who’d built his career from modest beginnings, the son of a street food vendor, he’d made his own way to Antarctica on a friend’s shipping vessel, surviving by a combination of good fortune and ingenuity. Despite the extreme constraints of the continent in terms of food sources, Chang-Rae refused to surrender to these limitations. He often claimed he could cope with the cold, but the narrow spectrum of flavours was painful to him, like a pianist only being able to play three notes. Rather than merely making do, he spent his free time searching for anything that might be edible, from pulverized volcanic pumice to skua-claw broth, always testing it on himself for adverse reactions and occasionally falling sick in the process. He was considered a hero for his efforts. McMurdo’s Senate was aware that a dynamic and vibrant cuisine had done much to inspire people, with Chang-Rae producing extraordinary dishes that would’ve impressed the toughest of critics. If Antarctica could be said to have a cuisine, it had been largely defined by his creativity. As it happened, Yotam enjoyed the diet. For religious reasons, rules that he continued to follow despite the ungodly nature of his work, he never ate shellfish even though spider crabs were abundant, nor did he indulge in the occasional luxuries handed out from the near-depleted storerooms. The last remaining splinters of Ecuadorian dark chocolate and thimbles of ancient French wines were offered on holidays to break up the repetitious nature of their meals, precious treats used to motivate the McMurdo community struggling with the narrowness of life on the ice. His childhood, devoid of everyday pleasures, meant that the austerity was far less challenging to him than it was to many others. For whatever reason, these two men, who had almost nothing in common, were tremendously fond of each other, perhaps recognizing a shared level of professional fanaticism or merely enjoying the mysterious magic of a friendship that had no reason behind it of any obvious kind. Emerging from the kitchen, noticing the commotion in the queue, Chang-Rae asked his friend: ‘What’s with the dog?’ ‘Last night, after work, the welfare staff felt I needed an emotional companion.’ ‘Ever tried a human?’ ‘That’s funny.’ ‘I’m not joking. I don’t know why you don’t date.’ ‘I date. I’ve dated. I will in the future date.’ ‘Your heart’s never been in it. Don’t tell me you’re married to your work; I work just as hard as you. You need to find someone. Life on this continent makes more sense when you’re with someone. When you can’t see a point to anything, you hold them in your arms and suddenly you remember what you’re surviving for.’ Seeing his friend’s head drop and sadness sweep over him, Chang-Rae added: ‘Can I set you up?’ ‘Who is he?’ ‘A close friend of mine. Great guy.’ ‘Okay, sure.’ ‘Will you stand them up? Like you did last time? It’s not fair. This life is tough. No one has the strength to be stood up.’ ‘The project I’m working on is reaching the


faith in Holmes's judgment that I felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long as he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation. He hardly spoke a word the whole way out to the southern suburb, but sat with his chin upon his breast and his hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the deepest thought. Our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the little glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even broke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs. A short railway journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the modest residence of the great financier. Fairbank was a good-sized square house of white stone, standing back a little from the road. A double carriage-sweep, with a snow-clad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates which closed the entrance. On the right side was a small wooden thicket, which led into a narrow path between two neat hedges stretching from the road to the kitchen door, and forming the tradesmen's entrance. On the left ran a lane which led to the stables, and was not itself within the grounds at all, being a public, though little used, thoroughfare. Holmes left us standing at the door and walked slowly all round the house, across the front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by the garden behind into the stable lane. So long was he that Mr. Holder and I went into the dining-room and waited by the fire until he should return. We were sitting there in silence when the door opened and a young lady came in. She was rather above the middle height, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker against the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have ever seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. Her lips, too, were bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking in her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense capacity for self-restraint. Disregarding my presence, she went straight to her uncle and passed her hand over his head with a sweet womanly caress. "You have given orders that Arthur should be liberated, have you not, dad?" she asked. "No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom." "But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will be sorry for having acted so harshly." "Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?" "Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should suspect him." "How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with the coronet in his hand?" "Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. Oh, do, do take my


million two at roulette. He was playing the maximum on the first and last dozens. He was lucky. Then the Englishman, Mister Bond, increased his winnings to exactly three million over the two days. He was playing a progressive system on red at table five. Duclos, the chef de partie, has the details. It seems that he is persevering and plays in maximums. He has luck. His nerves seem good. On the soire, the chemin-de-fer won x, the baccarat won y and the roulette won z. The boule, which was again badly frequented, still makes its expenses.' 'Merci, Monsieur Xavier.' 'Merci, Monsieur le President.' Or something like that, thought Bond as he pushed his way through the swing doors of the salle prive and nodded to the bored man in evening clothes whose job it is to bar your entry and your exit with the electric foot-switch which can lock the doors at any hint of trouble. And the casino committee would balance its books and break up to its homes or cafs for lunch. As for robbing the caisse, in which Bond himself was not personally concerned, but only interested, he reflected that it would take ten good men, that they would certainly have to kill one or two employees, and that anyway you probably couldn't find ten non-squeal killers in France, or in any other country for the matter of that. As he gave a thousand francs to the vestiaire and walked down the steps of the casino, Bond made up his mind that Le Chiffre would in no circumstances try to rob the caisse and he put the contingency out of his mind. Instead he explored his present physical sensations. He felt the dry, uncomfortable gravel under his evening shoes, the bad, harsh taste in his mouth and the slight sweat under his arms. He could feel his eyes filling their sockets. The front of his face, his nose and antrum, were congested. He breathed the sweet night air deeply and focused his senses and his wits. He wanted to know if anyone had searched his room since he had left it before dinner. He walked across the broad boulevard and through the gardens to the Htel Splendide. He smiled at the concierge who gave him his key - No 45 on the first floor - and took the cable. It was from Jamaica and read: KINGSTONJA XXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXX BOND SPLENDIDE ROYALE-LES-EAUX SEINE INFERIEURE HAVANA CIGAR PRODUCTION ALL CUBAN FACTORIES 1915 TEN MILLION REPEAT TEN MILLION STOP HOPE THIS FIGURE YOU REQUIRE REGARDS.DASILVA This meant that ten million francs was on the way to him. It was the reply to a request Bond had sent that afternoon through Paris to his headquarters in London asking for more funds. Paris had spoken to London where Clements, the head of Bond's department, had spoken to M, who had smiled wryly and told 'The Broker' to fix it with the Treasury. Bond had once worked in Jamaica and his cover on the Royale assignment was that of a very rich


that they’d stained their teeth with Vacio. “I suppose you could say that,” Orson would reply. “How can I be of help?” they wanted to know. “In thirty years when you’re a famous senator or a rich CEO, I want to be able to say ‘I knew him when.’ ” “Oh, well, your kindness is help enough.” They would open their purses and start counting off hundreds: three, four, five, six. “Just a little something to get you started.” “Mrs. X, I couldn’t possibly accept that.” They’d stuff the bills into his hand. “Let’s just say it’s for the wine, then.” Orson would offer them a rueful look, fold the bills, and wedge them in his pocket. “This is really generous of you,” he’d say. “Oh, it’s nothing,” they’d say. “When you’ve become successful, this will be chump change to you.” Emboldened by their tipsiness, the women would open their arms for a hug, which Orson would reciprocate, hugging them for as long as they wanted (typically a few seconds too long), and then allowing them to hold him at arm’s length and look him in the eyes. “You really are something special, Mr. Ortman,” they’d say, their own eyes wine glazed. “If you need any favors in this life—I mean anything whatsoever—you just call me up.” Sometimes they gave him a printed business card, sometimes they put their contact information in his phone, and sometimes (the best times), they gave him another hundred or two. On an average wine night, we came away with anywhere between $500 and $900. There were, of course, the marks who couldn’t be manipulated. There was a woman in her late fifties, a self-proclaimed oenophile who tasted the wine, wrinkled her nose, and asked if it was a “cheaper vintage recorked.” The conversation after that had been stilted, awkward, and Orson had left her room without a tip. Then there were the women who wanted everything but wouldn’t give up the money. A younger one with platinum blond hair, late thirties or early forties, flat out asked Orson to join her in bed for a grand total of $50. Another one tweaked his nipple and pretended that it had never happened, then got flustered when he got flustered and ordered him out of the room. Another one told him that she wanted to see him again every night for a month, and after that she told him she was in love with him and asked him to join her in escaping her possessive husband. On the night he was supposed to meet her on the front steps of the Boyd, ready to start a new life, he didn’t show. She and her husband checked out early the next day and never came back. Of the frequent flyers, the wealthiest were Carol and Dmitri Argyros. Dmitri was the CEO of Argyros Oil, a company whose net worth exceeded $64 billion. He’d made a name for himself as a young businessman in Greece, where he’d been an enthusiastic proponent of deregulation and energy derivatives. In America, he paid


