and who—I’m assuming—are currently trespassing on the Hill, because I believe they are essential to finding the truth about the murders.” He was threatening her. He really was threatening her. If this had happened a week ago, Io would be cowed, looking for the fastest exit, disappearing before he could blink. This was the most powerful man in Alante, after all, and he had just made an open threat against her. But she had fought a wraith and won. She had withstood the terror of a phobos-born and the manipulations of the Nine. She had been chased and shot at and beaten into the mud. She had been bullied by the mob queen herself, and she had, surprisingly, stood her ground. Because this mattered: the women, the victims, the mastermind behind it all. Io looked Luc Saint-Yves straight in the eye and let the Quilt come up around her. She saw his form, emblazoned with silver lines. A strong, bright thread of love connected him to Thais. Io had no true purpose in the Quilt, except this: to intimidate. Right now, Saint-Yves was seeing the silver threads reflected in her irises. He was being reminded she was not weak or weaponless. She would not be threatened. She was a cutter. An unseen blade. A reaper of fates. “That’s enough of that, Io,” snapped Thais. The admonishment stung like an unexpected slap. Io dropped the Quilt and found the group—everyone but her sister—shrinking away from her. Aris was half-out of his seat. “I don’t care if you think he’s innocent or not, Io,” Thais said matter-of-factly. “Luc is a good man. Our whole team are good people. You can help our cause. The information the Nine gave you could be instrumental to stopping these murders. You can trust us with it, sister mine. Trust me.” Io’s heartbeat spiked, but she made herself breathe. She wasn’t a child anymore, scraping to indulge Thais’s every whim. Some of Saint-Yves’s explanations made a lot of sense, but Io’s suspicions hadn’t been appeased. Her visit to the House of Nine hadn’t been just informative; it had shifted the very axis of her world. The Nine had hired Horatio to kill the women who were now becoming wraiths, and whoever was behind them knew enough about the muse-born to hide from their powers. Io’s image stared back from dozens of portraits, a silver thread in her hand, and the world burning behind her. In her core, Io knew this was information she couldn’t hand out to anyone, not until she understood it herself. Perhaps she could start trusting Thais again one day, but not today. “I’m sorry,” she said, proud that her voice came out steady. “I can’t.” A flicker of emotion flashed in Thais’s face, schooled almost immediately to blankness. “It’s okay, Io,” her sister said. “I understand.” “Thais!” Lefteriou snapped. “No, Aris. My sister is the best at what she does. If she needs to figure this out on her own, then you bet your ass she will.” This time, there was no stopping the surge


opens in autumn, a time for reaping harvests. Most of Part One was set in winter--a cold, dead season that suited Silas' exile. In contrast, Silas' first years with Eppie were described as springtime--when new life grows. NOTE: In Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale, sixteen years elapse between Act III and Act IV. The mood changes from winter to spring. During the elapsed time, King Leontes has changed. His teenage daughter, Perdita, who's associated with flowers and nature, is finally restored to him in Act V. Eliot, as an ardent Shakespeare reader, probably intended a similar change between the "acts" in Silas Marner. In sixteen years, Raveloe hasn't changed much--the church bells ring cheerfully after Sunday services, and the congregation files out in order of social rank. But individuals have changed. Godfrey is a handsome, middle-aged man. His wife Nancy has lost her youthful glow, but in its place there is a mature beauty. Eliot hints that Nancy's experience has sobered her. What do you imagine her experience has been? Silas, who now looks old, makes a picturesque contrast next to Eppie, the embodiment of youth and high spirits. Her curly auburn hair suggests an inner nature that isn't docile. Nevertheless, Eliot shows you, Eppie has neat, tidy habits--a virtue Eliot praised before in Nancy. Eppie has a good-looking admirer, at first introduced merely as a village lad. The fact that she has an admirer underscores her beauty and signals that a shift in generations has taken place. Soon, however, as the young man joins them, you learn that he is Aaron Winthrop. In the conversation that follows, Eliot establishes the characters' lives. Silas still works hard and dotes on Eppie. Aaron earns his living as a skilled gardener. Dolly and Aaron are as close as family to Silas and Eppie. Godfrey has given Silas and Eppie a lot of financial help, which they accept innocently, with respect. NOTE: GARDENS Eppie's wish for a garden fits in with a cluster of plant imagery here. Eppie, a child of nature, has a mystical relation to flowers--she thinks they can hear people. Nourishing souls, like Dolly, are identified with gardens. Aaron's talent for gardening gives him great value in the eyes of the gentry, who cannot grow their own gardens. Flowers also signify domestic happiness. Aaron is going to plant lavender for Eppie, which traditionally was planted by a man for his new bride. (Notice that there's a big bed of lavender at the Red House. What could this symbolize?) Silas, however, is only interested in the garden for Eppie's sake. Later, he suggests that they build a fence to protect their garden. What could this symbolize? Do you think it's a positive or a negative impulse? Eppie's attachment to nature is shown also in the animals around her. On the way home, she scratches a friendly donkey's nose. (Some readers think this donkey represents Silas. What do you think of that interpretation?) A lively little dog and a litter of cats also live in their cottage. The cottage has changed; it's now cozy


front of him. “Oh, yeah? So what’re you going to do about it?” “Hmmm. Punish him, I think.” She was nodding, her eyes twinkling. “Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do. Punish him. Hard.” “Oh, right.” He scooped her off her feet and she let out a little squeal of delight as he carried her back to the bedroom, her warm body tight against his, her head in the well between his neck and shoulder. “I’ll show you who’s going to punish whom.” Angling her head upward, she managed to nip at his ear and whisper, “Oh, Detective. Promises, promises . . .” * * * Stacey opened a bleary eye and saw a white smile gleaming above her. Panic screamed through her body, but she couldn’t move, just lay in the cool, shifting water . . . wait, what? An engine growled loudly, roaring, water undulating in waves, and then went suddenly silent. Startled, she shifted, felt something hard against the back of her neck. Blinking, trying to focus, she realized it wasn’t a faraway smile she was seeing, but a crescent moon riding high overhead, a blanket of stars, and yes, she was in water, cool, lazy water that reeked and smelled of— Oh, Lord, she was in the swamp? How the hell had she ended up here? And why couldn’t she move? And, God, why couldn’t she remember anything? She tried to sit up, but whatever was behind her neck, tangled in her hair.... She reached up, her mind clearing, the sounds of a bullfrog croaking cutting through the hum of insects. And the roar had been . . . a boat? She blinked, tried to piece it all together, but her mind was a jumble. “Look! Over there! Holy shit, Bobby-Dean! Do you see that?” a deep male voice intoned. “I see it for sure!” A higher nasal voice, more excited. “Oh, sweet Jesus, it’s a girl! Man, oh, man, is she dead?” “Hope not!” “What happened to the guy? There was a guy with her. Right?” the higher voice asked. He sounded nervous. “Yeeeahh.” It was a question. And as she blinked, she saw the beam of a flashlight cutting across the still water thick with duckweed and spider lilies. Panic shot through her. She tried to move, to get away, but she was tangled against the rotting wood of some pier, her hair and some fishing wire holding her fast, choking her. “Hey, there, now . . . don’t you move . . . we gotcha,” the deep voice said, as if she could trust him. Her memory was hazy, clouded, but she had to get away, couldn’t trust these faceless men. Couldn’t trust anyone. She jerked upward and whatever was caught in her hair held her fast. No, no, no! Her heart was a drum, beating a wild tattoo. Again, she tried to remember how she’d gotten here. Why she was in the swamp as the boat came closer, the sound of oars dipping in water drawing near. She reached up to wrench her hair and


wife! He is not a married man." Sherlock Holmes shrugged his shoulders. "Prove it to me! Prove it to me! And if you can do so --!" The fierce flash of her eyes said more than any words. "I have come prepared to do so," said Holmes, drawing several papers from his pocket. "Here is a photograph of the couple taken in York four years ago. It is indorsed 'Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur,' but you will have no difficulty in recognizing him, and her also, if you know her by sight. Here are three written descriptions by trustworthy witnesses of Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur, who at that time kept St. Oliver's private school. Read them and see if you can doubt the identity of these people." She glanced at them, and then looked up at us with the set rigid face of a desperate woman. "Mr. Holmes," she said, "this man had offered me marriage on condition that I could get a divorce from my husband. He has lied to me, the villain, in every conceivable way. Not one word of truth has he ever told me. And why -- why? I imagined that all was for my own sake. But now I see that I was never anything but a tool in his hands. Why should I preserve faith with him who never kept any with me? Why should I try to shield him from the consequences of his own wicked acts? Ask me what you like, and there is nothing which I shall hold back. One thing I swear to you, and that is that when I wrote the letter I never dreamed of any harm to the old gentleman, who had been my kindest friend." "I entirely believe you, madam," said Sherlock Holmes. "The recital of these events must be very painful to you, and perhaps it will make it easier if I tell you what occurred, and you can check me if I make any material mistake. The sending of this letter was suggested to you by Stapleton?" "He dictated it." "I presume that the reason he gave was that you would receive help from Sir Charles for the legal expenses connected with your divorce?" "Exactly." "And then after you had sent the letter he dissuaded you from keeping the appointment?" "He told me that it would hurt his self-respect that any other man should find the money for such an object, and that though he was a poor man himself he would devote his last penny to removing the obstacles which divided us." "He appears to be a very consistent character. And then you heard nothing until you read the reports of the death in the paper?" "No." "And he made you swear to say nothing about your appoint- ment with Sir Charles?" "He did. He said that the death was a very mysterious one, and that I should certainly be suspected if the facts came out. He frightened me into remaining silent." "Quite so. But you had your suspicions?" She hesitated and looked down. "I knew


