doing? I’m fighting an evil puppet for my daughter’s life. This is not normal. Then she thought: This is my family’s fault. Mom made Pupkin. She passed her sickness on to Mark, and now she’s passed it on to my daughter. Through me. I did this. She thought about all the other mothers she’d read about who the websites and papers called “crazy.” Maybe they’d only been trying to protect their children, too. The pile of covers stirred and Pupkin’s head rose above them, grinning at Louise. What was Pupkin? What did it want from her? Why not ask? It took an incredible effort of will for Louise to make herself say the first word. It felt like leaving the land of sanity and entering someplace else. we’re going to tickytoo woods “Who are you?” she whispered. Pupkin cocked his head. “What do you want?” Louise asked. His grin seemed to get bigger. The way it caught the shadows made his cheeks seem to stretch. “What do you want?” she whispered, barely audible. She jumped a little when he actually answered. “Where Nancy?” his squeaky voice said. It must have come from Poppy. Who was asleep. It sounded high-pitched but thicker, air pushed through vocal cords clotted with phlegm, past sleeping lips. “Nancy’s gone,” Louise made herself say. “Where?” Pupkin asked, leaning forward. “She’s gone away forever,” Louise said, feeling light-headed. “No,” Pupkin squeaked, but his voice sounded rougher this time, more animated. “She died,” Louise said, and she wanted to add You killed her, but instead she waited to see how he would react. “Pupkin want Nancy,” he said. “Do you know what ‘die’ means?” Louise asked. “No die,” Pupkin said. “Pupkin always Pupkin.” “Everyone dies,” Louise said. “No,” Pupkin stated. “Nancy hiding and seeking.” Louise tried to think of how to explain death to a puppet. “Nancy got hurt very—” Pupkin cut her off. “Nancy promise!” he hissed. “Never alone. Pupkin good boy, never alone.” Pupkin shivered and cooed to himself. He began to stroke himself with his nubbins. “Pupkin good.” “You are good,” Louise said. “But you need to go away now.” Pupkin stopped rubbing himself and cocked his head at her. Then he began to giggle. “Ke ke ke ke ke ke ke . . .” he said and started rubbing his hands over his belly again. “Pupkin home.” One of his nubbins reached up and stroked the side of his face. “Ke ke ke ke ke ke ke . . .” Then he slowly sank into the blankets, still watching Louise, stroking one nub along the side of his face, soothing himself. Louise stood up, never taking her eyes off Pupkin, and left the room. In the front hall she called Mark. He picked up on the first ring. “I was just about to call you,” he said in a rush, and his voice sounded clearer now, more decisive. “I know what to do.” “He wants to know where Mom is,” she said. “He thinks she’s playing hide-and-seek.” “He’s talking,” Mark said. “That’s good. Write down anything


harder, tugs it out of my grip, and whacks me back. “Ow!” I yelp. His amusement is replaced, instantly, by concern. “Shit, are you—” Which gives me enough time to grab another pillow. “Ah! Stop.” Brad wraps burning fingers around my wrist and says sternly, “Violence is not the answer.” “You just whacked me!” “That,” he says loftily, “was self-defense.” When I transfer the pillow to my other hand, he grabs that wrist too. I try to shake him off; it does not work. He looks quite smug. So I lunge at him, which does not go how I’d hoped, since he’s still holding both my wrists. He falls back on his elbows, and I end up leaning quite heavily over him. If I were choosing to be interested in Bradley, this would be the perfect situation. I could take the weight off my right knee and let more of myself rest on him, and our mouths would be very close, and he would be in the ideal position to notice that I smell beguilingly of my lime shower gel and coconut edge control. Then he’d put his tongue in my mouth and come away with an enduring passion for fruit salad. I let myself imagine that scenario for a few dangerous seconds before remembering that I’m not allowed to be interested in Bradley. So I keep all my weight on my right knee. The mattress sinks a bit, and I wobble and bite my lip. Then Brad falls all the way onto his back and pulls me down with him. SUNDAY, 2:04 P.M. Jordan: what’s going on man keep me updated Jordan: Brad Jordan: BRAD! TF yall doing over there???? Jordan: CHAPTER ELEVEN BRAD Is this a bad idea? It might be a bad idea. But I’m like 18 percent sure I just caught a vibe, which is actually very sure, for me, and while I’m certainly not in love with Celine—that would be ridiculous, Jordan is deranged—I am definitely a tiny bit obsessed with the idea of kissing her. I think about it all the time. Like when we’re arguing in Philosophy or when we all go into town to get frappes. Pretty soon she’s going to notice how much time I waste thinking about her mouth—unless I can get ahead of the issue by getting at the mouth in question. That would fix things, right? Actually doing it, I mean? That would fix the kiss obsession. Or make it ten times worse. Only one way to find out. I pull her to me, a soft weight that presses my spine firmly into the mattress. She says with a low-level glower, “What was that for?” Coming from Celine, this is basically a polite inquiry. I give her my best smile. “This friendship thing is going really well, don’t you think?” I am testing the waters. If she says Sure is, handsome, and licks my neck, I’ll take that as a green light. Celine props herself up on her elbows to look down at me—but she doesn’t get up. “Am I


I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and it was but the other day that I recommended another young person, who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalfe's calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. "Lady Catherine," said she, "you have given me a treasure." Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?'' ``Yes, Ma'am, all.'' ``All! -- What, all five out at once? Very odd! -- And you only the second. -- The younger ones out before the elder are married! -- Your younger sisters must be very young?'' ``Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps _she_ is full young to be much in company. But really, Ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and amusement because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early. -- The last born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth, as the first. And to be kept back on such a motive! -- I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind.'' ``Upon my word,'' said her ladyship, ``you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. -- Pray, what is your age?'' ``With three younger sisters grown up,'' replied Elizabeth smiling, ``your Ladyship can hardly expect me to own it.'' Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence! ``You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, -- therefore you need not conceal your age.'' ``I am not one and twenty.'' When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card tables were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat down to quadrille; and as Miss De Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson expressed her fears of Miss De Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the other table, Lady Catherine was generally speaking -- stating the mistakes of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to every thing her Ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many. Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes and noble names. When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, the tables were broke up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, gratefully


laughter startled a flight of crows from the tall brown grass. They took to the air in a wild beating of wings. "You think I should mistrust Lannister because he sat on my throne for a few moments?" He shook with laughter again. "Jaime was all of seventeen, Ned. Scarce more than a boy." "Boy or man, he had no right to that throne." "Perhaps he was tired," Robert suggested. "Killing kings is weary work. Gods know, there's no place else to rest your ass in that damnable room. And he spoke truly, it is a monstrous uncomfortable chair. In more ways than one." The king shook his head. "Well, now I know 104 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN Jaime's dark sin, and the matter can be forgotten. I am heartily sick of secrets and squabbles and matters of state, Ned. It's all as tedious as counting coppers. Come, let's ride, you used to know how. I want to feel the wind in my hair again." He kicked his horse back into motion and galloped up over the barrow, raining earth down behind him. For a moment Ned did not follow. He had run out of words, and he was filled with a vast sense of helplessness. Not for the first time, he wondered what he was doing here and why he had come. He was no Jon Arryn, to curb the wildness of his king and teach him wisdom. Robert would do what he pleased, as he always had, and nothing Ned could say or do would change that. He belonged in Winterfell. He belonged with Catelyn in her grief, and with Bran. A man could not always be where he belonged, though. Resigned, Eddard Stark put his boots into his horse and set off after the king. TYRION The north went on forever. Tyrion Lannister knew the maps as well as anyone, but a fortnight on the wild track that passed for the kingsroad up here had brought home the lesson that the map was one thing and the land quite another. They had left Winterfell on the same day as the king, amidst all the commotion of the royal departure, riding out to the sound of men shouting and horses snorting, to the rattle of wagons and the groaning of the queen's huge wheelhouse, as a light snow flurried about them. The kingsroad was just beyond the sprawl of castle and town. There the banners and the wagons and the columns of knights and freeriders turned south, taking the tumult with them, while Tyrion turned north with Benjen Stark and his nephew. It had grown colder after that, and far more quiet. West of the road were flint hills, grey and rugged, with tall watchtowers on their stony summits. To the east the land was lower, the ground flattening to a rolling plain that stretched away as far as the eye could see. Stone bridges spanned swift, narrow rivers, while small farms spread in rings around holdfasts walled in wood and stone. The road was well trafficked, and at night for


have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people---Miss Cathy and Joseph the servant. You saw him, I dare say, up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self- righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neigh- bours. By his knack of sermonizing and pious dis- coursing he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in wor- rying him about his soul's concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and night after night he regu- larly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heath- cliff and Catherine, always minding to flatter Earn- shaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter. Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day. From the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to bed we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mis- chief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going---singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wicked slip she was; but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish. And, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet, that you might comfort her. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him; yet she got chided more than any of us on his account. In play she liked exceedingly to act the little mistress, using her hands freely, and commanding her compan- ions. She did so to me, but I would not bear shopping and ordering, and so I let her know. Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children. He had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him. She was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look and her ready words, turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most---showing how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness; how the boy would do her bidding in anything, and his only when it suited his own inclina- tion. After behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night. "Nay, Cathy,"


