.” “What are you talking about, untimely demise? Her crew—” “Will be just fine. As will Portent. There’s technology on board that vessel that can never fall into the wrong hands. She’s already been here too long. Let’s just say all concerned here in Liquilid space will witness Portent following in the same fateful footsteps as Boundless Wrath, while in truth, they will be perfectly timing their jump through a spatial ringularity portal.” Chapter 57 Liquilid Empire Star System USS Adams Captain Galvin Quintos Grimes lifted his hands and splayed them questionably, while glowering toward the halo display. “I have no idea where I’m going. None.” Before Adams, the field had opened, revealing far fewer of the smaller asteroids while leaving gargantuan ones, rocky islands on a sea of black. “He’s right,” Akari said. “The signal’s indeed stronger here, but it’s like it’s coming from all around us. Like we’ve entered an echo chamber.” It’s not so much that I was ignoring my bridge crew. I heard what they were saying at some level, but what was being displayed on the halo display was like nothing I had ever witnessed. A dinosaur, a T-Rex no less, was in the throes of a battle so intense, so vicious, it was impossible not to watch. Sonya had arrived at my side at one point, but I couldn’t say when. She said, “Look at him. I can’t believe you made me do this … feed Reggie to those … those … bugs.” “I don’t know. Looks like


could pretend we were pleasantly jesting. "Only that, I think, was to get me to do something for YOU!" "It was partly to get you to do something," I conceded. "But, you know, you didn't do it." "Oh, yes," he said with the brightest superficial eagerness, "you wanted me to tell you something." "That's it. Out, straight out. What you have on your mind, you know." "Ah, then, is THAT what you've stayed over for?" He spoke with a gaiety through which I could still catch the finest little quiver of resentful passion; but I can't begin to express the effect upon me of an implication of surrender even so faint. It was as if what I had yearned for had come at last only to astonish me. "Well, yes--I may as well make a clean breast of it. it was precisely for that." He waited so long that I supposed it for the purpose of repudiating the assumption on which my action had been founded; but what he finally said was: "Do you mean now--here?" "There couldn't be a better place or time." He looked round him uneasily, and I had the rare--oh, the queer!--impression of the very first symptom I had seen in him of the approach of immediate fear. It was as if he were suddenly afraid of me--which struck me indeed as perhaps the best thing to make him. Yet in the very pang of the effort I felt it vain to try sternness, and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be almost grotesque. "You want so to go out again?" "Awfully!" He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little bravery of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain. He had picked up his hat, which he had brought in, and stood twirling it in a way that gave me, even as I was just nearly reaching port, a perverse horror of what I was doing. To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what did it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness and guilt on a small helpless creature who had been for me a revelation of the possibilities of beautiful intercourse? Wasn't it base to create for a being so exquisite a mere alien awkwardness? I suppose I now read into our situation a clearness it couldn't have had at the time, for I seem to see our poor eyes already lighted with some spark of a prevision of the anguish that was to come. So we circled about, with terrors and scruples, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for each other we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and unbruised. "I'll tell you everything," Miles said--"I mean I'll tell you anything you like. You'll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and I WILL tell you--I WILL. But not now." "Why not now?" My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window in a silence during


before! Yet I can't bear it," the poor woman went on while, with the same movement, she glanced, on my dressing table, at the face of my watch. "But I must go back." I kept her, however. "Ah, if you can't bear it--!" "How can I stop with her, you mean? Why, just FOR that: to get her away. Far from this," she pursued, "far from THEM-" "She may be different? She may be free?" I seized her almost with joy. "Then, in spite of yesterday, you BELIEVE--" "In such doings?" Her simple description of them required, in the light of her expression, to be carried no further, and she gave me the whole thing as she had never done. "I believe." Yes, it was a joy, and we were still shoulder to shoulder: if I might continue sure of that I should care but little what else happened. My support in the presence of disaster would be the same as it had been in my early need of confidence, and if my friend would answer for my honesty, I would answer for all the rest. On the point of taking leave of her, nonetheless, I was to some extent embarrassed. "There's one thing, of course--it occurs to me--to remember. My letter, giving the alarm, will have reached town before you." I now perceived still more how she had been beating about the bush and how weary at last it had made her. "Your letter won't have got there. Your letter never went." "What then became of it?" "Goodness knows! Master Miles--" "Do you mean HE took it?" I gasped. She hung fire, but she overcame her reluctance. "I mean that I saw yesterday, when I came back with Miss Flora, that it wasn't where you had put it. Later in the evening I had the chance to question Luke, and he declared that he had neither noticed nor touched it." We could only exchange, on this, one of our deeper mutual soundings, and it was Mrs. Grose who first brought up the plumb with an almost elated "You see!" "Yes, I see that if Miles took it instead he probably will have read it and destroyed it." "And don't you see anything else?" I faced her a moment with a sad smile. "It strikes me that by this time your eyes are open even wider than mine." They proved to be so indeed, but she could still blush, almost, to show it. "I make out now what he must have done at school." And she gave, in her simple sharpness, an almost droll disillusioned nod. "He stole!" I turned it over--I tried to be more judicial. "Well--perhaps." She looked as if she found me unexpectedly calm. "He stole LETTERS!" She couldn't know my reasons for a calmness after all pretty shallow; so I showed them off as I might. "I hope then it was to more purpose than in this case! The note, at any rate, that I put on the table yesterday," I pursued, "will have given him so scant