said Sam in a stifled voice. Eric nodded. "Yes, after the feast." "We left early," said Piggy quickly, "because we were tired." "So did we--" "--very early--" "--we were very tired." Sam touched a scratch on his forehead and then hurriedly took his hand away. Eric fingered his split lip. "Yes. We were very tired," repeated Sam, "so we left early. Was it a good--" The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. Sam twisted and the obscene word shot out of him. "--dance?" Memory of the dance that none of them had attended shook all four boys convulsively. "We left early." When Roger came to the neck of land that joined the Castle Rock to the mainland he was not surprised to be challenged. He had reckoned, during the terrible night, on finding at least some of the tribe holding out against the horrors of the island in the safest place. The voice rang out sharply from on high, where the diminishing crags were balanced one on another. "Halt! Who goes there?" "Roger." "Advance, friend." Roger advanced. "You could see who I was." "The chief said we got to challenge everyone." Roger peered up. "You couldn't stop me coming if I wanted." "Couldn't I? Climb up and see." Roger clambered up the ladder-like cliff. "Look at this." A log had been jammed under the topmost rock and another lever under that. Robert leaned lightly on the lever and the rock groaned. A full effort would send the rock thundering down to the neck of land. Roger admired. "He's a proper chief, isn't he?" Robert nodded. "He's going to take us hunting." He jerked his head in the direction of the distant shelters where a thread of white smoke climbed up the sky. Roger, sitting on the very edge of the cliff, looked somberly back at the island as he worked with his fingers at a loose tooth. His gaze settled on the top of the distant mountain and Robert changed the unspoken subject. "He's going to beat Wilfred." "What for?" Robert shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know. He didn't say. He got angry and made us tie Wilfred up. He's been"--he giggled excitedly--"he's been tied for hours, waiting--" "But didn't the chief say why?" "I never heard him." Sitting on the tremendous rock in the torrid sun, Roger received this news as an illumination. He ceased to work at his tooth and sat still, assimilating the possibilities of irresponsible authority. Then, without another word, he climbed down the back of the rocks toward the cave and the rest of the tribe. The chief was sitting there, naked to the waist, his face blocked out in white and red. The tribe lay in a semicircle before him. The newly beaten and untied Wilfred was sniffing noisily in the background. Roger squatted with the rest. "Tomorrow," went on the chief, "we shall hunt again." He pointed at this savage and that with his spear. "Some of you will stay here to improve the cave and defend the gate. I shall take a few


one side," said Julian. "Poor old ship. How it must hate lying there, gradually falling to pieces. George, I wish I could dive down and get a closer look at it." "Well, why don't you?" said George. "You've got your swimming trunks on. I've often dived down. I'll come with you, if you like, if Dick can keep the boat round about here. There's a current that is trying to take it out to sea. Dick, you'll have to keep working a bit with this oar to keep the boat in one spot." The girl stripped off her jeans and jersey and Julian did the same. They both had on bathing costumes underneath. George took a beautiful header off the end of the boat, deep down into the water. The others watched her swimming strongly downwards, holding her breath. After a bit she came up, almost bursting for breath. "Well, I went almost down to the wreck," she said. "It's just the same as it always is- seaweedy and covered with limpets and things. I wish I could get right into the ship itself. But I never have enough breath for that. You go down now, Julian." So down Julian went- but he was not so good at swimming deep under water as George was, and he couldn't go down so far. He knew how to open his eyes under water, so he was able to take a good look at the deck of the wreck. It looked very forlorn and strange. Julian didn't really like it very much. It gave him rather a sad sort of feeling. He was glad to go to the top of the water again, and take deep breaths of air, and feel the warm sunshine on his shoulders. He climbed into the boat, "Most exciting," he said. "Golly, wouldn't I just love to see that wreck properly- you know- go down under the deck into the cabins and look around. And oh, suppose we could really find the boxes of gold!" "That's impossible," said George. "I told you proper divers have already gone down and found nothing. What's the time? I say, we'll be late if we don't hurry back now!" They did hurry back, and managed to be only about five minutes late for tea. Afterwards they went for a walk over the moors, with Timothy at their heels, and by the time that bedtime came they were all so sleepy that they could hardly keep their eyes open. "Well, good-night, George," said Anne, snuggling down into her bed. "We've had a lovely day- thanks to you!" "And I've had a lovely day, too," said George, rather gruffly. "Thanks to you. I'm glad you all came. We're going to have fun. And won't you love my castle and my little island!" "Ooh, yes," said Anne, and fell asleep to dream of wrecks and castles and islands by the hundred. Oh, when would George take them to her little island? Chapter Five A VISIT TO THE ISLAND Contents- Prev/Next The children's aunt arranged a picnic for


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

a little. 'Rats,' he said in an undertone, fingers on lip. He was evidently a little scared. I edged quietly out of the room, but a plank creaked. Then the infernal little brute started going all over the house, revolver in hand and locking door after door and pocketing the keys. When I realised what he was up to I had a fit of rage--I could hardly control myself sufficiently to watch my opportunity. By this time I knew he was alone in the house, and so I made no more ado, but knocked him on the head." "Knocked him on the head!" exclaimed Kemp. "Yes--stunned him--as he was going downstairs. Hit him from behind with a stool that stood on the landing. He went downstairs like a bag of old boots." "But--! I say! The common conventions of humanity--" "Are all very well for common people. But the point was, Kemp, that I had to get out of that house in a disguise without his seeing me. I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. And then I gagged him with a Louis Quatorze vest and tied him up in a sheet." "Tied him up in a sheet!" "Made a sort of bag of it. It was rather a good idea to keep the idiot scared and quiet, and a devilish hard thing to get out of-- head away from the string. My dear Kemp, it's no good your sitting and glaring as though I was a murderer. It had to be done. He had his revolver. If once he saw me he would be able to describe me--" "But still," said Kemp, "in England--to-day. And the man was in his own house, and you were--well, robbing." "Robbing! Confound it! You'll call me a thief next! Surely, Kemp, you're not fool enough to dance on the old strings. Can't you see my position?" "And his too," said Kemp. The Invisible Man stood up sharply. "What do you mean to say?" Kemp's face grew a trifle hard. He was about to speak and checked himself. "I suppose, after all," he said with a sudden change of manner, "the thing had to be done. You were in a fix. But still--" "Of course I was in a fix--an infernal fix. And he made me wild too--hunting me about the house, fooling about with his revolver, locking and unlocking doors. He was simply exasperating. You don't blame me, do you? You don't blame me?" "I never blame any one," said Kemp. "It's quite out of fashion. What did you do next?" "I was hungry. Downstairs I found a loaf and some rank cheese --more than sufficient to satisfy my hunger. I took some brandy and water, and then went up past my impromptu bag--he was lying quite still--to the room containing the old clothes. This looked out upon the street, two lace curtains brown with dirt guarding the window. I went and peered out through their interstices. Outside the day was bright--by contrast with the brown shadows of the dismal house in


Casses'. Read this scene twice--from the Squire's point of view and then from Godfrey's. In the Squire's eyes, Godfrey isn't acting like a man. But feel the pressure Godfrey is under, from his father and from his own desire for Nancy, while he can only evade the issue. The Squire ends this discussion abruptly, ordering Godfrey around like a servant. Casually, he disowns Dunstan--for the time being, at least. Godfrey escapes from the room, but is his position improved? He hasn't been punished, but he hasn't cleared his conscience, either. What's more, he has a new fear--that the Squire will speak to Mr. Lammeter about Nancy. He hopes, however, that good fortune will keep him out of trouble. Eliot asks you to look at this impulse as a universal human reflex. In a series of parallel sentences, each structured with the phrases "Let him... and he will," she gives everyday examples of this impulse at work. But such a faith in Fortune, she declares, ignores the fact that a natural chain of events follows from every human action--"the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind." ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 10 Eliot switches to a tone of irony as she returns to the more public Raveloe scene. Mockingly, she describes the vain efforts to find the gypsy peddler. Meanwhile, she says, nobody seems concerned that Dunstan still hasn't come home. NOTE: THE MYSTERY For you, unlike the villagers, the real mystery here is Dunstan's disappearance. You know Dunstan disappeared after robbing Silas. Why hasn't anyone in Raveloe made the connection? To some readers, this is a flaw in the plot. Yet Eliot explains that Godfrey is too blinded by an image of Dunstan off enjoying himself. And the villagers simply can't imagine that a member of the gentry would be involved with sordid theft. Some other readers suggest that Eliot has kept these two Raveloe worlds so far apart that it's easy to forget they ever connect with one another. Do you find this part of the plot believable? People in town still speculate about Silas' robbery, but interest has died down. Eliot focuses your attention now on Silas, who's been offstage for a while. His loss has made him more shrunken and withered than ever. In retrospect, the author suggests his gold was good because it kept his emotions alive (gold's value changes again). Silas feels cut off from life--yet life is beginning to reach out to him. His loss has changed his reputation in town; now people feel sorry for him. Eliot talks about how clumsy such kindness can be--but it's still well meant. Her first dramatized example is of Mr. Macey, stopping by the cottage to chat. Listen to his typical thoughtless speech as if you were Silas--which phrases would make you wince? Silas, however, sits there dumbly, too crushed to respond. The next caller, Dolly Winthrop, is more sensitive. Her role in Raveloe is as a nurse, mourner, and sympathizer. She puts up with her husband Ben's sharp jokes, but her natural inclination


