of the olfactory system of the Hound and let loose rats in the firehouse area-way, and sometimes chickens, and sometimes cats that would have to be drowned anyway, and there would be betting to see which the Hound would seize first. The animals were turned loose. Three seconds later the game was done, the rat, cat, or chicken caught half across the areaway, gripped in gentling paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the Hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine. The pawn was then tossed in the incinerator. A new game began. Montag stayed upstairs most nights when this went on. There had been a time two years ago when he had bet with the best of them, and lost a week's salary and faced Mildred's insane anger, which showed itself in veins and blotches. But now at night he lay in his bunk, face turned to the wall, listening to whoops of laughter below and the piano-string scurry of rat feet, the violin squeaking of mice, and the great shadowing, motioned silence of the Hound leaping out like a moth in the raw light, finding, holding its victim, inserting the needle and going back to its kennel to die as if a switch had been turned. Montag touched the muzzle. . The Hound growled. Montag jumped back. The Hound half rose in its kennel and looked at him with green-blue neon light flickering in its suddenly activated eyebulbs. It growled again, a strange rasping combination of electrical sizzle, a frying sound, a scraping of metal, a turning of cogs that seemed rusty and ancient with suspicion. "No, no, boy," said Montag, his heart pounding. He saw the silver needle extended upon the air an inch, pull back, extend, pull back. The growl simmered in the beast and it looked at him. Montag backed up. The Hound took a step from its kennel. Montag grabbed the brass pole with one hand. The pole, reacting, slid upward, and took him through the ceiling, quietly. He stepped off in the half-lit deck of the upper level. He was trembling and his face was green-white. Below, the Hound had sunk back down upon its eight incredible insect legs and was humming to itself again, its multi-faceted eyes at peace. Montag stood, letting the fears pass, by the drop-hole. Behind him, four men at a card table under a green-lidded light in the corner glanced briefly but said nothing. Only the man with the Captain's hat and the sign of the Phoenix on his hat, at last, curious, his playing cards in his thin hand, talked across the long room. "Montag . . . ?" "It doesn't like me," said Montag. "What, the Hound?" The Captain studied his cards. "Come off it. It doesn't like or dislike. It just `functions.' It's like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide for it. It follows through. It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It's only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity." Montag swallowed. "Its calculators


look different,’ I said. ‘I’ve taken up life drawing! Annie next door goes to a class every Thursday and—’ ‘It’s just so they can perv over young naked models,’ came the unmistakable monotone voice of my sister. She and her husband, Neil, thumped their heavy Doc Martens boots down the stairs. ‘Oh, Lucinda, honestly!’ my mother cried, rolling her eyes in mock offence. My sister’s eyes were rimmed with black liner and while her jet-black hair reached almost to her lower back, she had cut her fringe in a very definite hard line that gave her a stern look. We all made an obstacle course out of getting ourselves from the hall into the kitchen. It was awkward but familiar and I was glad of that. ‘Why didn’t you say you were coming home? A phone call would have been nice,’ Mum said, putting on some oven gloves and bending down to take out the chicken and roast potatoes. I set the table while Lucinda and Neil carried on kissing each other as though we weren’t there. ‘It was a last-minute thing.’ ‘A surprise for Isabelle?’ I let the sound of plates and cutlery drown out whatever useless response I was attempting to conjure to that. ‘Isabelle and I were a mistake,’ I said eventually, having realised this for the first time. ‘We both knew it. It’s better this way.’ There. No room for debate. My mother stood like a statue for a moment, her mouth shaped in an ‘o’. ‘You young people today,’ my sister said, punching my arm and slightly rescuing the situation. ‘Gosh, you are incredibly pregnant,’ I said, noticing the size of her bump. ‘Yep, she really ballooned out these last couple of weeks,’ Neil agreed, earning himself a kick on the shin. ‘I’m not due for another fortnight,’ she groaned, but it looked as though Neil was the one suffering. Over dinner, I listened as they chatted animatedly about plans for the future and I realised that, during my short absence, things had changed at home. And for the better. My mother had become something of an eco-warrior slash militant cyclist and Lucinda seemed, well, happy. ‘So, what was Ireland like?’ Neil asked, his dark eyes peeping through a heavily back-combed mop of hair. ‘Lu said you were researching an old bookshop. Sounds cool.’ I finished my last slug of wine before answering. ‘It’s proving elusive. But I may have found something else of interest,’ I said, the smile forming on my lips. ‘What?’ my mother said, cutting the Viennetta into slices at the worktop. She loved a classic dessert. ‘I’ve met someone. In Ireland. I’m going back as soon as I can get a flight.’ All of their faces turned towards me. I couldn’t quite believe I’d said it. But that’s how certain I was. ‘Are you seriously leaving the country so you won’t have to change a nappy?’ my sister asked, slack-jawed. ‘Bit extreme, mate,’ Neil chimed in. Mother cut another chunk of Viennetta. She decided this was a subject she alone should tackle. ‘Henry,


officer's shins, driving his legs out from under him, and sending the man down, his head hitting the floor. The second officer staggered to his feet in the doorway, and Silas drove a knee into his groin, then went clambering over the writhing body into the hall. Almost naked, Silas hurled his pale body down the staircase. He knew he had been betrayed, but by whom? When he reached the foyer, more officers were surging through the front door. Silas turned the other way and dashed deeper into the residence hall. The women's entrance. Every Opus Dei building has one. Winding down narrow hallways, Silas snaked through a kitchen, past terrified workers, who left to avoid the naked albino as he knocked over bowls and silverware, bursting into a dark hallway near the boiler room. He now saw the door he sought, an exit light gleaming at the end. Running full speed through the door out into the rain, Silas leapt off the low landing, not seeing the officer coming the other way until it was too late. The two men collided, Silas's broad, naked shoulder grinding into the man's sternum with crushing force. He drove the officer backward onto the pavement, landing hard on top of him. The officer's gun clattered away. Silas could hear men running down the hall shouting. Rolling, he grabbed the loose gun just as the officers emerged. A shot rang out on the stairs, and Silas felt a searing pain below his ribs. Filled with rage, he opened fire at all three officers, their blood spraying. A dark shadow loomed behind, coming out of nowhere. The angry hands that grabbed at his bare shoulders felt as if they were infused with the power of the devil himself. The man roared in his ear. SILAS, NO! Silas spun and fired. Their eyes met. Silas was already screaming in horror as Bishop Aringarosa fell. 264 CHAPTER 97 More than three thousand people are entombed or enshrined within Westminster Abbey. The colossal stone interior burgeons with the remains of kings, statesmen, scientists, poets, and musicians. Their tombs, packed into every last niche and alcove, range in grandeur from the most regal of mausoleums-that of Queen Elizabeth I, whose canopied sarcophagus inhabits its own private, apsidal chapel-down to the most modest etched floor tiles whose inscriptions have worn away with centuries of foot traffic, leaving it to one's imagination whose relics might lie below the tile in the undercroft. Designed in the style of the great cathedrals of Amiens, Chartres, and Canterbury, Westminster Abbey is considered neither cathedral nor parish church. It bears the classification of royal peculiar, subject only to the Sovereign. Since hosting the coronation of William the Conqueror on Christmas Day in 1066, the dazzling sanctuary has witnessed an endless procession of royal ceremonies and affairs of state-from the canonization of Edward the Confessor, to the marriage of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, to the funerals of Henry V, Queen Elizabeth I, and Lady Diana. Even so, Robert Langdon currently felt no interest in any of the


your final hours racing about your cage denying you're a squirrel?" "Then you don't care any more?" "I care so much I'm sick." "And you won't help me?" "Good night, good night." Montag's hands picked up the Bible. He saw what his hands had done and he looked surprised. "Would you like to own this?" Faber said, "I'd give my right arm." Montag stood there and waited for the next thing to happen. His hands, by themselves, like two men working together, began to rip the pages from the book. The hands tore the flyleaf and then the first and then the second page. "Idiot, what're you doing!" Faber sprang up, as if he had been struck. He fell, against Montag. Montag warded him off and let his hands continue. Six more pages fell to the floor. He picked them up and wadded the paper under Faber's gaze. "Don't, oh, don't ! " said the old man. "Who can stop me? I'm a fireman. I can bum you!" The old man stood looking at him. "You wouldn't." "I could ! " "The book. Don't tear it any more." Faber sank into a chair, his face very white, his mouth trembling. "Don't make me feel any more tired. What do you want?" "I need you to teach me." "All right, all right." Montag put the book down. He began to unwad the crumpled paper and flatten it out as the old man watched tiredly. Faber shook his head as if he were waking up. "Montag, have you some money?" "Some. Four, five hundred dollars. Why?" "Bring it. I know a man who printed our college paper half a century ago. That was the year I came to class at the start of the new semester and found only one student to sign up for Drama from Aeschylus to O'Neill. You see? How like a beautiful statue of ice it was, melting in the sun. I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths. No one wanted them back. No one missed them. And the Government, seeing how advantageous it was to have people reading only about passionate lips and the fist in the stomach, circled the situation with your fire-eaters. So, Montag, there's this unemployed printer. We might start a few books, and wait on the war to break the pattern and give us the push we need. A few bombs and the `families' in the walls of all the houses, like harlequin rats, will shut up! In silence, our stage-whisper might carry." They both stood looking at the book on the table. "I've tried to remember," said Montag. "But, hell, it's gone when I turn my head. God, how I want something to say to the Captain. He's read enough so he has all the answers, or seems to have. His voice is like butter. I'm afraid he'll talk me back the way I was. Only a week ago, pumping a kerosene hose, I thought: God, what fun!" The old man nodded. "Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history


