the door above, 'if you don't take fogels and tickers--' 'What's the good of talking in that way?' interposed Master Bates; 'he don't know what you mean.' 'If you don't take pocket-handkechers and watches,' said the Dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver's capacity, 'some other cove will; so that the coves that lose 'em will be all the worse, and you'll be all the worse, too, and nobody half a ha'p'orth the better, except the chaps wot gets them--and you've just as good a right to them as they have.' 'To be sure, to be sure!' said the Jew, who had entered unseen by Oliver. 'It all lies in a nutshell my dear; in a nutshell, take the Dodger's word for it. Ha! ha! ha! He understands the catechism of his trade.' The old man rubbed his hands gleefully together, as he corroborated the Dodger's reasoning in these terms; and chuckled with delight at his pupil's proficiency. The conversation proceeded no farther at this time, for the Jew had returned home accompanied by Miss Betsy, and a gentleman whom Oliver had never seen before, but who was accosted by the Dodger as Tom Chitling; and who, having lingered on the stairs to exchange a few gallantries with the lady, now made his appearance. Mr. Chitling was older in years than the Dodger: having perhaps numbered eighteen winters; but there was a degree of deference in his deportment towards that young gentleman which seemed to indicate that he felt himself conscious of a slight inferiority in point of genius and professional aquirements. He had small twinkling eyes, and a pock-marked face; wore a fur cap, a dark corduroy jacket, greasy fustian trousers, and an apron. His wardrobe was, in truth, rather out of repair; but he excused himself to the company by stating that his 'time' was only out an hour before; and that, in consequence of having worn the regimentals for six weeks past, he had not been able to bestow any attention on his private clothes. Mr. Chitling added, with strong marks of irritation, that the new way of fumigating clothes up yonder was infernal unconstitutional, for it burnt holes in them, and there was no remedy against the County. The same remark he considered to apply to the regulation mode of cutting the hair: which he held to be decidedly unlawful. Mr. Chitling wound up his observations by stating that he had not touched a drop of anything for forty-two moral long hard-working days; and that he 'wished he might be busted if he warn't as dry as a lime-basket.' 'Where do you think the gentleman has come from, Oliver?' inquired the Jew, with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of spirits on the table. 'I--I--don't know, sir,' replied Oliver. 'Who's that?' inquired Tom Chitling, casting a contemptuous look at Oliver. 'A young friend of mine, my dear,' replied the Jew. 'He's in luck, then,' said the young man, with a meaning look at Fagin. 'Never mind where I came from, young 'un; you'll


him faded as she set her resolve. She was about to go to the war front and she didn’t have time to wallow in … whatever these feelings were. “Iris Winnow is fine,” she said, reaching for the jumpsuit. “Just ‘fine’?” Helena looked pensive for a second, her mouth twisting. And then she winked at Iris and said, “I bet I can come up with something better.” She slipped out the door before Iris could reply. {16} Attie Six hundred kilometers feel like an eternity when you’re waiting for the unexpected. An eternity made of golden fields and pine forests and mountains that look blue in the distance. An eternity made of things you’ve never seen, air you’ve never tasted, and a train that rocks and clatters like guilt. I wonder if this is how it feels to be immortal. You’re moving, but not really. You’re existing, but time seems thin, flowing like a current through your fingers. I try to close my eyes and rest, but I’m too tempted to watch the world pass by my window. A world that seems endless and sprawling. A world that makes me feel small and insignificant in the face of its wildness. And then that sense of distance tightens my chest as if my bones can feel these six hundred kilometers—I’m leaving the only home I’ve ever known—and I withdraw his letters from my bag, and I reread them. Sometimes I regret leaving his last letter on the floor. Sometimes I’m relieved that I did, because I don’t think I’d be sitting here, pressing westward with nothing more than my courage, into a cloud of dust if I hadn’t. Sometimes I wonder what he looks like and if I’ll ever write to him again. Sometimes I— The train lurched. Iris stopped writing, glancing out the window. She watched as the train rumbled slower and slower, eventually coming to a complete, smoke-hissing stop. They were in the middle of a field in Central Borough. No towns or buildings were in sight. Had they broken down? She set her notepad aside, rising to peek out of the compartment. Most of the passengers had already disembarked at the previous stops. But farther down the corridor, Iris caught sight of another girl, speaking to one of the staff. “We’ll pick up speed once the sun sets, miss,” the crew member said. “In about half an hour or so. Please, help yourself to a cup of tea in the meantime.” Iris ducked back into her compartment. They had purposefully stopped, and she wondered why they had to wait for darkness to continue. She was thinking about gathering her bags and seeking out the girl she had seen when a tap sounded on the sliding door. “Is this seat taken?” Iris glanced up, surprised to see the girl. She had brown skin and curly black hair, and she held a typewriter case in one hand, a cup of tea in the other. She was wearing the same drab jumpsuit as Iris, with the white INKRIDDEN TRIBUNE PRESS badge over her


punched through the drywall where her head had been, sending fragments showering across her face, blinding her. Instinctively she turned, hurling herself toward the kitchen, her vision clearing, seeing Pupkin frantically trying to extract the hammer from the wall. It came out with a blast of plaster across the linoleum as Louise stumbled forward, bounced off the kitchen counter, and stumble-ran for the shattered door to the garage. If she could get to the backyard she could get to a neighbor, she could outrun them, she could be safe, she could be free, she could live. The door seemed to be directly in front of her, but then gravity got heavier on the right side of the room as she lost her balance, veering toward the kitchen sink, and she bruised her hip on the counter again, sending her body spinning. As she did a full three-sixty she caught a lurching, carousel snatch of Mark coming through the dining room entrance, linoleum floor bending beneath his feet, then she kept revolving past him and crashed into the louvered pantry doors with her left shoulder, hearing them splinter and crack, and she bounced herself off them hard, reaching for the garage. So close. “Fee-fi-fo-fum,” Pupkin shrieked, “I smell bloody Louise-eum!” She fell forward and grabbed the splintered doorframe to stop herself from falling down the three brick stairs, and the brightening morning sun coming through the garage door windows showed her the back door was wide open, leading to sunlight and safety. Behind her, Pupkin saw she was getting away and gave a terrible shriek that drove itself into her ears like ice picks. Mark shrieked but really Pupkin shrieked because she had never heard a human throat make a sound like that before. It could only have come from a puppet. Teetering on the threshold of the garage, Louise allowed herself a grim smile of triumph suck it, you little creep She took a step forward and something exploded in her lower back, just above her left kidney. The blow shoved her forward, making her step bigger and wider, and as she heard the thrown hammer clatter to the linoleum floor she fell into the garage, missing the steps entirely. She landed on her left leg and the pain from her kidney where the hammer had hit her made that entire side of her body weak, and she stumbled sideways, sprawling, taking giant loping shuffle-steps across the garage, one foot dragging the extension cord Mark had left there for his saw, then she crashed into the shelves on the other side. Panting, Louise rolled over and it was too late. Mark filled the door, standing at the top of the stairs, but she understood now, it wasn’t Mark. It was all Pupkin. And he had the hammer again. He took three slow steps down and stood at the base of the stairs. To get to the door into the backyard she’d have to pass within arm’s reach of him. It was too close. He had won. It wasn’t fair. It’s not fair!


house himself, and without ever thinking how many advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma, in her own mind, determined that he did know what he was talking about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper's room, or a bad butler's pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment. CHAPTER VII Emma's very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and he had sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner, but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut. There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart, which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity, extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear in general; he became liable to all these charges. His father only called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs. Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that "all young people would have their little whims." With the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made himself--how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He appeared to have a very open temper--certainly a very cheerful and lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of talking of him--said he would be the best man in the world if he were left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for such an unfortunate fancy for having his hair cut, there was nothing to denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination had given him; the honour,


The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing in the world--the strangest, that is, except the very much stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with a piece of work--for I was something or other that could sit-- on the old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and in this position I began to take in with certitude, and yet without direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person. The old trees, the thick shrubbery, made a great and pleasant shade, but it was all suffused with the brightness of the hot, still hour. There was no ambiguity in anything; none whatever, at least, in the conviction I from one moment to another found myself forming as to what I should see straight before me and across the lake as a consequence of raising my eyes. They were attached at this juncture to the stitching in which I was engaged, and I can feel once more the spasm of my effort not to move them till I should so have steadied myself as to be able to make up my mind what to do. There was an alien object in view--a figure whose right of presence I instantly, passionately questioned. I recollect counting over perfectly the possibilities, reminding myself that nothing was more natural, for instance, then the appearance of one of the men about the place, or even of a messenger, a postman, or a tradesman's boy, from the village. That reminder had as little effect on my practical certitude as I was conscious--still even without looking-- of its having upon the character and attitude of our visitor. Nothing was more natural than that these things should be the other things that they absolutely were not. Of the positive identity of the apparition I would assure myself as soon as the small clock of my courage should have ticked out the right second; meanwhile, with an effort that was already sharp enough, I transferred my eyes straight to little Flora, who, at the moment, was about ten yards away. My heart had stood still for an instant with the wonder and terror of the question whether she too would see; and I held my breath while I waited for what a cry from her, what some sudden innocent sign either of interest or of alarm, would tell me. I waited, but nothing came; then, in the first place--and there is something more dire in this, I feel, than in anything I have to relate-- I was determined by a sense that, within a minute, all sounds from her had previously dropped; and, in the second, by the circumstance that, also within the minute, she had, in her play, turned her back to the water. This was her attitude when I at last looked at her--looked with the confirmed conviction that we were still, together, under direct personal notice. She had picked up a small flat piece of wood, which happened to have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested


