from a sense of duty and business expediency; he saw to the welfare of his as if they were his own children, because he could not help it. And he saw further. He never forgot a kindly greeting or a cheering word, and to sit down for a long talk with them ("gas" he called it) was as much his delight as theirs. He had a way of taking Buck's head roughly between his hands, and resting his own head upon Buck's, of shaking him back and forth, the while calling him ill names that to Buck were love names. Buck knew no greater joy than that rough embrace and the sound of murmured oaths, and at each jerk back and forth it seemed that his heart would be shaken out of his body so great was its ecstasy. And when, released, he sprang to his feet, his mouth laughing, his eyes eloquent, his throat vibrant with unuttered sound, and in that fashion remained without movement, John Thornton would reverently exclaim, "God! you can all but speak!" Buck had a trick of love expression that was akin to hurt. He would often seize Thornton's hand in his mouth and close so fiercely that the flesh bore the impress of his teeth for some time afterward. And as Buck understood the oaths to be love words, so the man understood this feigned bite for a caress. For the most part, however, Buck's love was expressed in adoration. While he went wild with happiness when Thornton touched him or spoke to him, he did not seek these tokens. Unlike Skeet, who was wont to shove her nose under Thornton's hand and nudge and nudge till petted, or Nig, who would stalk up and rest his great head on Thornton's knee, Buck was content to adore at a distance. He would lie by the hour, eager, alert, at Thornton's feet, looking up into his face, dwelling upon it, studying it, following with keenest interest each fleeting expression, every movement or change of feature. Or, as chance might have it, he would lie farther away, to the side or rear, watching the outlines of the man and the occasional movements of his body. And often, such was the communion in which they lived, the strength of Buck's gaze would draw John Thornton's head around, and he would return the gaze, without speech, his heart shining out of his eyes as Buck's heart shone out. For a long time after his rescue, Buck did not like Thornton to get out of his sight. From the moment he left the tent to when he entered it again, Buck would follow at his heels. His transient masters since he had come into the Northland had bred in him a fear that no master could be permanent. He was afraid that Thornton would pass out of his life as Perrault and Francois and the Scotch half-breed had passed out. Even in the night, in his dreams, he was haunted by this fear. At such times he would shake off sleep


dominion round about with an unseen wail of shadow and bewilderment: the Girdle of Melian, that none thereafter could pass against her will or the will of King Thingol, unless one should come with a power greater than that of Melian the Maia. And this inner land, which was long named Eglador, was after called Doriath, the guarded kingdom, Land of the Girdle. Within it there was yet a watchful peace; but without there was peril and great fear, and the servants of Morgoth roamed at will, save in the walled havens of the Falas. But new tidings were at hand, which none in Middle-earth had foreseen, neither Morgoth in his pits nor Melian in Menegroth; for no news came out of Aman whether by messenger, or by spirit, or by vision in dream, after the death of the Trees. In this same time Fanor came over the Sea in the white ships of the Teleri and landed in the Firth of Drengist, and there burned the ships at Losgar. Chapter 11 Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor It is told that after the flight of Melkor the Valar sat long unmoved upon their thrones in the Ring of Doom; but they were not idle, as Fanor declared in the folly of his heart. For the Valar may work many things with thought rather than with hands, and without voices in silence they may hold council one with another. Thus they held vigil in the night of Valinor, and their thought passed back beyond E and forth to the End; yet neither power nor wisdom assuaged their grief, and the knowing of evil in the hour of its being. And they mourned not more for the death of the Trees than for the marring of Fanor: of the works of Melkor one of the most evil. For Fanor was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind, in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and in subtlety alike, of all the Children of Ilvatar, and a bright flame was in him. The works of wonder for the glory of Arda that he might otherwise have wrought only Manw might in some measure conceive. And it was told by the Vanyar who held vigil with the Valar that when the messengers declared to Manw the answers of Fanor to his heralds, Manw wept and bowed his head. But at that last word of Fanor: that at the least the Noldor should do deeds to live in song for ever, he raised his head, as one that hears a voice far off, and he said: 'So shall it be! Dear-bought those songs shall be accounted, and yet shall be well-bought. For the price could be no other. Thus even as Eru spoke to us shall beauty not before conceived be brought into E, and evil yet be good to have been.' But Mandos said: 'And yet remain evil. To me shall Fanor come soon.' But when at last the Valar learned that the


car. It’s been years: Bailey clearly means him no harm and has managed to be discreet enough that Nick’s queerness isn’t the talk of the Chronicle. But Bailey’s presence sets Nick’s teeth on edge and somehow it’s worse because Bailey is trying to be decent. A week after that awful meeting at the baths, he cornered Nick in the cafeteria and gave him a business card for a lawyer with another phone number inked in at the bottom. “Memorize both of these numbers if you ever have trouble,” Bailey had said. Nick had been annoyed at the presumption but also grateful, because, yes, the phone number of a queer-friendly lawyer was a good thing to have, goddammit. “I’ve been reading that series you’re writing,” Bailey says now. “It’s funny. You’re wasted on the news.” “Funny?” Nick repeats, outraged. “Wasted?” “Those were compliments.” “Like hell they were.” “You’re a good prose stylist.” “I’m a what?” Nick knows what those words mean separately and even together but not when applied to himself. “Compliment, kid. You’re good at what you do.” “But not at reporting news?” “Didn’t say that. Just meant that you’d be better at writing something else. Did you read that book I sent you?” “No,” Nick says with feeling. Bailey takes out a pack of cigarettes and offers one to Nick, who shakes his head. “You should read it. I think you’d like it.” “That’s what you always say.” A couple times a year, Nick finds a tale of gay misery and woe on his desk, because apparently Bailey has taken it upon himself to be Nick’s personal sad gay librarian. “You have shitty taste in books. Would it kill you to read something that isn’t totally dismal?” “I’m paid for my taste in books,” Bailey says easily. “And I don’t mind dismal things. I’m trying to be your friend, aren’t I?” Nick leaves before the conversation can get any weirder. * * * When Andy comes back from the afternoon editorial meeting, his face is drawn, his jaw clenched. That’s how he always looks when he’s been in a meeting, and these days he’s spending less and less time in the newsroom, and more and more time in meetings. “What happened?” Nick asks. “The usual.” Andy passes his own desk and comes to sit on the edge of Nick’s. “Circulation’s down and department stores don’t want to pay enough to advertise girdles.” It’s a truism in the news business that the entire fourth estate is propped up by dry goods manufacturers advertising underwear. “The fact is that fewer and fewer people get news from the newspaper, and every news editor in the room thinks the solution is to print more news and everyone in the marketing department thinks the solution is to decrease the news hole and run more ads. Every meeting we go over the same ground.” Nick tips back in his seat to look Andy in the eye. “What does your father say?” “He wants to keep doing things more or less the way we have been. Not because


on the fly. When the pandemic hit, the governor issued stay-at-home orders. For two months, my husband worked from his home office while I tried to stay out of his way. Domestic abuse rose worldwide during lockdown and my household was no exception. Benjamin took his fear, his sense of powerlessness, and his frustrations out on me. And with no one to see the bruises, the violence escalated. I took it—I had no choice—but my resignation seemed to increase his disdain. By the time we emerged back into the world, my husband had grown to hate me. The use of surveillance in our marriage escalated then. Benjamin had a private security team financed by his firm. He’d represented dangerous people, and not always successfully. Threats on his life were common, on my life sporadic. “Nate will keep you safe.” Benjamin explained the security guard posted at the end of the driveway. “But he’s watching you. And he’ll report back to me if you don’t do as you’re told.” That’s when I began to run. Our street abutted a heavily wooded state park. The security guard could not follow me in a vehicle, and I was far too fast for him on foot. To my relief, Nate, a massive man with a shiny bald head and hint of warmth in his brown eyes, was a lackadaisical minder. Perhaps he knew that I needed this small taste of freedom. That I would eventually return because I had no other options. When I was running along the forest trails, I was unencumbered and uninhibited. For a while the endorphins kept the depression at bay. But after a while, I succumbed. “You’re going to see a psychiatrist,” my husband announced one morning. “He’s a friend of mine.” I dutifully agreed, but it was a sham, of course. I couldn’t tell Dr. Veillard the truth about my marriage. He would have reported it directly to Benjamin. Instead, the shrink asked me about my mom, my self-isolation, my lack of motivation. He’d recommended a hobby. Prescribed sleeping pills and Xanax. When Benjamin inquired about our sessions, I pasted on a smile. “I’m feeling a lot better.” But at night, when I lay awake next to my Master, the pain descended, dark and heavy. The abuse was escalating, slowly but surely, and one day he would go too far. I would not survive the relationship for long, but leaving him, filing for divorce was impossible. Benjamin would kill me; he’d told me as much. And my mother would be as good as dead. He’d stop paying for her deluxe care facility and she’d end up withering away in a state home or even on the street. My mom’s comfort and care were more important to me than my own life. And so, I stayed. I could see no way to get away from him. 26 BENJAMIN CONTROLLED MY GROOMING HABITS: French manicure, full wax, spray tan in the winter months. He chose my shoulder-length hairstyle and my subtle makeup palette. I had some freedom with my wardrobe; I’d always