considered grounds for dismissal. I think about apologizing and leaving her office when she asks, “Then what are you saying, Maddie?” “I’m saying … I’m asking to learn,” I answer. “I think I could do more, I’m asking to do more.” Penny suddenly takes her glasses off and pinches the bridge of her nose. Without the rim of her glasses, I spot the faint shadows resting under her eyes and I have the sudden urge to ask if everything is all right. I think again about leaving when she says, “What is it you want, Maddie?” “A seat at the table.” She raises her eyebrows and a smile fights the corner of her mouth. “Sorry,” I say. “I was watching Mad Men last night and that sounded cooler in my head.” Penny gently throws her head back and laughs. I’ve never seen her laugh before; it gives me enough confidence to continue. “What I meant is, I’d like to be involved in the Creative meetings. The meetings I make tea for.” “We still need tea, Maddie.” As I’m about to respond, she holds up her hand. “I know.” She sighs and gets up from behind her desk. “I’m sorry.” I breathe out. “You are?” “Yes,” she says. “I am. You’re right—you have good ideas, fresh ones. You’re innovative and assertive. When I was an editorial assistant, I didn’t have the courage to ask my manager for what I wanted and I should have. I always knew I should have.” She folds her arms. “I consider you an asset, Maddie,” she says. “It’s not a bad thing to recognize that, so, yes, you can join the Creative meetings.” She lowers herself behind her desk. “I still expect you to get your admin tasks done, however.” She closes her eyes and places a finger and thumb to them. Fuck it. “Are you all right, Penny?” She looks at me, her mouth slipping open, and for once I don’t see her mind working on something else behind the scenes. Then it’s gone and her mind is whirring again. She turns back to her computer. “Of course I am, Maddie.” * * * In the afternoon, Penny exits her office and the editors gather around. The senior team, along with Sales, Marketing, and Publicity, are meeting in one of the conference rooms with an illustrator (I think her name is Charlotte) they’ve been watching for weeks. From what I understand, Charlotte blew up overnight because of a set of illustrations she did for a restaurant’s website and now so many food writers want her drawings in their books instead of photographs. “Now, as I said,” Penny continues, “we found out from the agent that the primary reason we’re being considered is because they found out we pay our illustrators of color the same standard rate as our white illustrators.” She holds her hands up. “Apparently that’s not the case elsewhere. Now, Maddie, bearing in mind you will be one of only two people of color in this meeting of eleven and I have no intention of


last, on and off, all the rest of his days, take my wured for 't, unless he finds what he's a seeking of. I am sure you'll be a friend to him, Mas'r Davy?' 'Trust me, I will indeed,' said I, shaking hands with Ham earnestly. 'Thankee. Thankee, very kind, sir. One thing furder. I'm in good employ, you know, Mas'r Davy, and I han't no way now of spending what I gets. Money's of no use to me no more, except to live. If you can lay it out for him, I shall do my work with a better art. Though as to that, sir,' and he spoke very steadily and mildly, 'you're not to think but I shall work at all times, like a man, and act the best that lays in my power!' I told him I was well convinced of it; and I hinted that I hoped the time might even come, when he would cease to lead the lonely life he naturally contemplated now. 'No, sir,' he said, shaking his head, 'all that's past and over with me, sir. No one can never fill the place that's empty. But you'll bear in mind about the money, as theer's at all times some laying by for him?' Reminding him of the fact, that Mr. Peggotty derived a steady, though certainly a very moderate income from the bequest of his late brother-in-law, I promised to do so. We then took leave of each other. I cannot leave him even now, without remembering with a pang, at once his modest fortitude and his great sorrow. As to Mrs. Gummidge, if I were to endeavour to describe how she ran down the street by the side of the coach, seeing nothing but Mr. Peggotty on the roof, through the tears she tried to repress, and dashing herself against the people who were coming in the opposite direction, I should enter on a task of some difficulty. Therefore I had better leave her sitting on a baker's door-step, out of breath, with no shape at all remaining in her bonnet, and one of her shoes off, lying on the pavement at a considerable distance. When we got to our journey's end, our first pursuit was to look about for a little lodging for Peggotty, where her brother could have a bed. We were so fortunate as to find one, of a very clean and cheap description, over a chandler's shop, only two streets removed from me. When we had engaged this domicile, I bought some cold meat at an eating-house, and took my fellow-travellers home to tea; a proceeding, I regret to state, which did not meet with Mrs. Crupp's approval, but quite the contrary. I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bedroom. This Mrs. Crupp regarded in the light of a liberty, and a liberty, she said,


when I turned the page. Black chalk sliced across the cover, and the words Dar al Mansi titled the top. The second trial had changed in recent years. In the new one, Champions entered an abandoned village in Omal and fought off the magical creatures released within its borders. Not only did the Champions need to cross the village in one piece, they needed to acquire three trophies from their kills to proceed. The second trial served as a grisly celebration of Awala Kapastra and her vulgar pets, held in her home kingdom. I followed the line of Al Anqa’a’s fiery glass wings with my thumbnail. The sketches depicted Champions in the second trial carried away by the massive bird as claws sharper than any sword closed around the helpless Champions. Those who evaded Al Anqa’a were torn apart and eaten by the nisnas, a ghoulish humanlike creature with lumbering limbs on one side and spikes of dangling flesh on the other. The artist outlined the other monsters lurking in the periphery, jealously watching the nisnas reach a Champion first. What was he hoping I’d learn from this? I flipped away from the second trial, sickened, to the third. The third trial would be held between the final two Champions remaining. In honor of Awala Baira’s talent for illusions, the Champions would be given elixirs to bring visions springing up around them. In a pit of sinking sand, the Champion with the strongest will would parse through the real and the hallucinations before the sand swallowed them whole or the other Champion cut them down. Ten minutes later, I stormed into the training center and threw the paintings on top of the weapons chest. Jeru and Wes paused their swordplay, wearing the fatigue of new parents taking their squalling child to the shop. “Where is he?” I demanded. Wes pursed his lips. “Not here. Why?” I gestured at the sketches. “If Lukub is hosting the Banquet, then the third trial will be in Nizahl.” The guards exchanged a glance. “Yes,” Wes said slowly. “Baira’s trial will be held in Nizahl.” Jeru’s thick brows drew together. “You are the Nizahl Champion; did you think you could avoid visiting the kingdom you’re competing for?” The question circled in my head. In the whirl of change, I had not stopped to consider I would be meeting Supreme Rawain again. The man who slaughtered my family, who eviscerated Jasad, would be delivered glory by the very same Heir he had failed to kill. I walked out without another word. My surroundings dipped in and out of focus. If I failed in the Alcalah, Felix’s ego would not rest until my head was mounted on Mahair’s flag post. If I did win, I would be granted a Victor’s immunity, but I would be spitting on the grave of every Jasadi cut down by a Nizahl sword. Which I could have borne, were it not for the fact that apparently, two groups of Jasadis probably suspected I was the Heir. Perhaps they were even stupid enough to want


happened after 1973,” Bezi says. “They just disappeared?” I think about Tasha and about what Ms. Keane said. Is it possible they’re still here? I suddenly feel the urge to bolt from the lodge and run as fast as I can back to the camp. I take Bezi’s hands and prepare to do just that when something stops me. A sound. I hold my breath and angle my head toward the hall. “Do you hear that?” Bezi stares at me wide-eyed, listening. A muffled shriek sounds from somewhere nearby. I glance toward the window, still not daring to breathe. It sounds again and sends a bolt of unfiltered terror straight through me. It is the sound a person makes when they’re in pain—when they’re terrified. Tasha had made that noise when I approached her in the lodge, and someone else is making it now. I glance down at my feet. The sound bleeds out of the cracks between the wooden floorboards, as if the house itself is screaming. Bezi takes out her phone, glances at the screen, and shakes her head. Still no signal. We are alone and I have to make another snap decision. Everything in me is telling me to run away from this place as fast as I can and never look back, but the scream sounds again, and I swear there are words mixed in with the agonized cries. Help me. I take a deep breath and try to put my thoughts together. “I need to find a way downstairs. Let’s look for some stairs or a door or something.” Bezi nods, but I can see the hesitation in her pinched expression. I lead her out into the hall and tiptoe through the corridor, looking for a way to the lower levels of the lodge. We move silently past a dated kitchen and I stop. “What’s wrong?” Bezi asks. I duck inside the kitchen and approach the center island. It’s strewn with bits of decayed leaves and broken sticks. Above me, the beams inside the ceiling are exposed, and the plaster that once covered them is scattered across the floor. I step through the pieces and pick up the thing that had caught my eye. It’s a camera. “Oh shit, Charity, is that Paige’s camera?” Bezi asks. I turn it over in my hands and press the “On” button. The little LED screen flickers to life, and I press the left arrow to scroll back through the photos. There are pictures of Bezi and Paige in the car. They’re making faces and smiling wide. A knot crawls up my throat. I press the arrow over and over until I come to a series of photos taken in the dark without a flash. There’s a torch in the foreground, and a few hooded figures are gathered together. Trees crowd the frame. I press the button again, and the next photo shows the wooden platform in the grove. The hooded figures are standing atop it, and they have their hands raised in front of a man who is shirtless and