you the bad guy.” Aaaand my stomach is on the floor again. “That’s not true.” “You told me not to—” “I apologized,” I interrupt, because I know what I said, and I don’t want to hear it again. “I told you I was sorry. I told you straight away.” “As if I was going to believe a word out of your mouth after that.” I know what that was. I can see it now: me dragging Celine over to the lunch table with all my new friends. The more she talked, the quieter they got, and the quieter they got, the more she talked. Nervous. A bit too loud. Repeating herself. About aliens, obviously—and how smartphones listen to everything you say and target political advertisements accordingly, advertisements designed to radicalize you into proudly destructive apathy or conservative extremism, and a load of other stuff pretty much no other fourteen-year-old was going to appreciate, and I wanted this to work, I wanted everything to work, so I told her after lunch that maybe the next day she should just— Keep that stuff to herself. And she said, “But why?” And I didn’t want to say, “Because I need them to like you,” so instead I said, “Come on, Cel. It’s just…a bit…weird.” I knew as soon as I said it that I’d made a mistake. Sorry, sorry, sorry— Too late. “I am weird, Bradley, and I don’t care. Sorry I’m not pathetic enough to fake my entire personality. Some of us actually have integrity.” You know how things hurt the most when you’re scared they might be true? “I have integrity!” “Sure you do.” “Well, sorry people like me but not you, Celine.” “One day they’ll all find out how weird you really are, Brad. You know that, right?” Yeah. I knew. Just like I knew this whole fight was a mistake. “Will your new friends want you then?” she’d snarled. “Of course they will!” Except it stung because maybe they wouldn’t. Things went downhill after that. And by downhill, I mean Celine called me a knock-off Ken doll with an inferiority complex, so I told her aliens weren’t real and her dad was just a dick. Jesus. Five minutes ago, we were wandering through the woods and suddenly, somehow, she’s plunged me into a vat of the past and I feel like I’m drowning. I knew I should’ve stayed away from this girl. Around her, I am nothing but trouble. “You realized you could fit in,” Celine says now, “and you were gone. Like that.” Her fingers don’t snap properly; they’re too wet. “All you had to do was leave me behind, so you did it. It’s not a big deal. I just wish you’d admit it.” “You’re wrong.” I don’t like to think about this stuff—it’s twisted and messy and I don’t do mess—but the truth is, back then, I had a very clear plan: football, and friends, and still-Celine. Always-Celine. It’s just, the closer I got to those first two things, the more she turned away from me. And I


and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. "Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the VERY FIRST-you and Gilbert both-you're ties-but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!" Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed-there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne," puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word. "Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago-it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail-and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well-they're halfway up-and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a spring evening." "I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this-yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think ONCE, `What if I should come out first?' quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and tell the good news to the others." They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. "Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first-or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful." "Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list


But, I reason, Huff and I haven’t had a chance to decide where we are in our relationship, so it certainly isn’t the time to bring my friends into the mix. And between our work schedules—and the fact that I’ve put every spare minute into saving camp—we’ve barely seen each other for more than a brief snippet of time. But today is going to change all that. Today, I’m opening my great-aunt Gracie’s house for the first time in… Well, it has to have been years since I’ve darkened the door of this old beachfront cottage, which is ridiculous since it is less than two miles from my house. Great-Aunt Gracie had no children and left the property to both June and me when she died. We decided to keep it because we thought it would only increase in value. And, today, it’s a neutral spot where Huff and I can meet. There’s almost zero chance Lanier will drive by, see our cars, and put two and two together before we’re ready to tell her we’ve started seeing each other again. What happened between Huff and me at the wedding was one thing. That was the culmination of memories and nostalgia, passion and intensity, and it was definitely unplanned. But this, today, isn’t a random happenstance in a bathroom that was not ours for the taking. This is a plan. We will meet here at 10 a.m. and part ways at five. TGIF indeed. I am surprised by how clean the house is when I walk through the door. The caretaker didn’t quit coming when she realized June and I never did. Even still, I unload the vacuum cleaner and Swiffer duster and Seventh Generation sprays. I unpack the sparkling water and the PBR that Huff drank when we were younger. I don’t know what he drinks now, but the thought of him sitting on this porch with me, a PBR in his hand, is the single sexiest thing I can conceive of. I run the vacuum over the mattress in the tiny bedroom and fight with the fitted floral sheet that, worn soft and thin with time, has been here since Great-Aunt Gracie. The scent of Tide fills the air, and I have the most vivid memory of sitting here, squealing with delight as my mother snapped this very same sheet over this very same bed, the floral fabric billowing down around me and blanketing me from the world. Maybe it’s the memory of my mother, maybe it’s the house, but I find this bed so comforting that I want to curl up and take a nap. But I am too keyed up to sleep. By the time I am finished vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and wiping every square inch, I feel a sense of accomplishment, even though it hasn’t done much to soothe my nerves. I have been so busy with save-Camp-Holly-Springs items this week that in between work and Henry I haven’t had much time to obsess over this meetup. So, as ten o’clock approaches, I start to worry about


you are coming with me.” He looked up, his thick eyebrows low but his hazel eyes sparkling with interest. “That sounded very much like an order, Lucy.” “Perhaps it was.” “I am not accustomed to taking orders.” “And I am not accustomed to giving orders to anyone older than fifteen, yet here we are.” To her surprise, Simon stood and slid his hand into hers. For a moment, she couldn’t concentrate on anything but their fingers pressed together, but then he said, “And where are we going?” She shook off the strange feeling in her stomach and grinned at the man who looked far too nervous for someone who held so much power. All she held was his hand. “Somewhere without papers to scowl at. Come.” Only when they were outside did she realize how intimate the gesture of holding his hand really was. Locked together as they were, her skirts brushed his boots and she could smell the soap he used. Hardly appropriate, even if she had been his sister-in-law or close to it. She attempted to release him—he could hardly want that prolonged contact—but he held fast to her fingers and watched her with an intense look as they walked, as if he were desperate for whatever reprieve she could give him. How long had he been staring at those pages? It didn’t take him long before he realized where she was leading him, and he picked up the pace, practically pulling her along with him in his hurry to get to the place she was starting to suspect was his only sanctuary. Simon’s pond was just as it had been when he brought Lucy there the other day, only the sun hid behind a layer of gray clouds and left the place feeling somewhat melancholy—tainted by the weight he carried on his shoulders. When they reached the nearest shore, he plopped himself down in the grass, pulling Lucy with him, and didn’t even seem to notice how close together they sat. Neither did he seem to realize he still held on to her hand, something she was keenly aware of because her hand fit so well inside his. Lucy hadn’t intended to sit beside a smooth-surfaced pond, shoulder to shoulder with a baron who held her hand without reservation, but she had no inclination to change her situation. After several minutes, Simon finally let out a small sigh, his shoulders dropping with his breath. “I used to come here all the time as a boy,” he said, almost reverently. “Will always thought I was boring because I would just sit here. For hours. He never understood how much I needed to sort through my thoughts without distractions. How much I needed some peace.” “I can imagine your life has little peace in it,” Lucy replied. And here she was, threatening to destroy what little he had. He turned to meet her gaze, and both of them froze. Lucy didn’t know why he’d became so still, but she realized how close their faces were to one another, and the experience


in the Silts, making sure something like that never happened again.” Io looked at her palms. “The big boss was Bianca.” “Yes.” Io knew the stories. In the years since Bianca Rossi took over the Silts, the district was, if not lawful, at least more principled. The mob queen had established some semblance of order: she kept the outlier gangs from tolling the bridges, hunted every harasser out of the Silts, showed shop owners what happened when they paid immigrants half the wage they deserved. She made the Silts a little safer—but what was the point, when the biggest danger was Bianca herself? “Edei realized early on that this line of work wasn’t for him. He’s tried to reform the Fortuna as best he can, but some things are beyond his control. Still, he stays with her, because she has the means to endorse his entry permit and, by extension, mine. He has sacrificed a lot to keep us safe in Alante.” Samiya’s face was lined with quiet fury. This, Io remembered, was the healer who had continued to help women with unwanted pregnancies even after her life was threatened. Who mended her boyfriend’s bones after every fight. It was no wonder she and Edei were a good pair: tough and fearless. “It’s bad for you native other-born, but it’s worse for us.” Even when they filled the criteria and gathered the necessary fees, immigrant other-born were often turned away at the gates, left to fend for themselves in the Wastelands against the tide and the neo-monsoons. A resident’s endorsement went a long way in a city as corrupt as Alante. It was more than enough reason for Edei to stay in Bianca’s employ, or for Samiya to seek Saint-Yves’s and the Initiative’s help. “What I’m trying to say,” the girl concluded, “is that Bianca Rossi, however cruel, however cunning, has the loyalty of the Silts. Edei’s loyalty, even mine. She is the only one who offers us the power to fight for justice in an unjust world. But, from what I understand, Edei has found another, kinder way to fight back—in your investigation, in you. Just be gentle with him. It’s neither easy nor fast, reexamining your loyalties.” “I know.” And she did. She knew all about how hard it could be to reexamine your loyalties. To take the people you loved apart and decide if what was left was worth loving. Even now, two years later, she couldn’t decide what she felt for Thais, her own sister, the woman who raised her. She was happy—she was humbled—that she was the reason Edei was rethinking his loyalties, that he thought of her as a kinder way to fight back. But the truth was she couldn’t wait for him. She had already revealed too much. Now she had to race against the clock to get what she wanted out of Bianca. “A couple of times now,” Io said, “I have noticed Bianca’s lips are tinted blue. Do you happen to know anything about that?” Samiya frowned. “It sounds like a sleeping tonic.”