then begins to pick up his scattered cabbages. The eunuch draws his bow again and aims for another passerby. This time the arrow flies past the intended victim and disappears into a scraggly field. The eunuch reaches into his quiver for a third arrow. The Hongzhi emperor may be hoping to bring righteousness back to the realm, but he’ll never succeed if members of the court would shoot at common men for amusement. * * * We have the wind at our backs, but some days it feels as though we’re being propelled by a river of Meiling’s tears. We spend most days inside, curtains drawn, with the only light coming from a single flickering lamp wick. Meiling usually wears one of the simple gowns she brought with her from Wuxi, and her hair is knotted into an unadorned bun. Both accentuate her thinness. I keep thinking about when I first saw Meiling upon reaching the capital. How happy she was… But happiness is transient. Yin and yang always struggle for balance, with the darkness of yin sometimes winning and the brightness of yang striving to bring things back into balance. “I blame myself for Meiling’s miscarriage,” I confide to Miss Zhao one night as we sit together on the deck after I’ve nursed Lian. “I should have seen something was wrong.” “I doubt she blames you,” Miss Zhao says. “But I think she does.” “Then you should talk to her.” “It doesn’t seem like she wants that.” “Are you sure? Have you tried?” I haven’t, but I’ve taken Meiling’s silence for reproval. “How can she forgive me when I can’t forgive myself?” I ask Miss Zhao as I adjust Lian in my arms. “Whatever she’s feeling toward me is made worse now that I have a son. Every sound he makes must feel like another stab from a sword.” I hesitate, afraid to reveal my deepest fear. “I don’t know if a path can be found back to the trust and the deep-heart love Meiling and I first discovered as girls.” “Every minute of silence you allow to continue will push the two of you farther apart. It takes a lifetime to make a friend, but you can lose one in an hour,” she recites. “Life without a friend is life without sun. Life without a friend is death.” I nod in acceptance of her wisdom. “Can you take the baby for a while?” Lian doesn’t even open his eyes as I transfer him to Miss Zhao. I return to our room and Meiling’s seemingly unbreakable reserve. I tell Poppy to go to the deck. After she leaves, I sit on the edge of Meiling’s cot. She rolls away from me. I put a hand on her ankle, hoping to send the message that I’m not going anywhere. “I keep thinking about what I could have done differently,” I begin, although it feels like I’m talking to the air. “I’ve reexamined everything I gave you and reviewed all the times I performed the Four Examinations on you. I should find a


slowly across the ring, a feral smile on her face, the cheers of the crowd encouraging her to take her time with an obviously weaker opponent. Lore heaved in deep breaths as she drew closer, willing her stomach to expand, pushing the pain in her head to the edges. She shifted her aching body—ass on the ground, legs bent before her, hands braced behind. A halfhearted struggle made it look like she was trying to get up and failing, which only sharpened the redhead’s smile. The girl finally came close enough to touch, though Lore didn’t lash out, not yet. She cocked her head and looked down at Lore the way one might look at a petulant child. “I would offer you the chance to yield, but I need the practice.” Her fist closed, pulled back. Lore’s seated position put her at eye level with the other girl’s stomach. Perfect. Leg rising, leaning back on her hands, a quick look to make sure she aimed correctly, all in the span of a second. Lore kicked at the other girl’s kneecap, and it sent her sprawling backward with a hoarse cry of pain. “The eyes of the legs,” Lore muttered, and heaved herself up from the ground. The crowd cheered, their loyalties changeable as the weather. Bastian whooped, but Gabe looked worried. He wanted her to yield, she could see it in his eyes, but she didn’t think her opponent would give her the opportunity, especially not now. Losing big it was, then. Lore winced preemptively. “You’ll pay for that.” The other girl shook her leg out, barely limping, though agony shone in the rictus of her mouth as she ran forward. “Yes, I suppose I will,” Lore sighed. “Break it up!” The shouts came from the streets back toward the city, accompanied by the sounds of boots on cobblestones. The cheers of the crowd turned to shouts of surprise. “Bloodcoats! Clear out!” The hay ring was abandoned; spectators and waiting fighters alike turned tail and hauled ass, disappearing into alleyways as a group of bloodcoats surged into the street, bayonets catching the orange glow of the streetlights. It made them look like spears of flame. The girl Lore had been fighting cursed, turning to run on her sore leg. She didn’t give Lore a second glance. Revenge came long down the list of priorities when escaping the Burnt Isles was number one. A hand on her arm, steering her forward. Gabe. “Let’s go. This was a dead end.” They ran with the crowd up the streets, the sounds of capture and occasional gunfire spurring them on from behind, until Bastian darted out of an alley’s narrow mouth. “Over here!” Gabe didn’t break his stride as he turned, steering them both into the relative safety of the dark. Lore leaned against the wall, arms crossed over her stomach. It still hurt from getting punched, and the impromptu run hadn’t helped. “We need to go back to the Citadel before this gets out of hand.” Bastian stood right inside the lip of the alley,


if there are those who think he had better have been kicking a football I can only say that I wholly agree with them. For at the end of a time that under his influence I had quite ceased to measure, I started up with a strange sense of having literally slept at my post. It was after luncheon, and by the schoolroom fire, and yet I hadn't really, in the least, slept: I had only done something much worse-- I had forgotten. Where, all this time, was Flora? When I put the question to Miles, he played on a minute before answering and then could only say: "Why, my dear, how do _I_ know?"--breaking moreover into a happy laugh which, immediately after, as if it were a vocal accompaniment, he prolonged into incoherent, extravagant song. I went straight to my room, but his sister was not there; then, before going downstairs, I looked into several others. As she was nowhere about she would surely be with Mrs. Grose, whom, in the comfort of that theory, I accordingly proceeded in quest of. I found her where I had found her the evening before, but she met my quick challenge with blank, scared ignorance. She had only supposed that, after the repast, I had carried off both the children; as to which she was quite in her right, for it was the very first time I had allowed the little girl out of my sight without some special provision. Of course now indeed she might be with the maids, so that the immediate thing was to look for her without an air of alarm. This we promptly arranged between us; but when, ten minutes later and in pursuance of our arrangement, we met in the hall, it was only to report on either side that after guarded inquiries we had altogether failed to trace her. For a minute there, apart from observation, we exchanged mute alarms, and I could feel with what high interest my friend returned me all those I had from the first given her. "She'll be above," she presently said--"in one of the rooms you haven't searched." "No; she's at a distance." I had made up my mind. "She has gone out." Mrs. Grose stared. "Without a hat?" I naturally also looked volumes. "Isn't that woman always without one?" "She's with HER?" "She's with HER!" I declared. "We must find them." My hand was on my friend's arm, but she failed for the moment, confronted with such an account of the matter, to respond to my pressure. She communed, on the contrary, on the spot, with her uneasiness. "And where's Master Miles?" "Oh, HE'S with Quint. They're in the schoolroom." "Lord, miss!" My view, I was myself aware--and therefore I suppose my tone-- had never yet reached so calm an assurance. "The trick's played," I went on; "they've successfully worked their plan. He found the most divine little way to keep me quiet while she went off." "'Divine'?" Mrs. Grose bewilderedly echoed. "Infernal, then!" I almost cheerfully rejoined. "He has


– not hatred or revenge, but how to save as many lives as possible. Since the tanker had been empty when it had been seized, they didn’t need to dump three million barrels of crude oil into the ocean, avoiding the discovery of whether such an environmentally destructive act would have provoked a response from the alien occupation force, the new owners of this planet. Entering the cavernous belly of the ship, Bedri had marvelled at the scale, the largest manmade space he’d ever encountered, twenty metres high, sixteen metres wide, three hundred metres deep. With cotton scarves wrapped around their mouths to limit their intake of toxic fumes, he and his crew considered the challenge of converting this to a habitable space. The first step had been to wash out the tanks with seawater until no oil remained. Then they set about trying to improve the ventilation, cutting a system of airholes up to the main deck. There were only two tall narrow service ladders down into the tank and no living facilities of any kind. Thousands of plastic buckets, sourced from the mainland, would suffice as toilets, needing to be hoisted up to deck by a pulley system of ropes and the contents tossed overboard. Many of his loyal crew believed Bedri had done enough – they’d created transportation for some two hundred thousand people, people who’d been abandoned by their government and left to fend for themselves by the international community. Saving a million lives was an unachievable goal, they said. He’d become angered by this attitude, refusing to accept defeat. He wasn’t thinking big because of some personal vanity or youthful ego – this was about the survival of entire villages, families and generations. Exasperated, his closest friend had exclaimed: ‘What more can we do?’ Bedri had looked up, pointing at the empty space above the base of the tank. ‘Look at all this empty space!’ His crew, who were devoted to him, didn’t understand – they didn’t have time to build new decks. Bedri shook his head. ‘We can make hammocks. We’ll tie them from side to side. Fifteen floors of hammocks, one meter between each line, from side to side, from one end to the other, like washing lines, line after line of hammocks.’ He’d run across the width of the tank, calculating. ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven – eleven hammocks on each line.’ ‘Who’d be in them?’ ‘People strong enough to climb along the rope.’ ‘How would we do it?’ ‘Rope! We need rope! We need miles and miles of rope. If there’s not enough rope, we use cloth, flags, anything. But we’re not done yet. Each hammock is a life.’ From all over the country the crew had sought out rope, cloth, fabric, anything strong enough to knit together, woven by an industry of people on the top deck. And by the fifteenth day, as if a giant spider had been busy, the inside of the oil tanker was spun with a lattice of hammocks bolted to the