She sniffed, and studied the watch. “What services do you need?” “Funds, principally.” “Everyone always wants my funds. Have you got people?” “The principal players, yes. Naturally we’ll need more. Alice Parker is in residence already.” “Alice Parker? That odd little fish? Now, I don’t like the sound of that at all. Who’s acting aide-de-camp?” “Winnie Smith.” “Never heard of her. Namby-pamby sort of name. You won’t get me backing strangers.” Mrs. King handed over the watch. “I’m holding a meeting on Sunday to go over the details. Come and inspect everybody then.” “Sunday? This Sunday?” “No use hanging about.” Mrs. Bone’s eyes widened, and she began to chuckle. “I’d need to see your numbers.” “Naturally.” Mrs. King reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a slim envelope. Mrs. Bone snatched it up. “Bottom line?” “Lucky Sevens,” said Mrs. King. “My favorite split.” “Sevenths?” Mrs. Bone held the watch up to the light, let it spin slowly on its chain. “You’ve got seven fools lined up for this job?” Mrs. King went to Mrs. Bone and kissed her gently on the cheek. “I’ve got three, besides myself, if you’re in. Why don’t you have us over on Sunday, and tell a couple of your best girls—I need a pair of sturdy types for the indoor reconnaissance.” Mrs. Bone bristled. “Oh, I see. You think you can come marching in here, frazzling my nerves, spoiling my afternoon, giving me orders...” Mrs. King drew back. She fixed her coat, adjusted her hat. “Sunday, Mrs. Bone. You say where. You say when.” Mrs. Bone folded the envelope into her sleeve, twirling the silver watch. “I am not in,” she said, eyes sparkling. “Not yet. Not even a little bit.” 4 To Spitalfields, and a cloud of dust was rising high into the air over Commercial Street. Mrs. King perched on the edge of a fruit barrow, munching an apple, waiting for her aide-de-camp. She had her eyes pinned on the hat shop across the road. The sign sparkled in the sunlight: Mr. Champion, Milliner. In normal circumstances she would have found it very disagreeable, wasting time like this. But of course she didn’t have chores anymore. Her objective for the day had become altogether more interesting. There was something very particular she needed. Nobody noticed her waiting there, except for a little girl in a mud-spattered pinafore who watched her hungrily. Mrs. King flicked her a sixpence. “That’s for good observation,” she said. The girl leaped for it, scrabbling on the cobblestones, and hurtled away. Mrs. King didn’t need to check her pocket watch. She knew exactly what time it was. She crunched apple pips with her back teeth, counting seconds in her head. It was another five minutes before her quarry appeared. Winnie Smith came lurching around the corner with her gigantic perambulator, heading for Mr. Champion’s shop. That pram carried hatboxes, not babies, stacked in teetering, dangerous piles. Mrs. King felt a familiar stirring of affection. Winnie: trussed up in a violently mended purple dress, hat pinned at a hopeless angle, steering the


home who were not enjoying this fine frolic as much as they were. Misgivings came; they grew troubled and unhappy; a sigh or two escaped, unawares. By and by Joe timidly ventured upon a roundabout "feeler" as to how the others might look upon a return to civilization -- not right now, but -- Tom withered him with derision! Huck, being uncommitted as yet, joined in with Tom, and the waverer quickly "explained," and was glad to get out of the scrape with as little taint of chicken-hearted home-sickness clinging to his garments as he could. Mutiny was effectually laid to rest for the moment. As the night deepened, Huck began to nod, and presently to snore. Joe followed next. Tom lay upon his elbow motionless, for some time, watching the two intently. At last he got up cautiously, on his knees, and went searching among the grass and the flickering reflections flung by the camp-fire. He picked up and inspected several large semi-cylinders --------------------------------------------------------- -152- of the thin white bark of a sycamore, and finally chose two which seemed to suit him. Then he knelt by the fire and painfully wrote something upon each of these with his "red keel"; one he rolled up and put in his jacket pocket, and the other he put in Joe's hat and removed it to a little distance from the owner. And he also put into the hat certain schoolboy treasures of almost inestimable value -- among them a lump of chalk, an India-rubber ball, three fishhooks, and one of that kind of marbles known as a "sure 'nough crystal." Then he tiptoed his way cautiously among the trees till he felt that he was out of hearing, and straightway broke into a keen run in the direction of the sandbar. --------------------------------------------------------- -153- Chapter XV A FEW minutes later Tom was in the shoal water of the bar, wading toward the Illinois shore. Before the depth reached his middle he was half-way over; the current would permit no more wading, now, so he struck out confidently to swim the remaining hundred yards. He swam quartering upstream, but still was swept downward rather faster than he had expected. However, he reached the shore finally, and drifted along till he found a low place and drew himself out. He put his hand on his jacket pocket, found his piece of bark safe, and then struck through the woods, following the shore, with streaming garments. Shortly before ten o'clock he came out into an open place opposite the village, and saw the ferryboat lying in the shadow of the trees and the high bank. Everything was quiet under the blinking stars. He crept down the bank, watching with all his eyes, slipped into the water, swam three or four strokes and climbed into the skiff that did "yawl" duty at the boat's stern. He laid himself down under the thwarts and waited, panting --------------------------------------------------------- -154- . Presently the cracked bell tapped and a voice gave the order to "cast off." A minute or two later the skiff's


her eyes. Marisol stood amid the debris, glancing at her wristwatch. Time felt distorted, the seconds spilling through fingers like sand. “Stay here,” Marisol said after what could have been two minutes or a full hour. She glanced at the three of them, a dark fire shining in her eyes. “I’ll return soon.” Iris was too shocked to say anything. Attie and Roman must have been the same, because they were quiet as Marisol departed. “Iris,” Attie said a few moments later, her voice strained, “Iris, we can’t … we have to…” They couldn’t let Marisol out of their sight. They were supposed to protect her, ensure she was taken to safety in the lorry. They had made a binding vow. “We should go after her,” Iris said. Now that she had a task, a mission to focus on, she could take control of her thoughts. She pushed herself up, letting Roman help her when she stumbled. Her knees felt watery, and she took a few deep breaths. “Where do you think we should look first?” Attie stood, petting a disgruntled Lilac. “Keegan was stationed on the hill, wasn’t she?” “Right.” “The let’s start there. But let me put Lilac somewhere safe.” Iris and Roman waited in the foyer while Attie closed the cat in one of the downstairs rooms. A beam of light snuck through a crack in the mortar, cutting across Iris’s chest. The front door sat crooked on its hinges; it creaked open beneath Roman’s hand. Iris wasn’t sure what she would find beyond the threshold. But she stepped into a sunlit, steaming world. Most of the buildings on High Street were unscathed save for shattered windows. But as Iris and Roman and Attie walked deeper into town, they began to see the radius of the bombs’ destruction. Houses were leveled, lying in piles of stone and brick and glittering glass. A few had caught on fire, the flames licking the wood and thatch. It didn’t feel real. It felt like the wavering colors of a dream. Iris walked around the barricades, around soldiers who were either holding fast at their posts or rushing to put out the flames. She watched through billows of smoke, her heart numb until Roman brought her to the foot of the bluff. Their summit. She felt his hand tighten on hers, and she looked up to what remained. The hill had been bombed. There was a crater in the street. The buildings were heaps of rubble. Smoke rose in steady streams, smudging the clouds and turning the sunlight into a dirty haze. From the bluff looking down on Avalon, there seemed to be a pattern to the destruction, as if Dacre had cast a web of ruin. Although the longer Iris stared at the bisecting lines of unscathed homes and the corresponding pockets of debris, the stranger the sight seemed to be. She struggled to make sense of how one home was standing while its next-door neighbor was demolished. But when she squinted, she could almost see pathways. Routes that were protected from


my heart. “Somehow, I’ll find the strength to live another day. You may not, and I have little desire to be implicated for the Nizahl Heir’s murder without the actual pleasure of murdering you. Remove your vest, please. I promise to protect your virtue.” From his dark glare, it appeared he didn’t appreciate my thoughtfulness. Arin tore the laces of his vest in a single yank. Heat pricked the back of my neck, and I studied my nailbeds. He eased his coat, vest, and tunic off. I inhaled between my teeth. The creature had gouged scores into his side. A few were shallow enough to temporarily ignore, but four scratches were the size of my forearm. How was he still awake? “Well?” He guided himself to a seat at the base of a tree, back straight and left arm angled away from his raw side. I crouched across from him and picked up the tunic. The material was finer than anything I owned and did not tear easily. “My apprenticeship with Rory was not all chasing frogs.” It mostly was, actually, but Arin did not need to know I had learned how to wrap my own wounds with the rag and cup of dirty water Hanim usually left for me to patch myself up with. The sleeves finally tore. I stripped them into long pieces, avoiding his face. “You have neglected to tell me if you’re angry.” “You neglected to mention a hidden ability to sense Ruby Hounds.” “Ruby Hounds, that’s the name! Weren’t those Baira’s guard dogs?” I said. “I thought they were extinct.” After the entombment, magic had guttered like a dying candle across the kingdoms. Ruby Hounds took three centuries longer than Kapastra’s rochelyas to die. In their time, the dazzling Hounds heeded Lukub’s Sultanas alone. They had charged into battle alongside Lukub’s fiercest steeds, prowled the Ivory Palace’s grounds in the night. A century before the Battle of Zinish, the Ruby Hounds began to sicken, dying despite the Sultana’s best efforts. Magic had already disappeared in Omal, and with Lukub’s failing quickly, the Ruby Hounds rotted like fruit planted in tainted soil. Orban followed thirty years later. “They are. To resurrect one is unheard of. The Urabi will be weakened after exerting such a large amount of magic.” Arin’s gaze, though shrouded with discomfort, was still keen on our surroundings. “They must truly wish to impress you.” I knotted the sleeve strips together. “This is going to hurt,” I warned him, and placed the end of a strip between my teeth. The muscles in Arin’s stomach tensed, but he didn’t make a sound as I wrapped the makeshift bandage tightly around his torso. I had to press my knee into his hip to reach around his back. My knuckles grazed everywhere I wrapped the bandages. His chest, his waist, the small of his back. The effect on my magic was significantly duller than when he grasped my hand. I made the mistake of glancing up and found my face inches from Arin’s. Curiosity hooded the gaze fixed on