without this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he swallows. Well, then, interrupted Bunger, give him your left arm for bait to get the right. Do you know, gentlemen --very gravely and mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession -- Do you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest even a .. <p 439 > man's arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you shortly, that's all. No, thank ye, Bunger, said the english captain, he's welcome to the arm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't know him then; but not to another one. No more White Whales for me; I've lowered for him once, and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he's best let alone; don't you think so, Captain? --glancing at the ivory leg. He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He's all a magnet! How long since thou saw'st him last? Which way heading? Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's, cried Bunger, stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; this man's blood --bring the thermometer; --it's at the boiling point! --his pulse makes these planks beat! --sir! --taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab's arm. Avast! roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks -- Man the boat! Which way heading? Good God! cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put. What's the matter? He was heading east, I think. --Is your Captain crazy? whispering Fedallah. But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks .. <p 440 > to take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle towards him, commanded the ship's sailors to stand by to lower. In a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla men were


said Amy, much impressed by the note. "Try it, honey. Let's hear the sound of the baby pianny," said Hannah, who always took a share in the family joys and sorrows. So Beth tried it, and everyone pronounced it the most remarkable piano ever heard. It had evidently been newly tuned and put in applepie order, but, perfect as it was, I think the real charm lay in the happiest of all happy faces which leaned over it, as Beth lovingly touched the beautiful black and white keys and pressed the bright pedals. "You'll have to go and thank him," said Jo, by way of a joke, for the idea of the child's really going never entered her head. "Yes, I mean to. I guess I'll go no, before I get frightened thinking about it." And, to the utter amazement of the assembled family, Beth walked deliberately down the garden, through the hedge, and in at the Laurences' door. "Well, I wish I may die if it ain't the queerest thing I ever see! The pianny has turned her head! She'd never have gone in her right mind," cried Hannah, staring after her, while the girls were rendered quite speechless by the miracle. They would have been still more amazed if they had seen what Beth did afterward. If you will believe me, she went and knocked at the study door before she gave herself time to think, and when a gruff voice called out, "come in!" she did go in, right up to Mr. Laurence, who looked quite taken aback, and held out her hand, saying, with only a small quaver in her voice, "I came to thank you, sir, for. . ." But she didn't finish, for he looked so friendly that she forgot her speech and, only remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she put both arms round his neck and kissed him. If the roof of the house had suddenly flown off, the old gentleman wouldn't have been more astonished. But he liked it. Oh, dear, yes, he liked it amazingly! And was so touched and pleased by that confiding little kiss that all his crustiness vanished, and he just set her on his knee, and laid his wrinkled cheek against her rosy one, feeling as if he had got his own little grand daughter back again. Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride. When she went home, he walked with her to her own gate, shook hands cordially, and touched his hat as he marched back again, looking very stately and erect, like a handsome, soldierly old gentleman, as he was. When the girls saw that performance, Jo began to dance a jig, by way of expressing her satisfaction, Amy nearly fell out of the window in her surprise, and Meg exclaimed, with up-lifted hands, "Well, I do believe the world is coming to an


questions differently. Dunstan Cass trusts his native good luck, while Godfrey nervously waits to see if his luck will be good or bad. Neither believes in a system of just rewards and punishment, until years later when Godfrey accepts his childlessness as a divine punishment. Dolly Winthrop trusts blindly to the wisdom of "Them" above, but she does believe that good deeds on Earth are fairly rewarded. Silas, however, used to believe in just rewards in his Lantern-Yard days, and his faith was cruelly disappointed. He seems to be the victim of a blind destiny--even Eppie comes to him like a blessing out of nowhere. As you follow this theme through the book, notice its relation to religion (see Theme 2). Consider not only what characters say, but also how their lives eventually work out in the plot. 2. RELIGION Under the name of Christianity, many different faiths exist in Silas Marner. Eliot did not believe in a divine being herself, yet most of her public probably did. How does she present organized religion in this book? On the one hand there is Silas with his joyless, strict Lantern-Yard faith. On the other hand is Dolly with her buoyant, almost pagan Raveloe beliefs. Nancy Lammeter's clear-cut beliefs show how established doctrine can sometimes become too rigid. At times, Eliot implies that religion is no better than superstition. At other times, she sympathetically describes how church rituals comfort the faithful. Religion binds a community like Raveloe together--even Silas feels lost when he breaks with his sect. Yet many readers feel he seems stronger for having lost his faith. He never really regains a belief in God, even after he joins the church in Raveloe. His "redemption" is a product of human, rather than heavenly, love. What does George Eliot seem to propose as the guiding force of the universe? 3. HUMAN AFFECTIONS What kinds of human ties are important in this novel? There are family ties--weak at the Casses' house but strong for the Lammeters. The bonds of parent and child are especially important, whether they are biological (as with Dolly and Aaron Winthrop) or adoptive (as with Eppie and Silas). When Eppie has to choose between her biological father, Godfrey, and her adoptive father, Silas, what factors count most with her? Wholesome human affections can restore a damaged personality like Silas'. Yet stunted affections, like those at Squire Cass' house, can damage a basically good person like Godfrey. Look at the way larger communities are bound together, too: Lantern-Yard, the city Silas came from, Raveloe as a whole, or the upperclass society of Raveloe. 4. CHANGE In Eliot's view, all change is the product of a multitude of tiny factors. The process is so complex that mere humans cannot presume to control it. To examine this theory, Eliot chose for her main setting a community with ingrained old beliefs, a place where change comes slowly. She shows how gradually the collective "mind" of village opinion shifts until it accepts Silas. Many individual characters, too, have fixed habits of thought that are hard


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

the person I had big heart and pants feelings for was a cheater. But then my blood cooled and the other things he said echoed a little louder: That it was the worst thing he’s ever done. That he’s done a lot of work on himself, gone to therapy. That Nat has forgiven him. But even if I could view his past with some perspective, my fight-or-flight moment left me feeling unsteady, remorseful, and anxious. How are the heroines in my books so sure of themselves and the person they fall in love with? How does anyone really know what and who they want? It’s all such a risk. Who chooses to fling their heart out into the blackness of uncertainty, blindly hoping someone catches it? “The thing is,” I say into her shoulder, “I signed a contract saying I wouldn’t date during this show. They’re paying me a lot of money to do this. And this isn’t just a little lie. I could be in breach of contract if I’m caught with him. Like, actual Big Legal Trouble. He could lose his job. I haven’t finished a book in more than a year, I’m avoiding my agent’s phone calls like I’m hiding from the mob, and I’m starting to feel like I can’t even do dating right. But last night in the hotel room, I didn’t care about any of that because I just wanted to be with him.” She hums, listening. “I’ve never felt that—that insatiable thing, you know? I want to be near him every second. If I eat something delicious, I want him there to take a bite. If I see something beautiful, I want to turn to him and point it out. If I hear something hilarious, I immediately want to call him and tell him everything.” “Oh, honey.” “But if it got out or I couldn’t fake it well enough, it would mess up his life, and mine.” I swallow as the hardest one bubbles to the surface. “I know that and still none of it mattered.” “We do crazy things when we fall for someone, Fizz.” “Yeah, but you know the only thing that scared me enough to get me to leave that room?” “What?” “That even if by some miracle everything goes right, I could still get hurt.” She sighs into my hair. “And if Connor hurt me, I don’t know whether I’d be able to write another love story.” I wait for the joke. One of us needs to make it; the moment is too heavy. I guess you weren’t kidding about his magical dong. It’s right there for the taking. But Jess says the last thing I expect: “That’s how you know he’s the one, Fizz.” * * * I fall asleep and Jess must have carefully extracted herself because it isn’t her moving out from under my head that wakes me, it’s me falling off the couch and landing in a pile on the floor. I don’t immediately move because I want to hold on to the dream I was having,


sure that it all got collected up in a trust, ensuring it went to my care and medical bills rather than Dad’s twin habits of drinking and collecting broken junk. We were smiling. Someone must have told us to, because I couldn’t imagine us doing it spontaneously. Cassidy had the bright, practiced smile of the mayor’s daughter, used to being photographed. Liv’s smile was barely a tug at the corners of her mouth, her hands knotted together and her feet crossed at the ankle. She always had a vague look in the photos around that time. In the weeks after the attack she’d gone into her first major spiral, but they were still scrambling for a diagnosis and the meds weren’t right yet, leaving her disconnected from herself. And of course my smile was pitiable. My cheek was still bandaged up—presumably not from the original wound, but from one of the surgeries to attempt a repair to the damaged nerves and muscles, which had been at best semisuccessful. The downward pull of one side of my face had only served to make me seem more sympathetic. So did the wheelchair, which it would take me a few more months to go without consistently, mostly due to pain and sheer exhaustion. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep I still counted them. Seventeen scars. Seventeen times the knife had plunged into me and slid back out again. I still could not understand how I had survived. People had told me over the years that I’d been blessed, brave, determined, fierce. I hadn’t felt like any of those things. Survival had never even crossed my mind as a possibility or a concept. I’d crawled across the forest floor because in my blood loss–addled brain, I was trying to get away from the pain, like I could leave it behind if I got far enough. One of the stab wounds had nicked the side of my heart, not quite puncturing the atrial wall. If it had been a millimeter deeper or farther to the right, I would have escaped the pain after all. The door opened. Mitch crept in with a hangdog shuffle. “I’m sorry,” he said, sinking down cross-legged beside me on the carpet. “You’re right. I’m an asshole. Completely useless. Can you forgive me?” “Okay,” I said, and then I flashed him a quick smile. If I sounded half-hearted, he’d keep up the Please forgive me groveling as long as it took. “You’re not useless, and you’re not an asshole.” “Yes, I am. I’m a horrible boyfriend.” He leaned his head against my shoulder. I sagged. I didn’t have the energy to make him feel better right now, but if I didn’t he would keep this up all night, berating himself for his supposed failures. “It’s okay,” I soothed. “You’re so stressed out, and I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” “I’m sorry,” he said again. His fingertips trailed down my arm and played across my palm, and I shut my eyes. What was wrong with me? Mitch loved me. He wanted the best for me.