cheeks. According to his first video, which I had to scroll to find, he was “between jobs” when he first saw the Dateline special, and he had an epiphany, felt he could contribute. When he said Thalia’s name, oozed over the vowels, I felt the skin on my neck tighten. He was about my age, and I imagined he fancied that if only he and Thalia had crossed paths, he could have saved her, bedded her, won her love. He showed a yearbook photo of Puja Sharma and said, “This one wasn’t as pretty as her friend, and you have to think, that could have been a source of jealousy. Miss Sharma is a real possibility here. Someone we can never question, unfortunately.” I nearly slammed my laptop shut at that one, at the gall, the wrongheadedness, the slime. Puja might have been a hanger-on—might have used Thalia’s kindness as entry into the crowd that spent Feb Week at Mike Stiles’s ski house, that went to the Vineyard on long weekends—but she was devastated by Thalia’s death. Two weeks afterward, Puja took off on foot in the middle of the night, walking the roadsides until police picked her up two towns over, muddy and disoriented. She was sent home to London, and we never saw her again. Her overdose two years later at Sarah Lawrence—I always wondered if it was related. Every time this guy said Robbie Serenho’s name, jealousy crossed his face like a moth. He believed Robbie knew something, thought Robbie was “an entitled boarding school prick” with a “suspiciously airtight alibi.” In one video, he manages to get Robbie on the phone. Calling his office, he pretends to be a Granby alumni liaison looking for updated information. He gets Robbie to give his home address, which he’s mercifully bleeped out of the video. Then he asks Robbie who else from the class of ’95 he’s in touch with. “We have so many missing addresses,” he says. “Would you still be in communication with someone named Angela Parker?” Robbie says no. “How about”—and here Dane pretends to struggle with the pronunciation—“Thalia Keith?” Robbie says, “Ah, she—Thalia Keith passed away in 1995.” “Oh!” Dane says. “I’m sorry to hear that. I just started working here, and that’s not in our records.” Robbie says, “That’s odd. Yeah, you should cross her off your list.” Dane says, “Can you tell me more about that? More details? I’d love to update our files.” There’s a pause, Robbie catching on. He says, “I’m hanging up now.” I first met Robbie when we were put in the same freshman orientation group, playing games on the quad in groups of twelve, trying to knock pegs down with Frisbees. There were kids who made Frisbee look like ballet. I didn’t know how to throw one (who would have taught me?) and was initially mortified. But Robbie, with no patronizing, showed me how to throw the disc. He was patient, called me by my name, which no one else had bothered learning yet. You have to understand: He wasn’t


It’s going to be a long night. Chapter 19 Evelyn stands from her computer when Sloane marches toward the nurses’ desk in the middle of the ER. Sloane just finished stabilizing a homeless man who’d been brought in with multiple stab wounds to the abdomen before he was taken to the OR. She pulls her personal phone from her scrub pocket—something she never carried on shifts before her fling with Brody. She hasn’t heard from Ethan since he stormed out of the house two nights ago. But she’s not worried. If he was going to leave her for good, he would’ve done it already. She’ll let her affair with billionaire Brody Carr sink in for one more night before she tells Ethan the truth. “What’s the ETA on the ambulance?” Logan asks from the doorway of one of the treatment rooms. “They said they’ll be here in five minutes.” Evelyn sounds tired. Sloane’s stomach growls as she leans against the desk and sees she has a message from Brody. It was sent two hours ago. When can I see you again? She bites her lip and slides her phone into her pocket. She has to break it off with him. Now that their affair has served its purpose. She thinks of the kiss she shared with Brody on his boat after he pulled her to the surface when she nearly drowned. It was the excitement of the affair, and the new-found attraction that she had been drawn to. Not Brody Carr. While it was fun, it would never compare to the deep connection she shared with Ethan. “You better take a break while you can, Dr. Marks. It’s shaping up to be one of those days,” Logan says, before disappearing into the room behind him. Evelyn yawns as she steps out from behind the nurses’ desk. “You look pale,” Sloane says. Evelyn shrugs, adjusting the stethoscope hanging around her neck. “I didn’t sleep well. Threw up three times in the night.” The dark circles under Evelyn’s eyes are the color of the Sound. “Why don’t you take a break?” She shakes her head. “I’ve got a drowning victim coming in via ambulance.” “I’ll take it. Go ahead.” “Are you sure? You’ve been here longer than me. You should go.” “It’s fine,” Sloane says, ignoring a stab of a hunger pang. “All right. The patient coming in is a thirty-two-year-old female found unresponsive while diving near Alki Beach.” “Diving?” Evelyn nods. “That’s what the medic said. Actually, he called it freediving. She still had a weak pulse after her husband dragged her to shore but lost it shortly after the medics arrived.” The room suddenly feels cold. “She’s intubated,” Evelyn adds. “And they’re running a full code. At least the water is cold; it should give her a chance. Anyway, thank you, I could really use a Sprite.” “Hey, Logan,” Evelyn says as she moves past the treatment room. “Sloane is taking the new one for me. I’m going on break.” “Okay.” He heads toward the ambulance entrance. “You coming, Dr. Marks?” She


Medlock would come running and they would be sure you had gone crazy and they'd send for the doctor," she said. Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all look--how horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright. "I wish my father would come home," he said. "I want to tell him myself. I'm always thinking about it--but we couldn't go on like this much longer. I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I look too different. I wish it wasn't raining today." It was then Mistress Mary had her inspiration. "Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are in this house?" "About a thousand, I suppose," he answered. "There's about a hundred no one ever goes into," said Mary. "And one rainy day I went and looked into ever so many of them. No one ever knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out. I lost my way when I was coming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor. That was the second time I heard you crying." Colin started up on his sofa. "A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said. "It sounds almost like a secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them. wheel me in my chair and nobody would know we went" "That's what I was thinking," said Mary. "No one would dare to follow us. There are galleries where you could run. We could do our exercises. There is a little Indian room where there is a cabinet full of ivory elephants. There are all sorts of rooms." "Ring the bell," said Colin. When the nurse came in he gave his orders. "I want my chair," he said. "Miss Mary and I are going to look at the part of the house which is not used. John can push me as far as the picture-gallery because there are some stairs. Then he must go away and leave us alone until I send for him again." Rainy days lost their terrors that morning. When the footman had wheeled the chair into the picture-gallery and left the two together in obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted. As soon as Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his own quarters below stairs, Colin got out of his chair. "I am going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said, "and then I am going to jump and then we will do Bob Haworth's exercises." And they did all these things and many others. They looked at the portraits and found the plain little girl dressed in green brocade and holding the parrot on her finger. "All these," said Colin, "must be my relations. They lived a long time ago. That parrot one, I believe, is one of my great, great, great, great aunts. She looks rather like you, Mary--not as you look now but as you looked when you came here. Now you are a great