were nothing softer in him than a rock, nor milder than the east wind! I meant no harm! Since he is really my cousin, I would have let him kiss me, if I could!" Then, all at once, it struck Phoebe that this very Judge Pyncheon was the original of the miniature which the daguerreotypist had shown her in the garden, and that the hard, stern, relentless look, now on his face, was the same that the sun had so inflexibly persisted in bringing out. Was it, therefore, no momentary mood, but, however skilfully concealed, the settled temper of his life? And not merely so, but was it hereditary in him, and transmitted down, as a precious heirloom, from that bearded ancestor, in whose picture both the expression and, to a singular degree, the features of the modern Judge were shown as by a kind of prophecy? A deeper philosopher than Phoebe might have found something very terrible in this idea. It implied that the weaknesses and defects, the bad passions, the mean tendencies, and the moral diseases which lead to crime are handed down from one generation to another, by a far surer process of transmission than human law has been able to establish in respect to the riches and honors which it seeks to entail upon posterity. But, as it happened, scarcely had Phoebe's eyes rested again on the Judge's countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished; and she found herself quite overpowered by the sultry, dog-day heat, as it were, of benevolence, which this excellent man diffused out of his great heart into the surrounding atmosphere,--very much like a serpent, which, as a preliminary to fascination, is said to fill the air with his peculiar odor. "I like that, Cousin Phoebe!" cried he, with an emphatic nod of approbation. "I like it much, my little cousin! You are a good child, and know how to take care of yourself. A young girl--especially if she be a very pretty one--can never be too chary of her lips." "Indeed, sir," said Phoebe, trying to laugh the matter off, "I did not mean to be unkind." Nevertheless, whether or no it were entirely owing to the inauspicious commencement of their acquaintance, she still acted under a certain reserve, which was by no means customary to her frank and genial nature. The fantasy would not quit her, that the original Puritan, of whom she had heard so many sombre traditions, --the progenitor of the whole race of New England Pyncheons, the founder of the House of the Seven Gables, and who had died so strangely in it,--had now stept into the shop. In these days of off-hand equipment, the matter was easily enough arranged. On his arrival from the other world, he had merely found it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour at a barber's, who had trimmed down the Puritan's full beard into a pair of grizzled whiskers, then, patronizing a ready-made clothing establishment, he had exchanged his velvet doublet and sable cloak, with the richly worked band under his


Hannah Whitten - The Foxglove King-Orbit (2023).txt

smirked. The dress was still too tight, but Lore was fairly certain it was the best she could do. Once clothed, she tapped Gabriel on the shoulder to sidle out of the room. “Such a gentleman,” she remarked, starting down the hall to where Anton and Malcolm waited, unfamiliar velvet swishing around her legs. “Celibacy has got to be a drag, but you didn’t even try to peek.” The Mort made a choked noise. The Citadel was bright enough to hurt her eyes. She’d seen the tops of its four corner turrets before—they were just barely visible over the wall of the Church, built in a circle around the Citadel itself—but seeing them up close was another thing entirely. They gleamed in the sun, arrows pointing toward the sky, flocked with silver that traced the tower’s sides like frosting on a cake. In the walls that connected the turrets, windows glinted jewel-like at equidistant points, some stained glass and some diamond-clear. A domed glass roof arched up in the center of the square the turrets made, throwing off rainbow prisms. The building was a behemoth of marble and precious metal, polished wood and gemstone, large enough to house the entire court in the summer months. Lore thought she could wander around in there for a year without finding the way out. The ground around the Citadel was a garden, at least here, between the southern wall of the Church and the Citadel’s main entrance. On the other side of the Citadel, there were fields, stables, an entire world the size of at least two city Wards. And all around it, the Church, built more like a fortress. As much a structure to keep out the rabble as it was for worship. Anton led them from the Church’s arched doorway out into the garden. Lore glanced back, shading her eyes—they’d come from the South Sanctuary, the one meant for common worshippers. Miles away, on the opposite side of the Citadel, was the North Sanctuary, meant for the court. The large stone walls that split the grounds in two were filled with storage and cloisters, topped with battlements prepared for the possibility of siege. A white marble statue rose from a tangle of pink roses beside the path. The Bleeding God, again, wearing a crown like sun rays—a holdover from when the pantheon had been whole and He’d been merely the god of light, life, and the day, instead of everything. Plinths circled the statue, now empty, but Lore counted five. One for each elemental god of the former pantheon, dying one by one, Their bodies found in strange places all over the world. And one beside Apollius, slightly taller than the others, for Nyxara. Anton and Malcolm walked before her, Gabriel behind, though none of them necessarily seemed to be on guard. It wasn’t like she’d run, and there was nowhere to go but back inside the Church, anyway. “Keep your head down if you see anyone.” Gabriel’s voice came low enough to tickle her shoulder blades. “Unless you want to be the


come, my lord." "My daughters . . ." "The younger girl escaped Ser Meryn and fled," Varys told him. "I have not been able to find her. Nor have the Lannisters. A kindness, there. Our new king loves her not. Your older girl is still betrothed to Joffrey. Cersei keeps her close. She came to court a few days ago to plead that you be spared. A pity you couldn't have been there, you would have been touched." He leaned forward intently. "I trust you realize that you are a dead man, Lord Eddard?" "The queen will not kill me," Ned said. His head swam; the wine was strong, and it had been too long since he'd eaten. "Cat . . . Cat holds her brother . . ." "The wrong brother," Varys sighed. "And lost to her, in any case. She let the Imp slip through her fingers. I expect he is dead by now, somewhere in the Mountains of the Moon." "If that is true, slit my throat and have done with it." He was dizzy from the wine, tired and heartsick. "Your blood is the last thing I desire." Ned frowned. "When they slaughtered my guard, you stood beside the queen and watched, and said not a word." "And would again. I seem to recall that I was unarmed, unarmored, and surrounded by Lannister swords." The eunuch looked at him curiously, tilting his head. "When I was a young boy, before I was cut, I traveled with a troupe of mummers through the Free Cities. They taught me that each man has a role to play, in life as well as mummery. So it is at court. The King's Justice must be fearsome, the master of coin must be frugal, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard must be valiant . . . and the master of whisperers must be sly and obsequious and without scruple. A courageous informer would be as useless as a cowardly knight." He took the wineskin back and drank. Ned studied the eunuch's face, searching for truth beneath the A GAME OF THRONES 555 mummer's scars and false stubble. He tried some more wine. This time it went down easier. "Can you free me from this pit?" "I could . . . but will I? No. Questions would be asked, and the answers would lead back to me." Ned had expected no more. "You are blunt." "A eunuch has no honor, and a spider does not enjoy the luxury of scruples, my lord." "Would you at least consent to carry a message out for me?" "That would depend on the message. I will gladly provide you with paper and ink, if you like. And when you have written what you will, I will take the letter and read it, and deliver it or not, as best serves my own ends." "Your own ends. What ends are those, Lord Varys?" "Peace," Varys replied without hesitation. "If there was one soul in King's Landing who was truly desperate to keep Robert Baratheon alive, it was me." He


prove that any falsification had taken place. The largest section of the Records Department, far larger than the one on which Winston worked, consisted simply of persons whose duty it was to track down and collect all copies of books, newspapers, and other documents which had been superseded and were due for destruction. A number of 'The Times' which might, because of changes in political alignment, or mistaken prophecies uttered by Big Brother, have been rewritten a dozen times still stood on the files bearing its original date, and no other copy existed to contradict it. Books, also, were recalled and rewritten again and again, and were invariably reissued file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (24 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt without any admission that any alteration had been made. Even the written instructions which Winston received, and which he invariably got rid of as soon as he had dealt with them, never stated or implied that an act of forgery was to be committed: always the reference was to slips, errors, misprints, or misquotations which it was necessary to put right in the interests of accuracy. But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain. Winston glanced across the hall. In the corresponding cubicle on the other side a small, precise-looking, dark-chinned man named Tillotson was working steadily away, with a folded newspaper on his knee and his mouth very close to the mouthpiece of the speakwrite. He had the air of trying to keep what he was saying a secret between himself and the telescreen. He looked up, and his spectacles darted a hostile flash in Winston's direction. Winston hardly knew Tillotson, and had no idea what work he was employed on.