I tiptoe around the counter and grab the phone, dialing Mr. Lamont’s number as fast as I can. I hit the wrong buttons and have to start over twice, but once I’ve got the right numbers punched in, I put the receiver to my ear. There is only silence. I slam it down and pick it back up. Still nothing. Bezi switches on her flashlight and points it in my direction. “Something’s wrong,” I say as a familiar dread washes over me again. Kyle grabs the receiver and holds it to his ear. He slams the phone down and grabs the cord connected to the back. There’s too much slack and when he pulls it, the frayed end appears in Bezi’s flashlight beam. “Somebody cut it,” I say as I realize exactly what this means. I turn to Bezi and try to keep my voice steady enough to make her understand that we’ve made a terrible mistake. We don’t have to wait for these people to show up. “They’re already here,” I say. Bezi’s eyes glint in the dark as her hands begin to tremble. Kyle stands as still as a statue, gripping his knife. “What—what do we do?” he stammers. I move to the window and peer out at the parking lot. Bezi’s car is sitting in the cone of light emanating from the floodlight. It’s too low to the ground, and I realize it’s because the tires have been cut. I can hardly think straight. A wave of panic rushes over me, and I sit on the stool behind the counter. I’m trying to survive. That’s all I want—to get out of this place alive. I stare at Bezi and then Kyle, both of whom are silent and clearly scared to death. I am too. I shift my gaze to the office counter and see the game book sitting open, the names of the guests and staff penciled in. I’ve been playing the part of a girl who escapes a serial killer every night for months. It’s not a game this time. The consequences are real, but we still have to play. “I’m the final girl,” I say. “It’s literally my job to survive the night. We don’t have any good choices here.” I grab the game book and look at the roster, trying to think of a way to make any of this work in my favor. “It’s just the three of us here for right now. Javier and Tasha aren’t going to leave us here alone. I’m sure that as soon as they can, they’ll get somebody else up here to help us.” “What about the pickup truck?” Kyle asks. “We don’t have the keys,” I say. “Mr. Lamont has them, and even if he didn’t, the tires are probably cut.” “Why would you say that?” Bezi asks, her eyes wide. “Your tires are cut,” I say. A dreadful silence settles over us. “We have to dig in and wait for help,” I say. “Keep trying the cell phones. We’ll get a spotty signal at some point, and


of his thumbs touch me . . . touch me where I want to be touched. I gasp. “I hope you’re not attached to your underwear,” he murmurs, his eyes wild and bright. His fingers trace the elastic along my belly then slide inside, teasing me, before grabbing my panties tightly and pushing his thumbs through the delic- ate material. My panties disintegrate. His hands splay out on my thighs, and his thumbs brush against my sex once more. He flexes his hips so his erection rubs against me. “I can feel how wet you are.” His voice is tinged with carnal appreciation, and he suddenly sits up, his arm around my waist again, so we’re nose to nose. He rubs his nose against mine. 501/551 “We’re going to take this slow, Mrs. Grey. I want to feel all of you.” He lifts me, and with exquisite, frustrating, slow ease, lowers me onto him. I feel each blessed inch of him fill me. “Ah—” I moan incoherently as I reach out to clasp his arms. I try to lift my- self off him for some welcome friction, but he holds me in place. “All of me,” he whispers and tilts his pelvis, pushing himself into me all the way. I throw my head back and let out a strangled cry of pure pleasure. “Let me hear you,” he murmurs. “No—don’t move, just feel.” I open my eyes, my mouth frozen in a silent Ah! And he’s gazing at me, hooded, licentious gray eyes into dazed blue. He shifts, rolling his hips, but holds me in place. I groan. His lips are at my throat, kissing me. “This is my favorite place. Buried in you,” he murmurs against my skin. “Please, move,” I plead. “Slow, Mrs. Grey.” He flexes his hips again and pleasure radiates through me. I cup his face and kiss him, consuming him. “Love me. Please, Christian.” His teeth skim my jaw up to my ear. “Go,” he whispers, and he lifts me up and down. My inner goddess is unleashed, and I push him down on the ground and start to move, savoring the feeling of him inside me . . . riding him . . . riding him hard. With his hands around my waist he matches my rhythm. I have missed this . . . the heady feeling of him beneath me, inside me . . . the sun on my back, the sweet smell of fall in the air, the gentle autumnal breeze. It’s a heady fusion of senses: touch, taste, smell, and the sight of my beloved husband beneath me. “Oh, Ana.” He groans, eyes closed, head back, mouth open. Ah . . . I love this. And inside, I’m building . . . building . . . climbing . . . higher. Christian’s hands move to my thighs, and delicately his thumbs press at their apex, and I explode around him over and over and over and over, and I col- lapse, sprawled on his chest as he cries out in turn, letting go


through puddles. I fling the gasping man off and roll to my feet. From the corner of my eye I see that Kristi is rousing, blinking, her face ashen as she attempts to focus. “Oh, God!” she cries in agony as I stagger away. I see her stumbling forward, crawling to the dying man, cradling his head in her lap. “Jay!” she screams, her face in the dim light wrenched in pain as she holds him. “No. No. Oh, God. Oh, God. No, no, no!” There isn’t time to finish her. Already red and blue lights are flashing, washing the cathedral’s walls in eerie strobing lights, lighting up the scene with its bloodstained cathedral walls, injured lovers, and scattered roses. Without thinking, I pick up one of the long-stemmed buds. Then my mind clears. And I run. On unsteady legs, I sprint in the opposite direction of the police cars. My face throbbing, I head to the route I’ve planned for months, fleeing down the alleys and streets, avoiding as many cameras as possible, head down, the raging storm my cover. “Jay!” Kristi’s anguished screams follow me. But I keep running, slipping twice, righting myself and catching a glimpse of the luminous eyes of the same shadowy cat I saw before. This time it is peering from beneath a scrawny bush. Bad luck, I think. Kristi Bentz is still alive. I’ve failed. This time. But only for a while. Keep moving. Just keep moving. Don’t panic. Do not panic. Next time, I think, the next time you won’t be so lucky, Kristi Bentz. Stumbling, I hurry through the shadows and rain, dodging the few people I come across. Still grasping my knife in one hand, I reach into a pocket with my other and rub the stones of a well-worn rosary. Praying, I cut down alleys and side streets, moving steadily forward. My heart is thudding, my jaw painful, but the glorious rush of adrenaline keeps me racing forward, putting much-needed distance between the cathedral and me. Thankfully, because I took the time to find out, I know where the street cameras are located and keep my head low. Under my breath I whisper, “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. . . .” And then I disappear into the night. CHAPTER 2 “Jay,” Kristi cried. “No, no, no . . .” Someone was tearing her away from her husband. She had to talk to him. To explain. To tell him she’d made a horrid, horrid mistake. To let him know that she loved him. Had always loved him . . . Forgive me. Oh, Jay, please, please forgive me. But she couldn’t get the words out. Couldn’t focus. Was drowning in the rain. “Get her into an ambulance!” she heard over the sluice of water gurgling in gutters and downspouts. With an effort, Kristi struggled to sit up against the building. She was wet, her