pale and her hair hung lank and sweaty around her face. Pupkin watched Louise over Poppy’s shoulder, tracking everywhere she went as she loaded the dishwasher. With her back to Louise, there was no way Poppy could see where Louise was, but somehow Pupkin kept his eyes on her at all times. After lunch she asked Poppy if she wanted to watch PAW Patrol on her iPad and set her and Pupkin up on the sofa. Then she went into her bedroom and closed the door to a crack. She didn’t want to make this call, but she needed to talk to someone who understood. She needed to talk to someone who knew what Pupkin could do. She needed to not feel alone in this. Mark picked up on the eighth ring. “What?” he asked in a thick voice. He’d probably just had his afternoon pain pill. “Pupkin’s here,” she whispered. There was a long silence over the line. “No.” It was a simple declarative statement. “He’s here,” she said, whispering urgent and fast, one eye on the cracked door. “Poppy made him with her grandmother—” “Wait, wait, what?” Mark asked, and she heard him trying to follow what she was saying through the haze of his pill. “With Mom?” “No, her other grandmother,” Louise said. “Ian’s mom. She made a puppet and it’s Pupkin and now she won’t take it off. She almost set the house on fire.” The pause stretched out so long she thought he’d hung up, but when he spoke there was no argument, no alternate explanation, no demand for proof. She and Mark had been through this together. He knew. “You have to get rid of it,” he said. “You never told her about Pupkin?” she asked. “No,” he said, and he sounded clearer, more focused now. “I’ve only met Poppy, like, four times. Why would I tell her about Pupkin?” Louise listened. PAW Patrol sounds played steadily in the other room. “What do I do?” she asked. It was the first time she’d ever said that to her brother. “I have to . . .” Mark wavered, stopped, tried again. “I have to think. I need to process this. Listen, don’t do anything, okay? I’ll call you back.” “Okay,” Louise said, and for once she trusted him. “Louise,” Mark said. “Don’t . . . don’t try to cut it off?” She saw the image in her head, one foot on Poppy’s thin arm, pinning it to the kitchen floor, the good knife in her hand. A wave of nausea made her scalp flush with sweat. “Never.” “Yeah, well,” Mark said. “Never say never. I’ll call you back.” For the next few hours she treated Poppy like a ticking bomb. She listened to Poppy whisper to Pupkin. She listened to Pupkin whisper back. She tried hard not to make eye contact with Pupkin. She finally convinced Poppy to lie on her bed for naptime. Before she left the room, she knelt beside them, Poppy’s eyes already sagging closed, and whispered in Pupkin’s ear. “I killed you twice,”


a coincidence. But in the unlikely event that it’s not, I’m guessing you can’t afford to move to a hotel permanently, so we need to figure out what’s going on.” “Promise you don’t think I made it up.” “I don’t think you did.” “And swear you think I’m clean.” Montserrat wished she could reply with an enthusiastic yes, but all she was able to do was press her lips together and slowly nod. Tristán had been a very active addict, to put it mildly, and his behavior during the lowest days of that addiction had been erratic; there had been moments when he said he could feel bugs under his skin, and one time when he saw flashing lights. He’d kicked the habit, but there had been one relapse a few years ago. “Okay, look, come with me,” Tristán said, grabbing Montserrat by the arm and pulling her with him. They stood next to the bathroom’s doorway and looked inside. Folded towels were stacked on a shelf, and there was a wicker hamper for the dirty laundry and a fluffy bathroom mat by the sliding shower door. “What?” Montserrat asked, unable to discern an oddity. If anything, Tristán could be accused of being a little too neat. “When I left my house the taps were closed. But look now.” Montserrat starred at the thin trickle of water going down the sink’s drain. “You probably left the tap open when you left.” “I did not. Someone was in this apartment.” Montserrat stepped into the bathroom, taking one more look around, then reached for the tap and closed it. She glanced at the mirror and saw Tristán’s troubled face reflected there. “I’m not lying, Momo,” he said. “I know,” she said, turning around and clutching his hand between hers. 10 “Have a drink,” Urueta told them, his hands flying toward the bottle and the glass. But Tristán shook his head. “You need to tell us what this is about,” he said, brandishing the envelope, which the director had simply tossed aside on one of the couches and Tristán had snatched up immediately. “It’s nothing bad. A protective spell.” “You order them from a catalogue or what?” Urueta laughed. One of the feathers from the envelope had adhered to his shirt, and he carefully removed it. “I became uninterested in magic practices after Ewers’s death, but others continued their studies. My friend José López was one of them. I mentioned we cast a spell, and he sent this as a gift. It’s no different than buying a bracelet against the evil eye.” “Why would you want a bracelet against the evil eye? You didn’t say that would be necessary,” he said and extended his hand, holding out the envelope. Urueta took it, peering into its interior. He set it down on the bar cart and continued mixing his drink, his brow furrowed. “It’s not. What’s wrong?” Urueta asked. “Tristán saw something,” Montserrat said. “Can you be more specific?” Tristán was a bit of a coward, always had been, and he was not ashamed to admit


the only way to be safe is to destroy those artifacts. I want you to consider selling them to me. I’ll pay a good price.” “Wait a second, I didn’t say I had anything,” Tristán replied, but he knew she didn’t believe that. They sat in a silence that was not quite hostile but was not friendly either. The tide had turned. She wouldn’t give Tristán anything else; still he tried one last question. “You said Ewers is a dangerous man. What did you mean by that? He’s been dead for decades.” Marisa smiled then. “Spells can last for a very long time. Ewers’s power remains. And perhaps, a part of him remains, too. He was trying to cheat death, after all. Who says he didn’t manage it somehow? Give me that film, Mr. Abascal. I think you know the one I mean. If you don’t, you and your friend might be in a very risky position.” Tristán stood up and bid the woman goodbye. She waved him away. He felt flushed by the time he reached Montserrat’s car and opened the door, anxiously looking at her. Montserrat was fine, listening to heavy metal of all things, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Marisa had royally spooked him. “What did she say?” Montserrat asked, lowering the volume of the song by Luzbel that was playing. He didn’t like that type of music, but being around Montserrat he had absorbed the names and songs of a few bands she preferred. Tristán tugged at his tie and sat next to her, staring ahead. “She says Ewers’s cult is having a good time. She recommends we get rid of anything he owned, especially the film.” “She knows about the dub.” “The dub, or maybe the silver nitrate print. Maybe both.” “Hmm.” “Hmm, what?” Montserrat turned the key, and the car began moving down the street. Tristán rolled down the window a little. “She says Ewers himself may not be dead. That a part of him remains.” “I think I saw him, at that building downtown.” Tristán stared at Montserrat. “Why didn’t you say so before?” “You were mocking me, remember? Asking about my German boyfriend and latest crush?” Tristán felt like smacking himself. Yeah, of all the things to say, all the things to needle her with, he’d picked that. It was a low blow. He was aware, although he didn’t like to acknowledge it, that Montserrat had liked him quite a bit back in the day. One afternoon she had even attempted to verbalize this attraction, at which point he had promptly cut her off and turned evasive until she had understood through oblique gestures that this avenue was closed. That had been around the time his braces had come off and he was getting interested looks from the prettier girls in class, and Tristán, greedily delighting in the opportunities his eroding shyness afforded him, had decided Montserrat’s earnest affection was not as enticing as miniskirts and plunging necklines. She’d never made any overtures when they grew up, and they’d buried that episode,


a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority delights in. --------------------------------------------------------- -54- The young lady teachers "showed off" -- bending sweetly over pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting pretty warning fingers at bad little boys and patting good ones lovingly. The young gentlemen teachers "showed off" with small scoldings and other little displays of authority and fine attention to discipline -- and most of the teachers, of both sexes, found business up at the library, by the pulpit; and it was business that frequently had to be done over again two or three times (with much seeming vexation). The little girls "showed off" in various ways, and the little boys "showed off" with such diligence that the air was thick with paper wads and the murmur of scufflings. And above it all the great man sat and beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all the house, and warmed himself in the sun of his own grandeur -- for he was "showing off," too. There was only one thing wanting to make Mr. Walters' ecstasy complete, and that was a chance to deliver a Bible-prize and exhibit a prodigy. Several pupils had a few yellow tickets, but none had enough -- he had been around among the star pupils inquiring. He would have given worlds, now, to have that German lad back again with a sound mind. And now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward with nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and demanded a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters was not expecting an application from this source for the next ten years. But there was no --------------------------------------------------------- -55- getting around it -- here were the certified checks, and they were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated to a place with the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was announced from head-quarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the decade, and so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero up to the judicial one's altitude, and the school had two marvels to gaze upon in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy -- but those that suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too late that they themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by trading tickets to Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling whitewashing privileges. These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass. The prize was delivered to Tom with as much effusion as the superintendent could pump up under the circumstances; but it lacked somewhat of the true gush, for the poor fellow's instinct taught him that there was a mystery here that could not well bear the light, perhaps; it was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his premises -- a dozen would strain his capacity, without a doubt. Amy Lawrence was proud and glad, and she tried


