Eitan. “Now I know better. You and I have business, Alex Stern.” It had all been a game. No, an audition. She’d been looking for a trap, just not the one he’d had waiting for her. And she’d walked right into it. The wise fool. 10 October Alex took a car the short distance back to the dorms from the crime scene. She probably should have walked, but the area around the med school wasn’t safe and she was too tired for a tussle. By the time she got washed up and tucked into bed, it was 3 a.m. Mercy was fast asleep, and Alex was glad she didn’t have to answer any questions. She slept and dreamed she was climbing the stairs at Black Elm. She entered the ballroom, slid past the barrier of the golden circle, its warmth a comfort, like slipping into a hot bath. Darlington was waiting for her. Alex didn’t remember waking. One moment she was asleep and standing inside the circle of protection with Darlington; the next she was alone beneath an autumn sky at the door to Black Elm. At first she thought she was still dreaming. The house was dark except for the gold light bleeding from beneath the boarded windows on the second floor. She could hear the wind in the trees, shaking the leaves, a warning whisper, Summer is over, summer is over. She looked down at her feet. They were covered in mud and blood. Am I here, or am I dreaming? She’d gone back to her dorm room after she’d left Turner at the psych department, brushed her teeth, climbed into bed. Maybe she was still there now. But her feet hurt. Her arms had broken out in gooseflesh. She was wearing nothing but the shorts and tank top she slept in. Real awareness crept in. She was cold, alone, and in the dark. She had walked here. Barefoot. No phone. No money. She had never sleepwalked in her life. Alex put her hand to the kitchen door. She could see herself reflected in the glass, bone white against the dark. She didn’t want to go in. She didn’t want to walk up those stairs. That was a lie. She could feel the dream pulling at her. She’d been standing with Darlington inside the golden circle. She wanted to be there now. She looked up at the windows. Did he know she was here? Did he want her here? “For fuck’s sake,” she said, her voice too loud, dying too abruptly in the woods that surrounded the house, as if no sound could be permitted to carry to the outside world. She needed to get back to the dorms. She could try to find a Gray to summon and use its strength to get her home, but her feet already hurt like hell. Besides, after that little incident at Oddman’s place, she wasn’t sure she wanted to invite another Gray in. She could try limping to a gas station. Or she could break a window and use the landline to


such as: "That is a tree," "this is grass," "I am hungry," and the like, but D'Arnot found that it was difficult to teach him the French construction upon a foundation of English. The Frenchman wrote little lessons for him in English and had Tarzan repeat them in French, but as a literal translation was usually very poor French Tarzan was often confused. D'Arnot realized now that he had made a mistake, but it seemed too late to go back and do it all over again and force Tarzan to unlearn all that he had learned, especially as they were rapidly approaching a point where they would be able to converse. Chapter 23 130 On the third day after the fever broke Tarzan wrote a message asking D'Arnot if he felt strong enough to be carried back to the cabin. Tarzan was as anxious to go as D'Arnot, for he longed to see Jane again. It had been hard for him to remain with the Frenchman all these days for that very reason, and that he had unselfishly done so spoke more glowingly of his nobility of character than even did his rescuing the French officer from Mbonga's clutches. D'Arnot, only too willing to attempt the journey, wrote: But you cannot carry me all the distance through this tangled forest. Tarzan laughed. "MAIS OUI," he said, and D'Arnot laughed aloud to hear the phrase that he used so often glide from Tarzan's tongue. So they set out, D'Arnot marveling as had Clayton and Jane at the wondrous strength and agility of the apeman. Mid-afternoon brought them to the clearing, and as Tarzan dropped to earth from the branches of the last tree his heart leaped and bounded against his ribs in anticipation of seeing Jane so soon again. No one was in sight outside the cabin, and D'Arnot was perplexed to note that neither the cruiser nor the Arrow was at anchor in the bay. An atmosphere of loneliness pervaded the spot, which caught suddenly at both men as they strode toward the cabin. Neither spoke, yet both knew before they opened the closed door what they would find beyond. Tarzan lifted the latch and pushed the great door in upon its wooden hinges. It was as they had feared. The cabin was deserted. The men turned and looked at one another. D'Arnot knew that his people thought him dead; but Tarzan thought only of the woman who had kissed him in love and now had fled from him while he was serving one of her people. A great bitterness rose in his heart. He would go away, far into the jungle and join his tribe. Never would he see one of his own kind again, nor could he bear the thought of returning to the cabin. He would leave that forever behind him with the great hopes he had nursed there of finding his own race and becoming a man among men. And the Frenchman? D'Arnot? What of him? He could get along as Tarzan had. Tarzan did not want to


Philip's work was poor, that he ran small chance against keen rivals of carrying off the scholarship necessary for him to go to Oxford: the important matter was his changed intention about his life afterwards. Mr. Perkins set himself to revive his eagerness to be ordained. With infinite skill he worked on his feelings, and this was easier since he was himself genuinely moved. Philip's change of mind caused him bitter distress, and he really thought he was throwing away his chance of happiness in life for he knew not what. His voice was very persuasive. And Philip, easily moved by the emotion of others, very emotional himself notwithstanding a placid exterior--his face, partly by nature but also from the habit of all these years at school, seldom except by his quick flushing showed what he felt--Philip was deeply touched by what the master said. He was very grateful to him for the interest he showed, and he was conscience-stricken by the grief which he felt his behaviour caused him. It was subtly flattering to know that with the whole school to think about Mr. Perkins should trouble with him, but at the same time something else in him, like another person standing at his elbow, clung desperately to two words. "I won't. I won't. I won't." He felt himself slipping. He was powerless against the weakness that seemed to well up in him; it was like the water that rises up in an empty bottle held over a full basin; and he set his teeth, saying the words over and over to himself. "I won't. I won't. I won't." At last Mr. Perkins put his hand on Philip's shoulder. "I don't want to influence you," he said. "You must decide for yourself. Pray to Almighty God for help and guidance." When Philip came out of the headmaster's house there was a light rain falling. He went under the archway that led to the precincts, there was not a soul there, and the rooks were silent in the elms. He walked round slowly. He felt hot, and the rain did him good. He thought over all that Mr. Perkins had said, calmly now that he was withdrawn from the fervour of his personality, and he was thankful he had not given way. In the darkness he could but vaguely see the great mass of the Cathedral: he hated it now because of the irksomeness of the long services which he was forced to attend. The anthem was interminable, and you had to stand drearily while it was being sung; you could not hear the droning sermon, and your body twitched because you had to sit still when you wanted to move about. Then philip thought of the two services every Sunday at Blackstable. The church was bare and cold, and there was a smell all about one of pomade and starched clothes. The curate preached once and his uncle preached once. As he grew up he had learned to know his uncle; Philip was downright and intolerant, and he could not understand


the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came,--oh, my beautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness, of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To- night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You have made me understand what love really is. My love! my love! I am sick [40] of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone from me. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled. What should they know of love? Take me away, Dorian-- take me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it all means? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that." He flung himself down on the sofa, and turned away his face. "You have killed my love," he muttered. She looked at him in wonder, and laughed. He made no answer. She came across to him, and stroked his hair with her little fingers. She knelt down and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him. Then he leaped up, and went to the door. "Yes," he cried, "you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were wonderful, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never


rushed toward the ape with the fearlessness of a lioness protecting its young. "Back, Alice," shouted Clayton, "for God's sake, go back." But she would not heed, and just then the ape charged, so that Clayton could say no more. The man swung his ax with all his mighty strength, but the powerful brute seized it in those terrible hands, and tearing it from Clayton's grasp hurled it far to one side. With an ugly snarl he closed upon his defenseless victim, but ere his fangs had reached the throat they thirsted for, there was a sharp report and a bullet entered the ape's back between his shoulders. Throwing Clayton to the ground the beast turned upon his new enemy. There before him stood the terrified girl vainly trying to fire another bullet into the animal's body; but she did not understand the mechanism of the firearm, and the hammer fell futilely upon an empty cartridge. Almost simultaneously Clayton regained his feet, and without thought of the utter hopelessness of it, he rushed forward to drag the ape from his wife's prostrate form. With little or no effort he succeeded, and the great bulk rolled inertly upon the turf before him--the ape was dead. The bullet had done its work. A hasty examination of his wife revealed no marks upon her, and Clayton decided that the huge brute had died the instant he had sprung toward Alice. Gently he lifted his wife's still unconscious form, and bore her to the little cabin, but it was fully two hours Chapter 3 21 before she regained consciousness. Her first words filled Clayton with vague apprehension. For some time after regaining her senses, Alice gazed wonderingly about the interior of the little cabin, and then, with a satisfied sigh, said: "O, John, it is so good to be really home! I have had an awful dream, dear. I thought we were no longer in London, but in some horrible place where great beasts attacked us." "There, there, Alice," he said, stroking her forehead, "try to sleep again, and do not worry your head about bad dreams." That night a little son was born in the tiny cabin beside the primeval forest, while a leopard screamed before the door, and the deep notes of a lion's roar sounded from beyond the ridge. Lady Greystoke never recovered from the shock of the great ape's attack, and, though she lived for a year after her baby was born, she was never again outside the cabin, nor did she ever fully realize that she was not in England. Sometimes she would question Clayton as to the strange noises of the nights; the absence of servants and friends, and the strange rudeness of the furnishings within her room, but, though he made no effort to deceive her, never could she grasp the meaning of it all. In other ways she was quite rational, and the joy and happiness she took in the possession of her little son and the constant attentions of her husband made that year a very happy