to that house. She’d admired Mr. de Vries tremendously: of course he was vulgar, but at least he was honest about it. Her shame hardened in her gut. She linked arms with Mrs. King. “I’m sorry I never guessed,” she said. Mrs. King turned, face drawn. She looked almost scared of what Winnie might say to her. It twisted Winnie’s heart, made tears prick in her eyes. “I didn’t want you to guess,” Mrs. King said. “I wouldn’t have let you.” She squeezed Winnie’s arm. “Don’t mention it to the others,” she added. Winnie let out a breath. “We oughtn’t to be keeping secrets, Dinah.” The anxiety left Mrs. King’s expression. It was replaced with something harder, grimmer. “That’s an order, Win,” she said. 13 Later Mrs. King met Mrs. Bone on neutral ground, in Kensington Gardens. They met by appointment, as arranged. It was time to receive Mrs. Bone’s assessment of the risks—and her funding. It reminded Mrs. King of the old days, of being schooled in her trades, learning how to pick a pocket. Mrs. Bone used to truss herself in her vulcanite and black bog oak beads and sit on a bench in Regent’s Park, going over and over the process: Gently, girl, like your fingers are made of air... She always said she had great expectations of Dinah. She said she knew a sharp eye and a good temper and a strong character when she saw one. They shared good, quick-moving O’Flynn blood, after all. “Don’t get up,” Mrs. Bone said, and pressed both hands to her thighs. “Gawd’s sake, I’m puffed.” The nursemaids were out in force, pushing modern perambulators with wheels that wouldn’t go amiss on an omnibus. The scene looked tranquil, but it wasn’t. Mrs. King had seated herself on a bench facing the palace and the sheep, and counted the men. One on the Broad Path, unmoving. Three under the parasols by the tea tent. Two more on the water, gliding past in a boat, very upright. She knew what that meant. They had pistols strapped to their ribs. Mrs. Bone had brought reinforcements for this discussion. Mrs. King was inclined to take this as a good sign. She knew her aunt. This meant she was in a negotiating mood. She was ready to buy in. Mrs. King rebuttoned her gloves. Smoothed her skirts. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Bone,” she said pleasantly. “Yes, yes, how d’ye do, splendid to see you. I’ve only got chilblains and blisters and bleedin’ corns popping up all over my feet, tramping around that great blooming place for you.” Mrs. Bone sat down with a thump, the vibration passing through the bench, and stretched her legs. She’d picked up the aroma of the back offices already. Stewed gammon and carbolic. It gave Mrs. King a strangely homesick feeling. She brushed that away at once: that sort of sensation was extremely dangerous, not required, not to be repeated. “Well?” she said, awaiting Mrs. Bone’s decision. Mrs. Bone breathed out. Closed her eyes. “I don’t like the odds.” Mrs. King nodded her


the plot’s through line like a clear, powerful note. I tidy up; I trim and decorate; I make the text sing. I know you won’t believe me, but there was never a moment when I thought to myself, I’m going to take this and make it mine. It’s not like I sat down and hatched up some evil plan to profit off my dead friend’s work. No, seriously—it felt natural, like this was my calling, like it was divinely ordained. Once I got started, it felt like it was the most obvious thing in the world that I should complete, then polish Athena’s story. And then—who knows? Maybe I could get it published for her, too. I work so damn hard on it. I write every day from dawn to past midnight. I’ve never worked so hard on any writing project before, not even my debut. The words burn like coals inside my chest, fueling me, and I must pour them all out at once before they consume me. I complete the first draft in three weeks. I take a week off, during which all I do is take long walks and read books, just to gain a fresh set of eyes, and then I have the whole thing printed at Office Depot so I can go over it all with a red pen. I flip slowly through the pages, murmuring every sentence out loud to get a feel for the sound, the shape of the words. I stay up all night to incorporate the changes back into Word. In the morning, I compose an email to my literary agent, Brett Adams, who I haven’t spoken to for months, since I’ve been deleting all his polite-but-urgent inquiries about how my second book is going: Hey, Brett. I know you’re waiting to hear about my second book, but I’ve actually got I pause for a moment, and then delete that last sentence. How am I going to explain all this to Brett? If he knows Athena wrote the first draft, he’ll need to get in touch with Athena’s agent, Jared. There will be messy negotiations with her literary estate. I don’t have written evidence that Athena wanted me to finish the book—though I’m sure that’s what she would have preferred, since what writer wants their work to languish in obscurity? Without proof of permission, however, my version might never be authorized at all. But then. No one knows Athena wrote the first draft, do they? Does the way that it’s credited matter as much as the fact that, without me, the book might never see the light of day? I can’t let Athena’s greatest work go to print in its shoddy, first-draft state. I can’t. What kind of friend would I be? Hey, Brett. Here’s the manuscript. It’s a little different from the direction we’d discussed, but I’ve found a new voice, and I like it. What do you think? Best, June Done; sent; woosh goes my mail app. I shut the lid and push my laptop across the desk, breathless at my


George blinks. Then smiles. Then repeats, “Yes?” “But”—I force myself to continue past her face-splitting grin—“I can’t formally accept until I talk with my advisor. Don’t worry, though,” I add quickly, because her smile is fading fast. “I’m sure I’ll get his approval next week! I’ll explain how much I want to take the job, and he’ll agree that it’s the best choice.” George stares for a second, looking considerably less excited. “Okay.” She nods. And when I’m about to leave, she adds, “For the record, I’d love to continue being your friend. Even if you end up not accepting.” Her smile is a little strained. “Now peace out. I gotta pee, and no, you can’t listen, you weirdo.” I’m making my way back to the living room, wondering why it feels like George just resigned herself to me not taking the job, when I overhear it. “. . . slumming it with the theorists now?” It’s Andrea’s voice from the kitchen, and I stop in the hallway. I can see only about half of Jack: broad back, light hair curling on his neck, large hands storing dirty dishes in the dishwasher. I should go in and help clean up, but something tells me to skulk around like I’m corporate-espionaging in a Bond movie. “Excuse me?” he says, confused. “So, does she know?” “Who?” “Elsie.” A quarter of Andrea appears in my field of view. Just her smile, small and private, pointed up at Jack. “Does she know that you despise people like her?” “Andy, are you drunk?” “A bit.” She laughs nervously. “Aren’t you? Elsie must be rubbing off. She must be a great lay, if you fucked over Pereira and Crowley for her. I guess she’s hot, in a bland way—” “They fucked over themselves. And you should go back to the others,” Jack says firmly. “You’re more than a bit drunk if you think telling someone that their girlfriend is bland is a good idea.” “She’s not your girlfriend.” “She is if she wants to be. She can be my damn wife if she wants to be.” Jack’s losing his usual cool. For all his commanding presence, he’s rarely truly irritated, and Andrea knows this, too. There’s a fracture on her face, masked by another weak laugh that hurts my ears. “A theorist, Jack? You having a slow year?” “Are you serious—” “You lost to her at Go,” she says, petulant even as she tries to keep her tone light. I should be offended by what she’s saying, but something’s stopping me. Something heartbreaking. “You never lose at Go. You said you’d never lose at Go.” “I never said that.” Whatever I recognized in her tone, Jack did, too. His voice softens. “I bet you lost on purpose. If that’s how bad you want her—” “She won it fair and square.” They’re talking about something else altogether. Something that has nothing to do with Go or anything that happened tonight. She cares about him deeply, I realize. More than that. “Even if I had lost to her on purpose—it


man was not mistakenly declared dead and then sent here by an incompetent doctor. A dead man had returned to life, brought back among the living by the masters of the universe who search for those who are able to conquer fear and are worthy of being given superpowers. From the comic books that he reads and the cooler graphic novels that Gifford collects, Durand knows there are masters of the universe; they go by a variety of names in different series, and they work in mysterious ways. They are aware of him, have chosen him. The possibility that he has imagined all that happened occurs to him, but he dismisses it, allowing himself no doubt. And then he sleeps. Thus the game had begun. All these years later, it quickens toward an end. As at the beginning, the all-powerful masters of the universe require him to kill a dead man who returned to life. Thereafter, Durand Calaphas will win his way out of the game and into the next level, which his unshakable faith assures him is the highest and true reality, where he will become one of the masters. He has no doubts. Doubts are for losers. His quarry is moving toward the coast. And so he speeds south, in pursuit of the blinking signifier that is Michael Mace. He lives to kill and kills to live again, a product of the New Truth in which he does not believe any more than he believes in the old truth. A MOMENT ON THE EARTH As midnight fast approaches, robes of cloud slide northward down the sky, and in the clear high dark, stars map the universe beyond the silver moon. While the solid and quiet Bentley floats through the dripping night, John sleeps in the back, upon a multimillion-dollar bed. With so much to process from this frantic day, he has material to inspire nightmares, but if dreams assault him, he keeps them to himself. He lies silently in the fetal position. Perhaps the purr of the sedan and the susurration of the tires on the highway approximate the sounds of life in the womb, the sustaining rush of umbilical blood, and bring him peace. “He’s so young,” Nina says. “How can he cope with all this? What will it do to him?” “Make him stronger,” Michael says. “I hope that’s true.” “That’s who he is. Most children are adaptable, survivors, if they’re allowed to be, if adults don’t layer their own neuroses on their kids. John’s never going to need safe spaces like the infants in universities require these days. He won’t waste his life being offended by ‘microaggressions.’ He knows the world is a hard place for everyone, that taking solace from—or finding virtue in—being a victim is a sure path to lifelong misery. He’ll roll with whatever life throws at him, and he’ll always find a way to be happy.” “I wish I could be sure of that,” she says. “How can you be?” “That’s who he is because of you.” She sits taller, not in pride,


