I’m the on’y one as knows the place. He gave it me at Savan- and I’ll trick ‘em again. I’m not afraid on ‘em. I’ll shake out nah, when he lay a-dying, like as if I was to now, you see. But another reef, matey, and daddle ‘em again.” you won’t peach unless they get the black spot on me, or un- As he was thus speaking, he had risen from bed with great less you see that Black Dog again or a seafaring man with one difficulty, holding to my shoulder with a grip that almost leg, Jim—him above all.” made me cry out, and moving his legs like so much dead “But what is the black spot, captain?” I asked. weight. His words, spirited as they were in meaning, con- “That’s a summons, mate. I’ll tell you if they get that. trasted sadly with the weakness of the voice in which they But you keep your weather-eye open, Jim, and I’ll share with were uttered. He paused when he had got into a sitting posi- you equals, upon my honour.” tion on the edge. He wandered a little longer, his voice growing weaker; but “That doctor’s done me,” he murmured. “My ears is sing- soon after I had given him his medicine, which he took like a ing. Lay me back.” child, with the remark, “If ever a seaman wanted drugs, it’s Before I could do much to help him he had fallen back me,” he fell at last into a heavy, swoon-like sleep, in which I again to his former place, where he lay for a while silent. left him. What I should have done had all gone well I do not “Jim,” he said at length, “you saw that seafaring man to- know. Probably I should have told the whole story to the day?” doctor, for I was in mortal fear lest the captain should repent Contents “Black Dog?” I asked. of his confessions and make an end of me. But as things fell “Ah! Black Dog,” says he. “HE’S a bad un; but there’s out, my poor father died quite suddenly that evening, which Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 24 25 put all other matters on one side. Our natural distress, the with all that, he minded people less and seemed shut up in visits of the neighbours, the arranging of the funeral, and all his own thoughts and rather wandering. Once, for instance, the work of the inn to be carried on in the meanwhile kept to our extreme wonder, he piped up to a different air, a king me so busy that I had scarcely time to think of the captain, of country love-song that he must have learned in his youth far less to be afraid of him. before he had begun to follow the sea. He got downstairs next morning, to be sure, and had his So things passed until, the day after the funeral, and about meals as usual, though he ate little and had more, I am afraid, three o’clock of


Yorker. Melvyn told me afterwards that he’d tried to change the subject twice but – oh, I felt so dreadful, all that stuff about artists and playwrights. I apologised to Jensen before he left, but he didn’t mind at all. In fact, he found it quite humorous.’ ‘I bet he did,’ Minnie agreed with a smile. ‘He was very taken with you too…’ ‘Oh?’ Minnie tried to make her face appear surprised. ‘I’m not sure we had much in common…’ ‘He said he loved talking to you about theatre and literature over dessert. Minnie, he asked if you were single and if I had your phone number. Of course, I didn’t give it to him, not without asking you first.’ ‘Quite right too,’ Minnie said, a cat-with-the-cream expression on her face. If Jensen Callahan wanted to meet her again, he’d have to try harder than that. ‘But we must have another dinner party soon and, of course, you’ll be invited…’ ‘Thank you – that would be lovely.’ Minnie inclined her head graciously. ‘And now summer is coming, I might have a soirée in the garden.’ ‘Melvyn and I will be there – and we could ask Jensen.’ ‘I’ll look at my diary.’ Minnie was being deliberately enigmatic. ‘Oh, is that Melvyn waving?’ ‘It is – I must go.’ Francine kissed the air twice. ‘I just wanted to thank you for saving my dinner party – it could have gone so horribly wrong and you said all the right things. We’ll meet soon.’ ‘My pleasure,’ Minnie replied, remembering how much she’d enjoyed the Eton Mess, glancing into Jensen’s twinkling eyes and bantering with him about the arts. Minnie turned away from the heaving procession, the jangling bells and trumpeting music, and strolled along the banks of the Cherwell, the grounds of St Hilda’s to her left. As they often did, Minnie’s thoughts drifted back to her first term as an Oxford student. She’d been eighteen, skinny, all wild hair, second-hand clothes and books, a third-hand bicycle, edgily conscious of every sarcastic comment from those who were affronted by her presence at the university. But there were the others who supported her too, good friends, rebels, admirers, boyfriends, and one particular lecturer who had championed Minnie, reminding her very much of Miss Hamilton, the first person to believe that she had first class brains in her head. Minnie always marvelled at how far she’d come. As she walked past the gleaming river, ice-blue, dappled in sunlight, daffodils clustered on the banks, she felt thankful. She had won life’s lottery ticket: an education that led to independence and more. Most importantly, she had friends, books and an unshakeable confidence in her own mind. She was lucky; she was healthy, happy. She needed nothing more than this beautiful May Day in Oxford. Then from nowhere Jensen Callahan flickered into her thoughts, and she saw his bright eyes and the fascinating mind that lurked behind them. He was attractive, self-assured, and interested in her; she’d known that before Francine mentioned it. Minnie noticed the sunshine sparkling on


that is still up for debate.” “It’s not up for debate. It was an accident.” “So you keep trying to convince me,” Detective Vick says. I want to scream. And cry. And rip the phone off the wall and smash it against the kitchen floor. Considering its age and my rage, I suspect I’m capable of it. But common sense grips me harder than frustration. If I sound hysterical, Detective Vick will be convinced that I am. Which is clearly the only thing I can convince him of. “I am telling you I think a woman was murdered,” I say. “Shouldn’t you take that seriously? Shouldn’t you at least investigate it?” Detective Vick sighs. “I have investigated it. After talking to you and everyone else at that house, my conclusion is that Mary Milton took her own life.” “How can you be so certain?” “The coroner’s preliminary findings show that her injuries are consistent with a fall from that height. There were no defensive wounds, which there would likely have been if she had been attacked in the manner you suggest. I had officers search the grounds, the beach, even the terrace. They found nothing to indicate there was a suitcase or a struggle or a murder. In fact, they found nothing at all.” “That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.” “I’m sorry,” Detective Vick says. “I’m not the person you thought I was.” I grip the receiver tight, flummoxed. “What?” “Mary’s suicide note. That’s what it said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not the person you thought I was.’ Found neatly folded in the pocket of her uniform. The paper sustained heavy water damage, but it was still readable. Now, give me one reason not to hang up right now.” “Lenora didn’t kill her family,” I say, more out of desperation than anything else. I certainly have no plan. But I hope dropping a bombshell like that will keep Detective Vick listening. “At least, I don’t think she did. We haven’t gotten that far yet.” “We?” “Me and Lenora. I told you, we’re typing her story, just like she did with Mary. But there was a worker here. Ricardo Mayhew.” “I know,” Detective Vick says. “I used to work there, remember?” “Did you also know Lenora was in love with him? And that it’s possible he’s the one who killed her parents and sister? I’m pretty sure Lenora knew he did it and covered for him. Now I think she wants to come clean, maybe in the hopes that he’ll be caught, even though he vanished the night of the murders.” When I finally give Detective Vick a chance to speak, his voice wavers between intrigue and wariness. “Are you sure about this?” “You have access to the police report from that night,” I say. “Look at it and see. You’ll also see that there’s a whole lot of unanswered questions from that night. Mary had those answers. Now she’s dead. That’s not a coincidence. And it’s sure as hell not suicide.” I hang up before Detective Vick can poke another hole in my


I can almost imagine the mockingjay flying through the trees. Effie Trinket comes to collect me for supper. I follow her through the narrow, rocking corridor into a dining room with polished paneled walls. There’s a table where all the dishes 44 are highly breakable. Peeta Mellark sits waiting for us, the chair next to him empty. “Where’s Haymitch?” asks Effie Trinket brightly. “Last time I saw him, he said he was going to take a nap,” says Peeta. “Well, it’s been an exhausting day,” says Effie Trinket. I think she’s relieved by Haymitch’s absence, and who can blame her? The supper comes in courses. A thick carrot soup, green salad, lamb chops and mashed potatoes, cheese and fruit, a chocolate cake. Throughout the meal, Effie Trinket keeps re- minding us to save space because there’s more to come. But I’m stuffing myself because I’ve never had food like this, so good and so much, and because probably the best thing I can do between now and the Games is put on a few pounds. “At least, you two have decent manners,” says Effie as we’re finishing the main course. “The pair last year ate everything with their hands like a couple of savages. It completely upset my digestion.” The pair last year were two kids from the Seam who’d nev- er, not one day of their lives, had enough to eat. And when they did have food, table manners were surely the last thing on their minds. Peeta’s a baker’s son. My mother taught Prim and I to eat properly, so yes, I can handle a fork and knife. But I hate Effie Trinket’s comment so much I make a point of eat- ing the rest of my meal with my fingers. Then I wipe my hands on the tablecloth. This makes her purse her lips tightly to- gether. 45 Now that the meal’s over, I’m fighting to keep the food down. I can see Peeta’s looking a little green, too. Neither of our stomachs is used to such rich fare. But if I can hold down Greasy Sae’s concoction of mice meat, pig entrails, and tree bark — a winter specialty — I’m determined to hang on to this. We go to another compartment to watch the recap of the reapings across Panem. They try to stagger them throughout the day so a person could conceivably watch the whole thing live, but only people in the Capitol could really do that, since none of them have to attend reapings themselves. One by one, we see the other reapings, the names called, (the volunteers stepping forward or, more often, not. We ex- amine the faces of the kids who will be our competition. A few stand out in my mind. A monstrous boy who lunges forward to volunteer from District 2. A fox-faced girl with sleek red hair from District 5. A boy with a crippled foot from District 10. And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that, she’s