the back door. ‘He’s a treasure.’ Josie’s eyes shone. ‘He is…’ Lin busied herself with the kettle and water from the tap. ‘I feel really awful, though…’ Josie sat down at the table. ‘Why?’ ‘We were talking over breakfast and Neil asked if I’d like to go on a nice boat trip somewhere and I said it was too much of an expense. He wants to do something special for our fiftieth anniversary in October, especially since my seventieth birthday bash was such a flop.’ ‘Why was it a flop?’ Josie asked. ‘We had a great time at The Sun, me and you and Harry and Neil.’ Lin shook her head sadly. ‘I know, but Debbie couldn’t come – she was too busy with the kids, she said, and Neil felt that she should have made time for my birthday lunch. It’s odd, not seeing much of her and the grandchildren… Debbie’s almost a stranger now.’ ‘That’s tough,’ Josie agreed, accepting the mug of coffee. ‘When did you last see her?’ ‘Almost a year ago. I offered to go to Peterborough last month, but she had something on. She sends the odd text, and when we do chat on the phone, it’s often cut short because she’s so busy.’ Lin shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ ‘She’s missing out,’ Josie observed, then she leaned across the table and patted Lin’s arm. ‘It’s such a shame.’ She sighed. ‘Now Harry’s gone, I often wonder if it would’ve been a comfort to have a son or daughter.’ ‘Comfort’s not guaranteed…’ Lin shook her head. ‘Debbie was my world when she was little, but I don’t think she has time for me now. If I… if I lost Neil, I don’t think I’d see much of her.’ ‘I’m sure she’s there for you. You’re a great mum. You did everything for Debbie,’ Josie conceded. Lin was surprised to feel tears stinging her eyes. She sniffed. ‘I’m sorry, Josie, I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself… It’s these tablets – they make me all weepy…’ Josie was up from her seat, wrapping her arms around her friend. ‘Lin – we’ve been best friends since we were kids. We share everything, the good and the bad.’ ‘That’s true. Since primary school…’ Lin took a deep breath, her eyes wet. ‘That seems so long ago.’ ‘It does. They were happy times, though.’ ‘We are still best friends – these are happy times too,’ Josie soothed. She sat down again and reached for the mug of coffee. ‘We have to make these days count. Right – so – when are we meeting Minnie for lunch?’ ‘Next Saturday at Odile’s.’ ‘I love our Silver Ladies’ lunches.’ ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Lin cupped her hands around her mug. It eased the ache in her fingers. ‘You know, Josie, I get so tearful nowadays but I shouldn’t. I have Neil and we have the best life. He loves me… and I have you and Minnie…’ She picked up a knife and hacked two hunks of cake, easing them onto plates. ‘But


the sting gave way to warmth, and she crossed her arms, making herself small as she burrowed under her covers. But sleep wouldn’t come. She was so exhausted, but she was so cold, and rest hovered just beyond her grasp. Getting up wasn’t really a conscious thought. Neither was padding to the door and pushing it open, looking out into the dim glow of the banked fire, out to where Gabe huddled next to the door, bare chest gilded in ember-light, staring up at the ceiling with one blue eye and one leather-covered wound. He turned to her as she made her slow way across the dusty carpet, arms still crossed, still huddled as if she stood in a blizzard instead of a courtier’s apartment. He watched her come and didn’t say a word. “I’m so cold,” Lore murmured. And he still didn’t speak as he took hold of his blanket and held it out, an invitation. Lore lay down next to Gabe, and he let the blanket fall over her, turned so his back was to the door and his chest pressed against her spine. He was warm, and it seeped into her slowly, blotting out the numbness, reminders of life in a body that knew so much death. Gabe’s arm settled over her waist, pulled her close. The bandage over the missing tip of his finger was stark against the dark blanket. His breath stirred her hair. And Lore closed her eyes and fell into deep, thankfully dreamless sleep. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX The significance of natural phenomena in fluctuations of divine power cannot be overstated. Apollius was the god of the sun, and Nyxara the goddess of the moon. Their union proved to be a volatile one, and one that spelled destruction for the world as we knew it before the Godsfall; however, when their symbols come together in the sky, it can be a time of great power for those who know how to use it. An eclipse signifies change, change to the very nature of magic. It is a time when opposites can come together. —Solenne Bacque, lecturer in Cosmological Theology at Ularha College in Kadmar (pre-Kirythean conquest) Ouch.” Gabe’s voice startled Lore awake, much closer to her ear than it should be. Her eyes flew open, registering the world at an odd angle—sideways, and from below. Every muscle in her body felt like it was on the verge of cramping, and something behind her back pressed her forward uncomfortably. It was Gabe, arching away from the door. Gabe, lying next to her with his chest bare. Gabe, whom she’d slept with the night before, chasing warmth and not thinking about how it’d leave them in the morning. Lore scrambled up, taking the blanket with her, clutching it around her shoulders. She’d slept with plenty of people, in both senses of the word, and didn’t much care about modesty besides. But something about it being Gabe, pious, vow-bound Gabe, made her cheeks heat furiously and an uncomfortable vulnerability crawl through her chest. The flush across Gabe’s cheekbones said he


"She's not suffering any more. She was sick for a long time. Son, didn't you know what her fits were?" Jem shook his head. "Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict," said Atticus. "She took it as a pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She'd have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was too contrary-" "Sir?" said Jem. Atticus said, "Just before your escapade she called me to make her will. Dr. Reynolds told her she had only a few months left. Her business affairs were in perfect order but she said, 'There's still one thing out of order.'" "What was that?" Jem was perplexed. "She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. Jem, when you're sick as she was, it's all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn't all right for her. She said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that's what she did." Jem said, "You mean that's what her fits were?" "Yes, that's what they were. Most of the time you were reading to her I doubt if she heard a word you said. Her whole mind and body were concentrated on that alarm clock. If you hadn't fallen into her hands, I'd have made you go read to her anyway. It may have been some distraction. There was another reason-" "Did she die free?" asked Jem. "As the mountain air," said Atticus. "She was conscious to the last, almost. Conscious," he smiled, "and cantankerous. She still disapproved heartily of my doings, and said I'd probably spend the rest of my life bailing you out of jail. She had Jessie fix you this box-" Atticus reached down and picked up the candy box. He handed it to Jem. Jem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a white, waxy, perfect camellia. It was a Snow-on-the-Mountain. Jem's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Old hell-devil, old hell-devil!" he screamed, flinging it down. "Why can't she leave me alone?" In a flash Atticus was up and standing over him. Jem buried his face in Atticus's shirt front. "Sh-h," he said. "I think that was her way of telling you- everything's all right now, Jem, everything's all right. You know, she was a great lady." "A lady?" Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. "After all those things she said about you, a lady?" "She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.


unconscious where its disturbance can be blanked out. I can see it." "Paul, you--" "I see it!" he repeated. She heard madness in his voice, didn't know what to do. But he spoke again, and she heard the iron control return to him: "We're trapped here." We're trapped here, she agreed. And she accepted the truth of his words. No pressure of the Bene Gesserit, no trickery or artifice could pry them completely free from Arrakis: the spice was addictive. Her body had known the fact long before her mind awakened to it. So here we live out our lives, she thought, on this hell-planet. The place is prepared for us, if we can evade the Harkonnens. And there's no doubt of my course: a broodmare preserving an important bloodline for the Bene Gesserit Plan. "I must tell you about my waking dream," Paul said. (Now there was fury in his voice.) "To be sure you accept what I say, I'll tell you first I know you'll bear a daughter, my sister, here on Arrakis." Jessica placed her hands against the tent floor, pressed back against the curving fabric wall to still a pang of fear. She knew her pregnancy could not show yet. Only her own Bene Gesserit training had allowed her to read the first faint signals of her body, to know of the embryo only a few weeks old. "Only to serve," Jessica whispered, clinging to the Bene Gesserit motto. "We exist only to serve." "We'll find a home among the Fremen," Paul said, "where your Missionaria Protectiva has bought us a bolt hole." They've prepared a way for us in the desert, Jessica told herself. But how can he know of the Missionaria Protectiva? She found it increasingly difficult to subdue her terror at the overpowering strangeness in Paul. He studied the dark shadow of her, seeing her fear and every reaction with his new awareness as though she were outlined in blinding light. A beginning of compassion for her crept over him. "The things that can happen here, I cannot begin to tell you," he said. "I cannot even begin to tell myself, although I've seen them. This sense of the future--I seem to have no control over it. The thing just happens. The immediate future--say, a year--I can see some of that . . . a road as broad as our Central Avenue on Caladan. Some places I don't see . . . shadowed places . . . as though it went behind a hill" (and again he thought of the surface of a blowing kerchief) " . . . and there are branchings . . . " He fell silent as memory of that seeing filled him. No prescient dream, no experience of his life had quite prepared him for the totality with which the veils had been ripped away to reveal naked time. Recalling the experience, he recognized his own terrible purpose--the pressure of his life spreading outward like an expanding bubble . . . time retreating before it . . . Jessica found