I looked at the old analog clock on the dash. We had thirty-eight seconds. Throttling up the aft thrusters, I engaged the Hub Gunther’s main drive. The g-forces pinned us to our seats as we cleared Adams’ bay doors. Immediately, I banked left. Someone screamed. Perhaps it was me. No one had expected the asteroid to not only be right there in front of us, but so incredibly big. It was all that was visible beyond the windshield. I swung the Gunther into a wide arc, putting necessary distance between us and the asteroid, while also bringing us around for what was to come next. And there she was. USS Adams. Stately. Proud, and fulfilling her duty. She was traveling at an ungodly fast rate of speed. It wouldn’t be long now. Sorry, old girl, I know this is too soon for you. One of my favorite poems came to mind. Speaking mainly for my own benefit, I recited the last few stanzas: Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, Ho! Ho! the breakers roared! At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman’s Woe! In spectacular fashion, one befitting such a magnificent vessel, USS Adams plowed bow-forward into her intended target. The resulting fiery explosion was catastrophic for both vessel and Liquilid compound. Chen said, “Captain Ryder says jump capability has just come back online. Let’s get out of here.” Epilogue Three months later … “My boy had a run-in with the hogs again.” The plump, rosy-cheeked, fortyish woman stood next to a young, buck-toothed teen covered in mud. What appeared to be a paisley apron was wrapped around his left upper arm. There was some blood there, but not so much he was going to bleed out. The kid looked as if this wasn’t his first time visiting the doctor. “Please sign in here, ma’am. And we’ll get your boy in right away.” “Where’s Betty?” the woman said, scribbling her signature onto a worn-looking tablet. “Never seen you before. Pretty thing, ain’t ya?” She looked over to the empty seat behind the plexiglass divider, then back to Viv. The woman narrowed her eyes, taking in the embroidered name on Viv’s oversized white lab coat. “You’re not Betty.” “I’m new here. Dr. Vivian Leigh, but everyone calls me Doc Viv.” The woman gave her a once-over. Viv was well aware newcomers were rarely a welcome commodity in such a small town. Welcome to Baker, Missouri, population four thousand one hundred and forty-three. “Betty’s out sick, at least that’s what Grif—um, Dr. McKenna relayed to


be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pike-heads, harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulence did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it was. --Most miserable! .. <p 480 > A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate. Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on the road running between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act of the grief of his life's drama. He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed old husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so,


are from, like, eighth grade!” The skirt was indeed probably two years old. It was one of the newest things I’d ever worn. Apparently it was safer to wear things from Sears and thrift stores—things the kids at Granby had never seen, couldn’t date to some past catalogue, some discount sale. Petra, the journalism teacher, met me outside the guesthouse and presented me with a Granby tote containing a Granby fleece and a water bottle and a copy of the Sentinel. She was strikingly tall with a soft German accent and chicly short hair, a curtain of blond over her left eye. She asked if I’d slept well, if I needed a coffee. I skimmed the paper as we walked: dorm renovations, sandwich delivery options reviewed, an ongoing lawsuit from a former art teacher. We stepped off the slushy road and onto the frozen planks of South Bridge and I tucked the paper away, ducked my head against the wind so the freezing air hit my hat and not my face. The last of my hangover evaporated in the cold. Someone called out behind us and we waited for her to catch up. Good Lord: It was Priscilla Mancio, who was still teaching French. “Bodie Kane,” she said. “Unbelievable. I never would’ve recognized her,” she told Petra, “if they hadn’t run her picture in the magazine.” She was walking her bulldog, a delicious beast she introduced as Brigitte, and whom I squatted to scratch. Petra said, “You’ve changed since eighteen.” I find it hard to tell if people with German accents are asking questions. “Sure,” Madame Mancio said, “but—well, most alums, they either look the same, or worse. You know, it’s the boys. They go sloppy in the middle. But you look so much prettier, Bodie! Was your hair always that color?” I said, “Yep, this is my hair.” It was still dark—just no longer stringy and self-cut and ruined by cheap shampoo. “Well, I’ve listened to your podcast, and I suppose I was picturing your old face.” To Petra she said, “She had such a round little face!” Madame Mancio, meanwhile, looked shockingly unchanged. If she’d been thirty when I was at Granby, she was maybe in her early fifties now, but with the same androgynous haircut, the same tall, bony frame. She still dressed as if she might head off at any moment to hike the mountains. She said, “We were always so worried about her, especially at the end there. There are those students you just worry about. And look at her, turning out so successful, so put-together.” I was glad to be on Brigitte’s eye level rather than hers. The dog licked my face, and I marveled at the little pocket her wrinkles made between her eyes. You could stash a spare piece of kibble in there. We walked toward campus, the two of them discussing the lawsuit in the paper, the details of which I couldn’t grasp. Petra said to me, “Granby is always being sued. So is every other school in the country.” “For what?” “Oh


go 'long to school. I'm thankful to the good God and Father of us all I've got you back, that's long-suffering and merciful to them that believe on Him and keep His word, though goodness knows I'm unworthy of it, but if only the worthy ones got His blessings and had His hand to help them over the rough places, there's few enough would smile here or ever enter into His rest when the long night comes. Go 'long Sid, Mary, Tom -- take yourselves off -- you've hendered me long enough." The children left for school, and the old lady to call on Mrs. Harper and vanquish her realism with Tom's marvellous dream. Sid had better judgment than to utter the thought that was in his mind as he left the house. It was this: "Pretty thin -- as long a dream as that, without any mistakes in it!" What a hero Tom was become, now! He did not go skipping and prancing, but moved with a dignified swagger as became a pirate who felt that the public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not to seem to see the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but they were food and drink to him. Smaller boys than himself flocked at his heels, as proud to be seen with him, and tolerated by him, as --------------------------------------------------------- -184- if he had been the drummer at the head of a procession or the elephant leading a menagerie into town. Boys of his own size pretended not to know he had been away at all; but they were consuming with envy, nevertheless. They would have given anything to have that swarthy suntanned skin of his, and his glittering notoriety; and Tom would not have parted with either for a circus. At school the children made so much of him and of Joe, and delivered such eloquent admiration from their eyes, that the two heroes were not long in becoming insufferably "stuck-up." They began to tell their adventures to hungry listeners -- but they only began; it was not a thing likely to have an end, with imaginations like theirs to furnish material. And finally, when they got out their pipes and went serenely puffing around, the very summit of glory was reached. Tom decided that he could be independent of Becky Thatcher now. Glory was sufficient. He would live for glory. Now that he was distinguished, maybe she would be wanting to "make up." Well, let her -- she should see that he could be as indifferent as some other people. Presently she arrived. Tom pretended not to see her. He moved away and joined a group of boys and girls and began to talk. Soon he observed that she was tripping gayly back and forth with flushed face and dancing eyes, pretending to be busy chasing schoolmates, and screaming with laughter when she made a capture; --------------------------------------------------------- -185- but he noticed that she always made her captures in his vicinity, and that she seemed to cast a


chin tilted up, addressing the sky through the window rather than his gathered faithful. “If you’re here,” he said, “you know the cusp on which we stand. Violence, yes, but for a purpose, and with an end—a war we are sure to win. For the glory of Auverraine. For the glory of Apollius, the Bleeding God. To pave the way for His return and make the world new, a rebirth from the ashes of the old.” “May He return,” rose voices from around the room, among the scattered poison flowers. “May He return in blood and fire and His wounds be healed.” It echoed the call and response of First Day prayers, shaded sinister. Next to her father, Alie’s brow creased, confusion marring her slightly amused expression. At least she hadn’t been in on it. At least Lore had one friend. Bastian’s arm lay heavy across her waist. Two friends. And though Gabe had given them up to Anton, he still stood at her back. Maybe Lore had more people than she thought. Cold comfort, while staring down a King who wanted her dead. While the man who was supposed to stop him was still nowhere to be seen. August continued. “An eclipse is a time of great power, when the light and the dark join together. When the world becomes a portal of change, and things can be set on new paths.” His dark eyes shone as he leveled them at his son. “The world is off balance, since Apollius disappeared. Things do not always turn out as they are meant to be. And when that happens, it is up to us to change it.” “Where the fuck is Anton?” Bastian hissed from the side of his mouth, the question directed at Gabe behind him. “This isn’t the time to start running late.” “He’s coming.” But Gabe sounded just as scared as Bastian did. Lore’s palms slicked with cold sweat. Across the atrium, Alie’s deep-green eyes flickered between August and her rapt father and Lore, trying to fit together the pieces of an unlikely puzzle. Worry carved lines in her brow; then determination smoothed them. She made a tiny motion forward, as if to join Lore and Bastian and Gabe in the center of the room; Bellegarde’s hand shot out, closed tightly around her wrist, fish-belly-white against copper-brown. Alie was too far away to hear, but Lore saw the tiny sound of pain steal from her mouth. Gabe did, too. He stiffened, the lines of his body straining toward Alie, caught in between. August ignored them all. An unsound smile lit his pale face, head still tipped toward the heavens. “In a god’s hands, a curse can become a gift. In a god’s hands—one god, the true god—darkness and light can come together. Every power can come together, housed in one holy body. One god, one crown. One empire that spans the world, heals all its ills and puts it back to rights.” As he spoke, more Presque Mort filed into the room, their dark clothes and scarred bodies scattering through


