except the strange coincidence. The officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a `nine days wonder', they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of other complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S.P.C.A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found. It seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite its master's yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw. Later.--By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been permitted to look over the log book of the Demeter, which was in order up to within three days, but contained nothing of special interest except as to facts of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was today produced at the inquest. And a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a transcript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my statement must be taken cum grano, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short. LOG OF THE "DEMETER" Varna to Whitby Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land. On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands. . .two mates, cook, and myself, (captain). On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m. On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago. On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not


all his walables, and go out as a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor glory!' With this expression of feeling for his unfortunate friend, Master Bates sat himself on the nearest chair with an aspect of chagrin and despondency. 'What do you talk about his having neither honour nor glory for!' exclaimed Fagin, darting an angry look at his pupil. 'Wasn't he always the top-sawyer among you all! Is there one of you that could touch him or come near him on any scent! Eh?' 'Not one,' replied Master Bates, in a voice rendered husky by regret; 'not one.' 'Then what do you talk of?' replied Fagin angrily; 'what are you blubbering for?' ''Cause it isn't on the rec-ord, is it?' said Charley, chafed into perfect defiance of his venerable friend by the current of his regrets; ''cause it can't come out in the 'dictment; 'cause nobody will never know half of what he was. How will he stand in the Newgate Calendar? P'raps not be there at all. Oh, my eye, my eye, wot a blow it is!' 'Ha! ha!' cried Fagin, extending his right hand, and turning to Mr. Bolter in a fit of chuckling which shook him as though he had the palsy; 'see what a pride they take in their profession, my dear. Ain't it beautiful?' Mr. Bolter nodded assent, and Fagin, after contemplating the grief of Charley Bates for some seconds with evident satisfaction, stepped up to that young gentleman and patted him on the shoulder. 'Never mind, Charley,' said Fagin soothingly; 'it'll come out, it'll be sure to come out. They'll all know what a clever fellow he was; he'll show it himself, and not disgrace his old pals and teachers. Think how young he is too! What a distinction, Charley, to be lagged at his time of life!' 'Well, it is a honour that is!' said Charley, a little consoled. 'He shall have all he wants,' continued the Jew. 'He shall be kept in the Stone Jug, Charley, like a gentleman. Like a gentleman! With his beer every day, and money in his pocket to pitch and toss with, if he can't spend it.' 'No, shall he though?' cried Charley Bates. 'Ay, that he shall,' replied Fagin, 'and we'll have a big-wig, Charley: one that's got the greatest gift of the gab: to carry on his defence; and he shall make a speech for himself too, if he likes; and we'll read it all in the papers--"Artful Dodger--shrieks of laughter--here the court was convulsed"--eh, Charley, eh?' 'Ha! ha! laughed Master Bates, 'what a lark that would be, wouldn't it, Fagin? I say, how the Artful would bother 'em wouldn't he?' 'Would!' cried Fagin. 'He shall--he will!' 'Ah, to be sure, so he will,' repeated Charley, rubbing his hands. 'I think I see him now,' cried the Jew, bending his eyes upon his pupil. 'So do I,' cried Charley Bates. 'Ha! ha! ha! so do I. I see it all afore me, upon my soul I do, Fagin. What a game!


Which is odd when I think about it now; I knew to keep family matters private from outsiders but never considered the secrets we were possibly keeping from one another. “It’s not something to spread around, okay?” Mum quickly added. “Family business.” Could I finally move out? My refusal to leave hung on the fact that Dad needed someone more constant than Dawoud’s visits, but Mum will be here. I’d have to return when she eventually left again, but while I have the chance … Maybe I could get out more. Meet people. Meet someone. Finally have an answer to Mum’s perpetual question. What could it hurt to go on a date, knowing I wouldn’t have to rush back home after? To invite a man into my house, introduce him to my friends and be introduced to his. What could it hurt to maybe even fall in love? I download the RentARoom app before returning to the office. * * * Katherine is once again prowling my desk, but this time she has her fists balled at her side and her shoulders under her ears as if trying to contain what’s threatening to escape. “Have you seen the state of my diary?” she explodes at the sight of me. She’s red in the face, spittle clinging to her bottom lip and her high-strung voice wobbles at every other syllable. Shit. She usually reserves her tears for whatever toilet stall is available at the time, but it doesn’t look like she can help herself. Suddenly I think: This is a long time coming. I don’t know how to handle this and no one in the room rushes to my side, so I’m shaking when I wake my computer up and switch onto her diary. It’s full of accepted invitations and clashes that weren’t there an hour ago. “I didn’t accept these meetings,” I tell her. “I did!” she says. “They’ve been sitting in my inbox and now there’s clashes all over the place and I can’t have any clashes!” She presses her palms to her eyes. “I can’t—I cannot do this!” I’m facing her, but I can feel the entire office watching. My heart is pounding and my eyes are stinging when I quietly say, “This isn’t my fault.” Katherine’s hands drop from her eyes and she stares at me, her pupils flickering from side to side. “Look at my diary, Maddie! This is your job!” “Okay,” Claire says, finally getting up from her seat. “Katherine, why don’t you leave Maddie to sort out your diary—I’m sure it won’t take her very long.” She speaks as if reasoning with a toddler and ushers Katherine back into her office. “Whilst she’s doing that, I’ll make you a cup of tea, how’s that sound?” “Yes, thank you, Claire,” Katherine says between labored breaths. “That’s very kind.” I turn back to my computer, feeling everyone’s eyes still stuck to me. I don’t cry until enough time has passed for me to inconspicuously use the bathroom. There I ruminate on whether Katherine has a favorite cubicle to


there?" Jo told her adventures, and by the time she had finished they were at home. With many thanks, they said good night and crept in, hoping to disturb no one, but the instant their door creaked, two little nightcaps bobbed up, and two sleepy but eager voices cried out . . . "Tell about the party! Tell about the party!" With what Meg called `a great want of manners' Jo had saved some bonbons for the little girls, and they soon subsided, after hearing the most thrilling events of the evening. "I declare, it really seems like being a fine young lady, to come home from the party in a carriage and sit in my dressing gown wit a maid to wait on me," said Meg, as Jo bound up her foot with arnica and brushed her hair. "I don't believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned hair, old gowns, one glove apiece and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them," And I think Jo was quite right. -------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Chapter" I.4 Burdens "Oh, dear, how hard it does seem to take up our packs and go on," sighed Meg the morning after the party, for now the holidays were over, the week of merrymaking did not fit her for going on easily with the task she never liked. "I wish it was Christmas or New Year's all the time. Wouldn't it be fun?" answered Jo, yawning dismally. "We shouldn't enjoy ourselves half so much as we do now. But it does seem so nice to have little suppers and bouquets, and go to parties, and drive home, and read and rest,and not work. It's like other people, you know, and I always envy girls who do such things, I'm so fond of luxury," said Meg, trying to decide which of two shabby gowns was the least shabby. "Well, we can't have it, so don't let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I'm sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I've learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan't mind her." This idea tickled Jo's fancy and put her in good spirits, but Meg didn't brighten, for her burden, consisting of four spoiled children, seemed heavier than ever. She had not heart enough even to make herself pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair in the most becoming way. "Where's the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not?" she muttered, shutting her drawer with a jerk. "I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little bits of fun now and then, and get old and ugly and sour, because I'm poor and can't enjoy my life as other girls do. It's


The food and drink were in a big box, for the children did not mean to starve while they were on the island! They had brought loaves of bread, butter, biscuits, jam, tins of fruit, ripe plums, bottles of ginger-beer, a kettle to make tea, and anything else they could think of! George and Julian staggered up the cliff with the heavy box. They had to put it down once or twice to give themselves a rest! They put everything into the little room. Then they went back to get the collection of blankets and rugs from the boat. They arranged them in the corners of the little room, and thought that it would be most exciting to spend the night there. "The two girls can sleep together on this pile of rugs," said Julian. "And we two boys will have this pile." George looked as if she didn't want to be put with Anne, and classed as a girl. But Anne didn't wish to sleep alone in her corner, and she looked so beseechingly at George that the bigger girl smiled at her and made no objection. Anne thought that George was getting nicer and nicer! "Well, now we'll get down to business," said Julian, and he pulled out his map. "We must study this really carefully, and find out exactly under what spot the entrances to the dungeons are. Now- come around and let's do our best to find out! It's up to us to use our brains- and beat that man who's bought the island!" They all bent over the traced map. It was quite dry now, and the children looked at it earnestly. It was plain that in the old days the castle had been a very fine place. "Now look," said Julian, putting his finger on the plan of the dungeons. "These seem to run all along under the castle- and here- and here- are the marks that seem to be meant to represent steps or stairs." "Yes," said George. "I should think they are. Well, if so, there appear to be two ways of getting down into the dungeons. One lot of steps seems to begin somewhere near this little room- and the other seems to start under the tower there. And what do you suppose this thing is here, Julian?" She put her finger on a round hole that was shown not only in the plan of the dungeons, but also in the plan of the ground floor of the castle. "I can't imagine what that is," said Julian, puzzled. "Oh yes, I know what it might be! You said there was an old well somewhere, do you remember? Well, that may be it, I should think. It would have to be very deep to get fresh water right under the sea- so it probably goes down through the dungeons too. Isn't this thrilling?" Everyone thought it was. They felt happy and excited. There was something to discover- something they could and must discover within the next day or two. They looked at one another.