Even in the midst of a conversation about things I don’t want to hear, I’m falling for him. Over and over and over. I just wish it could erase all my uncertainties. “What did you really think was going to happen when the book was done?” I ask. “Be honest with me.” A deep breath, a rake of his hands through his hair. “Hopefully my whole life won’t be the con circuit at that point, but yes, there will be some traveling. It’s unavoidable, especially when promo starts for the book and the nonprofit is launched. But I don’t know why we can’t try a long-distance relationship,” he says, sounding more hopeful. “It’s not that far. We’d see each other all the time.” “Those flights would get expensive.” He frowns, as though this would never have occurred to him. “I could pay for them.” Before I can protest, he adds, “Or I’ll move to Seattle and commute down to LA. Because I’d do it, if that’s what you want. Or you could move in with me here.” “I—hold on a second.” My head is spinning, and I have to sit back down, dropping onto his couch with a soft thud. Moving to Seattle. Moving in with him in LA. It’s all too much, too fast. I’ve only ever lived in Seattle, and the thought of suddenly uprooting my entire life is terrifying. Two nights ago, he said he wanted to be with me—whatever that looked like. Why is that image suddenly so unrealistic? “I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I say honestly. “Moving in together.” “Just throwing out ideas.” He lifts his eyebrows at the couch, as though asking my permission for him to join me. When I give him a nod, he sits down, cupping my shoulder with his palm. “I haven’t been this close to anyone in a while. So I don’t know if I’m doing any of this right, but I care about you so much. Can’t you trust me that we’ll figure it out?” “I want to. I do.” “Then why does it sound like this is something you’re trying to talk yourself into?” “Because it’s fucking hard, okay?” Tears sting the corners of my eyes, unbidden, and I swipe them away as quickly as I can. I didn’t expect the conversation to spiral like this, but I also hadn’t realized just how many unanswered questions exist between us. “I don’t know how to take two huge gambles at once. My career, whatever it turns out to be, and this relationship—” “You think our relationship is a gamble?” “I just—I’m still trying to figure out who I am.” I’m reaching into the most vulnerable space now, letting him see what I sometimes refuse to show myself. “And you’ve had it figured out for so long.” “What other people think of me, maybe. But not who I really am.” As his face softens, he cracks a smile. “In fact, I think we wrote a whole book about that.” I don’t laugh. “That’s the whole point.” Because he


they were easy targets for the Capitol’s air forces. Peeta Mellark and I stand in silence as the train speeds along. The tunnel goes on and on and I think of the tons of rock separating me from the sky, and my chest tightens. I hate being encased in stone this way. It reminds me of the mines and my father, trapped, unable to reach sunlight, buried for- ever in the darkness. The train finally begins to slow and suddenly bright light floods the compartment. We can’t help it. Both Peeta and I run to the window to see what we’ve only seen on television, the Capitol, the ruling city of Panem. The cameras haven’t lied about its grandeur. If anything, they have not quite captured the magnificence of the glistening buildings in a rainbow of hues that tower into the air, the shiny cars that roll down the wide paved streets, the oddly dressed people with bizarre hair and painted faces who have never missed a meal. All the col- ors seem artificial, the pinks too deep, the greens too bright, the yellows painful to the eyes, like the flat round disks of hard candy we can never afford to buy at the tiny sweet shop in District 12. The people begin to point at us eagerly as they recognize a tribute train rolling into the city. I step away from the win- 59 dow, sickened by their excitement, knowing they can’t wait to watch us die. But Peeta holds his ground, actually waving and smiling at the gawking crowd. He only stops when the train pulls into the station, blocking us from their view. He sees me staring at him and shrugs. “Who knows?” he says. “One of them may be rich.” I have misjudged him. I think of his actions since the reap- ing began. The friendly squeeze of my hand. His father show- ing up with the cookies and promising to feed Prim . . . did Peeta put him up to that? His tears at the station. Volunteering to wash Haymitch but then challenging him this morning when apparently the nice-guy approach had failed. And now the waving at the window, already trying to win the crowd. All of the pieces are still fitting together, but I sense he has a plan forming. He hasn’t accepted his death. He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me. 60 R-i-i-i-p! I grit my teeth as Venia, a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows, yanks a strip of Fabric from my leg tearing out the hair beneath it. “Sorry!” she pipes in her silly Capitol accent. “You’re just so hairy!” Why do these people speak in such a high pitch? Why do their jaws barely open when they talk? Why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they’re asking a question? Odd vo- wels, clipped words, and always a hiss on the letter


returning. -- The part which I acted is now to be explained. -- His sisters' uneasiness had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered; and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. -- We accordingly went -- and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend, the certain evils of such a choice. -- I described, and enforced them earnestly. -- But, however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance, which I hesitated not in giving, of your sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal, regard. -- But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgment than on his own. -- To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment. -- I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley, but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. -- That they might have met without ill consequence is, perhaps, probable; -- but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. -- Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me. -- It is done, however, and it was done for the best. -- On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them. -- With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has _particularly_ accused me, I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity. Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates; and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his god-son, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge; -- most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife,


in her life—her father, then each of her five husbands. In one sense, it was fitting, since her life was defined by men. Almost always terrible men, ones who took her money or asked her to leave Hollywood or used her children as pawns. Her fourth husband hit her in the face at the Cocoanut Grove. But it seemed unfair to organize her life around the people who controlled it. I said I’d consider it. Research has always been my happy place. It might be related to my sometime collecting of facts about my peers, an attempt to feel safer by mapping the world. If I can chart everything around me as far as I can see, then I must be in the middle of it all, real and in one piece. You are here. Rita was a pinball, bounced from one spot to the next. I related; what had my childhood been but a constant ricochet from one place and one disaster to the next? But to be fair, that’s many childhoods. I have to resist the urge to self-mythologize, to paint my own journey as harder than everyone else’s just so I can give myself credit for getting out. I’m allowed to take that credit regardless. So declareth my shrink. There were kids who came to Granby from housing projects, kids who came as a custody compromise. I wasn’t the only one with a less-than-romantic origin story. Jerome texted, asking if I’d gotten the email from Leo’s class mom about tomorrow being the hundredth day of second grade. It seemed impossible, but the year had flown by. The kids were to bring one hundred of something, and to dress like old people. Lest any twenty-first-century mother find a moment not devoted to proving maternal devotion through crafts. Jerome wrote: Leo on his own or you want me going over the top? I was torn. Teach Leo independence and thereby give the middle finger to a school that demanded this, in addition to Heritage Week and Crazy Hair Day and Historical Figure Day and Cupcake Day and Funky Socks Day—or let Leo’s artist father spectacularly outdo the Pinterest moms. We tended to vacillate between the two responses, our kids sometimes walking masterpieces, sometimes DIY messes. I wrote back: Your call. Although Jerome was fully prepared to glue one hundred gummy bears into the shape of the Mona Lisa, he still wanted me directing the show from New Hampshire. From hotel rooms on podcast tours, I was happy to run things. But even one day into Granby, it felt absurd. I stood to walk around the library at my Fitbit’s insistence, and as I circled I remembered, Mr. Bloch, how you used to nap in the big leather chair by the periodicals, how some of us thought it was funny to leave a magazine in your lap as if you’d fallen asleep reading it. House & Garden or YM or Glamour. I reached up to check the window above the reference books, just in case its sill had gone undusted and undisturbed


