him were out, it would not be forgotten that the dog was missing, and had probably gone with him. This might lead to his apprehension as he passed along the streets. He resolved to drown him, and walked on, looking about for a pond: picking up a heavy stone and tying it to his handerkerchief as he went. The animal looked up into his master's face while these preparations were making; whether his instinct apprehended something of their purpose, or the robber's sidelong look at him was sterner than ordinary, he skulked a little farther in the rear than usual, and cowered as he came more slowly along. When his master halted at the brink of a pool, and looked round to call him, he stopped outright. 'Do you hear me call? Come here!' cried Sikes. The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes stooped to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and started back. 'Come back!' said the robber. The dog wagged his tail, but moved not. Sikes made a running noose and called him again. The dog advanced, retreated, paused an instant, and scoured away at his hardest speed. The man whistled again and again, and sat down and waited in the expectation that he would return. But no dog appeared, and at length he resumed his journey. CHAPTER XLIX MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION, AND THE INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT The twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow alighted from a hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly. The door being opened, a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed himself on one side of the steps, while another man, who had been seated on the box, dismounted too, and stood upon the other side. At a sign from Mr. Brownlow, they helped out a third man, and taking him between them, hurried him into the house. This man was Monks. They walked in the same manner up the stairs without speaking, and Mr. Brownlow, preceding them, led the way into a back-room. At the door of this apartment, Monks, who had ascended with evident reluctance, stopped. The two men looked at the old gentleman as if for instructions. 'He knows the alternative,' said Mr. Browlow. 'If he hesitates or moves a finger but as you bid him, drag him into the street, call for the aid of the police, and impeach him as a felon in my name.' 'How dare you say this of me?' asked Monks. 'How dare you urge me to it, young man?' replied Mr. Brownlow, confronting him with a steady look. 'Are you mad enough to leave this house? Unhand him. There, sir. You are free to go, and we to follow. But I warn you, by all I hold most solemn and most sacred, that instant will have you apprehended on a charge of fraud and robbery. I am resolute and immoveable. If you are determined to be the same, your blood be upon


to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different lives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence; --even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulf-weed in their new-born sight. floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in girth. He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow. The delicate side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign parts. Line! line! cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; him fast! him fast! --Who line him! Who struck? Two whale; one big, one little! What ails ye, man? cried Starbuck. Look-e here, said Queequeg pointing down. As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas .. <p 387 > seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan amours in the deep. And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there i still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is sometimes the custom when fast to a


Bastian swept her up into the dance again, the tight line of his jaw a stark contrast to fluid movement. “I leave, and you just stay a prisoner in the Citadel? You hope August doesn’t try to kill you again, that Anton doesn’t find a way to use you like a weapon? Those two will never come to any kind of peace, and you will always be in the middle of it.” “Notice all of that has to do with me, not you.” “Dammit, Lore, do you not get it?” He spun her with greater force than necessary, cinched his arm around her waist and jerked her close. “I told you in the catacombs. We’re in this together, somehow, you and me and Remaut, too, even though I fucking hate that. I can’t just abandon you here, even if I wanted to. Even if it’d save my hide.” “If?” Half a laugh bubbled in her throat, but when it came out, it was indistinguishable from the beginning of a sob. “Abandoning me would absolutely save your hide.” “And yet.” The dance ended; they stood motionless, still locked together. “You’re stuck with me. Whatever comes next.” Whatever comes next. She looked up. The sun was low in the sky. Movement at the front of the atrium, behind August’s throne. Severin Bellegarde slipped through a small door, dressed just as dourly as usual. He stepped to the side, not attracting attention, and waited next to the potted poison flowers with his hands clasped behind his back. August stood from his throne, as if Bellegarde’s entrance had been a sign. He raised his hands, the picture of a benevolent ruler. “Thank you for joining us,” he said, in tones clearly meant as a dismissal. “Tomorrow will mark the beginning of a triumphant new era for Auverraine. I can feel it.” He smiled. “Even the darkness can be wielded to strengthen the light.” Polite applause from the gathered crowd. Then the courtiers gave their goodbyes, filtering out of the atrium in a bright parade. A few cast curious looks over their shoulders, eyeing those who remained, but none of them seemed to think it was anything strange. Lore resisted the urge to scream at them, to see if someone would turn and help, if they would notice something bad was happening and be inspired to stop it. But none of them would. The Sainted King had spoken, and his word was better than law. Once they’d gone, only about twenty people were left. Lore recognized Bellegarde, Alie, and a few of the Presque Mort, who must’ve shown up at some point while she was arguing with Bastian. Not all of them. Some had been sent with Malcolm to inspect the village that had been wiped out yesterday. She couldn’t help wondering what metrics Anton had used to decide who would stay and who would go. Dani and Amelia stood near the wine fountain with a handful of people Lore took to be their family. Any trace of friendship that had been on Dani’s face at that


him down. “This is Andor. He made the delivery last night. Tell him, Andor.” The kid says he made the delivery last night. “But the guy never came to the door. No tip.” “Andor!” “Sorry, Mom.” “You’re not supposed to leave food. If they don’t come to the door we bring it back. Keep it warm.” “But he called out to leave it.” That’s interesting. “You sure about that?” “Pretty sure. I knocked, he didn’t answer. I knocked again and he said to leave the food.” “Him or someone else?” “I…guess it could have been either.” “Andor!” “No, he’s right, Mrs.—” What did she say the name was? “Adami. Through a door, one sentence like that, he can’t know whose voice. Not to be sure. That’s important. Thank you, Andor.” “S’okay.” He gets up to go. I lay a couple of bills on the table. “Since you didn’t get a tip.” Leave my finger on the top one. “You think there was someone else in there? Or was he by himself?” “Someone else. I figured it was his girlfriend. I thought there was, uh,” a glance at his mother, “kinda heavy breathing. Like if someone had been, uh, getting a lot of exercise.” She scowls, and he takes flight. “Do your chores!” “Yes, Mom.” The kitchen door closes. “Good kid.” She smiles then, like sunrise. I go outside and think about Roddy Tebbit ordering food before killing himself, and Roddy Tebbit sitting in his chair overlooking the city, and Roddy Tebbit dead on the carpet, and I think about someone breathing heavy enough to be heard outside by a kid who had other things on his mind. * * * — Musgrave’s office is on the first floor, with the mortuary right alongside. The entire south wall is made of white smoked glass so the autopsy room can use natural light. The other wall is the cadaver bank, row upon row of square doors with corpses stored behind them one on top of the other like a library of grief. I put my head round the door and say: “Hi, Musgrave.” “No DNA on your earring,” Musgrave says. “I’m fine, thanks.” “If you wait, I’ll give you my first impressions.” “Hey, Tidbo, does she talk to you like you’re a real person?” Tidbo, the chain of evidence sergeant, looks up from his magazine and says: “Oh, shit, no.” “Hi, Felton.” Detective Felton raises his middle finger. It’s like he’s toMAHto and I’m toMAYto. “Fuck you doing here?” Felton says. “Roddy Tebbit.” “The suicide?” Tidbo says. “Okay, if you like. But he’s a Titan, so here I am.” “What makes you think he’s not just a big guy?” “He’s ninety years old, Felton, so yeah, he’s a big guy because someone jacked him up with T7 sometime.” “Fuck the Titans and fuck you.” “That is the general consensus.” “Take your general and consensually shove it—” “Oh Jesus, shut up!” Musgrave says. “Felton, he was a Titan. One dose, for services rendered. Contractual perk, for God’s sake. I never saw that before. Sounder, stop


we hobbled away together, I always felt such love for

him, and I sensed love in return, but also some embarrassment. I was half

Willy’s size, half his weight. I was the younger brother: he was supposed to

save me, not the other way around.

Over time the scraps became more pitched. Small-arms fire was

introduced. We’d hurl Roman candles at each other, make rocket launchers

from golf-ball tubes, stage night battles with two of us defending a stone

pillbox in the middle of an open field. I can still smell the smoke and hear

the hiss as a projectile rocketed towards a victim, whose only armor would

be a puffer jacket, some wool mittens, maybe some ski goggles, though

often not.

Our arms race accelerated. As they do. We began to use BB guns. At

close range. How was no one maimed? How did no one lose an eye?

One day all six of us were walking in the woods near their house, looking

for squirrels and pigeons to cull. There was an old army Land Rover. Willy

and the boys smiled.

Harold, jump in, drive away, and we'll shoot you.

With what?

Shotgun.

No, thanks.

We’re loading. Either get in and drive or we shoot you right here.

I jumped in, drove away.

Moments later, bang. Buckshot rattling off the back.

I cackled and hit the accelerator.

Somewhere on their estate was a construction site. (Hugh and Emilie

were building a new house.) This became the setting for possibly our fiercest

battle. It was around dusk. One brother was in the shell of the new house,

taking heavy fire. When he retreated we bombarded him with rockets.

63

https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.me/Afghansalarlibrary

And then...he was gone.

Wheres Nick?

We shone a torch. No Nick.