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

been a kind of father, the only kind he could keep. His eye darted to Bastian, pleading. The Sun Prince—no, the Sainted King—watched on, implacable. His hands kept flexing, back and forth, working up more golden light. “You’re going to give us another solution, old man,” Bastian murmured. “Don’t make me cut it out of you.” Gabe looked away, but his dagger didn’t waver. “There is one.” Lore stepped forward, shaky; her wound was healed, but still sore. Her hair had fallen down, hung around her face in gold-brown strands made darker by blood. “I learned to guard my mind from Mortem before. Gabe taught me. It can’t be that much different now. I can keep myself from sensing power, from growing stronger. Keep myself…” She trailed off, not sure how to finish. Not sure if she needed to. It was a whole thought on its own. Anton laughed again. “You always were willing to do anything to save your own skin.” “You don’t know me,” Lore said. His one eye narrowed, glittering with the same cutting light as Gabe’s blade. “Are you so sure?” “What do you need to do?” Something had changed in Bastian’s manner, in his carriage. Gone was the languid prince; he’d fully stepped into being the King. It was the other side he’d shown her that night in the alley, the night she told him her history. A King had always been waiting. A brutal one. Lore glanced at Gabe. He was trying so hard to keep his emotions off his face, trying and failing. Pain lived in the furrows of his brow, the fierce curve of his mouth around his bared teeth. But there was hope, sparking to life when their gazes met. Hope that he could yet save the wretched man he held so close, the man who’d only sought to use him. “I can teach her,” Gabe said. “Teach her to guard her mind even more fully. Make sure nothing like the villages happens ever again.” He’d done it once already, she suddenly realized. That night she woke him up, made him sit with her and concentrate, soothing the darkness until sleep could come peacefully, without those strange dreams. There’d been no death that night. But Anton shook his head, mindless of the blade still against his neck. Gabe tried to move it; he didn’t in time, and a thin line of crimson creased the old man’s skin. “It won’t last,” he rasped. “These roles are fixed. To let the girl live is to invite oblivion, for the world, but for yourselves most of all.” “Spare us your religious bullshit,” Bastian hissed. Another braying laugh from the Priest Exalted. “Oh, nephew, that’s the one thing you can’t be spared. You’ll learn.” “Lore.” The Night Priestess’s voice was quiet; still, it echoed. Her face was emotionless, though something like resignation lurked at the corner of her mouth, in the shine of her eyes. “Things have progressed more than we thought,” she said softly. “I see that now. I can’t make you choose death.” “Damn right,”


he laughed, touched by her appreciation so that he felt the moisture come to his eyes. She opened her door and just before she went in, turned again to Philip. "Tell Harry I'm madly in love with him," she said. "All right," he laughed. "Good-night." Next day, when they were having tea, Griffiths came in. He sank lazily into an arm-chair. There was something strangely sensual in the slow movements of his large limbs. Philip remained silent, while the others chattered away, but he was enjoying himself. He admired them both so much that it seemed natural enough for them to admire one another. He did not care if Griffiths absorbed Mildred's attention, he would have her to himself during the evening: he had something of the attitude of a loving husband, confident in his wife's affection, who looks on with amusement while she flirts harmlessly with a stranger. But at half past seven he looked at his watch and said: "It's about time we went out to dinner, Mildred." There was a moment's pause, and Griffiths seemed to be considering. "Well, I'll be getting along," he said at last. "I didn't know it was so late." "Are you doing anything tonight?" asked Mildred. "No." There was another silence. Philip felt slightly irritated. "I'll just go and have a wash," he said, and to Mildred he added: "Would you like to wash your hands?" She did not answer him. "Why don't you come and dine with us?" she said to Griffiths. He looked at Philip and saw him staring at him sombrely. "I dined with you last night," he laughed. "I should be in the way." "Oh, that doesn't matter," insisted Mildred. "Make him come, Philip. He won't be in the way, will he?" "Let him come by all means if he'd like to." "All right, then," said Griffiths promptly. "I'll just go upstairs and tidy myself." The moment he left the room Philip turned to Mildred angrily. "Why on earth did you ask him to dine with us?" "I couldn't help myself. It would have looked so funny to say nothing when he said he wasn't doing anything." "Oh, what rot! And why the hell did you ask him if he was doing anything?" Mildred's pale lips tightened a little. "I want a little amusement sometimes. I get tired always being alone with you." They heard Griffiths coming heavily down the stairs, and Philip went into his bed-room to wash. They dined in the neighbourhood in an Italian restaurant. Philip was cross and silent, but he quickly realised that he was showing to disadvantage in comparison with Griffiths, and he forced himself to hide his annoyance. He drank a good deal of wine to destroy the pain that was gnawing at his heart, and he set himself to talk. Mildred, as though remorseful for what she had said, did all she could to make herself pleasant to him. She was kindly and affectionate. Presently Philip began to think he had been a fool to surrender to a feeling of jealousy. After


account of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared. `I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather a complaining tone, `and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next walking about at the other end of the ground--and I should have croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming!' `How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice. `Not at all,' said Alice: `she's so extremely--' Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, `--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while finishing the game.' The Queen smiled and passed on. `Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, and looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity. `It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice: `allow me to introduce it.' `I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: `however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.' `I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked. `Don't be impertinent,' said the King, `and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke. `A cat may look at a king,' said Alice. `I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where.' `Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, `My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!' The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. `Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round. `I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and he hurried off. Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog. The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both


and felt pleased. "Let's go and take Timothy for a walk," she said. "He'll be wondering what's happened to us today." They all went off together, and Timothy greeted them at the top of his voice. They told him all about their plans for the next day, and he wagged his tail and looked up at them out of his soft brown eyes as if he understood every single word they said! "He must feel pleased to think he's going to be with us for two or three days," said Anne. It was very exciting the next morning, setting off in the boat with all their things packed neatly at one end. Julian checked them all by reading out aloud from his list. It didn't seem as if they had forgotten anything. "Got the map?" said Dick, suddenly. Julian nodded. "I put on clean jeans this morning," he said, "but you may be sure I remembered to pop the map into my pocket. Here it is! He took it out- and the wind at once blew it right out of his hands! It fell into the sea and bobbed there in the wind. All four children gave a cry of utter dismay. Their precious map! "Quick! Row after it!" cried George, and swung the boat round. But someone was quicker than she was! Tim had seen the paper fly from Julian's hand, and had heard and understood the cries of dismay. With an enormous splash he leapt into the water and swam valiantly after the map. He could swim well for a dog, for he was strong and powerful. He soon had the map in his mouth and was swimming back to the boat. The children thought he was simply marvellous! George hauled him into the boat and took the map from his mouth. There was hardly the mark of his teeth on it! He had carried it so carefully. It was wet, and the children looked anxiously at it to see if the tracing had been spoilt. But Julian had traced it very strongly, and it was quite all right. He placed it on a seat to dry, and told Dick to hold it there in the sun. "That was a narrow squeak!" he said, and the others agreed. George took the oars again, and they set off once more to the island, getting a perfect shower-bath from Timothy when he stood up and shook his wet coat. He was given a big biscuit as a reward, and crunched it up with great enjoyment. George made her way through the reefs of rocks with a sure hand. It was marvellous to the others how she could slide the boat in between the dangerous rocks and never get a scratch. They thought she was really wonderful. She brought them safely to the little inlet, and they jumped out on to the sand. They pulled the boat high up, in case the tide came far up the tiny cove, and then began to unload their goods. "We'll carry all the things to that


like the mere opening of a serial, had been told; we handshook and "candlestuck," as somebody said, and went to bed. I knew the next day that a letter containing the key had, by the first post, gone off to his London apartments; but in spite of--or perhaps just on account of--the eventual diffusion of this knowledge we quite let him alone till after dinner, till such an hour of the evening, in fact, as might best accord with the kind of emotion on which our hopes were fixed. Then he became as communicative as we could desire and indeed gave us his best reason for being so. We had it from him again before the fire in the hall, as we had had our mild wonders of the previous night. It appeared that the narrative he had promised to read us really required for a proper intelligence a few words of prologue. Let me say here distinctly, to have done with it, that this narrative, from an exact transcript of my own made much later, is what I shall presently give. Poor Douglas, before his death--when it was in sight--committed to me the manuscript that reached him on the third of these days and that, on the same spot, with immense effect, he began to read to our hushed little circle on the night of the fourth. The departing ladies who had said they would stay didn't, of course, thank heaven, stay: they departed, in consequence of arrangements made, in a rage of curiosity, as they professed, produced by the touches with which he had already worked us up. But that only made his little final auditory more compact and select, kept it, round the hearth, subject to a common thrill. The first of these touches conveyed that the written statement took up the tale at a point after it had, in a manner, begun. The fact to be in possession of was therefore that his old friend, the youngest of several daughters of a poor country parson, had, at the age of twenty, on taking service for the first time in the schoolroom, come up to London, in trepidation, to answer in person an advertisement that had already placed her in brief correspondence with the advertiser. This person proved, on her presenting herself, for judgment, at a house in Harley Street, that impressed her as vast and imposing--this prospective patron proved a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of life, such a figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage. One could easily fix his type; it never, happily, dies out. He was handsome and bold and pleasant, offhand and gay and kind. He struck her, inevitably, as gallant and splendid, but what took her most of all and gave her the courage she afterward showed was that he put the whole thing to her as a kind of favor, an obligation he should gratefully incur. She conceived him as rich, but as fearfully extravagant--