was jumping on a grenade thrown by a bad one. Kelly chose his words carefully. He reminded everyone in the room about the importance of swearing an oath to the Constitution instead of to a person. If we swore allegiance to a particular man or woman, he said, we’d be living in a despotism. Not a democracy. With that, a black-robed judge in front of the Resolute desk asked the general to raise his right hand and led him through a civic ritual that felt like last rites. Everyone who came with Kelly to the ceremony shared his view of the oath of office. He’d hired us for that reason. Kirstjen Nielsen, Elizabeth Neumann, Chad Wolf, Gene Hamilton, Chris Krebs, and me. We stood together feet from Donald Trump, united against the turbulence he was creating in the executive branch. The unity wouldn’t last. In the years to come, our group would fracture, as the commander in chief tested whether we were loyal to the Constitution—or to him. PART II The Founders intended for executive branch employees to be an internal guardrail for democracy. Although the chief executive was empowered to personally nominate the “assistants or deputies” to run agencies, the Senate would confirm them to ensure responsible leaders were picked. In addition, the Founders envisioned “the steady administration of the laws” by a workforce of duty-minded public servants who would faithfully operate the daily functions of government, regardless of who was president. “The true test of a good government,” Hamilton wrote under the pen name Publius, “is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.” Donald Trump thoroughly dismantled this guardrail. He systematically sidelined or eliminated anyone who objected to his agenda or sought to restrain his impulses. By the end of four years, only the sycophants remained. It will be worse the next time around. In my interviews and conversations with former Trump officials, the most oft-repeated view was that a future MAGA administration would not be led by “the best men in the country,” as Publius hoped, but by the worst. THE NEXT TRUMP WILL INSTALL ONLY DEVOUT LOYALISTS IN TOP POSITIONS, WHILE PURGING DISSENTERS FROM THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH. The MAGA movement learned a hard lesson in Donald Trump’s first term: people are policy. The president appointed a vast array of public figures to key government posts, most of whom didn’t know the mercurial businessman. And they certainly weren’t willing to carry out policies that were plainly irresponsible, immoral, or illegal. In some cases, the internal resistance set Trump back years in carrying out his true intentions. John Bolton saw himself as one of those people. The former ambassador agreed to serve as White House national security advisor partway through Trump’s term. For a time, Bolton thought he was shielding agencies from Trump’s disruptive mood swings and sudden changes in policy direction. But the more the ambassador objected to the president’s bad ideas, the more he got left out of the conversation. “There would be secret meetings at Mar-a-Lago on national security issues,” a former aide to Bolton


up and his cheeks were as red as poppies and never had Mistress Mary seen such round and such blue eyes in any boy's face. And on the trunk of the tree he leaned against, a brown squirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind a bush nearby a cock pheasant was delicately stretching his neck to peep out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting up and sniffing with tremulous noses--and actually it appeared as if they were all drawing near to watch him and listen to the strange low little call his pipe seemed to make. When he saw Mary he held up his hand and spoke to her in a voice almost as low as and rather like his piping. "Don't tha' move," he said. "It'd flight 'em." Mary remained motionless. He stopped playing his pipe and began to rise from the ground. He moved so slowly that it scarcely seemed as though he were moving at all, but at last he stood on his feet and then the squirrel scampered back up into the branches of his tree, the pheasant withdrew his head and the rabbits dropped on all fours and began to hop away, though not at all as if they were frightened. "I'm Dickon," the boy said. "I know tha'rt Miss Mary." Then Mary realized that somehow she had known at first that he was Dickon. Who else could have been charming rabbits and pheasants as the natives charm snakes in India? He had a wide, red, curving mouth and his smile spread all over his face. "I got up slow," he explained, "because if tha' makes a quick move it startles 'em. A body 'as to move gentle an' speak low when wild things is about." He did not speak to her as if they had never seen each other before but as if he knew her quite well. Mary knew nothing about boys and she spoke to him a little stiffly because she felt rather shy. "Did you get Martha's letter?" she asked. He nodded his curly, rust-colored head. "That's why I come." He stooped to pick up something which had been lying on the ground beside him when he piped. "I've got th' garden tools. There's a little spade an' rake an' a fork an' hoe. Eh! they are good 'uns. There's a trowel, too. An' th' woman in th' shop threw in a packet o' white poppy an' one o' blue larkspur when I bought th' other seeds." "Will you show the seeds to me?" Mary said. She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head. As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made


holding it aloft – the head of their leader, the president of people. Echo was staggered by the savage spectacle and the delight they took in an execution. Arriving at her family’s side, she stood with them, ready to die if need be. Cho, the eldest female, attacked from the side. She picked Echo up, lifting her above her head. Despite her weight, she threw her with ease. It was Echo’s first fight and her first experience of pain. She’d never been trained in the art of combat, she’d never studied martial arts, she’d never even thrown a punch. Though she looked formidable, she was no warrior and had no knowledge of how to defend herself, let alone from a creature which seemed bred for conflict. Before she could get to her feet, Cho charged at her, as fast as a horse, her thin arms slashing downwards, razor-sharp digits cutting across Echo’s chest. With barely enough time to parry the blow, Echo covered her face, unsure whether her scales would be strong enough to resist the attack. The digits glanced over her arm without making a cut. Recalculating the strength of her opponent, Cho abandoned the attempt at slicing her open, picking her up once more and throwing her into the smouldering ruins of McMurdo City. Echo crashed through the charred timbers of the chapel, coming to a rest in hot ash. The heat from the remains of fire was awful, her scales turning black as they began to radiate the excess warmth. Standing up, she saw that Cho couldn’t come close, remaining on the outskirts of the fire, even more sensitive to the heat than she was. Echo realized that rather than radiating this surplus heat, she could use it as a weapon, exploiting these creatures’ only weakness – their inability to deal with warmth. As soon as she stepped off the ash and embers, Cho charged, but Echo was ready, sliding across the ice, under Cho’s torso and climbing onto her back. As Cho tried to shake her free, Echo held tight, clambering up to Cho’s head. Gripping on either side, channelling as much heat as possible, she released all the warmth her body had stored. For Cho, it was excruciating. Unable to cool down, unable to radiate this heat, she cried out, an anguished sound, charging madly across the ice, trying to dislodge Echo from her back. But Echo wouldn’t let go, aware she wouldn’t get a second chance. She could feel her own body cooling down as the heat raced into Cho’s head. She could hear the panicked telepathic cries for help. Eitan and the others hurried down the slope to assist. Echo pushed a final wave of intense warmth through her skull. Cho’s eyes turned white, like the eyes of a cooked fish, her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto the ice. THE RUINS OF MCMURDO CITY SAME DAY THE COLONY OF COLD CREATURES gathered around the body of Cho, unable to comprehend that one of their family was gone, grappling with their mortality for the first


a bomb that close … would it obliterate Marisol’s house? Would the blast level Avalon Bluff to the ground? Iris squinted against the sun, but the distance was too great; she couldn’t discern any details of the moving figure, other than they seemed to be briskly walking in defiance of the siren, and she hurried into Attie’s bedroom, finding her binoculars on the desk. Iris returned to her window with them, palms sweating profusely, and she looked through the lenses. It was blurry at first, a world of amber and green and shadows. Iris drew a long, calming breath and brought the binoculars into focus. She searched the field for the lone individual, at last finding them after what felt like a year. A tall, broad-shouldered body dressed in a gray jumpsuit was striding through the grass. They carried a typewriter case in one hand, a leather bag in the other. There was a badge over their chest—another war correspondent, Iris realized. She didn’t know if she was relieved or annoyed as she dragged her eyes upward to their face. A sharp jaw, a scowling brow, and thick hair the color of ink, slicked back. Her mouth fell open with a gasp. She felt her pulse in her ears, swallowing all sound but that of her heart, pounding heavy and swift within her. She stared at the boy in the field; she stared at him as if she were dreaming. But then the truth shivered through her. She would know that handsome face anywhere. It was Roman Confounded Kitt. Her hands went cold. She couldn’t move as the seconds continued to pass and she realized he was this close to her and yet so far away, walking in a field. His ignorance was going to draw a bomb. He was destined to be blown apart and killed, and Iris tried to envision what her life would be like with him dead. No. She set down the binoculars. Her mind whirled as she turned and ran from her room, passing Attie on the stairs. “Iris? Iris!” Attie cried, reaching out to snag her arm. “Where are you going?” There was no time to explain; Iris evaded her friend and bolted down the hallway, out the back doors and through the garden they had just been kneeling and planting in mere minutes ago. She leapt over the low stone wall and dashed across the street, winding through the neighbor’s yard. Her lungs felt as if they had caught fire, and her heart was thrumming at the base of her throat. She finally reached the field. Iris sprinted, feeling the jolt in her knees, the wind dragging through her loose hair. She could see him now; he was no longer an unfamiliar shadow in a sea of gold. She could see his face, and the scowl lifted from his brow as he saw her. Recognized her. He finally sensed her terror. He set down his typewriter case and leather bag and broke into a run to meet her. Iris had lost count in her mind.