We marched forward, steadily, came upon a giant hole in the ground,

almost like a square well, alongside


please! So that, in short, I was quite distracted, and raved about the drawing-room. I thought I had killed her, this time. I sprinkled water on her face. I went down on my knees. I plucked at my hair. I denounced myself as a remorseless brute and a ruthless beast. I implored her forgiveness. I besought her to look up. I ravaged Miss Mills's work-box for a smelling-bottle, and in my agony of mind applied an ivory needle-case instead, and dropped all the needles over Dora. I shook my fists at Jip, who was as frantic as myself. I did every wild extravagance that could be done, and was a long way beyond the end of my wits when Miss Mills came into the room. 'Who has done this?' exclaimed Miss Mills, succouring her friend. I replied, 'I, Miss Mills! I have done it! Behold the destroyer!' - or words to that effect - and hid my face from the light, in the sofa cushion. At first Miss Mills thought it was a quarrel, and that we were verging on the Desert of Sahara; but she soon found out how matters stood, for my dear affectionate little Dora, embracing her, began exclaiming that I was 'a poor labourer'; and then cried for me, and embraced me, and asked me would I let her give me all her money to keep, and then fell on Miss Mills's neck, sobbing as if her tender heart were broken. Miss Mills must have been born to be a blessing to us. She ascertained from me in a few words what it was all about, comforted Dora, and gradually convinced her that I was not a labourer - from my manner of stating the case I believe Dora concluded that I was a navigator, and went balancing myself up and down a plank all day with a wheelbarrow - and so brought us together in peace. When we were quite composed, and Dora had gone up-stairs to put some rose-water to her eyes, Miss Mills rang for tea. In the ensuing interval, I told Miss Mills that she was evermore my friend, and that my heart must cease to vibrate ere I could forget her sympathy. I then expounded to Miss Mills what I had endeavoured, so very unsuccessfully, to expound to Dora. Miss Mills replied, on general principles, that the Cottage of content was better than the Palace of cold splendour, and that where love was, all was. I said to Miss Mills that this was very true, and who should know it better than I, who loved Dora with a love that never mortal had experienced yet? But on Miss Mills observing, with despondency, that it were well indeed for some hearts if this were so, I explained that I begged leave to restrict the observation to mortals of the masculine gender. I then put it to Miss Mills, to say whether she considered that there was or was not any practical merit in the suggestion I had been anxious to make, concerning the accounts,


the mud, blinded by the tears and mud on her face. She heard a roar of anger, far closer than it should have been. The boat was just ahead, all she had to do was reach the ladder— Fingers in her hair, yanking. Raina’s leg connecting with her stomach, then pain. The world went white. She gasped for air. Distantly, she was aware of the wraith pushing a knee against her chest. Of her terrible thread reaching for Io’s throat, silver flashing like a scythe. “Justice always comes, sooner or later,” Raina crooned. And then there was the bang of a gun being fired. The weight shifted—and disappeared altogether. Io closed her eyes and tried to force air into her lungs. In, out. In. Out. Hands were helping her sit up. Someone cupped her cheeks. A muffled voice kept saying her name. Her eyes flew open. Edei was kneeling in the mud in front of her, Nico a few paces behind. He was holding her, palms soft against her skin. He was talking. “I got you. I got you.” PART II ONE TO DRAW CHAPTER XIII WE ORA SISTERS HE HAD FELT the tug of the thread. He didn’t say as much, but Io knew. He had already been on the way to the Docks, after hustling their location out of Ava, and he had sensed this strange pull in his chest. A hunch, he’d said, because unlike Io, he had no idea what bound them together. He had trailed it to the fighting den, stumbled onto a frantic Nico, then heard Horatio’s screams and run to find Io gasping for air in the mud beneath the wraith’s knee. Nico had shot in the air—thank the gods he still carried his revolver—and the wraith had scattered. Edei had sent Nico to alert Bianca about the new wraith and brought Io straight to his apartment. He hadn’t given her the chance to refuse, practically dragging her to safety. Now she sat on the floor of his living room, having washed in his shower, wearing his girlfriend’s warm clothes while hers dried. On the short table in front of her sat a gorgeous tea set, steaming its sweet aroma in the room. Koshary shai from Sumi, he had said as he prepared it. I added a few mint leaves. On the countertop, his knife sliced back and forth rhythmically. He was making her dinner. Edei Rhuna, her fated thread, was making her dinner. “Do you eat spicy food?” he asked over his shoulder. “I eat everything,” Io replied. She didn’t like everything, but she ate it all the same. Knees tucked under her chin, fingers running through her wet hair, Io watched him chop and mix and grind things into the pan. He was favoring his right side. “How is your shoulder?” “It’s fine. Hurts, but I can take it.” The statement pretty much summed up their lives, didn’t it? A hundred different things tumbled to the tip of her tongue. You told Nico to watch after me. You came running to the Docks.


to act up to it." "Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal exertion, it could not be an equal conviction." "Oh, the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his life." "Our amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him by this time, of following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for the fears of the child, but not of the man. As he became rational, he ought to have roused himself and shaken off all that was unworthy in their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there would have been no difficulty now." "We shall never agree about him," cried Emma; "but that is nothing extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man: I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly, though in his own son; but he is very likely to have a more yielding, complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man's perfection. I dare say he has; and though it may cut him off from some advantages, it will secure him many others." "Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of preserving peace at home and preventing his father's having any right to complain. His letters disgust me." "Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy every body else." "I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy a woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother's place, but without a mother's affection to blind her. It is on her account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he would have come I dare say; and it would not have signified whether he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, not in English. He may be very `aimable,' have very good manners, and be very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings of other people: nothing really amiable about him." "You seem


of contempt and belittlement, an affront not to be tolerated. Indignation flames into exasperation as he moves through an open door, along the main downstairs hall. He has conducted himself according to the rules of the game, achieving such an impressive kill total over twenty-six years, since the old man on the gurney, that he has come now to the last kill in this simulation, to the final gate and the ultimate reward beyond, but suddenly two new characters are introduced, two more whom he must eliminate, which is aggravating. Calaphas enjoys it, yes, and he will take pleasure in their fear and pain, but he wonders—as he has on a few occasions in the past—if the game is rigged so that it can never be won, additional new challenges added just when he is reaching for the well-earned gold ring, a new life of greater power and prestige. Rigged! The possibility enrages him, suggests that the game isn’t a game at all, but some kind of never-ending frat-boy hazing, as if the designers of this simulation take delight in mocking his expectation of being elevated to their level. It isn’t true, can’t be true, must not be true that his efforts have been a fool’s quest. The simulation is not, is not, is not, damn it, a sophisticated, cruel carnival of humiliations. How did her nipples taste, perv? It hasn’t been crafted for his endless mortification, but for his transcendence. The hateful memory of the candy between Britta Holdstrom’s breasts compounds exasperation into rage, even as his priapism is as painful as a grossly swollen boil. When he killed Gifford, his brother’s widow had given him the dead man’s solid-gold Rolex, which was an omen—a sign, a promise—that his time was coming, his glorious future. The gamemakers need to be reminded of that promise. Gifford can’t be killed twice, though it would be such a relief if he could be killed again and again. Here, now, Calaphas can find no one to kill, no one at all, by the time that he reaches the foyer. Then comes a clattering noise. Like wood knocking wood. Elsewhere in the house. His attention is drawn to the stairs, to the second floor, to the revived prospect of triumph and relief. NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH Juan is seventy-four, and Walter is seventy-five. They are retired, and a life without work doesn’t sit well with them. Once successful entrepreneurs, they can spend only so much time on the golf course, on the bocce ball court, competing in pickleball tournaments, and playing cards with their wives and friends before they start adding double shots of vodka even to their nightly beakers of Metamucil. Consequently, they are always seeking new pursuits and projects, what Juan calls “reasons not to go crazy while we’re waiting for Alzheimer’s.” During the past six months, they have been acting as an unofficial neighborhood watch one or two nights every week, mostly between eleven o’clock in the evening and three o’clock in the morning, cruising the community in Juan’s F-150 pickup. Back in the day,