it was there all the same. “Yes,” Giovanni said quietly. “You and me. Always.” PART I THE FOREST A conscience is that still small voice that people won’t listen to. —Pinocchio (1940 film) CHAPTER 1 A tiny vacuum robot screamed as it spun in concentric circles, spindly arms that ended in pincers waving wildly in the air. “Oh my god, oh my god, we’re going to die. I will cease to exist, and there will be nothing but darkness!” A much larger robot stood still next to the vacuum, watching it have a meltdown for the millionth time. This other robot did not have arms, legs, or feet. Instead, the former Medical Nurse Model Six-Ten-JQN Series Alpha was a long metal rectangle, five feet tall and two feet wide, and her old and worn tires had been replaced by toothed metal treads, not unlike a tank’s. Two metal hatches on either side of her base opened to reveal a dozen metal tentacles ending in various medical tools should the need to operate arise. A monitor on the front flashed a green frowning face. Nurse Registered Automaton To Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill (Nurse Ratched for short) was not impressed with the vacuum. In a flat, mechanical voice, she said, “If you were to die, I would play with your corpse. There is much I would be able to learn. I would drill you until there was nothing left.” This—as Nurse Ratched had undoubtedly planned—set the vacuum off once more. “Oh no,” it whimpered. “Oh no, no, no, this will not do. Victor! Victor. Come back before I die and Nurse Ratched plays with my corpse! She’s going to drill me! You know how I feel about being drilled.” Above them in the Scrap Yards, halfway up a pile of discarded metal at least twenty feet high, came the quiet sound of laughter. “I won’t let her do that, Rambo,” Victor Lawson said. He glanced down at them, hanging on to the pile of scrap via a pulley system he’d constructed with a harness around his waist. It wasn’t safe by any stretch of the imagination, but Vic had been doing this for years and hadn’t fallen yet. Well, once, but the less said about that the better. The shriek he’d let out at the bone protruding wetly from his arm had been louder than any sound he’d made before. His father wasn’t happy about it, telling him that a twelve-year-old had no reason to be in the Scrap Yards. Victor had promised not to return. He’d gone back the next week. And now, at the age of twenty-one, he knew the Scrap Yards like the back of his hand. Rambo didn’t seem to believe him. He squealed, pincers opening and closing, his circular body shaking as his all-terrain tires rolled over pieces of metal that had fallen from the scrap heap. Across the top, in faded markings that had never been clear, were the letter R and a circle that could have been an O or a lowercase a, followed by what


my sarcasm. I refilled his glass, even though it wasn’t empty. I topped mine off just a millimeter. I’d barely drunk any. As I leaned back on the pillows, I stretched my arms overhead, a move I’d learned men took as egregious flirting even though I never meant it that way; I just had tight shoulders. But I lingered with my arms up, stretching to the right and the left. In the aftermath of my latest Yahav relapse, I’d had the unflattering realization that I had never once, in my life, gone after a man who was fully available. In my early twenties, I honed my skills on married men, men whose rejections and eventual departures it would be impossible to take personally. Even Jerome wasn’t someone I ever possessed completely, or wanted to. And look who I’d pined after at Granby: the hottest guy on the ski team, and Kurt Fucking Cobain. Men who could never hurt me, because I could remain invisible to them. (“Do you think this might have to do with your father and brother?” asks every new shrink, tentatively, as if it weren’t glaringly obvious.) Now I said, to the boy in whose honor I’d once borrowed a library map of Connecticut just so I could look up the precise location of his street in New Canaan: “You know what the clock tower made me think of, the other day, was all the spaces people used to go to make out. Or smoke.” He laughed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Oh, man. I was never a smoker, so I wouldn’t know about that.” “Right. You only knew the make-out places, and I only knew the smoking places.” “You never got busy on campus?” “Not once.” It didn’t sound pathetic, the way it might have if I’d said it at eighteen. “Where were the big spots? I’d catch people in the theater all the time.” He said, “Aw, man, that’s not even creative. There was this guest apartment at the back of Jacoby. That was a good one if you had the key. But in spring they’d put up people interviewing for jobs, so that was out.” I said, “I remember certain couples had spots that were, like, theirs. You’d never go to the Quincy balcony at night, because Sakina and Marco would be there.” “Man! I forgot that. It was so territorial. Can’t you imagine a David Attenborough narration? The adolescents have staked out their breeding grounds.” I laughed. “Totally. Angie Parker and that short guy, Steve whatever, they were always up in the English hallway.” “Dorian,” he said, “when he dated Beth, they’d get a full-on hotel room in town. The rumor was she made him, she wouldn’t sleep with him on campus.” “That tracks.” I laughed, this time not genuinely. Good God, I didn’t blame her, given what his friends had all seen. I said, “Where was—Robbie and Thalia had a place, right?” He blanched, actually blanched, to the point where I couldn’t just play it cool; I had to say,


what bearing the state of Mr. Ewell's education had on the case. "I'll repeat the question," said Atticus. "Can you read and write?" "I most positively can." "Will you write your name and show us?" "I most positively will. How do you think I sign my relief checks?" Mr. Ewell was endearing himself to his fellow citizens. The whispers and chuckles below us probably had to do with what a card he was. I was becoming nervous. Atticus seemed to know what he was doing- but it seemed to me that he'd gone frog-sticking without a light. Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don't already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby-food. Do it, and you'll often get an answer you don't want, an answer that might wreck your case. Atticus was reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. He drew out an envelope, then reached into his vest pocket and unclipped his fountain pen. He moved leisurely, and had turned so that he was in full view of the jury. He unscrewed the fountain-pen cap and placed it gently on his table. He shook the pen a little, then handed it with the envelope to the witness. "Would you write your name for us?" he asked. "Clearly now, so the jury can see you do it." Mr. Ewell wrote on the back of the envelope and looked up complacently to see Judge Taylor staring at him as if he were some fragrant gardenia in full bloom on the witness stand, to see Mr. Gilmer half-sitting, half-standing at his table. The jury was watching him, one man was leaning forward with his hands over the railing. "What's so interestin'?" he asked. "You're left-handed, Mr. Ewell," said Judge Taylor. Mr. Ewell turned angrily to the judge and said he didn't see what his being left-handed had to do with it, that he was a Christ-fearing man and Atticus Finch was taking advantage of him. Tricking lawyers like Atticus Finch took advantage of him all the time with their tricking ways. He had told them what happened, he'd say it again and again- which he did. Nothing Atticus asked him after that shook his story, that he'd looked through the window, then ran the nigger off, then ran for the sheriff. Atticus finally dismissed him. Mr. Gilmer asked him one more question. "About your writing with your left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?" "I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other. One hand good as the other," he added, glaring at the defense table. Jem seemed to be having a quiet fit. He was pounding the balcony rail softly, and once he whispered, "We've got him." I didn't think so: Atticus was trying to show, it seemed to me, that Mr. Ewell could have beaten up Mayella. That much I could follow. If her right eye was blacked and she was beaten mostly on the right side of the face, it would tend to show that


not now.” Once the three had deposited the suits and left, Grip slammed the hatch shut and took his seat. “Can we go now?” he grumbled. Ten minutes later, using the coordinates supplied by the captain, Hardy piloted Hub Gunther to within several hundred meters of the seemingly lifeless SpaceWing dreadnought. “Will you look at that?” Max said. “She’s a beauty.” “Yeah, a beauty,” both Ham and Hock, the twins, parroted in unison. The Hub Gunther’s comms crackled. “You bring the suits, Hardy? Over,” came the captain’s voice. “There’s no telling if the ship still has atmosphere. Or what contaminants are present if it does.” “Quicksilver. And that’s an affirmative on the suits, Cap.” “You’ve studied the ship schematics, I take it. We need to open up Lincoln’s flight bay. Over.” A two-foot-tall 3D projection suddenly took shape upon the forward console. Sonya, sitting up in her hospital bed, one shoulder heavily bandaged, said, “The ship is in slumber mode. As if it was moored within a space dock for repairs. You won’t be able to open the bay doors remotely.” Everyone just stared at the goliath-sized vessel. “Well, that’s embarrassing,” Hardy said. Captain Quintos audibly huffed. “Sonya, please tell us there’s a workaround.” “Of course there is. All you have to say is I’m amazing and you’d all be up shit creek without a paddle without me.” “You’re amazing. Now tell us how to do this. Over.” “The big problem is power. While Lincoln’s in slumber mode, nothing is working other than the bare-bare-bare minimum ship-wide functions. Functions that do not include opening and closing the massive flight bay doors. Hardy, you’ll have to make a spacewalk. Along the outside hull of the Gunther is a utility locker. Inside, if nobody’s nicked it, there should be an intra-ship jack cable.” “Say no more, young girl wonder. I’ve got this,” Hardy said, getting to his feet. He looked about the cabin. “I suggest you all close your helmets; it’s about to get both cold and extremely hard to breathe in here.” He looked to Max. “You can pilot a Hub Gunther, I take it?” Once outside, Hardy had found both the utility locker and the jack cable. He’d seen the three red, stationary Arrows waiting off in the distance. Now, thirty feet out from USS Lincoln’s starboard hull, the end of the cable clutched in one hand, and having kicked off from the Gunther and taken up a flying Superman pose, the ChronoBot readied to make contact. Only now did he realize he’d been a tad zealous with his leap; he braced for the impending head-on collision. His fast-moving thousand pounds of mass struck the Lincoln like a freight train hitting an even larger freight train. He grunted as his bulk clattered and then flopped about as he reached for any kind of handhold. “All’s good here, I’ve got this …” he said to no one in particular. “Dammit, you’re going to topple right off the hull, Hardy!” the captain said. “This is no time for your antics.” Remarkably still clutching the