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

there is no longer refraction or reflection except at the surfaces, and it becomes as transparent as glass. And not only paper, but cotton fibre, linen fibre, wool fibre, woody fibre, and bone, Kemp, flesh, hair, nails and nerves, Kemp, in fact the whole fabric of a man except the red of his blood and the black pigment of hair, are all made up of transparent, colourless tissue. So little suffices to make us visible one to the other. For the most part the fibres of a living creature are no more opaque than water." "Great Heavens!" cried Kemp. "Of course, of course! I was thinking only last night of the sea larvae and all jelly-fish!" "Now you have me! And all that I knew and had in mind a year after I left London--six years ago. But I kept it to myself. I had to do my work under frightful disadvantages. Oliver, my professor, was a scientific bounder, a journalist by instinct, a thief of ideas,--he was always prying! And you know the knavish system of the scientific world. I simply would not publish, and let him share my credit. I went on working. I got nearer and nearer making my formula into an experiment, a reality. I told no living soul, because I meant to flash my work upon the world with crushing effect,--to become famous at a blow. I took up the question of pigments to fill up certain gaps. And suddenly, not by design but by accident, I made a discovery in physiology." "Yes?" "You know the red colouring matter of blood; it can be made white--colourless--and remain with all the functions it has now!" Kemp gave a cry of incredulous amazement. The Invisible Man rose and began pacing the little study. "You may well exclaim. I remember that night. It was late at night, --in the daytime one was bothered with the gaping, silly students,-- and I worked then sometimes till dawn. It came suddenly, splendid and complete into my mind. I was alone; the laboratory was still, with the tall lights burning brightly and silently. In all my great moments I have been alone. 'One could make an animal--a tissue-- transparent! One could make it invisible! All except the pigments. I could be invisible!' I said, suddenly realising what it meant to be an albino with such knowledge. It was overwhelming. I left the filtering I was doing, and went and stared out of the great window at the stars. 'I could be invisible!' I repeated. "To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man,--the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck, hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college, might suddenly become--this. I ask you, Kemp, if you--Any one, I tell you, would have flung himself upon that research. And I worked three years, and every mountain of difficulty I toiled over showed another


hands and feet tied. They are staring at the stone floor, bare-chested, shivering. Timandra walks to them and kicks them. They look up, their dark eyes shiny, the skin stretched on their cheekbones. Their faces are already like skulls. “Where are the women?” Clytemnestra asks. Almonds and nuts are scattered on the wooden table, as if left by someone in a hurry. Overripe apricots in a bowl smell sweet and rotten. “Gone,” Timandra says. Her fingers are tight around the handle of her bronze sword. “I made sure of that.” The servants are staring at her, pleading and fear on their faces. She can see the marks and blood crusts on their arms, and she wonders if Timandra beat them before she brought her here or if it was someone else. “Tell my sister what you told me,” Timandra orders, her voice empty of any warmth. “How you were with the king of Maeonia when he died.” She looks strange in the shadows, unnerving. Clytemnestra stands still. The hatred inside her is growing roots. She can see it on her sister’s face, and something else beneath it, blistering. If her brother were here, Timandra wouldn’t have to do this, but Castor is far across the sea, following some hero’s quest. “The king gave us the order,” one servant whispers. His voice is broken, a croaking sound. “We had no choice.” She should pity them, she knows that, their existence made of orders and suffering, their lives like rafts pushed around by the waves. But it is easy to turn to the weakest when you are racked with pain, to hurt those who can’t defend themselves when you are unable to hurt those who have hurt you. This is how the world works, raging gods forcing nymphs and humans into submission, heroes taking advantage of lesser men and women, kings and princes exploiting slaves. Clytemnestra doesn’t want to be like that. She is hateful, but she is not merciless. What good would it be to kick and hurt the helots further, to make their last moments insufferable? Let their deaths be quick. She looks into her sister’s angry eyes and nods. Timandra walks behind the servants, her blade in hand. The men are praying now, their words quick, like shadows shifting on water. “The gods can’t find you here,” Clytemnestra says. They have a moment to look up at her, their mouths open to plead, their hands clasped. Then Timandra cuts their throats. * * * In the evening, when darkness seems to envelop the valley like a dark ocean wave, Tyndareus sends for her. Rain is falling thickly, the wind thrashing and screeching. Soon the Eurotas will overflow and the riverbanks will be muddy for weeks. “I will come with you,” Helen says, closing the purple tunic on Clytemnestra’s back with a golden pin. She has been pacing the bedroom all day, restless, cleaning every stain from Timandra’s dress. There was crusted blood under her sister’s fingernails, and Helen scrubbed them so hard she might have been trying to flay them. “I


ambush. “Stop checking my phone,” Ella said. “How did you know?” Maud said. “You left the browser open. You do that every time. Do you think I’m doing drugs or something?” “No,” Maud stuttered. “It’s a habit from when you were sick and your dad and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.” “Well, he was better at it,” Ella said with a withering glance. Maud looked down and fiddled with a button on her sweater. “Ella,” Rita said, “would you mind giving your mom and me a minute?” “Fine,” Ella said and stalked out of the room. “I’m sorry,” Maud told Rita when the door closed. “I guess I shouldn’t do that anymore? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Rita held out a tissue box. “She didn’t mean for it to come out so harshly.” “I think she did,” Maud said, taking a tissue. “She’s different with me than with Peter. She’s still so angry. It’s like our relationship gets worse as she gets better.” “You’re the mother. That makes it more complicated,” Rita said. “I’ve mentioned this before. If you think that you could use extra support, I can give you names. You need to take care of your mental health too.” “Thank you.” Maud wiped her eyes and picked up her purse. “I know. I’ll consider it.” But she didn’t want to go to therapy. She didn’t want to tell anyone about Gabriel. She and Ella ran from the office through the rain. “I’ll stop checking your phone,” Maud told her when they were in the car. “I did it because I love you.” “Please love me without invading my privacy,” Ella said. “Please try to talk to me more.” “I talk to you, Mom.” Ella pointed at her mouth. “See my lips moving?” Maud headed out of the parking lot, but as they passed through the city, she exited the freeway and drove quickly up the steep streets. “Where are we going?” Ella said. “Annette’s,” Maud said. She needed a hug from her sister. Annette’s condo sat high on Twin Peaks in a lopsided building where she’d moved to after her husband, Dale, had died. Buddha statues, patchouli candles, and Tibetan prayer flags from Pier 1 Imports filled the sunny rooms. Crystals sparkled on the windowsills. In the first years of her grief, Annette had made a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree spiritual turn from Catholicism to a hodgepodge of watered-down Eastern religions. Yoga and this paraphernalia were all that remained. “Surprise!” Maud called from the hall. “Kitchen,” a voice—not Annette’s—called back. Their mother was at the table drinking instant coffee. Four opened packets of artificial sweeter lay on the saucer. “Hi,” Maud said. “Where’s Annette?” She usually got home by four, but maybe she’d stayed at the office late today and Maud would be stuck here alone with their mother. “Basement. Doing laundry. Getting ready for one of her dates.” Her mother turned to Ella, who was rummaging in a refrigerator stocked with diet sodas, protein shakes, and single containers of cottage cheese. “I finished sewing your sister’s


back.” Ìyá Ẹniọlá glanced around. They were not in the path of vehicles that sped into the station to refuel, but who knew what crazy driver might decide to veer towards them. “Should I help you to get up? Your guide is still busy, we can wait for him together. Should I help you?” “What if there is someone behind you? Somebody that you have planned with to kidnap me. I can’t even see to know if that is happening. Leave me alone, woman. My guide will come and help me.” Ìyá Ẹniọlá decided to wait with him until his guide returned from following the trail of scattered notes. A car revved past, lifting one of the twenty-naira notes that had fallen near Ìyá Ẹniọlá’s feet. She bent to help the beggar pick it up before it fluttered away. But as her hand went towards the money, the beggar snatched it out of the way. He glared at her as he stuffed the note into a breast pocket. His eyes were clear and focused. “Ehn!” she said. “You’re not blind.” He put a forefinger against his lip. A plea. No, a warning. Swift as a snake striking, he brought out a small bit of wood from his pocket and, flicking it with his thumb, revealed its serrated blade. Ìyá Ẹniọlá stumbled back and walked away, resisting the urge to glance back at the man when she was out in the street. She crossed the road immediately, darting between taxis and ignoring the angry drivers who yelled curses at her. · 9 · Wúràọlá decided to get up when Mọ́tárá kicked her shin again. She had been awake for about an hour. Drowsy but unable to drift back into sleep, even after she had counted four hundred sheep. Meanwhile, Mọ́tárá thrashed around on the bed, evidently still the restless sleeper she had been when she was a toddler who rolled off the bed with such consistency that her mattress had been placed on the floor. When the clock on her bedside table blinked 4:17 in red, angular digits, Wúràọlá sat up and tapped the floor with one foot until she found her bathroom slippers. It was going to be a long day of shuffling between guests to make sure the endless stream that was expected left satisfied with: their starters and souvenirs, the size and type of meat they were served, the exact temperature of the drinks that weighed down their tables. She still did not understand why those details mattered so much, but she knew that many people cared about such things. An older cousin on her father’s side of the family had refused to speak to Wúràọlá for two years because she had been supervising caterers at another cousin’s wedding when they served him fish instead of chicken. Wúràọlá was sure that by six-thirty a.m. her mother would barge into the room and demand that she help with one of the million things that needed to be done before the party began at noon. Yèyé thought being in bed after dawn