sun sinks behind the mountains and the pale blue sky becomes the color of silver, two tiny figures ride across the valley, following the serpentine shape of the river. Agamemnon and Menelaus ride alone, their horses galloping as if being chased. The night is silent and the valley looks like an empty shell, soon to be filled with the echo of violence. 7 The Sons of Atreus SHE IS STANDING by the doors of the megaron, hidden behind one of the columns. Her hands are clasped, her breath held as she listens to the sons of Atreus speak to her parents. Agamemnon has strong, scarred arms and greedy, intelligent eyes. His face is asymmetrical, all sharp lines and edges, and there is something unsettling about the way he stares, as though he is searching for weakness in the people around him. Menelaus’s features resemble his brother’s but remotely, like a lynx resembles a lion. He is leaner, handsomer, and his face lacks the cunning that shows on Agamemnon’s face. They arrived late in the night, their horses wearied to the point of exhaustion. Servants clustered around the columns at the entrance to the palace, eager to see the exiled brothers, doomed offspring of the king of Mycenae. Tyndareus welcomed them, though there was still blood on Agamemnon’s sword, fresh cuts on Menelaus’s face. They had ridden for their lives, and it was Tyndareus’s duty to let them stay in his palace. A guest is always sacred in their lands, no matter his deeds and crimes. “Mycenae was taken with force and deceit,” Agamemnon is saying to Tyndareus. “Our cousin Aegisthus murdered our father and now rules with our uncle Thyestes.” “But the people despise father and son,” Menelaus adds. “Deceit runs in your family,” Leda says coolly. “The house of Atreus is doomed.” Agamemnon takes a step forward, as if to attack her, and Clytemnestra almost does the same. When her mother looks in her direction, she hides behind the column. Tyndareus ordered everyone to steer clear of the megaron, which only made Clytemnestra more eager to eavesdrop. Menelaus takes his brother’s arm, as if to hold him back. Agamemnon keeps still. “We will take back Mycenae,” Menelaus says. “And we will rule.” A short silence follows. Tyndareus stares at them quietly, then asks for more wine. A servant girl springs up from her place at the foot of the throne and hurries outside. When she walks past Clytemnestra, they look at each other for a second, two girls in the shadows, unnoticed by everyone else, their eyes gleaming. Clytemnestra puts a forefinger to her lips, and the servant hurries away. “Didn’t your grandfather plan the murder of his host and father-in-law in a chariot race?” Tyndareus asks. “He did,” Menelaus says. Agamemnon keeps silent, tense beside him. “And your father, Atreus . . . Didn’t he murder his half brother Chrysippus?” “He did. And he was exiled for it. Banished to Mycenae.” “So Mycenae didn’t always belong to the Atreidai,” Tyndareus says, using the name for Atreus’s bloodline. “Who ruled the


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

the village. He rose again and was hit severely behind the ear. He staggered and set off back to the Coach and Horses forthwith, leaping over the deserted Huxter, who was now sitting up, on his way. Behind him as he was halfway up the inn steps he heard a sudden yell of rage, rising sharply out of the confusion of cries, and a sounding smack in some one's face. He recognised the voice as that of the Invisible Man, and the note was that of a man suddenly infuriated by a painful blow. In another moment Mr. Cuss was back in the parlour. "He's coming back, Bunting!" he said, rushing in. "Save yourself! He's gone mad!" Mr. Bunting was standing in the window engaged in an attempt to clothe himself in the hearth-rug and a West Surrey Gazette. "Who's coming?" he said, so startled that his costume narrowly escaped disintegration. "Invisible Man," said Cuss, and rushed to the window. "We'd better clear out from here! He's fighting mad! Mad!" In another moment he was out in the yard. "Good heavens!" said Mr. Bunting, hesitating between two horrible alternatives. He heard a frightful struggle in the passage of the inn, and his decision was made. He clambered out of the window, adjusted his costume hastily, and fled up the village as fast as his fat little legs would carry him. From the moment when the Invisible Man screamed with rage and Mr. Bunting made his memorable flight up the village, it became impossible to give a consecutive account of affairs in Iping. Possibly the Invisible Man's original intention was simply to cover Marvel's retreat with the clothes and books. But his temper, at no time very good, seems to have gone completely at some chance blow, and forthwith he set to smiting and overthrowing, for the mere satisfaction of hurting. You must figure the street full of running figures, of doors slamming and fights for hiding-places. You must figure the tumult suddenly striking on the unstable equilibrium of old Fletcher's planks and two chairs,--with cataclysmal results. You must figure an appalled couple caught dismally in a swing. And then the whole tumultuous rush has passed and the Iping streets with its gauds and flags is deserted save for the still raging Unseen, and littered with cocoanuts, overthrown canvas screens, and the scattered stock in trade of a sweetstuff stall. Everywhere there is a sound of closing shutters and shoving bolts, and the only visible humanity is an occasional flitting eye under a raised eyebrow in the corner of a window pane. The Invisible Man amused himself for a little while by breaking all the windows in the Coach and Horses, and then he thrust a street lamp through the parlour window of Mrs. Gribble. He it must have been who cut the telegraph wire to Adderdean just beyond Higgins' cottage on the Adderdean road. And after that, as his peculiar qualities allowed, he passed out of human perceptions altogether, and he was neither heard, seen, nor felt in Iping any more. He


not check himself, but drove in upon Spitz, shoulder to shoulder, so hard that he missed the throat. They rolled over and over in the powdery snow. Spitz gained his feet almost as though he had not been overthrown, slashing Buck down the shoulder and leaping clear. Twice his teeth clipped together, like the steel jaws of a trap, as he backed away for better footing, with lean and lifting lips that writhed and snarled. In a flash Buck knew it. The time had come. It was to the death. As they circled about, snarling, ears laid back, keenly watchful for the advantage, the scene came to Buck with a sense of familiarity. He seemed to remember it all,--the white 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


I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son. He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and says: "What's this?" "It's something they give me for learning my lessons good." He tore it up, and says: "I'll give you something better -- I'll give you a cowhide. He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says: "AIN'T you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor -- and your own father got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. Why, there ain't no end to your airs -- they say you're rich. Hey? -- how's that?" "They lie -- that's how." "Looky here -- mind how you talk to me; I'm a- standing about all I can stand now -- so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it away down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money to-morrow -- I want it." "I hain't got no money." "It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it." "I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell you the same." "All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it." "I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to --" "It don't make no difference what you want it for -- you just shell it out." He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day. When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick me if I didn't drop that. Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then he swore he'd make the law force him. The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge


turning round in one place like a horse grinding sugar cane. So Janie took to sitting over the room. Sit and look. The room inside looked like the mouth of an alligator—gaped wide open to swallow something down. Outside the window Jacksonville looked like it needed a fence around it to keep it from running out on ether’s bosom. It was too big to be 140 Zora Neale Hurston warm, let alone to need somebody like her. All day and night she worried time like a bone. Way late in the morning the thought of Annie Tyler and Who Flung came to pay her a visit. Annie Tyler who at fifty- two had been left a widow with a good home and insurance money. Mrs. Tyler with her dyed hair, newly straightened and her uncomfortable new false teeth, her leathery skin, blotchy with powder and her giggle. Her love affairs, affairs with boys in their late teens or early twenties for all of whom she spent her money on suits of clothes, shoes, watches and things like that and how they all left her as soon as their wants were satisfied. Then when her ready cash was gone, had come Who Flung to denounce his predecessor as a scoundrel and took up around the house himself. It was he who persuaded her to sell her house and come to Tampa with him. The town had seen her limp off. The undersized high-heel slippers were punishing her tired feet that looked like bunions all over. Her body squeezed and crowded into a tight corset that shoved her middle up under her chin. But she had gone off laughing and sure. As sure as Janie had been. Then two weeks later the porter and conductor of the north bound local had helped her off the train at Maitland. Hair all gray and black and bluish and reddish in streaks. All the capers that cheap dye could cut was showing in her hair. Those slippers bent and griped just like her work-worn feet. The corset gone and the shaking old woman hanging all over herself. Everything that you could see was hanging. Her chin hung from her ears and rippled down her neck like Their Eyes Were Watching God 141 drapes. Her hanging bosom and stomach and buttocks and legs that draped down over her ankles. She groaned but never giggled. She was broken and her pride was gone, so she told those who asked what had happened. Who Flung had taken her to a shabby room in a shabby house in a shabby street and promised to marry her next day. They stayed in the room two whole days then she woke up to find Who Flung and her money gone. She got up to stir around and see if she could find him, and found herself too worn out to do much. All she found out was that she was too old a vessel for new wine. The next day hunger had driven her out to shift. She had stood on the streets


up to Carol and Dmitri’s executive suite, where Dmitri was asleep in the next room. “He’s a heavy sleeper,” Carol said almost immediately. As Orson recounted it later, she was looking at Orson like he was something to be devoured. “I promise he won’t wake up.” Orson was taken aback: usually it took a ten-minute song and dance to plant the idea in the wives’ heads that it would be all right to drink with him. He sat, and they drank, and he ran through the script. An hour in, she asked him the question: “Your story’s so inspiring, Orson. Have you ever thought of becoming a motivational speaker?” “I haven’t,” he said, genuinely surprised. She smiled slyly at him. “My dear, people would absolutely pay to hear your story. They’ll all want to know how they can be more like you.” “Like me?” He tried to feign humility. “I haven’t done much more than become a receptionist at the Boyd.” “Well, perhaps. But you’re on your way to great things. You’ve worked hard, Orson, and you’re living the American dream. My father was a ranch hand’s son and he grew up to become the lieutenant governor of Texas. That’s your future, my dear.” Carol cut Orson a deal: she’d rent out the lobby conference room and provide him with an audience if he’d just come and tell his story. “You can do it one night after you clock out, dearest. Just bring yourself—you can bring your little friend for support if you need to, of course—and tell us all what you’ve just told me. And maybe afterward take some questions. We’ll all pitch in a hundred dollars each, just for you.” “A motivational speaker?” Orson asked me that night while we were lying spent and naked in bed. I ran my tongue over my top row of teeth, trying to dislodge a fibrous piece of lo mein. “She just wants me to tell the story of my life?” “Your fictional life.” “Well, yeah, of course. But I mean—even if it’s fiction, it’s not the most notable story.” I put my head on his chest again. “Yeah, it is. It’s the kind of story they like, remember? The hard work and stick-to-itiveness thing. That’s the Republican wet dream.” “But I haven’t made my fortune or whatever. I’m at the beginning part of the stick-to-it-iveness. It doesn’t feel like the kind of thing I can pull off.” I traced his left nipple. “Maybe you could make your fortune at the talk. Maybe you could sell them snake oil.” He laughed. “No, I’m serious. Like, they love these televangelists, you know? You could be, like, a businessman-televangelist.” He exhaled. “I guess I could perform some kind of miracle. I could make them happier in their marriages or something.” I nodded, tracing his right nipple. “Just walk in there being like ‘I have the answers. I can make old women’s lives better.’ ” “ ‘I’m your conference room Jesus.’ ” I don’t think either of us realized what we’d stumbled upon. FOUR THERE WAS A