we ought to go too." Ralph looked at him quickly and Piggy blushed. "I mean--to make sure nothing happens." Ralph squirted water again. Long before Ralph and Piggy came up with Jack's lot, they could hear the party. There was a stretch of grass in a place where the palms left a wide band of turf between the forest and the shore. Just one step down from the edge of the turf was the white, blown sand of above high water, warm, dry, trodden. Below that again was a rock that stretched away toward the lagoon. Beyond was a short stretch of sand and then the edge of the water. A fire burned on the rock and fat dripped from the roasting pigmeat into the invisible flames. All the boys of the island, except Piggy, Ralph, Simon, and the two tending the pig, were grouped on the turf. They were laughing, singing, lying, squatting, or standing on the grass, holding food in their hands. But to judge by the greasy faces, the meat eating was almost done; and some held coconut shells in their hands and were drinking from them. Before the party had started a great log had been dragged into the center of the lawn and Jack, painted and garlanded, sat there like an idol. There were piles of meat on green leaves near him, and fruit, and coconut shells full of drink. Piggy and Ralph came to the edge of the grassy platform; and the boys, as they noticed them, fell silent one by one till only the boy next to Jack was talking. Then the silence intruded even there and Jack turned where he sat. For a time he looked at them and the crackle of the fire was the loudest noise over the droning of the reef. Ralph looked away; and Sam, thinking that Ralph had turned to him accusingly, put down his gnawed bone with a nervous giggle. Ralph took an uncertain step, pointed to a palm tree, and whispered something inaudible to Piggy; and they both giggled like Sam. Lifting his feet high out of the sand, Ralph started to stroll past. Piggy tried to whistle. At this moment the boys who were cooking at the fire suddenly hauled off a great chunk of meat and ran with it toward the grass. They bumped Piggy, who was burnt, and yelled and danced. Immediately, Ralph and the crowd of boys were united and relieved by a storm of laughter. Piggy once more was the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal. Jack stood up and waved his spear. "Take them some meat." The boys with the spit gave Ralph and Piggy each a succulent chunk. They took the gift, dribbling. So they stood and ate beneath a sky of thunderous brass that rang with the storm-coming. Jack waved his spear again. "Has everybody eaten as much as they want?" There was still food left, sizzling on the wooden spits, heaped on the green platters. Betrayed by his stomach, Piggy threw a picked


in pin-striped trousers hummed happily to himself in the hallway, gazing at a glass case full of black-and-white photos. The interior of Scroll and Key was strangely heavy in contrast to its graceful exterior, rough rock punctuated by elaborate Moorish arches. It felt as if they’d stepped into a cave. Alex snatched the keys from Robbie’s hand before he could reconsider. “Wait outside, please.” This time he didn’t protest, just said an eager “Sure! Take your time.” When the door was closed behind them, Alex expected a lecture or at least a disapproving scowl, but Dawes only looked thoughtful. “What is it?” Alex asked as they headed down the hall to the sanctum. Dawes shrugged, and it was as if she were still wearing one of her heavy sweatshirts. “You sound like him.” Had Alex been doing her Darlington act? She guessed she had. Every time she spoke with the authority of Lethe, it was with his voice really— assured, confident, knowledgeable. Everything she wasn’t. She opened the door to the ritual room. It was a vast star-shaped chamber at the heart of the tomb, a statue of a knight in each of its six pointed corners, a circular table at its center. But the table wasn’t really a table at all; it was a doorway, a passage to anywhere you wanted to go. And some places you didn’t. Alex smoothed her hand over the inscription on its edge. Have power on this dark land to lighten it, and power on this dead world to make it live. Tara had stood at this table before she’d been murdered. She’d been an intruder here, just like Alex. “Is this going to work?” Alex asked. “The nexus has a wobble.” It was why the Locksmiths had resorted to psychedelics, why they’d had to rely on a town girl and her drug dealer boyfriend to mix up a special concoction that would help open portals and ease their passage to other lands. “We don’t have any of Tara’s special sauce.” “I don’t know,” Dawes said, chewing on her lip. “I … I don’t know what else to try. We could wait. We should.” Their eyes met over the big round table, supposedly made from planks of the same table where King Arthur’s knights had once gathered. “We should,” Alex agreed. “But we’re not going to, are we?” Alex shook her head. More than three months had passed since Sandow’s funeral, since Alex had shared her theory that Darlington wasn’t dead but trapped somewhere in hell, the gentleman demon who had so terrified the dead and whatever monsters gathered beyond the Veil. Nothing Alex and Dawes had learned in the time since had given them cause to believe that it was anything more than wishful thinking. But that hadn’t stopped them from trying to piece together a way to reach him. Galaxias. Galaxy. A cry from the other side of the Veil. What would it mean to be an apprentice once more? To be Dante again? Months of seeking clues to the Gauntlet had added up


seeing Stilgar's eyes go wide. She heard a rustling of many robes in the background. "I see a . . . Fremen with the book of examples," she intoned. "He reads to al-Lat, the sun whom he defied and subjugated. He reads to the Sadus of the Trial and this is what he reads; "Mine enemies are like green blades eaten down That did stand in the path of the tempest. Hast thou not seen what our Lord did? He sent the pestilence among them That did lay schemes against us. They are like birds scattered by the huntsman. Their schemes are like pellets of poison That every mouth rejects." A trembling passed through her. She dropped her arm. Back to her from the inner cave's shadows came a whispered response of many voices: "Their works have been overturned." "The fire of God mount over thy heart," she said. And she thought: Now, it goes in the proper channel. "The fire of God set alight," came the response. She nodded. "Thine enemies shall fall," she said. "Bi-la kaifa," they answered. In the sudden hush, Stilgar bowed to her. "Sayyadina," he said. "If the Shai-hulud grant, then you may yet pass within to become a Reverend Mother." Pass within, she thought. An odd way of putting it. But the rest of it fitted into the cant well enough. And she felt a cynical bitterness at what she had done. Our Missionaria Protectiva seldom fails. A place was prepared for us in this wilderness. The prayer of the salat has carved out our hiding place. Now . . . I must play the part of Auliya, the Friend of God . . . Sayyadina to rogue peoples who've been so heavily imprinted with our Bene Gesserit soothsay they even call their chief priestesses Reverend Mothers. Paul stood beside Chani in the shadows of the inner cave. He could still taste the morsel she had fed him--bird flesh and grain bound with spice honey and encased in a leaf. In tasting it he had realized he never before had eaten such a concentration of spice essence and there had been a moment of fear. He knew what this essence could do to him--the spice change that pushed his mind into prescient awareness. "Bi-la kaifa," Chani whispered. He looked at her, seeing the awe with which the Fremen appeared to accept his mother's words. Only the man called Jamis seemed to stand aloof from the ceremony, holding himself apart with arms folded across his breast. "Duy yakha bin mange," Chani whispered. "Duy punra bin mange. I have two eyes. I have two feet." And she stared at Paul with a look of wonder. Paul took a deep breath, trying to still the tempest within him. His mother's words had locked onto the working of the spice essence, and he had felt her voice rise and fall within him like the shadows of an open fire. Through it all, he had sensed the edge of cynicism in her--he knew her so well!--but nothing could stop this thing