FAHRENHEIT 451 This one, with gratitude, is for DON CONGDON. FAHRENHEIT 451: The temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns PART I IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN IT was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning. Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame. He knew that when he returned to the firehouse, he might wink at himself, a minstrel man, burnt-corked, in the mirror. Later, going to sleep, he would feel the fiery smile still gripped by his face muscles, in the dark. It never went away, that. smile, it never ever went away, as long as he remembered. He hung up his black-beetle-coloured helmet and shined it, he hung his flameproof jacket neatly; he showered luxuriously, and then, whistling, hands in pockets, walked across the upper floor of the fire station and fell down the hole. At the last moment, when disaster seemed positive, he pulled his hands from his pockets and broke his fall by grasping the golden pole. He slid to a squeaking halt, the heels one inch from the concrete floor downstairs. He walked out of the fire station and along the midnight street toward the subway where the silent, air-propelled train slid soundlessly down its lubricated flue in the earth and let him out with a great puff of warm air an to the cream-tiled escalator rising to the suburb. Whistling, he let the escalator waft him into the still night air. He walked toward the comer, thinking little at all about nothing in particular. Before he reached the corner, however, he slowed as if a wind had sprung up from nowhere, as if someone had called his name. The last few nights he had had the most uncertain feelings about the sidewalk just around the corner here, moving in the starlight toward his house. He had felt that a moment before his making the turn, someone had been there. The air seemed charged with a special calm as if someone had waited there, quietly, and only a moment before he came, simply turned to a shadow


life, a brilliant and complex life. Her thoughts felt slow and heavy. She was not innocent anymore. Atto and Liza ran forward, hugging her, holding her tight. Liza whispered into Echo’s ear: ‘She would’ve killed you. She would’ve killed us.’ ‘I feel something I’ve never felt before…’ Her sentence drifted into silence, searching for the word. ‘I feel shame.’ With the body of Cho across his back, Eitan approached, his colony behind him. It was not an attack but a funeral march. Echo stepped forward, in front of her family, ready to defend them yet at the same time sharing in the grief of those opposing her, realizing that she remained connected to their thoughts, catching fragments of their pain. Eitan’s voice was different, no longer brassy and unbreakable. ‘Your people have until the first day of winter to leave this place. After the sun sets, we will kill anyone who remains.’ Echo said: ‘I didn’t intend to kill her.’ ‘You could’ve been one of us. Now you belong with them.’ With that said, the colony of cold creatures turned in unison, heading in procession out of the ruins of the city, towards the mountains and glaciers they called home. EPILOGUE TWO MONTHS LATER TRANS-ANTARCTICA FREEWAY 15 MARCH 2044 AHEAD OF THE APPROACHING WINTER a second Exodus was underway – a 1,800-mile trek across the continent, a perilous journey made famous by daring explorers seeking a place in the record books. What was once adventure was now necessity. The people of McMurdo were abandoning their capital city; for the children born there it was the only home they’d ever known. Across the ice shelf a caravan of a million McMurdo City refugees snaked across the snow, like a hairline crack in a white porcelain plate. Having made an extraordinary journey to this continent, another journey was being demanded of them, this time to the Peninsula, trying to complete the journey before winter arrived. Many of McMurdo’s leaders drowned during the sinking of the flagship and a new leadership had taken charge, made up of former generals and admirals from armies around the world. Under their stewardship, the evacuation of McMurdo City had been well-organized and calm, unloading all the supplies from the ships, barely enough to see them through the journey let alone the long dark winter ahead. Many of the snow vehicles had been destroyed in the fire. As for the packs of once devoted huskies, all of them had joined the colony of cold creatures, including Yotam’s dog Copper. Not a single dog remained, as if they understood that this continent had new masters now. As the last refugees set off from the scorched remains of McMurdo City, they fired a hundred flares into a clear blue sky, representing the end of this base where people had lived for one hundred years. The three Survivor Towns responded to the news of the uprising with resilience and generosity, promising to welcome the new arrivals with the same love and compassion as if they were family. But there was no hiding from


your ass in axe throwing.” Hallie whooped and held up a glass of wine. “I know that’s right.” “Your turn, August,” Julian prompted. Was he smirking? August couldn’t even feel the axe in his hand when he picked it up. He turned it over a few times, looked down, and found it shaking. Damn. “Uh, does someone else want to take a turn?” “Turns must go in order,” Julian said, pointing at the rule sheet. Having no choice, August made sure no one was standing too close, then threw the weapon—watching with a sour stomach as it landed in the outer ring. No one said anything when he stepped back and gestured for Natalie to take her turn. She looked at him curiously on her way up to the barrier, picking up the handle of her blade. This time, she caught the middle ring, followed by Hallie doing the same. Julian got a bull’s-eye. They were all talking and planning the next round, but August couldn’t concentrate on what was being said. All he could see was Natalie trapped and scared, and he needed to get some air. Now. “I’ll be right back.” August tried to smile but was pretty sure he just looked ready to hurl. “Just stepping outside for a minute.” “Hey.” Before he could take a step, Natalie reached out and caught his wrist. “You’re not mad because you lost the wager, are you?” “What wager?” She blinked. “Come on, let’s go.” She pulled him through the crowd toward the door. “You’re having a mental breakdown. Either that or you just realized you gave up the chance to ridicule me over a thirty-minute makeup routine, so you’re faking amnesia.” Christ, he needed to pull himself together. “I remember.” They stepped into the crisp evening, onto the empty sidewalk outside Jed’s, the last remnants of the earlier sunset giving the air a purplish glow. Or maybe he really was just having a mental break. Could air taste purple? “But I was kind of counting on winning.” “What happened?” Natalie asked. “I’m not very good at feeling helpless. That’s how I felt hearing that story.” He looked her over, head to toe, barely resisting the urge to reach out and run his hands all over her skin. “You’re okay? You didn’t get burned anywhere?” Her mouth opened and closed, her stance shifting side to side. “No. It was really scary, but beyond the fact that I triple-check my smoke detectors now, I’m fine.” “Good.” A beat passed. “How can you doubt your brother loves you when he ran into a burning shed to save you?” August said it without thinking, raking a still unsteady hand down his face. God, he really needed to thank Julian for what he’d done. He would. Soon as he got back inside. In fact, he was going to ask him to be his best man. “It’s . . . his nature. He always does the right thing.” Natalie’s cheeks were deepening with color. “It gave him a terrible panic attack afterward. He’s had this anxiety since


though it was a great annoyance when it God ever allowed upon the sea, and the language in which he blew. I remember the appearance of his coat, which he patched told these stories shocked our plain country people almost as himself upstairs in his room, and which, before the end, was much as the crimes that he described. My father was always nothing but patches. He never wrote or received a letter, and Contents saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease he never spoke with any but the neighbours, and with these, coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent for the most part, only when drunk on rum. The great sea- Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 8 9 chest none of us had ever seen open. it did not produce an agreeable effect, for he looked up for a He was only once crossed, and that was towards the end, moment quite angrily before he went on with his talk to old when my poor father was far gone in a decline that took him Taylor, the gardener, on a new cure for the rheumatics. In the off. Dr. Livesey came late one afternoon to see the patient, meantime, the captain gradually brightened up at his own took a bit of dinner from my mother, and went into the parlour music, and at last flapped his hand upon the table before him to smoke a pipe until his horse should come down from the in a way we all knew to mean silence. The voices stopped at hamlet, for we had no stabling at the old Benbow. I followed once, all but Dr. Livesey’s; he went on as before speaking clear him in, and I remember observing the contrast the neat, bright and kind and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word doctor, with his powder as white as snow and his bright, black or two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his eyes and pleasant manners, made with the coltish country hand again, glared still harder, and at last broke out with a folk, and above all, with that filthy, heavy, bleared scarecrow villainous, low oath, “Silence, there, between decks!” of a pirate of ours, sitting, far gone in rum, with his arms on “Were you addressing me, sir?” says the doctor; and when the table. Suddenly he—the captain, that is—began to pipe the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, up his eternal song: “I have only one thing to say to you, sir,” replies the doctor, “that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— quit of a very dirty scoundrel!” Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! The old fellow’s fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, Drink and the devil had done for the rest— drew and opened a sailor’s clasp-knife, and balancing it open Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” on the palm of his hand, threatened to pin


and the men slowly turned from looking up river and were drawn to the fire, awkwardly, with nothing to say, and the sun coloured the backs of their necks as they bent down. Granger unfolded an oilskin with some bacon in it. "We'll have a bite. Then we'll turn around and walk upstream. They'll be needing us up that way." Someone produced a small frying-pan and the bacon went into it and the frying-pan was set on the fire. After a moment the bacon began to flutter and dance in the pan and the sputter of it filled the morning air with its aroma. The men watched this ritual silently. Granger looked into the fire. "Phoenix." "What?" "There was a silly damn bird called a Phoenix back before Christ: every few hundred years he built a pyre and burned himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the Phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we just did. We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years, and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, some day we'll stop making the goddam funeral pyres and jumping into the middle of them. We pick up a few more people that remember, every generation." He took the pan off the fire and let the bacon cool and they ate it, slowly, thoughtfully. "Now, let's get on upstream," said Granger. "And hold on to one thought: You're not important. You're not anything. Some day the load we're carrying with us may help someone. But even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us. We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out in the long run. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddam steam-shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror-factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them." They finished eating and put out the fire. The day was brightening all about them as if a pink lamp had been given more wick. In the trees, the birds that had flown away now came back and settled down. Montag began walking and after a moment found that the others had fallen in behind him, going north.