who devised the protocols and who labor in a warren three thousand miles away, where no one can make contact with them. Michael sits at a corner table with his best friend, Shelby Shrewsberry, who may be the only immunologist in the United States who is also a specialist in cerebrovascular function and the blood-brain barrier, six feet five, two hundred thirty pounds, and African American. Shelby, a genius, earned his first medical degree when he was twenty-two, but Michael possesses just slightly higher than average intelligence. Shelby plays the piano, violin, and saxophone. Michael has mastered the harmonica. Shelby has the face of a movie star—Michael not so much. They have been best friends for thirty-eight years, since they were six and their families were neighbors in a lower-middle-class community where, for different reasons, Michael and Shelby were viewed as nerds by most other kids. Shelby, the senior biological scientist on this endeavor, has authority equal to that of Dr. Simon Bistoury, who serves as the reigning technology expert. Bistoury is a true believer in what they are doing here at the deceptively and absurdly named Beautification Research Project. Shelby, however, is profoundly skeptical about the wisdom and morality of this work, a point of view he has concealed in order to be in a position to go public and blow up the entire scheme if that becomes necessary. If he does so, he will be risking financial ruin and imprisonment, as will Michael, who was brought into this undertaking by Shelby to serve as chief of its security team. In this age when the fruits of corruption and the pursuit of power at all costs seem to motivate too many in the highest echelons of society, Shelby and Michael are no less outsiders than they were as kids; most of those in the current ruling elite would dismiss them as nerds if only they knew what principles guide them. They never discuss their status as potential whistleblowers; at the moment, here in the cafeteria, they are discussing Shelby’s romantic longing for a woman, Nina, whom he’s met just three times and has not yet asked for a date. He encountered this jewel in her capacity as the accountant handling payroll and taxes for his cousin Carl, who owns three laundromats. Shelby was charmed not merely by her looks, but also by her intelligence, wit, and industriousness. “So,” Michael says, “instead of asking her on a date, you hire her as your accountant. I’m not sure if that’s smoother than it is dumb, or dumber than it is smooth, or not smooth at all.” Shelby has an unconscious habit of rolling his eyes as an acknowledgment of his mistakes and shortcomings. “Yeah, well, I’ve never handled rejection well. I curl up and suck my thumb.” “You’re tall, dark, handsome, successful, amusing, and reputed to be smart. No woman is going to reject you.” “I had plenty of rejections before I met and married Tanya.” “Back then you were just tall, dark, handsome, amusing, and reputed to be smart. You weren’t successful


the edges honed razor sharp. Perfect. Of course. His radio was tuned to a classical station, but he’d change it soon. So he could hear her voice, the clear, dulcet tones of a jezebel, they called to him like a siren’s song. It had been years since he’d had serious contact with her—the murderess who had killed his sister. He’d sought to put an end to her before, and his attempt had ended badly, with him nearly dying. If not for the good graces of a man who poached alligators for a living and the healing powers of his wife, he might not have survived. The couple, always at odds with the law, had refrained from taking him to a hospital, nor had they questioned the bullet wounds in his body, for they themselves had a few hidden scars they’d received compliments of the local authorities. And the woman, Maizie, had believed him to be a true priest, a man of the cloth. Their cabin, hidden deep in the swamp, downstream from where he’d been shot, had proved the perfect cover, a hiding space no one had found. The man had connections and secured himself a new identity in exchange for the work of smuggling poached alligators to butchers and skinners and tanners of the beasts’ thick hides. He’d learned skills of healing from Maizie and from Willard, how to do trade in an underground community, to work the system from the shadows, to learn new skills that would only help him to reach his ultimate goal. From the illegal alligator trade, he’d moved on, adopted several aliases, and roamed around the south. From Tampa and Jacksonville, to Richmond and other points north, he’d spent his years, but eventually, lured by that siren’s song, he’d returned to New Orleans, and Willard and Maizie of course, paying them one last visit. And he’d found his way back to reside here, in a cabin built much like a child’s tree house, upon thick gnarled limbs reaching over the water. The floor was uneven, planks nailed deep into the limbs, mosquito netting hung over the two windows. This was not his only place of residence, of course, but the one spot in the world where he felt completely free and unfettered, the place where he could let down his carefully crafted guard. The place where he could be himself. Glancing at the wooden walls where his disguises were hung carefully on pegs, he eyed the gray wig, the brown beard, the old man’s suit pants and jacket draped over a folding walker. He had many disguises to go with his multiple personas for those times when he had to be out in public and couldn’t risk anyone recognizing him. He checked the time, still several hours before she was on the airwaves throwing out bogus, evil advice to strangers, people who called in to the station with serious problems, life-altering problems on which she spent two to five minutes, in between commercial breaks, handing out her own kind of witchcraft, the untested psychobabble of a


felt a quiver in her stomach. “So you accept he told me something.” Silence. “Well, I can’t,” Mrs. King said. “I didn’t write anything down. I’ve no witnesses. I’d rather know what he told you.” Miss de Vries looked away. “Me?” She needed to be pushed, to be provoked. “Come now, Madam,” said Mrs. King. “Tell me all about it. Tell me how it feels. Knowing that your father could be so spiteful.” The noise from the ballroom surged and crashed over them like a wave. Miss de Vries’s expression changed. The words wounded her. But she simply shrugged. “He wasn’t spiteful. One says spiteful things by accident. When one can’t hold one’s tongue.” She considered her knife, studied the reflection. “This was entirely deliberate. Papa sent for me. Directly after you, I expect. He told me he had a little something to tell me.” Her mouth twisted. “Just a little thing.” Mrs. King felt her chest thrumming. Go on, she thought, goading Miss de Vries with her mind. Lockwood took one step closer. He was looking at Miss de Vries oddly, recalculating her. “He told me he’d made a mistake,” Miss de Vries said. Lockwood went very still. “A mistake?” said Mrs. King. “He told me he’d fathered a child. I said that wasn’t any concern of mine.” Silence. Mrs. King allowed this to sit between them for a long moment. It was strange, so enormously strange, to hear Miss de Vries speak of this matter at all. Mrs. King tried to picture the conversation between Miss de Vries and her father: a daughter’s dawning comprehension, the shimmer of betrayal. “It must have been a shock,” Mrs. King said, more gently. Miss de Vries’s eyes turned on her, a flicker of derision. “Hardly. We’ve been paying your mother off for years. Hospital bills do stack up, you know. They send receipts.” She took a short, tight breath. Mrs. King had never seen Miss de Vries express pain. Even when she was small, she never cried; she was trained too well for that. But this was pain: that’s exactly what it was. Mrs. King recognized it at once. She understood what it was to deduce something enormous, something that turned the world back to front. She felt a searing sense of kinship with Miss de Vries in that moment. It made her ask the next question bluntly, not sidestepping it, not winding her way in. “Did he mention a letter?” Miss de Vries turned, light shivering. “Papa spoke a lot of nonsense,” she said. It wasn’t a denial. Mrs. King stepped forward. “I’ll guess what he said, then. He got himself worked up. Said he couldn’t keep a secret. Wouldn’t meet his Maker without reconciling his affairs.” Miss de Vries considered this. “No,” she said, reaching for a pear, polishing it idly against her dark sleeves. “No?” “He wasn’t thinking of his soul, Mrs. King. He was thinking of...” She shook her head again, a smile playing on her lips, something strangely close to disgust. “He was thinking of his future.” She