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

smelled divine, and the faerie merchant rolled it in crushed nuts before handing it over on a stick, but as soon as it touched my palm, it began to melt. The merchant was watching me, so I put it in my mouth, pantomiming my delight. The cheese tasted like snow and melted within seconds. I stopped next at a stand equipped with a smoking hut. The faerie handed me a delicate fillet of fish, almost perfectly clear despite the smoking. I offered it to Shadow, but he only looked at me with incomprehension in his eyes. And, indeed, when I popped it into my mouth, it too melted flavourlessly against my tongue. I took a wandering course to the lakeshore, conscious of the need to avoid suspicion. I paused at the wine merchant, who had the largest stand. It was brighter than the others, snow piled up behind it in a wall that caught the lantern light and threw it back in a blinding glitter. I had to look down at my feet, blinking back tears, as one of the Folk pressed an ice-glass into my hand. Like the food, the wine smelled lovely, of sugared apples and cloves, but it slid eerily within the ice, more like oil than wine. Shadow kept growling at it, as he had not with the faerie food, and so I tipped it onto the snow. Beside the wine merchant was a stand offering trinkets, frozen wildflowers that many of the Folk threaded through their hair or wove through unused buttonholes on their cloaks, as well as an array of jewels with pins in them. I could not compare them to any jewels I knew; they were mostly in shades of white and winter grey, hundreds of them, each impossibly different from the next. I selected one that I knew, without understanding how, was the precise colour of the icicles that hung from the stone ledges of the Cambridge libraries in winter. But moments after I pinned it to my breast, all that remained was a patch of damp. At the lake was a little beach of frozen white sand upon which a number of spectators had gathered. I spied two other mortals in the crowd, a young man and woman draped over the shoulders of two lovely faerie ladies. I did not have to watch them long to know they were far beyond my aid, and turned from their blank stares with a shudder. Despair overcame me as I gazed into the whirl of dancers. How on earth could I extract Lilja and Margret when I was deaf to the music they danced to? Stepping onto the ice would give me away immediately—I am flat-footed at the best of times, but I doubted even someone trained in the art of dance could fit their limbs into a rhythm they couldn’t hear. As I stood going through my options, there came a rustling at my elbow. A beautiful lady was gazing at me, her rabbitish white hair cascading in a long braid past her waist, her


pale and pink, telling me dawn is about to break. It’s probably 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. Another hour or two of sleep are necessary to assuage my bone-deep exhaustion, but I can still hear it. Sitting up in my reclined seat, I strain my ears to listen. It’s a woman. And she’s crying. Opening the phone, I see that it is 5:52 a.m. Go back to sleep, I tell myself, reclining again. A strange woman crying on the beach at the crack of dawn is none of your concern. But she’s not stopping. And the sobs are beginning to grate on my nerves. “I’m sorry,” she cries. And then I hear a splash. I sit up in my seat, heart pounding. Adrenaline courses through me and there’s no way I can ignore this. What the hell is this woman doing? It’s just April—the Pacific will be frigid. Climbing out of the car, I spot the path. It is overgrown, barely visible, but I scramble my way down it. I smell the beach before I reach it, brackish and briny. It’s a rocky cove, seaweed and kelp coating the stones in shaggy green. I see her, the woman, standing hip deep in the water. She looks about my age, with shiny dark hair like I used to have. She’s wearing a running outfit, formfitting and expensive. Her sobs are softer now, but her shoulders shake with emotion. She closes her eyes. And then she goes under. Maybe she’s swimming? But I know she’s not—not in her clothes, not in this temperature. Still, I wait a few seconds, hoping she’ll resurface, hoping I can slip back to my car and sleep for another hour before I need to move on. Hoping I don’t have to intervene and draw attention to myself. But I’m already moving across the slippery rocks and kicking off my shoes. Because the woman does not come up. I run into the water and feel the icy chill. It won’t take long for her—or me—to go numb, to succumb to the cold. When the water hits my waist, I start to swim. She went under here, but she’s gone. She must have swum out, farther, deeper. I take a breath and dive beneath the surface. The water stings my eyes, shocks my system. And then I see her. She is moving away from me, but slowly. Her legs kick weakly, her arms barely move. She is fading, it’s clear. And then she stops moving altogether, and her body goes limp. Her long dark hair floats around her like sea snakes. With a few strong strokes, I am on her. I reach out and grab her jacket, drag her toward the surface. 5 MY FEET HAVE JUST TOUCHED the rocky bottom when she comes to. I feel her inert body surge with life, and suddenly she is fighting me. “Let me go!” she screams, twisting from my grasp, flailing out at me. “What are you doing?” “Saving your life,” I yell back. “No!” she shrieks. “Get the fuck away from me.” I


maybe he’s just this side of creepy to manage to track me down. Oh god—I cannot see him again. My heart starts back up with a new, less panicked rhythm when I blink my bleary eyes and see the name: Wyatt Torres. Missed you last night. Just four words and he’s able to take me back to that evening a few weeks ago, desperate kisses and twisted sheets and entry number one on my list of regrets. A list that only seems to keep growing. I flop back onto the pillow, scrolling his social media for photos of the housewarming. There he is with some of our other friends from college, posing in front of an impressive charcuterie board. It looks like a proper, classy AF party for the gainfully employed, nary a Ping-Pong ball or Solo cup in sight. Wyatt, with his job as a reporter at the Tacoma News Tribune. Alyssa, an investigative reporter at a local TV station. Josh, the sole reporter for a twice-weekly newspaper on the Eastside, covering everything from city council meetings to high school football games. We always joked in college that we couldn’t wait to be the age where we could throw mature parties, the kind with hors d’oeuvres and cocktail napkins and wine we hadn’t bought for two dollars at Trader Joe’s. We’d all be award-winning journalists then, sharing anecdotes about our latest stories and bragging about who’d be the first to make the front page. If only we’d known that a digital front page was slightly less exciting. It’s easy to forget that even before that, I wanted to write books of my own, before I realized it was impractical to think I’d be one of the lucky ones who could survive on that alone. I wrote all the time as a kid, stapling together little books with haphazardly doodled covers. Mysteries were my favorite; I loved the thrill of being able to trick the reader (aka my parents or Noemie), dropping what I’m sure were very obvious red herrings and leading them to a conclusion they swore they never saw coming. In hindsight, they might have been lying to protect my fragile preteen self-esteem. Being able to create chaos and then wrap everything up soothed my anxious brain, and there was something innately satisfying about stringing sentences together, to the point where I could hear their rhythm in my head before I typed them out. Nothing beat the pure and utter joy of finding exactly the right word to mean exactly the right thing. That was a long time ago, when you could tell adults you wanted to be an author when you grew up and they’d grin and tell you how creative you were, how smart! But then you got older. Closer to the age you’d need to be when a school printed on a piece of paper the thing you’d committed the last four years of your life to. You have to be a little more realistic, guidance counselors said. Does anyone even make money doing that? your parents


along the cove and when spoken to, only look up sudden and fierce and blow up the cliffs, I would see him in a thousand forms, and with through his nose like a fog-horn; and we and the people who a thousand diabolical expressions. Now the leg would be cut came about our house soon learned to let him be. Every day off at the knee, now at the hip; now he was a monstrous kind when he came back from his stroll he would ask if any seafar- of a creature who had never had but the one leg, and that in ing men had gone by along the road. At first we thought it the middle of his body. To see him leap and run and pursue was the want of company of his own kind that made him ask me over hedge and ditch was the worst of nightmares. And this question, but at last we began to see he was desirous to altogether I paid pretty dear for my monthly fourpenny piece, avoid them. When a seaman did put up at the Admiral in the shape of these abominable fancies. Contents Benbow (as now and then some did, making by the coast But though I was so terrified by the idea of the seafaring road for Bristol) he would look in at him through the cur- man with one leg, I was far less afraid of the captain himself Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 6 7 than anybody else who knew him. There were nights when he shivering to their beds; but I really believe his presence did us took a deal more rum and water than his head would carry; good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked, old, back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet wild sea-songs, minding nobody; but sometimes he would country life, and there was even a party of the younger men call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to who pretended to admire him, calling him a “true sea-dog” listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I and a “real old salt” and such like names, and saying there was have heard the house shaking with “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of the sort of man that made England terrible at sea. rum,” all the neighbours joining in for dear life, with the fear In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us, for he kept on of death upon them, and each singing louder than the other staying week after week, and at last month after month, so to avoid remark. For in these fits he was the most overriding that all the money had been long exhausted, and still my companion ever known; he would slap his hand on the table father never plucked up the heart to insist on having more. If for silence all round; he would fly up in a passion