had the makings of a very interesting paper on a woman who had been one of the most prominent book dealers in Ireland who was nevertheless locked up on the word of her brother. It didn’t seem to matter how talented, intelligent or independent a woman was, she was still seen as the property of a man, to do with as he pleased. ‘I’m afraid I have to get back to the library,’ I said, rising rather abruptly and putting on my jacket. There was a beat before Martha reacted. Had she wanted me to stay? I would never know and I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself by asking. ‘Could I take the book with me? I’m trying to finish the paper I’ve been working on. Hopefully I’ll still be able to get some funding for it.’ She hesitated, so I suggested a trade. Opaline’s papers for the book. ‘Actually, there’s a photo inside. Would you like to see?’ She nodded enthusiastically. It was endearing to see her enthusiasm for this woman she never knew. It was not a terribly flattering photo. There were several women lined up in front of a dining table, their hands clasped, no smiles. Perhaps it was taken for the families who paid for their keep? There was no writing on the back. Martha cocked her head to one side, then asked if I had a magnifying glass. ‘Not on me, no,’ I joked, but it went over her head. ‘What is it?’ ‘Maybe nothing.’ ‘You can’t say that!’ She squinted and held the photograph close to her face. ‘It’s her skirt. It looks like there’s something written on it.’ ‘It’s hard to tell,’ I said, looking at the grainy black and white image. When I looked back at Martha her expression had changed. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ ‘Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing, I’ve just realised the time, Madame Bowden will be back soon.’ With that she almost shoved me out of the door and I found myself back on Ha'penny Lane wondering what it was that I was missing. Chapter Forty-Nine OPALINE Dublin, 1941 ‘Guten Abend, Fräulein.’ I didn’t know how to respond, or why he was speaking in German. I wrapped the sliver of a shawl tightly around myself, as if it offered any protection. I thought I’d heard something and had come down from the attic to check. Following my escape from St Agnes’s, I had made my way back to Ha'penny and was relieved to find the shop still standing. It was like a dream, where things were both familiar and yet strange. Like Miss Havisham, the shop seemed to have halted the passing of time after I was taken away. the front door opened at my touch and even the brass handle felt like the soft muzzle of a long-lost family pet. Things had decayed and deteriorated and most of my belongings were missing. The windows of the shop were all boarded up. I had dragged my mattress up to the attic – the basement was far


things for granted. Archer looked up and met his visitor's anxious gaze. "Don't you know, Monsieur--is it possible you don't know--that the family begin to doubt if they have the right to advise the Countess to refuse her husband's last proposals?" "The proposals you brought?" "The proposals I brought." It was on Archer's lips to exclaim that whatever he knew or did not know was no concern of M. Riviere's; but something in the humble and yet courageous tenacity of M. Riviere's gaze made him reject this conclusion, and he met the young man's question with another. "What is your object in speaking to me of this?" He had not to wait a moment for the answer. "To beg you, Monsieur--to beg you with all the force I'm capable of--not to let her go back.--Oh, don't let her!" M. Riviere exclaimed. Archer looked at him with increasing astonishment. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his distress or the strength of his determination: he had evidently resolved to let everything go by the board but the supreme need of thus putting himself on record. Archer considered. "May I ask," he said at length, "if this is the line you took with the Countess Olenska?" M. Riviere reddened, but his eyes did not falter. "No, Monsieur: I accepted my mission in good faith. I really believed--for reasons I need not trouble you with--that it would be better for Madame Olenska to recover her situation, her fortune, the social consideration that her husband's standing gives her." "So I supposed: you could hardly have accepted such a mission otherwise." "I should not have accepted it." "Well, then--?" Archer paused again, and their eyes met in another protracted scrutiny. "Ah, Monsieur, after I had seen her, after I had listened to her, I knew she was better off here." "You knew--?" "Monsieur, I discharged my mission faithfully: I put the Count's arguments, I stated his offers, without adding any comment of my own. The Countess was good enough to listen patiently; she carried her goodness so far as to see me twice; she considered impartially all I had come to say. And it was in the course of these two talks that I changed my mind, that I came to see things differently." "May I ask what led to this change?" "Simply seeing the change in HER," M. Riviere replied. "The change in her? Then you knew her before?" The young man's colour again rose. "I used to see her in her husband's house. I have known Count Olenski for many years. You can imagine that he would not have sent a stranger on such a mission." Archer's gaze, wandering away to the blank walls of the office, rested on a hanging calendar surmounted by the rugged features of the President of the United States. That such a conversation should be going on anywhere within the millions of square miles subject to his rule seemed as strange as anything that the imagination could invent. "The change--what sort of a change?" "Ah, Monsieur, if I could tell


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

the day going from indignant to hurt to disappointed and back again—but as I watched the excited flush drain from her face, breathless hope replaced by grim understanding, my anger slipped away, and I just felt… tired. Now there’s only the silence of my thoughts, and the flat bleakness of the door firmly shut, literally and metaphorically. I should feel relief that it’s finally over and I can get back to focusing on what got me here in the first place, namely my job and my family, but I don’t. I feel like absolute shit. And she told me she’s in love with me. * * * Blaine is the last person I want to see Monday morning, but he barges into my office just as I’m packing up to leave for the set. “I can tell you’re on your way out, but we need to talk first,” he says, closing my office door. “Did the final numbers come in?” Brenna’s text from about six this morning showed numbers up over week one, on track to break another record. “Fuck the numbers right now,” he says. “Just tell me I’m not going to have to deal with any fucking drama on your crew.” I go still, setting my car keys down on my desk. The possibility of photos of Fizzy and me together… “What’s this about?” “Social media is raking Trent’s crew and Smash Course over the coals because of this doping bullshit.” My first reaction is relief. And then I frown, leaning in like I need to be closer to his words to process them. I was so wrapped up in the drama with Fizzy this weekend that I feel completely disconnected from anything beyond her, and us, and The True Love Experiment. “What doping bullshit? Trent wouldn’t do anything like that.” The man used to make library documentaries and low-budget sitcoms, for fuck’s sake. “What dope—?” Blaine asks, cutting off in abrupt disbelief. “Connor, he’s been dealing with lawyers for weeks. As of this morning it’s all over the goddamn Internet.” I look past him, remembering. Trent came back to San Diego for meetings with lawyers. It didn’t even occur to me to ask why. “I haven’t been online yet,” I tell him. “I came straight here before heading to set.” Blaine gives me the brief rundown: a facilities manager at one of the venues used for Trent’s show came forward with video proof that two of the other producers on the show were giving performance-enhancing drugs to a contestant. “Okay, this is bleak, this is shit,” I say. “But it’s entertainment television, not the Olympics.” “Yeah? Not the Olympics? Well, what do we tell the execs at SuperHuman and Rocket Fuel? Should I call our biggest sponsors and explain why we’re taking obscene ad money to promo their workout formulas during commercial breaks, but letting the contestants dope off camera? Oh, is that not enough for you?” He doesn’t let me answer this rhetorical question, not that I’d bother. “Well, how about this: one of the producers was also


could confide. To have told my secret would have given me away--made a mere show and rarity of me. Nevertheless, I was half minded to accost some passer-by and throw myself upon his mercy. But I knew too clearly the terror and brutal cruelty my advances would evoke. I made no plans in the street. My sole object was to get shelter from the snow, to get myself covered and warm; then I might hope to plan. But even to me, an Invisible Man, the rows of London houses stood latched, barred, and bolted impregnably. "Only one thing could I see clearly before me, the cold exposure and misery of the snowstorm and the night. "And then I had a brilliant idea. I turned down one of the roads leading from Gower Street to Tottenham Court Road, and found myself outside Omniums, the big establishment where everything is to be bought--you know the place--meat, grocery, linen, furniture, clothing, oil paintings even--a huge meandering collection of shops rather than a shop. I had thought I should find the doors open, but they were closed, and as I stood in the wide entrance a carriage stopped outside, and a man in uniform--you know the kind of personage with 'Omnium' on his cap--flung open the door. I contrived to enter, and walking down the shop--it was a department where they were selling ribbons and gloves and stockings and that kind of thing--came to a more spacious region devoted to picnic baskets and wicker furniture. "I did not feel safe there, however; people were going to and fro, and I prowled restlessly about until I came upon a huge section in an upper floor containing scores and hundreds of bedsteads, and beyond these I found a resting-place at last among a huge pile of folded flock mattresses. The place was already lit up and aggreeably warm, and I decided to remain where I was, keeping a cautious eye on the two or three sets of shopmen and customers who were meandering through the place until closing time came. Then I should be able, I thought, to rob the place for food and clothing, and disguised, prowl through it and examine its resources, perhaps sleep on some of the bedding. That seemed an acceptable plan. My idea was to procure clothing to make myself a muffled but acceptable figure, to get money, and then to recover my books and parcels where they awaited me, take a lodging somewhere and elaborate plans for the complete realisation of the advantages my invisibility gave me (as I still imagined) over my fellow-men. "Closing time arrived quickly enough; it could not have been more than an hour after I took up my position on the mattresses before I noticed the blinds of the windows being drawn, and customers being marched doorward. And then a number of brisk young men began with remarkable alacrity to tidy up the goods that remained disturbed. I left my lair as the crowds diminished, and prowled cautiously out into the less desolate parts of the shop.