breakfast table was cleared early, and Holmes waited in his dressing-gown for the promised interview. Our clients were punc- tual to their appointment, for the clock had just struck ten when Dr. Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet. The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face. He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, and yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman. "This is Sir Henry Baskerville," said Dr. Mortimer. "Why, yes," said he, "and the strange thing is, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, that if my friend here had not proposed coming round to you this morning I should have come on my own account. I understand that you think out little puzzles, and I've had one this morning which wants more thinking out than I am able to give it." "Pray take a seat, Sir Henry. Do I understand you to say that you have yourself had some remarkable experience since you arrived in London?" "Nothing of much importance, Mr. Holmes. Only a joke, as like as not. It was this letter, if you can call it a letter, which reached me this morning." He laid an envelope upon the table, and we all bent over it. It was of common quality, grayish in colour. The address, "Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel," was printed in rough characters; the post-mark "Charing Cross," and the date of posting the preceding evening. "Who knew that you were going to the Northumberland Ho- tel?" asked Holmes, glancing keenly across at our visitor. "No one could have known. We only decided after I met Dr. Mortimer." "But Dr. Mortimer was no doubt already stopping there?" "No, I had been staying with a friend," said the doctor. "There was no possible indication that we intended to go to this hotel." "Hum! Someone seems to be very deeply interested in your movements." Out of the envelope he took a half-sheet of fools- cap paper folded into four. This he opened and spread flat upon the table. Across the middle of it a single sentence had been formed by the expedient of pasting printed words upon it. It ran: As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor. The word "moor" only was printed in ink. "Now," said Sir Henry Baskerville, "perhaps you will tell me, Mr. Holmes, what in thunder is the meaning of that, and who it is that takes so much interest in my affairs?" "What do you make of it, Dr. Mortimer? You must allow that there is nothing supernatural about this, at any rate?" "No, sir, but it might very well come from someone who was convinced that the business is supernatural." "What business?" asked Sir Henry sharply. "It seems to me that all you gentlemen know a great deal more than I


a polished horn and roaring his displeasure at two young squires who were trying to buckle him into his armor. "Your Grace," one was A GAME OF THRONES 271 saying, almost in tears, "it's made too small, it won't go." He fumbled, and the gorget he was trying to fit around Robert's thick neck tumbled to the ground. "Seven hells!" Robert swore. "Do I have to do it myself? Piss on the both of you. Pick it up. Don't just stand there gaping, Lance], pick it up!" The lad jumped, and the king noticed his company. "Look at these oafs, Ned. My wife insisted I take these two to squire for me, and they're worse than useless. Can't even put a man's armor on him properly. Squires, they say. I say they're swineherds dressed up in silk." Ned only needed a glance to understand the difficulty. "The boys are not at fault," he told the king. "You're too fat for your armor, Robert." Robert Baratheon took a long swallow of beer, tossed the empty horn onto his sleeping furs, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said darkly, "Fat? Fat, is it? Is that how you speak to your king?" He let go his laughter, sudden as a storm. "Ah, damn you, Ned, why are you always right?" The squires smiled nervously until the king turned on them. "You. Yes, both of you. You heard the Hand. The king is too fat for his armor. Go find Ser Aron Santagar. Tell him I need the breastplate stretcher. Now! What are you waiting for?" The boys tripped over each other in their haste to be quit of the tent. Robert managed to keep a stern face until they were gone. Then he dropped back into a chair, shaking with laughter. Ser Barristan Selmy chuckled with him. Even Eddard Stark managed a smile. Always, though, the graver thoughts crept in. He could not help taking note of the two squires: handsome boys, fair and well made. One was Sansa's age, with long golden curls; the other perhaps fifteen, sandy-haired, with a wisp of a mustache and the emerald-green eyes of the queen. "Ah, I wish I could be there to see Santagar's face," Robert said. "I hope he'll have the wit to send them to someone else. We ought to keep them running all day!" "Those boys," Ned asked him. "Lannisters?" Robert nodded, wiping tears from his eyes. "Cousins. Sons of Lord Tywin's brother. One of the dead ones. Or perhaps the live one, now that I come to think on it. I don't recall. My wife comes from a very large family, Ned." A very ambitious family, Ned thought. He had nothing against the squires, but it troubled him to see Robert surrounded by the queen's kin, waking and sleeping. The Lannister appetite for offices and hon- 272 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ors seemed to know no bounds. "The talk is you and the queen had angry words last night." The mirth curdled on Robert's face. "The woman tried to forbid


came in with a cup of chocolate on a tray, and opened the shutters. Dorian was sleeping quite peacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his cheek. He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study. The man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as he opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he had been having some delightful dream. Yet he had not dreamed at all. His night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain. But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms. He turned round, and, leaning on his elbow, began to drink his chocolate. The mellow November sun was streaming into the room. The sky was bright blue, and there was a genial warmth in the air. It was almost like a morning in May. Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent blood- stained feet into his brain, and reconstructed themselves there with terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for Basil Hallward, that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair, came back to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was still sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that was! Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day. He felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken or grow mad. There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the senses. But this was not one of them. It was a thing to be driven out of the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might strangle one itself. He passed his hand across his forehead, and then got up hastily, and dressed himself with even more than his usual attention, giving a good deal of care to the selection of his necktie and scarf-pin, and changing his rings more than once. He spent a long time over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet about some new liveries that he was thinking of [87] getting made for the servants at Selby, and going through his correspondence. Over some of the letters he smiled. Three of them bored him. One he read several times over, and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his face. "That awful thing, a woman's memory!" as Lord Henry had once said. When he had drunk his coffee, he sat down at the table, and wrote two letters. One he put in his pocket, the other he handed to the valet. "Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis,


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


it?” Our eyes meet. “Yunxian, what bothers me is that you didn’t talk to me first. How is there love or even duty in your choice?” I put a hand on his sleeve and feel the warmth of his arm through the silk. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” He pulls away from me and wordlessly returns to his desk. I feel unsettled as I walk through the colonnade. I’ve righted wrongs but at what cost? When I get back to my room, I find a note from my father informing me that he’s arranged for us to meet before he departs. The next morning at the appointed time, I go to the Hermitage terrace. All traces of the sorrows and pain that transpired here are gone in another example of the washing away of wrongs. I pour tea for my father. The koi swim close to the terrace, looking for handouts. This is the most time I’ve spent alone with my father in my life, or at least that I can remember. “Let us not waste these precious moments,” he begins, breaking the silence. “If Respectful Lady were here, she’d be as proud of what you’ve accomplished as a doctor as I am.” “Thank you, Father,” I say, bowing my head. He regards me. “We do not know each other. For this I blame myself.” I’m unsure how to respond. “After your mother died, I was brokenhearted.” He slowly nods as if to acknowledge the truth of this assessment to himself. “I turned inward and away from my children. I thought only of myself and my career. I had studied so hard to take the imperial exams—” “And look what happened,” I interrupt, throwing aside decorum. “You were awarded by the emperor. You rose high on the Board of—” “I achieved much success, but I abandoned you and your brother when you needed me.” “We had Miss Zhao.” “A concubine.” “She has always been loyal to you and to Yifeng and me.” He twists his beard between his fingers. For a moment I wonder if this meeting was a good idea. Then I decide to make one last plea. “Many years ago, Grandfather and I sat on this same spot. He told me that he became a doctor to balance the cruelties he’d delivered as a Grand Master for Governance on the Board of Punishments.” “I understand,” my father says. Then he recites, “Store up good deeds and you will meet with good. Store up evil actions and you will meet with evil.” “When I was at the Forbidden City, Empress Zhang, the ladies of the court, and I interceded on Meiling’s behalf to reduce her sentence.” “Were you successful?” “Meiling is alive.” My father concedes this fact with a tip of his head. “Now I want to help Miss Chen.” I go on to explain her circumstances. My father listens, but he doesn’t respond in the way I wish. “As I said earlier, I’m proud of what you’ve accomplished as a doctor, but perhaps you’ve interfered enough in household affairs.”