cross-roads, without ceremony of any kind. I happened to leave him ten minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking himself to death deliberately! We broke in this morning, for we heard him snorting like a horse; and there he was, laid over the settle; flaying and scalp- ing would not have wakened him. I sent for Kenneth, and he came, but not till the beast had changed into carrion. He was both dead and cold and stark; and so you'll allow it was useless making more stir about him." The old servant confirmed this statement, but mut- tered,--- "I'd rayther he'd goan hisseln for t' doctor! I sud ha' taen tent o' t' maister better nor him; and he warn't deead when I left, naught o' t' soart!" I insisted on the funeral being respectable. Mr. Heathcliff said I might have my own way there too; only, he desired me to remember that the money for the whole affair came out of his pocket. He maintained a hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow; if anything, it expressed a flinty gratifica- tion at a piece of difficult work successfully executed. I observed once, indeed, something like exultation in his aspect; it was just when the people were bearing the coffin from the house. He had the hypocrisy to rep- resent a mourner; and previous to following with Hare- ton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table, and muttered, with peculiar gusto, "Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!" The unsuspecting thing was pleased at this speech. He played with Heathcliff's whiskers, and stroked his cheek; but I divined its meaning, and observed tartly, "That boy must go back with me to Thrushcross Grange, sir. There is nothing in the world less yours than he is." "Does Linton say so?" he demanded. "Of course; he has ordered me to take him," I re- plied. "Well," said the scoundrel, "we'll not argue the subject now; but I have a fancy to try my hand at rear- ing a young one, so intimate to your master that I must supply the place of this with my own, if he attempt to remove it. I don't engage to let Hareton go undis- puted, but I'll be pretty sure to make the other come! Remember to tell him." This hint was enough to bind our hands. I repeated its substance on my return; and Edgar Linton, little interested at the commencement, spoke no more of in- terfering. I'm not aware that he could have done it to any purpose, had he been ever so willing. The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights. He held firm possession, and proved to the attorney-- who, in his turn, proved it to Mr. Linton---that Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his


embarrassed me before my family.” Their attitude is disappointing, and it reminds me of the case of the servant girl found hanging that Meiling once told me about. That family also tried to protect its reputation and avoid scandal, only to make matters worse in the end. The next day, Poppy helps me dress. While she does my hair and applies my makeup, I drink tea, hoping it will invigorate me. Despite these efforts, the person who stares back at me in the mirror looks wan and lacking in vigor. With so much going on in the household, I haven’t had an opportunity to ask to see Midwife Shi, or Doctor Wong either. I sigh as I rise. I have one last task to complete before I can leave the room. I change my padding and hope it lasts through the inquest. At least I don’t have far to walk. Everyone has gathered in the colonnade of the fourth courtyard, so we can view where the death occurred, as is the custom. The men sit together on the left side of the aisle. The three most important men in the household are together in the front row: my husband to Master Yang’s left and Second Uncle to Master Yang’s right. I haven’t seen the three of them side by side before, and it strikes me how strong Yang blood is in them with their full-moon faces, and identical heights, builds, and even the fall of their hair. I also see Doctor Wong for the first time. He’s not at all as I’d imagined. He’s far younger—in his mid-thirties, with high cheekbones, and perfectly formed brows that draw attention to his eyes. He’s clean-shaven, like my husband, and dressed simply but elegantly. I’m on the right side of the aisle with Lady Kuo and a few of the women who rushed to the courtyard in response to my screams. I see Midwife Shi, but Meiling is not in attendance, although I expected her to be here as part of her apprenticeship. Spinster Aunt lies on a table under a sheet of muslin. From my position, I can see the white orchids that beckoned me three nights ago. A man sits at a small table facing us, with his back to the courtyard. He wears a long robe bearing the embroidered insignia of his rank. A black cap rises high on his head with two wings extending over his ears. A sparse beard covers his chin with two long forks of hair like a serpent’s split tongue reaching down his chest. He begins by introducing himself. “I am Magistrate Fu. I am the sole investigator. I can make an arrest. I also serve as the judge and can pronounce the sentence if wrongdoing is found.” He pauses to regard us. Then he continues, speaking deliberately. “I expect truth, and I will order one of the three accepted methods of torture to assure it—beating with a stick, ankle squeezers for men, and finger squeezers for women—if need be. Those who lie or falsify evidence will


their speech and small variations in their naming systems. If he knew which wilayah I belonged to, he’d begin to cull the list of possible important figures I could be. An idea unfurled its petals. “Har Adiween,” I began. I moved my finger along the wilayahs as I spoke. “Janub Aya, Eyn el Haswa, Kafr al Der, Ahr il Uboor.” I continued until the very last wilayah, tucked right next to Sirauk Bridge. “How odd,” Arin said once I had finished. His hair fell like spools of silk between his fingers when he raked it from his face. “You seem to have developed an accent since you last spoke Resar.” I widened my eyes and flared my nostrils. Nuanced, minuscule indicators of fear. I had spun lies around Mahair as skillfully as a halawany spun sugar, but they were not Arin of Nizahl. They did not have senses honed against falsehood. “I—I do not have an accent. I misspoke. You make me nervous.” Arin tilted his head. “A sliver of truth in a stream of lies. But which is which?” “I am not lying. I was nobody in Jasad.” The steadiness of his conviction worked opposite my own, unraveling me at the seams. I wanted to lash out, force the specter of discovery and certain death into his bones until the shadows on the wall were indistinguishable from the ones in his nightmares. But Arin was not Hanim, or any other adversary I had gritted my teeth against and overcome. He was my discovery. He was certain death. My cuffs tightened almost beyond the point of tolerability. Arin stepped closer. If he touched me in that moment, my magic would overwhelm him, just as it had in the Relic Room. The incensed throb of it skimmed along my skin. “I do wonder just what you’re capable of,” he murmured. “Be patient, my liege,” I said. “You might yet find out.” This time, when the Commander moved toward me, it was a strike of lightning. He spun me around, pinning my arms behind my back. “Is that a promise?” His voice was the whisper of a practiced sword leaving its sheath, soft and deadly. “Tell me, Sylvia of Mahair, how does a ‘nobody in Jasad’ learn to read Nizahl’s old tongue?” What? He jerked my arms, pointing me toward the scroll pinned to the table. First Decrees of Arin of Nizahl, Commander in Power and Heir. Horror washed over me in thick waves. The entire decree was written in a language Nizahl had not spoken in two hundred years. I had been so distracted by the maps, I had forgotten to pretend I couldn’t understand it. “The Citadel records all new decrees in Nizahl’s original tongue. I suppose they taught you a dead language in Ganub il Kul,” he murmured in my ear. His sardonic chuckle sent chills running along my spine. Arin released my arms. “If you have any ambitions in the art of deceit, I suggest you plan more carefully. There are few things more disappointing than a careless crook.” The


with sticks and stones, and Tarzan of the Apes, young and savage beast of the jungle, wondered at the cruel brutality of his own kind. Sheeta, the leopard, alone of all the jungle folk, tortured his prey. The ethics of all the others meted a quick and merciful death to their victims. Tarzan had learned from his books but scattered fragments of the ways of human beings. When he had followed Kulonga through the forest he had expected to come to a city of strange houses on wheels, puffing clouds of black smoke from a huge tree stuck in the roof of one of them--or to a sea covered with mighty floating buildings which he had learned were called, variously, ships and boats and steamers and craft. He had been sorely disappointed with the poor little village of the blacks, hidden away in his own jungle, and with not a single house as large as his own cabin upon the distant beach. He saw that these people were more wicked than his own apes, and as savage and cruel as Sabor, herself. Tarzan began to hold his own kind in low esteem. Now they had tied their poor victim to a great post near the center of the village, directly before Mbonga's hut, and here they formed a dancing, yelling circle of warriors about him, alive with flashing knives and menacing spears. In a larger circle squatted the women, yelling and beating upon drums. It reminded Tarzan of the Dum-Dum, and so he knew what to expect. He wondered if they would spring upon their meat while it was still alive. The Apes did not do such things as that. The circle of warriors about the cringing captive drew closer and closer to their prey as they danced in wild and savage abandon to the maddening music of the drums. Presently a spear reached out and pricked the victim. It was the signal for fifty others. Eyes, ears, arms and legs were pierced; every inch of the poor writhing body that did not cover a vital organ became the target of the cruel lancers. The women and children shrieked their delight. The warriors licked their hideous lips in anticipation of the feast to come, and vied with one another in the savagery and loathsomeness of the cruel indignities with which they tortured the still conscious prisoner. Chapter 11 Then it was that Tarzan of the Apes saw his chance. All eyes were fixed upon the thrilling spectacle at the stake. The light of day had given place to the darkness of a moonless night, and only the fires in the immediate vicinity of the orgy had been kept alight to cast a restless glow upon the restless scene. Gently the lithe boy dropped to the soft earth at the end of the village street. Quickly he gathered up the arrows--all of them this time, for he had brought a number of long fibers to bind them into a bundle. Without haste he wrapped them securely, and then, ere he turned to leave,


son's wife, who all lived together; but when it appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was always mentioned with approbation for his great good-nature in doing something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs. Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect danger to her poor little friend from all this hospitality and kindness, and that, if she were not taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever. With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin, and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening games; and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd's son into the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he would make a good husband. Not that she wanted him to marry. She was in no hurry at all. "Well done, Mrs. Martin!" thought Emma. "You know what you are about." "And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose--the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with her." "Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his own business? He does not read?" "Oh yes!--that is, no--I do not know--but I believe he has read a good deal--but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window seats--but he reads all them to himself. But sometimes of an evening, before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but he is determined