you read the reports of the death in the paper?" "No." "And he made you swear to say nothing about your appoint- ment with Sir Charles?" "He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that I should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He frightened me into remaining silent." "Quite so. But you had your suspicions?" She hesitated and looked down. "I knew him," she said. "But if he had kept faith with me I should always have done so with him." "I think that on the whole you have had a fortunate escape," said Sherlock Holmes. "You have had him in your power and he knew it, and yet you are alive. You have been walking for some months very near to the edge of a precipice. We must wish you good-morning now, Mrs. Lyons, and it is probable that you will very shortly hear from us again." "Our case becomes rounded off, and difficulty after difficulty thins away in front of us," said Holmes as we stood waiting for the arrival of the express from town. "I shall soon be in the position of being able to put into a single connected narrative one of the most singular and sensational crimes of modern times. Students of criminology will remember the analogous incidents in Godno, in Little Russia, in the year '66, and of course there are the Anderson murders in North Carolina, but this case possesses some features which are entirely its own. Even now we have no clear case against this very wily man. But I shall be very much surprised if it is not clear enough before we go to bed this night. " The London express came roaring into the station, and a small, wiry bulldog of a man had sprung from a first-class carriage. We all three shook hands, and I saw at once from the reverential way in which Lestrade gazed at my companion that he had learned a good deal since the days when they had first worked together. I could well remember the scorn which the theories of the reasoner used then to excite in the practical man. "Anything good?" he asked. "The biggest thing for years," said Holmes. "We have two hours before we need think of starting. I think we might employ it in getting some dinner and then, Lestrade, we will take the London fog out of your throat by giving you a breath of the pure night air of Dartmoor. Never been there? Ah, well, I don't suppose you will forget your first visit." Chapter 14 The Hound of the Baskervilles One of Sherlock Holmes's defects -- if, indeed, one may call it a defect -- was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around him. Partly also from his professional caution, which urged him never to take any chances.


to press charges against the family friend whose semen had been found in the mouth and vagina and anus of the murdered eleven-year-old. The state’s attorney didn’t feel there was enough evidence. The girl might have been sitting on a bed where he’d previously masturbated, and eaten some popcorn there, and gotten his semen in her mouth. “This is how we get colds,” the man said. “We touch something, we touch our face. And then a little girl goes to the bathroom, and what does she do? She wipes herself, front to back, like this.” And on live TV, in some marbled court hallway, he squatted low, swiped his hand between the legs of his suit pants. 38 The defense rested after they questioned Robbie, and the state introduced no witnesses of their own. They spent the following day making arguments, the state again saying I had influenced people, this time manipulating Beth. I would have been allowed back into the courtroom for the closing arguments, but Amy didn’t think that would be a good idea; she told me to fly home, and the whole thing ended when I was in the air somewhere over the Rockies. When I landed, I had a voicemail from Amy telling me she thought it had gone very well. Now the judge would take it all “under advisement,” and in one to six months, Amy thought, we’d hear if he’d decided to vacate the original verdict. The day I got home, I checked my email and found a note from a young woman in Salem, Oregon. You knew her when she was a student in Providence. Paula Gutierrez; I’m sure the name rings a bell. She was hoping I could get a note to Beth Docherty, thanking her for what she’d said about you on the stand. It sounded so eerily familiar, she wrote to Beth. Like you were talking about my own life. A week later, Dane Rubra forwarded me an email from Allison Mayfield, who’d attended the school you came to Granby from. Do you remember her? The one who dropped out junior year after she cut her wrists with fingernail scissors? How about Zoe Ellis? She really thought the two of you were in love. She hadn’t reexamined it until a friend sent her news about the hearing. God bless Zoe, she was ready to go public, to write about it all. How about Annie Mintz? Do you still have a job? Do you still have a family? It’s hard to tell online. 39 In April, I flew back east to see Geoff. We spent a week together in New York—we lay around in bed, I worked on the book, we ordered food—and we made plans for him to come out to LA that summer. I was very happy about it. I’m still happy about it. I lied to Fran that I was in New York for research. I was holding out for the right moment to tell her, the right moment to hear her shriek “I’ve been waiting for this for thirty


to apologize for dragging his name through the mud. And she did. She apologized. The next night, he came back and he stabbed her. This was the one where people had a hard time taking her seriously because her name was a stripper name. Jay Leno made jokes about her, about her name. This was the same year Lorena Bobbitt cut off her husband’s penis. It was right after sophomore year at Granby. Leno made a joke about both this woman and Lorena Bobbitt: something about their names, something about knives. She survived the stabbing. She was the one who went on Oprah with scars on her neck, scars on her face. She was the one who sat down with Barbara Walters. Barbara leaned in close and asked if she had it in her to forgive her attacker. He’d just been released from his two-year prison sentence. Here’s what I remember: This woman, still so young, looked back at Barbara Walters and said, “Am I supposed to? I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s how you move on.” It didn’t stand out to me at the time. This seemed the kind of thing people said. But ten years later, I woke in the middle of the night suddenly remembering that interview, wanting to scream. I googled the woman to see if she’d changed her mind, if she’d spoken out again. She’d died six years earlier, shot by a different man. One she’d forgiven again and again, just like she was supposed to. #9: ROBBIE SERENHO There are things I’ll likely never know: If it was planned, if he was drunk, if he told anyone, if he knew what he was doing or only understood once it was done. If he had that bike waiting, or found it—a sign from above that he was meant to survive this, to ride away unscathed. If he was shaking, terrified, the rest of that night, or pleased with himself. If a friend helped him scrub up the equipment shed the next morning, while Thalia still floated, unnoticed, unmissed, in the pool. The way he treated his wife all these years—maybe holding things in, maybe never hitting her—but still the man capable of that violence. Or maybe hitting her. Maybe worse. Maybe—it’s not impossible—living a model life, as if doing so would pay a cosmic debt. Maybe running forever from that teenage boy and his sins. There are things I can assume: That he drank his way through college, trying to forget. That he justified it to himself—not that Thalia deserved to die, but that Omar’s life was more expendable than his own. Maybe he told himself how far he’d come in the world already. Maybe he told himself it would kill his parents if they knew, and wouldn’t two more deaths be worse? Maybe he convinced himself that Omar, surely selling drugs, was bound for prison anyway. Maybe he managed to forget Omar entirely. There are things I can’t stop imagining: Robbie’s face turning red with rage. His pupils, dilated huge in the dark.


I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I was not quite sure. With a sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease. Now I perceived he was not looking at the wall, for when I regarded him alone it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards' distance. And whatever it was, it communicated apparently both pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes---at least the anguished yet raptured expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied object was not fixed either; his eyes pursued it with unwearied diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food. If he stirred to touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it, and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim. I sat, a model of patience, trying to attract his ab- sorbed attentlion from its engrossing speculation, till he grew irritable, and got up, asking why I would not al- low him to have his own time in taking his meals, and saying that on the next occasion I needn't wait---L might set the things down and go. Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly sauntered down the garden path, and disappeared through the gate. The hours crept anxiously by; another evening came. I did not retire to rest till late, and when I did I could not sleep. He returned after midnight, and instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room beneath. I listened and tossed about, and finally dressed and de- scended. It was too irksome to lie there harassing my brain with a hundred idle misgivings. I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff's step restlessly measuring the floor, and he frequently broke the si- lence by a deep inspiration resembling a groan. He muttered detached words also. The only one I couJd catch was the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or suffering, and spoken as one would speak to a person present---low and earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul. I had not courage to walk straight into the apartment, but I desired to divert him from his reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire, stirred it, and began to scrape the cinders. It drew him forth sooner than I expected. He opened the door immediately, and said,--- "Nelly, come here. Is it morning? Come in with your light." "It is striking four," I answered. "You want a candle to take upstairs. You might have lit one at this fire." "No, I don't wish to go upstairs," he said. "Come in and kindle me a fire, and do anything there is to do about the room." "I must blow the coals red first before I can carry any," I replied, getting a chair and the bellows. He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state