palms, trailing from him the way Mortem trailed from her. The Sun Prince gathered up the strands of death in his gold-shrouded fist and yanked. The Mortem let go, tugging out of her like a thread through a needle’s eye. Lore gasped, her vision flaring bright. Life itself seemed to spill from where Bastian touched her, blushing her skin and rushing her pulse, every nerve alive and tingling. Mortem fled from him, but she could still feel it, still grasp it if she wanted. There was something else, too, a sense of duality: holding a rope made of shadow and one of light at once, like she was two things pressed into one form. Just a flicker of awareness, an answer to a question she hadn’t known to ask— The bodies in the chamber collapsed. The screaming stopped, leaving ringing silence behind. They stood in the doorway, her hands cradled in his, breathing hard. His forehead tipped down, rested on hers; she let it. The heady feeling that had rushed through her when he pulled out the strands—life, glowing and vibrant, anathema to the magic she carried—slowly faded. And with it, that flash of knowledge, of something clicking into place. Answer and question falling away. Lore pulled her hands out of Bastian’s. “How did…” Her throat felt like she’d choked down a handful of gravel; Lore cleared it, tried again. “How did you do that, Bastian?” He stared at his hands. The shimmer in the air around him had dimmed, but just barely, and it flared again when he raised his hand in her direction. Lore flinched, acting on instinct, and he let his hand drop. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It must be something about being in the catacombs…” Dawn was soon. Lore knew it, felt the certainty in her bones, just like she felt everything down here. They had to move; they didn’t have time for this. “What about you?” he asked, his voice still thin with nerves. “Has Mortem ever done that before?” “Clung to me like that, or made a bunch of corpses start to chase me?” Her rueful laugh came out shaky. “No, on both counts.” “Rude of them not to answer your questions before they started screaming,” Bastian said. “What was it they were muttering? Something about awakening?” “They awaken. Nearly the same thing the first one told me.” Lore frowned. “It’d be helpful if we had any idea who they is referring to.” “You mean it’s not just nonsense?” “The dead don’t lie. It’s an answer to the question I asked, if an oblique one.” She rubbed at her forehead, leaving behind a streak of dust and torch ash. “But we have no idea what it fucking means.” Bastian turned to study the door. The sconces inside the chamber still burned, illuminating the mess of bodies littered over the floor; neither of them moved to douse the flames. The increased light revealed what their torches hadn’t—an X on the stone door, barely visible against the pockmarked gray. “Think whoever made this also wrote


trip over Hamilton Cooke’s body to retrieve it—that was if she could find it. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Aldo, couldn’t see the pistol in her peripheral vision. Think, Kristi, think. You’ve been in tight spots before! You have to save yourself. More than that, you have to save the baby! Think of the innocent child you’re carrying! “I don’t understand,” she said, hoping to keep him talking, trying and failing to keep her panic level. The gun! Where was it? Where!? “Oh, sure you do. Don’t play dumb with me. You know why. You profited from my pain,” he said. “You and your damned book were everywhere besmirching my family’s name, making money for the shame that I suffered! It wasn’t bad enough that she,” he spat out, glancing at his dying ex-wife, “she flaunted her affair, having it play out on national TV, that she left me for a convicted murderer, but then you had to keep it going. Publishing a book. Agreeing to a made-for-TV deal, getting rich off my family’s disgrace!” Kristi couldn’t believe it. He was this disturbed? He’d harbored a grudge, letting it fester and grow until it became an obsession, a need for revenge. Recalling the horrid notes he’d left, the deadly snake, she felt a new rage. He had no right to terrorize her, no right to take her husband’s life. For the first time she noticed the wound on his face, remembered attacking him with the umbrella, felt the rage that he with his damned knife had destroyed her future. “But why now?” “Because it was all happening again!” he exploded as if she were an imbecile. “You were just on television! And that cheap piece of . . . that made-for-television movie where I’m played as if I’m a damned idiot? On over and over again. Do you know what that does to my reputation! I’m a proud, upstanding citizen. I own a company. I’m on the board of charities and all of you”—he waved his knife to include his dying wife, her dead husband, and Kristi—“you need to pay.” She couldn’t let him get away with it. She shifted slightly, onto the balls of her feet, still crouched, protecting her belly, and swallowed back her fear. All the while, she fastened her gaze to his knife. “So you killed—?” “My cheating wife? And her lover?” he said, as if she should understand. “Of course I did! We were married in the church and she defiled her vows, took up with a known killer,” he spat out the words. “And as I said, you opened my life, my pain, my suffering to the world. You destroyed my privacy and my life!” His face was twisted brutally. “So, you too, Kristi Bentz, must pay for your sins. Tonight.” CHAPTER 39 Bentz’s skin crawled. He stared at what had obviously been Father John’s lair, but the little cabin in the tree had been stripped bare, only a sleeping bag lying on a bed built into the wall and a small table and


tells me that he was quiet until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted him so that he swooned into a sort of coma. . . . Three nights has the same thing happened, violent all day then quiet from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It would almost seem as if there was some influence which came and went. Happy thought! We shall tonight play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help. Tonight he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required. 23 August.--"The expected always happens." How well Disraeli knew life. Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our subtle arrangements were for nought. At any rate, we have proved one thing, that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time. We shall in future be able to ease his bonds for a few hours each day. I have given orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded room, when once he is quiet, until the hour before sunrise. The poor soul's body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it. Hark! The unexpected again! I am called. The patient has once more escaped. Later.--Another night adventure. Renfield artfully waited until the attendant was entering the room to inspect. Then he dashed out past him and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. Again he went into the grounds of the deserted house, and we found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me he became furious, and had not the attendants seized him in time, he would have tried to kill me. As we sere holding him a strange thing happened. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then as suddenly grew calm. I looked round instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I caught the patient's eye and followed it, but could trace nothing as it looked into the moonlight sky, except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west. Bats usually wheel about, but this one seemed to go straight on, as if it knew where it was bound for or had some intention of its own. The patient grew calmer every instant, and presently said, "You needn't tie me. I shall go quietly!" Without trouble, we came back to the house. I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and shall not forget this night. LUCY WESTENRA'S DIARY Hillingham, 24 August.--I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it


his career that way—but then, why would he jeopardize his career by stalking a student? “I do think my mother would have lived longer,” Sheila Evans said, “were it not for the stress. She had deep vein thrombosis, and that’s not helped by worry. He was her first grandbaby. She used to get mad if I’d bathed him before she came over, she was so eager to do it.” She swallowed in a way that dimpled her chin; she was holding in so much it was a wonder she didn’t implode, turn to a tiny pebble of grief. “My mother left us in 2008,” she said. I took my laptop with me into bed. “My own sister fell out with all of us. She wasn’t sure of Omar’s innocence. We haven’t spoken in years. I started with a family,” she said. Her voice had started cracking, and she paused until she had control. “A healthy, functional family, and—you know, I ended with a shambles. It’s the ruins of a family.” The dosage of my antidepressant is such that I haven’t cried actual tears in a decade, but there are times when I want so badly to cry that I make all the noises of crying, press my fists into my eyes so I feel something similar. The absence of tears hurts more—or makes whatever hurts hurt more—than if I could just sob. In any case: That’s what I was doing, on my bed. There was a childish bitterness to it all that I only slowly identified beneath the sympathy: Sheila Evans, unlike my own mother, hadn’t abandoned her remaining child. I hated that I was thinking about myself rather than becoming a pure vessel to absorb Sheila’s grief, but the truth is that while anyone with a heart would have felt it break right then, my heart cracked along familiar fault lines. Since I shouldn’t be thinking about myself, I stuffed the recognition down into the subterranean, into the dank, loamy places where it might take root. Instead of working it all out, I went to sleep. #1: OMAR EVANS In the morning I couldn’t remember what I dreamed, except that it was troubling, that it was about water, that I dreamed about texting friends about the dream. I didn’t feel rested in the slightest. I knew, as the sun finally came through the blinds, that I couldn’t get up until I’d stayed there with my eyes closed fully picturing the night Thalia died. If I could do that, if I could think it all the way through, I could get up and leave behind me whatever had tangled these sheets into a sweaty mess. So—may the universe forgive me—that’s what I did. Thalia changes from her costume, the tulle smelling of sweat and sawdust. She puts on the jeans and sweater that will later be found neatly folded on the pool deck bench. They never found a shirt, just a green cashmere sweater, so let’s assume this is all she has. Hiking boots. No coat; the more foolhardy of us are