plaintive, wounded bleat. Alex waited only long enough to see Mercy and Tripp start down the hall; then she was racing toward the kitchen. She intercepted Dawes and grabbed the extinguisher. She’d had to use one when Len had started a grease fire in their apartment kitchen when he was cooking bacon, but she still fumbled with it. Turner seized it from her hands. “Come on,” she said. She threw open the front door. Flames had consumed the grass and hedges. They were roaring up the front columns. Alex felt as if she were burning too, as if she could hear the house screaming. The demons stood in the firelight, and behind them, their shadows seemed to caper and dance. She heard the whoosh of the fire extinguisher as Turner fought to damp the flames. But Alex didn’t stop. She strode toward the demons. “Alex!” Turner shouted. “What the fuck are you doing? This is what they want!” The thing pretending to be Hellie grinned. She looked leaner now, hungrier. More like Alex. But not quite. Her hands curled into claws. Her eyes were dark and wild, her mouth crowded with teeth. “You want me, you bargain knockoff?” Alex demanded. She dragged her tongue across her wrist. “Come and get me.” The thing ran at her and then shrieked, darting backward, its grotesque smile fading. Alex saw her own shadow had shifted, as if she’d grown a hundred arms—not arms, snakes. They hissed and snapped around her, lunging at the demons, which cowered away from her. “Alex,” said the thing called Hellie—and she was Hellie again, her eyes that stormy watercolor blue and filled with tears. “You promised you would protect me.” Alex’s heart twisted in her chest, the grief too powerful, too familiar. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The serpents wavered, as if they sensed her hesitancy. Then Alex breathed in and coughed, tasting the smoke on the air, the cinders of her home burning. She heard the crackle of rattlers, their tales shaking with her rage, a warning. “Last call,” she snarled at Not Hellie. “You’re going back where you came from.” Hellie’s eyes narrowed. “This is my life. You’re the impostor.” Fine. Maybe Alex was nothing more than a thief who had stolen someone else’s second chance. But she was alive and Hellie was dead and she was going to protect what was hers—even if she didn’t deserve it, even if it might not be hers for much longer. “This isn’t your life,” she said to the thing that wasn’t Hellie. “And you are trespassing.” One of the snakes lunged forward, its bite so fast Alex didn’t see more than a blur, and then the demon recoiled, clutching its smoking cheek. “You can’t banish us that easily,” Hellie whined. She looked almost like Len now, hair straggly, forehead pocked by acne. “We know you. We know your smell. You are nothing but a stepping stone.” “Maybe,” Alex said. “But right now I’m the bouncer and you better run.” Alex knew they hadn’t gone far. Their demons needed freshly harvested misery


I needed to give him something he’d never heard, something he felt was exclusive. “I overheard all kinds of things. It was also the dorm where Mr. Bloch had evening duty once a week. And—listen, I probably shouldn’t tell you this. But I still think about it. It was threatening.” “He threatened her?” “He was saying, You have to say yes, you have to say yes. It was a week before she died. He was like, You can’t do this to me.” If I’d had time, I could have thought up better dialogue. “The thing is,” I said, “the threat was in his tone, not his words. It was subtext. It’s not something I could testify about. He didn’t say, If you don’t do it I’ll kill you. But it was—you know that voice alpha males get, just telling the world what to do?” I figured Dane for a person who put great stock in the power of alpha males. And indeed he nodded, eyes intensely focused. How funny, to think of you as alpha anything. I said, “But they’re not about to investigate some guy just because I got a vibe. Plus, how easy would it be for them to say I’d misidentified the voices? And who would believe me about the phone thing to begin with? It would damage my credibility.” Dane said, “It’s called a bridge tap. If a pair of stripped wires touch in the crossbox, the signals get mixed.” “I—oh. Huh.” He said, “I believe you.” “Well, good. I’m glad. I was starting to think I was crazy.” “Why are you telling me this?” he said. “Why me?” “I figured you were the one person who could do something. You’re not Granby, you’re not the courts, you’re not a witness, you’re not the police. You’re allowed to tell the truth.” Yes, I laid it on that thick. I felt like a bit player in the hero origin story of Dane Rubra’s life. “Please don’t give those particular details. Please don’t bring me into it. But I know you can do something.” He nodded solemnly, fingers working the edge of his hat. He was itching, I could tell, to run after his iPad. He asked if we could chat again and I said we shouldn’t, I’d already said too much. A thousand pounds left my shoulders. I imagined those weights taking flight from the balcony to find you, to settle around your neck. Were you on some pleasant trajectory before I interfered? Did I expedite your karma? I will not apologize. 13 The Calvin Inn had an elaborate breakfast setup, one I’d avoided the day before. You chose a table on the glassed-in sunporch, or the extra sunporch off the first one, and circled your selections on the day’s menu, one thing from each of seven categories. I asked for just oatmeal and a latte, but Geoff got brioche French toast, bacon, yogurt, fruit salad, poached eggs, a croissant, and a coffee, brought to the table in absolute random order. I’d have wondered how he could ingest so


of his spine. There were times when it went on and on until the cruel, wicked, unforgivable thing seemed to him not that the guards continued to beat him but that he could not force hirnself into losing consciousness. There were times when his nerve so forsook him that he began shouting for mercy even before the beating began, when the mere sight of a fist drawn back for a blow was enough to make him pour forth a confession of real and imaginary crimes. There were other times when he started out with the resolve of confessing nothing, when every word had to be forced out of him between gasps of pain, and there were times when he feebly tried to compromise, when he said to himself: 'I will confess, but not yet. I must hold out till the pain becomes unbearable. Three more kicks, two more kicks, and then I will tell them what they want.' Sometimes he was beaten till he could hardly stand, then flung like a sack of potatoes on to the stone floor of a cell, left to recuperate for a few hours, and then taken out and beaten again. There were also longer periods of recovery. He remembered them dimly, because they were spent chiefly in sleep or stupor. He remembered a cell with a plank bed, a sort of shelf sticking out from the wall, and a tin wash-basin, and meals of hot soup and bread and sometimes coffee. He remembered a surly barber arriving to scrape his chin and crop his hair, and businesslike, unsympathetic men in white coats feeling his pulse, tapping his reflexes, turning up his eyelids, running harsh fingers over him in search for broken bones, and shooting needles into his arm to make him sleep. The beatings grew less frequent, and became mainly a threat, a horror to which he could be sent back at any moment when his answers were unsatisfactory. His questioners now were not ruffians in black uniforms but Party intellectuals, little rotund men with quick movements and flashing spectacles, who worked on him in relays over periods which lasted--he thought, he could not be sure--ten or twelve hours at a stretch. These other questioners saw to it that he was in constant slight pain, but it was not chiefly pain that they relied on. They slapped his face, wrung his ears, pulled his hair, made him stand on one leg, refused him leave to urinate, shone glaring lights in his face until his eyes ran with water; but the aim of this was simply to humiliate him and destroy his power of arguing and reasoning. Their real weapon was the merciless questioning that went on and on, hour after hour, tripping him up, laying traps for him, twisting everything that he said, convicting him at every step of lies and self-contradiction until he began weeping as much from shame as from nervous fatigue. Sometimes he would weep half a dozen times in a single session. Most of the time they screamed abuse at him and


I imagined myself falling in love with a woman who held down a similarly middle-class job and getting that woman pregnant twice and buying a house just large enough to fit my parents in the guest bedroom. And then my parents would age, and I would raise the children with the woman, putting money away in a 401(k), buying toys and clothes and college for the children. And then I would retire to a smaller house somewhere in Arizona or Florida, and the grown children would visit me and my wife along with their own children. And then, eventually, I would die, and my wife would get a payout from my life insurance policy, and everyone at my funeral would attest to the fact that I’d lived an honest life. I would never have been Ezra Green. I would never have loved Orson. That was the problem, loving Orson. That had been the problem for a long time. I loved him and I hadn’t stopped loving him and it had stayed in my bloodstream like lead or arsenic, something that should have killed me faster than it was already killing me, something that I couldn’t flush out even if I wanted to, even though he’d obviously wanted me to try. I realized with horror that I would die loving Orson, that it would never end, that it was a kind of sentence I had to live out and perhaps this was my punishment for having lived at all. My breath quickened and I sat forward in bed, feeling my damaged eyes straining not to cry. I was sick, I knew, with no desire to seek a cure. This was how Brianna found me long after the TGI Fridays movie had ended and a new one had begun playing, a nature documentary about rhinos. I felt her hand on my back. “Ez,” she said. “Take deep breaths.” I did, and I listened to her sit down across from me. “Should I tell your parents?” she asked. “About the surgery? No, absolutely not. It’ll make them lose their minds.” “They might want to see you. It might make you feel better.” “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.” She shifted in her seat, possibly crossing her legs. “What’s wrong?” “It’s too much,” I said without thinking. “What’s too much?” “The whole thing.” “What do you mean?” “I can’t tell anyone. I want to tell someone but I can’t.” “You can tell me,” she said. “I’m willing to listen to whatever you need me to hear.” Shoulders slumped, sitting blind in a bed far too large for me, I told Brianna everything I’d done since the day Orson and I had shown the Bliss-Mini prototype to the venture capitalists, and then everything I’d done before. I told her about Jamie and YouCraft and the sneakers in high school. I told her about Mack and Palugas and the air taxi. “You want absolution,” she said tenderly. “Yes.” I drew my knees to my chin. “I just want someone to know besides me.” “Now I


she swam about, trying to find her way out. `I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That WILL be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.' Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself. `Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in trying.' So she began: `O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!' (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!' The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. `Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.' (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. `Oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings. `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.' `Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. `Would YOU like cats if you were me?' `Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone: `don't be angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool, `and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain it must be really offended. `We won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not.' `We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail. `As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family always HATED cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear the name again!' `I won't indeed!' said