and half ditto,--one containing flour, another apples, and a third, perhaps, Indian meal. There was likewise a square box of pine-wood, full of soap in bars; also, another of the same size, in which were tallow candles, ten to the pound. A small stock of brown sugar, some white beans and split peas, and a few other commodities of low price, and such as are constantly in demand, made up the bulkier portion of the merchandise. It might have been taken for a ghostly or phantasmagoric reflection of the old shopkeeper Pyncheon's shabbily provided shelves, save that some of the articles were of a description and outward form which could hardly have been known in his day. For instance, there was a glass pickle-jar, filled with fragments of Gibraltar rock; not, indeed, splinters of the veritable stone foundation of the famous fortress, but bits of delectable candy, neatly done up in white paper. Jim Crow, moreover, was seen executing his world-renowned dance, in gingerbread. A party of leaden dragoons were galloping along one of the shelves, in equipments and uniform of modern cut; and there were some sugar figures, with no strong resemblance to the humanity of any epoch, but less unsatisfactorily representing our own fashions than those of a hundred years ago. Another phenomenon, still more strikingly modern, was a package of lucifer matches, which, in old times, would have been thought actually to borrow their instantaneous flame from the nether fires of Tophet. In short, to bring the matter at once to a point, it was incontrovertibly evident that somebody had taken the shop and fixtures of the long-retired and forgotten Mr. Pyncheon, and was about to renew the enterprise of that departed worthy, with a different set of customers. Who could this bold adventurer be? And, of all places in the world, why had he chosen the House of the Seven Gables as the scene of his commercial speculations? We return to the elderly maiden. She at length withdrew her eyes from the dark countenance of the Colonel's portrait, heaved a sigh, --indeed, her breast was a very cave of Aolus that morning, --and stept across the room on tiptoe, as is the customary gait of elderly women. Passing through an intervening passage, she opened a door that communicated with the shop, just now so elaborately described. Owing to the projection of the upper story--and still more to the thick shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, which stood almost directly in front of the gable--the twilight, here, was still as much akin to night as morning. Another heavy sigh from Miss Hepzibah! After a moment's pause on the threshold, peering towards the window with her near-sighted scowl, as if frowning down some bitter enemy, she suddenly projected herself into the shop. The haste, and, as it were, the galvanic impulse of the movement, were really quite startling. Nervously--in a sort of frenzy, we might almost say--she began to busy herself in arranging some children's playthings, and other little wares, on the shelves and at the shop-window. In the aspect of


godly, efflorescence; (v) prosper, flourish, lost. ANTONYMS: (adj) religious thrive, progress, unfold. unimpressed, clear, oriented, blasted: (adj) cursed, infernal, ANTONYMS: (v) wither, Nathaniel Hawthorne 263 deteriorate, struggle, shrivel, shrink, bounding: (n) jumping, confinement; latitude, extent, area, broadness, fade, die; (n) withering (v) confine, salient; (adj) terminal, stretch. ANTONYMS: (n) length, blush: (n, v) glow, color; (v) redden, moving, subsultory longitude, emptiness, thinness crimson; (n) red, bloom, rosiness, boundless: (adj) limitless, endless, breastplate: (n) corselet, armour ruddiness, redness; (adj) bashful; unlimited, infinite, bottomless, plate, armor plating, armor plate; (n, (adv) blushingly. ANTONYMS: (v) incalculable, immense, v) shield, bulletproof vest; (v) blanch, pale, blench; (n) paleness immeasurable, interminable, cuirass, mask, gauntlet, apron, blushing: (adj) rosy, coy, blushful, unbounded, vast. ANTONYMS: armored vest flushed, red, shy, bashful, (adj) limited, restricted, confined, breathed: (adj) unvoiced, inaudible, overmodest, ruddy; (adv) finite, incomplete, negligible, small breathing, aphonic blushingly, ablush. ANTONYM: bounty: (adj, n) largesse; (n) breathless: (adj, adv) out of breath; (adj) pale abundance, bounteousness, (adj) panting, inanimate, bodice: (n) corsage, stays, corset, premium, blessing, prize, breathtaking, winded, choking, brassiere, top, slip, waist, corselet munificence, beneficence, puffing; (v) all agog, aghast; (adj, n) boldly: (adj, adv) courageously, generosity; (v) benefaction; (n, v) eager; (n) in hysterics. ANTONYMS: valiantly, heroically; (adv) gift. ANTONYMS: (n) miserliness, (adj) dull, expected, boring fearlessly, daringly, bravely, fine, insufficiency, penalty, brethren: (n) congregation, assembly, intrepidly, impudently, audaciously, meanness brother, people, laity, family, flock, shamelessly, brashly. ANTONYMS: bout: (n, v) round; (n) attack, spell, fold (adv) discreetly, modestly, turn, competition, fight, battle, brig: (n) barque, hermaphrodite brig, nervously, hesitantly, shyly, fighting, effort, game, fit snow, jail, bridge, prison, big house, fearfully, meekly, submissively, bowed: (adj) arched, curved, inclined, penal institution, ship secretly, respectfully, diffidently crooked, arciform, arching, arced, brightening: (n) blooming, polishing, boldness: (n) prowess, face, daring, bandy, arcuate, twisted, bended. limb, illumination, first blush, break valor, nerve, assurance, heroism, ANTONYMS: (adj) straight, of day audaciousness, spirit, cheek, valour. concave, plucked brightly: (adv) vividly, luminously, ANTONYMS: (n) cowardice, bowing: (n) obeisance, playing, radiantly, gaily, clearly, shiningly, shyness, timidity, meekness, gesticulation, capitulation, intensely, cheerfully, smartly, reticence genuflection, scraping, submission; bright, lustrously. ANTONYMS: bondage: (n) thrall, thraldom, (adj) bowed, bent, fawning, (adv) gloomily, drearily, bleakly, thralldom, slavery, captivity, submissive stupidly, dully, blankly, seriously, enslavement, duress, restraint, yoke, boyhood: (n) babyhood, adolescence, pessimistically vassalage; (adj, n) villenage. youth, youthhood, infancy, brightness: (n) luminance, light, ANTONYMS: (n) independence, girlhood, age, boyism, puberty. shine, clarity, lustre, glow, glare, emancipation, freedom ANTONYM: (n) adulthood glitter, luminosity; (n, v) boon: (n) blessing, benefit, mercy, boyish: (adj) young, puerile, illumination, gloss. ANTONYMS: concession, good, gratuity; (n, v) adolescent, youthful, babyish, (n) cloudiness, murkiness, dimness, benefaction, gift, grant; (adj) jocund, childish, girlish, kittenish, boylike, darkness, mistiness, softness, hilarious. ANTONYMS: (n) callow, immature. ANTONYM: (adj) sadness, bleakness, dirtiness, disadvantage, privation, disaster, mature pessimism; (adv) seriously minus branded: (adj) identified, known, brilliancy: (n, v) brightness; (n) boorish: (adj) loutish, vulgar, proprietary, recognized brilliance, lustre, luster, splendor, churlish, gruff, discourteous, rough, brat: (n) imp, bairn, rogue, urchin, glitter, glory, radiance, splendour; rude, crude, unrefined, coarse, scamp, kid, monkey, (adj, n) gorgeousness; (v) gloss barbaric. ANTONYMS: (adj) gallant,


left in it, we do not know how we can procure meat, though Mr. Philander says that we can exist indefinitely on the wild fruit and nuts which abound in the jungle. I am very tired now, so I shall go to my funny bed of grasses which Mr. Clayton gathered for me, but will add to this from day to day as things happen. Lovingly, JANE PORTER. TO HAZEL STRONG, BALTIMORE, MD. Tarzan sat in a brown study for a long time after he finished reading the letter. It was filled with so many new and wonderful things that his brain was in a whirl as he attempted to digest them all. So they did not know that he was Tarzan of the Apes. He would tell them. In his tree he had constructed a rude shelter of leaves and boughs, beneath which, protected from the rain, he had placed the few treasures brought from the cabin. Among these were some pencils. He took one, and beneath Jane Porter's signature he wrote: I am Tarzan of the Apes He thought that would be sufficient. Later he would return the letter to the cabin. In the matter of food, thought Tarzan, they had no need to worry--he would provide, and he did. The next morning Jane found her missing letter in the exact spot from which it had disappeared two nights before. She was mystified; but when she saw the printed words beneath her signature, she felt a cold, clammy chill run up her spine. She showed the letter, or rather the last sheet with the signature, to Clayton. Chapter 18 "And to think," she said, "that uncanny thing was probably watching me all the time that I was writing--oo! It makes me shudder just to think of it." "But he must be friendly," reassured Clayton, "for he has returned your letter, nor did he offer to harm you, and unless I am mistaken he left a very substantial memento of his friendship outside the cabin door last night, for I just found the carcass of a wild boar there as I came out." From then on scarcely a day passed that did not bring its offering of game or other food. Sometimes it was a young deer, again a quantity of strange, cooked food--cassava cakes pilfered from the village of Mbonga--or a boar, or leopard, and once a lion. Tarzan derived the greatest pleasure of his life in hunting meat for these strangers. It seemed to him that no pleasure on earth could compare with laboring for the welfare and protection of the beautiful white girl. Some day he would venture into the camp in daylight and talk with these people through the medium of the little bugs which were familiar to them and to Tarzan. But he found it difficult to overcome the timidity of the wild thing of the forest, and so day followed day without seeing a fulfillment of his good intentions. The party in the camp, emboldened by familiarity, wandered farther and yet farther into the jungle


changed in the years since I left home. Four months after my mother died, a fire started fifteen minutes from her neighborhood. High winds carried the sparks far afield, allowing the blaze to grow and fan out for miles. Unlike the wildfires I remember from childhood, this one roared parallel to some of the busiest roads in the area, ravaging parkland, businesses, and thousands of homes. I was shocked to see news of the runaway destruction, although California wildfires had been in the news for weeks, and I’d heard about the terrible air quality in the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver. My home region lacks a major urban center and rarely draws outside media attention. But the damage was too vast to be ignored, and terrifying headlines and images from my parents’ tiny town of a few thousand residents soon filled my social media feeds. I checked on friends and acquaintances and tried to call my aunt, who had inherited my parents’ house after my mother died. When I didn’t get an answer, I texted Paula, who confirmed that she, her husband, and my aunt were safe—and so was Buster. They were all hunkered down at Paula’s, in sight of the flames but hoping they wouldn’t need to evacuate. They couldn’t say whether my parents’ home had survived. Dan and I scoured the internet for local news reports, searching for the name of my parents’ park and other nearby landmarks. We watched shaky video footage shot by local residents; paused and zoomed in on aerial video shared by local news outlets, trying to identify my parents’ neighborhood. When I stumbled over an article about entire groves of ponderosa pines lost to wildfire, I felt another kind of grief. What if the cemetery had been leveled, too? I pictured the peaceful graveyard, with its hundred-year-old oaks and pines, bare and smoking; my parents’ gravestones scorched and illegible. I thought again of their house, their windows facing the mountains, their closets stuffed with clothing and linens and boxes of family photos, their shelves full of books and religious art and my grandmother’s glassware and collectibles—was any of it left? When they sold the house I’d grown up in, the thought of strangers owning it—whether they made it their own, updated and flipped it, or tore it down to build something new—hadn’t caused me a moment’s distress. I’d never lived in their second Oregon home or grown deeply attached to it, but it was a place that was theirs, a place that held memories of our final visits. Even if all their belongings were gone, the loss was a small one compared with what many in the region were experiencing: people had lost their loved ones, their homes, their livelihoods. Still, I knew that I would grieve if all that remained of my parents’ life together was now ash and smoke. * * * Before wildfire season began, I had a video call with a friend who had recently moved to San Francisco. She took the call outside on her balcony, angling her screen to