every day, sure that whether her prayers had been answered or not, her son would understand what was read to him. Most of the things her own teachers said when she was a student had been easy enough to understand and remember. Even when his report cards showed that he was getting average scores on his tests and exams, she did not believe her son was not struggling until he spent a Saturday reading The Queen Primer out loud from cover to cover. Only when her husband nodded in approval after Ẹniọlá shut the book did she believe that he had been spared. She was more relaxed with Bùsọ́lá. That one knew her ABCs by heart before she started nursery school and from her first term managed always to be among the top three in her class. In primary two, she had won prizes in social studies, mathematics and English. It used to make Ìyá Ẹniọlá smile in the middle of her chores, this gift of children who learnt without pain and would not suffer the humiliation she had experienced from her teachers and peers. That joy was long gone now. A decade before she even conceived them, she had been making decisions to protect her children from pain. And yet they still suffered. She had been whipped for her low scores. They were being whipped for her failure to pay their school fees. Her brothers insisted that this was all her husband’s failure, and she should tell him so as often as she could. She swung her legs off the bed and spoke with her back to her husband. “Bàbá Ẹniọlá, I want to visit my eldest brother this afternoon. I think we should ask him to lend us some money.” Two years ago, the same suggestion had resulted in an argument that lasted a whole week. Now she waited for the bedsprings to creak as he sat up, for his voice to rise or tremble. She wanted him to be angry, hurt. Something. She stood and grabbed a broom. She would talk to him again once she was done sweeping, drag him out of bed if that was what it took for him to answer her questions. Maybe it was time to try the methods her brothers had suggested? She had just stood up her children’s mattresses so she could sweep beneath them when Ẹniọlá came in and the room became fragrant with the smell of àkàrà. Her husband sat up in bed as Ẹniọlá took the broom from her. “Should I bring you àkàrà?” she asked her husband. He shook his head. At least he was responding. He had gotten out of bed and might stand up soon. He was suffering from something she could not fully understand; she would be patient with him. * * * A few hours later, Ìyá Ẹniọlá stood in the courtyard of the compound she’d grown up in, watching two girls draw lines in the sand. Dressed in knee-length gowns cut from the same floral fabric, the girls could have been mistaken for


know how all the men are.” “I’m serious. Forty-six, never in a real relationship? Forget it.” “I don’t want to be in a relationship,” Maud said. “I’m trying to get out of one.” She could hear the girls stirring in bed and lowered her voice. “Just don’t let on to Peter. He’ll be a total shit about it. Right now you hold all the cards.” “You should have gone to law school, you know,” Maud said. “Yes, well, I learn tricks at work. And I’ve been waiting for you to leave this marriage for a decade.” That night, Gabriel watched Louise studiously peel all the pepperonis from her pizza slice and stack them on Maud’s plate. “I thought your mom said you like pepperoni,” he said. “I just like the flavor on the cheese,” Louise replied. “We have a system,” Maud said, and added the pepperoni to her own slice. She glanced at the tree to check on Ella, happy to see her laughing with a friend as she ate—she’d been in tears several times today over a new crop of pimples. Earlier, on their way home from wandering the galleries of Dia Beacon, Maud had stopped at the old-fashioned pharmacy in town. She and Ella read the descriptions on acne products while, at the candy counter, Louise dropped fireballs and gummy worms into a bag that now sat on the table. Since Maud had allowed Ella to eat at the tree, Louise had been allowed to have dessert with dinner. As Maud sat on the living room couch that night, reading a book on Victorian statuary and waiting for the girls to sleep, Ella came down the hallway. “Louise is snoring,” she said. “Really? She must have a stuffy nose.” “She sounds like a warthog.” Ella’s chin was covered in pimple patches. She seemed to have used the entire box. “Want to sleep with me tonight?” Maud asked. She put down her book. “Sure,” Ella said. Maud couldn’t remember the last time Ella had climbed into her bed. She was grateful to Louise for snoring, a sound audible from the hallway as she and Ella passed the door. In her bedroom, she pulled back the comforter. “Scratch your back?” she asked. “Okay,” Ella said, letting Maud tuck her in. When she was little, Maud would tell stories on her back with her fingers, tracing the outlines of the pond in “The Frog King,” thumping her hand down her spine as she whispered, Fee-fi-fo-fum. But this, she thought, as Ella pulled up the back of her T-shirt, was close enough. “Why does Gabriel want to have dinner with us every night?” Ella said after a while. “He likes us,” Maud said carefully. “But he doesn’t have to. We’ll eat alone tomorrow night.” “Are you and Dad fighting?” “No.” Maud paused in her scratching. “Why?” “You guys never talk on the phone.” What now? Maud thought. How not to lie? How not to alarm her? “We’ve never been phone people,” she said. “And he keeps asking me about you,” Ella said. “Like how


and shapely figure. I saw it on the rick before you saw me--that tight pinafore-thing sets it off, and that wing-bonnet--you field-girls should never wear those bonnets if you wish to keep out of danger." He regarded her silently for a few moments, and with a short cynical laugh resumed: "I believe that if the bachelor-apostle, whose deputy I thought I was, had been tempted by such a pretty face, he would have let go the plough for her sake as I do!" Tess attempted to expostulate, but at this juncture all her fluency failed her, and without heeding he added: "Well, this paradise that you supply is perhaps as good as any other, after all. But to speak seriously. Tess." D'Urberville rose and came nearer, reclining sideways amid the sheaves, and resting upon his elbow. "Since I last saw you, I have been thinking of what you said that HE said. I have come to the conclusion that there does seem rather a want of common-sense in these threadbare old propositions; how I could have been so fired by poor Parson Clare's enthusiasm, and have gone so madly to work, transcending even him, I cannot make out! As for what you said last time, on the strength of your wonderful husband's intelligence--whose name you have never told me--about having what they call an ethical system without any dogma, I don't see my way to that at all." "Why, you can have the religion of loving-kindness and purity at least, if you can't have--what do you call it--dogma." "O no! I'm a different sort of fellow from that! If there's nobody to say, 'Do this, and it will be a good thing for you after you are dead; do that, and if will be a bad thing for you,' I can't warm up. Hang it, I am not going to feel responsible for my deeds and passions if there's nobody to be responsible to; and if I were you, my dear, I wouldn't either!" She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct. But owing to Angel Clare's reticence, to her absolute want of training, and to her being a vessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could not get on. "Well, never mind," he resumed. "Here I am, my love, as in the old times!" "Not as then--never as then--'tis different!" she entreated. "And there was never warmth with me! O why didn't you keep your faith, if the loss of it has brought you to speak to me like this!" "Because you've knocked it out of me; so the evil be upon your sweet head! Your husband little thought how his teaching would recoil upon him! Ha-ha--I'm awfully glad you have made an apostate of me all the same! Tess, I am more taken with you than ever, and I pity you too. For all your closeness, I see you are in a bad way--neglected by one who


birth but her death came before she could tell me… It has taken me many years to stitch these pieces together. Now I realize Manzi’s father could be only one person. And that person schemed and plotted from the day his son was born, which also means… Spinster Aunt’s death was not an accident. The Washing Away of Wrongs After the heavenly flowers disease disappears completely from the Garden of Fragrant Delights, the last survivors return to their families or, in the case of concubines and servants, to their masters, and I’m free to go back to my rooms. I’m determined to visit Meiling, since the suspicions that arose from Miss Chen’s utterance directly concern my friend and the herbs that were meant for me, but I need to get settled with my family before I do anything else. I also have much that I’m eager to discuss with my husband, but my first night home he doesn’t come to my bedchamber. A disappointment. I fall asleep feeling exhausted and dispirited. The next morning, when Poppy pours my tea, she brings the gossip that Master Yang is going to remove Miss Chen and her sole surviving child, Fifth Daughter, from the Garden of Fragrant Delights. I dress and then rush to find my husband. He’s in his library. “Is it true your father is casting off his concubine and her daughter?” I ask. Perhaps this is not the correct approach as Maoren and I have not been alone together since I left for Beijing seven months ago. So much has happened, including the birth of our son, but I haven’t given my husband a chance to express his joy or thank me for doing what I could during the smallpox outbreak. “Since when have the hens begun to crow?” he asks, squinting his disapproval. I take a breath and remind myself that I’m a wife before anything else. “I’m sorry,” I say, bowing my head. “I spoke sharply.” Maoren stands up and walks toward me. He reaches out and brushes a loose strand of hair from my cheek. “You look tired.” “I’m tired to my marrow.” I raise my eyes to meet his. “Maoren, why is your father expelling Miss Chen?” “She is no longer a beauty,” he states. It’s true, but I can’t let this go. “Don’t let your father turn her out. She helped me during the sickness. She was courageous when—” “The concubine has already been dismissed,” he says, swiveling away from me. “She will take her daughter with her—” “Her only surviving child,” I emphasize. “And Fifth Daughter is your half sister.” I can see him tasting this idea on his tongue and finding it bitter. “Without a son and without her beauty, Miss Chen has no value to my father.” “Fifth Daughter is only ten years old,” I press. “There is nothing I can do. It is my father’s decision.” I nod and leave Maoren to his books. I realize there’s little time. I go straight to the front gate, where I find Miss Chen and her