in the dark air, looking back at the deserted kennel, his heart beating, pausing, beating. Faber was a grey moth asleep in his ear, for the moment. Beatty stood near the drop-hole waiting, but with his back turned as if he were not waiting. "Well," he said to the men playing cards, "here comes a very strange beast which in all tongues is called a fool." He put his hand to one side, palm up, for a gift. Montag put the book in it. Without even glancing at the title, Beatty tossed the book into the trash-basket and lit a cigarette. "`Who are a little wise, the best fools be.' Welcome back, Montag. I hope you'll be staying, with us, now that your fever is done and your sickness over. Sit in for a hand of poker?" They sat and the cards were dealt. In Beatty's sight, Montag felt the guilt of his hands. His fingers were like ferrets that had done some evil and now never rested, always stirred and picked and hid in pockets, moving from under Beatty's alcohol-flame stare. If Beatty so much as breathed on them, Montag felt that his hands might wither, turn over on their sides, and never be shocked to life again; they would be buried the rest of his life in his coat-sleeves, forgotten. For these were the hands that had acted on their own, no part of him, here was where the conscience first manifested itself to snatch books, dart off with job and Ruth and Willie Shakespeare, and now, in the firehouse, these hands seemed gloved with blood. Twice in half an hour, Montag had to rise from the game and go to the latrine to wash his hands. When he came back he hid his hands under the table. Beatty laughed. "Let's have your hands in sight, Montag. Not that we don't trust you, understand, but--" They all laughed. "Well," said Beatty, "the crisis is past and all is well, the sheep returns to the fold. We're all sheep who have strayed at times. Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning, we've cried. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts, we've shouted to ourselves. `Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge,' Sir Philip Sidney said. But on the other hand: `Words are like leaves and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.' Alexander Pope. What do you think of that?" "I don't know." "Careful," whispered Faber, living in another world, far away. "Or this? 'A little learning is a dangerous thing. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.' Pope. Same Essay. Where does that put you?" Montag bit his lip. "I'll tell you," said Beatty, smiling at his cards. "That made you for a little while a drunkard. Read a few lines and off you go over the cliff. Bang, you're ready to blow up the world, chop off heads, knock down women and children, destroy authority. I know, I've


glugs of the cheapest olive oil they had at the store. I add a tablespoon or three of minced garlic from the jar, because I am never mincing my own garlic. “ ‘You’re puttin’ a rush on me / But I’d like to know you better,’ ” I sing with Stephanie Mills as I turn the heat on medium high. While that’s cooking, I dump two cans of cannellini beans in a colander and rinse them with cool water, then I stir the sausages so they don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. “Biggest Part of Me” by Ambrosia starts playing, and I let out an auntie scream and drop everything I’m doing to step across the kitchen, but the garlic is crackling, so I come to my senses and stir the pot, then I dump in a large can of diced tomatoes and fill the can with water and add that, too. I crank in some salt and pepper, and ten-plus dashes of Cholula while playing air saxophone. I played the saxophone in marching band in middle and high school, so my fake saxophoning is extremely realistic. I add the beans to the pot and turn up the heat, stirring again for good measure. I take a break to close my eyes and let Bette Midler serenade me with “Do You Want to Dance?” Damn, this bitch can sing. I get the bag of kale that seems to be ever present in the refrigerator and wash the whole bunch, because have you ever tried separating kale?! It’s a nightmare, and this music has me feeling too good to wreck my Tylenol buzz, so the whole thing is going in. Who cares. I take a big, sharp knife and chop off the rough stems to the beat of “Laughter in the Rain” by Neil Sedaka, and then I cut the rest into ragged chunks. I like to make soup because nothing has to be precise. You can literally just put cut-up pieces of whatever into some spicy water and add some oil and alliums to it and cook it for a while and then you have a filling meal whose warmth you can hug to your chest as you eat it—if you have the right kind of bowls. “Your Sweet Love,” a monster of a jam by Al Jarreau, comes on, and I add the kale to the pot, let it simmer for the duration of the song plus the five minutes Paul McCartney’s “No More Lonely Nights” takes, and then I turn off the heat and cover the pot until dinnertime, when I decide I want a fish dinner from Culver’s instead. Friday, February 11 I agreed to do a podcast today even though I always regret agreeing to do podcasts, because I always sound like an idiot and I have no control over how I am edited, which is fine but also reckless as hell. Lucky for me the podcast people cancel, so all that’s on the agenda is taking the dog to his little school and then sitting


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

does. I think that whatever comes after this, it’s of our own making. Whatever we sowed in life is what we reap in death, good or bad.” “The worst part of the myriad hells would be the loneliness,” Gabe said quietly. “Being trapped in the world your own sins made, and utterly alone. I understand your point, but I can’t believe that someone who lived piously would be alone in death. And it wouldn’t make sense for anyone else to be caught up in the place your own actions made.” She trailed her hand along a bank of stone geraniums. “I don’t know. But if Mortem feels empty—lonely—doesn’t it make sense that death would be, too?” They lapsed into silence. Voices called in the distance, courtiers at play in the inner walls of the Citadel, sowing things they must eventually reap. “I don’t think how Mortem feels and how death feels are the same,” Gabe said finally, almost to himself. “One is twisted magic leaking from the body of a dead goddess, and one is something that awaits us all. The first comes from the second, but they aren’t the same.” “Why is Her magic called twisted?” If it weren’t that they were alone, that the hushed stone garden felt like a place removed from reality, Lore wouldn’t have spoken. But as it was, the words came tumbling from her mouth nearly dripping venom. “She and Apollius were equals. Her magic might’ve been dark and night and death, but it wasn’t twisted, not any more than His was, or any of the elemental minor gods you like to forget existed. It was just different.” Gabe made a hmm sound, brows drawn thoughtfully down. “Do you know the Law of Opposites?” A Tract teaching, a simple one that children were taught soon after learning to walk. Well, children that weren’t Lore. Still, she knew of the law and gave him a curt nod. “If something is good, then its opposite must be evil.” Gabe shook his head. “I don’t believe that.” “You don’t believe in something from the Tracts? You’re rapidly careening toward a vacation on the Burnt Isles.” It was his turn to knock into her shoulder. “I believe the Tracts are up for interpretation,” he said. “And in this, I feel like our interpretation has to be wrong. Opposites are not always in opposition; the day and night are equals. One isn’t good and the other bad.” He paused, mouth pursed. “But one does illuminate things, while the other obscures. And that has to mean something, too, I think.” Lore didn’t respond. She crossed her arms, stared at her feet as they walked over the cobblestones. “I don’t think Nyxara is evil,” Gabe continued. It sounded like he had to push it through his teeth, though, like calling the Buried Goddess Her actual name was a difficult task. “She made a mistake by trying to kill Apollius, for reasons none of us know, and She was struck down for it. I can’t think She’s in the Shining Realm with Him—that wouldn’t


had been temporarily refracted into a free standing prism for the occasion. There was a mood of immense excitement thrilling through all of them. Together and between them they had gone to and beyond the furthest limits of physical laws, restructured the fundamental fabric of matter, strained, twisted and broken the laws of possibility and impossibility, but still the greatest excitement of all seemed to be to meet a man with an orange sash round his neck. (An orange sash was what the President of the Galaxy traditionally wore.) It might not even have made much difference to them if they'd known exactly how much power the President of the Galaxy actually wielded: none at all. Only six people in the Galaxy knew that the job of the Galactic President was not to wield power but to attract attention away from it. Zaphod Beeblebrox was amazingly good at his job. The crowd gasped, dazzled by sun and seemanship, as the Presidential speedboat zipped round the headland into the bay. It flashed and shone as it came skating over the sea in wide skidding turns. In fact it didn't need to touch the water at all, because it was supported on a hazy cushion of ionized atoms - but just for effect it was fitted with thin finblades which could be lowered into the water. They slashed sheets of water hissing into the air, carved deep gashes into the sea which swayed crazily and sank back foaming into the boat's wake as it careered across the bay. Zaphod loved effect: it was what he was best at. He twisted the wheel sharply, the boat slewed round in a wild scything skid beneath the cliff face and dropped to rest lightly on the rocking waves. Within seconds he ran out onto the deck and waved and grinned at over three billion people. The three billion people weren't actually there, but they watched his every gesture through the eyes of a small robot tri-D camera which hovered obsequiously in the air nearby. The antics of the President always made amazingly popular tri-D; that's what they were for. He grinned again. Three billion and six people didn't know it, but today would be a bigger antic than anyone had bargained for. The robot camera homed in for a close up on the more popular of his two heads and he waved again. He was roughly humanoid in appearance except for the extra head and third arm. His fair tousled hair stuck out in random directions, his blue eyes glinted with something completely unidentifiable, and his chins were almost always unshaven. A twenty-foot-high transparent globe floated next to his boat, rolling and bobbing, glistening in the brilliant sun. Inside it floated a wide semi-circular sofa upholstered in glorious red leather: the more the globe bobbed and rolled, the more the sofa stayed perfectly still, steady as an upholstered rock. Again, all done for effect as much as anything. Zaphod stepped through the wall of the globe and relaxed on the sofa. He spread his two arms lazily


“It’s like asking an alcoholic if they’d wanted a drink today. Just ask me in therapy instead.” Maud was back to watching for signs, inspecting Ella’s exposed skin—arms, neck, ankles—worrying whenever she left the room. She tried to sleep next to Peter, then went down the hall to check on Ella several times during the night. Friday, she realized that she hadn’t told Alice about not coming Wednesday to hike, but then how would she have told her when Alice didn’t have a phone? Two more appointments with Rita staggered by. Both times when Maud came into the office at the end, Ella’s eyes were red and her voice stuffy. “Anything you’d like to discuss?” Rita said to Maud. “Did you do it again?” Maud asked Ella. “No.” Louise was still thrown by the relapse. Maud caught her watching Ella with her lower lip sucked in. Maud bought two boxes of sugar cubes, and they spent an afternoon building a Taj Mahal because, Louise said, a new Sphinx would never be the same. That night, Annette dropped off CBD gummies meant to help Maud sleep, but they didn’t work any better than the melatonin she’d tried. Lights off, the house creaked around her as she wandered from room to room, looked in on Ella, went outside to the deck, and, shivering, sought the glow of the city in the fog. The following Wednesday, she drove to Esperanza. She was still sleeping poorly, bolting awake several times during the night, and she felt so fuzzy-headed and loose-limbed that she couldn’t imagine going on a hike. But she missed Alice. She was on the roof as Maud walked up the drive, and she dropped down the ladder, a hammer in her back pocket, a beaten-up raffia hat shading her face. “I didn’t know you were coming,” she said, “I might have shot you.” Her face was back to the impassivity it wore when they first met. She pulled off the hat and fanned her face. “It’s only nine,” she said. “I don’t hike until ten, if that’s why you’re here.” “Sorry I went AWOL,” Maud said. “Something came up. And then I wasn’t sure how to let you know.” “I have a mailbox,” Alice said. “You drive by it every week.” The hat moved back and forth, fanning her face. She was angry, Maud realized, and she was also being unfair. Someone without a phone or computer should accept a lack of messaging. “I don’t sit around here waiting for you to show up, you know,” Alice added. “I have a schedule.” “Ella cut herself again,” Maud said. “Big mistake, having children.” “It’s not funny.” Maud felt as if she’d been slapped. And she wanted to slap Alice back. “It’s not something to joke about.” “I’m serious,” Alice said. “I think it’s a mistake.” “Forget it,” Maud said. “You can’t understand. You have one serious relationship. With a dog.” “I have another serious relationship,” Alice said. “It used to fascinate you.” The hat stilled. “Why did you come here anyway?” “To see you,” Maud