Arin tipped my chin up, waiting until I stopped glaring at his forehead to speak. “You said you revolt me. You do, but not for the reasons you think.” A strand of his hair slid against his cheek, the silk of it sending a shiver of unease along my spine. “I do not think it is fear motivating you at all. I could understand you, then. A cornered beast will lash out to protect itself. But you…” His hand moved to my jaw in an unstoppable motion, turning my head to his. I could see every shade of blue in his pale eyes, count the silver lashes curling around them. I was caught fast in his hold. “You are a creature of pure spite. You would not react out of fear, but out of fury. I think daily of chaining you to a wall and seeing which you would attack first—me, or the wall.” His voice was low, threaded with… curiosity? No, it couldn’t be that. Endeavors to unravel my identity nonewithstanding, Arin seemed to find me as noteworthy as a blunt axe. I grabbed his arm, digging my fingers into his coat. If he made one more move, I would strike him in his unprotected throat. “You. Definitely you.” “I almost believed you, Suraira. Almost. But you forgot one thing.” He moved a curl from my cheek. There it was again—the flash of curiosity. “You gave me your name without asking anything in return.” CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Two weeks before the Champions’ Banquet, my magic continued to pose an intractable obstacle. Arin wanted it to work. He had assured me on numerous occasions how efficiently death would find me if I competed against the other Champions without my magic’s help. To this end, our trainings escalated. In intensity and quantity. On the sixth day until we were to leave for Lukub, I entered the training center, winding my braid into a knot atop my head. I sensed the wrongness in the air immediately. My apprehension rose at the sight of the day’s tools scattered carelessly in front of the trunk. Arin threw a familiar dagger—Dania’s dagger, from the war room—upward and caught it. He did it again, catching the hilt at each descent. “What’s wrong?” He kept tossing up the dagger. I picked up the tools, trying to remember how he liked to sort them. Did the three-pronged lance go after the spear or hammer? When Arin’s silence lengthened, I rubbed the furrow above my nose and said, “Why do you insist on torturing yourself?” That caught his attention. He closed his hand around the dagger’s handle. “Torturing myself.” The tone itself, thin as a thread and dripping in condescension, should have warned me away. “I know what you do when you disappear to the surface. The Mufsids and Urabi have claimed lives all over the kingdoms. Evaded your most capable soldiers. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? I’m your bait. Let them be lured instead of constantly giving chase.” Arin’s humorless laugh echoed. “My bait whose magic could not induce a


the Sindar became welded into one people, and spoke the same tongue; though this difference remained between them, that the Noldor had the greater power of mind and body. and were the mightier warriors and sages, and they built with stone, and loved the hill-slopes and open lands. But the Sindar had the fairer voices and were more skilled in music, save only Maglor son of Fanor, and they loved the woods and the riversides; and some of the Grey-elves still wandered far and wide without settled abode, and they sang as they went. Chapter 14 Of Beleriand and Its Realms This is the fashion of the lands into which the Noldor came, in the north of the western regions of Middle-earth, in the ancient days; and here also is told of the manner in which the chieftains of the Eldar held their lands and the leaguer upon Morgoth after the Dagor Aglareb, the third battle in the Wars of Beleriand. In the north of the world Melkor had in the ages past reared Ered Engrin, the Iron Mountains, as a fence to his citadel of Utumno; and they stood upon the borders of the regions of everlasting cold, in a great curve from east to west. Behind the walls of Ered Engrin in the west, where they bent back northwards, Melkor built another fortress, as a defence against assault that might come from Valinor; and when he came back to Middle-earth, as has been told, he took up his abode in the endless dungeons of Angband, the Hells of Iron, for in the War of the Powers the Valar, in their haste to overthrow him in his great stronghold of Utumno, did not wholly destroy Angband nor search out all its deep places. Beneath Ered Engrin he made a great tunnel, which issued south of the mountains; and there he made a mighty gate. But above this gate, and behind it even to the mountains, he piled the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim, that were made of the ash and slag of his subterranean furnaces, and the vast refuse of his tunnellings. They were black and desolate and exceedingly lofty; and smoke issued from their tops, dark and foul upon the northern sky. Before the gates of Angband filth and desolation spread southward for many miles over the wide plain of Ard-galen; but after the coming of the Sun rich grass arose there, and while Angband was besieged and its gates shut there were green things even among the pits and broken rocks before the doors of hell. To the west of Thangorodrim lay Hsilme, the Land of Mist, for so it was named by the Noldor in their own tongue because of the clouds that Morgoth sent thither during their first encampment; Hithlum it became in the tongue of the Sindar that dwelt in those regions. It was a fair land while the Siege of Angband lasted, although its air was cool and winter there was cold. In the west it was bounded by Ered Lmin, the Echoing Mountains that marched


was to make me happy; I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely place such as the moon, for instance and it nodded its head toward her horn, rising over Hay Hill; it told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should like to go, but reminded it as you did me, that I had no wings to fly.     "'Oh,' returned the fairy,' that does not signify! Here is a talisman will remove all difficulties;' and she held out a pretty gold ring. 'Put it,' she said, 'on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own heaven yonder.' She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adle, is in my breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign, but I mean soon to change it to a ring again."     "But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the fairy; you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon."     "Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a fund of genuine French skepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester "un vrai menteur," and assuring him that she had made no account whatever of his "Contes de fe," and that "du reste, il n'y avait pas de fes, et quand mme il y en avait," she was sure they would never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon.     The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse; there I was ordered to choose half a dozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged leave to defer it; no it should be gone through with now. By dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the half-dozen to two; these, however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores; he fixed on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dve and a superb pink satin. I told him in a new series of whispers that he might as well buy me a gold gown and silver bonnet at once; I should certainly never venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him to make an exchange in favor of a sober black satin and pearl-gray silk. "It might pass for the present," he said, "but he would yet see me glittering like a parterre."     Glad was I to get to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a jeweler's shop; the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the


to the mash, struggling to raise my arm from the plate to my mouth. “Didn’t Kimborough tell you? We make calls on pay phones. The only good thing to do is read, really.” He nodded. “That’s fine,” he said, too chipper. And then he extended his hand to shake. “You should shake my hand.” “What?” He kept it extended. “You should shake it.” “Dude, what the fuck?” His insistence—the small smile, the way he nodded toward his outstretched hand—was both frustrating and inviting. “I swear I’m going to stand up and leave this fucking table,” I said. He shrugged, his hand still extended. “You’re too tired to stand up. I know that for a fact.” His smile broadened. “Jesus,” I muttered, and took his hand in mine. I felt something between our palms and pulled away, frightened, but not so frightened that I would risk dropping it in front of the counselors, who were roaming the mess hall in their utility belts and too-short haircuts. When I opened my hand, I saw that he’d given me a perfectly rolled joint. I pocketed it immediately. “I don’t drink or do drugs of any sort,” he said, as though this could possibly be an explanation for what had just happened. “I’ve always been pretty straight-edge. My dad just, you know, sits on the sofa in front of the TV the minute he gets home and drinks a six-pack. So I’m trying to be different.” And yet he’d just given me a joint. I was too shocked to speak. “You seem nice,” he said, and winked so quickly I almost missed it. “You seem reliable.” At night, the barn and the mess hall were locked: if we wanted to go to the bathroom, we had to use a latrine that stank from years of use at the edge of the property, close to the barbed wire fence that kept us pent in. The joint wedged in my right shoe, a book of matches I’d stolen from my bunkmate wedged in my left, I took our cabin’s designated flashlight and switched it on. Pretending to test it, I shone it in the direction of Orson, who was asleep in the bunk across from me. He whinnied a little in his sleep but didn’t snore, and when he rolled onto his back, I snatched the light away for fear I’d wake him up. I saw poorly in the dark and was nearly drained of strength, so I had to walk slowly to the latrine, and even with the flashlight’s guidance I tripped twice. When I got to the latrine I sat next to the hole, the putrid smell of which made me even more light-headed, and lit the joint. I rarely smoked, so I was dizzyingly high after two hits. The wood walls seemed to swell with the scent of the purplest, stickiest weed I’d smoked in my life. Within minutes I was no longer in the latrine, no longer at Last Chance—I was a numb and giggly spirit emerged from a bottle. I stumbled back to