her face, shouting words Alex didn’t understand. She raised the trumpet to her lips, and the sound was like a thousand horns, an orchestra of command. They’re going to crush her, Alex thought. She’ll break into nothing, dissolve into ash. The horses leapt, a black tide of heavy bodies and blue flame, and Dawes hurled the trumpet into the abyss. The horses dove after it, arcing impossibly in the air, less like horses than tumbling sea foam. They flowed like water and dissolved into darkness. “Close it!” Alex shouted. Dawes held up her empty palms and swiped them together, as if washing her hands of it all. “Ghalaqa al-baab! Al-tariiq muharram lakum!” Then a voice echoed through the room—from somewhere below or somewhere above, it was impossible to tell. But Alex knew that voice, and the word he spoke was clear and pleading. Wait. “No!” Dawes screamed. But it was too late. There was an enormous boom, like the sound of a heavy door slamming shut. Alex was thrown off her feet. 6 Alex didn’t remember much of what happened next. Her ears were ringing, her eyes watering, and the stink of sulfur was so sharp, she barely had time to roll onto her hands and knees before she vomited. She heard Dawes retching too and she wanted to weep with happiness. If Dawes was puking, she wasn’t dead. Robbie ran into the room, waving away the smoke and shouting, “What the fuck? What the fuck?” Then he was vomiting too. The room was covered in black soot. Alex and Dawes were coated in it. And the table—the table King Arthur’s knights had supposedly gathered around—was cracked down the middle. Wait. She couldn’t even pretend she hadn’t heard it because Dawes had too. Alex had seen the anguish in her eyes as the portal slammed shut. Alex crawled over to Dawes. She was curled up against the wall shaking. “Don’t say a goddamn word,” Alex whispered. “It was an inspection, that’s all.” “I heard him—” Tears filled her eyes. “I know, but right now we’ve got to cover our asses. Say it with me. It was an inspection.” “It was an inspec—inspection.” The rest was a blur—shouting from the Scroll and Key delegates; calls from their board and alumni; more shouting from Michael Anselm, who arrived on the Metro-North and offered the use of Hiram’s Crucible to restore the table and make it whole. Dawes and Alex did their best to wipe the soot off themselves and then faced Anselm in the entry hall of the Scroll and Key tomb. “This isn’t on us,” Alex said. Best to come out swinging. “We wanted to make sure they hadn’t been opening portals or performing unsanctioned rituals, so I constructed a revelation casting.” She’d prepared a cover story. She hadn’t anticipated she’d have to cover a massive explosion, but it was all she had. Anselm was pacing back and forth, his cell in one hand, and a Scroll and Key alumnus could be heard screaming on the other end. He covered the phone with


good than pints of liniment. May I go and tell him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?' Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as easily as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked round at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, I went upstairs with her; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid. He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be nothing but a face - like a conventional cherubim - he looked the queerest object I ever beheld. 'What name was it, as I wrote up in the cart, sir?' said Mr. Barkis, with a slow rheumatic smile. 'Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn't we?' 'I was willin' a long time, sir?' said Mr. Barkis. 'A long time,' said I. 'And I don't regret it,' said Mr. Barkis. 'Do you remember what you told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all the cooking?' 'Yes, very well,' I returned. 'It was as true,' said Mr. Barkis, 'as turnips is. It was as true,' said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, 'as taxes is. And nothing's truer than them.' Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result of his reflections in bed; and I gave it. 'Nothing's truer than them,' repeated Mr. Barkis; 'a man as poor as I am, finds that out in his mind when he's laid up. I'm a very poor man, sir!' 'I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis.' 'A very poor man, indeed I am,' said Mr. Barkis. Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes, and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end of which had been visible to me all the time. Then his face became composed. 'Old clothes,' said Mr. Barkis. 'Oh!' said I. 'I wish it was Money, sir,' said Mr. Barkis. 'I wish it was, indeed,' said I. 'But it AIN'T,' said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he possibly could.


and the men are rarely shown in the process of growth. Their talking is either a game or a method of exerting power. Janie’s life is about the experience of relationships, and while Jody and Tea Cake and all the other talking men are essentially static characters, Janie and Pheoby pay closer attention to their own inner life—to experience— because it is the site for growth. If there is anything the outpouring of scholarship on Their Eyes teaches us, it is that this is a rich and complicated text and that each generation of readers will bring something new to our understanding of it. If we were protective of this text and unwilling to subject it to literary analysis during the first years of its rebirth, that was because it was a beloved text for those of us who discovered in it something of our own experiences, our own language, our own history. In 1989, I find myself asking new questions about Their Eyes—questions about Hurston’s ambivalence toward her female protagonist, about its uncritical depiction of violence toward women, about the ways in which Janie’s voice is dominated by men even in passages that are about her own inner growth. In Their Eyes, Hurston has not given us an unambiguously heroic female character. She puts Janie on the track of autonomy, self-realization, and independence, but she also places Janie in the position of romantic heroine as the object of Tea Cake’s quest, at times so subordinate to the magnificent presence of Tea Cake that even her interior life reveals more about him than about her. What Their Eyes shows us is a woman writer struggling with the problem of the questing hero as woman and the difficulties in 1937 of giving a woman character such power and such daring. Because Their Eyes has been in print continuously since 1978, it has become available each year to thousands of new readers. It is taught in colleges all over the country, and its availability and popularity have generated two decades of the highest level of scholarship. But I want to remember the history that nurtured this text into rebirth, especially the collective spirit of the sixties and seventies that galvanized us into political action to retrieve the lost works of black women writers. There is lovely symmetry between text and context in the case of Their Eyes: as Their Eyes affirms and celebrates black culture it reflects that same affirmation of black culture that rekindled interest in the text; Janie telling her story to listening woman friend, Pheoby, suggests to me all those women readers who discovered their own tale in Janie’s story and passed it on from one to another; and certainly, as the novel represents a woman redefining and revising a male-dominated canon, these readers have, like Janie, made their voices heard in the world of letters, revising the canon while asserting their proper place in it. MARY HELEN WASHINGTON 1 Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they


the checkout counter with four bags of Sabritas as their dinner. “What’s the good news, then?” she asked while he was considering a box of crackers. “I aced an audition, although it’s still too early to say anything definitive about a paycheck. It might be people being polite rather than liking my performance. But forget that, the thing I wanted to talk to you about was Abel Urueta.” “What about him?” “He lives in my building.” Montserrat stopped pushing the shopping cart and turned to him in surprise. “Urueta? The director Urueta?” “Sure,” Tristán said. He reached into the cart and looked at the label of a pack of instant noodles that Montserrat had dumped there. “How do you eat this?” “With a fork,” she said dryly. “No, I mean how the fuck do you eat this? Shit, Montserrat, stop at the deli, get a slice of ham and a bit of cheese and make yourself a real lunch. No wonder your gums bleed. You probably have the nutritional deficiencies of a seventeenth-century sailor. Urueta invited you and me for dinner. We should get a bottle of wine for that.” She shook her head and stared up at him. Even with her combat boots, Montserrat barely grazed Tristán’s shoulder. She mostly looked like a tiny, ferocious elf. A very shocked one at this moment, with her mouth open, awe and confusion overwhelming her. “You’re serious?” “Of course I am. You don’t eat right. I’ve told you a million times before, and then you complain that the dentist—” “I mean about Urueta. You met him and he wants to have dinner?” “Saturday.” “When did you meet him? How?” “A couple of days ago.” She opened her mouth, closed it, opened again. “I can’t go Saturday.” “Why not? Don’t tell me you’ll be working. It’s insane how busy you’ve been lately. All of July and half of August you were cooped up in front of the monitors.” “That was then. Besides, how would you know? You were too busy during the summer to see Hellraiser 3 with me, and they only had that one special screening at Palacio Chino.” His love life had been imploding in July and August, but it wouldn’t help if he mentioned that. Montserrat would probably think it was juvenile. Her solution to romance problems was to stop returning phone calls. “Come on, you want to hang out Saturday. I know you do.” “I need the work,” she said, with that stubborn grimace he knew well. “Mario has been treating me like shit, and I can’t turn down anything right now or he’ll use it to claim I’m unreliable. I got into a fight with him and he won’t let me forget it. I’m trying to patch things up and be nice until December or I’m not getting a bonus.” “You’re always fighting with him. I bet he doesn’t even remember he got mad at you.” “He remembers.” “You can take one afternoon off.” “I told Araceli I’d drive her to the hospital. And afterward she’ll probably want to buy