around the corner into the living room. “Hey!” she said, to startle whoever it was. Pupkin sat in the easy chair watching TV, the remote beside him. A song she hadn’t thought of in years popped into Louise’s head. Pupkin here! Pupkin here! Everybody laugh! Everybody cheer! She interrupted it, forced it to stop. Pupkin sat in her dad’s chair, watching TV. Her mom’s favorite puppet, the one she’d taken everywhere with her, the one she’d used to tell Bible stories to young audiences, the one she’d learned ventriloquism for, the one who had told Mark and Louise bedtime stories, the one who’d been in her life before them, the one she’d had since she was a little girl, the one she’d loved more than she loved them. The one who made Louise’s skin crawl. The one she hated the most. Pupkin was a red-and-yellow glove puppet with two stumpy fabric legs dangling down from his front and two little nubbin arms. His chalk-white plastic face had a big smiling mouth and a little pug nose, and he looked out of the corners of his wide eyes like he was up to some kind of mischief. His mouth and eyes were outlined in thick black lines and he wore a bloodred bodysuit with a pointed hood and a yellow stomach. Sitting here in the dark with the Home Shopping Network flickering across his face, he looked like he’d crawled straight out of a nightmare. Louise hated Pupkin, but right now she was scared of him again, the way she’d been scared of him when she was little, because how had he moved? How had he gotten into this chair? Mark. Of course. Her back unclenched and her grip around the hammer relaxed. Mark had come in after she’d left, seen the dolls in the garage, and set all this up. He knew how much she hated Pupkin and he knew she’d come by at some point and he wanted to freak her out. She turned on the hall light. One of the bulbs had burned out. Her dad always replaced bulbs the instant they went dead, but he must have fallen behind because of his ankle. “. . . doll really brings me back to my childhood, and that warm, safe feeling that everything is going to be . . .” She picked up the remote to turn off the TV, then stopped. It would be better to leave everything the way it was and not say a word to Mark. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He’d go crazy wondering if she’d even seen it. Sitting in Dad’s chair, Pupkin looked like he owned the house. He looked like he belonged here more than Louise. He made her feel like an intruder. After all, she’d broken a window to come inside. Pupkin had been here before her or Mark were even born. He’d known their mom since she was seven years old. He’d traveled with her to all her shows while they’d waited for her at home. Louise hated him. Before


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

he sent his son to Belfast to study and have saved something on the train fare by so doing. The oblong skull beneath did not turn to meet this shaft of thought and yet the shaft came back to its bowstring; for he saw in a moment the student's whey-pale face. --That thought is not mine, he said to himself quickly. It came from the comic Irishman in the bench behind. Patience. Can you say with certitude by whom the soul of your race was bartered and its elect betrayed--by the questioner or by the mocker? Patience. Remember Epictetus. It is probably in his character to ask such a question at such a moment in such a tone and to pronounce the word SCIENCE as a monosyllable. The droning voice of the professor continued to wind itself slowly round and round the coils it spoke of, doubling, trebling, quadrupling its somnolent energy as the coil multiplied its ohms of resistance. Moynihan's voice called from behind in echo to a distant bell: --Closing time, gents! The entrance hall was crowded and loud with talk. On a table near the door were two photographs in frames and between them a long roll of paper bearing an irregular tail of signatures. MacCann went briskly to and fro among the students, talking rapidly, answering rebuffs and leading one after another to the table. In the inner hall the dean of studies stood talking to a young professor, stroking his chin gravely and nodding his head. Stephen, checked by the crowd at the door, halted irresolutely. From under the wide falling leaf of a soft hat Cranly's dark eyes were watching him. --Have you signed? Stephen asked. Cranly closed his long thin-lipped mouth, communed with himself an instant and answered: --EGO HABEO. --What is it for? --QUOD? --What is it for? Cranly turned his pale face to Stephen and said blandly and bitterly: --PER PAX UNIVERSALIS. Stephen pointed to the Tsar's photograph and said: --He has the face of a besotted Christ. The scorn and anger in his voice brought Cranly's eyes back from a calm survey of the walls of the hall. --Are you annoyed? he asked. --No, answered Stephen. --Are you in bad humour? --No. --CREDO UT VOS SANGUINARIUS MENDAX ESTIS, said Cranly, QUIA FACIES VOSTRA MONSTRAT UT VOS IN DAMNO MALO HUMORE ESTIS. Moynihan, on his way to the table, said in Stephen's ear: --MacCann is in tiptop form. Ready to shed the last drop. Brand new world. No stimulants and votes for the bitches. Stephen smiled at the manner of this confidence and, when Moynihan had passed, turned again to meet Cranly's eyes. --Perhaps you can tell me, he said, why he pours his soul so freely into my ear. Can you? A dull scowl appeared on Cranly's forehead. He stared at the table where Moynihan had bent to write his name on the roll, and then said flatly: --A sugar! --QUIS EST IN MALO HUMORE, said Stephen, EGO AUT VOS? Cranly did not take up the taunt. He brooded sourly on his


sleepy, hungry, and bitey—seems worried. Serious. Uncertain. My heart twists. Then she destroys my sympathy by being a complete prat. “Contrary to everything you just said, Celine, I know for a fact that you are very smart.” I glare. Violently. “I will not deign to respond to that.” “I believe,” she says, “that if you think about this situation, you’ll reach a logical conclusion. I believe in you.” That would be a very nice speech if she wasn’t technically insulting me. “Would you stop? This isn’t a big deal. It’s just a ball.” I know I’m ignoring a huge chunk of the conversation we just had by saying that, but God. I’m exhausted. Sometimes talking to Giselle is like having an angel on each shoulder while the devil lives between your ears. “Just a ball?” she repeats. “No, Celine. No, it’s secret. It’s a lie by omission. If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t have hidden that bloody leaflet. You’re sneaking around.” My throat cinches tighter with every calm accusation my sister throws. “That’s not…I’m not…” I can’t finish my sentence. Giselle sighs. “And even if it was about the ball: aren’t parents invited to this thing? How do you think Mum’s going to feel if she shows up and sees him, and you could’ve told her, but you didn’t?” I…hadn’t thought that far ahead, possibly because imagining that scenario makes the bottom fall out of my stomach. I was always going to tell Mum eventually. It’s not that big a deal. I just haven’t figured out how to, you know, phrase it, how to explain. “Yeah,” Giselle says flatly. “I want you to think about this plan of yours.” Her expression sours on the word. “And about what you really want from your life. Because it is your life, Cel. No one else has to live it.” She opens her mouth like she wants to say more, then shakes her head and leaves, closing the door behind her. I curl up like a bug and roll onto my side, staring up at my Steps to Success board. Giselle doesn’t get it, that’s all. If she got it, she’d…well. She’d get it. Except there’s this annoying sickly feeling in my stomach that I’m desperate to turn away from. My phone vibrates, and when I glance at the screen, I see Brad’s name. For the first time since we became friends last month, my mood doesn’t lift in response. Instead, I remember him calling me avoidant, and I remember that he’s right. BRAD By December, Donno has kept me and Jordan off the pitch for so long, I’ve started to seriously consider jogging. “Bruh.” Jordan’s disgust is loud and clear through my headphones. “Jogging? Not to be dramatic, but I’d honestly rather die.” “What?” I’m lying on my bed (wearing my inside clothes, obviously), studying the smooth, perfect white of my ceiling. Wintery, afternoon sunlight makes the whole room fresh and bright, and Jordan’s cracking me up as always. “Come on, man. It’s basically football, just fewer people and no ball.” “It’s soulless and


life she was meant to have. This apartment, these people, Len and Betcha and Eitan and Ariel and even Alex—they were a pause, a way station. But it hadn’t worked out like that, had it? Alex reached for her, reached through her. She was weeping now, crying out for her, and Hellie was crying too, but it didn’t feel the way it had when she was alive. No heat in her face, no hitching breaths, it was like dissolving into rain. Every time Alex tried to hold her, she glimpsed flashes of her life. The desk in Alex’s little-girl bedroom, carefully arranged with dried flowers and dragonfly barrettes. Sitting in a parking lot with the older kids, passing a bong around. The crumpled wing of a butterfly lying on damp tile. Each time, it was like stepping out of the sun into a cool, dark room, like sliding underwater. Len slammed into their bedroom, Betcha close behind. She felt a pang of fondness for them, now that she could see them at a distance. Betcha’s belly stretching his T-shirt. The smattering of acne on Len’s forehead. But then Len had his hands on Alex, his palm shoved over her mouth. Everything was going the way it always did, from bad to worse. They were talking about what to do with her body, and then Len backhanded Alex, and Hellie thought, Okay, that’s enough. Enough of this life. There was nothing more to see here. No happy memory to leave on. She felt herself drifting and it didn’t feel good, but it did feel better than what had come before. She slipped through the wall and down the hall to the living room. She saw Ariel on the couch in his undershorts. But she didn’t want to think about him or the things he’d done to her. The shame felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. That was okay. She liked that. What was she waiting for? No one was going to speak for her; nothing was going to change. There would be no real goodbye, no sign she had ever been in the world. Her parents. God. Her parents would wake up to a call from the police or the morgue telling them that she’d been found in an alley. She was so sorry, so terribly sorry, but soon the guilt would be gone too, as if all that was left of her was a shrug. Len and Betcha were fumbling with the apartment door while Alex cried, and Ariel said something. He laughed, a high-pitched giggle, and it was like being thrown back into her body, hearing him laugh as he pushed his way into her. This wasn’t supposed to be the end of it all. Alex was staring at her. She could still see Hellie when no one else could. Hadn’t that always been the way with them? But had Hellie ever really seen Alex? Because now that she was looking, really looking at her, she could see Alex wasn’t just a girl with warm skin and a clever