She continued with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles. When my father returned from Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub --a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission my mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became the inmate of my parents' house--my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures. Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, "I have a pretty present for my Victor--tomorrow he shall have it." And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine--mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me--my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only. Chapter 2 We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home --the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers--she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember. On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents


working up a sweat just thinking about it. Kick those nerves to the curb by keeping yourself preoccupied in the run up to D-day. How about fitting in an intense workout at the gym or even book in some time for a spray tan to give you that extra boost of confidence? Distract yourself to avoid overthinking; my distraction of choice is a prebooked massage so I’m relaxed and soothed right before my big date. These pre-date rituals are somewhat non-applicable. I don’t have a gym membership or need a tan … They also sound expensive. Is this why men are expected to pay for dates? We’ve spent all our money just getting ready … Location: this is pretty obvious, but you want to pick somewhere familiar and public just to give you that secure footing. You know how much the food will cost, in case chivalry is dead, you know the dress code and the ambience of the place. And, for extra measure, make sure you tell at least one friend or family member who you’re meeting, where you’re going and what time you expect to return—you know, just in case! “Watch it!” A man and his briefcase push into me and give me a dirty look (the man, not the briefcase) before walking on. My fault for stopping in a stream of pedestrian traffic, but in my defense—if anyone cared to ask—I’d just discovered that Ben could be a potential serial killer and I his next victim. I move aside and stand in the entranceway of a closed bank. Google: Is a first date at his house normal? Nicole91: So I met this guy at a coffee shop and we really hit it off. After we exchanged numbers he sends me a text asking if I’d like to have dinner with him at his place. I’ve only met him once and we got on well but I don’t really know him. I like him though and he seems like a genuinely good guy. Should I go to his house for dinner? SarahTK: Ted Bundy seemed like a genuinely good guy too. Kathy78: I think it’s okay to go to a man’s house on a 1st date but only if you trust him. Anon: Trusting him doesn’t mean anything. We’ve all been duped before. What if people who know him are like yeah he has first dates at his place all the time, it’s completely normal for him and you just happen to be unlucky girl no. 8 and that’s when he murders you? But everyone will back him up because, first of all he’s a man, secondly what idiot woman goes to someone’s house on the first date? (It’s not his fault she gave him the opportunity to murder her, right?) And third, the other dates he’s been on will be like yeah I met him at his place and he was a gentleman and I’m still alive. If I was a murdering sociopath that’s how I’d do it. #justsaying #savethewhales #seriouslyguysourplanetisdying Simone_G: I think a first date at his


down in the visitor’s armchair. “I feel like I’m ready to go home,” Aunt Honey croaked. Louise picked up the remote control from her bed and put the TV on mute. “We don’t have long,” she said. “And how’s this sweet thing?” Aunt Honey asked, looking past Louise to Poppy. Mark came into the room. A look passed between him and Louise, then he quietly shut the door. “Come up here and give me a hug,” Aunt Honey said to Poppy. Then she noticed Pupkin looking at her IV tubes. “Don’t be scared, it’s just medicine.” She took the oxygen mask off her face and rolled over onto one side, holding an arm out to Poppy. Louise stepped between them, close to the bed so Aunt Honey had to look up. “We have to go in thirty minutes,” Louise said. “And there’s a lot to talk about.” Annoyance hardened Aunt Honey’s eyes briefly, then she smoothed her face out with a smile. “You can come again tomorrow,” she said. “We don’t have time to fuck around,” Louise said. “Lulu,” Mark warned her from the door. Aunt Honey looked up at Louise like she was seeing her for the first time. “What’re you so hot about?” she asked. “I’m sick of this family and its secrets,” she said. “How did Freddie die?” “Your uncle Freddie?” Aunt Honey asked. “How did he die?” Louise asked again. “Oh, sweetheart,” Aunt Honey said. “That was a long time ago.” “We need to hear it,” Mark said, stepping up beside Louise. “Every detail.” Aunt Honey looked put out. She rolled onto her back and glanced at the soundless TV picture, then over at the black window and the lights of the parking garage. Then she turned back to them and sighed. She started talking in the singsong voice she used when she had to repeat herself for the third time. “Your grandparents took your mother and Freddie up to Columbia so your grandfather could look at a dry-cleaning business he wanted to buy,” she said. “They stayed at the Howard Johnson’s because that was a big deal back then, and your mother and Uncle Freddie were playing around the pool and he stepped on a rusty nail. They took him to the hospital right away but he got lockjaw and died.” “Where was our mom?” Louise asked. “She stayed with me,” Aunt Honey said. “I came up and got her. A hospital’s no place for a little girl.” Pointedly, she looked at Poppy. “That’s not how lockjaw works,” Louise said. “I never looked it up before, but I looked it up on the way here. I don’t know why I never did that before, but it takes three days to even show symptoms.” Aunt Honey nodded at Pupkin on the end of Poppy’s arm. He was studying Aunt Honey like he was trying to place her. “I’m glad she kept that,” Aunt Honey said. Louise didn’t have time for sentiment. “It’s making her sick,” she said. “It was your uncle Freddie’s,” Aunt Honey said. “You’ve heard how


says. He looks at her. “Now I am the lord of men.” Clytemnestra takes the cloth Aileen uses to clean her and kneels to scrub her husband’s arm. He doesn’t flinch, but he doesn’t relax under her touch either. “I heard a few stories on my way back here,” he says. She waits, listening to the silence that stretches between them. “Stories of you and my dear cousin Aegisthus.” Of course he would talk about Aegisthus. Any other man would ask about his children, about Orestes’s departure, about Electra’s growth. But Agamemnon is not like any other man. “People like to talk,” she says. He snorts. “He was always a beggar, even as a child. We would beat and humiliate him, yet he always came back, pleading for mercy and love.” He says the word with revulsion. “He never understood how the world works.” “I think he does now.” “Didn’t he come here and beg for shelter?” “He wasn’t looking for shelter. He wanted to murder me to make you pay for what you did to his father.” Agamemnon laughs bitterly. “Atreus was Aegisthus’s father as much as Thyestes was. He took him in and brought him up with the rest of us. And Aegisthus killed him.” She passes the cloth over his shoulders, the scars carved on his skin. “That is why I threw him into a cell.” His back grows tighter. “But you fucked him first. Isn’t that true?” She walks around the tub and takes his feet into her hands, wipes each toe with the cloth. Ten years of dirt and blood to be scrubbed. Ten years of pain to be avenged. “Aegisthus is a weak man,” she says. “You have always liked weak men.” She keeps her movements slow and controlled. “What about the Trojan princess? Did you take her?” Agamemnon’s eyes never leave her. “She reminds me of you. That was why I chose her. When we took the city, all the other women were crying and cowering, but not Cassandra. She kept glaring, and when one of my men struck her, she spat at him.” “It takes courage to do that.” “Or stupidity. She was proud and didn’t accept that her role had changed.” “You wouldn’t accept it either.” He shakes his head. Outside, the stars are coming into view, bright and clear like lamps. There is the distant sound of men stumbling to their beds, drunk, dragging their lovers with them. “I would have slashed my own throat long before that,” he says. “People like me don’t make good slaves.” He adds, “And you would have done the same.” Something tightens inside her. “I am not like you.” “You have always prided yourself on thinking so, but you are no good either. You take things from people, just like me. You lie when you don’t trust others with the truth, just like me.” She wrings the cloth. “I am not like you,” she repeats. The words sound empty in her mouth. Agamemnon must feel it too, because he smirks. “Polydamas and Lycomedes are dead,” he


proud consciousness of a well-won victory over a worthy foeman. It would be worth while to win, but she no longer thought like would be insupportable if she did not. In spite of lessons the students found opportunities for pleasant times. Anne spent many of her spare hours at Beechwood and generally ate her Sunday dinners there and went to church with Miss Barry. The latter was, as she admitted, growing old, but her black eyes were not dim nor the vigor of her tongue in the least abated. But she never sharpened the latter on Anne, who continued to be a prime favorite with the critical old lady. "That Anne-girl improves all the time," she said. "I get tired of other girls-there is such a provoking and eternal sameness about them. Anne has as many shades as a rainbow and every shade is the prettiest while it lasts. I don't know that she is as amusing as she was when she was a child, but she makes me love her and I like people who make me love them. It saves me so much trouble in making myself love them." Then, almost before anybody realized it, spring had come; out in Avonlea the Mayflowers were peeping pinkly out on the sere barrens where snow-wreaths lingered; and the "mist of green" was on the woods and in the valleys. But in Charlottetown harassed Queen's students thought and talked only of examinations. "It doesn't seem possible that the term is nearly over," said Anne. "Why, last fall it seemed so long to look forward to-a whole winter of studies and classes. And here we are, with the exams looming up next week. Girls, sometimes I feel as if those exams meant everything, but when I look at the big buds swelling on those chestnut trees and the misty blue air at the end of the streets they don't seem half so important." Jane and Ruby and Josie, who had dropped in, did not take this view of it. To them the coming examinations were constantly very important indeed-far more important than chestnut buds or Maytime hazes. It was all very well for Anne, who was sure of passing at least, to have her moments of belittling them, but when your whole future depended on them-as the girls truly thought theirs didyou could not regard them philosophically. "I've lost seven pounds in the last two weeks," sighed Jane. "It's no use to say don't worry. I WILL worry. Worrying helps you some-it seems as if you were doing something when you're worrying. It would be dreadful if I failed to get my license after going to Queen's all winter and spending so much money." "_I_ don't care," said Josie Pye. "If I don't pass this year I'm coming back next. My father can afford to send me. Anne, Frank Stockley says that Professor Tremaine said Gilbert Blythe was sure to get the medal and that Emily Clay would likely win the Avery scholarship." "That may make me feel badly tomorrow, Josie," laughed Anne, "but