from the mountains. I was thinking about Carlotta. Who knows if you even remember her. Maybe you remember her as a girl too prickly to close in on. Maybe she was forgettable background noise to your obsessions. In any case: She meant the world to me. What I haven’t told you, what I hadn’t fully wrapped my mind around, is that I had come to Granby so that later that evening, Fran and I could sprinkle an eighth of Carlotta’s ashes into the Tigerwhip. Carlotta had wanted this. She loved the place. On the bridge, I told myself again that it had happened, that we’d lost her three full weeks ago. I couldn’t let myself think about her children, not yet, but I could imagine her here with me, free now to go wherever she wanted. She’d been forty-five. Now she was seventeen again, too. Not in the horrible way Thalia would always be seventeen; remembering Thalia at seventeen was remembering someone on the steepest precipice. Picturing Carlotta young was picturing someone soaring through the sky, someone with everything to look forward to. Someone living more in genesis than aftermath. I thought about how junior spring, Carlotta and Fran drove out to surprise me when we rowed at Kent on the Housatonic. As we passed, Fran cheered and chanted my name; Carlotta turned around and mooned me. I laughed and almost lost my rhythm, but I loved her for it. Something I remembered only then: Maybe that day, or maybe another—Omar, there for icing and taping our joints into submission, turned up jogging along the very last stretch of the river. The water was a choppy mess, and we had two seniors out with the flu so a terrified sophomore was in the stroke seat for the first time, and we’d never rowed so badly. We’d fallen hopelessly far behind the competition, but Omar decided he was the one we were racing. As soon as we passed him, he started sprinting behind us; and although we were so slow that he likely could have caught up, he never quite did—slowing down, pretending to be winded when we struggled hardest against the unkind water. Five yards from the finish, he doubled over as if he couldn’t go a step farther—the whole thing a silly, throwaway kindness. Why on earth, despite the leaden sadness of yesterday and today, I felt profoundly light right then—ready to float away—I’m not sure. I’d had three beers, as I said. These plants below were lucky, the early arrivals. The ones born later to a choked summer ravine would have to fight for sun and space. Plenty would make it. Everything green is something that’s survived. I could see Lower Campus from where I sat, could hear the shrieks that accompanied a cluster of kids tackling each other on their way down the quad. I’d forgotten the names of most of the plants, but back in Dana Ramos’s class I’d known them all. I only lived four years in New England, but I noticed more and learned more about


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

channel Mortem when it reaches the surface, and the Veilleurs Enterre, the Buried Watch, who will ensure that what has been struck down by your god does not rise again. —The Book of Holy Law, Tract 35 Silence. Then, a hoarse laugh. Bastian’s eyes were a dark glitter in the gloom of the alleyway, his bloody hands clenched to linen-wrapped fists. “The Buried Watch? They were disbanded after the Night Witch went mad. There’s no one down there anymore.” “There is.” Lore swallowed. Her throat felt like she’d eaten live coals. “There aren’t many of them left; maybe twenty or so. But they’re still there. Still watching Nyxara’s tomb.” Still waiting. Still sending someone into the obsidian tomb on every eclipse to see if the body of the goddess had stirred. Lore remembered what those people had looked like when they came back out. Their faces blank, their eyes vacant, as if their very sense of self had been scooped away. The moon-shaped scars on their hands a burning, angry red. “That doesn’t make any sense.” Bastian spoke slowly, like he didn’t trust her capacity to understand him. “The Buried Watch hasn’t existed for centuries. The Church would never let a faction persist, not after the Night Witch decided she was Nyxara reborn.” Lore shrugged. “Like I said, there aren’t many of them. The Church killed most of them after the Night Witch—they thought the same madness might infect the others. But some of them were able to hide, to keep the order alive.” “How the fuck do they get new members, then? No one goes to the catacombs.” “They do if they have nowhere else to go.” Like a merchant’s daughter, pregnant with a bastard child that she desperately wanted to keep. Lore’s mother had fled to the catacombs when her parents told her they were going to send her to a sanitarium. It’d been panic; she’d only gone there to hide. But she’d found so much more than a place to hide. Bastian’s eyebrow arched, expression clearly incredulous. “So are the rest of the stories true?” He snorted. “Do they sneak out at night and give naughty children bad dreams? Enchant horses to throw their riders?” “No.” She shook her head. “The true Buried Watch—the Night Sisters who’ve taken the vow—never leave the tomb, except when some of the younger ones are sent up to get supplies. We stole, or bartered stuff we found in the tunnels. Lost coins, precious stones. You’d be surprised what you can find if you look for it.” Her voice was casual as she spoke of such strangeness. Lore had only ever said these things to Val and Mari, when she told them what she was after she raised Cedric. She’d always thought she’d never be able to find the words again, but they came out of her so easily. The Sun Prince narrowed his eyes, but he didn’t accuse her of lying again. “So they’re still doing what the Tracts say?” The question came out guarded. “Watching to make sure Nyxara doesn’t rise?” “They


look of raw vulnerability, hope. “It’s amazing,” I force out. “I didn’t know you were building anything. When did you start?” He scratches the back of his head. “I started building in San Francisco.” “You what?” I say. “The second job I had,” he says. “It wasn’t upholstery. I was apprenticing for a designer.” In the scheme of things, it’s not a salacious reveal, but it is disorienting. To realize the rift between us began even longer ago than I realized. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “I don’t know. I was embarrassed.” “Embarrassed,” I repeat, like it’s my first introduction to the word. It might as well be. “What could possibly be embarrassing about this?” “I’ve never been like you,” he says. “I wasn’t brilliant. I wasn’t someone with a ton of goals. I’ve spent my first thirty years tripping through life.” “That’s not true,” I say. “Harriet.” He looks at me through his lashes, every variety of green and gray in his eyes on full display in the sunlight reflecting off the water below. “I barely got into college, and I barely graduated. And then I followed you out to San Francisco, and even with a degree, I managed to botch every interview I went to for jobs that would actually pay. If I fucked up the apprenticeship, I didn’t want you to watch it happen. Saying it was another upholstery job took the pressure off, because if I lost it, I could find another.” My nose burns. I drop my eyes back to the phone, the screen blurring. “He actually didn’t think I was any good,” he says. I look up. “The designer I apprenticed for,” he says. “He said I had no instincts.” I snort. “What, like you’re some kind of birding dog? What an asshole.” Wyn smiles faintly. “When I left that job and went home, I was pretty sure I was done even trying. Figured I’d stick with the repairs.” “What made you change your mind?” He eases onto the hot metal of the hood beside me. “It’s hard to explain.” We’re back to the push and pull, the little drips of him and then the droughts that follow. I’ve never known how to take him in small doses. One taste only ever makes the thirst worse. “Well, I’m proud of you,” I say thickly, folding my arms, barricading myself from him the same way he’s done to me. His eyes return to mine. “I could make you one, if you want.” “A table?” I ask. He nods. “I don’t have that kind of money, Wyn.” “I know,” he says. “That’s not what I meant.” “I couldn’t take something like that for free,” I say. “It’s going really well, Harriet,” he says. “And I hardly have any expenses right now—maybe you’ve heard: I live with my mom?” I laugh. “I think I remember reading that on TMZ.” He touches my hand against the hood, and god help me, I turn my palm up to his. I need to hold on to him right now, need to feel


and I will call you Nniel, Tear-maiden.' And at that name she shook her head, but said: Nniel. That was the first word she spoke after her darkness, and it remained her name among the woodmen ever after. On the next day they bore her towards Ephel Brandir; but when they came to Dimrost, the Rainy Stair, where the tumbling stream of Celebros fell towards Teiglin, a great shuddering came upon her, wherefore afterwards that place was called Nen Girith, the Shuddering Water. Ere she came to the home of the woodmen upon Amon Obel she was sick of a fever; and long she lay thus, tended by the women of Brethil, and they taught her language as to an infant. But ere the autumn came by the skill of Brandir she was healed of her sickness, and she could speak; but nothing did she remember of the time before she was found by Turambar on the mound of Haudh-en-Elleth. And Brandir loved her; but all her heart was given to Turambar. In that time the woodmen were not troubled by the Orcs, and Turambar went not to war, and there was peace in Brethil. His heart turned to Nniel, and he asked her in marriage; but for that time she delayed in spite of her love. For Brandir foreboded he knew not what, and sought to restrain her, rather for her sake than his own or rivalry with Turambar; and he revealed to her that Turambar was Trin son of Hrin, and though she knew not the name a shadow fell upon her mind. But when three years were passed since the sack of Nargothrond Turambar asked Nniel again, and vowed that now he would wed her, or else go back to war in the wild. And Nniel took him with joy, and they were wedded at the midsummer, and the woodmen of Brethil made a great feast. But ere the end of the year Glaurung sent Orcs of his dominion against Brethil; and Turambar sat at home deedless, for he had promised to Nniel that he would go to battle only if their homes were assailed. But the woodmen were worsted, and Dorlas upbraided him that he would not aid the people that he had taken for his own. Then Turambar arose and brought forth again his black sword, and he gathered a great company of the Men of Brethil, and they defeated the Orcs utterly. But Glaurung heard tidings that the Black Sword was in Brethil, and he pondered what he heard, devising new evil. In the spring of the year after Nniel conceived, and she became wan and sad; and at the same time there came to Ephel Brandir the first rumours that Glaurung had issued from Nargothrond. Then Turambar sent out scouts far afield, for now he ordered things as he would, and few gave heed to Brandir. As it drew near to summer Glaurung came to the borders of Brethil, and lay near the west shores of Teiglin; and then there was great fear among the