return her to her current state. She will remember you. She will remember all of you. You can’t promise that. You can’t promise anything. It could go wrong. Everything could go wrong, and she could— Nurse Ratched touched his cheek with one of her tentacles. I have made my choice, Victor. I know what I am doing. Please do not take this away from me. You brought me back once. I know you can do it again. All I ask is that you do not leave me behind. I hate this city. It smells bad. I want to see the forest again. Nurse Ratched. I … I know. But I do this for you. Because of what you’ve done for me. Let me help you. Let me help Rambo and Hap. Let me help Gio. He wiped his eyes. I can’t lose you. You will not, she said. I am not done with you yet. When you are old and gray, you will need me to monitor your health to ensure you live longer than any human ever has. I will be by your side. I promise. “I promise,” he said as the alarms blared around them, as Dad and Hap fought with devastating blows, as Rambo screamed for Nurse Ratched to hurry, you need to hurry, they’re coming, they’re coming! Nurse Ratched stopped in front of Victor. He looked up at her. On her screen were the words YOU ARE MY FRIEND. She said, “When you found me, it was the greatest day of my life, though I did not know it then. I have watched you grow into the man you have become. In the end, that is all that matters. In case this does not work, in case you cannot bring me back, I need you to know that you are precious to me. And if you tell anyone I said that, I will drill you until there is nothing left but bone and gristle.” Hap grunted as Dad threw him across the room. He skidded along the floor, crashing into Rambo, upending him onto his back, wheels spinning. Nurse Ratched rolled toward the computers, the silver box raised. Vic shouted after her. She didn’t stop. Until Dad rushed toward her, curling in on himself. His shoulder smashed into her side, denting her casing. She fell end over end, her screen cracking, her tentacles flailing. The silver box slipped from her grasp, bouncing along the floor, coming to a rest in front of Hap and Rambo. Pounding on the doors down the hall. Voices, so many voices. Let us in, let us in. Dad started toward them. Vic pushed himself forward, landing awkwardly on his side, wrapping his arms around Dad’s leg. Dad looked down at him, a frown on his face. “What are you? What do you think you’re doing? You can’t—” “Nurse Ratched!” Vic shouted. “Get up, get up, get up!” She tried to right herself. She tried to push herself up. She fell back down, one of her tentacles snapping with an electrical snarl, skittering along


"If whatever I'm supposed to be looking for is here, I don't want it." He grabbed the second Kill-O-Zap gun, blasted a perfectly harmless accounting computer and rushed out into the corridor, followed by the others. He very nearly blasted hell out of an aircar that stood waiting for them a few yards away. The aircar was empty, but Arthur recognized it as belonging to Slartibartfast. It had a note from him pinned to part of its sparse instrument panel. The note had an arrow drawn on it, pointing at one of the controls. It said, This is probably the best button to press. ================================================================= Chapter 34 The aircar rocketed them at speeds in excess of R17 through the steel tunnels that lead out onto the appalling surface of the planet which was now in the grip of yet another drear morning twilight. Ghastly grey lights congealed on the land. R is a velocity measure, defined as a reasonable speed of travel that is consistent with health, mental wellbeing and not being more than say five minutes late. It is therefore clearly an almost infinitely variable figure according to circumstances, since the first two factors vary not only with speed taken as an absolute, but also with awareness of the third factor. Unless handled with tranquility this equation can result in considerable stress, ulcers and even death. R17 is not a fixed velocity, but it is clearly far too fast. The aircar flung itself through the air at R17 and above, deposited them next to the Heart of Gold which stood starkly on the frozen ground like a bleached bone, and then precipitately hurled itself back in the direction whence they had come, presumably on important business of its own. Shivering, the four of them stood and looked at the ship. Beside it stood another one. It was the Blagulon Kappa policecraft, a bulbous sharklike affair, slate green in colour and smothered with black stencilled letters of varying degrees of size and unfriendliness. The letters informed anyone who cared to read them as to where the ship was from, what section of the police it was assigned to, and where the power feeds should be connected. It seemed somehow unnaturally dark and silent, even for a ship whose two-man crew was at that moment lying asphyxicated in a smoke-filled chamber several miles beneath the ground. It is one of those curious things that is impossible to explain or define, but one can sense when a ship is completely dead. Ford could sense it and found it most mysterious - a ship and two policemen seemed to have gone spontaneously dead. In his experience the Universe simply didn't work like that. The other three could sense it too, but they could sense the bitter cold even more and hurried back into the Heart of Gold suffering from an acute attack of no curiosity. Ford stayed, and went to examine the Blagulon ship. As he walked, he nearly tripped over an inert steel figure lying face down in the cold dust. "Marvin!" he exclaimed.


how narrowly he had twice that day escaped being murdered. Would he have to sit up all that night and wait for them to come again, or was Le Chiffre even now on his way to Le Havre or Bordeaux to pick up a boat for some corner of the world where he could escape the eyes and the guns of SMERSH? Bond shrugged his shoulders. Sufficient unto that day had been its evil. He gazed for a moment into the mirror and wondered about Vesper's morals. He wanted her cold and arrogant body. He wanted to see tears and desire in her remote blue eyes and to take the ropes of her black hair in his hands and bend her long body back under his. Bond's eyes narrowed and his face in the mirror looked back at him with hunger. He turned away and took out his pocket the cheque for forty million francs. He folded this very small. Then he opened the door and looked up and down the corridor. He left the door wide open and with his ears cocked for footsteps or the sound of the lift, he set to work with a small screwdriver. Five minutes later he gave a last-minute survey to his handiwork, put some fresh cigarettes in his case, closed and locked the door and went off down the corridor and across the hall and out into the moonlight. CHAPTER 14 - 'LA VIE EN ROSE?' The entrance to the Roi Galant was a seven-foot golden picture-frame which had once, perhaps, enclosed the vast portrait of a noble European. It was in a discreet corner of the 'kitchen' - the public roulette and boule room, where several tables were still busy. As Bond took Vesper's arm and led her over the gilded step, he fought back a hankering to borrow some money from the caisse and plaster maximums over the nearest table. But he knew that this would be a brash and cheap gesture pour pater la bourgeoisie. Whether he won or lost, it would be a kick in the teeth to the luck which had been given him. The night-club was small and dark, lit only by candles in gilded candelabra whose warm light was repeated in wall mirrors set in more gold picture-frames. The walls were covered in dark red satin and the chairs and banquettes in matching red plush. In the far corner, a trio, consisting of a piano, an electric guitar and drums, was playing 'La Vie en Rose' with muted sweetness. Seduction dripped on the quietly throbbing air. It seemed to Bond that every couple must be touching with passion under the tables. They were given a corner table near the door. Bond ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and scrambled eggs and bacon. They sat for a time listening to the music and then Bond turned to Vesper: 'It's wonderful sitting here with you and knowing the job's finished. It's a lovely end to the day - the prize-giving.' He expected her to smile. She said: 'Yes, isn't


so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, two of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints touching tophet? I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen shirt. Get along with ye, said she to the man, or I'll be combing ye! Come on, Queequeg, said I, all right. There's Mrs. Hussey. .. <p 65 > And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said-- Clam or Cod? What's that about Cods, ma'am? said I, with much politeness. Clam or Cod? she repeated. A clam for supper? a cold clam; is that what you mean, Mrs. Hussey? says I; but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter time, ain't it, Mrs Hussey? But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing but the word clam, Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to the kitchen, and bawling out clam for two, disappeared. Queequeg, said I, do you think that we can make out a supper for us both on one clam? However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favorite fishing food before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

verses for her again after ten years. Ten years before she had worn her shawl cowlwise about her head, sending sprays of her warm breath into the night air, tapping her foot upon the glassy road. It was the last tram; the lank brown horses knew it and shook their bells to the clear night in admonition. The conductor talked with the driver, both nodding often in the green light of the lamp. They stood on the steps of the tram, he on the upper, she on the lower. She came up to his step many times between their phrases and went down again and once or twice remained beside him forgetting to go down and then went down. Let be! Let be! Ten years from that wisdom of children to his folly. If he sent her the verses? They would be read out at breakfast amid the tapping of egg-shells. Folly indeed! Her brothers would laugh and try to wrest the page from each other with their strong hard fingers. The suave priest, her uncle, seated in his arm-chair, would hold the page at arm's length, read it smiling and approve of the literary form. No, no; that was folly. Even if he sent her the verses she would not show them to others. No, no; she could not. He began to feel that he had wronged her. A sense of her innocence moved him almost to pity her, an innocence he had never understood till he had come to the knowledge of it through sin, an innocence which she too had not understood while she was innocent or before the strange humiliation of her nature had first come upon her. Then first her soul had begun to live as his soul had when he had first sinned, and a tender compassion filled his heart as he remembered her frail pallor and her eyes, humbled and saddened by the dark shame of womanhood. While his soul had passed from ecstasy to languor where had she been? Might it be, in the mysterious ways of spiritual life, that her soul at those same moments had been conscious of his homage? It might be. A glow of desire kindled again his soul and fired and fulfilled all his body. Conscious of his desire she was waking from odorous sleep, the temptress of his villanelle. Her eyes, dark and with a look of languor, were opening to his eyes. Her nakedness yielded to him, radiant, warm, odorous and lavish-limbed, enfolded him like a shining cloud, enfolded him like water with a liquid life; and like a cloud of vapour or like waters circumfluent in space the liquid letters of speech, symbols of the element of mystery, flowed forth over his brain. Are you not weary of ardent ways, Lure of the fallen seraphim? Tell no more of enchanted days. Your eyes have set man's heart ablaze And you have had your will of him. Are you not weary of ardent ways? Above the flame the smoke of praise Goes up from ocean rim to