without a trace of fear. Dumai was frozen stiff. She could smell the beast, its wrongness, and the closer it came, the harder her heart pounded. Its eyes were fixed on her. ‘Great one, stop!’ Her heels slipped as more briny water bubbled up beneath her. ‘Furtia—’ Stop, it’s too strong! Furtia opened her jaws in a roar. Then a wave of hot air struck her, and so did a terrible iron horn, scraping along her side. The white light in her crest hissed out. The sound that followed was like nothing Dumai had ever heard – the screech of the wind, threatening to rip her eardrums. Furtia seemed to collapse on herself, and then she was in freefall, silver blood spraying from her side like rain. The world reeled. Eyes streaming, teeth set, Dumai clung on. Furtia shuddered beneath her. Her crest flared back to life, and she whirled away from the approaching rooftops – but the upward pull was too hard and sudden, and Dumai lost her grip. In years of climbing on the middle peak, she had never fallen any farther than it took to gasp. Not with Kanifa to catch her. This time, she had no rope around her waist. She knew how to land: on her feet, knees loose, so she would break her legs and not her skull. There was no time for that. Something clipped her shoulder. A blinding flare of pain, and then she landed, in a downy snowdrift at the base of the clock tower. It took the brunt of her fall, but pain burst in her shoulder and hip. At first she was afraid to move, to see how badly hurt she was. People ran in all directions around her – some of them spilling out of the clock tower, others into it. She glimpsed merchants and soldiers, parents and children. Somewhere in the madness and black smoke, she heard dogs barking, screams and hooves. Stay calm. Her mother spoke from her distant memory. If you fall, always stay calm. Dumai curled her toes first. She could feel both legs. With care, she sat up, groaning at the throb in her shoulder. Her coat had been torn open where the corner of a roof had struck her. Blood was already drenching her sleeve. A shadow overhead. The golden wyrm. It let out a reverberating call – a call meant to inspire fear – before red fire blazed from its maw, a wall of flame as wide as White Blossom Way. Dumai warded her eyes from the heat. Coughing, she edged through the snowmelt, beneath a shroud of darkness. Furtia would never find her now, in the crush of people and horses rushing through these alleys. Her best chance was to get back to the palace. She stayed low, afraid to breathe the rancid fumes. Her ribs flared with every movement. Splinting her side with one hand, she kept crawling, through wet footprints, soot and blood, until her fingers brushed a charred husk. Do not look, she told herself, quelling a retch. Do


onto the bench next to me, and gives me another side hug. “Everything okay, Junie?” “No, yeah, it’s just this stupid thing. Just asking for Tom’s help finding this person who’s been bullying me on Twitter.” Rory frowns. “Bullying?” I know what she’s thinking. I put up with a lot of bullying in middle school, back when our home life was going off the rails. I withdrew into books then. I spent all my waking hours in fantasy worlds, which I guess made me come off as nonverbal and antisocial. I’d show up at school carrying chunky volumes of Lord of the Rings or The Spiderwick Chronicles, and I’d hunch over them all day, oblivious to everything around me. The other kids didn’t like that. Some of my classmates made a game of making faces behind me while I was reading to see if I’d notice. Some spread the rumor that I didn’t know how to talk. Loony Junie, they’d call me, as if “loony” weren’t a word we left back in the nineties. “No, it’s not like that; it’s more like . . . creepy internet people,” I say. I don’t think Rory will understand the concept of trolling. “It’s just, like, they think I’m a famous writer now, so they can say whatever shit they want to me. Death threats and stuff. I was just asking Tom to help me find out who’s doing it, or at least, like, vaguely where they’re located.” Rory looks to her husband. “You can do that, right? This sounds serious.” Tom sighs, hapless. “Again, I can’t get IP addresses from Twitter—” “I’ll get you the IP address,” I say. “I just need you to look it up for me.” Between my pleading face and Rory’s expectant glare, I imagine Tom doesn’t feel like he has a choice. “Sure.” He reaches for another beer. “Happy to help out.” He doesn’t ask any more questions. Tom, bless him, takes everything at face value. So does Rory. I feel a deep pang of affection for them right then. There’s no guile in this family; just open, loving trust, and the best corn bread with kale chili I’ve ever tasted. WHEN I GET HOME THAT NIGHT, I SETTLE DOWN AT MY DESK TO TEACH myself some basic web design. It’s not too difficult. I participated in a four-week HTML boot camp in undergrad, back when I had the half-baked idea that if I couldn’t make it as a writer then at least I’d have a steady income as a programmer, until I realized that the programming market is also quickly becoming too saturated for anyone who isn’t a natural talent. I couldn’t get a job with the skills I retained, but I do know enough to throw together a half-decent website that doesn’t immediately appear like a Russian hacker’s trap. The design of the site isn’t too important—it’s supposed to look like a janky homegrown blog. I spend about fifteen minutes copying, pasting, and formatting some of the more vicious “proof” of my alleged plagiarism onto the homepage.


silent and unnoticed in his corner, and had almost dropped asleep, when he was half wakened by the noisy entrance of a new comer. This was an antic fellow, half pedlar and half mountebank, who travelled about the country on foot to vend hones, stops, razors, washballs, harness-paste, medicine for dogs and horses, cheap perfumery, cosmetics, and such-like wares, which he carried in a case slung to his back. His entrance was the signal for various homely jokes with the countrymen, which slackened not until he had made his supper, and opened his box of treasures, when he ingeniously contrived to unite business with amusement. 'And what be that stoof? Good to eat, Harry?' asked a grinning countryman, pointing to some composition-cakes in one corner. 'This,' said the fellow, producing one, 'this is the infallible and invaluable composition for removing all sorts of stain, rust, dirt, mildew, spick, speck, spot, or spatter, from silk, satin, linen, cambrick, cloth, crape, stuff, carpet, merino, muslin, bombazeen, or woollen stuff. Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, any stains, all come out at one rub with the infallible and invaluable composition. If a lady stains her honour, she has only need to swallow one cake and she's cured at once--for it's poison. If a gentleman wants to prove this, he has only need to bolt one little square, and he has put it beyond question--for it's quite as satisfactory as a pistol-bullet, and a great deal nastier in the flavour, consequently the more credit in taking it. One penny a square. With all these virtues, one penny a square!' There were two buyers directly, and more of the listeners plainly hesitated. The vendor observing this, increased in loquacity. 'It's all bought up as fast as it can be made,' said the fellow. 'There are fourteen water-mills, six steam-engines, and a galvanic battery, always a-working upon it, and they can't make it fast enough, though the men work so hard that they die off, and the widows is pensioned directly, with twenty pound a-year for each of the children, and a premium of fifty for twins. One penny a square! Two half-pence is all the same, and four farthings is received with joy. One penny a square! Wine-stains, fruit-stains, beer-stains, water-stains, paint-stains, pitch-stains, mud-stains, blood-stains! Here is a stain upon the hat of a gentleman in company, that I'll take clean out, before he can order me a pint of ale.' 'Hah!' cried Sikes starting up. 'Give that back.' 'I'll take it clean out, sir,' replied the man, winking to the company, 'before you can come across the room to get it. Gentlemen all, observe the dark stain upon this gentleman's hat, no wider than a shilling, but thicker than a half-crown. Whether it is a wine-stain, fruit-stain, beer-stain, water-stain, paint-stain, pitch-stain, mud-stain, or blood-stain--' The man got no further, for Sikes with a hideous imprecation overthrew the table, and tearing the hat from him, burst out of the house. With the same perversity of feeling and irresolution that had fastened upon him, despite himself, all day,


eyebrows are, somehow, darker; they look particularly arched and as if they might move a good deal. His eyes are sharp, strange--awfully; but I only know clearly that they're rather small and very fixed. His mouth's wide, and his lips are thin, and except for his little whiskers he's quite clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor." "An actor!" It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs. Grose at that moment. "I've never seen one, but so I suppose them. He's tall, active, erect," I continued, "but never--no, never!--a gentleman." My companion's face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started and her mild mouth gaped. "A gentleman?" she gasped, confounded, stupefied: "a gentleman HE?" "You know him then?" She visibly tried to hold herself. "But he IS handsome?" I saw the way to help her. "Remarkably!" "And dressed--?" "In somebody's clothes. "They're smart, but they're not his own." She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: "They're the master's!" I caught it up. "You DO know him?" She faltered but a second. "Quint!" she cried. "Quint?" "Peter Quint--his own man, his valet, when he was here!" "When the master was?" Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. "He never wore his hat, but he did wear--well, there were waistcoats missed. They were both here--last year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone." I followed, but halting a little. "Alone?" "Alone with US." Then, as from a deeper depth, "In charge," she added. "And what became of him?" She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. "He went, too," she brought out at last. "Went where?" Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. "God knows where! He died." "Died?" I almost shrieked. She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter the wonder of it. "Yes. Mr. Quint is dead." VI It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together in presence of what we had now to live with as we could-- my dreadful liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my companion's knowledge, henceforth--a knowledge half consternation and half compassion--of that liability. There had been, this evening, after the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate--there had been, for either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tears and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of mutual challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have everything out. The result of our having everything out was simply to reduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but the governess was in the governess's plight; yet she accepted without directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an expression of


class="p3">

T HERE WAS SOME TALK, after the attack, about pulling me off the

battlefield. Again.