Danny was gone, really gone, and here she was still on the outside, gazing up at his vast and glistening house. Nobody had answered the tradesman’s door. She banged on it, hard. “Oi!” she shouted. “Let me in!” * * * The kitchen impressed her—she couldn’t help it. It bustled with life. Stove belching heat, tiles as white as teeth. Mrs. Bone felt stirred up by the glinting surface of everything. She eyed a line of gigantic fire irons. Mr. Bone would have liked those, she thought, with a little pang. “Very busy, ain’t it?” she said to the cook, who was giving her the tour. Clearly, the woman had schooled the new people before, had perfected her system. She described the contents of every cupboard, taking her time about it. Mrs. Bone was itching to get on, get upstairs, take a look at the good stuff. “You’ll need to be patient,” Mrs. King had warned her. “Don’t let them know you’re a little racehorse. Don’t give yourself away.” “I know how to do my preliminaries, thank you,” she’d said brusquely. “What shall I call you, mum?” Mrs. Bone asked the cook now, trying humble on for size. “Cook,” said the cook. “Now, then. Here’s where you empty the cinder pails. I suppose you know how to do that? You’ll need to make up the housemaids’ boxes, do the tea leaves for the carpets, get the hot-water buckets filled.” Mrs. Bone sniffed. “All right.” Cook eyed her, suspicious. “You bring the fresh dust sheets out. My girls don’t do that. And you do the napkin press, all right? Mr. Shepherd don’t like seeing no utensils out and about in the kitchen, and nor do I.” She glared at Mrs. Bone. “Got that?” I’m a worm, thought Mrs. Bone. I’m a slug. She bowed from the waist. “Oh, yes, mum. That’s all most familiar to me.” Cook liked being bowed to. It showed on her face. But it went against the rules. “You don’t call me mum, you call me Cook,” she said. “Now, are you f’miliar with brushes?” Mrs. Bone had rolled her eyes when Mrs. King lectured her on this point. Hard brush for mud, soft brush for blacking, and the blacking went in a corked bottle. Always a corked bottle. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I know ever such a lot about brushes!” “And look out—you’re in Mr. Shepherd’s way.” Mrs. Bone only vaguely recalled the butler. The one who’d brought out a jug of lemonade to the park, carrying his silver tray. He plowed heavily toward them, followed by a train of bootboys, oblivious to her, nodding vaguely. He smelled of camphor and oil, and he was sweating. She saw a flash of light, the bright and perfect glitter of a key, attached to a chain around his waist. Oh, I could snap it off with my teeth, she thought. “We don’t like dawdlers,” Cook said, and grabbed Mrs. Bone by the elbow. And I could snap you in two pieces and all. Mrs. Bone grinned like an idiot, and


McLean, Virginia. I looked on the map. The office building I was scheduled to visit was about six minutes away from CIA headquarters, which made sense, because I was meeting former spooks. The security firm that employed Dennis had arranged for a technical surveillance countermeasures sweep of my vehicle. For reasons I won’t get into, they were concerned someone could have planted a location tracker or listening device inside the car. Former law-enforcement and CIA technicians were scheduled to comb through the interior and exterior with sophisticated tools to ensure it wasn’t bugged. I granted myself a slow start that day. The evening prior, I had joined a friend and top House aide for my first non-drinking night out in a long time. I was attempting a “dry January” and had a great time, sans alcohol, albeit a very late night. The next morning I answered emails from prospective employers and scrolled through job listings. I was looking to return to the private sector once Trump was gone. Then I could put politics out of my mind, maybe for good. In the early afternoon, I left to grab coffee on the other side of Capitol Hill before heading out to Virginia. I might pop in to see my friend in his congressional office, too. Happy to be behind the wheel, I was driving myself again for the first time in months. The security detail had wound down at my request, with the expectation that the threat environment would probably ease in the lead-up to Biden’s inauguration—and as long as they didn’t find a tracker stuck to my car. Admittedly, the days were a little lonely without Dennis. Outside the air was chilly and overcast when I parked. I knew there was a rally planned at the White House, but as I passed within a block of the U.S. Capitol, I heard chanting. “USA! USA! USA!” Protesters had gathered at the east front of the building with Trump flags, pressing against pedestrian barriers as Capitol Police stood guard. I steered clear of the scene and continued on to the coffee shop. When I emerged maybe fifteen minutes later, the situation had deteriorated considerably. “We want Trump! We want Trump!” The chanting was louder. More protesters were pouring into the area. A man-and-woman couple walked past me wearing dark green bulletproof vests, while another group in winter coats and MAGA beanies marched across the street. They were headed for the same place, like a magnet pulling them to the Capitol. I decided against visiting my friend’s office. At the corner, police officers held us in place as the area went into lockdown. At first I was annoyed. I was late for my appointment, but it quickly dawned on me that I had a higher priority: avoiding notice. Staffers streamed out of a nearby congressional building, crowding my route back to the car. They were evacuating. The aides were as bewildered by the scene as I was when they emerged onto the sidewalk, watching in the distance as protesters climbed over barricades and into the