couple of sheets of paper across the table toward me. “Here’s some information on crime victim programs that you can access. And a list of victims’ rights attorneys.” “Thanks.” “If you need a break at any time, just let me know.” The police are under increased scrutiny of late, their actions and attitudes judged and analyzed. Detective French is being gentle, professional, playing by the rules. The force is concerned about lawsuits, about bad press. I know this is protocol. Still, my guard is slipping in the face of her manufactured kindness. I mustn’t let it. I glance at the pane of one-way glass and picture the men behind it. The same ones who took my husband away, who wandered through my house looking for evidence and taking photographs. Some of them are still in my home right now. The ones who aren’t watching me. “I need to know if I’m in danger,” I say. “What does conspiracy to commit murder mean? That Benjamin was planning to kill me? How? And who ratted him out?” “We’ll make sure that you’re safe,” French says. It is meant to sound reassuring, but it comes across dismissive. She ignores the rest of my questions. “Tell me about your marriage.” “We didn’t have a marriage.” At least I can be honest about this. “I mean, we did, legally, but it wasn’t a relationship. I was Benjamin’s property.” “How so?” “We had a contract. A Total Power Exchange contract. I did what he told me to do, or I’d be punished. If I refused him, he’d end our marriage. He’d kick me out of the house with nothing. And he’d throw my mother out of her nursing home and onto the street.” Empathy flits across her features, but her voice remains professional. “We’re going to need to see this contract. Where is it?” “It will be in his safe,” I say. When I’d grabbed the money for Lee, my gloved hands shaking with nerves, I’d noted the stack of documents, but I’d been too afraid to sift through them. Too worried that Benjamin or Nate would catch me in the act. I’d quickly grabbed the money buried under the pile of papers and shut the door. “It’s in his study.” “Do you have the combination?” “No,” I lie, thinking about that slip of paper hidden behind the picture frame. I can’t admit that I know about it. Or that I know what’s inside. “I was never allowed access.” She nods, writes something down, though I am being recorded. “You said that Benjamin punished you. Physically?” “Sometimes.” “I’m sure this is difficult, but can you tell me how?” “He would whip me with a cat-o’-nine-tails. And I had to spend hours alone in a basement room.” My throat feels thick. “But the emotional abuse was worse.” “What did that look like?” “He insulted me. He made me feel stupid and worthless.” A tear slips from my eye. “He didn’t let me see my own mother.” “And yet, you stayed with him?” I bristle. This detective has drifted into


health too sound for frenzy."     "And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! Icannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever whoever you are be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!"     He groped; I arrested his wandering hand and prisoner it in both mine.     "Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers. If so there must be more of her."     The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder neck waist I was entwined and gathered to him.     "Is it Jane?What is it? This is her shape this is her size "     "And this her voice," I added." She is all here; her heart too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again."     "Jane Eyre! Jane Eyre!" was all he said.     "My dear master," I answered, "Iam Jane Eyre. I have found you out I am come back to you."     "In truth? in the flesh? My living Jane?"     "You touch me, sir you hold me, and fast enough. I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?"     "My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blessed after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart as I do now; and kissed her as thus and felt that she loved me and trusted that she would not leave me."     "Which I never will, sir, from this day."     "Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned my life dark, lonely, hopeless my soul athirst and forbidden to drink my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you; but kiss me before you go embrace me, Jane."     "There, sir and there!"     I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes I swept his hair from his brow and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.     "It is you is it, Jane? You, are come back to me then?"     "'I am."     "And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast among strangers?"     "No, sir; I am an independent woman now."     "Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"


to cover her tracks. “Being engaged to William can’t be my only redeeming quality, can it?” Nick’s smile slid up on one side, more mischievous than Lucy would have liked. “Perhaps we should compile a list of your qualities to see whether you measure up.” Why was she still sitting here? She would do better to go back up to her room and try to convince Rebecca to help her find a way to break the news to Lady Calloway without risking her health. Then Lucy could figure out what she would do now that she had nothing and nowhere to go. But Nick’s bright gaze held her in place, and she had a feeling he was not one to give up easily. Sitting up straight, she called on every lesson of poise she had given the Granger girls. “I suppose if you feel it is necessary, you may tell me all of my good qualities.” He laughed. “Well, you are certainly spirited.” “That is a good thing?” “To some, yes. And you are clever and graceful and quite beautiful.” Lucy waited for the flush of heat to rise to her face at his compliments, but it never came. Flattery from Mr. Granger had always made her nervous, and nearly anything Lord Calloway said made her blush. Why was it so easy to take a compliment from Mr. Forester without becoming embarrassed by it? Could it be that he didn’t mean a word of what he said? “I do not see how any of these things would help Lady Calloway,” she said. “And beyond your consideration of my beauty, which is rather subjective an opinion, you cannot know whether I truly possess those other traits. You hardly know me at all.” He acknowledged that comment with a nod. “True. So perhaps I should rectify that. Where are you from, Lucy?” “Not far from London.” “Is your father a gentleman?” Her eyes went wide. “I hardly think that is an appropriate question.” “He is not, then.” “My father is dead, Mr. Forester.” He winced, properly censured for his bold question. “My apologies, Miss Staley.” “Lucy.” “Nick.” “Apology accepted. Am I allowed to ask my own questions?” His grin returning, Nick leaned in his chair and rested one elbow on the chair’s arm, fully at ease now. “You can ask what you wish, but know that my answers may not be what you want to hear.” What was that supposed to mean? My, but Nick was a strange man. As much as she wanted to ask the same questions he had asked her, she chose a different option, curious to see what his answer would be. “How did you sleep last night?” His lips rose in that crooked smile again. “Poorly,” he said, though his energy belied his answer. “I fear I was woken by the most atrocious-sounding bird I had ever heard this morning, and I had to get out of bed to shoot it dead and bring it to Cook for tonight’s supper.” What utter nonsense! Lucy put her hand over her


window. When she gets closer to the square, she turns left into a side road that leads to the dyers’ shops. She slows her pace. She listens to the soft sounds that come out of doors and windows—a woman singing to her child, an old man snoring. Then she looks across the road at the opposite wall and stops. A window is open and she peeps inside—a large shield gleaming near the door, a wooden table and a bench on which a golden cup sits, half filled. And by the flickering light of a lamp, a woman with her eyes closed. She is wearing only a light tunic that barely conceals her tiny breasts, yet the heat is so strong she is sweating. The lamp illuminates her short hair, beak nose, and pointed chin. Clytemnestra steps cautiously around the outside of the house, watching the inside from the only other window. The woman seems to be alone. She tries the door, but it is locked, so she climbs over the window ledge and lands inside the room as carefully as she can. Cynisca opens her eyes, suddenly alert, and for a second, the two stare at each other. Then Clytemnestra blows out the lamp. The light flickers and dies, leaving them in complete darkness. “It’s been a long time since you and I saw each other,” she says. She can feel Cynisca’s sour breath somewhere in front of her, the wooden table behind her. “I knew you were here,” Cynisca says. “What do you want?” Clytemnestra walks around the table, one step at a time. She takes off her cloak and leaves it aside, the fabric slipping between her fingers. She feels Cynisca’s stillness in the dark and knows she must act before lines and contours become visible to them. “When my husband was murdered here, in my home, fifteen years ago,” she says, “where were you?” Cynisca gasps, loud enough for her to hear. She swallows to speak but Clytemnestra interrupts her. “Never mind. I know where you were. You followed my sister in the streets—you hit her with a stone and left her to bleed.” She feels the golden cup under her finger, the edge jagged, not smooth like the ones in the palace. “You did that to help Agamemnon. You helped him get what he wanted, but he didn’t reward you.” Cynisca stands. “He rewarded me. He protected my family and gave me power in Sparta.” Her voice is deep and there is something like pride in it. “How generous of him.” “He can be a generous man.” “So you say. Although I am sure the best reward for you was to see me fall. To know I lost everything I loved and cared for.” Cynisca doesn’t speak. She moves in the shadows, and Clytemnestra knows she will try to reach the shield. “Can you imagine what it feels like to lose your child? To have him murdered?” Her hand is tight around her knife and she tries to relax her grip. “I have no children you can take


up their camera.

Moments later, the guys ahead of us came under attack. Rounds went

sizzling over our heads.

The journalists froze, looked at me, helpless.

Dont just stand there! Get back in!

I didn’t want them there in the first place, but I especially didn’t want

anything happening to them on my watch. I didn’t want any journalist’s life

on my ledger. I couldn’t handle the irony.

Was it hours later, or days, that we learned the Americans had dropped a

Hellfire missile on the nearest village? There were many injured. A boy was

brought out of the village, up the ridge, in a wheelbarrow, his legs hanging

over the side. They were ripped to pieces.