all taken, Tortoise also took one. He was to be called 'All of you'. "At last the party arrived in the sky and their hosts were very happy to see them. Tortoise stood up in his many-coloured plumage and thanked them for their invitation. His speech was so eloquent that all the birds were glad they had brought him, and nodded their heads in approval of all he said. Their hosts took him as the king of the birds, especially as he looked somewhat different from the others. "After kola nuts had been presented and eaten, the people of the sky set before their guests the most delectable dishes Tortoise had even seen or dreamed of. The soup was brought out hot from the fire and in the very pot in which it had been cooked. It was full of meat and fish. Tortoise began to sniff aloud. There was pounded yam and also yam pottage cooked with palm-oil and fresh fish. There were also pots of palm-wine. When everything had been set before the guests, one of the people of the sky came forward and tasted a little from each pot. He then invited the birds to eat. But Tortoise jumped to his feet and asked: Tor whom have you prepared this feast?' "'For all of you,' replied the man. "Tortoise turned to the birds and said: 'You remember that my name is All of you. The custom here is to serve the spokesman first and the others later. They will serve you when I have eaten.' "He began to eat and the birds grumbled angrily. The people of the sky thought it must be their custom to leave all the food for their king. And so Tortoise ate the best part of the food and then drank two pots of palm-wine, so that he was full of food and drink and his body filled out in his shell. "The birds gathered round to eat what was left and to peck at the bones he had thrown all about the floor. Some of them were too angry to eat. They chose to fly home on an empty stomach. But before they left each took back the feather he had lent to Tortoise. And there he stood in his hard shell full of food and wine but without any wings to fly home. He asked the birds to take a message for his wife, but they all refused. In the end Parrot, who had felt more angry than the others, suddenly changed his mind and agreed to take the message. "Tell my wife,' said Tortoise, 'to bring out all the soft things in my house and cover the compound with them so that I can jump down from the sky without very great danger.' "Parrot promised to deliver the message, and then flew away. But when he reached Tortoise's house he told his wife to bring out all the hard things in the house. And so she brought out her husband's hoes, machetes, spears, guns and even his cannon. Tortoise looked down


in Peru that eats corpses and the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent me. He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed to be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table. The printed matter on it stated: CHOZA DE INDIOS. BENI, BOLIVIA. All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of them) outside some primitive shanties of osier. --Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear no more children. See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse's liver raw. His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns for several minutes if not more. --Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally. Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying: --Glass. That boggles 'em. Glass. Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran as follows: TARJETA POSTAL, SENOR A BOUDIN, GALERIA BECCHE, SANTIAGO, CHILE. There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice. Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in MARITANA on which occasion the former's ball passed through the latter's hat) having detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some suspicions of our friend's BONA FIDES nevertheless it reminded him in a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some Wednesday or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say that he had ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest. Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did come to planking down the needful and breaking Boyd's heart it was not so dear, purse permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there and back. The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose liver was out of order, seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth, Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern Babylon where doubtless he


and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for HIM and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call THAT govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I TOLD 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat -- if you call it a hat -- but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o' stove- pipe. Look at it, says I -- such a hat for me to wear -- one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights. "Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio -- a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane -- the awful- est old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me -- I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger -- why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't


shifted uncomfortably and wondered if he noticed. Remaut swirled over the creamy back of the envelope in Gabe’s lap. A small flower was drawn next to the t. “Alie,” he said quietly. Lore took the envelope from him and ripped it open. A simple white page, with words written in the same flourishing hand as Gabe’s surname. A laugh tickled at the back of Lore’s throat. “A reminder about that croquet game. It’s today, after lunch.” She glanced at the window, lit with midday glow. “Which is probably right about now.” Gabe was already shaking his head, but Lore straightened her spine with new resolve. “We’re going.” “Do you even know how to play croquet?” “No, but you can teach me, can’t you?” Her eyes felt gummy, her stomach sour from days of no rest followed by too much of it. Lore needed out of these apartments. It also sounded nice to pretend at normality for a while, and a croquet game was probably as close as she was going to get. Grimacing, Gabe rubbed at his eye. “I was rather good at it, once.” He stood, offered her his hand. She took it and let him haul her up. He let go as soon as she was upright, too quick to be casual. Things between them seemed mostly steady, now that they’d decided on a course of action, but all that heat still shimmered right out of reach, embers waiting for the right breath of air. Lore dressed quickly, in a lavender gown with a high waist and sleeves that covered only her shoulders. The skirt was long and full, but not as much as some she’d seen the courtiers wear—she was in no danger of taking up the entire width of a hallway. She had no idea what appropriate clothing was for a croquet game, but this would have to do. Her hair she frowned at for a moment before partially braiding it in a crown around her head, leaving the rest of it down. Its color wavered between brown and gold, most days, but the gentle shade of her dress made it look darker. A pause, then she pinched at her cheeks, bit her lips to coax some color into them. She told herself it had nothing to do with Gabe, and absolutely nothing to do with the chance of seeing Bastian. Gabe was dressed when she came out of her room. Wordlessly, he offered her his arm. She took it. They marched down the hall like they were headed to a sentencing. Lore had grown used to the crosshatched iron bars set into the floors, so much so that she barely noticed them anymore. But after last night, the bars stood out again, incongruous and dark. A reminder that things like her did not belong here. The lunch spread was in the same place as the day before, on a massive table groaning beneath the weight of pastries and hundreds of tiny sandwiches. Alie lingered with a knot of other courtiers, her cloud-pale hair making her easy to


him at all. But that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to respond to him, and playing along with his game might be just the way to convince him to help her. “I have never had a better night’s rest,” she replied and gave him her sweetest smile, the sort of smile that could get her father to give her anything. As he sat in his place at the head of the table, Lord Calloway’s eyes flicked up to Lucy’s hair, and the sparkle in his eyes grew. “Your hair seems to tell a different story,” he said. “I happen to have an incredibly skilled maid at my disposal.” “So it would seem. You must be an excellent judge of character.” Though Lucy couldn’t explain it, she was suddenly warm, and she hurried over to the sideboard to fill her plate with the barest amount of food before either of the Calloways noticed how flushed she had become. She wished she could eat more, but she felt guilty enough taking from the family when they had no reason to give to her. “What is Miss Calloway upset about?” she asked, hoping the change in subject would make her feel less under scrutiny. Lord Calloway had a way of gazing at her so directly that Lucy was sure he would discover the truth simply by looking at her. “She seems to think she can outride me,” the man said, his voice light. “I heartily disagree.” “But I have Cordelia now,” Miss Calloway argued. “She is remarkably quick on her feet and could easily outpace Hermes.” “No animal can outpace Hermes.” Lucy took her seat across from Miss Calloway, all too aware of Lord Calloway’s eyes on her from her left. “I cannot say, as I have not seen either of you ride,” she said, “but Miss Calloway does seem rather determined. Perhaps you should not underestimate her, my lord.” “And I’ve been practicing every day since you left the last time,” Miss Calloway added, her head bobbing up and down. “I am sure I can win this time.” Lord Calloway let out a low chuckle, and suddenly Lucy shivered. Was there something odd happening with the temperature of the room? “You say that every time, Olivia,” he said. “And I beat you every time.” “Not this time. Even Lucy thinks so; you heard her.” Turning to Lucy, Lord Calloway lifted one dark eyebrow. She could not deny he was a handsome man, but his gaze unnerved her. He was far too powerful and intimidating for her to be comfortable with him studying her. “What makes you doubt my ability to ride?” he asked her. Lucy swallowed her bite of toast. It was as if he was tempting her to speak out again, hoping for her frankness on a subject she had no business speaking of. “It is not doubt in you, my lord,” she said slowly, “but faith in Miss Calloway.” Miss Calloway beamed, but then she pointed at Lucy as if accusing her of something. “Do you hear her, Simon?” she said,


The group text chimes with a text, and we both jump. It’s only Wyn, whose number I’d unblocked again. Any luck? he writes. None. You? I ask. Parth’s really worried, Wyn replies. He’s going to call hospitals. Just to be sure. My stomach flips. Keep us posted. You too, he says. Cleo’s nose wrinkles as she scans our list. “That’s all the usual spots. She wouldn’t . . . be reckless enough to sail off by herself, would she?” The blood rushes out of my stomach. “She’s a pretty confident sailor,” I say. “And I think sailing is sort of her happy place. It makes her think of her mom and when . . .” “Harry?” Cleo says. “What is it?” “Her mom,” I say. “What about her?” Cleo asks. “It might be nothing,” I say. “But I’ve got one more place for us to check.” • • • “STOP THE CAR!” I shriek, with such conviction that Cleo instantly obeys, right in the middle of the road. Although road is a fairly aspirational title for the wooded lane the GPS has directed us onto. One has to assume that there’s a parking lot somewhere ahead, but parking no longer matters because (1) the little open-air chapel is visible through the trees on our right, and (2) a cherry-red Jaguar sits parked on the dirt shoulder. Cleo hits the gas again and pulls over. We check the car first—empty— then scramble over the short stone retaining wall to hike up the hillside toward the chapel. The damp green woods give way to a manicured garden. In its center, a pavilion of gray stone stands, ivy crawling up its left side. Butterflies move in dizzy spirals through the flowering bushes hugging the steps, the distant crash of waves the only sound. No wonder Sabrina’s parents’ wedding made such an impression on her. This place is beautiful. It feels like nothing could go wrong here, nothing bad could happen. When I start forward, Cleo hangs back. Her mouth opens and closes a couple of times. “What if she wants to be alone?” She has a point. It’s possible. But people don’t run or hide only when they want to be alone. “What if,” I say, “she needs to know she isn’t?” Cleo takes my hand. We climb the steps to the back of the pavilion. There are a handful of timeworn pews, a flagstone floor, and a few wooden arcades on either side. Straight ahead, a stone arch frames a slice of pure Maine blue water in the distance. Sabrina sits cross-legged before it, staring out. The whole scene is serene, down to the faint chirp of birds overhead. Then she looks over her shoulder at the sound of our approach. I’d braced myself for some measure of awkwardness after everything, but the second we see her drawn face, puffy and red-rimmed eyes, last night’s fight stops mattering. Both Cleo and I run to her, kneel on the ground, sling our arms around her. “You scared us,” Cleo says. “I didn’t mean to,” Sabrina