“I was excited that you’d be here tonight, that we’d see each other. I wanted a chance to explain, finally.” He pauses. “Although I admit I was worried that there was some assistant director in the picture.” I laugh, and he does as well. But he’s still looking at me like he’s serious. Good Lord. The man is caught up in the moment, not thinking straight. “No, no assistant director. But it’s too late, Peter, although I appreciate the sentiment.” My heart is thudding in my chest. “Come with me. We need a do-over.” “What?” Back inside we grab our coats and awards at the coat check—he refuses to allow me to leave mine behind—and take a long elevator ride to the lobby. He leads me out into the plaza and then we’re standing on the edge of the ice rink. Exactly the spot where we parted thirty-six years ago. So much has changed. And so little. He turns to me and puts his hands gently on my shoulders. “Ask me again.” “Ask you what?” “What you did last time we were here.” “I don’t remember.” But I do. He waits. “Why do we have to go our separate ways?” I say finally. “We don’t. As a matter of fact, I’m free for the next however-many years, and I want to be by your side for them all. Will that do?” “I don’t want you to do this out of pity,” I say. “I’m not my father. I’m going to have a different trajectory and I don’t plan on needing anyone. My doc says I’ll die of something else before the Parkinson’s gets to me.” “We were a good team, Marion. You and me. There’s no pity in this face.” He points to his head. “Do you see any pity in this face?” “No.” “My guess is there’s some unsolved murder out here in the Big Apple that could use a crack team of middle-aged sleuths to break it wide open. What do you think? Shall we give it a go?” Taking a leap this late in life is crazy, I think to myself. Don’t let yourself get hurt again, I warn myself. But the answer is obvious. As the skaters glide across the ice below us, I lean into him and we kiss, his lips tasting of champagne. The answer is yes. AUTHOR’S NOTE All my books are set in iconic New York City landmarks, but choosing the building is only the first step in the process. I also do a wide search for seminal events that were going on in the city during the building’s history, keeping an eye out for a “hook” that will hopefully help ground the story in whatever decade (or decades) I end up focusing on. As I was researching the 1950s for The Spectacular, a news item caught my attention. In January 1957, a man named George Metesky was arrested and charged with planting thirty-two bombs over sixteen years around New York City. Known in the press as the “Mad Bomber,” Metesky left explosives in


when we emailed a few weeks back, that Jerome had moved out and was living next door. And now Fran needed all the information, including why I hadn’t told her already. “We’re still married,” I said. “It’s just not what our grandparents would have considered marriage.” It happened so slowly that it didn’t seem a thing to announce on social media, text old friends about. “We went through a rough patch,” I said, leaving out that this was two years ago, when the kids were five and three, that their loud ubiquity was part of the stress. We got to the point where everything I said to Jerome was the wrong thing, came out in the wrong voice. Everything he said to me was worse. We’d slowly grown allergic to each other, eventually realized we were each unfairly shackled to a person who was sick of our face. “And right around then,” I did tell her, “Jerome’s mom went into hospice. She’d been in the other half of our duplex, so he moved over there.” He’s a painter, and the decision was partly practical: He could use the second bedroom as a studio and stop paying rent on the one downtown. We could stay married, with one address, for tax reasons and convenience—and, honestly, out of sheer laziness. The kids could go back and forth, we figured, but really Jerome ended up going back and forth, and so, for instance, while I was at Granby he stayed in my bed, which was our old bed, which occasionally he also stayed in when I was in it, because he was good at sex and now that we didn’t see each other all day, we didn’t hate each other. I was actually enormously fond of him: grateful when he took the kids, nostalgic when we slept together, bemused by his dating life, equal parts flattered and revolted and possessive when he came to me for romantic advice. I found everyone he dated borderline crazy, couldn’t figure out if that was on him or on me. Fran said, “You know I love how you never give up on people, but it’s kind of hilarious that your way of breaking up involves him still living in your house.” “Well, next door.” “So the upshot is,” she said, “you’re single?” “Essentially. Married but single.” “It’s funny that my marriage is more traditional than yours.” I hadn’t told her about Yahav, maybe because I didn’t want to jinx it. Yahav was skittish and unpredictable, a handsome Israeli bunny rabbit, equally likely to drive straight here as to vanish into the woods forever. I’d texted him from the airport that afternoon: As warned, I’ve invaded New England. He texted back only an exclamation point. I had not yet been sleeping with Yahav when I split from Jerome, but his friendship then had been a helpful reminder that not everyone was tired of me, not everyone blamed me for the weather. Yahav had enormous, warm hands. He had dark stubble so thick it consumed his chin and neck, more darkness


crossest person in it!" returned Amy, washing out the sum that was all wrong with the tears that had fallen on her slate. "Beth, if you don't keep these horrid cats down cellar I'll have them drowned," exclaimed Meg angrily as she tried to get rid of the kitten which had scrambled up her back and stuck like a burr just out of reach. Jo laughed, Meg scolded, Beth implored, and Amy wailed because she couldn't remember how much nine times twelve was. "Girls, girls, do be quiet one minute! I must get this off by the early mail, and you drive me distracted with your worry," cried Mrs. March, crossing out the third spoiled sentence in her letter. There was a momentary lull, broken by Hannah, who stalked in, laid two hot turnovers on the table, and stalked out again. These turnovers were an institution, and the girls called them `muffs',for they had no others and found the hot pies very comforting to their hands on cold mornings. Hannah never forgot to make them, no matter how busy or grumpy she might be, for the walk was long and bleak. The poor things got no other lunch and were seldom home before two. "Cuddle your cats and get over your headache, Bethy. Goodbye, Marmee. We are a set of rascals this morning, but we'll come home regular angels. Now then, Meg!" And Jo tramped away, feeling that the pilgrims were not setting out as they ought to do. They always looked back before turning the corner, for their mother was always at the window to nod and smile, and wave her hand to them. Somehow it seemed as if they couldn't have got through the day without that, for whatever their mood might be, the last glimpse of that motherly face was sure to affect them like sunshine. "If Marmee shook her fist instead of kissing her hand to us, it would serve us right, for more ungrateful wretches than we are were never seen," cried Jo, taking a remorseful satisfaction in the snowy walk and bitter wind. "Don't use such dreadful expressions," replied Meg from the depths of the veil in which she had shrouded herself like a nun sick of the world. "I like good strong words that mean something," replied Jo, catching her hat as it took a leap off her head preparatory to flying away altogether. "Call yourself any names you like, but I am neither a rascal nor a wretch and I don't choose to be called so." "You're a blighted being, and decidedly cross today because you can't sit in the lap of luxury all the time. Poor dear, just wait till I make my fortune, and you shall revel in carriages and ice cream and high-heeled slippers, and posies, and red-headed boys to dance with." "How ridiculous you are, Jo!" But Meg laughed at the nonsense and felt better in spite of herself. "Lucky for you I am, for if I put on crushed airs and tried to be dismal, as you do, we