fiber when my doctor can’t even see me or should I just buy three pounds of croutons with organic ranch dressing poured over it, which is what I actually want to eat? Am I a marinated-artichoke person? Should I pretend to be interested in beets? Do I care about vitamin K? And, a follow-up: Do I care enough about vitamin K to spend fourteen dollars on an environmentally friendly (read: rapidly disintegrating) clamshell filled with the kind of dark leafy greens magazines are always insisting I try? Is that guy peering skeptically through the sneeze guard at the thirty-seven different varieties of olives judging how many scoops of chickpeas I’m getting? Do I want grains? Do I want grains on top of lettuce? Should I mix different types of lettuce or is that just showing off ? I got too much farro last time, let me not repeat that mistake. What does golden squash taste like, and do I want to risk finding out it tastes bad in this way? How much meat and cheese disqualifies this from being labeled a “salad”? Do I like nuts on salad or do I just like the idea of nuts on salad? Do I have enough money in my checking account to risk this much herb-roasted salmon? How much does a hard-boiled egg weigh? Baby kale begs the question of whether mother kale exists. Why do bacon bits taste like burnt charcoal, and why can’t I stop myself from sprinkling them on everything? The nuts keep calling me! This cabbage is gonna give me diarrhea, right? What is the difference between a “green” and a “lettuce,” and why am I the kind of asshole hipster who is leaning toward the “greens”? Hang on, what was that NPR thing about phytonutrients from the other day? That healthy-looking yoga lady is getting so many radishes, and, damn, I wish that was my ministry. Will onions ruin this concoction I’ve slopped together or make it 100 percent better? I gotta swing by the bakery and grab one of those chocolate chip cookies that I deserve. If I use as much of this dressing as I want, the cashier will think I don’t love myself. Ugh, why would she care? Did I miss the beans? Ooh, they have peas! Broccoli is a clear gastrointestinal mistake and yet, I cannot resist it. Hang on, before I go to the register should I actually get the nuts?! I saw Bill Clinton in a Maggiano’s. In a former life, I “worked” in “politics.” When I was twenty, I needed a job that wasn’t in food service, because I’d had my fill of getting screamed at over custard cakes and fondant cookies. I was walking around Andersonville one day and saw that this little boutique called Presence had a sign in the window announcing that they were looking for help. So I went in and introduced myself before inquiring about filling out an application. I am……. not a clotheshorse. But this wasn’t really that kind of spot, you know? It was, how should


anger: while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulence, or malice, of any sort whatsoever. Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, --Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves .. <p 415 > into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti. Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the try-works. First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It is tough with congealed tendons --a wad of muscle --but still contains some oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like blocks of Berkshire marble. Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne. .. <p 416 > There is another substance, and a


is a pendulum, moving between two equal and opposite powers. The white light I summoned – I call it sterren, the obverse of siden. It is cold instead of hot, and flows like water. It waxes with the coming of a comet named the Long-Haired Star.’ Tunuva felt a shiver along her back. Nothing in the archives had ever spoken of this. ‘That is why it hurt the wyrm,’ she said. ‘Why it weakened me, too.’ ‘Yes. I called forth the magic of starlight, as I could once call fire.’ ‘Could you do it again?’ ‘I doubt it. As you see, it drains me. My stores are dangerously low, and I have no way to replenish them. Only the comet can do that.’ Canthe looked bleak. ‘I’m so sorry, Tuva. I had only one good weapon to offer the Priory, and I have exhausted it.’ ‘Do not apologise. Fifty years of training, and I was unprepared for the strength of that wyrm. You saved us.’ Tunuva covered her hand. ‘I am leaving now for Jrhanyam, to support Queen Daraniya. Is there anything I can do for you, before I go?’ ‘No, but I think I may be able to help you. Our visit to the valley reminded me of something,’ Canthe said. ‘The spear Esbar possesses – did it really belong to Suttu the Dreamer?’ ‘As far as we know, yes. Cleolind took it from her father, Selinu. It was all she claimed of her birthright.’ ‘Suttu dipped her spear in starlight, according to myth. I wonder if she knew the secrets of sterren, as I do. A weapon infused with that magic could do grievous harm to a wyrm.’ Tunuva slowly nodded. ‘It’s worth a try. I will take it with me.’ ‘I hope it works.’ Canthe hesitated. ‘Did you tell Esbar what you saw me do?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And she mistrusts it,’ Canthe said. ‘She fears me.’ Tunuva said nothing. ‘It’s all right. It’s natural that the Prioress should be wary when she has so many people to protect, and I can’t regret showing that power, if it saved you. You are my friend, Tuva. My first in so long.’ ‘And you are mine. Esbar must be cautious, but I believe she will come to trust you, in time.’ Tunuva got to her feet. ‘If you feel strong enough to join us in the Ersyr, the men staying behind will point you to a horse.’ ‘I can’t fight, Tuva. I would be no use.’ ‘You could help get people to safety, but it is your choice. For now, I will let you sleep.’ She had almost crossed the threshold when Canthe said, ‘Tuva, there is something else you should know.’ ‘What is it?’ Canthe seemed to weigh her words, her eyes like two deep pools. ‘Perhaps I should have told you sooner. It took me some time to put the pieces together,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to raise your hopes, Tuva. Now I feel I must.’ ‘I am listening.’ ‘Over the years, I have travelled far, but Inys always called


with moth-spray if you have it. Then, turn on your lawn sprinklers as high as they'll go and hose off the sidewalks. With any luck at all, we can kill the trail in here, anyway..' Faber shook his hand. "I'll tend to it. Good luck. If we're both in good health, next week, the week after, get in touch. General Delivery, St. Louis. I'm sorry there's no way I can go with you this time, by ear-phone. That was good for both of us. But my equipment was limited. You see, I never thought I would use it. What a silly old man. No thought there. Stupid, stupid. So I haven't another green bullet, the right kind, to put in your head. Go now!" "One last thing. Quick. A suitcase, get it, fill it with your dirtiest clothes, an old suit, the dirtier the better, a shirt, some old sneakers and socks . . . ." Faber was gone and back in a minute. They sealed the cardboard valise with clear tape. "To keep the ancient odour of Mr. Faber in, of course," said Faber sweating at the job. Montag doused the exterior of the valise with whisky. "I don't want that Hound picking up two odours at once. May I take this whisky. I'll need it later. Christ I hope this works!" They shook hands again and, going out of the door, they glanced at the TV. The Hound was on its way, followed by hovering helicopter cameras, silently, silently, sniffing the great night wind. It was running down the first alley. "Good-bye ! " And Montag was out the back door lightly, running with the half-empty valise. Behind him he heard the lawn-sprinkling system jump up, filling the dark air with rain that fell gently and then with a steady pour all about, washing on the sidewalks, and draining into the alley. He carried a few drops of this rain with him on his face. He thought he heard the old man call good-bye, but he-wasn't certain. He ran very fast away from the house, down toward the river. Montag ran. He could feel the Hound, like autumn, come cold and dry and swift, like a wind that didn't stir grass, that didn't jar windows or disturb leaf-shadows on the white sidewalks as it passed. The Hound did not touch the world. It carried its silence with it, so you could feel the silence building up a pressure behind you all across town. Montag felt the pressure rising, and ran. He stopped for breath, on his way to the river, to peer through dimly lit windows of wakened houses, and saw the silhouettes of people inside watching their parlour walls and there on the walls the Mechanical Hound, a breath of neon vapour, spidered along, here and gone, here and gone! Now at Elm Terrace, Lincoln, Oak, Park, and up the alley toward Faber's house. Go past, thought Montag, don't stop, go on, don't turn in! On the parlour wall, Faber's house, with its sprinkler system pulsing in the night


with a few of her letters.” “And the other two typewriters?” Iris asked quietly. Helena cocked her brow. “They remained with her two friends, of course.” She lifted the typewriter and found the silver engraving. The one that Iris had spent years tracing and wondering about. “You said this belonged to your nan, correct? And were her initials by any chance D.E.W.?” “They were,” Iris said. Daisy Elizabeth Winnow had been a reserved woman, but she had often told Iris stories her of childhood. The saga of her typewriter, however, had never been shared, and Iris was struck by the whimsy of it, imagining her nan being friends with two other girls. How the three of them had written to each other, through their separation and sadness and joy. “It makes you wonder where the third one is, doesn’t it?” Helena said, carefully setting the typewriter back down. “Or should I say, the second one, since this is technically the third.” Iris had an inkling. She said nothing, but her mind wandered to the letters that were hiding in her bag. Her heart quickened as she thought, It isn’t the wardrobes connecting us. It’s our typewriters. “So, Iris,” Helena said. “I have to ask this: are you sure you want to take your nan’s typewriter to war? Because you could sell it to the museum. They would probably pay you a fortune and be downright giddy at the opportunity, displaying it with The First Alouette.” “I’m not selling it,” Iris replied curtly. “And it goes wherever I go.” “I figured you’d say that,” Helena replied. “But I digress. This is how your correspondence will work: you’ll take the next train out of Oath, which leaves in half an hour. So we don’t have much time. You’re going to Avalon Bluff, a town six hundred kilometers west of here, close to the war front. Keep in mind you’ll be under a new chancellor and their jurisdiction, and that the laws you once knew in Oath and the Eastern Borough might not apply in the west. Things also change drastically in war, so pay close attention to the rules of daily life, so you remain safe. “Your contact is Marisol Torres. She runs a bed and breakfast, and she’ll give you food and lodgings while you work. She doesn’t know you’re coming, but mention my name and she’ll take good care of you. “The train runs through Avalon every sixth day. I expect you to have your reports typed, edited, and ready for me to publish. I want facts and I want stories. It’s the only way I’ll be able to get around the chancellor’s restriction on how much I can publish about the war—he can’t deny us a soldier’s story every now and then, nor the facts, all right? So make sure you cite your stuff so he can’t claim it’s propaganda. You’ll then slip and seal your typed articles in the brown classified envelopes that you’ll find in your bag, and you’ll hand them directly to the conductor. Supplies will also come