a doctor at Creedmoor State Hospital, was enlisted to assist the police. After an extensive examination of the evidence, he reported the bomber may be “single, in his forties or fifties, may get angry when criticized, and feels superior to others. He’s a skilled mechanic, unsocial but not antisocial, most likely suffering from a case of progressive paranoia, and may have worked or currently works for Met Power.” A surge of excitement ran through her. After sixteen years, the police had finally shared information with the public, which might help to bring down her sister’s killer. Maybe someone out there reading Peter’s profile would recognize, in the sketch or the psychological workup, the man who had terrorized the city for so long. She finished breakfast and was heading back to her room when she noticed a single letter in her mail cubby. The white envelope had no return address, but the postmark caught her eye: Mt. Kisco, NY. She opened it and gasped at the typed message inside. To the Dancing Doll: Tell your father that Met Power will get what’s coming to it. They deserve to suffer, after what I went through. The Big Apple Bomber Fingers shaking, she replaced the letter back in the envelope and slipped it into the pocket of her cardigan, trying not to get any more of her fingerprints on it. This was exactly what her father had warned her about. While she knew she should go to the police right away, first she wanted to talk to Peter. She called his office at Creedmoor, but the secretary said Dr. Griggs wasn’t in that day, that he was down at the Bowery. “The Bowery?” asked Marion. That part of town was considered seedy and dangerous. “What does he do there?” “Not sure. Something to do with the Salvation Army, I think.” “Is there a number I can reach him at?” “I’m afraid not.” Marion left a message for him to call and went up to her room. She couldn’t sit around and wait for him to call her back. There was no time. She threw on a plain wool coat, put a scarf over her head, and took the subway downtown to Eighth Street. The streets were crowded, and at first Marion became panicked at the noise and crush of bodies, imagining that every man in a trench coat might be the bomber. She hurried past the handsome Italianate brownstone building that housed Cooper Union, a tuition-free college where Abraham Lincoln had once given an address. After that, her surroundings changed rapidly. The raised tracks of the Third Avenue El snaked over the street traffic, casting everything beneath them in shadow. Low tenements that lined either side were grimy and dark, the sidewalks littered with torn newspapers and broken glass. And men. So many men. Men with hollow cheeks and thick stubble, the older ones with lips curled around toothless gums. They lay sleeping in doorways, over grates, a few lying half off the curb, oblivious to the trucks and cars whizzing within feet of their


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

his luggage arrived through the slush. And very remarkable luggage it was. There was a couple of trunks indeed, such as a rational man might need, but in addition there were a box of books,--big, fat books, of which some were just in an incomprehensible handwriting,--and a dozen or more crates, boxes, and cases, containing objects packed in straw, as it seemed to Hall, tugging with a casual curiosity at the straw--glass bottles. The stranger, muffled in hat, coat, gloves, and wrapper, came out impatiently to meet Fearenside's cart, while Hall was having a word or so of gossip preparatory to helping bring them in. Out he came, not noticing Fearenside's dog, who was sniffing in a dilettante spirit at Hall's legs. "Come along with those boxes," he said. "I've been waiting long enough." And he came down the steps towards the tail of the cart as if to lay hands on the smaller crate. No sooner had Fearenside's dog caught sight of him, however, than it began to bristle and growl savagely, and when he rushed down the steps it gave an undecided hop, and then sprang straight at his hand. "Whup!" cried Hall, jumping back, for he was no hero with dogs, and Fearenside howled, "Lie down!" and snatched his whip. They saw the dog's teeth had slipped the hand, heard a kick, saw the dog execute a flanking jump and get home on the stranger's leg, and heard the rip of his trousering. Then the finer end of Fearenside's whip reached his property, and the dog, yelping with dismay, retreated under the wheels of the waggon. It was all the business of a half-minute. No one spoke, every one shouted. The stranger glanced swiftly at his torn glove and at his leg, made as if he would stoop to the latter, then turned and rushed up the steps into the inn. They heard him go headlong across the passage and up the uncarpeted stairs to his bedroom. "You brute, you!" said Fearenside, climbing off the waggon with his whip in his hand, while the dog watched him through the wheel. "Come here!" said Fearenside--"You'd better." Hall had stood gaping. "He wuz bit," said Hall. "I'd better go and see to en," and he trotted after the stranger. He met Mrs. Hall in the passage. "Carrier's darg," he said, "bit en." He went straight upstairs, and the stranger's door being ajar, he pushed it open and was entering without any ceremony, being of a naturally sympathetic turn of mind. The blind was down and the room dim. He caught a glimpse of a most singular thing, what seemed a handless arm waving towards him, and a face of three huge indeterminate spots on white, very like the face of a pale pansy. Then he was struck violently in the chest, hurled back, and the door slammed in his face and locked, all so rapidly that he had no time to observe. A waving of indecipherable shapes, a blow, and a concussion. There he stood on the dark little landing, wondering


at your earliest convenience, his words, not mine.” “Put him through,” I said, welcoming the break. Both Coogong’s and Hardy’s holographic forms took shape above the captain’s desk. “I’m ready for some good news. Tell me you’ve made progress with finding the QFR.” “Yes, Captain, we have located the QFR here onboard Lincoln.” I noticed Hardy, standing behind, was looking about himself as if being bothered by a rambunctious fly. Then I saw the slightest glimmer of fairy dust and knew it must be Tina. For a fleeting second, I wondered if they had patched up their differences, then chastised myself for losing track of what was important here. “How long before you can get it over to Adams?” Hardy stopped being annoying long enough to look at me over Coogong’s helmet. Coogong said, “Two assumptions I had made concerning the QFR were wrong, and I apologize, Captain.” “Just tell me. Pull the Band-Aid off quick.” Coogong blinked back at me. “Just tell me.” “First of all, the QFR is not a separate, standalone device that the Lincoln crew had been working on. The technology, which I must say is quite ingenious, has been integrated into the ship’s entire E & P department.” I let out a breath, dragged a palm down my face, and let that sink in. “And the second wrong assumption you made?” “I, we, had been working under the assumption that the QFR would nullify the enemy’s quantum flux signals throughout local space. That once it was operational, Adams, Wrath, and Portent would all be freed from the Liquilids’ clutches …” “And?” I said, forcing myself not to look at Hardy and Tina in the background. Damn, that robot was annoying. “From what I have determined thus far, the QFR will operate in conjunction with Lincoln’s shields, creating a virtual bubble around the vessel. That is how it nullifies the quantum flux signals.” I shook my head, not knowing how to respond to that. Hardy piped up, “It makes perfect sense, Cap … Lincoln was here alone. There was no need to think in terms of saving other ships.” In a blur of motion, Hardy jabbed a hand into the air, catching Tina with a clenched fist. I winced, wondering if the tiny fairy could possibly have survived. Hardy himself looked momentarily concerned. As he slowly opened his catcher’s mitt–sized hand, Tina rocketed away, once again resuming her incessant circling around the ChronoBot’s head. Feeling the weight of what I was about to say, I hesitated. “If any of us are to leave here, it’ll have to be onboard Lincoln.” Coogong nodded. “Well … that’s only if we can get the QFR to actually work,” Hardy said. “Based on the simple fact Lincoln is still sitting here, that’s a big fat if.” “Coogong, are you confident you can make it operational?” I asked. “Yes, Captain. The issue is not so much if I can, but how long it will take me.” “Then we will need to work in parallel. You and Hardy stay on track over there working