the same, which it didn’t, I knew it wasn’t her because she was currently upstairs in her room, likely taking yet another swig from her bottle of laudanum. I snuck down the hall, which had turned gloomy in the evening dusk. I could barely make out the portraits as I passed. That was for the best. I had zero desire to look at them. Father. Mother. Two dutiful daughters. All of it was a lie. Upon reaching the sunroom, I held my breath, fearful one small exhalation would expose my presence. I stood outside the door, listening to my father’s groaning and panting, disgusted by his animalistic needs. It didn’t occur to me then that they were the same sounds Ricky made when we were together. Only later did I realize all men were alike. It didn’t matter if they were rich or poor, fat or thin, old or young. Their needs were so basic it was laughable. Once the passionate moaning had ended, I hurried away to the library, pretending to read a book in case my father looked in as he passed. He didn’t, of course. He simply strode by, sated, on his way to another part of the house. It wasn’t until I heard his mistress leave the sunroom that I sprang from my chair and ran to the doorway, ready to intercept her. I expected to see someone like Sally, the voluptuous new maid, or even brittle, bitter Berniece Mayhew. Instead, the woman who emerged from the sunroom smoothing her skirts was the person I least expected to be engaged in an affair with my father. Frozen in shock, I could only stand in the middle of the hallway and stare at her. She stared back, also surprised. “You?” I said. “Yes,” Miss Baker replied with a weary huff. “Me.” THIRTY-ONE The typewriter is gone. Mrs. Baker removed it from my arms once the last loose sheet of paper had taken flight. At first, I stupidly thought she was trying to help me. Or at least get the typewriter out of my hands while she berated me for bringing Lenora outside. Instead, she said nothing as she lugged it across the terrace, the lone page in the carriage flapping in the breeze. Then, with a grunt and a heave, she hoisted the typewriter over the railing and let it drop. I gasped when it fell from view. Jessie let out a horrified yelp. Even Lenora reacted, her left hand reaching out as far as she could muster, as if that alone might reverse the typewriter’s fall. Pleased with herself, Mrs. Baker wiped her hands together and strode to the French doors. All she said as she passed me was, “Take Miss Hope back upstairs where she belongs.” Carter helped me with that, scooping Lenora in his arms and carrying her up the Grand Stairs as I pulled the wheelchair up step by rattling step. In Lenora’s room, he gently placed her in the wheelchair before turning to me. “What do you think’s going to happen?” “I think I’m


would talk to Peter and barely say a word to Maud. “I need to start working again,” she said. Peter glanced up from his laptop. “Are you looking?” “No. But Ella hasn’t relapsed in a long time. I’ll do something part-time until she’s out of treatment. I’ve been reading more about the landscape here. I think I’ll be more marketable now.” “She may never be out of treatment.” Peter went back to typing. “So I shouldn’t go back to work? Ever?” “I didn’t say that.” “You implied it.” “No,” he said. “You inferred it.” He sighed. “We said we wouldn’t have those old fights.” “I know,” Maud said. “We won’t. But I’m finding a job.” Rita came to the door, and Maud got up from the chair. She followed Peter down the hall. The drama was over. The crisis had passed. Ella was getting better. Ella would be all right. Maud would go back to work doing something. Eventually she’d stop feeling guilty. Eventually the terror would subside. Eventually she’d be able to think of Gabriel without her body surging with confusion and rage. Eventually, she told herself as she walked into Rita’s office, she’d look back on this time in her life and it would be so distant that she’d barely be able to see it. 12 The day of the meeting with Alice Lincoln, Maud put on a pantsuit that she’d ordered online. Her one suit from England no longer fit. She’d gained weight over the past year, thirteen pounds, according to the scale at the doctor’s office, mostly in a band around her stomach. The contours of her body had melted; her rounded shoulders hid their muscles; her legs dropped straight from her hips to her ankles. In the bathroom, having mussed her short hair so it would look less like her mother’s, she rubbed on a layer of the moisturizer that Annette had given her for Christmas, made from seaweed and apple stem cells. “Fancy, Mom,” Louise said when Maud came into the kitchen, where the girls were eating cereal. “Nice,” Ella said. “There’s still a price tag on the sleeve.” Peter got up from reading the paper to fetch a pair of scissors recently reintroduced to a drawer. Maud raised her arm, and he snipped off the tag. “You look splendid,” he said. He kissed her cheek. “Break an arm.” “Dad, it’s a leg!” Louise protested, mouth full of cereal. “I know. I was joking.” My sweet family, Maud thought, as she drove away from the house. Peter truly had changed. He was a better father now and a better husband. And that was enough. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world to live in one of those sexless Victorian marriages, a woman on one side of the house with her husband on the other, meeting in the middle for the children, kissing each other on the forehead at night before going to their separate rooms. Lust and passion had deserted her body. Her brain was back in charge. And soon she’d open her laptop and


RAJAH The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not stopped pouring down. There could be no going out of doors. Martha was so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery. She came bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she was doing nothing else. "What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down. "Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say." "I have. I have found out what the crying was," said Mary. Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled eyes. "Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!" "I heard it in the night," Mary went on. "And I got up and went to see where it came from. It was Colin. I found him." Martha's face became red with fright. "Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying. "Tha' shouldn't have done it--tha' shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble. I never told thee nothin' about him--but tha'll get me in trouble. I shall lose my place and what'll mother do!" "You won't lose your place," said Mary. "He was glad I came. We talked and talked and he said he was glad I came." "Was he?" cried Martha. "Art tha' sure? Tha' doesn't know what he's like when anything vexes him. He's a big lad to cry like a baby, but when he's in a passion he'll fair scream just to frighten us. He knows us daren't call our souls our own." "He wasn't vexed," said Mary. "I asked him if I should go away and he made me stay. He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool and talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens. He wouldn't let me go. He let me see his mother's picture. Before I left him I sang him to sleep." Martha fairly gasped with amazement. "I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested. "It's as if tha'd walked straight into a lion's den. If he'd been like he is most times he'd have throwed himself into one of his tantrums and roused th' house. He won't let strangers look at him." "He let me look at him. I looked at him all the time and he looked at me. We stared!" said Mary. "I don't know what to do!" cried agitated Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock finds out, she'll think I broke orders and told thee and I shall be packed back to mother." "He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet. It's to be a sort of secret just at first," said Mary firmly. "And he says everybody is obliged to do as he pleases." "Aye, that's true enough--th' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her forehead with her apron. "He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him every day. And you are to tell me when he wants me." "Me!" said Martha;


like a dairy-maid's pail of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large tub. Then re-mounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to ram his long pole harder and .. <p 340 > harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down. Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once a queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up --my God! poor Tashtego --like the twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight! Man overboard! cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first came to his senses. Swing the bucket this way! and putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, there was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which he had sunk. At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing the whip --which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles --a sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook, upon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be on the point of giving way; an event still more likely from the violent motions of the head. Come down, come down! yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but .. <p 341 > with one hand holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul line, rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out. In


accumulation of unimportant business. In the afternoon one of the senior partners had made an unexpected call on his time; and he had reached home so late that May had preceded him to the van der Luydens', and sent back the carriage. Now, across the Skuytercliff carnations and the massive plate, she struck him as pale and languid; but her eyes shone, and she talked with exaggerated animation. The subject which had called forth Mr. Sillerton Jackson's favourite allusion had been brought up (Archer fancied not without intention) by their hostess. The Beaufort failure, or rather the Beaufort attitude since the failure, was still a fruitful theme for the drawing- room moralist; and after it had been thoroughly examined and condemned Mrs. van der Luyden had turned her scrupulous eyes on May Archer. "Is it possible, dear, that what I hear is true? I was told your grandmother Mingott's carriage was seen standing at Mrs. Beaufort's door." It was noticeable that she no longer called the offending lady by her Christian name. May's colour rose, and Mrs. Archer put in hastily: "If it was, I'm convinced it was there without Mrs. Mingott's knowledge." "Ah, you think--?" Mrs. van der Luyden paused, sighed, and glanced at her husband. "I'm afraid," Mr. van der Luyden said, "that Madame Olenska's kind heart may have led her into the imprudence of calling on Mrs. Beaufort." "Or her taste for peculiar people," put in Mrs. Archer in a dry tone, while her eyes dwelt innocently on her son's. "I'm sorry to think it of Madame Olenska," said Mrs. van der Luyden; and Mrs. Archer murmured: "Ah, my dear--and after you'd had her twice at Skuytercliff!" It was at this point that Mr. Jackson seized the chance to place his favourite allusion. "At the Tuileries," he repeated, seeing the eyes of the company expectantly turned on him, "the standard was excessively lax in some respects; and if you'd asked where Morny's money came from--! Or who paid the debts of some of the Court beauties . . ." "I hope, dear Sillerton," said Mrs. Archer, "you are not suggesting that we should adopt such standards?" "I never suggest," returned Mr. Jackson imperturbably. "But Madame Olenska's foreign bringing-up may make her less particular--" "Ah," the two elder ladies sighed. "Still, to have kept her grandmother's carriage at a defaulter's door!" Mr. van der Luyden protested; and Archer guessed that he was remembering, and resenting, the hampers of carnations he had sent to the little house in Twenty-third Street. "Of course I've always said that she looks at things quite differently," Mrs. Archer summed up. A flush rose to May's forehead. She looked across the table at her husband, and said precipitately: "I'm sure Ellen meant it kindly." "Imprudent people are often kind," said Mrs. Archer, as if the fact were scarcely an extenuation; and Mrs. van der Luyden murmured: "If only she had consulted some one--" "Ah, that she never did!" Mrs. Archer rejoined. At this point Mr. van der Luyden glanced at his wife, who bent her head