“Can’t I?” said Mrs. King. Mrs. Bone put her fingers to her mouth, and whistled. Movement at the foot of the garden. The clack of ladders being put against the walls. Figures scaling the mews house. Black shapes dropping to the ground. Men streaming up the path, encircling them. Hoods covering their faces, pickaxes and shovels in hand. Body snatchers. Fear dawned in Mr. Shepherd’s eyes. “Keys please, Mr. Shepherd,” Mrs. King said. The mausoleum seemed to tremble in the lamplight. Shepherd put his hand into his pocket. Just his everyday pocket, not a secret place, not the lining of his coat. He lifted out the little key, delicately ridged, like the edge of a tooth. “You wouldn’t,” he said. Mrs. Bone plucked it from Shepherd’s grasp. “She won’t. You will. Give him a shovel, lads.” The men had got him by the arms—they had him pinned to the spot. His mouth fell open. Mrs. King took the key from Mrs. Bone, stepped into the little portico at the front of the mausoleum. She pressed her fingers to the cold metal door. Felt around for the keyhole. The others waited at a distance, holding their breath. The key clicked in the lock. Recently oiled. The door swung open. Cool air. She braced herself for a bad smell, but of course there wasn’t one. No leaves, no twigs on the ground. The crypt was undisturbed. Quiet and somber, with the gigantic marble tomb looming out of the darkness. She reached out and touched it. Angels, kneeling. She felt a rush of fear in her gut. I’m going to see him again, she thought. “Bring the ax,” she called. Shepherd tried to run. She heard the scuffle, his grunt as he tripped, was knocked to the ground. Mrs. King turned. She felt O’Flynn blood churning inside her. “Come,” she said. They’d snatched the lamp from his hands. The light swayed violently, and she saw his shock, the desperation in his eyes. Mrs. Bone kicked him forward. Mrs. King caught her eye. “How long will it take?” Mrs. Bone peered in. “That’s a lot of marble.” The men lifted their axes and chisels. She could see it as it would be, grotesque and monstrous. The tomb smashed open, great hunks of marble scattered on the floor, the casket dragged onto the steps. Splintered wood. Hands avoiding flesh. Fiddling with a waistcoat, using a knife to open up the seams. Mrs. King still kept good knives upon her person. All that, to find a scrap of paper. She could guess what the letter would say. A few lines. Some formalities. I write this on Friday the fifth of May, in the year nineteen hundred and five, in sound mind, and desirous only to promulgate the truth, that I did lawfully marry Catherine Mary Ashe in... There would follow the name of the church, St. Anne’s in Limehouse, or Christ Church Spitalfields, or St. Mary’s in Whitechapel. And the date, and the names they used on the marriage register. The lawyers and courts could pick over it


evening paper. I sometimes think Atticus subjected every crisis of his life to tranquil evaluation behind The Mobile Register, The Birmingham News and The Montgomery Advertiser. "They were after you, weren't they?" Jem went to him. "They wanted to get you, didn't they?" Atticus lowered the paper and gazed at Jem. "What have you been reading?" he asked. Then he said gently, "No son, those were our friends." "It wasn't a- a gang?" Jem was looking from the corners of his eyes. Atticus tried to stifle a smile but didn't make it. "No, we don't have mobs and that nonsense in Maycomb. I've never heard of a gang in Maycomb." "Ku Klux got after some Catholics one time." "Never heard of any Catholics in Maycomb either," said Atticus, "you're confusing that with something else. Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan, but it was a political organization more than anything. Besides, they couldn't find anybody to scare. They paraded by Mr. Sam Levy's house one night, but Sam just stood on his porch and told 'em things had come to a pretty pass, he'd sold 'em the very sheets on their backs. Sam made 'em so ashamed of themselves they went away." The Levy family met all criteria for being Fine Folks: they did the best they could with the sense they had, and they had been living on the same plot of ground in Maycomb for five generations. "The Ku Klux's gone," said Atticus. "It'll never come back." I walked home with Dill and returned in time to overhear Atticus saying to Aunty, "...in favor of Southern womanhood as much as anybody, but not for preserving polite fiction at the expense of human life," a pronouncement that made me suspect they had been fussing again. I sought Jem and found him in his room, on the bed deep in thought. "Have they been at it?" I asked. "Sort of. She won't let him alone about Tom Robinson. She almost said Atticus was disgracin' the family. Scout... I'm scared." "Scared'a what?" "Scared about Atticus. Somebody might hurt him." Jem preferred to remain mysterious; all he would say to my questions was go on and leave him alone. Next day was Sunday. In the interval between Sunday School and Church when the congregation stretched its legs, I saw Atticus standing in the yard with another knot of men. Mr. Heck Tate was present, and I wondered if he had seen the light. He never went to church. Even Mr. Underwood was there. Mr. Underwood had no use for any organization but The Maycomb Tribune, of which he was the sole owner, editor, and printer. His days were spent at his linotype, where he refreshed himself occasionally from an ever-present gallon jug of cherry wine. He rarely gathered news; people brought it to him. It was said that he made up every edition of The Maycomb Tribune out of his own head and wrote it down on the linotype. This was believable. Something must have been up to haul Mr. Underwood out. I


frequented, the people she must have talked with, the incessant stir of ideas, curiosities, images and associations thrown out by an intensely social race in a setting of immemorial manners; and suddenly he remembered the young Frenchman who had once said to him: "Ah, good conversation--there is nothing like it, is there?" Archer had not seen M. Riviere, or heard of him, for nearly thirty years; and that fact gave the measure of his ignorance of Madame Olenska's existence. More than half a lifetime divided them, and she had spent the long interval among people he did not know, in a society he but faintly guessed at, in conditions he would never wholly understand. During that time he had been living with his youthful memory of her; but she had doubtless had other and more tangible companionship. Perhaps she too had kept her memory of him as something apart; but if she had, it must have been like a relic in a small dim chapel, where there was not time to pray every day. . . . They had crossed the Place des Invalides, and were walking down one of the thoroughfares flanking the building. It was a quiet quarter, after all, in spite of its splendour and its history; and the fact gave one an idea of the riches Paris had to draw on, since such scenes as this were left to the few and the indifferent. The day was fading into a soft sun-shot haze, pricked here and there by a yellow electric light, and passers were rare in the little square into which they had turned. Dallas stopped again, and looked up. "It must be here," he said, slipping his arm through his father's with a movement from which Archer's shyness did not shrink; and they stood together looking up at the house. It was a modern building, without distinctive character, but many-windowed, and pleasantly balconied up its wide cream-coloured front. On one of the upper balconies, which hung well above the rounded tops of the horse-chestnuts in the square, the awnings were still lowered, as though the sun had just left it. "I wonder which floor--?" Dallas conjectured; and moving toward the porte-cochere he put his head into the porter's lodge, and came back to say: "The fifth. It must be the one with the awnings." Archer remained motionless, gazing at the upper windows as if the end of their pilgrimage had been attained. "I say, you know, it's nearly six," his son at length reminded him. The father glanced away at an empty bench under the trees. "I believe I'll sit there a moment," he said. "Why--aren't you well?" his son exclaimed. "Oh, perfectly. But I should like you, please, to go up without me." Dallas paused before him, visibly bewildered. "But, I say, Dad: do you mean you won't come up at all?" "I don't know," said Archer slowly. "If you don't she won't understand." "Go, my boy; perhaps I shall follow you." Dallas gave him a long look through the twilight. "But what on earth


the wood. During the month of May there was only one further occasion on which they actually succeeded in making love. That was in another hidlng-place known to Julia, the belfry of a ruinous church in an almost-deserted stretch of country where an atomic bomb had fallen thirty years earlier. It was a good hiding-place when once you got there, but the getting there was very dangerous. For the rest they could meet only in the streets, in a different place every evening and never for more than half an hour at a time. In the street it was usually possible to talk, after a fashion. As they drifted down the crowded pavements, not quite abreast and never looking at one another, they carried on a curious, intermittent conversation which flicked on and off like the beams of a lighthouse, suddenly nipped into silence by the approach of a Party uniform or the proximity of a telescreen, then taken up again minutes later in the middle of a sentence, then abruptly cut short as they parted at the agreed spot, then continued almost without introduction on the following day. Julia appeared to be quite used to this kind of conversation, which she called 'talking by instalments'. She was also surprisingly adept at speaking without moving her lips. Just once in almost a month of nightly meetings they managed to exchange a kiss. They were passing in silence down a side-street (Julia would never speak when they were away from the main streets) when there was a deafening roar, the earth heaved, and the air darkened, and Winston found himself lying on his side, bruised and terrified. A rocket bomb must have dropped quite near at hand. Suddenly he became aware of Julia's face a few centimetres from his own, deathly white, as white as chalk. Even her lips were white. She was dead! He clasped her against him and found that he was kissing a live warm face. But there was some powdery stuff that got in the way of his lips. Both of their faces were thickly coated with plaster. There were evenings when they reached their rendezvous and then had to walk past one another without a sign, because a patrol had just come round the corner or a helicopter was hovering overhead. Even if it had been less dangerous, it would still have been difficult to find time to meet. Winston's working week was sixty hours, Julia's was even longer, and their free days varied according to the pressure of work and did not often coincide. Julia, in any case, seldom had an evening completely free. She spent an astonishing amount of time in attending lectures and demonstrations, distributing literature for the junior Anti-Sex League, preparing banners for Hate Week, making collections for the savings campaign, and such-like activities. It paid, she said, it was camouflage. If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones. She even induced Winston to mortgage yet another of his evenings by enrolling himself for the part-time munition work which was