her secrets stun you. Part love story, part thriller, this novel kept me entranced until the very last page. A warm, glorious, and exciting read!” —Jean Kwok, author of Searching for Sylvie Lee “A beautiful exploration of the fragility of family life and the inherent tension between motherhood and desire. I simply could not put it down. Transfixing and utterly rewarding.” —Fiona Davis, author of The Spectacular “The magnificent Delury explores the complexities of marriage, parenthood, and art in Hedge. Maud is an everywoman, relatable and strong, who … finds herself at a crossroads. … An unforgettable character in a story of arresting beauty and truth.” —Adriana Trigiani, author of The Good Left Undone “Jane Delury has done the impossible: written a seemingly quiet novel about a woman trapped in a bad marriage that builds and builds and builds until suddenly you realize you’re reading a page-turner. I could not stop turning the pages. Hedge is a wonderful book.” —Marcy Dermansky, author of Hurricane Girl “It’s impossible to turn away from Delury’s newest novel, Hedge. I fell deeply and intensely into this story of love, loss, marriage, and parenthood. These are characters, this is a book, you will never forget.” —Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane “Hedge begins as a contemporary love story, but grows into a complex and suspenseful narrative about family. All the big themes—love, life, loss—bind together in this page-turner, with writing that is clear and riveting throughout. A gem of a book from start to finish.” —Catie Marron, author of Becoming a Gardener: What Reading and Digging Taught Me About Living “Hedge immediately pulls the reader in with its engaging storytelling and its exploration of themes like marital and maternal love and betrayal. I loved this novel and will recommend it widely.” —Liz Moore, author of Long Bright River “Delury’s immersive novel is about family and lovers, passion and responsibility, and it’s filled with such gorgeous writing, compassion, and stunning surprises that I couldn’t bear to tear myself from the page.” —Caroline Leavitt, author of With or Without You “With language as lush as the setting, Delury pulls readers into a thicket of lust, responsibility, and betrayal that they won’t want to escape.” —Oprah Daily ALSO BY JANE DELURY The Balcony HEDGE A NOVEL JANE DELURY ZIBBY BOOKS NEW YORK Hedge: A Novel Copyright © 2023 by Jane Delury All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. Published in the United States by Zibby Books LLC, New York. Zibby Books, colophon, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Zibby Books LLC This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, historical events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Juana Briones’s petition for separation quoted from The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis, Race and Sexuality in Colonial


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

the piece cleaved in two. “And there you have it. About right for your stove?” I nodded. I admit I would not have thought I could be impressed by this sort of rustic skill, but Lilja made it look like an art. “You must be much in demand in the village,” I said. “I can split a full cord in an hour,” she said, not boasting, but by way of answer. “I’ve been doing this since I was seven. I wouldn’t want any other job.” “And do you also enjoy this form of exercise?” I asked Margret, who had been sitting quietly, swinging her feet with a little smile on her face. Margret grimaced. “I’d rather be inside at my piano, or reading a book. Chopping wood is Lilja’s job. She keeps me warm.” Lilja blushed at her, and then she looked at me with such warmth and gratitude that I found myself asking inanely, “And are there different categories of axe?” Lilja was very patient with me. She showed me how to grip the axe—I’d been going about it all wrong, apparently, swinging it like a hatchet. “See these lines?” she said, pointing to the split side of a log, where a network of cracks sliced through the grain. “That’s where you aim. I’d go for this one here, myself.” She traced it with her finger. “That way you avoid the knot. See?” “You may be overestimating my skill if you are expecting me to aim at anything smaller than the log itself.” She laughed. “Just do your best.” There was something in the comfortable way she said it that made me feel easier. I split the log in only two strokes. I managed to hit one of the cracks in the next piece, and it divided with a single blow. Margret clapped. “Well done!” Lilja exclaimed, beaming as if I’d completed a marathon. In truth, I did feel rather proud of myself. It’s funny how the practice of such simple, ancient skills can put one at ease. My progress, though, was rather uneven. My aim began to improve under Lilja’s instruction, but I did not have her strength, and I could not be comfortable swinging something so deadly about, particularly after the fiasco with Wendell. After we’d accumulated a little pile between us, she and Margret helped me cart it inside, and I found myself inviting them to stay for tea, though my notes scowled accusingly at me from the table. “How cosy!” Margret said, and they both looked around the cottage admiringly. For some reason, I did not inform them that the cosiness was all Wendell’s making. Not once have I been complimented on my apartments at Cambridge. Well, I spend most of my time in the library or my office, so what does it matter? Lilja asked if Wendell was in, and both looked relieved when I shook my head. “Surely you aren’t frightened of him?” I enquired. “Oh, no!” Margret said a little too quickly. “We’re very grateful to him for helping us.” “Yes,” Lilja said, and


as if she felt nothing. Roman watched her push the food around her plate. He suddenly had a creeping suspicion that the Littles were Dacre sympathizers, and his stomach churned. Those who favored Dacre in the war tended to be people who were one of three things: zealously devout, ignorant of the mythology where Dacre’s true and terrifying nature was depicted, or, like Zeb Autry, afraid of Enva’s musical powers. “Enva’s music was never something to be afraid of,” Roman said before he could stop himself. “In myths, she strummed her harp over the graves of mortals who died, and her songs guided souls from their bodies to the next realm, whether it was to live above with the Skywards or below with the Underlings. Her songs are woven with truth and knowledge.” The table had fallen deathly quiet. Roman didn’t dare glance at his father, whose eyes were boring into him. “Excuse my son,” Mr. Kitt said with a nervous chuckle. “He read one too many myths as a boy.” “Why don’t you tell us more of the Gazette, Roman?” Dr. Little suggested. “I’ve heard Chancellor Verlice has limited the newspapers in Oath on how much they can report on the war. Is this true?” Roman froze. He wasn’t sure—he was so focused on trying to outwrite Iris these days—but then he thought about how little he had written about the war, and how Zeb’s assignments had drifted to other things. The fact that he was writing about missing soldiers was surprising, although perhaps even that was a ploy to turn people against Enva. “I haven’t heard of any restrictions,” Roman replied. But it suddenly felt possible, and he could envision the chancellor of Oath—a tall, beady-eyed man with a stern countenance—quietly enforcing such a thing, to keep the east out of the war’s destruction. “When do you become columnist?” Dr. Little asked. “I’ll be sure to purchase the paper that day.” “I’m not sure,” Roman said. “I’m currently being evaluated for the position.” “But he will get it,” Mr. Kitt insisted. “Even if I have to bribe the old bloke who runs the joint.” The men chuckled. Roman went rigid. Iris’s words returned to him like a slap to the face. If you get columnist, it will only be due to how much your rich father can bribe Autry to give it to you. He rose, bumping the table in his haste. The plates rattled, the candlelight trembled. “If you’ll pardon me,” he began to say, but his father’s voice overpowered his. “Sit down, Roman. There’s something important we need to discuss.” Slowly, Roman resumed his seat. The silence felt fraught. He wanted to melt through a crack in the floor. “Oh, dearest,” his mother exclaimed. “It’ll be so exciting! To finally have something happy to celebrate.” Roman glanced at her, brow arched. “What are you speaking about, Mother?” Mrs. Kitt looked at Elinor, who was staring down at her hands, expressionless. “We’ve arranged a marriage between you and Miss Little,” Mr. Kitt announced. “This joining of our families will


leaving home for a landscape so unlike the one she knew. She’d ask us to imagine the dark of these woods in 1814, the brilliance of the stars. The official story continued: By the time Samuel Granby came through six years later, retired young from law and seeking a place to make his mark, the school was flourishing. He met the young woman from Virginia who’d whipped up a notable school from scratch, and offered to fund a real Presbyterian college preparatory school, to build a library and a chapel and put her at the helm. While he was at it, he rebuilt the local Presbyterian church and fixed the road; thanks to his money, both school and town took his name. Somewhere along the way, he and Arsareth fell in love and married, and while he became headmaster at the quickly growing school, she maintained the redundant role of head teacher. They never had children, the boys—and, as of 1972, the girls—of Granby being their legacy. I always wondered if her marrying him was a survival tactic. Or if she’d coldly seduced him into staying, imagining good uses for his money. Alyssa confirmed that the version they tell now at matriculation is more comprehensive, acknowledging both the displaced Abenaki and Arsareth’s onetime slaver status. Even on the school website, under the History tab, they now own the fact that although the first Black student graduated in 1860, the second wasn’t admitted till 1923. Right below this is the detail that the school held a quota on Jewish students from 1930 to 1950. Arriving in ’91, I’d considered Granby tremendously diverse if only because Broad Run, Indiana, was even less so. At home I’d known two Asian kids, both adopted by white families. I knew one family from Mexico. I watched The Cosby Show. And that was it. Suddenly at Granby I had classmates from India, Pakistan, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Singapore. I was rooming with Diamond Bailey, from Kingston, Jamaica. But in retrospect, this was a small percentage of the student body. The two dozen or so Black students tended to sit together in the dining hall, at those long tables by the cereal station. I saw it only as cliquish; I failed to consider to what extent it might have been an act of self-preservation. By 2018, there were far more students of color, and the kids mixed together on campus as if they’d been posed that way for the catalogue. Which isn’t to say things were perfect. Jamila had statistics for her project on the ways financial aid applications were prohibitive for the students most in need of assistance. The retention rate for non-Asian students of color was still lower than for white kids. She had sharp things to say about the difference between equity and equality. But I was talking about Arsareth Gage Granby, and what I was going to say was that I made the mistake in class that Friday of mentioning the séances we used to have for her—and then everyone, particularly Alder, wanted Alyssa