would refuse. I see now that you were right. The picture must not be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped." Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The color came back to his cheeks, and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the young man who had just made this strange confession to him. He wondered if he would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Harry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store? "It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should have seen this in the picture. Did you really see it?" "Of course I did." "Well, you don't mind my looking at it now?" Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture." "You will some day, surely?" [58] "Never." "Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-by, Dorian. You have been the one person in my life of whom I have been really fond. I don't suppose I shall often see you again. You don't know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you." "My dear Basil," cried Dorian, "what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you liked me too much. That is not even a compliment." "It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession." "A very disappointing one." "Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?" "No: there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn't talk about not meeting me again, or anything of that kind. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so." "You have got Harry," said Hallward, sadly. "Oh, Harry!" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. "Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible, and his evenings in doing what is improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I don't think I would go to Harry if I was in trouble. I would sooner go to you, Basil." "But you won't sit to me again?" "Impossible!" "You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes across two ideal things. Few come across one." "I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant." "Pleasanter for you, I am afraid," murmured Hallward, regretfully. "And now good-by. I am sorry you


energy by binding them together. Some necromancers were also able to shape raw Mortem before channeling it through themselves, causing things like increased strength or stamina once this shaped Mortem was finally taken in. Theoretically, this practice could be harnessed for military purposes, but so few are capable of it that further research into the possibility is impractical. —Notes from Thierry LeMan, researcher working in the Burnt Isles circa 10 AGF With all three of them working, moving the statue was fairly easy. Gabe directed them—the statue was on a track, barely visible against the wood grain in the dark—and they inched the statue forward until it slotted into a notch carved into the top of the well wall. “Upon reflection,” Bastian said, hooking his hands on his hips and scowling at the statue, “moving it toward the notch seems obvious.” “What an auspicious start we’re off to,” Gabe muttered. Lore was too out of breath to say anything. Even sliding along a track, the damn statue was heavy. Bastian moved the wooden piece covering the top of the well, now unencumbered by stone gods. Inside, a perfect ring of pitch-black, so thick it looked almost liquid. Cold emanated from the depths of the well, and all three of them took a tiny, instinctual step back. “Do you have a key?” Gabe’s voice was low and dark, still suspicious. He arched a brow at Bastian, who looked utterly confused. “A key for what?” “The chambers,” Gabe said. “The chambers within the catacombs. They aren’t just left open.” “Well.” Bastian pushed back his hair. “Fuck.” “I can get in.” Lore didn’t look at either of them. She looked at that vast well of darkness, an entry to deep parts of the earth where the living weren’t meant to go. “I can get in,” she repeated. Gabe’s brows knit. “How?” Behind him, Bastian said nothing. A swallow worked down her dry throat. “I can get into any chamber we find. Just trust me.” She knew it like she knew the shape of the catacombs, like she knew her name and the crescent edges of the scar on her palm. No part of that world beneath the earth would remain closed to her. The war in Gabe’s mind played out on his face, cut through in silver moonlight. They circled trust, but never quite landed, carrion birds with a body dying slowly. “She was a poison runner,” Bastian said, cast in darkness beneath the lip of the well’s roof. His arms were crossed, his voice low. “She knows how to pick a lock.” Gabe could tell there was more to it, and could tell she wasn’t going to share. Lore could read it in the line of his mouth, hard and unyielding and shaped like well-hidden hurt. Gabriel Remaut had lived a lifetime of subtle wounds, and she just kept giving him more. But he shook it off. Nodded. “Fine.” Bastian’s eyes never left Lore. The moment she felt steadier, tamped down the guilt in her gut, he seemed to know. A tiny inclination of


hard place, Lore. The Priest Exalted didn’t give her any choice. It was you, or the whole crew swung.” Behind her, Gabe stiffened. “Swung?” she repeated quietly. Val said it’d been a choice between her or the crew, but Lore thought that meant prison time, fines, maybe the Burnt Isles… “Death for us all,” Mari whispered. She chewed the corner of her lip. “He wanted you, mouse. Badly.” She thought of that first day after Horse, when Anton told her the Church had been watching since she was thirteen, since she first raised Cedric from the dead. Watching, keeping tabs, letting her live a life she thought was free until the rope finally pulled taut. They’d waited until she got older. Until her power over Mortem had matured, grown. Because it had—the stone man in the cart was proof. She wouldn’t have been capable of something like this weeks ago, as if her time in the Citadel had somehow strengthened her ability. Her time in the Citadel, and the slow march toward her twenty-fourth birthday. Instinctually, her eyes darted to Bastian, seeking some kind of strength from the Sun Prince. She didn’t realize Gabe had stepped away, far enough into the warehouse to be out of earshot, until he crossed behind Bastian, pacing like a caged animal. The Presque Mort looked back once, his gaze cutting between her and the other man, before turning away again. A knock at the door. The same pattern Lore had used. Mari went to open it. Val stood on the other side. “Sorry, love, I was…” Val trailed off, mouth staying open and no words coming out, eyes round as she stared at Lore. “Mouse,” she said, and then she rushed forward. Lore didn’t know what to expect. By the wall, Bastian looked ready for a fight—shoulders loose, fists curled. But Val threw her arms around Lore and hugged her tight. Of the hugs they’d shared, it was the longest. Though there’d only been three before this, all carefully cataloged in Lore’s mind, so maybe that wasn’t a fair metric—Mari was the softer one, the mother more likely to give comfort. Still, after the initial moment of being frozen in shock, Lore returned the embrace just as tightly, her anger forgotten in the familiar scent of Val’s hair, the familiar rasp of her shirt against her cheek. “Oh, mouse.” Val’s voice was choked and hoarse. “I’m so glad you’re all right.” Lore didn’t respond. She tucked her chin, burying her face in Val’s shoulder, and hoped the older woman didn’t feel the warm salt seeping through her work shirt. Lore didn’t let herself really cry, though. That was a dam she couldn’t strike just yet; there wasn’t time. She had a better hold on herself when they broke apart, tears drained away, chin steady. “I understand why you did it,” Lore said softly. “I know he’d been watching since… since Cedric. And Mari said he threatened to hang the whole crew.” Val’s eyes were tired. She nodded and ran a hand over the scarf holding her


some vague excuse for being away. How do you think they feel today? All of the village rituals are observed. Mr. Macey makes a little speech to Silas, blessing the marriage. Guests gather in the churchyard early so they can tell their old stories about Silas and Eppie over again. The men head for the Rainbow after the service. NOTE: A FAMILY Ben Winthrop conveniently goes to the Rainbow so that the final group consists of Dolly, Aaron, Eppie, and Silas. Sharp-tongued Ben might disrupt this group, which is like a little family. Silas and Dolly have a close partnership; Dolly is like a mother to Eppie. Eppie and Aaron have such an innocent relationship, it seems to some readers to be more like a brother-sister love than a sexual love. Eliot's own childhood was not totally happy. Her mother seems to have ignored her, and although she was very close to her older brother at first, they fell out with each other later. To some readers, this perfect family picture at the end of this book--"four united people"--is Eliot's nostalgic dream of a family bound by love and respect, not just by blood. As the wedding party heads home, notice that Eppie's garden is flourishing. Though it's protected, it isn't blocked off from society; an open fence on one side allows flowers to peek through. The novel ends with Eppie's loving, contented comment, "O father, what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody could be happier than we are." ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: GLOSSARY ATHANASIAN CREED A Christian creed defining belief in the holy Trinity and the incarnation of God in Christ. BAKEHUS Dialect: "bakehouse." A building or room where an oven is made available for baking. CATALEPSY A state of temporary paralysis and loss of sensation. CHINES A cut of meat from around the backbone. COLLOGUE Dialect: "conspire." COLLY Dialect: "to make black as coal." 'CUTE Dialect: "acute." Perceptive, sharp, clever. DOUBT Dialect: "suspect." FARRIER One who attends to or shoes horses. A blacksmith. FURZE A spiny evergreen shrub with yellow flowers. FUSTIAN A sturdy cloth made of coarse linen and cotton, dyed a dull color, usually worn by the working class. HACK A light saddle horse. JOSEPH A long riding cloak worn by ladies in the eighteenth century (old-fashioned by the time of Silas Marner). LARD-CAKES Small flat cakes made of dough, lard, sugar, and spice, not a delicacy but a treat for country folk. MANT'S BIBLE A three-volume edition of the Bible, published in 1816, with explanatory notes and maps. MAWKIN Dialect: "scarecrow." MOITHERED Dialect: "broken into small flakes." Bewildered, worried. MOLE-CATCHER Someone who exterminated pesky field moles for farmers and then sold the valuable mole skins for a profit. Often, mole-catchers also did some illegal poaching on the side. OLD HARRY The Devil. ORTS Scraps of food, leftovers. PARISH-CLERK A layman who assists the minister during church services. PIERT Dialect: "peart." Brisk, lively, cheerful, healthy. PILLION A pad attached behind a saddle for a second rider. SCRAT Dialect: "scratch." To struggle for a living. 'SIZES Dialect: "assizes."