they didn’t sleep in the same apartment. The goofy look is back, so Nick guesses that he was successful. “Why don’t you sit down,” says Mr. Fleming. “I have a phone call to make. Good to see you, Mr. Russo. You’ll have to come for dinner sometime soon.” He makes his way out of the room, one hand on his cane and the other braced on the furniture he passes. They sit around a surprisingly normal-looking kitchen table. There isn’t much Nick can say with Sal there, but he thinks that maybe he said all that he needed to by showing up like a lunatic at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. They manage a three-way conversation about baseball, and it isn’t until Nick is finished with his coffee that he realizes Sal and Andy have been doing most of the talking. Andy’s going on a tear about goddamn slugging percentages and Sal is listening with the zeal of the newly converted. When Sal excuses himself to go to the bathroom, Nick talks as fast as he can. “Sal’s going home tomorrow night. Do you want to come back? It’s okay if you don’t. We can still—if you want. I mean, the ball’s in your court.” “Yes,” Andy says simply. “Yes to everything. I’m sorry about yesterday morning. I was out of line.” “You had me worried,” Nick said. “You were so worked up. I didn’t know what to do.” “I— What? Why aren’t you mad at me?” “I was, for maybe thirty seconds. I mean, I don’t ever want you to be upset, but you wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s sweet.” Nick can’t believe he said that out loud and meant it. “But even if I were still mad, you’d still be you. And I’d still be—” The most unhelpful part of his brain wants to finish that sentence with crazy about you, but Nick can’t say it. Not in Andy’s father’s kitchen, maybe not anywhere. And, also, that’s not the point. “We’d still be friends. You’d still be my best friend.” Across the table, he can see the tension leak out of Andy like a deflating balloon, so he guesses he got that right. “We’re friends,” Andy says. And it doesn’t feel like an understatement or a euphemism; it feels like the bedrock of the truth, the inescapable fact of who they are. “If I leave the Chronicle, it doesn’t mean I’m leaving you.” “I know that, I swear. But in that moment, I didn’t.” In that moment he had been like a kid who lost his mom at the zoo. Total panic. Nick had wanted to hold him, but they hadn’t been in private. And they still aren’t in private, not private enough for Nick, at least, but now he can squeeze Andy’s hand, so he does. “I’m not leaving you,” Nick repeats. “Maybe the Chronicle, but not you. Never you.” “Want me to go to the bathroom again so you can keep talking?” Sal asks from the doorway just as Nick and Andy let go of


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

or two were running, and his breath was beginning to saw in his throat. The tram was quite near now, and the Jolly Cricketers was noisily barring its doors. Beyond the tram were posts and heaps of gravel--the drainage works. He had a transitory idea of jumping into the tram and slamming the doors, and then he resolved to go to the police station. In another moment he had passed the door of the Jolly Cricketers, and was in the blistering fag end of the street, with human beings about him. The tram driver and his helper--arrested by the sight of his furious haste --stood staring with the tram horses unhitched. Further on the astonished features of navvies appeared above the mounds of gravel. His pace broke a little, and then he heard the swift pad of his pursuer, and leapt forward again. "The Invisible Man!" he cried to the navvies, with a vague indicative gesture, and by an inspiration leapt the excavation and placed a burly group between him and the chase. Then abandoning the idea of the police station he turned into a little side street, rushed by a greengrocer's cart, hesitated for the tenth of a second at the door of a sweetstuff shop, and then made for the mouth of an alley that ran back into the main Hill Street again. Two or three little children were playing here, and shrieked and scattered running at his apparition, and forthwith doors and windows opened and excited mothers revealed their hearts. Out he shot into Hill Street again, three hundred yards from the tramline end, and immediately he became aware of a tumultuous vociferation and running people. He glanced up the street towards the hill. Hardly a dozen yards off ran a huge navvy, cursing in fragments and slashing viciously with a spade, and hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists clenched. Up the street others followed these two, striking and shouting. Down towards the town, men and women were running, and he noticed clearly one man coming out of a shop-door with a stick in his hand. "Spread out! Spread out!" cried some one. Kemp suddenly grasped the altered condition of the chase. He stopped and looked round, panting. "He's close here!" he cried. "Form a line across--" "Aha!" shouted a voice. He was hit hard under the ear, and went reeling, trying to face round towards his unseen antagonist. He just managed to keep his feet, and he struck a vain counter in the air. Then he was hit again under the jaw, and sprawled headlong on the ground. In another moment a knee compressed his diaphragm, and a couple of eager hands gripped his throat, but the grip of one was weaker than the other; he grasped the wrists, heard a cry of pain from his assailant, and then the spade of the navvy came whirling through the air above him, and struck something with a dull thud. He felt a drop of moisture on his face. The grip at his throat suddenly relaxed,


planted the farm nearly two years ago. It is a poor soil and that is why the tubers are so small." Okonkwo never did things by halves. When his wife Ekwefi protested that two goats were sufficient for the feast he told her that it was not her affair. "I am calling a feast because I have the wherewithal. I cannot live on the bank of a river and wash my hands with spittle. My mother's people have been good to me and I must show my gratitude." And so three goats were slaughtered and a number of fowls. It was like a wedding feast. There was foo-foo and yam pottage, egusi soup and bitter-leaf soup and pots and pots of palm-wine. All the umunna were invited to the feast, all the descendants of Okolo, who had lived about two hundred years before. The oldest member of this extensive family was Okonkwo's uncle, Uchendu. The kola nut was given him to break, and he prayed to the ancestors. He asked them for health and children. "We do not ask for wealth because he that has health and children will also have wealth. We do not pray to have more money but to have more kinsmen. We are better than animals because we have kinsmen. An animal rubs its itching flank against a tree, a man asks his kinsman to scratch him." He prayed especially for Okonkwo and his family. He then broke the kola nut and threw one of the lobes on the ground for the ancestors. As the broken kola nuts were passed round, Okonkwo's wives and children and those who came to help them with the cooking began to bring out the food. His sons brought out the pots of palm-wine. There was so much food and drink that many kinsmen whistled in surprise. When all was laid out, Okonkwo rose to speak. "I beg you to accept this little kola," he said. "It is not to pay you back for all you did for me in these seven years. A child cannot pay for its mother's milk. I have only called you together because it is good for kinsmen to meet." Yam pottage was served first because it was lighter than foo-foo and because yam always came first. Then the foo-foo was served. Some kinsmen ate it with egusi soup and others with bitter-leaf soup. The meat was then shared so that every member of the umunna had a portion. Every man rose in order of years and took a share. Even the few kinsmen who had not been able to come had their shares taken out for them in due term. As the palm-wine was drunk one of the oldest members of the umunna rose to thank Okonkwo: "If I say that we did not expect such a big feast I will be suggesting that we did not know how openhanded our son, Okonkwo, is. We all know him, and we expected a big feast. But it turned out to be even bigger than we expected. Thank you.


years, was feisty and stubborn; she refused to give way to the ailments that plagued her, high blood pressure, arthritis. Affection, because her mother was warm, funny, kindly, and fiercely loyal. And anticipation because, any moment now, the jokes would start. ‘Good morning, Mum.’ Jeannie passed a hand though the white fringe that hung over her eyes as she bent over the frying eggs. ‘Tea? An egg on toast?’ ‘Did you hear about the egg that wasn’t sure if God existed?’ Violet asked chirpily. ‘He was egg-nostic.’ Violet’s jokes came from boredom, an active mind and a sense of mischief. She had little else to occupy her now, and the jokes were said to provoke a reaction. She shuffled forwards, a furtive, mischievous elf edging along steadily, as if concealing a magic wand behind her back. She had that cunning expression she often used when she was about to launch a small bombshell. She said, ‘You’re looking peaky today, Jeannie.’ Jeannie poured tea into a china cup. ‘I’m fine, Mum.’ ‘When are you getting your hair cut?’ ‘I thought I’d grow it,’ Jeannie countered with a grin. ‘Grow your hair? You’re seventy-three years old. You should have it short and sensible.’ ‘Seventy-two, and I’m sensible enough.’ Jeannie patted the coils fastened to her head with a clip, teasing back the strands. ‘Oh, my aching bones… my legs twinge something terrible.’ Violet eased herself into a chair and reached for the cup. Jeannie noticed her fingers shook with the effort of lifting it. She took a sip. ‘It’s hot.’ ‘Just drink it carefully, Mum,’ Jeannie said anxiously. Violet smiled mischievously. ‘Why do Marxists drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft…’ Jeannie rolled her eyes. Her mother had a joke for every occasion. Violet leaned back and closed her eyes, the lids paper thin, networked with light blue veins. ‘I wonder if the good Lord will take me off this year. It’s about time He laid me to rest alongside dear Stanley.’ ‘You’re good for a few years yet,’ Jeannie soothed. ‘Stanley was a wonderful man,’ Violet observed. ‘He liked his cider a bit too much, but your father was a wise businessman. I thought the cider farm would go to the wall when he passed on, but you’ve made it your own. You’ve done very well considering…’ Jeannie knew that a compliment usually meant that the opposite would follow immediately afterwards. Violet pursed her lips: here it came. ‘I told you it wouldn’t last when you married Peter Yarcombe. He had a roving eye, that one. Not that he was much to look at himself, mind.’ ‘Pete’s in the past. I’m a Sharrock again and that’s how it’s staying,’ Jeannie said, placing a plate in front of Violet. A neat egg sat in the middle of a piece of buttered toast. ‘Oh, I can’t eat all that, Jeannie.’ Violet lifted her knife and fork and tucked in. ‘Yes, Peter’s living it up in Spain, and so is your son now – Wesley’s no better than his father, leaving those kids here with