our acquaintance, when I did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him--nay, was attached--and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder. Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past, for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth." Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy; and when she could find utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good than any thing else in the world could do. "Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself," said she. "On this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you might be attached to each other--and we were persuaded that it was so.-- Imagine what we have been feeling on your account." "I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit him, Mrs. Weston; and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners so very disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as he certainly did--to distinguish any one young woman with persevering attention, as he certainly did--while he really belonged to another?--How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?-- How could he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?-- very wrong, very wrong indeed." "From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine--" "And how could she bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness! to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman, before her face, and not resent it.--That is a degree of placidity, which I can neither comprehend nor respect." "There were misunderstandings between them, Emma; he said so expressly. He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow the full use even of the time he could stay-- but that there had been misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed, seemed to be brought on by them; and those misunderstandings might very possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct." "Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Weston--it is too calm a censure. Much, much beyond impropriety!--It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!-- None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life." "Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part; for though he has been wrong in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having many, very many, good qualities; and--" "Good God!" cried Emma, not attending to her.--"Mrs. Smallridge, too! Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean


the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. "Zaphod," she said patiently, "they were floating unprotected in open space ... you wouldn't want them to have died would you?" "Well, you know ... no. Not as such, but ..." "Not as such? Not die as such? But?" Trillian cocked her head on one side. "Well, maybe someone else might have picked them up later." "A second later and they would have been dead." "Yeah, so if you'd taken the trouble to think about the problem a bit longer it would have gone away." "You'd been happy to let them die?" "Well, you know, not happy as such, but ..." "Anyway," said Trillian, turning back to the controls, "I didn't pick them up." "What do you mean? Who picked them up then?" "The ship did." "Huh?" "The ship did. All by itself." "Huh?" "Whilst we were in Improbability Drive." "But that's incredible." "No Zaphod. Just very very improbable." "Er, yeah." "Look Zaphod," she said, patting his arm, "don't worry about the aliens. They're just a couple of guys I expect. I'll send the robot down to get them and bring them up here. Hey Marvin!" In the corner, the robot's head swung up sharply, but then wobbled about imperceptibly. It pulled itself up to its feet as if it was about five pounds heavier that it actually was, and made what an outside observer would have thought was a heroic effort to cross the room. It stopped in front of Trillian and seemed to stare through her left shoulder. "I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed," it said. Its voice was low and hopeless. "Oh God," muttered Zaphod and slumped into a seat. "Well," said Trillian in a bright compassionate tone, "here's something to occupy you and keep your mind off things." "It won't work," droned Marvin, "I have an exceptionally large mind." "Marvin!" warned Trillian. "Alright," said Marvin, "what do you want me to do?" "Go down to number two entry bay and bring the two aliens up here under surveillance." With a microsecond pause, and a finely calculated micromodulation of pitch and timbre - nothing you could actually take offence at - Marvin managed to convey his utter contempt and horror of all things human. "Just that?" he said. "Yes," said Trillian firmly. "I won't enjoy it," said Marvin. Zaphod leaped out of his seat. "She's not asking you to enjoy it," he shouted, "just do it will you?" "Alright," said Marvin like the tolling of a great cracked bell, "I'll do it." "Good ..." snapped Zaphod, "great ... thank you ..." Marvin turned and lifted his flat-topped triangular red eyes up towards him. "I'm not getting you down at all am I?" he said pathetically. "No no Marvin," lilted Trillian, "that's just fine, really ..." "I wouldn't like to think that I was getting you down." "No, don't worry about that," the lilt continued, "you just act as comes naturally and


her life, like it had a pin sticking out of its middle and it couldn’t close all the way and Louise oh my god there’s a needle in my eye pupkin stuck a needle in my eye panicked and lashed out with one arm and she felt his soft body in her hand, and she squeezed and yanked and felt her collar tear as he clung to it and then she hurled him overhand and she heard him hit the wall between the dining and living rooms, then land on the carpet. She got to her feet, eyelid fluttering convulsively, putting the chairs between herself and where she’d heard him land. She saw him through one eye, the other eye blurry, swimming with tears. She wanted to close it but her eyelid kept hitting the needle and she could feel the thin silver splinter bouncing up and down inside her eyeball. Liquid flowed down her face. please let it be tears don’t let it be blood don’t let it be jelly let it be tears Pupkin stood in the patch of moonlight from the patio doors, swaying, shifting his weight from side to side. Her left eyelid fluttered like a trapped moth and she couldn’t make it stop, and she felt something sliding and she realized her eyelid was pushing the needle farther into her eyeball. Louise’s vision swam, the dark hall and moonlight smeared, and she forced herself to use two fingers to push past her fluttering eyelashes and pinch the small, sharp thorn projecting from the smooth, slippery surface, catching it just as it slipped fully into her eye, and she gripped it between two fingernails like tweezers and drew it out. Her eyelid, finally free, snapped shut as she threw the needle away, and that’s when Pupkin came for her, darting out of the moonlight. Louise should have jumped over him and run for the front door, she should have done anything else, but her nerve broke and she turned and ran for her bedroom and slammed the door, but Pupkin hit it before it closed and shoved his way inside and auditory hallucinations visual hallucinations tactile hallucinations cross my heart and hope to die stick a needle in my eye Pupkin came for Louise at full speed. She saw the closet doors in the splash of the streetlight, the only other doors in the room, and she ran for them, praying she could make it in time, and she fell into her closet, smashing the doors to the side, her right shoulder thudding into the back wall as she landed on the carpet, and she rolled over to see Pupkin running at her on his stumpy arms and legs, hate on his face, and she tried to close the doors, but she knew that this time there was nowhere to go, no escape. She scrabbled at the louvered slats of the closet doors with her fingertips, bending back her nails, dragging them shut just as Pupkin smashed into them, making the doors rock on their tracks. For a


doing honest upstanding American capitalist things that definitely had nothing to do with any of the waterfront gangs that ran half the city in those days. Somewhere around the turn of the century he met an enterprising young reporter named Cecilia Marks, who was making a name for herself by getting thrown into prisons in order to interview murderers, stowing away on steamships, chaining herself to various legislative buildings, and in general making herself irresistible to the likes of Andrew Fleming I, who had never met a danger he didn’t want to embrace with both arms. When the paper that employed Miss Marks threatened to fold, Andrew did the only sensible thing a man could do in that situation and bought the paper. Suitably wooed, Miss Marks became Mrs. Fleming, even though in the newspaper she retained her old byline. The paper succeeded; more papers were acquired; a son was produced, staid and responsible in a way that shocked the sensibilities of both of his parents. Young Andrew went off to fight a war, survived it, returned home to find that his father hadn’t, and took over the Chronicle. In the twenties, the Chronicle’s circulation exceeded half a million, which was none too shabby in a city that already had a couple dozen daily papers, not counting the weeklies, not counting the Black papers or those in other languages. The Chronicle’s success carried on through the thirties and right on through the war, not stumbling in the least when Fleming, again following in his father’s footsteps, married his star reporter. He divorced her almost immediately—but not before fathering a child. The circumstances that precipitated Andrew Fleming and Margaret Kelly’s divorce were well documented, having occurred in the newsroom of a major newspaper, surrounded by journalists with steel-trap memories and a penchant for gossip. Andy’s mother wanted to go to Germany to see what in hell was the matter over there. The Chronicle had always been progressive, and had only become more so under the stewardship of Andrew Fleming II, and while the staff might take their quarrels with one another about Stalin to the pages of the paper with unfortunate frequency, everyone agreed that Hitler was just a dirty fascist. But Andrew Fleming insisted that sloping off to fascist countries was not something that the mother of a newborn did; his wife accused him of being a fascist sympathizer. She went to Reno for a quickie divorce and then directly to the Herald Tribune, a betrayal that smarted much more than when she subsequently took up with her photographer in Berlin. This left Andrew Fleming with an infant and a paper to run. Only one of those required his personal attention and it wasn’t the baby. When Margaret Kelly returned to the States, she scooped the child up and deposited him in an apartment on the Upper East Side with a succession of housekeepers. She then went back to Berlin, and then to Prague and London and Paris. She was there for the liberation of Dachau. As a woman, she didn’t have


many a corner round which I expected to come upon Quint, and many a situation that, in a merely sinister way, would have favored the appearance of Miss Jessel. The summer had turned, the summer had gone; the autumn had dropped upon Bly and had blown out half our lights. The place, with its gray sky and withered garlands, its bared spaces and scattered dead leaves, was like a theater after the performance-- all strewn with crumpled playbills. There were exactly states of the air, conditions of sound and of stillness, unspeakable impressions of the KIND of ministering moment, that brought back to me, long enough to catch it, the feeling of the medium in which, that June evening out of doors, I had had my first sight of Quint, and in which, too, at those other instants, I had, after seeing him through the window, looked for him in vain in the circle of shrubbery. I recognized the signs, the portents--I recognized the moment, the spot. But they remained unaccompanied and empty, and I continued unmolested; if unmolested one could call a young woman whose sensibility had, in the most extraordinary fashion, not declined but deepened. I had said in my talk with Mrs. Grose on that horrid scene of Flora's by the lake--and had perplexed her by so saying--that it would from that moment distress me much more to lose my power than to keep it. I had then expressed what was vividly in my mind: the truth that, whether the children really saw or not--since, that is, it was not yet definitely proved--I greatly preferred, as a safeguard, the fullness of my own exposure. I was ready to know the very worst that was to be known. What I had then had an ugly glimpse of was that my eyes might be sealed just while theirs were most opened. Well, my eyes WERE sealed, it appeared, at present-- a consummation for which it seemed blasphemous not to thank God. There was, alas, a difficulty about that: I would have thanked him with all my soul had I not had in a proportionate measure this conviction of the secret of my pupils. How can I retrace today the strange steps of my obsession? There were times of our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they had visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I not been deterred by the very chance that such an injury might prove greater than the injury to be averted, my exultation would have broken out. "They're here, they're here, you little wretches," I would have cried, "and you can't deny it now!" The little wretches denied it with all the added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just the crystal depths of which-- like the flash of a fish in a stream--the mockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into me still deeper than I knew