conference. This accumulated testimony effectually staggered Mr. Monks. His protestations had gradually become less and less vehement as they proceeded in their search without making any discovery; and, now, he gave vent to several very grim laughs, and confessed it could only have been his excited imagination. He declined any renewal of the conversation, however, for that night: suddenly remembering that it was past one o'clock. And so the amiable couple parted. CHAPTER XXVII ATONES FOR THE UNPOLITENESS OF A FORMER CHAPTER; WHICH DESERTED A LADY, MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY As it would be, by no means, seemly in a humble author to keep so mighty a personage as a beadle waiting, with his back to the fire, and the skirts of his coat gathered up under his arms, until such time as it might suit his pleasure to relieve him; and as it would still less become his station, or his gallentry to involve in the same neglect a lady on whom that beadle had looked with an eye of tenderness and affection, and in whose ear he had whispered sweet words, which, coming from such a quarter, might well thrill the bosom of maid or matron of whatsoever degree; the historian whose pen traces these words--trusting that he knows his place, and that he entertains a becoming reverence for those upon earth to whom high and important authority is delegated--hastens to pay them that respect which their position demands, and to treat them with all that duteous ceremony which their exalted rank, and (by consequence) great virtues, imperatively claim at his hands. Towards this end, indeed, he had purposed to introduce, in this place, a dissertation touching the divine right of beadles, and elucidative of the position, that a beadle can do no wrong: which could not fail to have been both pleasurable and profitable to the right-minded reader but which he is unfortunately compelled, by want of time and space, to postpone to some more convenient and fitting opportunity; on the arrival of which, he will be prepared to show, that a beadle properly constituted: that is to say, a parochial beadle, attached to a parochail workhouse, and attending in his official capacity the parochial church: is, in right and virtue of his office, possessed of all the excellences and best qualities of humanity; and that to none of those excellences, can mere companies' beadles, or court-of-law beadles, or even chapel-of-ease beadles (save the last, and they in a very lowly and inferior degree), lay the remotest sustainable claim. Mr. Bumble had re-counted the teaspoons, re-weighed the sugar-tongs, made a closer inspection of the milk-pot, and ascertained to a nicety the exact condition of the furniture, down to the very horse-hair seats of the chairs; and had repeated each process full half a dozen times; before he began to think that it was time for Mrs. Corney to return. Thinking begets thinking; as there were no sounds of Mrs. Corney's approach, it occured to Mr. Bumble that it would be an innocent and virtuous way of spending the time, if he


change her mind if he did not get in touch with her quickly. But the physical difficulty of meeting was enormous. It was like trying to make a move at chess when you were already mated. Whichever way you turned, the telescreen faced you. Actually, all the possible ways of communicating with her had occurred to him within five minutes of reading the note; but now, with time to think, he went over them one by one, as though laying out a row of instruments on a table. Obviously the kind of encounter that had happened this morning could not be repeated. If she had worked in the Records Department it might have been comparatively simple, but he had only a very dim idea whereabouts in the building the Fiction Department lay, and he had no pretext for going there. If he had known where she lived, and at what time she left work, he could have contrived to meet her somewhere on her way home; but to try to follow her home was not safe, because it would mean loitering about outside the Ministry, which was bound to be noticed. As for sending a letter through the mails, it was out of the question. By a routine that was not even secret, all letters were opened in transit. Actually, few people ever wrote letters. For the messages that it was occasionally necessary to send, there were printed postcards with long lists of phrases, and you struck out the ones that were inapplicable. In any case he did not know the girl's name, let alone her address. Finally he decided that the safest place was the canteen. If he could get her at a table by herself, somewhere in the middle of the room, not too near the telescreens, and with a sufficient buzz of conversation all round--if these conditions endured for, say, thirty seconds, it might be possible to exchange a few words. For a week after this, life was like a restless dream. On the next day she did not appear in the canteen until he was leaving it, the whistle having already blown. Presumably she had been changed on to a later shift. They passed each other without a glance. On the day after that she was in the canteen at the usual time, but with three other girls and immediately under a telescreen. Then for three dreadful days she did not appear at all. His whole mind and body seemed to be afflicted with an unbearable sensitivity, a sort of transparency, which made every movement, every sound, every contact, every word that he had to speak or listen to, an agony. Even in sleep he could not altogether escape from her image. He did not touch the diary during those days. If there was any relief, it was in his work, in which he could sometimes forget himself for ten minutes at a stretch. He had absolutely no clue as to what had happened to her. There was no enquiry he could make. She might have been vaporized,


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

mine -- bought him off a Greek chappie I met in the pub las' year -- I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the..." "Yes?" said Harry eagerly. "Now, don't ask me anymore," said Hagrid gruffly. "That's top secret, that is." "But Snape's trying to steal it." "Rubbish," said Hagrid again. "Snape's a Hogwarts teacher, he'd do nothin' of the sort." "So why did he just try and kill Harry?" cried Hermione. The afternoon's events certainly seemed to have changed her mind about Snape. "I know a jinx when I see one, Hagrid, I've read all about them! You've got to keep eye contact, and Snape wasn't blinking at all, I saw him!" "I'm tellin' yeh, yer wrong!" said Hagrid hotly. "I don' know why Harry's broom acted like that, but Snape wouldn' try an' kill a student! Now, listen to me, all three of yeh -- yer meddlin' in things that don' concern yeh. It's dangerous. You forget that dog, an' you forget what it's guardin', that's between Professor Dumbledore an' Nicolas Flamel -- " "Aha!" said Harry, "so there's someone called Nicolas Flamel involved, is there?" Hagrid looked furious with himself. CHAPTER TWELVE -- THE MIRROR OF ERISED Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow. The lake froze solid and the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban. The few owls that managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver mail had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly off again. No one could wait for the holidays to start. While the Gryffindor common room and the Great Hall had roaring fires, the drafty corridors had become icy and a bitter wind rattled the windows in the classrooms. Worst of all were Professor Snape's classes down in the dungeons, where their breath rose in a mist before them and they kept as close as possible to their hot cauldrons. "I do feel so sorry," said Draco Malfoy, one Potions class, "for all those people who have to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas because they're not wanted at home." He was looking over at Harry as he spoke. Crabbe and Goyle chuckled. Harry, who was measuring out powdered spine of lionfish, ignored them. Malfoy had been even more unpleasant than usual since the Quidditch match. Disgusted that the Slytherins had lost, he had tried to get everyone laughing at how a wide-mouthed tree frog would be replacing Harry as Seeker next. Then he'd realized that nobody found this funny, because they were all so impressed at the way Harry had managed to stay on his bucking broomstick. So Malfoy, jealous and angry, had gone back to taunting Harry about having no proper family. It was true that Harry wasn't going back to Privet Drive for Christmas. Professor McGonagall had come around the week before, making a list of students who would be staying for the holidays, and Harry


this one was cheating on his wife. The most aggressive seeding was done against Jamie. We found a photo of her, wide-eyed and visibly coked out, emerging in a mink coat from a Chelsea hotel with a rumpled-looking man on her arm: “DeCroix daughter known for her partying.” And then there was the dirt on Jonathan DeCroix himself: insider trading, cloak-and-dagger business deals, a lost night in Tokyo in 2011. It made me feel good to expose him after what he’d done to Orson all those years ago. Most of the same publications that had run Jamie’s “brave” story also ran ours—journalism was about getting both sides, after all—and eventually the public was split: a vocal group of feminists who wanted to take Orson down, and an even more vocal group of NuLifers and Bliss-Mini owners and celebrities who wanted to support him. He paused his hibernation once more to appear on a talk show with a host who was famous for having interviewed everyone from Katharine Hepburn to O.J. Simpson. The host wore a boxy pantsuit while Orson, smiling placidly, wore his humble work clothes. “Orson, I want the truth,” the host said, steepling her fingers under her chin. “Are the allegations true? Did you scam this young woman out of house and home?” Orson grinned beatifically. “No,” he said. “Then why are these people coming forward against you?” He looked from the host to the camera, his lips thin and pink in the beard he’d grown during his hibernation. “I love everyone I meet. I honestly do. Even the people who don’t like me, who think I’m somehow untrustworthy or repulsive. And those people have a right to their opinion. Of course they have a right to their opinion. I can’t help what they think. But I can say with confidence that I’ve never acted in bad faith. Not that I’m perfect—of course not—simply that I strive to be the best version of myself I can possibly be. And if that doesn’t appeal to some people, then so be it. I wish them happiness anyway.” Emily made the rounds of talk shows. I made the rounds. We did this without anyone telling us to: there was never any question that we would. Sometimes we went together, CFO and girlfriend, me forced to sit in her cloud of Yves St. Laurent perfume and listen as she clutched the hem of her skirt and cried and described Orson as the best person she’d ever met, someone who was incapable of hurting anyone, someone to whom she’d entrust her life. I said basically the same thing but more measured—I, unlike her, had to hide my love—and the hosts ate it up. Everyone was used to loving Orson. Nobody wanted to stop. * * * Although Dexter had given each of the NuLife executives an air taxi as a Christmas present, claiming they were faster, more efficient, and better for the environment, he never traveled in one himself. We flew to Urmau in his private jet, Brianna working on her laptop in the cabin