climbing the ladder she stood at the open door of the apartment, regarding and pondering. She stooped to the threshold of the doorway, where she had pushed in the note two or three days earlier in such excitement. The carpet reached close to the sill, and under the edge of the carpet she discerned the faint white margin of the envelope containing her letter to him, which he obviously had never seen, owing to her having in her haste thrust it beneath the carpet as well as beneath the door. With a feeling of faintness she withdrew the letter. There it was--sealed up, just as it had left her hands. The mountain had not yet been removed. She could not let him read it now, the house being in full bustle of preparation; and descending to her own room she destroyed the letter there. She was so pale when he saw her again that he felt quite anxious. The incident of the misplaced letter she had jumped at as if it prevented a confession; but she knew in her conscience that it need not; there was still time. Yet everything was in a stir; there was coming and going; all had to dress, the dairyman and Mrs Crick having been asked to accompany them as witnesses; and reflection or deliberate talk was well-nigh impossible. The only minute Tess could get to be alone with Clare was when they met upon the landing. "I am so anxious to talk to you--I want to confess all my faults and blunders!" she said with attempted lightness. "No, no--we can't have faults talked of--you must be deemed perfect today at least, my Sweet!" he cried. "We shall have plenty of time, hereafter, I hope, to talk over our failings. I will confess mine at the same time." "But it would be better for me to do it now, I think, so that you could not say----" "Well, my quixotic one, you shall tell me anything--say, as soon as we are settled in our lodging; not now. I, too, will tell you my faults then. But do not let us spoil the day with them; they will be excellent matter for a dull time." "Then you don't wish me to, dearest?" "I do not, Tessy, really." The hurry of dressing and starting left no time for more than this. Those words of his seemed to reassure her on further reflection. She was whirled onward through the next couple of critical hours by the mastering tide of her devotion to him, which closed up further meditation. Her one desire, so long resisted, to make herself his, to call him her lord, her own--then, if necessary, to die--had at last lifted her up from her plodding reflective pathway. In dressing, she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured idealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its brightness. The church was a long way off, and they were obliged to drive, particularly as it was winter. A close carriage was ordered from a roadside inn, a vehicle which had


head I can hear Haymitch’s smug, if slightly exas- perated, words, “Yes, that’s what I’m looking lot, sweetheart.” 298 Every cell in my body wants me to dig into the stew and cram it, handful by handful into my mouth. But Peeta’s voice stops me. “We better take it slow on that stew. Remember the first night on the train? The rich food made me sick and I wasn’t even starving then.” “You’re right. And I could just inhale the whole thing!” I say regretfully. But I don’t. We are quite sensible. We each have a roll, half an apple, and an egg-size serving of stew and rice. I make myself eat the stew in tiny spoonfuls — they even sent us silverware and plates — savoring each bite. When we finish, I stare longingly at the dish. “I want more.” “Me, too. Tell you what. We wait an hour, if it stays down, then we get another serving,” Peeta says. “Agreed,” I say. “It’s going to be a long hour.” “Maybe not that long,” says Peeta. “What was that you were saying just before the food arrived? Something about me . . . no competition . . . best thing that ever happened to you . . .” “I don’t remember that last part,” I say, hoping it’s too dim in here for the cameras to pick up my blush. “Oh, that’s right. That’s what I was thinking,” he says. “Scoot over, I’m freezing.” 299 I make room for him in the sleeping bag. We lean back against the cave wall, my head on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around me. I can feel Haymitch nudging me to keep up the act. “So, since we were five, you never even noticed any other girls?” I ask him. “No, I noticed just about every girl, but none of them made a lasting impression but you,” he says. “I’m sure that would thrill your parents, you liking a girl from the Seam,” I say. “Hardly. But I couldn’t care less. Anyway, if we make it back, you won’t be a girl from the Seam, you’ll be a girl from the Victor’s Village,” he says. That’s right. If we win, we’ll each get a house in the part of town reserved for Hunger Games’ victors. Long ago, when the Games began, the Capitol had built a dozen fine houses in each district. Of course, in ours only one is occupied. Most of the others have never been lived in at all. A disturbing thought hits me. “But then, our only neighbor will be Haymitch!” “Ah, that’ll be nice,” says Peeta, tightening his arms around me. “You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games’ tales.” “I told you, he hates me!” I say, but I can’t help laughing at the image of Haymitch becoming my new pal. “Only sometimes. When he’s sober, I’ve never heard him say one negative thing about you,” says Peeta. “He’s never sober!” I protest. 300 “That’s right. Who am


just tell him?” “I should, right?” She laughs softly. “I just . . . I was in a pretty bad place when I met him. He did so much—still does, always taking care of me, and I . . . I want to take care of him for once, you know? Make him feel like I’ve got him.” I nod and then stare down at my empty palms. When I really let go, I imagine that you let me take care of you, too. “Have you and Jack been together for a while?” Olive asks, and I look up at her. I can tell that the Elsie she wants would say yes. That she loves Jack very much and likes the thought of someone who’ll take care of him. But. Honesty. For a second, I picture myself blurting out the entire story: how I fakedated Greg, then met Jack, then met Jonathan. But I doubt Olive is familiar with the concept of fake dating, so I sanitize my version. “This is the first time, actually.” It feels weird to say the opposite of what someone wants. And it feels downright horrible when Olive’s response is a disappointed “Oh.” I swallow. “I’m sorry—” “No, no.” She smiles, reassuring. “I’m sorry about earlier. Asking if you’re getting married.” I shake my head. “We’re just . . . getting to know each other.” “That’s great. It’s nice to hear that he’s over his I Don’t Date, Let Me Set Boundaries and Make It Clear That This Is Just About Sex phase.” Her impression of Jack sounds more like Vin Diesel, but it has me thinking: I have no idea what Jack wants from me. Olive is the second person to mention how important boundaries are to him. He hasn’t set any, but he also said that he was attracted to me, and . . . If what Jack wanted from me was sex . . . what then? Honestly, no clue. I don’t have much experience. Not because I ever bought into the idea that sex is something precious, but because it felt like a means to an end, a way to ensure that the person I was with was pleased with me. Sex never happened because of any attraction I experienced, but that’s okay: maybe I never craved it, but I also never minded it. Because it wasn’t for me. With Jack, though . . . something’s different. Perhaps because he sees more of me than anyone ever has. I find myself thinking about last Sunday by the car, over and over. Tethered on the edge of a kiss that might not come, tense, heated, spellbound. There might be something here. Or it might be nothing. What’s certain is that I’m more curious than ever. If something were to happen, it would be for me. “Did you guys meet at work?” Olive asks. “Kind of. I’m a physicist, too. Though I’m an adjunct.” “Ouch.” I laugh. “Yeah.” “You like teaching?” “Nope. Lots of high-def pictures of butt rashes that are too deadly for people


could never give him away, and the grotesque, inconceivable nature of the device only served to make it more effective. Both of the women concerned in the case, Mrs. Stapleton and Mrs. Laura Lyons, were left with a strong suspicion against Stapleton. Mrs. Stapleton knew that he had designs upon the old man, and also of the existence of the hound. Mrs. Lyons knew neither of these things, but had been impressed by the death occurring at the time of an uncancelled appointment which was only known to him. However, both of them were under his influence, and he had nothing to fear from them. The first half of his task was successfully accomplished but the more difficult still remained. "It is possible that Stapleton did not know of the existence of an heir in Canada. In any case he would very soon learn it from his friend Dr. Mortimer, and he was told by the latter all details about the arrival of Henry Baskerville. Stapleton's first idea was that this young stranger from Canada might possibly be done to death in London without coming down to Devonshire at all. He distrusted his wife ever since she had refused to help him in laying a trap for the old man, and he dared not leave her long out of his sight for fear he should lose his influence over her. It was for this reason that he took her to London with him. They lodged, I find, at the Mexborough Private Hotel, in Craven Street, which was actually one of those called upon by my agent in search of evidence. Here he kept his wife imprisoned in her room while he, disguised in a beard, followed Dr. Mortimer to Baker Street and afterwards to the station and to the North- umberland Hotel. His wife had some inkling of his plans; but she had such a fear of her husband -- a fear founded upon brutal ill-treatment -- that she dare not write to warn the man whom she knew to be in danger. If the letter should fall into Stapleton's hands her own life would not be safe. Eventually, as we know, she adopted the expedient of cutting out the words which would form the message, and addressing the letter in a disguised hand. It reached the baronet, and gave him the first warning of his danger. "It was very essential for Stapleton to get some article of Sir Henry's attire so that, in case he was driven to use the dog, he might always have the means of setting him upon his track. With characteristic promptness and audacity he set about this at once, and we cannot doubt that the boots or chamber-maid of the hotel was well bribed to help him in his design. By chance, however, the first boot which was procured for him was a new one and, therefore, useless for his purpose. He then had it returned and obtained another -- a most instructive incident, since it proved conclusively to my mind that we were dealing with