boys. What surpassed everything was that there was a little boy in the world who could have for the inferior age, sex, and intelligence so fine a consideration. They were extraordinarily at one, and to say that they never either quarreled or complained is to make the note of praise coarse for their quality of sweetness. Sometimes, indeed, when I dropped into coarseness, I perhaps came across traces of little understandings between them by which one of them should keep me occupied while the other slipped away. There is a naive side, I suppose, in all diplomacy; but if my pupils practiced upon me, it was surely with the minimum of grossness. It was all in the other quarter that, after a lull, the grossness broke out. I find that I really hang back; but I must take my plunge. In going on with the record of what was hideous at Bly, I not only challenge the most liberal faith--for which I little care; but--and this is another matter--I renew what I myself suffered, I again push my way through it to the end. There came suddenly an hour after which, as I look back, the affair seems to me to have been all pure suffering; but I have at least reached the heart of it, and the straightest road out is doubtless to advance. One evening--with nothing to lead up or to prepare it-- I felt the cold touch of the impression that had breathed on me the night of my arrival and which, much lighter then, as I have mentioned, I should probably have made little of in memory had my subsequent sojourn been less agitated. I had not gone to bed; I sat reading by a couple of candles. There was a roomful of old books at Bly--last-century fiction, some of it, which, to the extent of a distinctly deprecated renown, but never to so much as that of a stray specimen, had reached the sequestered home and appealed to the unavowed curiosity of my youth. I remember that the book I had in my hand was Fielding's Amelia; also that I was wholly awake. I recall further both a general conviction that it was horribly late and a particular objection to looking at my watch. I figure, finally, that the white curtain draping, in the fashion of those days, the head of Flora's little bed, shrouded, as I had assured myself long before, the perfection of childish rest. I recollect in short that, though I was deeply interested in my author, I found myself, at the turn of a page and with his spell all scattered, looking straight up from him and hard at the door of my room. There was a moment during which I listened, reminded of the faint sense I had had, the first night, of there being something undefinably astir in the house, and noted the soft breath of the open casement just move the half-drawn blind. Then, with all the marks of a deliberation that must have seemed magnificent had there been anyone


The subject of our conversation chooses that moment to walk out of the Beech Hut without a backward glance. Michaela throws an unreadable look in my direction and follows. I play back everything I just said and feel my stomach thud down through my chair and splatter on the floor. Beside me, Jordan drawls, “Aw, Brad, don’t mind Max. He’s just jealous ’cause you’re paying more attention to Celine than to him.” A snicker ripples around the table. Donno turns rage-red. I wish I could enjoy it, but my thoughts are elsewhere. I get up and grab my bag. “Don’t talk shit to her again. Leave her alone.” The frigid air outside smacks into me like a brick wall. I left my jacket, I realize; doesn’t matter. Jordan will hold on to it. More important is following Celine’s retreating back. She’s a pop of scarlet in the November fog, her distinctive winter coat and Minnie’s huge curls fading into the gloomy crowd of kids from lower school. I wind through little ones who are swamped by their bottle-green uniform blazers, step onto the bark that borders the school pathways— Somewhere in the fog, a teacher blows their whistle. “Brad Graeme! I can see you, young man! Get off those flowerbeds!” I sigh and step back onto the pavement. So much for that shortcut. But up ahead, Celine and Minnie must hear my name because they turn around. Celine clocks me, even through all this mist—I can tell by the angle of her head, by the shift of her weight from one foot to the other. Then she turns back around and starts to walk away. “Celine Bangura,” I bellow. “Do. Not. Move.” If I’d thought about what I was saying before I opened my mouth, those words are…not the ones I’d have chosen. A few kids giggle as they pass me, but it’s worth it because Celine halts. Instead of flipping me off and leaving with Michaela, the two bend their heads together for a second before Minnie leaves. Alone. I stride over to meet Celine before I lose my nerve. I feel like a wrecking ball headed for a skyscraper made of steel. The last trickle of schoolkids loiter on their way past, making themselves late to lessons, all for the chance to see a bit of sixth-form drama. Celine’s skin is slightly damp with fog, gleaming like silk. I’d stare at her too. “I’m sorry,” I say when we’re a meter apart. She scowls. “What for?” I blink. “Is this a test?” Celine rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t walk away. “Your friend was a dick. You told him to shut up. What are you sorry for?” “You don’t mind that I said…I mean…” I take a frosty breath and get myself together. “Listen, Celine, I’ve treated you like shit for the longest, and that’s not me, and I’m sorry. And if…if it made other people do the same, then…” Then I will very shortly be flying myself into the sun because I’m too enormous an arsehole for this planet.


would keep him in her heart next to Olivia and the rest of his family as a treasured piece of a life she could have only in fantasy, and she would leave Downingham and hope Mr. Granger followed her and left the Calloways alone. For now, she would do what she could to make Simon’s life a happier one. To do that, she needed to keep him distracted, and she needed to do it without touching him. Touching him again would only distract her, and that was the last thing she needed. As he seemed to ready himself to return home to his stress, Lucy searched for something—anything—to keep him out here a little longer. He was so much more pleasant when he was out here, and it was practically the only time he truly smiled. The only thing she could see in the nearby vicinity were rocks along the edge of the pond. Rocks and weeds. “Can you skip stones, my lord?” He raised an eyebrow. “Not when you call me that, no.” Lucy groaned. “Simon.” At least he smiled again, though he seemed more confused by the question than anything. “Of course I can.” “Well, I cannot. Will you teach me?” The look he gave her, apart from sending blazing heat into her cheeks, told Lucy that Simon Calloway had no idea what to make of her, and she rather liked that. Mr. Granger had always acted as though he understood everything she could possibly want, and the fact that Simon had to work to know her and was still trying made her like him all the more. “You want to skip stones?” he asked, a measure of incredulity in his voice. “That is what I said.” She thought he would deny her attempt at distraction and return to the house, but then he shrugged and rose to his feet before offering his hand to help her up. “I thought everyone learned to skip stones as a child,” he said. “Not everyone grows up in a life of leisure,” she replied. “Our lands struggled too much to give us an adequate income, so I worked alongside my father from the day I was old enough to use a needle and thread, using any free time I had to study everything I needed to know to be a proper lady should I catch the eye of a suitor later in life. And I didn’t have a pond to practice skipping stones on. But I heard other children talk about it, and it sounded amusing.” Though he winced with appreciated sympathy and apology for forgetting their very different positions in life, Lucy hadn’t intended to make him pity her. They were out here to help him, so she bent down and picked up the roundest pebble she could find. “Not that one,” Simon said immediately, and he wrapped his hand around hers, holding onto her while he searched for a better rock. When he found one, he replaced the one in her palm with an exceptionally flat one. “The thinner the stone,


exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where he fell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by. With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along behind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the sleds to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered a moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then he returned and started his dogs. They swung out on the trail with remarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped in surprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. He called his comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through both of Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in his proper place. He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces, and once the sled ran upon him so that he limped thereafter in one of his hind legs. But he held out till camp was reached, when his driver made a place for him by the fire. Morning found him too weak to travel. At harness-up time he tried to crawl to his driver. By convulsive efforts he got on his feet, staggered, and fell. Then he wormed his way forward slowly toward where the harnesses were being put on his mates. He would advance his fore legs and drag up his body with a sort of hitching movement, when he would advance his fore legs and hitch ahead again for a few more inches. His strength left him, and the last his mates saw of him he lay gasping in the snow and yearning toward them. But they could hear him mournfully howling till they passed out of sight behind a belt of river timber. Here the train was halted. The Scotch half-breed slowly retraced his steps to the camp they had left. The men ceased talking. A revolver-shot rang out. The man came back hurriedly. The whips snapped, the bells tinkled merrily, the sleds churned along the trail; but Buck knew, and every dog knew, what had taken place behind the belt of river trees. Chapter V The Toil of Trace and Trail Thirty days from the time it left Dawson, the Salt Water Mail, with Buck and his mates at the fore, arrived at Skaguay. They were in a wretched state, worn out and worn down. Buck's one hundred