an Etch A Sketch drawing, she made out a vague circle. A figure eight. The suggestion of a square. “I see them,” she called to Gabriel. “No way,” he said, coming closer to look. “You were right.” “It was even bigger than I thought,” Maud said. She almost dropped into one of Louise’s lopsided cartwheels. “There are plenty of flags in the back of my truck,” Gabriel said. “I can help, but I’m assuming you’d like to do this alone.” “Is that okay?” Maud said. She both wanted him to stay and wanted this moment for herself. “I know how it is,” he said with a smile. “Your find. You flag. Just turn off the truck and leave the keys in the flowerpot by my door. I’ll move it early in the morning so Harriet doesn’t ticket me.” An hour later, having marked all the beds, Maud sat on the steps of the conservatory, filled with joyful relief. Tomorrow she and Gabriel would take soil samples from those phantom shapes to mail to the lab for analysis. Then, with Chris’s help, she’d start to cut the beds, peeling away the lawn to discover the soil, which was most likely made of rich and feathery loam. She’d keep digging in the archives to find as many of the original plants plus some well-calculated guesses and get every last root into the ground by early June. Then she’d move to the conservatory with its potted lemon and acacia trees, its hibiscus and palms. The garden would start to look like itself again: luscious beds flowing in circles and squares, cast-iron urns cascading with vines, the diamond of the conservatory transformed into an emerald. Already she wanted to come back to see it with the girls next spring as a single mother. A divorcée. Finally released. 2 Three days later, Maud was back at the desk in the archives as workmen pulled up the carpeting in the hall. She’d started to design the garden in earnest, reading through documents and scribbling plant names on a notepad. She tried to keep her hands calm as she peeled open the manila folders lined up in the archival boxes and teased out papers, dyed by time to the same mushroom-brown. Streaked with sealing wax, most of the documents were letters and invoices from Andrew Jackson Downing, the American landscape designer and nursery owner who’d helped to redesign the Montgomery Place estate. His barbed, flowery handwriting was hard to read, even with a magnifying glass. Maud squinted at three words on an invoice. Large scotch roses. She’d use them as a nucleus for one of the round beds. Honeysuckle, clematis, lilac, silver bell—she added the names to her list. Unlike the ancient history that Gabriel was exploring, the history of Montgomery Place was compact and well recorded. In 1802, Janet Montgomery, the blunt-faced Revolutionary War widow who watched over the library from a rococo frame, had commissioned a Federal-style mansion and opened a farm and plant nursery. She left the estate to her brother. After his death, his wife


that you are a young lady." "I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It's bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and manners! I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it's worse than ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home and knit, like a poky old woman!" And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets, and her ball bounded across the room. "Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls," said Beth, stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting in the world could not make ungentle in its touch. "As for you, Amy," continued Meg, "you are altogether to particular and prim. Your airs are funny now, but you'll grow up an affected little goose, if you don't take care. I I like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking, when you don't try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo's slang." "If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?" asked Beth, ready to share the lecture. "You're a dear, and nothing else," answered Meg warmly, and no one contradicted her, for the `Mouse' was the pet of the family. As young readers like to know `how people look', we will take this moment to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable room,though the carpet was faded and the furniture very plain, for a good picture or two hung on the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded it. Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a fly-away look to


the nearest in the world not so far up, was in consequence nearer to the ship and fell to missing me altogether; it held me by a mere pinch of skin, between me and the bulwarks. He rose once to the surface in and this the shudder tore away. The blood ran down the a lather of foam and blood and then sank again for good. As faster, to be sure, but I was my own master again and only the water settled, I could see him lying huddled together on tacked to the mast by my coat and shirt. the clean, bright sand in the shadow of the vessel’s sides. A These last I broke through with a sudden jerk, and then fish or two whipped past his body. Sometimes, by the quiv- regained the deck by the starboard shrouds. For nothing in ering of the water, he appeared to move a little, as if he were the world would I have again ventured, shaken as I was, upon the overhanging port shrouds from which Israel had so lately Contents trying to rise. But he was dead enough, for all that, being both shot and drowned, and was food for fish in the very fallen. place where he had designed my slaughter. I went below and did what I could for my wound; it Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 220 221 pained me a good deal and still bled freely, but it was neither cordage had begun to sing a little softly to itself and the idle deep nor dangerous, nor did it greatly gall me when I used sails to rattle to and fro. my arm. Then I looked around me, and as the ship was now, I began to see a danger to the ship. The jibs I speedily in a sense, my own, I began to think of clearing it from its last doused and brought tumbling to the deck, but the main-sail passenger—the dead man, O’Brien. was a harder matter. Of course, when the schooner canted He had pitched, as I have said, against the bulwarks, where over, the boom had swung out-board, and the cap of it and a he lay like some horrible, ungainly sort of puppet, life-size, foot or two of sail hung even under water. I thought this indeed, but how different from life’s colour or life’s comeli- made it still more dangerous; yet the strain was so heavy that ness! In that position I could easily have my way with him, I half feared to meddle. At last I got my knife and cut the and as the habit of tragical adventures had worn off almost all halyards. The peak dropped instantly, a great belly of loose my terror for the dead, I took him by the waist as if he had canvas floated broad upon the water, and since, pull as I liked, been a sack of bran and with one good heave, tumbled him I could not budge the downhall, that was the extent of what overboard. He went in


with a geological age of duct tape, and propped my elbows on the sticky tabletop. I peered at him, trying to get “state legislator” out of that scruff. “So when did you get respectable?” “Oh, it’s just an act,” he said jokingly. “Guess it finally occurred to me that I could stay here or I could do something with my life, but it couldn’t be both. So I took off. Got a degree. Met Gabriella.” “That’s your wife?” I asked. He nodded. “Her dad was a state senator, and talking to him, I realized I actually had some opinions to go along with my fancy degree. I ran and for some goddamn reason people voted for me, and here we are.” “You make it sound like you had hardly anything to do with it,” I said. Miss Butterfly showed up with our drinks. The bar had started stocking some hipster-approved microbrews to suit the tourists, so I’d indulged in the snootiest-looking IPA on the chalkboard, in honor of Mitch. Cody stuck with a can of Rainier, the ancestors of which had littered the hangout spots of our youth. “Gotta maintain my local credibility,” he said as he poured. “So how shocked are you that I’m all respectable now?” “A little,” I conceded. “I wouldn’t think they’d let a guy who got into as much trouble as you did become a politician.” “You know, weirdly, none of our hijinks ever led to official records,” Cody said, scratching his chin as if puzzled. “If you’re going to do crime, do it with the mayor’s son?” I suggested. Nothing ever seemed to stick to Oscar. He was his father’s only son and heir, the town prince. Even Cass worshipped him. And whenever he did piss anyone off, he always managed to charm his way out of it—or his father stepped in. “Well, I didn’t have your poker face, so I didn’t have the option of lying my way out,” he said. “You’re not still mad that I cleaned you out, are you?” I asked, laughing. “That was my gas money,” he said in mock outrage. I’d forgotten all about that—him teaching me poker in the hospital, until the nurses kicked him out. “Or how about the time you convinced the whole town your dad had cancer, so they’d give you free stuff?” I winced. “Not my finest hour.” I’d kept that ruse up for four months before my dad caught on. But since we were getting free pizza out of it, he let it keep going for another six weeks. I’d been such a wreck in high school. Maybe that was inevitable. Cody had saved me from the woods, but he couldn’t save me from myself. I picked at the label on my beer, peeling it from the glass. “I guess being a hero didn’t hurt your campaign.” “It came up,” Cody said. “But never because I brought it up. I wouldn’t use you like that.” “You earned whatever you can get out of it, as far as I’m concerned,” I told him quietly. He


woods, and earth, and moonlight, and the thrill of battle. Over the whiteness and silence brooded a ghostly calm. There was not the faintest whisper of air--nothing moved, not a leaf quivered, the visible breaths of the dogs rising slowly and lingering in the frosty air. They had made short work of the snowshoe rabbit, these dogs that were ill-tamed wolves; and they were now drawn up in an expectant circle. They, too, were silent, their eyes only gleaming and their breaths drifting slowly upward. To Buck it was nothing new or strange, this scene of old time. It was as though it had always been, the wonted way of things. Spitz was a practised fighter. From Spitzbergen through the Arctic, and across Canada and the Barrens, he had held his own with all manner of dogs and achieved to mastery over them. Bitter rage was his, but never blind rage. In passion to rend and destroy, he never forgot that his enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy. He never rushed till he was prepared to receive a rush; never attacked till he had first defended that attack. In vain Buck strove to sink his teeth in the neck of the big white dog. Wherever his fangs struck for the softer flesh, they were countered by the fangs of Spitz. Fang clashed fang, and lips were cut and bleeding, but Buck could not penetrate his enemy's guard. Then he warmed up and enveloped Spitz in a whirlwind of rushes. Time and time again he tried for the snow-white throat, where life bubbled near to the surface, and each time and every time Spitz slashed him and got away. Then Buck took to rushing, as though for the throat, when, suddenly drawing back his head and curving in from the side, he would drive his shoulder at the shoulder of Spitz, as a ram by which to overthrow him. But instead, Buck's shoulder was slashed down each time as Spitz leaped lightly away. Spitz was untouched, while Buck was streaming with blood and panting hard. The fight was growing desperate. And all the while the silent and wolfish circle waited to finish off whichever dog went down. As Buck grew winded, Spitz took to rushing, and he kept him staggering for footing. Once Buck went over, and the whole circle of sixty dogs started up; but he recovered himself, almost in mid air, and the circle sank down again and waited. But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness-- imagination. He fought by instinct, but he could fight by head as well. He rushed, as though attempting the old shoulder trick, but at the last instant swept low to the snow and in. His teeth closed on Spitz's left fore leg. There was a crunch of breaking bone, and the white dog faced him on three legs. Thrice he tried to knock him over, then repeated the trick and broke the right fore leg. Despite the pain and helplessness, Spitz struggled madly to keep up. He saw the silent


to the lad, for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary. Twice or thrice Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury. He seized his stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it. At last our curate (we had a curate then, who made the living answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws and farming his bit of land himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr. Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said, "Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered." I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements, as he would have it that it did. Really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people---Miss Cathy and Joseph the servant. You saw him, I dare say, up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self- righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neigh- bours. By his knack of sermonizing and pious dis- coursing he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in wor- rying him about his soul's concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and night after night he regu- larly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heath- cliff and Catherine, always minding to flatter Earn- shaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter. Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day. From the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to bed we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mis- chief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going---singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wicked slip she was; but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish. And, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet, that you might comfort her. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him; yet she got chided more than any of us on his account.