Two men were pushing the barrow, straight towards us. I couldn’t tell

who they were to the boy. Family? Friends? When they reached us, they

weren’t able to explain. None spoke English. But the boy was in a shit state,

that was clear, and I watched as our medics quickly began treating him.

One terp (interpreter) tried to calm the boy, while also trying to learn the

facts from his escorts.

How did this happen?

Americans.

I was edging closer, but I was stopped by a sergeant on his sixth tour. No,

boss, you dont wanna see this. You’ll never be able to get it out of your

head if you do.

I backed off.

Minutes later, a whistle, then a zip. A huge explosion behind us.

I felt it in my brain.

I looked around. Everyone was on their stomachs. Except me, and two

others.

Where did that come from?

A few of our guys pointed into the distance. They were desperate to

return fire, and asked me for permission.

Yes!

But the Taliban who fired were already gone. We’d missed our chance.

160

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breath away. The light was too bright, the white marble too brilliant. The height of the hall seemed almost obscene, cathedral like, glistening. Ropes hanging from the roof. Sweat on the air. She understood. Everything had been stolen from her. It is extraordinary what the human brain can comprehend, what new realities it can absorb. It had always been unlikely, she thought, that she would be allowed to control this place, whether she loved it or not. This life had been fleeting, transitory. Only half-real, all along. She remembered how angry she had been, a few hours earlier, when that awful woman stole Papa’s old watch. A watch: a tiny thing. Nothing. She felt the urge to laugh: a hollow, dreadful sensation. Then it burned away. She went all the way down the stairs, slowly. Footsteps. A figure among many more, winking and glinting, beneath her. Isis, painted, sequined, clambering on top of a box. A huge crate, at the foot of the grand escalier. “I told you,” the figure said to Miss de Vries, “that I would deliver you to your death.” Miss de Vries had rung the bell when she’d awoken. Not the usual bell, the one that sounded in the servants’ hall. The emergency bell, the brass button in her father’s bedroom, the one that rang in Mr. Shepherd’s room. But nobody had come. The house was empty. “I will call for the constable,” she said, because she had to say something; she had to test her voice. It had risen; it very nearly wavered. “I will call for him at once!” * * * But Mrs. Bone had the constable. Three of her biggest men had him pinned to the ground, ignoring his grunts and moans. She stroked his hair, whispering, “And one silver muffineer, all noted, all recorded. So if you must run and get help, you’ll run awfully slowly, won’t you?” * * * Winnie watched Miss de Vries treading toward her, slow as a lioness, tongue running over her teeth. Delay her, thought Winnie. Before she kills me. “We would like to propose an arrangement,” Winnie said. Silence. Then, that voice. Low, careful. “‘We’?” Winnie said nothing more. Miss de Vries said, heavier, “What arrangement?” Winnie stood up straight. “The property in this house has disappeared. It’s done and cannot be undone. It can never be recovered, at least not by you.” Miss de Vries stared up at her, face masklike. Her eyes were like a cat’s, opaque and glassy. “We have not touched your room. Although we have monitored most carefully what is contained within it. If you comply with our wishes, we will permit you to keep the contents of your trousseau, and we will preserve confidentiality over the circumstances of your—defenestration.” “What are your wishes?” Winnie shifted. She had expected more resistance from Miss de Vries. “First: demolish this house.” Silence. Then: “Why?” “It causes pain. It is a blight on you. It has harmed many others. I think you sense this.” Winnie paused. Then said, making her voice stronger: “Take it


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

placed at equidistant points. A few ancient-looking books rested beneath the glass, where they could be read but not touched. A small door set into the shelves opened on what looked like a reading room, with another glass-covered table. The shelves in that room were full of much thinner books, with covers embossed in gold lettering too ornate for Lore to make out from a distance. Small potted plants had been placed along the bookcases, green tendrils snaking over shelves. There were no windows to provide sunlight, so Lore didn’t know how they grew, but they all appeared to be in perfect health. “Religious theory, you say?” Malcolm walked to one of the books on the long tables and opened a small door in the glass above it. He slipped his hands into a pair of pale gloves before gingerly reaching in to close the cover, then picked the book up with the care of a father to an infant. “That’s a rather broad topic. Narrow it down for me.” “Information on Spiritum,” Gabe said. “Mostly theories on how it might manifest.” “Easy enough.” Malcolm opened one of a series of drawers on the back wall and gently placed the book inside before soundlessly sliding it closed again. “That’s the same thing Anton’s been researching.” CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Answers mean nothing without the right questions. —Kirythean proverb The next week fell into an easy routine. Gabe and Lore would wake up, eat breakfast, and go to the Church library. Then they’d spend hours poring over old manuscripts and bound copies of notes from the years after the Godsfall, Compendiums translated from Eroccan and Kirythean and even old Myroshan, from before Myrosh was subsumed by the Kirythean Empire and the language was outlawed. The mentions of Spiritum, when they found them, were brief. Still, they came every day, looking at the books Malcolm had already procured for Anton, trying to find something to make everything—Bastian, the bodies from the villages, what August and Anton were planning—coalesce into sense. Their studies included more obscure subjects, too. Namely, texts on the strange things accomplished by channeling elemental power leaked from the minor gods. Someone had made a ship sail faster by using the power of Caeliar; another had managed to make events from dreams mirror in the waking world with the power of Lereal. It made sense that Anton would’ve researched such things, if he suspected that the sudden deaths were due to leftover elemental magic. But nothing in the books resembled what had happened to the villages. For six days, Malcolm let them work in relative silence, keeping his curious looks to a minimum. When the questions finally came, Lore was surprised it’d taken so long. “You know,” Malcolm said slowly, “you could just ask Anton what he’s found out.” Lore froze. Across the library, bent over a book, Gabe did, too. They’d both known that at some point, they’d either have to come clean to Malcolm or come up with a plausible lie. On that first day, Gabe had conferred with his fellow Presque


to keep my daughter on this earth. When daybreak comes, the air feels as heavy as a goose-down quilt. I go to the gate that leads to the main part of the compound. Three more people have taken sick overnight. I let them in and point the way to the Hermitage. Then I wait on my side of the gate for one of the guards to fetch Lady Kuo. Soon enough, I hear her keeck, keeck as she approaches. I report on the situation and end by asking, “Can you send a palanquin to bring my grandmother?” My request shocks her, for it tells my mother-in-law just how dire things are inside the garden that I would be so unfilial as to invite my grandmother into such a dangerous situation. The new patients are settled when Grandmother Ru arrives, bringing Miss Zhao with her. Instead of wearing fine silk gowns and decorations in their hair, they’re attired in cotton tunics and skirts dyed in indigo with matching scarves tied around their heads. Grandmother wastes no time on niceties. “Take me from patient to patient,” she says. “I want to see each case. We will decide now who will live and who will die. We will not spend time on those we cannot save.” Over the next several days, I’m humbled to watch Grandmother. Both her wisdom and her emotional strength help me through the frightening hours. No one in the Hermitage is more important to me than my daughter. And no one is more important to Miss Chen than her son. Having two new sets of hands to treat the sick allows the concubine and me to spend more time with Manzi and Ailan, especially during those hours before sunrise when evil spirits come to prey on the weak and mothers need to attach themselves to their children to keep them from being dragged to the Afterworld. * * * Two weeks pass. A night comes when all seems quiet and peaceful. Ailan is recovering, and she sleeps soundly, with breath flowing gently in and out through her slightly open mouth. Miss Chen dozes next to Manzi. Their inhales are low and jagged, caused by exhaustion for her and frailty for him. As Miss Chen and I did earlier in the epidemic, I now sit and sip tea with Grandmother and Miss Zhao. My father’s concubine looks tired. Grandmother is another matter entirely. Her vitality has always impressed me. Now she appears drained. This ordeal is hard on all of us, but she’s seventy-seven years old. “Tell me about Meiling’s miscarriage and what happened in the capital,” Grandmother says seemingly out of nowhere. These past weeks I’ve put that out of my mind to focus on the ill and dying. Now it’s a reminder of all I still need to understand. “I’m waiting,” Grandmother says, and sends me an encouraging smile. Haltingly, I tell her about the herbs meant for me that Meiling took, the loss of her baby, and the beating she survived. Grandmother’s face grows darker with each word I