about Liv by now. But I couldn’t face her. Anger and guilt tangled inside me. She’d left me on that trail. She’d turned away from me and from Liv, and she hadn’t been there when I needed her. When Liv needed her. It was absurd. She’d been hurt. Of course she turned back. But I felt like I had when we fought all those years ago, desperate to hurt each other, desperate for the pain of being hurt. “No. There’s no one,” I said. “You can go. I’ll be all right.” “I’m two doors down if you change your mind,” he said. “Room four.” “Is that some kind of come-on?” I asked him. “What? No,” he said. “Jesus, you really don’t have a high opinion of humanity, do you?” “At least I’m up-front about it,” I said with a one-shouldered shrug. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but he only shook his head. He let himself out and shut the door behind him. I let gravity pull me down onto the bed, not bothering to take off my shoes, and lay on my side staring at the wall. I felt like I was drifting. It was the same sensation as when I lay against that rotting log, dizzy from the lack of blood, listening to the birds call uncaringly overhead. It was the feeling of waiting for the world to end. I must have fallen asleep at some point, because I woke up an hour later, the exhaustion gone and the grief hardened into a knife’s edge, sliding across my tender skin. I sat up gingerly. I needed to do something—staying still was suddenly impossible, nervous energy crackling through me. I needed to talk to Cass. We had to figure out what to do about what Liv had found. And I wanted to be with her. For all the fights and stumbles along the way, she was still one of the two people in the world who knew me best. The only one now. When I drove up to Cass’s house, she wasn’t alone. There was a truck out front, a brand-new monstrosity that could have hauled an elephant trailer. I almost turned around when I saw it, but as I hovered outside the door opened and Cass’s mother stepped out, waving to me. I couldn’t very well leave now. I walked up the drive, tumbling backward through time with every step. Meredith Green was a tiny woman, like a twist of wire. Age had distilled her down to her essence, hard and sharp, and what vanity she displayed with her dyed-blond hair and understated makeup had a utility of its own. She was the mayor’s wife, and she played the role with efficiency and unwavering dedication. “Naomi. I’m glad you’re here,” she said. She took both my hands in hers. She’d always had warm hands, but now they had that papery feel of age. The first time she’d held my hands like this, a soft and inescapable touch, I’d still been in the hospital. The woman who’d sighed


walks in. AMY Jesus, that sounds medical. We’re short-staffed, and I’ve got errands to run, so I’m gonna need you and Dennis to do this wedding cake delivery to the Woman’s Club today. Sam continues vomiting without looking up or acknowledging Amy in any way. AMY Great! The cake is boxed up in the walk-in, all the venue info is next to the order phone, the van keys are on the hook. You’ve driven it before, right? Sam starts to stand, feels a fresh wave of nausea, puts her head into the garbage can, and retches. AMY Okay, good talk. Remember that this is the most important day in someone’s life, so try to not fuck it up. Maybe tuck in your goddamn shirt. Amy walks away, to go file invoices or something, and Sam dusts herself off and starts for the door but immediately has to turn around and hurl again. You know, this was gonna be my one shot to get a realistic vomiting scene on prime-time television, and it’s shit like that that bums me out about not making this show. I don’t care about vital storytelling or whatever *jerkoff motion*. I care about eye-bulging, capillary-bursting thunder puke. I don’t need a show about me and my stupid-ass friends, at all, ever, but I do want to right the biggest and most consistent wrong in TV and movies today: that weird little spit-up “oopsies, I puked” vomiting that everyone does. That “obviously just spitting out a mouthful of oatmeal” fake-ass vomiting is infuriating to me. I’m supposed to fully immerse myself in the story of someone who just dribbles a little chunky soup out of the side of their mouth and passes that off as vomiting? I can’t! Every time I throw up, I shatter all the blood vessels in my eyes and face, salty tears pour from my eyes like a waterfall and mix with a river of snot, and I expend so much violent energy I have to go lie down afterward to recover; what is this delicate puke-burping we see all over television? I hate it. We were gonna make a spectacular vomiting scene. A deep-from-the-pit-of-her-belly upheaval of the entire contents of her stomach, complete with realistic sound effects, in stereo. I wanted you to have to pause the TV in disgust after hearing that shit. I was very explicit in my desire to go down in television history for unleashing the most realistic vomiting on the American public, and maybe that is the reason the people with the money wouldn’t give me millions of dollars to make that happen. I get it. EXT. BAKERY PARKING LOT—LATER Three months after I started at Judy’s real bakery, I was promoted to working in the office for much of the week, but tapping on a calculator and printing accounts receivable reports on a dot matrix printer does not for exciting television make, so, for the pilot, we decided that I was going to tag along on deliveries, trying to keep platters of assorted petit fours and other fancy


worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here so long has made her restless--eh?' 'That's it, my dear,' replied the Jew in a whisper. 'Hush!' As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her former seat. Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing. 'Why, now she's on the other tack!' exclaimed Sikes, turning a look of excessive surprise on his companion. Fagin nodded to him to take no further notice just then; and, in a few minutes, the girl subsided into her accustomed demeanour. Whispering Sikes that there was no fear of her relapsing, Fagin took up his hat and bade him good-night. He paused when he reached the room-door, and looking round, asked if somebody would light him down the dark stairs. 'Light him down,' said Sikes, who was filling his pipe. 'It's a pity he should break his neck himself, and disappoint the sight-seers. Show him a light.' Nancy followed the old man downstairs, with a candle. When they reached the passage, he laid his finger on his lip, and drawing close to the girl, said, in a whisper. 'What is it, Nancy, dear?' 'What do you mean?' replied the girl, in the same tone. 'The reason of all this,' replied Fagin. 'If HE'--he pointed with his skinny fore-finger up the stairs--'is so hard with you (he's a brute, Nance, a brute-beast), why don't you--' 'Well?' said the girl, as Fagin paused, with his mouth almost touching her ear, and his eyes looking into hers. 'No matter just now. We'll talk of this again. You have a friend in me, Nance; a staunch friend. I have the means at hand, quiet and close. If you want revenge on those that treat you like a dog--like a dog! worse than his dog, for he humours him sometimes--come to me. I say, come to me. He is the mere hound of a day, but you know me of old, Nance.' 'I know you well,' replied the girls, without manifesting the least emotion. 'Good-night.' She shrank back, as Fagin offered to lay his hand on hers, but said good-night again, in a steady voice, and, answering his parting look with a nod of intelligence, closed the door between them. Fagin walked towards his home, intent upon the thoughts that were working within his brain. He had conceived the idea--not from what had just passed though that had tended to confirm him, but slowly and by degrees--that Nancy, wearied of the housebreaker's brutality, had conceived an attachment for some new friend. Her altered manner, her repeated absences from home alone, her comparative indifference to the interests of the gang for which she had once been so zealous, and, added to these, her desperate impatience to leave home that night at a particular hour, all favoured the supposition, and rendered it, to him at least, almost matter of certainty. The object of this new liking was not among his myrmidons. He would be a