<p 535 > and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God! --crack my heart!-- stave my brain! --mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board! --lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye! Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's --wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away! --this instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in nantucket. they have, they have. I have seen them --some summer days in the morning. About this time --yes, it is his noon nap now -- the boy vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again. Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, .. <p 536 > and let us away! See, see! the boy's face from the window! the boy's hand on the hill! But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil. What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozzening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings


same in the ways that matter—” “The ways that matter,” she repeats. “Now you’re rich—” “And you can still go where you want whenever you want.” “You came here with everything that once belonged to your mother—her gold and jade,” she goes on. “Your dowry may be controlled by your mother- and father-in-law, but these things belong to you.” She gestures to the splendors around us. “But weather and human life are unpredictable. Some families go up. Some families go down. There may come a time when your belongings will help save these people.” I notice the way she says “people” and not “your family” or “your husband.” “What you’re saying isn’t fair or correct. First you say I’m different because my husband’s family is rich. Then you say I’ve always been different because I had a good dowry. After that, you imply that the Yang family could lose its standing and fortunes. I don’t understand.” “No, you don’t,” she replies, her voice trembling with emotion. “I’ve been coming to see you off and on since your baby’s birth, and not once have you inquired about my mother. You’ve not asked about my husband either. Have you no interest in me? Do you suppose I live in a courtyard house or in rooms above my husband’s tea shop? How do you think my mother is surviving now that no one will hire her?” “Oh, Meiling. I’ve been selfish…” She gives me a sad smile. “You aren’t hearing me even now. This isn’t about your emotions. I’m a working woman. I’ve always had to get by on my own. I know the cost of food, firewood, cloth, housing—” I hold up a hand to stop her list from growing any longer. “What’s wrong, and how can I help?” With that, she buries her face in her hands and starts to weep. Slowly, she begins to tell me of her life. Her husband is struggling with his business. They do indeed reside in rooms above his shop. Her mother—with no elite families hiring her—has come to live with them. “Kailoo is kind, and we like each other,” Meiling confesses, “but three of us living together in two rooms is not the same as dozens of people living in a courtyard home such as this. I long for a child, but it’s hard to make one when my mother is never more than two body lengths away.” I don’t have the knowledge or experience to imagine what her life must be like. “All these years, I’ve thought you were the lucky one,” I say. “When I think of the things you’ve seen—” “The things I’ve seen,” she echoes. “Yunxian, you would not believe what I’ve seen even if I told you. Orphaned children begging on corners… What giving birth to ten or more babies does to a woman who has not one servant… The ugliness of autopsies…” The torment of these experiences scrapes at the beauty of her features, and I’m reminded for perhaps the ten thousandth time of the nature of yin and yang


the freebie’s good, thanks. Learned that from Dad.” Louise looked at the contract with its receipt stapled to the front and the sheaf of death certificates and she thought about her parents’ bodies in a refrigerator somewhere, and Mark signing a contract for them, haggling over their urn, and all of a sudden the front yard felt very far away. “You can tell Aunt Honey it’s at Station 18 at seven thirty a.m. Tuesday if they want to come,” he said. “Get there early, ’cause I want to catch the outgoing tide.” “You can’t scatter Mom and Dad’s ashes on the beach,” Louise said, finally finding her voice. “It’s not legal. I don’t even think they want to be cremated.” “A, it is legal, I Googled it,” Mark said. “B, they didn’t say what they wanted so I had to decide what to do because I was here and you weren’t, so I did.” “I called you back twice,” Louise said. “After you hung up on me,” Mark said. “I’m upset, too, but I’m not hanging up on people.” “You can’t cremate people against their will,” Louise said, and her temples gave a single blood-filled throb. She tried to hold on to her calm. She’d had so much calm a minute ago. “They have burial plots.” “No, they don’t,” Mark said. “Yes, they do,” Louise said. “Mom took us to see them. More than once. She had that fixation on making sure all of us wound up buried next to each other.” “Okay,” Mark said. “My bad. So we’ll sell them. Or, if you’re going to be all uptight about it, we’ll split the ashes and you can bury your half and I’ll scatter mine.” “These are our parents!” Louise shouted, the first time she’d shouted at an adult maybe ever. “They’re not a doughnut! You don’t split them in half.” “Okay, folks,” Roland Agutter said, behind them. “Why don’t we all settle down and—” “Stay out of this!” Louise snapped, never taking her eyes off Mark. “You have no right cremating Mom and Dad and I’m not letting you dump them in the ocean. Dad didn’t even like the beach!” Mark shook the paperwork harder at her. “I’ve got the death certificates and you don’t,” he said. “This is happening, Louse. So get on board or get out of my way.” “Give them to me,” Louise said. “Hell, no,” Mark said. “I’m the executor of their will,” Louise said. “You got any proof on you?” Mark asked, and when she didn’t answer he said, “If you can’t show me that in writing, then you can go get your own certificates in Columbia.” He stepped around her, addressing Roland Agutter. “Let’s get my wood out the back before y’all get started,” he said. Louise looked at the sheaf of papers in Mark’s hand, dangling by his side you need them for pretty much anything and she snatched them out of his hand. Mark turned, his mouth open in a perfect cartoon O, and for a single second she felt a sense of


Renfield very early, before attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly catching again, and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds,and not seeing them,asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if there were anything odd about him during the day. 11 am.--The attendant has just been to see me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. "My belief is, doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!" 11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac. What he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect, the knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind, did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic, I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted. A good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally? How well the man reasoned. Lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and today begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives? To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it shall be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be


me!' said Mr. Omer. 'Yes, to be sure. Two parties! Why, in that very ride, if you'll believe me, the day was named for my Minnie to marry Joram. "Do name it, sir," says Joram. "Yes, do, father," says Minnie. And now he's come into the business. And look here! The youngest!' Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was dancing on the counter. 'Two parties, of course!' said Mr. Omer, nodding his head retrospectively. 'Ex-actly so! And Joram's at work, at this minute, on a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement' - the measurement of the dancing child upon the counter - 'by a good two inches. - Will you take something?' I thanked him, but declined. 'Let me see,' said Mr. Omer. 'Barkis's the carrier's wife - Peggotty's the boatman's sister - she had something to do with your family? She was in service there, sure?' My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction. 'I believe my breath will get long next, my memory's getting so much so,' said Mr. Omer. 'Well, sir, we've got a young relation of hers here, under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the dress-making business - I assure you I don't believe there's a Duchess in England can touch her.' 'Not little Em'ly?' said I, involuntarily. 'Em'ly's her name,' said Mr. Omer, 'and she's little too. But if you'll believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the women in this town are mad against her.' 'Nonsense, father!' cried Minnie. 'My dear,' said Mr. Omer, 'I don't say it's the case with you,' winking at me, 'but I say that half the women in Yarmouth - ah! and in five mile round - are mad against that girl.' 'Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father,' said Minnie, 'and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and then they couldn't have done it.' 'Couldn't have done it, my dear!' retorted Mr. Omer. 'Couldn't have done it! Is that YOUR knowledge of life? What is there that any woman couldn't do, that she shouldn't do - especially on the subject of another woman's good looks?' I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little black breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees, come quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. At length, however, he got better, though he still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he was obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk. 'You see,' he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, 'she hasn't taken much to any companions here; she hasn't taken kindly to any


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit some angry spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following little scene ensued: “Bartleby,” said I, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you.” “I would prefer not to.” “How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?” No answer. I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey and Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner— “He says, a second time, he won’t examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?” It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted papers. “Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him!” So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s combativeness after dinner. “Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?” “Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim.” “Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind then—you speak very gently of him now.” “All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I dined together to-day. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?” “You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey,” I replied; “pray, put up your fists.” I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives tempting


come from would have dampened her fervour. She really had hoped that she would not have to beg him for help the first time she showed up after all these years. That way he would not think that she was only apologising because she needed his help, that way he would know that he was wrong about her husband. She had been ashamed, but she had also been waiting for something to change in her fortunes that would cause her to return not on foot but in a car, and from a house that had taps and sinks. “Would you like some water?” Alàgbà asked, leaning forward in his seat as though about to stand. “Let me get it myself.” The cups were still where they had always been, arranged on a stool beside the large clay pot Ìyá Alákàrà had given Alàgbà’s wife when he got married. Ìyá Ẹniọlá had always suspected that he never bought a fridge because he wanted his daily life to depend in some way on an object that reminded him of the wife he had lost. Not because he could not afford even a secondhand fridge, as he usually claimed when she complained about the pot. She lifted the pot’s cover and took a plastic jug from the stool. The water level was low, and her hand went in all the way to the elbow before the jug touched any water. “I hope you are not the one who still fetches water from the well?” Ìyá Ẹniọlá asked as she filled a cup. “Are there children in the neighbourhood that can help you?” “God has not abandoned me. He sends me helpers.” She set the cup down in front of him. “I didn’t abandon you, Alàgbà. I’m sorry.” “Did I mention your name?” She filled her own cup and returned to her seat, trying to decide when it might be right to speak up about the money she wanted from him. It was wrong to make a request on the same day she came to apologise, but she had no choice. “How have the years treated you?” she asked. “God has not repaid my good deeds with evil, so I am grateful.” He reached for his cup and examined the contents before drinking from it. “What about you? How are things now?” “The children are fine. We’ve all been in good health.” “Well, thank God for his mercies.” “My husband is still looking for a job. He does some odd jobs from time to time, he’s tried bricklaying, but you know how people build houses.” Her brother stared at her as though he had never heard of houses or bricks. “The bricklaying, it’s not every time that he has work. Once a house is complete, that job is over until there is another one. And they don’t pay well. So, we are still hoping he will get an office job.” “Hmmm. Office job.” “Yes sir, the kind of person he is, that’s what he is really suited for. But it’s not laziness o, it’s not laziness