but there was something at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. The child, with the bird-like motion, which was one of her characteristics, flew to him, and clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne--slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her strongest will--likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. At this instant old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd-- or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed, and evil was his look, he rose up out of some nether region--to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do! Be that as it might, the old man rushed forward, and caught the minister by the arm. "Madman, hold! what is your purpose?" whispered he. "Wave back that woman! Cast off this child All shall be well! Do not blacken your fame, and perish in dishonour! I can yet save you! Would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?" "Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late!" answered the minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. "Thy power is not what it was! With God's help, I shall escape thee now!" He again extended his hand to the woman of the scarlet letter. "Hester Prynne," cried he, with a piercing earnestness, "in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what-- for my own heavy sin and miserable agony--I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!--with all his own might, and the fiend's! Come, Hester--come! Support me up yonder scaffold." The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and so perplexed as to the purport of what they saw--unable to receive the explanation which most Thesaurus blacken: (v) asperse, bespatter, gruesome, macabre, hideous, under. malign, denigrate, cloud, darken, appalling, atrocious; (adv) snatch: (n, v) pinch, snap, catch, grip; defame, calumniate, stain, libel, gruesomely. ANTONYMS: (adj) (v) abduct, clutch, kidnap, seize, jerk, tarnish. ANTONYMS: (v) respect, wonderful, lovely, attractive, capture, pluck. ANTONYM: (v) compliment, glorify, honor, brighten, delightful. release. praise, lighten. guided: (adj) conducted, directed, led. twine: (n, v) coil; (n) string, rope, cord; forth: (adv) away, along, onward, madman: (n) bedlamite, maniac, crazy, (v) lace, entwine, enlace, meander, ahead, before, on, off, on the high loony, nut, madcap, looney, loco, weave, intertwine, twist. road, on the road, on the way, under sufferer, raver, nutcase. ANTONYMS: (v) untwine, way. nether: (adj) lower, inferior, down, straighten, unwind. ghastly: (adj) awful, fearful, low, chthonic, chthonian, infernal, withheld: (adj) hidden, uncommitted. cadaverous, dreadful, grisly, subjacent, less, lesser; (adj, adv) ANTONYM: (adj) ongoing. 244 The Scarlet Letter readily presented itself, or to imagine any other--that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judgement which Providence seemed about to work. They beheld the minister, leaning on Hester's shoulder, and


consider joining the police force after that interrogation,” said Peter. “Nicely done. Now let’s get back to the city so we can pass this all on to Captain Somers.” “I want to see one more thing.” Marion started walking toward the house. “Where are you going? This is crazy!” Peter caught up with her. “We’ll just peek in the windows of the garage.” She checked her watch. “They won’t be back for at least an hour.” The windows, unfortunately, were of smoked glass. She tried the door, but it was locked. “We’re going to get thrown in jail for trespassing,” countered Peter. “Let’s go.” But Marion couldn’t help herself. They’d come this far. Who was this man who had the entire city under his spell? They had plenty of time, and she had to know more. If they found some concrete evidence, then Somers and Ogden would have to step up. The backyard was strewn with old car tires and rusting cans. A small set of steps led to the back door. Marion crept closer and pointed. “It’s open. The back door, look.” The door seemed to have gotten stuck before fully closing, the frame around it rotted in places. Peter muttered something behind her, but she didn’t respond. Up on the porch, she pulled the door open. It squeaked uneasily. Inside was a dingy kitchen with a cracked linoleum floor. A stack of dishes filled the sink, and the air smelled of onions and grease. Through another door was a parlor with several pictures of Jesus nailed into the faded floral wallpaper. Lace curtains had turned a disagreeable shade of light brown, almost an oatmeal, and hung stiffly. “We can’t be here, Marion,” said Peter in a loud whisper. “What if there are tenants upstairs?” “Look, through there.” She pointed to the room on the other side of the vestibule. “That’s his bedroom, I bet.” “Hold on.” Peter crept up to the front door and pushed aside the curtain so he could see out. Satisfied no one was coming, he followed Marion. “A quick look around and then we’re out of here.” The room was small but clean. On a dresser sat a couple of subway tokens and a typewriter. “Oh my God.” Peter was staring down at a small bedside table, where something had been tucked under the base of a lamp. “It’s two tickets for a show at Radio City.” “What?” Marion leaned down to study them. He was right. Two tickets, seats HH 601 and 602, to see the one-o’clock movie at Radio City on Monday, December 17. Today was the sixteenth. Marion felt the blood drain from her face. Tomorrow, the Rockettes would be performing the Christmas Spectacular at noon, right before the one-o’clock showing. “Radio City’s his next target.” Marion’s body began to shake as the memory of that terrible night came flooding back. “What do we do? Should we take them and bring them to the police?” she asked. Peter shook his head. “That will only tip our hand. He’ll know someone was here, that


cute?” I asked. “You don’t think he’s cute?” “Sue, I can’t see his face.” Sue smacked her forehead. “Forgot again.” “Why can’t you remember this?” “Let me be your eyes for you. He’s super handsome. That floppy hair. The hipster glasses. Plump lips. Stellar jawline. And he’s very symmetrical.” She knew that would get me. I always gave extra points for symmetrical. Too many years of art classes. “And,” Sue went on, “he’s got my favorite kind of teeth. Perfect but not perfect.” “Like a rabbit.” “He doesn’t look like a rabbit. I’m telling you, he’s attractive. And he’s got a kind of bad-boy energy. You know—’cause he rides that Vespa.” “I’m not sure a Vespa creates bad-boy energy.” “Vespa … Harley Hog … whatever. The point is, he’s good looking.” “I guess he’d have to be—if he’s thriving as a high-class prostitute.” “He could just be a playboy, though,” Sue said next, thinking about it. This was high praise from Sue. “You think he’s a playboy?” “I mean, who knows? I’m just saying he could just be handsome as a hobby.” That was true. “Joe the man-whore,” I said, trying on the idea for size. “I don’t like that word,” Sue said, picking up her phone to pause our FaceTime and research it. She loved looking things up midconversation. “There’s got to be a better word.” “Joe the libertine?” I offered. But she’d found a good website now. “How about seducer?” “Not harsh enough.” “Player?” “Too complimentary.” “If we were in England, we could call him a shag bandit.” I thought about that. “Ooh, here’s an archaic one,” Sue said. “Mutton monger.” But I shook my head with a shiver. “That’s the worst one so far.” “How about just keep it simple and go with a classic? Womanizer.” I nodded. Don’t overthink it. “Joe the Womanizer.” “I like it,” Sue said. And with that, it was settled. Joe of the bowling jacket was sleeping with half the women in my building, mocking them in elevators the next day, and possibly extorting them for money. What other explanation could there be? * * * DR. NICOLE, HOWEVER, did not agree. “Please don’t call the cops on that poor man,” she responded after I spent a whole session telling her all about it. “The evidence is pretty damning,” I said. “What evidence? There’s no evidence. You’re talking about one overheard phone call and a few sightings in the hallway—sightings where you mostly darted into the shadows so he wouldn’t see you watching him.” I shrugged. “I know what I know. A lot of things don’t add up.” “Yes. But that’s not him. That’s you.” “I’m not the person who filmed a sleeping woman in my bed and then made fun of her.” “But you are the person who just had brain surgery.” “Are you saying I’m mentally defective?” “I’m saying you’re in an adjustment period.” “What does that even mean?” “Go easy on poor Joe. And go easy on yourself. You can’t entirely trust yourself right now. Your senses are out of whack.


the room, I’d sit on that couch, and you’d talk to me, you’d look at me sitting right where this had happened. I could not process that in the coffee shop, and I can’t process it now. On Saturday, February 25, less than a week before she died, she’d written DB, o/y. You’d have to tell me what the second part meant (one year? only you?), but on the same day was a purple X. I turned the planner around for Vanessa. “Have you heard the name Denny Bloch?” I told her everything I suspected about your relationship with Thalia, and she was disgusted but not shocked. How could any woman truly be shocked by predation? We pored over the planners for the next twenty minutes, both of us mindful of the time—I’d have to race back for class—and there were definite patterns, like the correlations back in the fall between purple Xs and the nights we had Follies practice. And then, a gold mine: During the October opera trip to New York, three blue Xs and two purple ones. “There were only two other guys on the trip,” I said. “Definitely not Omar Evans.” I wrote the other names on a napkin for Vanessa: Kellan TenEyck, who was dead, and Kwan Li, now a principal tenor with the English National Opera. I told Vanessa what I’d seen at Bethesda Fountain. Even so, the purple and the blue could both have been Robbie—could have been, for instance, intercourse and blow jobs. Vanessa was the one who proved otherwise. I went through ’94–’95 and she went through ’93–’94. We were quiet until she hit her pen on the table. “Here,” she said. Thalia had written Ski Team—away at Hebron across the whole weekend of March 4 to 6, 1994. A time when the ski team was definitively gone to Maine. But there was a purple X that Saturday. “She wouldn’t have gone with the ski team, would she?” I shook my head. “They didn’t let friends travel with the team. She maybe could have signed out to someone’s house and—but no, look, she had tech rehearsal that weekend.” Little Shop wet tech was written in much smaller letters than Robbie’s ski team commitment, but it was there. And if Thalia had failed to show for tech rehearsal, the one vital day when I was fully in charge, it would have been seared in my memory. “So,” she said. I nodded. “So.” Vanessa pulled the senior planner to the middle of the table. “The week she died,” she said. “The blue X here on Wednesday, in brackets. What are the brackets?” “Maybe she still had her period,” I said, “and they—maybe it was something other than sex.” “Maybe he pulled out,” she said, and I reminded myself that yes, Vanessa was an adult, not someone I needed to protect from any of this. I said, “She was with both of them on Thursday.” “It’s so much sex,” Vanessa said, and laughed drily. “Can you imagine being that young?” I shook my head. I said,