own ilo which was as old as the village itself and where all the great ceremonies and dances took place. The drums beat the unmistakable wrestling dance - quick, light and gay, and it came floating on the wind. Okonkwo cleared his throat and moved his feet to the beat of the drums. It filled him with fire as it had always done from his youth. He trembled with the desire to conquer and subdue. It was like the desire for woman. "We shall be late for the wrestling," said Ezinma to her mother. "They will not begin until the sun goes down." "But they are beating the drums." "Yes. The drums begin at noon but the wrestling waits until the sun begins to sink. Go and see if your father has brought out yams for the afternoon." "He has. Nwoye's mother is already cooking." "Go and bring our own, then. We must cook quickly or we shall be late for the wrestling." Ezinma ran in the direction of the barn and brought back two yams from the dwarf wall. Ekwefi peeled the yams quickly. The troublesome nanny-goat sniffed about, eating the peelings. She cut the yams into small pieces and began to prepare a pottage, using some of the chicken. At that moment they heard someone crying just outside their compound. It was very much like Obiageli, Nwoye's sister. "Is that not Obiageli weeping?" Ekwefi called across the yard to Nwoye's mother. "Yes," she replied. "She must have broken her waterpot." The weeping was now quite close and soon the children filed in, carrying on their heads various sizes of pots suitable to their years. Ikemefuna came first with the biggest pot, closely followed by Nwoye and his two younger brothers. Obiageli brought up the rear, her face streaming with tears. In her hand was the cloth pad on which the pot should have rested on her head. "What happened?" her mother asked, and Obiageli told her mournful story. Her mother consoled her and promised to buy her another pot. Nwoye's younger brothers were about to tell their mother the true story of the accident when Ikemefuna looked at them sternly and they held their peace. The fact was that Obiageli had been making inyanga with her pot. She had balanced it on her head, folded her arms in front of her and began to sway her waist like a grown-up young lady. When the pot fell down and broke she burst out laughing. She only began to weep when they got near the iroko tree outside their compound. The drums were still beating, persistent and unchanging. Their sound was no longer a separate thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of its heart. It throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even in the trees, and filled the village with excitement. Ekwefi ladled her husband's share of the pottage into a bowl and covered it. Ezinma took it to him in his obi. Okonkwo was sitting on a goatskin already eating his first wife's meal. Obiageli,


and “Opera Star!” and “Sad Drunk.” I wonder if they let you add the class to the elective schedule just so it’d sit, forever, in the list of courses sometimes offered at Granby. “Wow!” the moms of bored eighth graders have said every year since, leafing through the viewbook in the admissions office. “History of opera! That’s like a college course!” Robbie Serenho was only there because Thalia was, and Kellan was only there because Robbie was. A ski star, Robbie oozed privilege. And he had swagger: the way he wore shorts even in snow, his floppy hair, the way he’d show up late to class, chewing gum, and no teacher called him out. Dating Thalia certainly bolstered his status. I hadn’t had class with Robbie since ninth grade English, and was mildly surprised now to find him insightful. He’d be picking at a hole in his khakis like he wasn’t listening, then pop in with “Beethoven was the Miles Davis of his time. Like, constant reinvention.” Robbie might not have come in an opera fan, but he was at least a casual music geek, knowledgeable about anything he deemed cool enough; he’d go on about laser tag or World Cup soccer in the same way. He’d sit with his arm slung around the back of Thalia’s seat, keeping her anchored to the floor of the classroom. I’ll forever remember the operas we saw that October at the Met. Three operas in three days, missing our other classes. Le Nozze di Figaro, La Bohème, Tosca. I owe you that: A girl from southern Indiana got to see three operas at the Met. It was exhausting, but it rewired my brain. Thalia was dating Robbie, and Beth was all over Kellan, and all four were friends—which left me and Kwan the odd ones out. The trip was unstructured; we had nothing to do between waking up and meeting for dinner. Kwan and I were both awkward enough that we weren’t going to suggest exploring the city together—so I set out alone every day, seeing how far I could walk, doing mental math on calories burned per block. The biggest city I’d seen was Indianapolis. Well, and I’d flown through O’Hare, which didn’t count. I didn’t mention this, not wanting to seem like a rube. I’m sure if you’d known you’d have given me more direction, at least taught me how to hail a cab. Everything was enormous, and the sidewalks were broad, and I loved it all, even the way the streets started smelling like garbage at five p.m. when the trash came out. I was terrified the whole time of pickpockets, of crime, of wandering into a gang war (ah, the notorious gang wars of Lincoln Square), but otherwise it was heaven. I had thirty dollars for the three days, and while Granby covered our Met tickets and dinners, those thirty dollars needed to get me through breakfasts and lunches and transportation. I’d rise early (my body woke at four a.m. for crew, even here in New York), sneak out of the


drawled, "great to see you, you're looking well, the extra arm suits you. Nice ship you've stolen." Arthur goggled at him. "You mean you know this guy?" he said, waving a wild finger at Zaphod. "Know him!" exclaimed Ford, "he's ..." he paused, and decided to do the introductions the other way round. "Oh, Zaphod, this is a friend of mine, Arthur Dent," he said, "I saved him when his planet blew up." "Oh sure," said Zaphod, "hi Arthur, glad you could make it." His right-hand head looked round casually, said "hi" and went back to having his teeth picked. Ford carried on. "And Arthur," he said, "this is my semi-cousin Zaphod Beeb ..." "We've met," said Arthur sharply. When you're cruising down the road in the fast lane and you lazily sail past a few hard driving cars and are feeling pretty pleased with yourself and then accidentally change down from fourth to first instead of third thus making your engine leap out of your bonnet in a rather ugly mess, it tends to throw you off your stride in much the same way that this remark threw Ford Prefect off his. "Err ... what?" "I said we've met." Zaphod gave an awkward start of surprise and jabbed a gum sharply. "Hey ... er, have we? Hey ... er ..." Ford rounded on Arthur with an angry flash in his eyes. Now he felt he was back on home ground he suddenly began to resent having lumbered himself with this ignorant primitive who knew as much about the affairs of the Galaxy as an Ilford-based gnat knew about life in Peking. "What do you mean you've met?" he demanded. "This is Zaphod Beeblebrox from Betelgeuse Five you know, not bloody Martin Smith from Croydon." "I don't care," said Arthur coldly. We've met, haven't we Zaphod Beeblebrox - or should I say ... Phil?" "What!" shouted Ford. "You'll have to remind me," said Zaphod. "I've a terrible memory for species." "It was at a party," pursued Arthur. "Yeah, well I doubt that," said Zaphod. "Cool it will you Arthur!" demanded Ford. Arthur would not be deterred. "A party six months ago. On Earth ... England ..." Zaphod shook his head with a tight-lipped smile. "London," insisted Arthur, "Islington." "Oh," said Zaphod with a guilty start, "that party." This wasn't fair on Ford at all. He looked backwards and forwards between Arthur and Zaphod. "What?" he said to Zaphod. "You don't mean to say you've been on that miserable planet as well do you?" "No, of course not," said Zaphod breezily. "Well, I may have just dropped in briefly, you know, on my way somewhere ..." "But I was stuck there for fifteen years!" "Well I didn't know that did I?" "But what were you doing there?" "Looking about, you know." "He gatecrashed a party," persisted Arthur, trembling with anger, "a fancy dress party ..." "It would have to be, wouldn't it?" said Ford. "At this party," persisted Arthur, "was a girl ... oh well, look it doesn't matter now. The whole place