head. “What?” I ask. “Nothin’,” he says. “You just don’t know Mum like I do, Mads. When I went to Ghana to check up on things, she was movin’ a bit mad.” I look away from the camera. “Yeah,” James says, “I can tell you don’t wanna hear it and that’s why I don’t say nothin’. Anyway, listen, I gotta go, but I’ll come to the house soon, yeah? Bye, Mads.” “Bye, James. Love you.” “Love you too, sis.” I put my phone down and turn off the light. James says he knows Mum better than I do, but I’m the one who saw her phone messages the last time she was here; messages about missing and loving each other to and from an unsaved number beginning in “+233.” Maybe that’s what James saw in Ghana. I’m glad I had the excuse of looking after Dad to avoid that trip. It’s easy to throw a phone back onto a bedside table and pretend as if nothing’s changed—maybe harder if you see it with your own eyes. I think of what Mum may be doing right now. If she’s alone. Betraying Dad seems a cruel act on her behalf, but although I’ve never been one of those children to saint their parents, I can’t think too badly of her. She’s still the mum who let me climb into her bed and skip a day of school when I had the scariest of nightmares; the mum who would come into my room and pray for me every hour when my period pains left me bed-bound; the mum who would brag to anyone listening about having the well-behaved, responsible, A-grade gift from God. It’s fine. Really. Just another secret to keep. Chapter Three I spend Sunday morning cleaning Dad’s room; it takes me twice as long due to my residual back pain. It’s now less of an ache and more of a constant pinching; I called the GP for an appointment but the soonest available was Tuesday afternoon, so I take paracetamol in the meantime. I mop his wooden floor and change his bedding. I wipe down the room windows, tackle the toilet, and rinse out the bucket Dawoud uses to wipe Dad with when his legs are too weak to make it upstairs to the bathroom. Months ago, I put in a request with the council to have one built downstairs, but we’re still waiting to hear back. I head off to church a couple of hours later and Shu calls me on the way. Which is unusual because Shu only accepts text messages and considers spontaneous phone calls a personal attack. I met Shu at Birkbeck University. She walked into our lecture (English literature, which she eventually dropped for international business) late and rather than stand and find her friends, she took the empty seat next to me. Her black hair was longer then, but she still has the same high cheekbones and gap in her front teeth, the same fondness for oversized jumpers, and she still can’t leave the house without three


did not strike a light, but putting on his spectacles, her dressing-gown, and his bath slippers, he went out on the landing to listen. He heard quite distinctly a fumbling going on at his study desk downstairs, and then a violent sneeze. At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the most obvious weapon, the poker, and descended the staircase as noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out on the landing. The hour was about four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still except the faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting's tread, and the slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a candle burning on the desk. But the robber he could not see. He stood there in the hall undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing kept up Mr. Bunting's courage: the persuasion that this burglar was a resident in the village. They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had found the housekeeping reserve of gold--two pounds ten in half- sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting was nerved to abrupt action. Gripping the poker firmly, he rushed into the room, closely followed by Mrs. Bunting. "Surrender!" cried Mr. Bunting, fiercely, and then stopped amazed. Apparently the room was perfectly empty. Yet their conviction that they had, that very moment, heard somebody moving in the room had amounted to a certainty. For half a minute, perhaps, they stood gaping, then Mrs. Bunting went across the room and looked behind the screen, while Mr. Bunting, by a kindred impulse, peered under the desk. Then Mrs. Bunting turned back the window-curtains, and Mr. Bunting looked up the chimney and probed it with the poker. Then Mrs. Bunting scrutinised the waste-paper basket and Mr. Bunting opened the lid of the coal-scuttle. Then they came to a stop and stood with eyes interrogating each other. "I could have sworn--" said Mr. Bunting. "The candle!" said Mr. Bunting. "Who lit the candle?" "The drawer!" said Mrs. Bunting. "And the money's gone!" She went hastily to the doorway. "Of all the extraordinary occurrences--" There was a violent sneeze in the passage. They rushed out, and as they did so the kitchen door slammed. "Bring the candle," said Mr. Bunting, and led the way. They both heard a sound of bolts being hastily shot back. As he opened the kitchen door he saw through the scullery that the back door was just opening, and the faint light of early dawn displayed the dark masses of the garden beyond. He is certain that nothing


clear his expences at Brighton. He owed a good deal in the town, but his debts of honour were still more formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars from the Longbourn family; Jane heard them with horror. ``A gamester!'' she cried. ``This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it.'' Mr. Gardiner added, in his letter, that they might expect to see their father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered spiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brother-in-law's intreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering what her anxiety for his life had been before. ``What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia!'' she cried. ``Sure he will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, and make him marry her, if he comes away?'' As Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she and her children should go to London at the same time that Mr. Bennet came from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn. Mrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had received none since her return, that could come from Pemberley. The present unhappy state of the family, rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be fairly conjectured from _that_, though Elizabeth, who was by this time tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of Lydia's infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought, one sleepless night out of two. When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the habit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of it. It was not till the afternoon, when he joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, ``Say nothing of that. Who would suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.'' ``You must not be too severe upon yourself,'' replied Elizabeth. ``You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to


my art whatever wonder or charm it possesses. Mind, Harry, I trust you." He spoke very slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will. "What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and, taking Hallward by the arm, he almost led him into the house. CHAPTER II [...12] As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's "Forest Scenes." "You must lend me these, Basil," he cried. "I want to learn them. They are perfectly charming." "That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian." "Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of myself," answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool, in a wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint blush colored his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. "I beg your pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you." "This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you have spoiled everything." "You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, stepping forward and shaking him by the hand. "My aunt has often spoken to me about you. You are one of her favorites, and, I am afraid, one of her victims also." "I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian, with a funny look of penitence. "I promised to go to her club in Whitechapel with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. We were to have played a duet together,--three duets, I believe. I don't know what she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call." "Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you. And I don't think it really matters about your not being there. The audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to the piano she makes quite enough noise for two people." "That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," answered Dorian, laughing. Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at once. All the candor of youth was there, as well as all youth's passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him. He was made to be worshipped. "You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray,--far too charming." And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan, and opened his cigarette-case. Hallward had been busy mixing his colors and getting his brushes ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last [13] remark he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then


own. There was plenty of anger inside of her, after all. Plenty of kindling. Let it burn. “I refuse you,” Montserrat said and at the last word tossed the piece of charcoal away. Smoke rose, and the paper Clarimonde had been drawing on turned black, the page curling and burning away into ashes within seconds. Clarimonde’s eyes were very wide. She stared at her in surprise. “A counter-spell. Who taught you that?” “I read it somewhere,” Montserrat muttered. Clarimonde was shaken; her eyes looked a little wild. She raised a hand, as if to touch Montserrat, then seemed to think better of it. “You will not be safe, ever, unless you give me that film. Only I can protect you.” “Yeah, it didn’t work for Abel, did it? Come on.” Montserrat grabbed Tristán by the hand and pulled him toward the entrance. They moved fast. She feared someone would bar the door, but they made it out and into their car without any issue. She began driving toward her apartment. Her heart was pounding, and her fingers were wrapped tight around the steering wheel. In her ears there was a soft ringing. She reached for the dial and turned on the stereo, but Tristán immediately switched it off. “How did you do that back there?” he asked. “Did you read it in that book?” “It’s…kind of. I mean…I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” “She was trying to cast a hex, drawing runes. I stopped it. Reflected it. I don’t know…I’ll take you to your apartment.” She winced and pressed one hand against her ear. “I don’t have any booze in my apartment, so let’s go to yours. You look like you need a drink.” “Make it three.” She did have a bottle of tequila that she hadn’t opened. As soon as they walked in Montserrat grabbed the first two cups she saw on the drying rack and filled them with booze. They were not proper tequila glasses, but she placed them on the table. “That was messed up.” Tristán sipped his drink. Montserrat downed hers so quickly she thought it would burn a hole in her throat. She was a light drinker. One glass was enough for her. Tristán almost spat out the drink in his mouth when he saw her pouring herself a second one and downing it with equal haste. “Holy shit, slow down,” he said. “Are you okay, Momo?” She pressed a hand against her forehead. It felt warm, like she might be starting to run a fever, but the ringing was growing muffled. “I feel a little shitty,” she said, setting her cup down. “Well, of course you do, Charlie McGee.” “Don’t fuck with me tonight, Tristán.” “I’m saying that you set a piece of paper on fire.” “Reflected a spell,” she muttered. “That too. And you’re not sure exactly how you did it?” Montserrat frowned. It was hard to put it into words. There’s a rhythm to his words, she thought. Three beats to the bar. It flows. Learn the pattern, you can dance it. “I was