with a smirk. “You know what I’m here for.” “You aren’t getting him. He’s under my protection.” “When did you decide to start taking in strays, Nalyssa? It certainly wasn’t yesterday, or the day before that, when half the gangs in the Silts were banging on doors for help. How many dead bodies will I find on your safe haven’s roof?” The elder woman gritted her teeth. “We had to protect ourselves. Me and my people distill alcohol—we weren’t prepared for warfare like you were.” “Warfare? Look at my people’s faces.” Bianca threw an arm around one of the youngest boys and pulled his head close to her own, almost in a headlock. He startled but amiably went along with it. “Children. The kids of the people that you and all these other cowards let die on your very roofs. The Silts are drenched in red, Nalyssa, and that blood is on your hands.” “I didn’t kill them.” “You didn’t save them, either.” Bianca cocked her head in that predatory way. “I need him to end this. Consider this a loan. Whatever bargain you struck with him, I will pay you double to let me rent his services for a day.” “You aren’t getting him, Bianca. Not unless you go through me first.” “Fine, then.” And with an elegant swing of her iron bar, Bianca struck the woman once on the side of the head. She went down like a rock. For a moment, the red particles around her bloomed, then began settling on her unconscious body, like the ashes of quiet embers. Bianca shouted up at the building, “There’s no need for more bloodshed, people. Give him to me and I promise I won’t rip this door to shreds and every one of you with it.” Thunder boomed overhead as if in answer: Rip it, rip it, rip them. It didn’t take long for the people in the distillery to answer. Up came the shutters, and a man was pushed roughly through the narrow opening. He was hauled upright from the slick cobblestones by Bianca’s people. Io pulled on the Quilt—but nothing appeared. No threads of silver, no sources of light. This wasn’t her dream. It was Bianca’s, and it was through Bianca’s eyes she was seeing this memory. Io couldn’t alter or affect it in any way. Alarm shot through her veins. She had no control here, no way to get out if things got ugly. And things were looking pretty ugly. “Konstantin Fyodorov,” Edei whispered, squinting at the man’s round face and graying hair. The wraiths’ first victim, a chernobog-born who worked as a border guard. Bianca came close, pressing her iron bar to his chest. “Konstantin, dear, what took you so long? I require your assistance to end this.” “You don’t need me,” the man pleaded. “You and your people can manage it on your own.” “So thought all the other mob bosses that now lie dead on the roofs.” Bianca tapped his jaw lightly with her knuckles. “No, if we’re going to end this, we need your


at noon, just before Alice returned from the mountain. “I can come back tomorrow,” she said. “Let’s stick to Wednesdays,” Alice said. The following week, Maud worked faster and harder, trying to get the middle of the field done, rolling out the thick sheets of plastic. “Spotted a whale,” Alice said, passing by as Maud hammered in stakes. “There’s a view of the ocean?” Maud said. “There’s a hell of a view of the ocean. You want lunch when you’re done?” “Sure,” Maud said. She had plenty of time before she needed to pick up Ella and Louise. “I’m going to the library to read,” Alice said. “The table will be set at twelve.” The table, it turned out, was metaphorical. As Maud carried the leftover plastic sheeting to the car, she saw Alice come out on the porch with two bowls. “Lunch,” she yelled. The bowl Alice handed her was filled with grains Maud didn’t recognize, crushed nuts, and dates, all swimming in a glumpy sauce. “Enjoy,” Alice said. She tore a date in half and shared it with Clark. Maud sat down next to her on the bench. They seemed, already, to have entered a new phase. Alice no longer appeared interested in challenging Maud, as if some hesitation had been laid to rest. But as they ate, she didn’t utter a single word. “Is this cumin I taste?” Maud said, three-quarters of the way through her bowl. “I like it with the cashews. I’ll tell my husband. He’s been making Indian food lately.” “Correct.” Alice glanced over. “Are you worried I want to sleep with you?” “No,” Maud said. “Why?” “You seem nervous. And you just flashed the husband badge.” “I was just trying to make conversation.” “That’s why people shouldn’t try to make conversation,” Alice said. “They can suggest a subtext they don’t mean.” She fed Clark another date. “For the record, when you walked into that conference room, I knew you couldn’t be straighter.” “I’m sure I could be straighter,” Maud said, feeling strangely hurt. “Sorry.” Alice ran her finger inside her bowl and licked off the sauce. “I didn’t mean anything by that. Except that I’m not trying to sleep with you. I have a lover. And other lovers. I don’t need to make a play for a straight woman who doesn’t wear a wedding ring.” “I don’t wear it when I work,” Maud said. “Uh-huh,” Alice said. They went back to eating in silence until Alice looked over at her contemplatively and said, “Have you ever slept with a woman?” “Not completely.” “What, just waist-up? Wearing a blindfold?” “A couple of make-out sessions,” Maud said. “Liberal arts college experimentation.” It was embarrassing to remember how liberated she’d felt at the time. She set her bowl on her lap. “How does it work? Having a lover and other lovers?” Alice was picking a piece of kale from her teeth. “My partner and I sleep with other people.” “I mean emotionally.” “It works well.” Alice looked at her as if she’d asked an unanswerable question. “It’s not


the landing halfway up and was therefore on the spot nearest the window, where at sight of me, it stopped short and fixed me exactly as it had fixed me from the tower and from the garden. He knew me as well as I knew him; and so, in the cold, faint twilight, with a glimmer in the high glass and another on the polish of the oak stair below, we faced each other in our common intensity. He was absolutely, on this occasion, a living, detestable, dangerous presence. But that was not the wonder of wonders; I reserve this distinction for quite another circumstance: the circumstance that dread had unmistakably quitted me and that there was nothing in me there that didn't meet and measure him. I had plenty of anguish after that extraordinary moment, but I had, thank God, no terror. And he knew I had not--I found myself at the end of an instant magnificently aware of this. I felt, in a fierce rigor of confidence, that if I stood my ground a minute I should cease--for the time, at least-- to have him to reckon with; and during the minute, accordingly, the thing was as human and hideous as a real interview: hideous just because it WAS human, as human as to have met alone, in the small hours, in a sleeping house, some enemy, some adventurer, some criminal. It was the dead silence of our long gaze at such close quarters that gave the whole horror, huge as it was, its only note of the unnatural. If I had met a murderer in such a place and at such an hour, we still at least would have spoken. Something would have passed, in life, between us; if nothing had passed, one of us would have moved. The moment was so prolonged that it would have taken but little more to make me doubt if even _I_ were in life. I can't express what followed it save by saying that the silence itself-- which was indeed in a manner an attestation of my strength-- became the element into which I saw the figure disappear; in which I definitely saw it turn as I might have seen the low wretch to which it had once belonged turn on receipt of an order, and pass, with my eyes on the villainous back that no hunch could have more disfigured, straight down the staircase and into the darkness in which the next bend was lost. X I remained awhile at the top of the stair, but with the effect presently of understanding that when my visitor had gone, he had gone: then I returned to my room. The foremost thing I saw there by the light of the candle I had left burning was that Flora's little bed was empty; and on this I caught my breath with all the terror that, five minutes before, I had been able to resist. I dashed at the place in which I had left her lying and over which (for the small silk counterpane


do. Now, can you tell me whether it is actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don't laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago and said that in a month you would be his wife."     "He has said the same thing to me," I replied.     "He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?"     "Yes."     She looked at me bewildered.     "I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters were proud; and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always been called careful. He means to marry you?"     "He tells me so."     She surveyed my whole person. In her eyes I read that they had there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.     "It passes me!" she continued;" but no doubt it is true since you say so. How it will answer I cannot tell; I really don't know. Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your father."     "No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!" exclaimed I, nettled; "he is nothing like my father! No one who saw us together would suppose it for an instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at five-and-twenty."     "Is it really for love he is going to marry you?" she asked.     I was so hurt by her coldness and skepticism that the tears rose to my eyes.     "I am sorry to grieve you," pursued the widow; "but you are so young and so little acquainted with men I wished to put you on your guard. It is an old saying that 'all is not gold that glitters;' and in this case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or I expect."     "Why am I a monster?" I said;" is it impossible that Mr. Rochester should have a sincere affection for me?"     "No; you are very well, and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I dare say, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you were a sort of pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your guard: but I did not like to suggest even the possibility of wrong. I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell you what I suffered when I sought all over the house and could