questions at all, do you?” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “That’s another question,” I pointed out. I took the lid off the milkshake so I could attack it with a spoon. “I surrender,” he said. He threw up his hands. “I’m sorry I barged in here.” “No, it’s fine,” I said quickly. Alone, my thoughts had scrabbled through my skull like panicked rats. With him here, they’d settled to faint, anxious scurrying. “I’m not … good at being alone,” I confessed. He gave me a sidelong look, considering. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. You have a loner vibe.” “No, I have an asshole vibe. Which just means that I end up spending all my time with other assholes,” I said. “Does that include me?” I shrugged. “Haven’t decided.” He watched me as I skinned a spoonful off the top of the milkshake. The pause had a tender quality I knew all too well—that moment where you were trying to decide whether to address the obvious subject or skirt around it. He was going to ask me about Liv. His lips parted, the words starting to form. “Maybe you can help me with something,” I said quickly, groping for a distraction. “What sort of something?” he asked. I shifted in my seat. Ethan Schreiber, it occurred to me, was exactly the person to ask about how to track down a missing woman. If I could do it without revealing too much. “I’m working on this project,” I said. “Just a personal thing. And I’m trying to do some research, but I don’t really know how to start.” “I am good at research,” he conceded. “I know,” I said. He gave me a curious look. “I sort of looked up your podcast. I only listened to a minute of it, but it seemed like it was … good.” “Not our best review ever, but I’ll take it,” Ethan said. “So that’s what you’re working on here? An episode of Aftershocks about Stahl?” I said. I wondered what the episode titles would be. The Survivor. The Families. The Son. “No. This is a new project. It’s still in development. I haven’t quite found the right format yet.” He considered me, like he could tell I was stalling. I didn’t know how to ask what I needed to without raising suspicion. “What is it I can help you with, Naomi?” No more stalling, then. “Right. So. If you were trying to find a missing person, how would you start?” I asked in a rush. He stared at me for a beat. “Does this have something to do with Liv?” “Liv isn’t missing, is she?” I said sharply. “Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. “Then why are you asking about missing persons?” “I told you. It’s personal,” I said. He rubbed a hand over his head. “Um. Okay. Am I law enforcement or a civilian?” he asked. “Civilian.” I snagged a French fry and dragged it through the last smudges of ketchup. “If I was a PI or something, I’d start by talking to family,


says hi.” Nick can’t tell whether there’s a threat in there, because right now everything feels like a threat. Andy doesn’t say anything, which at least gives Nick some time to stop feeling like he’s about to throw up. Nick doesn’t dare turn to look at him, but he can still tell that Andy’s watching him carefully. “Want to talk about it?” Andy asks after a few minutes. He isn’t going to lie to Andy. But he doesn’t think he can tell the truth, either, not now, at least. Not here. He’s supposed to be working, and he’s never let the bullshit inside his brain or the garbage in his past get in the way of doing his job. He’s used to coping with a certain amount of anxiety always simmering on the back burner—the old familiar fear of cops materializing out of nowhere, like they had that one time. He doesn’t even mind it—that steady hum of fear is a reminder to stay quiet, to keep to himself. It keeps him safe. Except that’s a delusion. He was never going to be safe. Something like this was always going to happen, and it’ll happen again. And eventually it will all come back to hurt him. This is the usual fear, but instead of it being in his head, it feels like it’s in his whole body, in his heart and fingers and toes. Like fear is the only thing holding him together, the only thing that stops him from breaking down into his component parts and dissolving in the rain. “I gotta get out of here,” Nick says, urgent and low. “Can you handle this?” He pushes his notebook into Andy’s hand. He can’t believe he’s doing this, can’t believe he’s walking away from work, and he doesn’t like to think about what he’d do if Andy weren’t around to cover for him. Andy nods, doesn’t ask whether Nick has suddenly lost his mind. “You don’t look great. Do you need me to—” “No,” he says with enough force that Andy doesn’t finish the question. “Where will you go?” Nick has no idea. Just . . . not anywhere near the police. “I’ll see you later.” And he walks away. * * * Andy finds him at O’Connell’s, two hours and four bourbons later. “I filed the story,” Andy says. “Told everyone you were under the weather.” Nick kicks out a chair for him. “Thanks.” Nobody will believe that, of course. For one, Nick has never taken a sick day. For another, those are two of the Chronicle copy editors over at the bar. Andy holds up a hand for the bartender and gestures that he wants a round of whatever Nick’s having. “You want to tell me about it?” Of course Nick doesn’t. But he’ll do it anyway. When their drinks come, Nick drains his in two gulps. “I don’t want to tell you.” Andy doesn’t say anything. He slowly sips his drink. Nick lights a pair of cigarettes and hands one to Andy. A minute passes, then another. “I


interested in this kind of story. Like, growing up, I didn’t see any books like that on shelves, and it’s more of a quiet, introspective literary novel instead of, like, a high-octane thriller, so I don’t know . . .” “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I assure her. “If anything, it’s easier now than ever to be Asian in the industry.” Her brows furrow. “Do you really mean that?” “Absolutely,” I say. “Diversity is what’s selling right now. Editors are hungry for marginalized voices. You’ll get plenty of opportunities for being different, Emmy. I mean, a queer Asian girl? That’s every checkbox on the list. They’ll be slobbering all over this manuscript.” Emmy laughs nervously. “Well, okay.” “Just write the best thing you can and put it out there,” I say. “You’ll be a hit, I promise.” We chat a little bit more about how her querying process has gone so far (lots of partial requests, but no solid offers yet) and about her feelings toward the manuscript (she’s confident in her narrative voice, but doesn’t know if she’s attempted too many overlapping timelines). As the hour draws to a close, Emmy clears her throat and says, “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, are you white?” My surprise must show on my face, because she immediately apologizes. “Sorry, I don’t know if that’s cool to say, I just, um, like, Song, that’s kind of ambiguous, so I just wanted to know.” “I am white,” I say, more frostily than I’d intended. What is she insinuating? That I can’t be a good mentor to her unless I’m Asian? “Song is my middle name. My mother gave it to me.” “Okay,” Emmy says, and tucks her hair back behind her ears again. “Um, cool. I was just asking.” Eight OF COURSE, I HAVE MY DETRACTORS. THE MORE POPULAR A BOOK becomes, the more popular it becomes to hate on said book, which is why revulsion for Rupi Kaur’s poetry has become a millennial personality trait. The majority of my reviews on Goodreads are five stars, but the one-stars are vitriolic. Uninspired colonizer trash, one reads. Another iteration of the white woman exploitation sob story formula: copy, paste, change the names, and voila, bestseller, reads another. And a third, which seems way too personal to be objective: What a stuck-up, obnoxious bitch. Brags too much about being a Yalie. I got this during a Kindle sale, and you can bet I made sure to get every one of the two hundred and ninety-nine cents I spent back. The first time I get tagged in a bad review on Twitter (All the hype led me wrong, won’t be reading anything more from this author), I text Marnie Kimball and Jen Walker, my new friends from the BookCon after-party. They’d given me their numbers and insisted that I reach out if I was ever having a hard time navigating the industry. Since then our group chat, cheekily named “Eden’s Angels,” has been my go-to source of support and industry gossip. How do


homes every year. An' it keeps 'em so busy they fair scuffle to get 'em done." The most absorbing thing, however, was the preparations to be made before Colin could be transported with sufficient secrecy to the garden. No one must see the chair-carriage and Dickon and Mary after they turned a certain corner of the shrubbery and entered upon the walk outside the ivied walls. As each day passed, Colin had become more and more fixed in his feeling that the mystery surrounding the garden was one of its greatest charms. Nothing must spoil that. No one must ever suspect that they had a secret. People must think that he was simply going out with Mary and Dickon because he liked them and did not object to their looking at him. They had long and quite delightful talks about their route. They would go up this path and down that one and cross the other and go round among the fountain flower-beds as if they were looking at the "bedding-out plants" the head gardener, Mr. Roach, had been having arranged. That would seem such a rational thing to do that no one would think it at all mysterious. They would turn into the shrubbery walks and lose themselves until they came to the long walls. It was almost as serious and elaborately thought out as the plans of march made by geat generals in time of war. Rumors of the new and curious things which were occurring in the invalid's apartments had of course filtered through the servants' hall into the stable yards and out among the gardeners, but notwithstanding this, Mr. Roach was startled one day when he received orders from Master Colin's room to the effect that he must report himself in the apartment no outsider had ever seen, as the invalid himself desired to speak to him. "Well, well," he said to himself as he hurriedly changed his coat, "what's to do now? His Royal Highness that wasn't to be looked at calling up a man he's never set eyes on." Mr. Roach was not without curiosity. He had never caught even a glimpse of the boy and had heard a dozen exaggerated stories about his uncanny looks and ways and his insane tempers. The thing he had heard oftenest was that he might die at any moment and there had been numerous fanciful descriptions of a humped back and helpless limbs, given by people who had never seen him. "Things are changing in this house, Mr. Roach," said Mrs. Medlock, as she led him up the back staircase to the corridor on to which opened the hitherto mysterious chamber. "Let's hope they're changing for the better, Mrs. Medlock," he answered. "They couldn't well change for the worse," she continued; "and queer as it all is there's them as finds their duties made a lot easier to stand up under. Don't you be surprised, Mr. Roach, if you find yourself in the middle of a menagerie and Martha Sowerby's Dickon more at home than you or me could