of yellow soup and a piece of toast wait for him. “Egg soup,” Nick says, sitting down across from Andy. “It’s good when you’re sick.” Andy would eat a bowl of motor oil if Nick put it in front of him and it’s completely insane that Nick doesn’t seem to already know this. He sits and takes a spoonful. “S’good,” he says. “Lemony.” He thinks he’d probably appreciate it better if his nose weren’t so stuffed up, but the lemon and steam cut through some of the more nightmarish things happening in his sinuses. “It’s what my mother made when we were sick,” Nick says. “I miss my mom,” Andy says. He’s pretty sure he hadn’t meant to say that, but he’s tired and his head hurts. He’s not even sure why he misses his mother now, of all times: God knows she never cooked soup or anything else in her entire life and was hardly the kind of person who could be described as nurturing. She would have shot anyone who called her nurturing, and that thought only makes him miss her more. But she was his mother and now she’s gone, she’s left him again, and Andy is all alone, and will always be alone, and— After dinner, Andy lands on the couch and drifts off, waking to hear Nick’s hushed voice. “I don’t have a thermometer, but he feels hot,” Nick is saying, and then there’s a pause. “Really hot. No, no cough.” He must be on the phone. “Okay,” he says a minute later. “Got it. Thanks, Bev.” The sofa shifts under Nick’s weight. “Hey, I’m heading out to the drugstore to get you some medicine.” “Don’t need medicine. I’m fine.” Nick snorts. “You have the flu, pal.” “Says who?” “Says Beverly. She’s a nurse.” Beverly is Michael’s wife, Nick’s sister-in-law. Andy doesn’t know what to make of the fact that Nick went so far as to call his brother. “I don’t get the flu,” Andy says. “That might be half the problem. She asked when was the last time you had the flu and I told her I didn’t know.” “High school,” Andy mumbles. “Yeah, well, remember how bad the flu was last year?” “Sorta.” Andy does remember—they had called it the Asian flu and apparently it was almost as bad as the Spanish flu of 1918. “Well, everybody else in the world got the flu last year, but you didn’t, so you’re getting it now.” Andy’s too tired to argue that this can’t possibly be how the flu actually works, so he shuts his eyes. When he opens them again, Nick is sitting on the coffee table with a paper bag in his hand. He’s still wearing his coat. “These are the tablets Beverly said to get,” he says, opening a red-and-white cardboard box. “You didn’t have to—” “Oh, can it, will you.” He unscrews the bottle and holds out his palm. Andy takes the two pills, swallowing them down with a cup of orange juice that Nick passes him. He hates that Nick went out


extremely valuable, right? That seems like the kind of thing the Church would want to keep away from the common rabble.” “Malcolm gets far more requests to view manuscripts from commoners than from nobles, actually.” Surprise nearly made her foot get caught in her skirt. “That’s allowed?” “Honestly, I’m not sure what the protocol is,” Gabe answered. “But ever since Malcolm was promoted to head librarian, he’s tried to make sure everyone who wants to view a manuscript has the opportunity. At least, all the manuscripts that don’t need special dispensation. No one can waltz in and ask to look at prophecies without Anton’s permission.” Lore thought of Anton, of his scarred face and how he’d gotten it. She frowned. “Malcolm told me a story, once,” Gabe continued thoughtfully. “From when he was a kid, before he had the accident that scarred up his arms and led to him joining the Presque Mort. He was fascinated by books, but his family only had a few, and he heard there were more in the Church. He walked right up to a clergy member and asked to see the books. It didn’t even occur to him that it might not be possible. Books are for everyone, he thought.” “Did the clergyman think the same?” “He did, fortunately. He took Malcolm to the library, and the head librarian at the time let him look at whatever book he pleased.” Gabe’s voice was quiet, contemplative. “After, when Malcolm got the ability to channel Mortem and joined up with the Mort, he insisted on being able to work in the library. Eventually, he took over from the other clergyman.” “Seems like he stays busy.” Gabe huffed a brief laugh. She peered at him from the corner of her eye as they made their quiet way across the green, the walls of the Church looming up ahead to block the thin morning light. Gabe held his lips pursed, contemplative. Lore wondered if talking about his friend’s life before he joined the Presque Mort made Gabe think of his own, of the boy who had a father and a home and two working eyes. The Church door opened on soundless hinges, and they stepped into the quiet darkness inside. Gabe went in the opposite direction he’d taken on the day of the Mortem leak. The highly polished wooden rafters reflected the light of the stained-glass windows. Six such windows lined the hall they walked down. The first was Apollius, in shades of white and gold, dark hair flowing around His shoulders and blood on His hands. The second was Hestraon, god of fire, pictured bent over a forge and engulfed in orange flame. Lereal of the air was third, Their face upturned to the drifts of iridescent wind carved into the glass above Their head. Then Caeliar of the sea, Her arms outstretched in a sparkling blue wave, followed by Braxtos of the earth, flowers sprouting from His hands. At the end of the hall was a window made of nothing but panels of dark glass, deep blues and


The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks' allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat's head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford. But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the decanter. .. <p 445 > .. < chapter cii 2 A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES > Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it behoves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his unconditional skeleton. But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels. I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen


He thought about his face. He thought about the surgery and how his eye would never look the same, or about the scars on his chest. And right now he was angry because he thought Karina was probably going to get the cover of a magazine next week, but he would never have another magazine cover again. Selfish, selfish prick, and Montserrat didn’t know anything about it, she didn’t understand. He wanted to tell her everything and could not. Tristán sat up and let out a pained laugh. Montserrat was looking at him from the other end of the rickety couch. “I’m exhausted, Momo. Sometimes I think it would be easier to drive off a cliff and re-enact that crash. Give the public the ending they want.” She stretched out a hand. He shook his head and brushed her hand away. Montserrat stood up and went to her bedroom. When she returned she had a blanket and a pillow. She handed both items to him, wordless. Tristán placed the pillow under his head and wrapped himself in the blanket. He heard the click of the light switch and her sock-clad feet against the wooden floor. The numbers on the VCR next to the TV glowed a bright red, and he stared at them, burning the minutes into his retinas until at last he fell asleep. He woke up to the scent of fresh coffee. In the kitchen, Montserrat was frying eggs. He stretched his arms and turned his head as she walked into the room with two plates in her hands and placed them on the round dining table. Tristán sat in front of her and took a sip of coffee. The eggs were burned. Montserrat was a terrible cook, but he ate them all the same. His stomach was gurgling. The previous day he’d limited himself to a liquid, alcohol-based diet. “I have a shift. I can give you a ride home before I head into the studio,” Montserrat said. “It’s fine. I don’t want you to be late.” “I wouldn’t be late.” “I guess that would be nice, then.” Montserrat nodded. Tristán focused on his plate. She cleared the table. He followed her into the kitchen and watched her as she placed the cups and plates in the sink. “I’m sorry I woke you up last night.” “It’s not the first time.” “I’m still sorry.” She scraped the fork against a plate, brushing crumbs into the drain. Her hair was pulled back with a scrunchie, and he was surprised to see Montserrat, like himself, also looked older than he remembered. Her face seemed to have acquired a couple of wrinkles on the forehead during the night. But no, it was the simple passage of time, which he did not ordinarily recognize. “Back when the accident happened, and afterward, when things were bad with you…the night with the painkillers when you…well, when I called the ambulance…that was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life,” she said. “I’m not sure what I’d do without you. I’d probably go mad.” Montserrat’s