up. Jonah rocks back and forth in his swivel chair. “It’s so messed up. I can’t even imagine ever laying a hand on my old man. You know? Your parent.” “But my dad and I are pretty close,” Jonah adds, filling the void of his partner’s silence. “I guess everyone isn’t so lucky.” Ethan recalls his father’s reaction when he told him he was becoming a cop, instead of taking the bar exam after law school. When his dad all but wrote him off. “You have a good relationship with your dad?” “He passed earlier this year.” Jonah stops rocking. “I’m sorry.” “Thanks.” Ethan stares at the edge of his desk. “He never liked me being a cop.” Jonah goes quiet, as if waiting for him to elaborate. “He was a defense attorney. Thought all cops were crooked and power hungry. And…” Ethan sighs. “He eventually wanted me to take over his legal firm. But I had to go my own way. Couldn’t spend my life living out someone else’s dream, right?” He vowed to be a good father if he ever got the chance. And he saw the toll running a law firm had taken on his dad—and their family. Ironically, he’d chosen a career that was just as demanding, if not more. “No, you can’t.” Jonah stands and pulls on his coat. “Ready?” “Yeah.” Ethan closes his laptop, grateful for a distraction from second-guessing his move to bail on Sloane tonight. Chapter 6 Sloane’s thoughts are consumed with Ethan as she drives across the floating bridge over Lake Washington. She slows beside the spotlights from the night construction crew, feeling like her impending indiscretion is on display for the world to see. She nearly smiles at the thought. After taking the Medina exit, she follows her GPS through the exclusive lakefront community that is home to some of the world's richest tech entrepreneurs. She slows her Porsche to a stop in front of the gated entrance to Brody’s waterfront home. She’s debating whether to press the button on the intercom when the gate rolls open. She takes a steadying breath and drives down the long winding road, passing a lit-up tennis court on her right before coming to a large circular drive. She stares up at the house without getting out of her car. The white two-story, L-shaped mansion accented with a black front door to match its dark windowpanes is even more opulent than she expected. Its flat roof and clean, square lines boast of its modern architecture. Maybe I should go home. Ethan had already heard her on the phone with Brody, and it only managed to push him farther away. She puts her car in reverse just as Brody opens the front door. He’s wearing jeans and a fitted polo shirt. Seeing him step out onto the front porch, Sloane throws her car into park and kills the engine. Going home isn’t the answer. Ethan needs to feel what she felt when he slept with his partner. He has to taste the fear of losing Sloane forever


him to expel urine or fecal matter as you do. Gio does not have a penis or an anus.” Vic glared at her. “I don’t need to know that.” “Why? It is the truth. He does not. You are the only one here with genitalia. There is nothing to fear about them, or the lack of them. It is what it is.” “Do I have an anus?” Rambo asked. “No,” Nurse Ratched said. “But you are one, so.” Rambo beeped in confusion. “I thought I was a vacuum.” “You are. An anal vacuum.” “Huh,” Rambo said. “I like learning new things.” Vic looked down at the android. They had removed his shirt a couple of days before. The chest was smooth, the skin tight where it wasn’t damaged. Like Dad, he didn’t have nipples or a belly button. The waist of his pants sat low on his hips, and Vic looked away again. He was uncomfortable in a way he had never experienced before. He couldn’t name it. It was ambiguous, an odd pressure in the back of his head. “I can do it,” Nurse Ratched said. “Victor, if you need, you can turn around or leave the laboratory. I can continue myself and let you know once I have finished.” Vic swallowed thickly. “No. We’ve come this far.” It took some doing to remove the pants. Nurse Ratched had wanted to cut them off, but Vic didn’t think they had anything to fit the android when—if— it woke up. They managed to remove the pants without tearing them. Vic kept his gaze averted, oddly grateful when they came off and he was given the excuse to fold them and place them with the shirt and duster they’d removed earlier. “Just as I expected,” Nurse Ratched said. “No genitalia, though there is a small raised area near the groin. Resuming testing.” Vic stayed facing the work bench, gripping the edges of it with his hands. He worked up the courage to look back only once in time to see the hips jump slightly when Nurse Ratched shocked them. She was right: there were no genitalia. The pale skin was smooth, though it did have what looked like a lump raised at the groin. Vic didn’t know if that was meant to denote the android was male. There didn’t appear to be any skin damage. Vic was relieved. It meant he wouldn’t have to try to fix that too. “There,” Nurse Ratched said finally. “Finished. Rambo, help me with the tarp. Pull it up to his hips.” He heard them moving behind him, unfurling the tarp once more. “Done.” Vic turned around. The tarp covered the android’s legs and groin. “Well?” Nurse Ratched’s screen filled with an image of the android, spinning slowly from front to back in a muted green color. The image enhanced to zoom in on the arm they’d repaired. “This will be slightly weaker than he is used to.” It moved down to the foot. “This as well. Neither are the parts he was built with. I do not


and Korba returning." "All right, Stil," Paul said. "We'll go back." But he took one final look around through the telescope -- studying the plain with its tall ships, the gleaming metal hutment, the silent city, the frigates of the Harkonnen mercenaries. Then he slid backward around a scarp of rock. His place at the telescope was taken by a Fedaykin guardsman. Paul emerged into a shallow depression in the Shield Wall's surface. It was a place about thirty meters in diameter and some three meters deep, a natural feature of the rock that the Fremen had hidden beneath a translucent camouflage cover. Communications equipment was clustered around a hole in the wall to the right. Fedaykin guards deployed through the depression waited for Muad'Dib's command to attack. Two men emerged from the hole by the communications equipment, spoke to the guards there. Paul glanced at Stilgar, nodded in the direction of the two men. "Get their report, Stil." Stilgar moved to obey. Paul crouched with his back to the rock, stretching his muscles, straightened. He saw Stilgar sending the two men back into that dark hole in the rock, thought about the long climb down that narrow man-made tunnel to the floor of the basin. Stilgar crossed to Paul. "What was so important that they couldn't send a cielago with the message?" Paul asked. "They're saving their birds for the battle," Stilgar said. He glanced at the communications equipment, back to Paul. "Even with a tight beam, it is wrong to use those things, Muad'Dib. They can find you by taking a bearing on its emission." "They'll soon be too busy to find me," Paul said. "What did the men report?" "Our pet Sardaukar have been released near Old Gap low on the rim and are on their way to their master. The rocket launchers and other projectile weapons are in place. The people are deployed as you ordered. It was all routine." Paul glanced across the shallow bowl, studying his men in the filtered light admitted by the camouflage cover. He felt time creeping like an insect working its way across an exposed rock. "It'll take our Sardaukar a little time afoot before they can signal a troop carrier," Paul said. "They are being watched?" "They are being watched," Stilgar said. Beside Paul, Gurney Halleck cleared his throat. "Hadn't we best be getting to a place of safety?" "There is no such place," Paul said. "Is the weather report still favorable?" "A great grandmother of a storm coming," Stilgar said. "Can you not feel it, Muad'Dib?" "The air does feel chancy," Paul agreed. "But I like the certainty of poling the weather." "The storm'll be here in the hour," Stilgar said. He nodded toward the gap that looked out on the Emperor's hutment and the Harkonnen frigates. "They know it there, too. Not a 'thopter in the sky. Everything pulled in and tied down. They've had a report on the weather from their friends in space." "Any more probing sorties?" Paul asked. "Nothing since the landing last night," Stilgar said.


told Ava at the Fortuna. But Ava had chosen her sisters, one soul split in three bodies and all that. Io couldn’t help the twinge of guilt she felt regarding Bianca’s arrest; Ava must be devastated. She slipped into an empty seat next to Edei, trying to catch Ava’s eyes, but her sister appeared to be ignoring her. Gods, she couldn’t really be angry at Io, could she? “Hey,” Edei said. His face split into a tired smile. He was wearing a black sweater and had puffy circles under his eyes, as though he had barely slept last night on Amos’s couch, where he had crashed. “Hey.” Her heart did a little backflip in her chest. Her palms were legitimately sweating, like she was in a romance novel. She was all too aware that she had bedhead and her sweater was one of Amos’s, gigantic and a fuzzy orange, also known as the least flattering color on earth. “Coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, he poured her a cup from the kettle at the center of the table and placed a slice of babka on the saucer. “So . . .” Thais said coyly, and, to Io’s mortification, wiggled a finger between her and Edei. “When did this happen?” Io wished the ground would open and swallow her. Or rather, she wished to be Rosa. One touch and bam! Thais would faint headfirst into the pastries. Another and bam! Edei’s drooling on his shoulder. It’d make her escape so much less trouble. She hastened to answer, “You’ve got the wrong idea, we’re just working together, Edei has a girlfriend, Samiya, you might have met her at one of the Initiative meetups.” It all came out in a breathless rush. After a beat, Edei replied, sounding a little confused, “I don’t have a girlfriend.” What? That was all Io could think. What? “I mean, um,” he continued, “Samiya used to be my girlfriend. But she’s not anymore. For almost a year now.” The table was deathly silent. Then, thankfully, Ava spoke from the window. “But you live together.” He squirmed, like the very act of speaking pained him. “Yeah, we decided it’d be a good temporary solution until Samiya gets her resident status. She’s not allowed to lease a place on her own yet. She’s been dating another doctor for a few months now. That was him, at the rally,” he told Io, and she recalled how acutely uncomfortable he had been. “I thought people knew.” “People didn’t know,” Ava said. “I’m so sorry,” Thais said, hand over her heart. “You two make a good team, and, obviously, I misunderstood.” Dear gods, this was awkward. Io could sense everyone gazing at her: Thais and Ava, who knew about the fate-thread; Amos, who thought Edei liked her; Edei, who . . . was expecting some kind of answer from her? She made herself nod. “No worries, Thais. We do make a good team.” Edei stuffed a pastry into his mouth. Ava glared daggers at Io, disapproval in her gaze. Thais reached for the kettle,