married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path!" Thesaurus composure: (n) calmness, serenity, deprecation, objection, admonition, irreparably: (adv) irretrievably, poise, calm, equanimity, temper, reprehension, dehortation, irremediably. aplomb, tranquillity, peace, increpation, reprobation, rebuke, noticed: (adj) noted. temperament, disposition. reproach, reproof. scorch: (v) bake, burn, parch, dry, ANTONYMS: (n) panic, forthwith: (adv) directly, immediately, char, grill, blister, fry, roast; (n, v) discomposure, anger, nervousness, at once, now, instantly, straight, singe; (adj, v) sear. perturbation, anxiety, agitation, presently, straightaway, seated: (adj) sat, sedentary. turbulence, awkwardness. incontinently; (adj, adv) quickly; (adj) tremble: (adj, n, v) shiver; (n, v) quiver, delude: (v) cheat, deceive, betray, immediate. shudder, thrill, palpitate; (adj, v) defraud, beguile, cozen, mislead, impelled: (adj) prompted, provoked, totter, quake; (n) throb; (v) flutter, fool, trick, bamboozle, circumvent. determined, compulsive, encouraged, quail, falter. ANTONYMS: (v) steady, expostulation: (n) dissuasion, goaded, motivated, bound. calm. Nathaniel Hawthorne 69 "Thou knowest," said Hester--for, depressed as she was, she could not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame--"thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any." "True," replied he. "It was my folly! I have said it. But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream--old as I was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was--that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for all mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there!" "I have greatly wronged thee," murmured Hester.% "We have wronged each other," answered he. "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophised in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?" "Ask me not?" replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. "That thou shalt never know!" "Never, sayest thou?" rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence. "Never know him! Believe me, Hester, there are few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought-- few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude. Thou mayest conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst this day, when they sought to wrench the name out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. But, as for me, I come to the inquest


my companion, "that was surely the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?" "Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage visitors." "A client, then?" "If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more likely to be some crony of the landlady's." Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit. "Come in!" said he. The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told of the fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is weighed down with some great anxiety. "I owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez to his eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug chamber." "Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may rest here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from the south-west, I see." "Yes, from Horsham." "That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is quite distinctive." "I have come for advice." "That is easily got." "And help." "That is not always so easy." "I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal." "Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards." "He said that you could solve anything." "He said too much." "That you are never beaten." "I have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a woman." "But what is that compared with the number of your successes?" "It is true that I have been generally successful." "Then you may be so with me." "I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favor me with some details as to your case." "It is no ordinary one." "None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of appeal." "And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of events than those which have happened in my own family." "You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards question you as to those details which seem to me to be most important." The young man pulled his chair up and


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

tempted to throw out some sinister observations concerning him. Sometimes an attorney having business with me, and calling at my office and finding no one but the scrivener there, would undertake to obtain some sort of precise information from him touching my whereabouts; but without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would remain standing immovable in the middle of the room. So after contemplating him in that position for a time, the attorney would depart, no wiser than he came. Also, when a Reference was going on, and the room full of lawyers and witnesses and business was driving fast; some deeply occupied legal gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request him to run round to his (the legal gentleman’s) office and fetch some papers for him. Thereupon, Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yet remain idle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, and turn to me. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that all through the circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonder was running round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at my office. This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of his possibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizing my professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over the premises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings (for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetual occupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon the apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and for ever rid me of this intolerable incubus. Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, I first simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanent departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commended the idea to his careful and mature consideration. But having taken three days to meditate upon it, he apprised me that his original determination remained the same in short, that he still preferred to abide with me. What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last button. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I should do with this man, or rather ghost. Rid myself of him, I must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale, passive mortal,—you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of your door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason up his remains in the wall. What then will you do? For all your coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves under


to decide what to do with you, she thought. He squirmed, nearly spitting. “Mr. Shepherd,” he called. Hephzibah felt her body go on alert. She hadn’t seen him downstairs. The footmen had opened the front door, seated her, escorted her to the dining room, brought her wine. Not Shepherd. She’d been braced for him. It had to happen—she had to see him; it was inevitable. It was like pulling a tooth, she told herself. A necessary and shocking pain that would subside as quickly as it came. That was what she wanted. Something sharp and clean. But he hadn’t appeared. She began to hope, to believe, that he wouldn’t. This was an enormous house, full of hundreds of people. It was possible that they might never cross paths again. The last time she’d gone to see Mr. Shepherd, she’d nearly slipped on the parquet. Not for nothing did she hate that floor. Eighteen years ago, and she’d been hurrying to the stairs, skidding, nearly falling on her face. She couldn’t stand the smell of beeswax, to this day. Shepherd had done what he always did. He took his report. He had a way of asking questions without using the necessary words. It didn’t make it any less revolting. It made it worse, as if the discussion were being bleached. She recalled the scratch of his pencil, the feeling of nausea, as if someone were shoving their fingers down her throat. She left Park Lane that night. The scullery maid called Dolly Brown gobbled herself up. She dissolved, disappeared. She would never come back. Sometimes, when things were very painful, it was best to draw back. Hephzibah did that now. She didn’t let go of the lamp-boy, but she leaned away from the door. She could see Shepherd on the other side of it. Evidently, he had been hurrying in the other direction, and he didn’t look at all pleased to be waylaid. He peered across the room, spotting her. Hephzibah heard him speaking to the footman, sotto voce, flustered. “Who is...?” “Hephzibah Grandcourt,” she said, standing, facing him fully. “That is my name.” * * * The early hours of a ball were a febrile, anxious affair. Things could swing in two directions. Dull or magnificent. There was nothing in between. When Winnie entered the house, leaving her pyramid glittering in the road, she made for the garden, where the most eye-catching entertainments would be held. She stepped nervously onto her raft, balancing precariously, the hosepipes chugging as they flooded the courtyard that had been turned into the Nile. She could see her own painted reflection in the scabbards and spears of the other entertainers. The courtyard walls glittered with lights. “Miss de Vries,” someone called from the terrace. “You must be the first to cross the Nile.” Applause went up, a delighted crowd appearing at the top of the steps. The barges, which were rafts joined up with painted and gilded chairs, bobbed merrily on the surface. There was a dank smell to the air: too much tepid water in a


his younger brothers instead of giving to them, a disappointment to their parents and then to all the women who had refused his offer of marriage. A terrible driver. She had even paused to imitate his limp as she mocked him. “Please forgive me, I did not mean those things at all. I only spoke in anger.” “Anger is good, it reveals. When people speak in anger, I listen to them, because that’s when their real thoughts about you come out, all they have kept hidden.” “That is not true. I don’t believe those things about you.” “What is not true? Abọ́sẹ̀dé? What is not true? Did I have a wife? Did I have any children?” Ìyá Ẹniọlá placed her forehead against the table, not caring that a dislodged bit of Formica dug into her skin. She deserved this. Her siblings had tried to calm her down. They had pulled at her dress, pinched her arm, pushed her down into her seat only for her to spring back to her feet to continue shouting. Advancing on Alàgbà until she was standing directly before him when she asked where his wife and children were since he wanted to advise other people about their marriages. The room fell silent then, her siblings stopped imploring her to shut up and just stared at her. Her immediate elder brother, Bàbá Ṣùpọ̀, had gone to sit by Alàgbà, to hold him as he wept. And after her tirade, when she suddenly felt so drained she wondered if she might collapse into a silence interrupted only by the rustling of a curtain as the wind blew past it into the room, Alàgbà had said, Abọ́sẹ̀dé. Before he could continue speaking, she had stomped out of the room, pushing past her sisters-in-law, who had clustered in the corridor to eavesdrop, swearing never to return to the wretched family compound. “Alàgbà,” she said now, unable to lift her head from the table. “Please forgive me.” He had been married once. He had been a taxi driver, saving up money to move his pregnant wife out of the family compound before their child was born. But one day while he was driving his wife home from a friend’s wedding, a trailer had rammed into his taxi. By the time he woke up in the hospital, his wife was in the morgue. After that, he seemed uninterested in moving out of the family compound. Their parents had spoken to him repeatedly about this before they died, insisting that women turned him down because he still lived there. “I’m so sorry for all I said, for shouting at you. Shame has kept me from coming back since, all these days. I didn’t know how to even start apologising. What can I do to erase what I said? I wasn’t even sure you would open the door for me today. Of all our brothers, only Bàbá Ṣùpọ̀ still talks to me. Since the ones I did not insult are so angry with me about what I said, I didn’t know what to expect from