way ahead and the rearview mirror. They are ten years beyond retirement and wishing they never signed on for rest and relaxation, long resigned to the fact that life will never again present them with fresh excitement of the best kind, that henceforth it’s rocking chairs on the porch and walks in the park and did-you-see-this-or-that crap on one streaming service or another until they’re slammed dead by a heart attack or a stroke, or wind up in hospice for a final month. This close encounter is a gift, a miracle, maybe a chance to warn the world of—and thwart—an impending invasion. They’re young men again—hell, they’re boys again—full of wonder and reckless courage. When he has opened a sufficient lead, Juan hangs a U-turn as sharply and adroitly as any stunt driver might have executed in the movies, and he jams on the brake. The oncoming robots flare in the headlights, come to a halt, and once more rear up on their back legs. Showdown. The night has been a journey from one darkness to another, each seeming to be absolute until the next proves darker yet, inspiring a superstitious dread that their inevitable destination is an eternal lightlessness, mere minutes away. Nina isn’t convinced that the attic is the safest place to be. They have abandoned whatever other options they might have had—unless there’s a way from here onto the roof. And from the roof? In spite of her concern, she’s followed Michael’s instructions without hesitation, fully trusting him. She had learned to trust her parents without reservation in the years before they died. However, as is the case with John, her confidence in Michael is more than implicit trust. It is belief, and not just belief based on personal observation, but belief of the heart; her reliance on this man is a matter of faith. That this should be the case, after she has known him such a short time, amazes but doesn’t trouble her. In spite of the strange power that has been bestowed on Michael, he is humble. He has about him the air of one who, for many years, has suffered much and lost much. But if his losses have resulted in a settled sorrow, his melancholy is a shoal rather than an abyss. He isn’t a sad or bitter person; he’s quite the opposite of that. In Nina’s experience, except between mother and child, genuine love doesn’t bloom as quickly as a rose from bud to full flower, but requires years instead. Yet her faith in Michael is such a yearning of the soul that she has been brought to love. She doesn’t understand why they are here in the attic, doesn’t know what he means when he insists that the cavalry is on its way, but there will be time for explanations when the threat has passed and their safety assured. Faith and love are the source of a hope that inspires courage and leaves no room for doubt. One, two, three, four, five: Gunfire tears through the attic flooring, and the air is


for it. “I can’t bear this,” I say. “Of course you can’t,” she says. “It’s unbearable. You know that episode of Star Trek where Counselor Troi is trying to become a commander?” Saturday-night Star Trek was appointment television for me and my dad, so I know very well that the Troi commander storyline is the B plot in the seventh-season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Thine Own Self.” In it, Troi keeps trying and failing to pass a particular bridge officer’s test, which happens to be a test not of technical skill or problem-solving ability but of duty and grit. When she fails, as she does multiple times, it’s because she will not accept that which feels impossible to accept. She finally realizes that while she has been trying to save the ship without losing anyone—without sending a friend, a person she serves with and cares for, to die—giving that order is the only way to pass the test. As soon as she tells a holographic crewmate to sacrifice himself for the good of the ship, the simulated disaster ends and she is promoted. “Your kids, your husband, they are your ship now,” Nicole says. “They’re your priority. Even though it’s the hardest thing, and it’s so unfair, because your mother is dying and there’s a fucking pandemic and none of this should be happening. You do what you need to do to save the ship.” * * * My kids, I find, are what I cannot risk. Mom is aware that I’m wrestling with the decision of whether to travel. She’s torn, because of course she wants us to visit. But she’s also been following the news, if not as obsessively as I have. She says she’ll understand no matter what I decide. I’m grateful to know she doesn’t blame me for wanting to protect her and my children. But I already know what it is to blame myself for distance, for time missed. For months now, we’ve gotten nothing but terrible news, but at least until the pandemic we were able to see each other. I thought we would get more visits, more time together—the time I didn’t get with Dad. I thought I’d be beside her when she died. Now I don’t know if I will ever see her again. 19 Things I send to my mother while she is dying Letters and cards Flowers Watercolor artwork and comics drawn by my kids A small Christmas tree in a ceramic pot, with decorations All the good Jane Austen film adaptations I can find on DVD that she doesn’t already own The complete Slings & Arrows The complete Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries The complete Poirot All the Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey novels Most of Helen Mirren’s film oeuvre A new tablet to replace her old one, with Skype preinstalled An Oregon sunstone necklace Warm socks Nice hand lotion Good coffee Chicken soup and rolls Pears Chocolate babka Chocolate-chip cookies Mother’s Day tulips A new knee brace 20 I know, on days when she gets angry, that she is not really


It was a sound that did it. An echo of something, crystalline and pure, at the outermost edges of her consciousness. A cry. She ran a hand across the rippled surface of her sheets, instincts stirring. When she rolled the bedroom doors back, the air around her felt as if it had been hollowed out, immeasurably expanded. The lights were burning, same as always, in the passage. But she saw the wrongness at once. The floor: glossy black paint, obsidian smooth. It made her dizzy. Someone had taken up her splendid carpets. They’d left only the bare, stained boards underneath. She touched the floor with a toe. Cold. Movement below. Footsteps, hundreds of them, unmistakable. But no voices. She stepped out into the passage. 38 3:00 a.m. Winnie surveyed the courtyard. It was still filled with water, the abandoned rafts bobbing worriedly on the surface of the Nile. The garden was alive with activity, and she could hear a racket building in the mews: coaches and wheelbarrows and pony traps and boys with panniers over their shoulders. Cart after cart after cart was rattling away from Park Lane, out of sight of Hyde Park, taking the side streets and mews lanes and alleys of Mayfair. Enormous motors stood at the gates, spiriting the angels and triptychs and diptychs into the night. Winnie saw their agents observing proceedings from the gate. The whole underworld was out tonight. She came back to the hall. The Janes appeared, limping. “How much more time do you need?” “Five minutes.” Winnie tried to be calm. “Five more?” She had hoped they could be away by three. It had seemed very nearly impossible that they would keep the crowd in the park for even ninety minutes, even with their pyramid and their vans carefully blocking the junctions. “Give Alice the word. Let’s get Madam downstairs.” “We haven’t seen Alice for hours.” “Then find her. We need her to go and fetch—” An out-of-breath, a voice above them: “Ah.” Winnie turned, looked upward, and there stood Miss de Vries, motionless above them. * * * Miss de Vries had descended through her house the way she always did, passing the ballroom and the saloon, absorbing the great sweep of the grand escalier. She looked down at the front hall. She didn’t gasp. Later she was glad she didn’t show that sign of weakness. But, really, it was because the air was sucked from her lungs. The silence, the vastness, the emptiness, took her breath away. The light was too bright, the white marble too brilliant. The height of the hall seemed almost obscene, cathedral like, glistening. Ropes hanging from the roof. Sweat on the air. She understood. Everything had been stolen from her. It is extraordinary what the human brain can comprehend, what new realities it can absorb. It had always been unlikely, she thought, that she would be allowed to control this place, whether she loved it or not. This life had been fleeting, transitory. Only half-real, all along. She remembered how angry she had been, a few