I couldn’t bear to think about that. It was too awful to contemplate.

To keep my mind off the possibility, I fell to my work, got into the

rhythm of the job.

My schedule was helpfully rigid: two days of planned ops, three days of

VHR (very high readiness). In other words, sitting around a tent, waiting to

be summoned.

The VHR tent had the look and feel of a student room at university. The

collegiality, the boredom—the mess. There were several cracked-leather

couches, a big Union Jack on the wall, snack foods everywhere. We’d pass

the time playing FIFA, drinking gallons of coffee, flipping through lad

mags. (Loaded was quite popular.) But then the alarm would sound and my

student days, along with every other era of my life, would feel a million

miles away.

One of the lads said we were glorified firefighters. He wasn’t wrong.

Never fully asleep, never fully relaxed, always ready to go. We could be

sipping a cup of tea, eating an ice cream, crying about a girl, having a chat

about football, but our senses were always tuned and our muscles were

always taut, awaiting that alarm.

The alarm itself was a phone. Red, plain, no buttons, no dial, just a base

and handset. Its ringer was antique, consummately British. Brrrang. The

sound was vaguely familiar; I couldn’t place it at first. Eventually I realized.

It was exactly like Granny’s phone at Sandringham on her big desk, in the

huge sitting room where she took calls between games of bridge.

There were always four of us in the VHR tent. Two flight crews of two

men each, a pilot and a gunner. I was a gunner and my pilot was Dave—tall,

lanky, built like a long-distance marathoner, which in fact he was. He had

short dark hair and an epic desert tan.

More glaringly, he possessed a deeply enigmatic sense of humor. Several

times a day I’d ask myself: Is Dave serious? Is he being sarcastic? I could

never tell. It’s going to take me a while to


at such a moment, but the fascination exercised over her rougher nature by Tess's character compelled her to grace. Clare was silent; his heart had risen at these straightforward words from such an unexpected unimpeachable quarter. In his throat was something as if a sob had solidified there. His ear repeated, "SHE WOULD HAVE LAID DOWN HER LIFE FOR 'EE. I COULD DO NO MORE!" "Forget our idle talk, Izz," he said, turning the horse's head suddenly. "I don't know what I've been saying! I will now drive you back to where your lane branches off." "So much for honesty towards 'ee! O--how can I bear it--how can I--how can I!" Izz Huett burst into wild tears, and beat her forehead as she saw what she had done. "Do you regret that poor little act of justice to an absent one? O, Izz, don't spoil it by regret!" She stilled herself by degrees. "Very well, sir. Perhaps I didn't know what I was saying, either, wh--when I agreed to go! I wish--what cannot be!" "Because I have a loving wife already." "Yes, yes! You have!" They reached the corner of the lane which they had passed half an hour earlier, and she hopped down. "Izz--please, please forget my momentary levity!" he cried. "It was so ill-considered, so ill-advised!" "Forget it? Never, never! O, it was no levity to me!" He felt how richly he deserved the reproach that the wounded cry conveyed, and, in a sorrow that was inexpressible, leapt down and took her hand. "Well, but, Izz, we'll part friends, anyhow? You don't know what I've had to bear!" She was a really generous girl, and allowed no further bitterness to mar their adieux. "I forgive 'ee, sir!" she said. "Now, Izz," he said, while she stood beside him there, forcing himself to the mentor's part he was far from feeling; "I want you to tell Marian when you see her that she is to be a good woman, and not to give way to folly. Promise that, and tell Retty that there are more worthy men than I in the world, that for my sake she is to act wisely and well--remember the words--wisely and well--for my sake. I send this message to them as a dying man to the dying; for I shall never see them again. And you, Izzy, you have saved me by your honest words about my wife from an incredible impulse towards folly and treachery. Women may be bad, but they are not so bad as men in these things! On that one account I can never forget you. Be always the good and sincere girl you have hitherto been; and think of me as a worthless lover, but a faithful friend. Promise." She gave the promise. "Heaven bless and keep you, sir. Goodbye!" He drove on; but no sooner had Izz turned into the lane, and Clare was out of sight, than she flung herself down on the bank in a fit of racking anguish; and it was with a strained unnatural face that


his brightened the whole room. And despite his outward display of confidence, Lucy was positive it was a charade. Simon Calloway didn’t seem arrogant in the least, and she very much liked that about him. “Well,” Lord Calloway said, pushing himself slowly to his feet, “shall we?” Lucy frowned. “Shall we what?” They couldn’t very well go riding now when that was what Olivia was planning to do. Lifting a dark eyebrow, Lord Calloway looked at her like she should know. “See to William,” he said. “But we were there this morning.” “Olivia doesn’t know that. Unless you want her to know about your delightful hair this morning, it would be best to follow through with the idea, in case she gets it into her head that she should remain indoors.” Without meaning to, Lucy touched a hand to her hair, just to make sure it wasn’t an absolute mess. She had gotten so used to wearing it in a simple bun at the base of her skull that she had forgotten how it felt to have it lighter and looser, and Rebecca had remarkable talent with hair. She should have been made a lady’s maid long before now, and Lucy wondered if perhaps that was part of the reason Rebecca was so insistent on going with her. Mrs. Granger’s stubborn and rather terrifying abigail would hold the position until the day she died. “I suppose.” As much as she did want to make sure Mr. Calloway was recovering, she did not like the idea of being in the same room alone with Lord Calloway. Not again. But how is that different from being alone with him now? she wondered to herself. The breakfast room was not a bedchamber. That was how it was different. “Join me, Miss Staley,” he said and held out his arm to her. If she refused, Lord Calloway would wonder why, and Lucy already suspected he didn’t fully believe the news of the engagement. Out of everyone, he had the most power to ruin her life, and she had already continued too far into this ruse to court more catastrophe. At this point, she would simply be doing everything in her power to salvage what she could of her life. “Lord Calloway, I—” “I seem to recall asking you to use my name, Miss Staley.” She groaned in frustration. “It would hardly be appropriate, given the circumstances. I am not your family, nor your friend.” “But we could become friends, could we not?” This time he reached out his hand, which Lucy took without meaning to. His fingers wrapped around hers with a gentle strength. “And would you give me leave to call you Lucy?” The only people who had called her Lucy in the last five years were Rebecca and now the Calloway family. She had practically forgotten her own name, and hearing it on Lord Calloway’s lips felt like a healing balm on her heart. It made her feel like she was home. “Very well. You may call me Lucy because we are friends,” she


snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic?books survive. And the three?dimensional sex?magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade?journals." "Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag. "Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well?read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me." The door to the parlour opened and Mildred stood there looking in at them, looking at Beatty and then at Montag. Behind her the walls of the room were flooded with green and yellow and orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to some music composed almost completely of trap?drums, tom?toms, and cymbals. Her mouth moved and she was saying something but the sound covered it. Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning. "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we


only imply guilt. “Why do you want to see Dad?” Giselle asks, each word cautiously placed like steps through a land mine. A little dirt devil of uncertainty whirls in my gut. “I don’t.” She is clearly unconvinced. “I mean, not like that. I don’t want to see him, see him.” I don’t give a single solitary shit about the man. “I just…I’m going to be a BEP alum, you know? I’m going to be an Ultimate Explorer. I’m going to be up onstage at the Explorers’ Ball receiving an award and a scholarship to Cambridge because I’m so bloody brilliant, and his firm will be clamoring to forge ties with me as an up-and-coming corporate star, and he’ll have to…to see it.” That was a perfectly valid explanation, but Giselle sighs pityingly the way only an older sister can. “Oh, Celine.” “What? It’s not…I’m not…” My face is hot, but I fold my hands together and force myself to speak slowly. “I didn’t choose to do the BEP because Dad might—and it is, technically, a might—be at the ball. But if he is there, good.” A lump rises in my throat. I swallow it. “I bet he never even thinks about us. We are a government-mandated direct debit, Giselle. Meanwhile, Mum has done everything for us, been everything for us, and you know what? She did an incredible job, because we are amazing human beings. He should see that.” Giselle snorts. “Amazing human beings? You’re an emo nerd and I’m a ne’er-do-well with delusions of artistic grandeur. What’s so amazing about that?” “Shut up.” I smack her arm. “What are you being a dick for?” “Because it doesn’t matter.” Her hand rests on my shoulder. Her eyes are black like the ink of a message I can’t quite read. “Even if neither of us ever did anything interesting in our entire lives, it wouldn’t matter. You don’t need to be special or significant to have value. You’re just important, always, and people either see that or they don’t. They either love you, or they don’t.” She bites her lip. “Dad’s messed up, Celine. They should’ve given him an Unfit for Purpose stamp at the parent factory. But he is who he is—” I’m nodding, vindicated, my plan rushing out like I’ve secretly been waiting for someone to tell it to. Maybe I have. “Exactly. Exactly! So when he sees me at the ball, he’ll feel what a failure he is. I’m going to achieve everything he ever did,” I tell her, “only better. And he’ll hear all about it. I’ll get the highest grades in my entire school and they’ll put me on BBC News, and he’ll spit out his morning coffee.” It’s true what they say about the power of intentions because every word I speak wraps around me like magic, reinforcing my bones with steel. “I’ll dominate his field and in ten years’ time he won’t be able to move without hearing my name. I hope the shame suffocates him in his sleep. I hope he retires early with