well, but now we were coming to the eyes, and for some reason I didn’t understand, ever since the start of the face blindness, the eyes were my hardest thing to look at. But these weren’t eyes, I told myself. These were dots and lines and color. I just had to think about it that way, and I’d be fine. Maybe that was the trick to it all. Abstract it out. Make the face not a face. Easy. But of course Joe didn’t know his face wasn’t a face. He kept rubbing his eyes and sneezing and looking back at me. Every time his eyes met mine, I got a jolt of something physical, like I was looking into a bright light. “You can look down,” I kept saying. “Sorry,” he’d say. Mostly, though, he sat still. Mostly, the problem was me. This just wasn’t how I was used to working. I’d been painting portraits since high school. I’d patterned my techniques and methods into my brain like deep grooves. This felt like trying to read a book upside down. In another language. At no point did I ever just get caught up in the flow—the way I always had before when I was painting. There was no flow. There was no getting lost in the moment. The math and the struggle and the shockingly close presence of Joe’s actual live human body just right there, inches away from me—breathing and generating heat and leaning in whenever I got close—kept me anchored to reality. I blame Joe. And that torso of his. And don’t even get me started on the imaginary judges I kept hearing in my head: “Did she use a grid for this? What is this, paint by numbers?” I could feel myself losing. In advance. I had a bad feeling. I took a picture of the portrait so far and texted it to Sue for her professional opinion. Her reply was immediate: Nope. Creepy. Salvageable? I texted back. Not a chance. “I don’t think the grid is working,” I said to Joe. Joe shrugged. “Okay. What’s next?” I consulted my list of ideas. “Let’s turn you upside down.” So that was our next attempt. Joe lay on the sofa, hanging his head backward over the arm, and I turned the canvas upside down and tried to sketch him like that. Sue’s response to this one was a simple two words: Police sketch. So we moved down the list. I tried having him describe his face to me and painting with my back to him. Maybe the third time would be the charm. But no. Sue’s final response was the worst of all: Serial killer. Okay. We were done here. I set my brush down and took a second to rub the kinks out of my hand. Had I ever cramped up while painting before? Never. Joe must have been cramping up, too, somehow. Because he watched me working on my hands for a minute, then looked up decisively and said, “I think I need a break.” We’d been at


riddance. The worst of it, though, was actually the last season of The Nocturnals, when we knew we weren’t getting renewed. I was so anxious about booking the next job because everyone else had things lined up and I didn’t. I was putting so much pressure on myself, and I’d just bought a house I didn’t know whether I’d be able to keep paying for, and the only thing it felt like I could control was how clean it was. I’d get stuck in these horrible cycles, scrubbing down the house, returning sets of dishes I’d just bought because I swore the box smelled weird when I opened it up, constantly running laundry because nothing ever seemed clean enough. And then my energy bill went way up and that only added to the stress. I knew I needed to do something, but I didn’t know where to start. It wasn’t until after the finale aired that I started getting help. Hallie was the one who suggested it, actually.” “That’s great,” I say, meaning it. “I’ve been in therapy, too. For generalized anxiety disorder. I think I’ve probably had it most of my life, but I didn’t start seeing someone until my midtwenties. I haven’t gone in a few months—though maybe I should?—but I fucking love therapy.” He nods. “So you get it.” “Not all of it—but some of it.” Then something occurs to me. “What about sex? If that’s okay to ask—since there’s obviously, well, a lot of touching involved.” “Worked on that a lot in therapy, too,” he says. “Oral sex was a bit of a hurdle at first, but I haven’t had any issues with it for years.” “If you’re not comfortable, we definitely don’t have to—” “No. I want to. Even if my skills are, uh, lacking at the moment . . . I love doing it.” His voice is so earnest. I swallow hard, wondering if there really is something inherently horny about a Hilton DoubleTree that I failed to take into account. I know plenty of men enjoy going down on a woman, but to hear him admit it so casually . . . Fortunately, he changes the subject before I can linger on it. “This is why it didn’t work out with those other ghostwriters,” he says. “I didn’t feel entirely at ease with them—not to the point where I could open up about this. And I’m much better than I used to be. I can go to restaurants, though I never use my hands for anything—that’s something I’ve been working on in therapy lately. I try to avoid public bathrooms, if I can help it, but I’m not running out to buy new sheets every other month like I used to. It’s mostly low level, manageable, but sometimes high-anxiety situations . . . they exacerbate it.” Then he lets out a laugh. “And lucky you, you seem to be nearby during most of them. It’s not something I tell everyone,” he says. “What about you?” “Sometimes. Depends on how close we are.” I regret the


this is the way to sail now. Every keel a sun-beam! Hurrah! --Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on a plain --makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that way; and there's danger of being pitched out too, when you strike a hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he's going to Davy Jones --all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this whale carries the everlasting mail! But the monster's run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at last --owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of the boats, whence the three .. <p 354 > ropes went straight down into the blue --the gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, for some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more line, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this holding on, as it is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from the back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising again to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because, owing to the enormous surface of him --in a full grown sperm whale something less than square feet --the pressure of the water is immense. We all know what an astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under; even here, above-ground, in the air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at least equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of twenty line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on board. As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths; what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were


half cut through and left hanging about fifty feet higher up. Thus Tarzan blazed the forest trails and marked his caches. As Kulonga continued his journey Tarzan closed on him until he traveled almost over the black's head. His rope he now held coiled in his right hand; he was almost ready for the kill. The moment was delayed only because Tarzan was anxious to ascertain the black warrior's destination, and presently he was rewarded, for they came suddenly in view of a great clearing, at one end of which lay many strange lairs. Tarzan was directly over Kulonga, as he made the discovery. The forest ended abruptly and beyond lay two hundred yards of planted fields between the jungle and the village. Tarzan must act quickly or his prey would be gone; but Tarzan's life training left so little space between decision and action when an emergency confronted him that there was not even room for the shadow of a thought between. So it was that as Kulonga emerged from the shadow of the jungle a slender coil of rope sped sinuously above him from the lowest branch of a mighty tree directly upon the edge of the fields of Mbonga, and ere the king's son had taken a half dozen steps into the clearing a quick noose tightened about his neck. So quickly did Tarzan of the Apes drag back his prey that Kulonga's cry of alarm was throttled in his windpipe. Hand over hand Tarzan drew the struggling black until he had him hanging by his neck in mid-air; then Tarzan climbed to a larger branch drawing the still threshing victim well up into the sheltering verdure of Chapter 10 the tree. Here he fastened the rope securely to a stout branch, and then, descending, plunged his hunting knife into Kulonga's heart. Kala was avenged. Tarzan examined the black minutely, for he had never seen any other human being. The knife with its sheath and belt caught his eye; he appropriated them. A copper anklet also took his fancy, and this he transferred to his own leg. He examined and admired the tattooing on the forehead and breast. He marveled at the sharp filed teeth. He investigated and appropriated the feathered headdress, and then he prepared to get down to business, for Tarzan of the Apes was hungry, and here was meat; meat of the kill, which jungle ethics permitted him to eat. How may we judge him, by what standards, this ape-man with the heart and head and body of an English gentleman, and the training of a wild beast? Tublat, whom he had hated and who had hated him, he had killed in a fair fight, and yet never had the thought of eating Tublat's flesh entered his head. It could have been as revolting to him as is cannibalism to us. But who was Kulonga that he might not be eaten as fairly as Horta, the boar, or Bara, the deer? Was he not simply another of the countless wild things of the jungle who preyed


upon him. He had spent so much on the doctor and so much more on the chemist, while he was ill they had had to have a fire every day in his bed-room, and now on Sunday he needed a carriage to go to church in the evening as well as in the morning. Philip felt angrily inclined to say he need not be afraid, he was not going to borrow from him, but he held his tongue. It seemed to him that everything had left the old man now but two things, pleasure in his food and a grasping desire for money. It was a hideous old age. In the afternoon Dr. Wigram came, and after the visit Philip walked with him to the garden gate. "How d'you think he is?" said Philip. Dr. Wigram was more anxious not to do wrong than to do right, and he never hazarded a definite opinion if he could help it. He had practised at Blackstable for five-and-thirty years. He had the reputation of being very safe, and many of his patients thought it much better that a doctor should be safe than clever. There was a new man at Blackstable--he had been settled there for ten years, but they still looked upon him as an interloper--and he was said to be very clever; but he had not much practice among the better people, because no one really knew anything about him. "Oh, he's as well as can be expected," said Dr. Wigram in answer to Philip's inquiry. "Has he got anything seriously the matter with him?" "Well, Philip, your uncle is no longer a young man," said the doctor with a cautious little smile, which suggested that after all the Vicar of Blackstable was not an old man either. "He seems to think his heart's in a bad way." "I'm not satisfied with his heart," hazarded the doctor, "I think he should be careful, very careful." On the tip of Philip's tongue was the question: how much longer can he live? He was afraid it would shock. In these matters a periphrase was demanded by the decorum of life, but, as he asked another question instead, it flashed through him that the doctor must be accustomed to the impatience of a sick man's relatives. He must see through their sympathetic expressions. Philip, with a faint smile at his own hypocrisy, cast down his eyes. "I suppose he's in no immediate danger?" This was the kind of question the doctor hated. If you said a patient couldn't live another month the family prepared itself for a bereavement, and if then the patient lived on they visited the medical attendant with the resentment they felt at having tormented themselves before it was necessary. On the other hand, if you said the patient might live a year and he died in a week the family said you did not know your business. They thought of all the affection they would have lavished on the defunct if they had known the end was so near. Dr. Wigram