it was, with Ben Gunn’s salted sufficient to ensure us against any sudden onslaught, and we goat and some delicacies and a bottle of old wine from the thought, besides, they had had more than enough of fight- HISPANIOLA. Never, I am sure, were people gayer or hap- ing. pier. And there was Silver, sitting back almost out of the Therefore the work was pushed on briskly. Gray and Ben Contents firelight, but eating heartily, prompt to spring forward when Gunn came and went with the boat, while the rest during anything was wanted, even joining quietly in our laughter— their absences piled treasure on the beach. Two of the bars, the same bland, polite, obsequious seaman of the voyage out. slung in a rope’s end, made a good load for a grown man— Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 284 285 one that he was glad to walk slowly with. For my part, as I was lowed by the former silence. not much use at carrying, I was kept busy all day in the cave “Heaven forgive them,” said the doctor; “’tis the mutineers!” packing the minted money into bread-bags. “All drunk, sir,” struck in the voice of Silver from behind It was a strange collection, like Billy Bones’s hoard for the us. diversity of coinage, but so much larger and so much more Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, and in varied that I think I never had more pleasure than in sorting spite of daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once more as them. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and quite a privileged and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was re- Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and markable how well he bore these slights and with what sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last unwearying politeness he kept on trying to ingratiate himself hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what with all. Yet, I think, none treated him better than a dog, looked like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if old quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to to wear them round your neck—nearly every variety of money thank him for; although for that matter, I suppose, I had in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collec- reason to think even worse of him than anybody else, for I tion; and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, had seen him meditating a fresh treachery upon the plateau. so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that the doctor answered sorting them out. him. Day after day this work went on; by every evening a for- “Drunk or raving,” said he. tune had been stowed aboard, but there was another fortune “Right you were, sir,” replied Silver; “and precious little waiting for the morrow; and all


the while that he is doing it. He saw that Mr. Jackson had been instantly struck by the fact that Madame Olenska's differences with her grandmother and her other relations were not known to him, and that the old gentleman had drawn his own conclusions as to the reasons for Archer's exclusion from the family councils. This fact warned Archer to go warily; but the insinuations about Beaufort made him reckless. He was mindful, however, if not of his own danger, at least of the fact that Mr. Jackson was under his mother's roof, and consequently his guest. Old New York scrupulously observed the etiquette of hospitality, and no discussion with a guest was ever allowed to degenerate into a disagreement. "Shall we go up and join my mother?" he suggested curtly, as Mr. Jackson's last cone of ashes dropped into the brass ashtray at his elbow. On the drive homeward May remained oddly silent; through the darkness, he still felt her enveloped in her menacing blush. What its menace meant he could not guess: but he was sufficiently warned by the fact that Madame Olenska's name had evoked it. They went upstairs, and he turned into the library. She usually followed him; but he heard her passing down the passage to her bedroom. "May!" he called out impatiently; and she came back, with a slight glance of surprise at his tone. "This lamp is smoking again; I should think the servants might see that it's kept properly trimmed," he grumbled nervously. "I'm so sorry: it shan't happen again," she answered, in the firm bright tone she had learned from her mother; and it exasperated Archer to feel that she was already beginning to humour him like a younger Mr. Welland. She bent over to lower the wick, and as the light struck up on her white shoulders and the clear curves of her face he thought: "How young she is! For what endless years this life will have to go on!" He felt, with a kind of horror, his own strong youth and the bounding blood in his veins. "Look here," he said suddenly, "I may have to go to Washington for a few days--soon; next week perhaps." Her hand remained on the key of the lamp as she turned to him slowly. The heat from its flame had brought back a glow to her face, but it paled as she looked up. "On business?" she asked, in a tone which implied that there could be no other conceivable reason, and that she had put the question automatically, as if merely to finish his own sentence. "On business, naturally. There's a patent case coming up before the Supreme Court--" He gave the name of the inventor, and went on furnishing details with all Lawrence Lefferts's practised glibness, while she listened attentively, saying at intervals: "Yes, I see." "The change will do you good," she said simply, when he had finished; "and you must be sure to go and see Ellen," she added, looking him straight in the eyes with her cloudless


been a few late payments and, once earlier this year, a warning that service was about to be terminated. Grocery bill. Paid like clockwork every Tuesday when the delivery from the market in town arrives. At the bottom of the box is a stack of checks all made out to Ocean View Retirement Home. One thousand dollars a month, going back at least a dozen years. I’ve heard of Ocean View, of course. It’s the only nursing home in town. I even applied to be an aide there after Mr. Gurlain suspended me. I was told I was overqualified for the job, which somehow felt more insulting than if they had told me the truth—that, given my reputation, they thought hiring me would be like inviting a wolf to watch over a flock of sheep. What I don’t understand is why Mrs. Baker is paying all that money for a nursing home when Lenora’s right here, being cared for by me, Mary, a long line of other nurses. I’m still looking at the cleared checks when my attention is caught by a sound in the hallway. Footsteps. Coming down the hall. Almost at the door. I slap the lid atop the shoebox and shove it back under the bed. Then I leap to my feet and hurry . . . nowhere. There’s no place for me to go. I can’t sprint out the door if Mrs. Baker’s coming in, and the only hiding place I can think of is in the bathroom, which is likely where she’ll head first. Resigned to being caught—which this time will surely get me fired—I start to raise my hands in surrender. That’s when I spot the armoire. Without thinking, I bolt toward it, throw open the doors, and back myself inside. Crouched behind identical black sheaths, I pull the armoire doors shut just as the bedroom door is pushed open. Through the thin crack between the armoire doors, I see Mrs. Baker enter the room. From the way she sways, I assume she quickly polished off the entire bottle of wine herself. She drifts to the gramophone on the sideboard and turns it on. One dropped needle later, music starts blasting through the room. “Let’s Misbehave.” Mrs. Baker drunkenly sings along, croaking out every other word. “Alone . . . chaperone.” Her head bobs in time to the music, her hands undulate in the air, and her singing gets louder. “Can get . . . number.” She plops down at the dressing table and yanks the same drawer I’d opened minutes earlier, pulling out a tube of lipstick. “World’s . . . slumber . . . misbehave!” Eyeing her reflection in the mirror, Mrs. Baker swipes the tube across her bottom lip, her unsteady hand smearing it outside the lip line. She wipes it with her thumb, making it worse. A crimson streak now runs halfway to her cheek. Mrs. Baker chuckles softly to herself, leans forward, stares at her drunken reflection. Something in the mirror suddenly catches her attention. I can tell by the way


circumstances that awakened her mind into effort, and led to enthusiasm and poetry. Her favourite walk was to a little fishing-house, belonging to St. Aubert, in a woody glen, on the margin of a rivulet that descended from the Pyrenees, and, after foaming among their rocks, wound its silent way beneath the shades it reflected. Above the woods, that screened this glen, rose the lofty summits of the Pyrenees, which often burst boldly on the eye through the glades below. Sometimes the shattered face of a rock only was seen, crowned with wild shrubs; or a shepherd's cabin seated on a cliff, overshadowed by dark cypress, or waving ash. Emerging from the deep recesses of the woods, the glade opened to the distant landscape, where the rich pastures and vine-covered slopes of Gascony gradually declined to the plains; and there, on the winding shores of the Garonne, groves, and hamlets, and villas--their outlines softened by distance, melted from the eye into one rich harmonious tint. This, too, was the favourite retreat of St. Aubert, to which he frequently withdrew from the fervour of noon, with his wife, his daughter, and his books; or came at the sweet evening hour to welcome the silent dusk, or to listen for the music of the nightingale. Sometimes, too, he brought music of his own, and awakened every fairy echo with the tender accents of his oboe; and often have the tones of Emily's voice drawn sweetness from the waves, over which they trembled. It was in one of these excursions to this spot, that she observed the following lines written with a pencil on a part of the wainscot: SONNET Go, pencil! faithful to thy master's sighs! Go--tell the Goddess of the fairy scene, When next her light steps wind these wood-walks green, Whence all his tears, his tender sorrows, rise; Ah! paint her form, her soul-illumin'd eyes, The sweet expression of her pensive face, The light'ning smile, the animated grace-- The portrait well the lover's voice supplies; Speaks all his heart must feel, his tongue would say: Yet ah! not all his heart must sadly feel! How oft the flow'ret's silken leaves conceal The drug that steals the vital spark away! And who that gazes on that angel-smile, Would fear its charm, or think it could beguile! These lines were not inscribed to any person; Emily therefore could not apply them to herself, though she was undoubtedly the nymph of these shades. Having glanced round the little circle of her acquaintance without being detained by a suspicion as to whom they could be addressed, she was compelled to rest in uncertainty; an uncertainty which would have been more painful to an idle mind than it was to hers. She had no leisure to suffer this circumstance, trifling at first, to swell into importance by frequent remembrance. The little vanity it had excited (for the incertitude which forbade her to presume upon having inspired the sonnet, forbade her also to disbelieve it) passed away, and the incident was dismissed from her thoughts amid her books,