salt, silver, and seed. The Dothraki did not truly comprehend this business of buying and selling. Dany liked the strangeness of the Eastern Market too, with all its queer sights and sounds and smells. She often spent her mornings there, nibbling tree eggs, locust pie, and green noodles, listening to the high ululating voices of the spellsingers, gaping at manticores in silver cages and immense grey elephants and the striped black-and-white horses of the Jogos Nhai. She enjoyed watching all the people too: dark solemn Asshai'i and tall pale Qartheen, the bright-eyed men of Yi Ti in monkey-tail hats, warrior maids from Bayasabhad, Shamyriana, and Kayakayanaya with iron rings in their nipples and rubies in their cheeks, even the dour and frightening Shadow Men, who covered their arms and legs and chests with tattoos and hid their faces behind masks. The Eastern Market was a place of wonder and magic for Dany. But the Western Market smelled of home. As Irri and Jhiqui helped her from her litter, she sniffed, and recognized the sharp odors of garlic and pepper, scents that reminded Dany of days long gone in the alleys of Tyrosh and Myr and brought a fond smile to her face. Under that she smelled the heady sweet perfumes of Lys. She saw slaves carrying bolts of intricate Myrish lace and fine wools in a dozen rich colors. Caravan guards wandered among the aisles in copper helmets and knee-length tunics of quilted yellow cotton, empty scabbards swinging from their woven leather belts. Behind one stall an armorer displayed steel breastplates worked with gold and silver in ornate patterns, and helms hammered in the shapes of fanciful beasts. Next to him was a pretty young woman selling Lannisport goldwork, rings and brooches and torcs and exquisitely wrought medallions suitable for belting. A huge eunuch guarded her stall, mute and hairless, dressed in sweat-stained velvets and scowling at anyone who came close. Across the aisle, a fat cloth trader from Yi Ti was A GAME OF THRONES 517 haggling with a Pentoshi over the price of some green dye, the monkey tail on his hat swaying back and forth as he shook his head. "When I was a little girl, I loved to play in the bazaar," Dany told Ser Jorah as they wandered down the shady aisle between the stalls. "It was so alive there, all the people shouting and laughing, so many wonderful things to look at . . . though we seldom had enough coin to buy anything . . . well, except for a sausage now and again, or honeyfingers . . . do they have honeyfingers in the Seven Kingdoms, the kind they bake in Tyrosh?" "Cakes, are they? I could not say, Princess." The knight bowed. "If you would pardon me for a time, I will seek out the captain and see if he has letters for us." "Very well. I'll help you find him." "There is no need for you to trouble yourself." Ser Jorah glanced away impatiently. "Enjoy the market. I will rejoin you when


stirring—I hope you don’t mind that I didn’t dislodge you when you slumped against me in sleep, your head coming to rest on my shoulder. No, silly me; of course you’ll mind, but perhaps I don’t care. 22nd November I thought long and hard about throwing all that into the fire. Well, all right, not that long and hard; Wendell’s account is helpful, I admit, and in fact put about a dozen research questions into my head—not least of which regards the ability of faerie monarchs to manipulate time—but no doubt he would only smirk if I posed them to him and make some joke about bibliographies. As much as it infuriates me when anyone else so much as touches my journal, let alone has the gall to fill it with their perfect handwriting (for of course his handwriting is beautiful, even when composed in a horse-drawn sleigh), I am not going to let my pet peeves take precedence over scholarship. I slept most of the way back to Hrafnsvik, which astonished me. During one of my few waking moments, Wendell explained that I had allowed myself to take part in a powerful enchantment—the making of the sword— and as I had no magic myself, the enchantment had instead absorbed much of my mortal strength, and it would take time for that to recover. This fascinating statement immediately filled me with questions: Is that what Deirdre did, sacrificing her own strength for her faerie husband’s sake, and is that why she died shortly thereafter? By what alchemy does mortal strength contribute to faerie magic, and is it only the courtly fae who have access to this? But I was asleep again before I could ask him. Once we returned to the cottage, I tumbled into bed and slept for another night and a morning, and when I awoke, I felt whole again. “Wendell?” I called. I don’t know why I did so—I was on the edge of sleep still, and for some reason the quietness of the cottage alarmed me. But he came into the room, smiling smugly. “I have been up for hours,” he said, which I did not for a second believe. “Shall I send for breakfast?” “Oh, yes.” He had already eaten, but that did not stop him from helping himself to the food brought by Finn and Krystjan—hearty dark bread, smoked fish, goose eggs, a variety of cheeses, and blueberries that had been canned fresh in syrup, which they had mixed into oatmeal and yogurt and piled with toasted sugar. It was a more elaborate breakfast than any we’d been served before, and even stranger, both Finn and Krystjan delivered it. Bambleby invited them jovially to dine with us, an overture that was immediately accepted. This suited me well, as I was able to eat in peace while Bambleby entertained himself with directing his charms at two willing recipients, both of whom were full of questions regarding our exploits. Lilja and Margret, I learned, had been safely delivered by Wendell to Lilja’s family home, and were both in