a breakfast burrito. I snapped my head in the direction of Danny, and he pursed his lips and widened his eyes in a ridiculous way—as if to say, Oops!—and I scowled. Burping was part of life, yes, but could he not have held it in for the last thirty seconds of a three-hour meeting? Patrick, who was the writer sitting between Danny and me, leaned toward me. He murmured, “That was you, right?” Monday, 4:47 p.m. I was responding to emails when Danny entered our office carrying a can of Red Bull. “Yo, Chuckles,” he said as he sat backwards on his desk chair and rolled toward me. The room was narrow enough that the only way to fit a couch was for both of our desks to be against the same wall. Gesturing at my computer screen, he said, “How’s the great American screenplay coming along?” “I wish,” I said. “I’m telling my agent I don’t want to write a”—I held up my fingers in air quotes—“ ‘humorous animated short for an organic douche company.’ ” “How much does it pay? Because maybe I want to write a humorous animated short for an organic douche company.” “Ten thousand, but also douching is bad, and I assume the organic part is bullshit. Your vagina is a self-cleaning organ.” “Maybe your vagina is a self-cleaning organ. But yeah, ten grand is a nonstarter. I don’t sell out for less than six figures.” I suspected Danny earned close to what I did. He’d been hired as the youngest-ever host of News Desk, TNO’s satirical show-within-the-show, and he wrote and occasionally appeared in other sketches, meaning that, as a second-year cast member who wrote, he probably earned the same amount as a ninth-year writer who never appeared onscreen. This was currently $12,000 an episode, or $252,000 a year—not a huge amount for a TV job where you pulled several all-nighters a week, and obscene compared to, say, a fourth-grade teacher’s salary. Even if Danny didn’t yet earn more than I did from TNO, he’d recently begun appearing in movies, whereas I used my summers off for the considerably less lucrative activities of reading novels and traveling. “Okay, I need your advice,” Danny said. “Annabel is freaking out because she just found out our signs are incompatible. Belly’s a Pisces and I’m a Sagittarius.” “Oh my God,” I said. “I can’t even believe you’ve lasted this long.” “I get that it’s ridiculous to you, but she takes this shit very seriously.” “Did she not know when your birthday is until now?” “She had a session with her astrologist yesterday, who told her even though our connection is authentic, our communication styles are inharmonious and I’m not the person to walk beside her on her healing journey.” I bit my lip, and Danny added, “It’s okay, you can laugh. But I still fucking love her.” “What about your healing journey?” Danny made an aw-shucks face. “I’m all healed, Chuckles.” My resentment about their relationship and the sketch I’d just pitched notwithstanding, I found Danny’s unbridled love for


way with me, hain't it, Huck? You've heard me talk just that way -- haven't you, Huck? I'll leave it to Huck if I haven't." "Yes -- heaps of times," said Huck. "Well, I have too," said Tom; "oh, hundreds of times. Once down by the slaughter-house. Don't you remember, Huck? Bob Tanner was there, and Johnny Miller, and Jeff Thatcher, when I said it. Don't you remember, Huck, 'bout me saying that?" "Yes, that's so," said Huck. "That was the --------------------------------------------------------- -166- day after I lost a white alley. No, 'twas the day before." "There -- I told you so," said Tom. "Huck recollects it." "I bleeve I could smoke this pipe all day," said Joe. "I don't feel sick." "Neither do I," said Tom. " I could smoke it all day. But I bet you Jeff Thatcher couldn't." "Jeff Thatcher! Why, he'd keel over just with two draws. Just let him try it once. He'd see!" "I bet he would. And Johnny Miller -- I wish could see Johnny Miller tackle it once." "Oh, don't I!" said Joe. "Why, I bet you Johnny Miller couldn't any more do this than nothing. Just one little snifter would fetch him ." "'Deed it would, Joe. Say -- I wish the boys could see us now." "So do I." "Say -- boys, don't say anything about it, and some time when they're around, I'll come up to you and say, 'Joe, got a pipe? I want a smoke.' And you'll say, kind of careless like, as if it warn't anything, you'll say, 'Yes, I got my old pipe, and another one, but my tobacker ain't very good.' And I'll say, 'Oh, that's all right, if it's strong enough.' And then you'll out with the pipes, and we'll light up just as ca'm, and then just see 'em look!" "By jings, that'll be gay, Tom! I wish it was now!" --------------------------------------------------------- -167- "So do I! And when we tell 'em we learned when we was off pirating, won't they wish they'd been along?" "Oh, I reckon not! I'll just bet they will!" So the talk ran on. But presently it began to flag a trifle, and grow disjointed. The silences widened; the expectoration marvellously increased. Every pore inside the boys' cheeks became a spouting fountain; they could scarcely bail out the cellars under their tongues fast enough to prevent an inundation; little overflowings down their throats occurred in spite of all they could do, and sudden retchings followed every time. Both boys were looking very pale and miserable, now. Joe's pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers. Tom's followed. Both fountains were going furiously and both pumps bailing with might and main. Joe said feebly: "I've lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it." Tom said, with quivering lips and halting utterance: "I'll help you. You go over that way and I'll hunt around by the spring. No, you needn't come, Huck -- we can find it." So Huck sat down again, and waited an hour. Then he found it lonesome, and


cattails, reeds, and water to dryer land. “Dark as hell here,” Montoya said, and pulled a flashlight from his pocket. He trained the beam past the brambles, toward the smokestack. “Oh—here we go.” The beam cut between the vines and onto the remains of rotted wood siding, a splintered window frame, and what appeared to be the remains of a small shanty or cabin, all broken down, flattened by the weight of the foliage that had engulfed it. “You think she”—he hooked his thumb backward to the area where the body had been found—“belonged here? Lived here?” “Don’t know.” But Bentz didn’t like it. He caught a glimpse of a yellow jacket nest partially visible in the wood, the wasps flying in and out and holes for other critters of the swamp, and . . . oh, shit . . . was that a hand? “I think we got another one,” he said as Montoya swept the beam of his flashlight onto a stack of broken-down boards. The remains of a human hand were visible, bones gray and partially covered in dirt, parts of some fingers missing, but definitely a human hand. The flesh on the back of his spine crawled. “What the hell happened out here?” he said as a hawk flapped into the swamp and settled onto the branch of an overhanging cypress. “Nothing good,” Montoya said as the beam of his light caught in the glitter of stones. Bloodred, they sparkled on a chain wound through what was left of the fingers, a muddy cross dangling from the thin links twined in the bones. Bentz’s blood ran like ice water through his veins as he stared at the remains of the rosary. “He was here,” he said to Montoya. “Father John. He was here.” “Maybe. But these two. They’ve been dead a long time.” “Doesn’t matter. We need to rope this off, it’s a crime scene.” “It’s the damned bayou.” “I don’t care, he was here,” Bentz said, and looked across the bayou, fifty feet or so, where Bobby-Dean and Clive’s boat idled. “Hey!” Bentz shouted. “You! Come over here!” Bobby-Dean had the gall to point a thumb at his chest in a whome? gesture and Bentz waved him over. “Yeah, you! Both of you! Come on over here!” He ordered the deputy to find a way to rope off the area and to have the CSI team come and check out the swampy island and destroyed cabin. “No telling what else we’ll find in there,” he said, and the eerie feeling that had been with him earlier dissipated, was chased away by the stronger sensation that they were getting somewhere, that the hunt was on and this time, the fake priest was the prey. Once Clive Jones’s boat had reached the island, he cut the engine. “What is it?” Bobby-Dean asked warily. Bentz cut to the chase. “There’s another body here.” “Oh, fuck, man.” Bobby-Dean ran a hand through his thin beard. “I knowed it.” Montoya asked, “How did you know it?” “When we found that body. I


to the top of the low cliff there." "I wasn't really afraid of the storm," said Anne. "In fact, I wasn't really as afraid of it as Ti ..." Everyone knew perfectly well that Anne was going to mention Timothy, and they all interrupted her at once, speaking very loudly. Julian managed to get a kick in again. "Oooh!" said Anne. "The rabbits were so tame," said Julian, loudly. "We watched the cormorants," said Dick, and George joined in too, talking at the same time. "The jackdaws made such a noise, they said 'Chack, chack, chack,' all the time." "Well, really, you sound like jackdaws yourselves, talking all at once like this!" said Aunt Fanny, with a laugh. "Now, have you all finished? Very well, then, go and wash your sticky hands- yes, George, I know they're sticky, because I made that gingerbread, and you've had three slices! Then you had better go and play quietly in the other room, because it's raining, and you can't go out. But don't disturb your father, George. He's very busy." The children went to wash. "Idiot!" said Julian to Anne. "Nearly gave us away twice!" "I didn't mean what you thought I meant the first time!" began Anne indignantly. George interrupted her. "I'd rather you gave the secret of the wreck away than my secret about Tim," she said. "I do think you've got a careless tongue." "Yes, I have," said Anne, sorrowfully. "I think I'd better not talk at meal-times any more. I love Tim so much I just can't seem to help wanting to talk about him." They all went to play in the other room. Julian turned a table upside down with a crash. "We'll play at wrecks," he said. "This is the wreck. Now we're going to explore it." The door flew open and an angry, frowning face looked in. It was George's father! "What was that noise?" he said. "George! Did you overturn that table?" "I did," said Julian. "I'm sorry, sir. I quite forgot you were working." "Any more noise like that and I shall keep you all in bed tomorrow!" said his Uncle Quentin. "Georgina, keep your cousins quiet." The door shut and Uncle Quentin went out. The children looked at one another. "Your father's awfully fierce, isn't he?" said Julian. "I'm sorry I made that row. I didn't think." "We'd better do something really quiet," said George. "Or he'll keep his word- and we'll find ourselves in bed tomorrow just when we want to explore the wreck." This was a terrible thought. Anne went to get one of her dolls to play with. She had managed to bring quite a number after all. Julian fetched a book. George took up a beautiful little boat she was carving out of a piece of wood. Dick lay back on a chair and thought of the exciting wreck. The rain poured down steadily, and everyone hoped it would have stopped by the morning. "We'll have to be up most awfully early," said Dick, yawning. "What about going to bed in