her feet. Then he smooths the tendrils of hair that have come loose from her bun and tucks them behind her ears. “Wake up, Wife,” he pleads. I’ve never heard him speak so tenderly, not even to Yifeng. He glances back at the rest of us crowded into the marriage bed’s first antechamber. “Where is Miss Zhao? Get her!” A couple of servants run out, while others enter with hot and cold buckets of water. At last, Miss Zhao arrives. She touches Father’s shoulder. “It’s best if you leave.” She turns to the servants. “All of you too, except for Yunxian.” My father regards me. I see in his expression something new, but I’m unsure what it is. “Maybe I should take the girl,” he says to his concubine. “Leave her here. She needs to learn.” Miss Zhao puts a hand on the small of his back. “Let us know when the doctor arrives.” Once everyone has left, Miss Zhao looks at me squarely, which is yet another thing that has never happened before. “I suspected this would happen,” she says. “We can hope that by fainting Respectful Lady has given us time to help her.” “But what’s wrong?” I ask timidly. “I’ve been told your mother took great care with your footbinding, choosing to do it with her own hands. Too often a mother can turn sentimental when her daughter cries, but not Respectful Lady. She did everything correctly, and not once did your feet become infected. Now you know how to take care of your feet—” “Poppy helps me—” “But you understand that maintenance is required.” “Unbind the feet every four days,” I begin to recite, knowing these rules are no less important than those for the stages of my life or how to behave toward my future mother-in-law. “Wash them. Trim the toenails and sand down any places where a bone might break through the skin—” “Whether toenails or a shard of bone, if the skin breaks, you must take extra care to keep the wound clean. Otherwise, you will get an infection. If you ignore it, the bound foot—unable to find fresh air—will begin to fester. Some mothers take this risk when binding their daughters’ feet.” Some of the pride I feel in my feet falls away when she adds, “The person who bound my feet allowed this to happen and was able to break off my dead toes. This is why my feet are so very small, and it is something your father appreciates.” Now is not the time to crow, but I can’t possibly say that to Miss Zhao. “My point is,” she goes on, “infection can set in, and if a mother isn’t vigilant, then her daughter will probably die. But little girls aren’t the only ones who can perish. Adult women who don’t properly care for their feet can also succumb.” With that, Miss Zhao pulls Respectful Lady’s gown up to reveal the embroidered leggings that cover the unsightly bulge of the bent heel and crushed arch. This lump of useless and unappealing flesh


It’s the smoke, I think. It’s sedated them. This was the one defense the rebels found to battle the wasps. The seal of the Capitol shines above me and the anthem blares out. It’s now or never, I think, and begin to saw. Blisters burst on my right hand as I awkwardly drag the knife back and forth. Once I’ve got a groove, the work requires less effort but is almost more than I can handle. I grit my teeth and saw away occasionally glancing at the sky to register that there were no deaths today. That’s all right. The audience will be sated seeing me injured and treed and the pack below me. But the anthem’s running out and I’m only three quarters of the way through the wood when the music ends, the sky goes dark, and I’m forced to stop. Now what? I could probably finish off the job by sense of feel but that may not be the smartest plan. If the wasps are too groggy, if the nest catches on its way down, if I try to escape, this could all be a deadly waste of time. Better, I think, to sneak up here at dawn and send the nest into my enemies. In the faint light of the Careers’ torches, I inch back down to my fork to find the best surprise I’ve ever had. Sitting on my sleeping bag is a small plastic pot attached to a silver para- chute. My first gift from a sponsor! Haymitch must have had it sent in during the anthem. The pot easily fits in the palm of my 186 hand. What can it be? Not food surely. I unscrew the lid and I know by the scent that it’s medicine. Cautiously, I probe the surface of the ointment. The throbbing in my fingertip vanish- es. “Oh, Haymitch,” I whisper. “Thank you.” He has not aban- doned me. Not left me to fend entirely for myself. The cost of this medicine must be astronomical. Probably not one but many sponsors have contributed to buy this one tiny pot. To me, it is priceless. I dip two fingers in the jar and gently spread the balm over my calf. The effect is almost magical, erasing the pain on con- tact, leaving a pleasant cooling sensation behind. This is no herbal concoction that my mother grinds up out of woodland plants, it’s high-tech medicine brewed up in the Capitol’s labs. When my calf is treated, I rub a thin layer into my hands. After wrapping the pot in the parachute, I nestle it safely away in my pack. Now that the pain has eased, it’s all I can do to repo- sition myself in my bag before I plunge into sleep. A bird perched just a few feet from me alerts me that a new day is dawning. In the gray morning light, I examine my hands. The medicine has transformed all the angry red patches to a soft baby-skin pink. My leg still feels inflamed, but that burn was far


I thrashed, pushing to my feet too quickly and clipping my shoulder against a tree. I was surrounded by threats I couldn’t see, and they were winning. The next feint came from the right. I dove to the left instead, colliding with a distinctly human body. These were my woods. I fed this soil my blood and broken tears, sharpened its teeth on the fine flesh of monsters. In Essam, I reigned supreme. Breathy noises leaked from my open mouth as I tightened my fist and smashed it into the side of what was hopefully a head. Did Vaun think I wouldn’t kill him? I wasn’t held to the same code of ethics as his precious Heir. I would rip his head from his shoulders and spit on his skull. I would crush what was left of him into the dirt, because his remains weren’t fit to feed animals. “Sylvia!” The bloodsong wailing through me paused. For a terrible moment, I could not locate my mouth in the swirling savagery. “Marek?” I patted at the chest beneath me, checking for a guardsman’s vest. It wasn’t there. “Marek, I’m so sorry!” I rolled away from him, but the urge to tear a living thing asunder and plant my fury into its quivering heart remained. Approaching footsteps pushed me to my haunches. I crouched, ready to spring. “Remove the blindfold,” Arin said. Awareness came too late, after I had already launched myself. A bone-crushing grip caught my arms before I could slam into the Heir. “You,” Arin said. “Take off her blindfold.” The cloth fell to the ground, and I blinked rapidly against the piercing light. Arin released me. His searching look resembled the one he’d worn when I dangled myself over Hirun. As though I’d failed some elusive test, but not in a way he had anticipated. “Why did you wait?” he asked. “Why didn’t you remove the blindfold yourself?” My vision settled. The drum beating its feral tune faded, taking Hanim and her fiends with it. The hazy words leaving my mouth belonged to a different girl, addressed to a dead woman. “You didn’t say I could. I have to follow the instructions.” Good girl, Hanim whispered. In almost humorous unison, Marek and Arin’s brows furrowed. Arin’s smoothed again, but I knew his dangerous curiosity had been piqued. “In the future, avoid touching the trees while you run,” Arin said lightly. “Even the sap in Ayume can kill you.” The next morning, I walked into the kitchen to find the scent of Mahair surrounding me. Fruit displayed in colorful arrays, fresh cutlets of lamb, ground spices heaped in wooden bowls. I sorted through the food, some of which had passed from season months ago, with wonder. “This was your doing, wasn’t it?” Wes asked. I dropped into my seat, pulling a bowl of oats soaked in lavender and honey toward me. “His Highness ordered a patrol to follow one of Raya’s wards around the market and bring back items typically found at an Omalian table,” Jeru added. “He’s never shown any extracurricular


under the Oregon Health Plan. They were still too young to qualify for Social Security and Medicare based on age. They were ineligible for food and rental assistance. If they’d had dependents, a higher cost of living, it would be different, one social worker told them, but as it was, well, they both just needed to find work. “I heard that nearly everyone is denied disability benefits the first time,” I said to my mother on the phone one evening. “You can appeal the decision. Maybe you should talk to a lawyer.” I didn’t even notice that I was saying you and not you and Dad, a subconscious acknowledgment of the fact that much of the work, if there was an appeal, would fall to her. “Your father has refused. You know how much applying and then being turned down hurt his pride. He doesn’t think he’s disabled.” “But he is. And we both know he needs to see a doctor. What about taking him to a community health clinic?” A few years before, in the same month I gave birth to my first child, I’d reconnected with my Korean family and forged a relationship with my sister, Cindy. The health clinic she worked at served many poor and uninsured patients in the Portland area. When I told her about my parents’ situation, she had suggested that we try to find a similar clinic near them, one that would charge on a sliding scale or perhaps offer my father free care. “I’ve heard awful things from friends about one of the clinics here,” Mom said. “They could kill him as easily as help him.” To me, this sounded like an excuse. “It would be better than not having him seen at all! He’s getting worse. You have to do something.” Even as I spoke, my voice climbing in frustration, I knew that I had no right to try to give her orders. But Dad was sick, and she wasn’t, so she had to take charge now. Who else could do it? “What do you expect me to do, Nicole?” Her voice broke, and I hated myself for what I heard in her tone. Not the anger, which I understood, but that pitch of helpless fear. “I’m dealing with way more than I can handle already,” she told me. “I’m doing the best I can.” I knew that she was terrified, stretched beyond her limit. She was still looking for work, too, and had been selling her plasma, something I could not persuade her to stop doing because we both knew I had no way to replace that income. It was her use of the singular I as much as her choked anxiety that made my eyes fill. She was alone. I’d made sure of that. What right did I have to suggest anything to her? My parents never accused me of negligence, or being a terrible daughter. Sometimes I almost wished they would, because what they did felt even worse: they never asked me for anything. They seemed to have no expectations


however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! -- But I am willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step (and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing. Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How thankful am I, that we never let them know what has been said against him; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly know what I have written.'' Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing what she felt, Elizabeth, on finishing this letter, instantly seized the other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows -- it had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first: ``By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W. never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was repeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B. intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham, but no farther; for on entering that place they removed into a hackney-coach and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that is known after this is that they were seen to continue the London road. I know not what to think. After making every possible enquiry on that side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but without any success; no such people had been seen to pass through. With the kindest