who sat crazed and unwitting on the slopes of Taur-nu-Fuin, bearing a burden heavier than their bonds. Then Gwindor roused Trin to aid him in the burial of Beleg, and he rose as one that walked in sleep; and together they laid Beleg in a shallow grave, and placed beside him Belthronding his great bow, that was made of black yew-wood. But the dread sword Anglachel Gwindor took, saying that it were better that it should take vengeance on the servants of Morgoth than lie useless in the earth; and he took also the lembas of Melian to strengthen them in the wild. Thus ended Beleg Strongbow, truest of friends, greatest in skill of all that harboured in the woods of Beleriand in the Elder Days, at the hand of him whom he most loved; and that grief was graven on the face of Trin and never faded. But courage and strength were renewed in the Elf of Nargothrond, and departing from Taur-nu-Fuin he led Trin far away. Never once as they wandered together on long and grievous paths did Trin speak, and he walked as one without wish or purpose, while the year waned and winter drew on over the northern lands. But Gwindor was ever beside him to guard him and guide him; and thus they passed westward over Sirion and came at length to Eithel Ivrin, the springs whence Narog rose beneath the Mountains of Shadow. There Gwindor spoke to Trin, saying: 'Awake, Trin son of Hrin Thalion! On Ivrin's lake is endless laughter. She is fed from crystal fountains unfailing, and guarded from defilement by Ulmo, Lord of Waters, who wrought her beauty in ancient days.' Then Trin knelt and drank from that water; and suddenly he cast himself down, and his tears were unloosed at last, and he was healed of his madness. There he made a song for Beleg, and he named it Laer C Beleg, the Song of the Great Bow, singing it aloud heedless of peril. And Gwindor gave the sword Anglachel into his hands, and Trin knew that it was heavy and strong and had great power; but its blade was black and dull and its edges blunt. Then Gwindor said: 'This is a strange blade, and unlike any that I have seen in Middle-earth. It mourns for Beleg even as you do. But be comforted; for I return to Nargothrond of the house of Finarfin, and you shall come with me, and be healed and renewed.' 'Who are you?' said Trin. 'A wandering Elf, a thrall escaped, whom Beleg met and comforted,' said Gwindor. 'Yet once I was Gwindor son of Guilin, a lord of Nargothrond, until I went to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and was enslaved in Angband.' 'Then have you seen Hrin son of Galdor, the warrior of Dor-lmin?' said Trin. 'I have not seen him,' said Gwindor. 'But rumour of him runs through Angband that he still defies Morgoth; and Morgoth has laid a curse upon turn and all his kin.' 'That I do believe,' said Trin. And now they


address from the Official Registry. I should not be surprised if this were an answer to my question." The ring at the bell proved to be something even more satis- factory than an answer, however, for the door opened and a rough-looking fellow entered who was evidently the man himself. "I got a message from the head office that a gent at this address had been inquiring for No. 2704," said he. "I've driven my cab this seven years and never a word of complaint. I came here straight from the Yard to ask you to your face what you had against me." "I have nothing in the world against you, my good man," said Holmes. "On the contrary, I have half a sovereign for you if you will give me a clear answer to my questions." "Well, I've had a good day and no mistake," said the cabman with a grin. "What was it you wanted to ask, sir?" "First of all your name and address, in case I want you again." "John Clayton, 3 Turpey Street, the Borough. My cab is out of Shipley's Yard, near Waterloo Station." Sherlock Holmes made a note of it. "Now, Clayton, tell me all about the fare who came and watched this house at ten o'clock this morning and afterwards followed the two gentlemen down Regent Street." The man looked surprised and a little embarrassed. "Why there's no good my telling you things, for you seem to know as much as I do already," said he. "The truth is that the gentleman told me that he was a detective and that I was to say nothing about him to anyone." "My good fellow; this is a very serious business, and you may find yourself in a pretty bad position if you try to hide anything from me. You say that your fare told you that he was a detective?" "Yes, he did." "When did he say this?" "When he left me." "Did he say anything more?" "He mentioned his name." Holmes cast a swift glance of triumph at me. "Oh, he men- tioned his name, did he? That was imprudent. What was the name that he mentioned?" "His name," said the cabman, "was Mr. Sherlock Holmes." Never have I seen my friend more completely taken aback than by the cabman's reply. For an instant he sat in silent amazement. Then he burst into a hearty laugh. "A touch, Watson -- an undeniable touch!" said he. "I feel a foil as quick and supple as my own. He got home upon me very prettily that time. So his name was Sherlock Holmes, was it?" "Yes, sir, that was the gentleman's name." "Excellent! Tell me where you picked him up and all that occurred." "He hailed me at half-past nine in Trafalgar Square. He said that he was a detective, and he offered me two guineas if I would do exactly what he wanted all day and ask no questions. I was glad enough to agree. First we drove down to the Northumberland Hotel and waited


your granddaughter, Sophie." The mention of Sophie's name had been the catalyst. The curator leapt into action. He ordered Silas to come see him immediately in the safest location Saunire knew-his Louvre office. Then he phoned Sophie to warn her she might be in danger. Drinks with Robert Langdon were instantly abandoned. Now, with Langdon separated from Sophie on the far side of the room, Teabing sensed he had successfully alienated the two companions from one another. Sophie Neveu remained defiant, but Langdon clearly saw the larger picture. He was trying to figure out the password. He understands the importance of finding the Grail and releasing her from bondage. "He won't open it for you," Sophie said coldly. "Even if he can." Teabing was glancing at Langdon as he held the gun on Sophie. He was fairly certain now he was going to have to use the weapon. Although the idea troubled him, he knew he would not hesitate if it came to that. I have given her every opportunity to do the right thing. The Grail is bigger than any one of us. At that moment, Langdon turned from the window. "The tomb..." he said suddenly, facing them with a faint glimmer of hope in his eyes. "I know where to look on Newton's tomb. Yes, I think I can find the password!" 282 Teabing's heart soared. "Where, Robert? Tell me!" Sophie sounded horrified. "Robert, no! You're not going to help him, are you?" Langdon approached with a resolute stride, holding the cryptex before him. "No," he said, his eyes hardening as he turned to Leigh. "Not until he lets you go." Teabing's optimism darkened. "We are so close, Robert. Don't you dare start playing games with me!" "No games," Langdon said. "Let her go. Then I'll take you to Newton's tomb. We'll open the cryptex together." "I'm not going anywhere," Sophie declared, her eyes narrowing with rage. "That cryptex was given to me by my grandfather. It is not yours to open." Langdon wheeled, looking fearful. "Sophie, please! You're in danger. I'm trying to help you!" "How? By unveiling the secret my grandfather died trying to protect? He trusted you, Robert. I trusted you!" Langdon's blue eyes showed panic now, and Teabing could not help but smile to see the two of them working against one another. Langdon's attempts to be gallant were more pathetic than anything. On the verge of unveiling one of history's greatest secrets, and he troubles himself with a woman who has proven herself unworthy of the quest. "Sophie," Langdon pleaded. "Please... you must leave." She shook her head. "Not unless you either hand me the cryptex or smash it on the floor." "What?" Langdon gasped. "Robert, my grandfather would prefer his secret lost forever than see it in the hands of his murderer." Sophie's eyes looked as if they would well with tears, but they did not. She stared directly back at Teabing. "Shoot me if you have to. I am not leaving my grandfather's legacy in your hands." Very well. Teabing aimed the weapon.


which the waiter had poured into a glass as big as my head, was already rendering my limbs both leaden and weightless. I said, “I don’t see what that has—” “Look, I didn’t want to put you through stuff, bringing you back. You’ve seemed so solid, and like—I’m sorry, I don’t want you to spiral.” “Who said I was spiraling?” “Bodie, you look like you haven’t slept since you got here. You’re still gorgeous, but you look like hell.” I was saved by our food arriving—steak for Fran, an oily vegetable terrine for me. I had a moment to collect myself, to remember that while I’d led twenty-three years of competent adult life since Granby, Fran had seen only a few weeks of me, total, in that time. She didn’t understand how far I was from the disaster I’d been senior year. I said, “I’ve had several things on my mind. I’m in an emotional swamp.” I wasn’t ready to talk about Jasmine Wilde’s video, so I opted to tell her instead about Yahav, at length. One of Fran’s best traits is that she genuinely wants to hear the whole mess of things. Her eyes light up like she’s rewatching her favorite movie. “The problem is,” I said, “it’s like I have no sexuality anymore except for Yahav, like other men might as well be old women. Look at me, excelling at monogamy when it’s least appropriate.” She asked if she could meet him on Saturday, at least arrange to cross paths with us on campus. Dana Ramos had left her table and her increasingly raucous group and was swaying toward us, a glass of yellow wine glowing in her hand. She said, too loudly, “You two catching up? What’s the latest?” Dana’s hair had become frizzier since she’d entered the restaurant. I could see Fran mentally rewinding to the last nonprivate thing we’d mentioned. She said, “We were talking about Denny Bloch. You remember him? He taught music?” “Sure, he was only here a year or two.” “Three years,” Fran said. “I remember because he came when we were sophomores, and he got some going-away prize at Senior Day.” I said, “They gave him a prize for leaving?” “Oh,” Dana said, “he was off to teach in Russia. No, Bulgaria. I’m sure they gave him a Granby scarf or something. That poor wife.” “Why?” “Oh, just—well, who wants to move to Bulgaria?” I’d somehow forgotten that you’d moved to Bulgaria. Bulgaria! At the time it hadn’t seemed any stranger than seniors heading to college in California or Colorado or even Scotland, all of which sounded exotic to me. Dana steadied herself on our table with one tented hand. She said, “I remember he left us in the lurch. Have the good grace to announce your departure in January, for the love of Pete, so we can get a decent replacement. The woman they found was just awful. But that’s who’s looking for a job in May.” “In May,” I said dumbly, and I did remember you telling me right before graduation