until it will descend no farther. “Help me,” the old man repeats. The blue that was ferocious is now a weak, robin’s-egg blue that inspires contempt. “Help me.” Looking down on the old man, feeling taller and stronger than he’d been just a minute earlier, Durand says, “Help you what? What do you want? Are you so stupid you don’t know what you want?” He likes how he sounds when he says that in the tone of voice he often wants to use with his parents but dares not. “Stupid geezer can’t even say what he wants.” “Call,” the old fart says. “Call.” “Call who? You want to order a pizza?” Amused by his joke, Durand laughs, but the geezer doesn’t even smile. He says, “Don’t.” This is a test, a challenge, and if Durand passes it, he will be something super, not right away but later, something amazing. He moves around to the head of the gurney. The old fart rolls his head side to side, tries to tip it back to see what’s happening, but he can’t. He says, “No.” Durand says, “Oh, yes. I know what you really are,” because he sees now what he’s got to do to prove he’s special, to show that nothing scares him. He must prove himself to the secret masters of the universe, who work in mysterious ways. The overhead fluorescent panels bleach the elderly man still whiter, and Durand cups his right hand under the respected guest’s stubbled chin, forcing the mouth shut. The man lacks the strength to resist. With his left hand, Durand pinches the nostrils tight. The quadriplegic can move nothing other than his head; he rolls it side to side, and for a minute he is vigorous in defense of his life, but he is not able to break his assailant’s grip. The rightness of the boy’s intention is confirmed for him when, as the light grows and the room blurs into a smooth sphere of whiteness, his pajamas seem to become a richer shade of yellow, shifting from saffron to lemon, and the hands that are instruments of suffocation flush with the color of life that a booming heart delivers. The man’s resistance grows feeble. The boy’s pajamas are now the yellow of an egg yolk, and his flesh is yet more darkly bronzed with urgent life, the blood vessels in his hands swollen to match his excitement, fingernails as pink as if they have been painted. When the geezer finishes dying, the blue of his eyes is a bleak frost, but Durand has become more vivid and colorful even than he has been in his most feverish night dreams of superpowers and violent adventures. His clamping hand relaxes, and his pinching fingers open. The blinding whiteness relents. Details of the cold-holding room return. He has passed the test. The challenge has been met. He’s afraid of nothing. Nothing. Not even of a man returned from the dead—or of some demon possessing a corpse. Having proved he is special, he will eventually have the super future of


here. Without a goodbye. As usual. It was fine. I had a party to go to. And wine to buy. As I moved into the wine aisle, Smokey Robinson came over the sound system with a song that had been one of my mom’s favorites—“I Second That Emotion.” Normally I would never sing along out loud to anything in public—especially in falsetto. But I had many happy memories of singing along to that song with my mom, and I knew it was all too easy for me to stew over my dad’s toxicity, and it kind of felt, in that moment, like Smokey had showed up right then to throw me an emotional lifeline. I glanced over at the owner. She was on the phone with somebody, laughing. And as far as I could tell, there was no one else in the store. So I gave in and sang along—quietly at first, and then a little louder when Marie didn’t notice me at all. Shifting back and forth to the beat, there in my ballet flats and my mom’s pink party dress, I just gave in and let myself feel better—doing a shimmy my mom taught me and throwing in an occasional booty shake. Just a little private, mood-lifting dance party for one. And then something hit me, there in the aisle, singing an old favorite song while wearing my long-lost mother’s dress: My mother—also a portrait artist—had placed in this contest, too. This exact same contest. The year I turned fourteen. I’d known it when I applied. But to be honest, I applied to so many contests so often, and I got rejected so relentlessly, I hadn’t thought too much about it. But this was the one. The one she’d been painting a portrait for—of me, by the way—when she died. She never finished the portrait, and she never made it to the show. What had happened to that portrait? I suddenly wondered. If I had to bet? Lucinda threw it away. I’m not a big weeper, in general. And I’m sure it was partly all the excitement of placing in the contest, and partly the unexpected harshness of my dad’s voice just then, and partly the fact that I was wearing my long-lost mother’s clothes, and partly the realization that this contest was her contest … but as happy as I felt singing along to that old favorite song in an empty grocery store, I felt sad, too. I felt my eyes spring with tears over and over, and I had to keep wiping them away. You wouldn’t think you could do all those things at once, would you? Dancing, singing, and getting misty-eyed? But I’m here as proof: It’s possible. But maybe that song really was a talisman for joy, because just as the song was ending, I spotted a wine with a celebratory polka-dotted label on sale for six dollars a bottle. By the time I made it to the register with my arms full of wine, I was feeling like Sue had the right idea. Of course


that no matter how long it took, these documents must be recovered from the rubble beneath the temple and protected forever, so the truth would never die. In order to retrieve the documents from within the ruins, the Priory created a military arm-a group of nine knights called the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon." Langdon paused. "More commonly known as the Knights Templar." Sophie glanced up with a surprised look of recognition. Langdon had lectured often enough on the Knights Templar to know that almost everyone on earth had heard of them, at least abstractedly. For academics, the Templars' history was a precarious world where fact, lore, and misinformation had become so intertwined that extracting a pristine truth was almost impossible. Nowadays, Langdon hesitated even to mention the Knights Templar while lecturing because it invariably led to a barrage of convoluted inquiries into assorted conspiracy theories. 108 Sophie already looked troubled. "You're saying the Knights Templar were founded by the Priory of Sion to retrieve a collection of secret documents? I thought the Templars were created to protect the Holy Land." "A common misconception. The idea of protection of pilgrims was the guise under which the Templars ran their mission. Their true goal in the Holy Land was to retrieve the documents from beneath the ruins of the temple." "And did they find them?" Langdon grinned. "Nobody knows for sure, but the one thing on which all academics agree is this: The Knights discovered something down there in the ruins... something that made them wealthy and powerful beyond anyone's wildest imagination." Langdon quickly gave Sophie the standard academic sketch of the accepted Knights Templar history, explaining how the Knights were in the Holy Land during the Second Crusade and told King Baldwin II that they were there to protect Christian pilgrims on the roadways. Although unpaid and sworn to poverty, the Knights told the king they required basic shelter and requested his permission to take up residence in the stables under the ruins of the temple. King Baldwin granted the soldiers' request, and the Knights took up their meager residence inside the devastated shrine. The odd choice of lodging, Langdon explained, had been anything but random. The Knights believed the documents the Priory sought were buried deep under the ruins- beneath the Holy of Holies, a sacred chamber where God Himself was believed to reside. Literally, the very center of the Jewish faith. For almost a decade, the nine Knights lived in the ruins, excavating in total secrecy through solid rock. Sophie looked over. "And you said they discovered something?" "They certainly did," Langdon said, explaining how it had taken nine years, but the Knights had finally found what they had been searching for. They took the treasure from the temple and traveled to Europe, where their influence seemed to solidify overnight. Nobody was certain whether the Knights had blackmailed the Vatican or whether the Church simply tried to buy the Knights' silence, but Pope Innocent II immediately issued an unprecedented papal bull that afforded


twelve years, he’s been writing full time, and with thirty-eight best-selling novels under his belt, he has no plans to slow down. Thanks for being part of his community! Use the links below to jump to Mark’s site. Have a question or want to say hi to Mark? Contact him at: markwaynemcginnis@gmail.com Or contact him on his Facebook author’s page at: https://www.facebook.com/MarkWayneMcGinnisAuthor/ Acknowledgments First and foremost, I am grateful to my readers. I’d like to thank my wife, Kim, whose loving contributions to my books are immeasurable. Thank you to Lura Genz (my ninety-two-year-old mother) for her tireless work as our first-phase creative editor and for being a staunch cheerleader of my writing. I’d also like to thank Margarita Martinez for her amazingly detailed line editing work; Jennifer Eaton for her creative design and typesetting skills; Daniel Edelman for his many prerelease technical reviews and expert subject matter spitballing. A heartfelt thank you also goes to Sue Parr, Charles Duell, Stuart Church, Zoraya Vasquez, Lura Fischer, and James Fischer—without their support, this novel would not have been possible. Check out the other available titles by Mark Wayne McGinnis on the following page. Other Books by MWM Scrapyard Ship Series Scrapyard Ship (Book 1) HAB 12 (Book 2) Space Vengeance (Book 3) Realms of Time (Book 4) Craing Dominion (Book 5) The Great Space (Book 6) Call to Battle (Book 7) Tapped In Series Mad Powers (Book 1) Deadly Powers (Book 2) Lone Star Renegades Series Lone Star Renegades (also called “Jacked”) (Book 1) Star Watch Series (Scrapyard Ship Spin-off) Star Watch (Book 1) Ricket (Book 2) Boomer (Book 3) Glory for Sea and Space (Book 4) Space Chase (Book 5) Scrapyard LEGACY (Book 6) The Simpleton Series The Simpleton (Book 1) The Simpleton Quest (Book 2) Galaxy Man Series Galaxy Man (Book 1) Ship Wrecked Series Ship Wrecked (Book 1) Ship Wrecked II (Book 2) Ship Wrecked III (Book 3) Boy Gone Series Boy Gone Book 1 Cloudwalkers Cloudwalkers The Hidden Ship The Hidden Ship Guardian Ship Guardian Ship Gun Ship Gun Ship Hover Hover USS Hamilton Series USS Hamilton – Ironhold Station (USS Hamilton Series Book 1) USS Hamilton – Miasma Burn (USS Hamilton Series Book 2) USS Hamilton – Broadsides (USS Hamilton Series Book 3) USS Jefferson – Charge of the Symbios (USS Hamilton Series Book 4) Starship Oblivion – Sanctuary Outpost (USS Hamilton Series Book 5) USS Adams – No Escape (USS Hamilton Series Book 6) USS Lincoln — Mercy Kill (USS Hamilton Series Book 7) HEROES and ZOMBIES Series HEROES and ZOMBIES — Escape to Black Canyon (Series Book 1) The Test Pilot’s Wife The Test Pilot’s Wife The Fallen Ship Series The Fallen Ship – Rise of the Gia Fighters The Fallen Ship II (The Fallen Ship Series Book 2) Junket Junket – Cruel Territory Copyright © 2023, by Mark Wayne McGinnis. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission


yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--" "Stop!" murmured Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me. I don't know what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don't speak. Let me think, or, rather, let me try not to think." For nearly ten minutes he stood there motionless, with parted lips, and eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh impulses were at work within him, and they seemed to him to have come really from himself. The few words that Basil's friend had said to him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in them--had yet touched some secret chord, that had never been touched before, but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses. Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather a new chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! [15] They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words? Yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood. He understood them now. Life suddenly became fiery-colored to him. It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not known it? Lord Henry watched him, with his sad smile. He knew the precise psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely interested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen, which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through the same experience. He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? How fascinating the lad was! Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had the true refinement and perfect delicacy that come only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence. "Basil, I am tired of standing," cried Dorian Gray, suddenly. "I must go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling


the boughs of the elm trees were swaying very faintly in the breeze, their leaves just stirring in dense masses like women's hair. Somewhere near at hand, though out of sight, there was a clear, slow-moving stream where dace were swimming in the pools under the willow trees. file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (19 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt The girl with dark hair was coming towards them across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole culture, a whole system of thought, as though Big Brother and the Party and the Thought Police could all be swept into nothingness by a single splendid movement of the arm. That too was a gesture belonging to the ancient time. Winston woke up with the word 'Shakespeare' on his lips. The telescreen was giving forth an ear-splitting whistle which continued on the same note for thirty seconds. It was nought seven fifteen, getting-up time for office workers. Winston wrenched his body out of bed--naked, for a member of the Outer Party received only 3,000 clothing coupons annually, and a suit of pyjamas was 600--and seized a dingy singlet and a pair of shorts that were lying across a chair. The Physical Jerks would begin in three minutes. The next moment he was doubled up by a violent coughing fit which nearly always attacked him soon after waking up. It emptied his lungs so completely that he could only begin breathing again by lying on his back and taking a series of deep gasps. His veins had swelled with the effort of the cough, and the varicose ulcer had started itching. 'Thirty to forty group!' yapped a piercing female voice. 'Thirty to forty group! Take your places, please. Thirties to forties!' Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already appeared. 'Arms bending and stretching!' she rapped out. 'Take your time by me. ONE, two, three, four! ONE, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! ONE, two, three four! ONE two, three, four!...' The pain of the coughing fit had not quite driven out of Winston's mind the impression made by his dream, and the rhythmic movements of the exercise restored it somewhat. As he mechanically shot his arms back and forth, wearing on his face the look of grim enjoyment which was considered proper during the Physical Jerks, he was struggling to think his way backward into the dim period of his early childhood. It was extraordinarily difficult. Beyond the late fifties everything faded. When there were no external records that you could refer to, even the outline of your own life lost its


in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they had visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I not been deterred by the very chance that such an injury might prove greater than the injury to be averted, my exultation would have broken out. "They're here, they're here, you little wretches," I would have cried, "and you can't deny it now!" The little wretches denied it with all the added volume of their sociability and their tenderness, in just the crystal depths of which-- like the flash of a fish in a stream--the mockery of their advantage peeped up. The shock, in truth, had sunk into me still deeper than I knew on the night when, looking out to see either Quint or Miss Jessel under the stars, I had beheld the boy over whose rest I watched and who had immediately brought in with him-- had straightway, there, turned it on me--the lovely upward look with which, from the battlements above me, the hideous apparition of Quint had played. If it was a question of a scare, my discovery on this occasion had scared me more than any other, and it was in the condition of nerves produced by it that I made my actual inductions. They harassed me so that sometimes, at odd moments, I shut myself up audibly to rehearse--it was at once a fantastic relief and a renewed despair--the manner in which I might come to the point. I approached it from one side and the other while, in my room, I flung myself about, but I always broke down in the monstrous utterance of names. As they died away on my lips, I said to myself that I should indeed help them to represent something infamous, if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little case of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever known. When I said to myself: "THEY have the manners to be silent, and you, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak!" I felt myself crimson and I covered my face with my hands. After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, going on volubly enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes occurred-- I can call them nothing else--the strange, dizzy lift or swim (I try for terms!) into a stillness, a pause of all life, that had nothing to do with the more or less noise that at the moment we might be engaged in making and that I could hear through any deepened exhilaration or quickened recitation or louder strum of the piano. Then it was that the others, the outsiders, were there. Though they were not angels, they "passed," as the French say, causing me, while they stayed, to tremble with the fear of their addressing to their younger victims some yet more infernal message or more vivid image than they had thought good enough for myself. What it was most impossible to get rid of was the cruel idea that, whatever I had seen, Miles


innocent. The dark figure starts running when he sees me coming, his sneakers slipping on the dew-slicked grass. It gives me the extra second I need to catch up just before he can get away. I lunge forward, grab him by the shirt collar, and yank. His feet slide out from under him, and he drops to the ground like a sack of wheat. The flashlight flies from his hand and rolls across the grass, its light flickering. In that stuttering glow, I leap on top of him, surprising him and surprising myself even more. Yet there’s another surprise in store for both of us. Writhing in the grass beneath me, the trespasser looks up at me and says, “Kit?” No matter how shocked he is, I’m doubly surprised. It’s Kenny. “What are you doing here?” he says. Winded, I slide off him and plop onto the grass. “I work here. What are you doing here?” “Just having a little fun with the boys,” Kenny says as he sits up. “Aren’t you a little old for this shit, Kenny?” “Yeah,” he says, now grinning the same way he did whenever I met him at the back door. “But it’s not like it’s hurting anyone.” He’d be singing a different tune if Mrs. Baker had shot one of them, which I wouldn’t put past her. A woman like her surely has an itchy trigger finger. “You really work here?” Kenny says. “At Hopeless End?” I sigh. So that’s what they’re calling it now. “I do.” “Who’s your patient?” “Who do you think?” Kenny blinks. “No way! What’s she like?” “Not a killer bitch,” I say. “Yeah, sorry about that,” Kenny says, eyes to the ground. “I didn’t mean anything by it. That’s just what everyone says about her.” “They’re wrong.” “Then what’s she really like?” “Quiet,” I reply, which says everything while also revealing nothing. I look down the long driveway to the front gate, where the rest of Kenny’s friends have gathered. At least it’s fully closed tonight. Not that it matters. One of Kenny’s “boys” is boosting the others over the brick wall. At the top, another reaches down to help him up. Gate or no gate, it proves that literally anyone could have come onto the property and killed Mary. One of Kenny’s friends shouts at him from atop the wall. “Hey! You coming?” “In a minute!” Kenny calls back. “Do you guys do this often?” I say as his friends vanish over the wall. “Not since high school,” Kenny says, which in his case was only two years ago. “A few of us were drinking and decided to come see if what everyone’s saying is true. You know, about her dead nurse.” “What about her?” I sit up straighter, genuinely curious about what people in town think about Mary’s death. So far, the only outside opinion I’ve been privy to is Detective Vick’s. “What are they saying?” “That Lenora Hope killed her.” Of course they do. I should have known not to put any stock in what my fellow


sun went down behind the Malibu hills, the deadline passed and a second later the swathes of people crowding the beach, standing shoulder to shoulder in the shallow water, perched on the roof of the lifeguard huts, filling the eight-lane freeway and the amusement pier, all these people had broken apart into fragments of light. For a moment it was as if the whole sky was full of campfire embers that swirled among seagulls distressed at the commotion but otherwise unharmed. And then the beaches were empty, the parks were empty, the freeway and pier were empty, the seagulls were calm again and the only people left alive on the planet were those who’d reached Antarctica. Since there were no prisons in McMurdo City, Yotam was being held inside the museum, locked inside the exhibition hall, sleeping under the case containing the diaries with only the company of his dog Copper. He’d been confined to this space while the Senate decided how to handle his case. If he was honest, maybe he’d deliberately provoked this reaction, forcing the issue, unable to keep Eitan trapped under the ice any longer. The Senate had been prevaricating, always demanding more evidence that these radically advanced Cold People were safe. Their safety could never be proved unless they were released. The door opened and the guard entered, with a set of fresh clothes. ‘They’re ready for you.’ The trial of Yotam Penzak was about to begin. MCMURDO CITY MCMURDO SENATE BUILDING CHAPEL OF THE SNOWS SAME DAY THE TRIAL OF YOTAM PENZAK was the first trial in McMurdo City’s twenty-year history. During the creation of this new society, the decision had been taken not to replicate the justice systems of the old world. There weren’t the resources to build courtrooms and prison cells, nor could they afford for a large portion of the workforce to be imprisoned when there were so few people left. Instead, the justice system had been replaced with a blend of libertarianism and authoritarianism. There were no written laws and no human rights. There was, instead, an imprecise and nebulous sense of fairness. Infractions were handled on a local level by a neighbourhood committee. Only the most egregious and contentious incidents reached the Senate. Composed of thirteen of the most senior academics, nine with Nobel prizes – the last surviving winners – these thirteen were the McMurdo Supreme Court. Bound by no precedent or convention, they were told the names and cases of people failing to contribute, stealing food or displaying violent tendencies. With a majority ruling the Senate made the decision whether to expel the citizen from the city or give them a second chance. Almost everyone was given a second chance and almost no one was given a third. In practice very few people broke the unwritten social code – to look after each other, to work as hard as you could and to take no more than you were entitled to. Expulsion from McMurdo involved the evicted citizens being transported past the Transantarctic mountain range, abandoning them to the