now if he could only give us leg-bail again; and he must be in the same boat with us. Never mind how he came there; it's quite enough for my power over him that he was in a robbery; that's all I want. Now, how much better this is, than being obliged to put the poor leetle boy out of the way--which would be dangerous, and we should lose by it besides.' 'When is it to be done?' asked Nancy, stopping some turbulent exclamation on the part of Mr. Sikes, expressive of the disgust with which he received Fagin's affectation of humanity. 'Ah, to be sure,' said the Jew; 'when is it to be done, Bill?' 'I planned with Toby, the night arter to-morrow,' rejoined Sikes in a surly voice, 'if he heerd nothing from me to the contrairy.' 'Good,' said the Jew; 'there's no moon.' 'No,' rejoined Sikes. 'It's all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it?' asked the Jew. Sikes nodded. 'And about--' 'Oh, ah, it's all planned,' rejoined Sikes, interrupting him. 'Never mind particulars. You'd better bring the boy here to-morrow night. I shall get off the stone an hour arter daybreak. Then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and that's all you'll have to do.' After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that Nancy should repair to the Jew's next evening when the night had set in, and bring Oliver away with her; Fagin craftily observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task, he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in his behalf, than anybody else. It was also solemnly arranged that poor Oliver should, for the purposes of the contemplated expedition, be unreservedly consigned to the care and custody of Mr. William Sikes; and further, that the said Sikes should deal with him as he thought fit; and should not be held responsible by the Jew for any mischance or evil that might be necessary to visit him: it being understood that, to render the compact in this respect binding, any representations made by Mr. Sikes on his return should be required to be confirmed and corroborated, in all important particulars, by the testimony of flash Toby Crackit. These preliminaries adjusted, Mr. Sikes proceeded to drink brandy at a furious rate, and to flourish the crowbar in an alarming manner; yelling forth, at the same time, most unmusical snatches of song, mingled with wild execrations. At length, in a fit of professional enthusiasm, he insisted upon producing his box of housebreaking tools: which he had no sooner stumbled in with, and opened for the purpose of explaining the nature and properties of the various implements it contained, and the peculiar beauties of their construction, than he fell over the box upon the floor, and went to sleep where he fell. 'Good-night, Nancy,' said the Jew, muffling himself up as before. 'Good-night.' Their eyes met, and the Jew scrutinised her, narrowly. There was no flinching about the girl.


don't believe it is--down to th' root. I'll cut it low down an' see." He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking branch through, not far above the earth. "There!" he said exultantly. "I told thee so. There's green in that wood yet. Look at it." Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might. "When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like that, it's wick," he explained. "When th' inside is dry an' breaks easy, like this here piece I've cut off, it's done for. There's a big root here as all this live wood sprung out of, an' if th' old wood's cut off an' it's dug round, and took care of there'll be--" he stopped and lifted his face to look up at the climbing and hanging sprays above him--"there'll be a fountain o' roses here this summer." They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He was very strong and clever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead wood away, and could tell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green life in it. In the course of half an hour Mary thought she could tell too, and when he cut through a lifeless-looking branch she would cry out joyfully under her breath when she caught sight of the least shade of moist green. The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful. He showed her how to use the fork while he dug about roots with the spade and stirred the earth and let the air in. They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses when he caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation of surprise. "Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away. "Who did that there?" It was one of Mary's own little clearings round the pale green points. "I did it," said Mary. "Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin' about gardenin'," he exclaimed. "I don't," she answered, "but they were so little, and the grass was so thick and strong, and they looked as if they had no room to breathe. So I made a place for them. I don't even know what they are." Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling his wide smile. "Tha' was right," he said. "A gardener couldn't have told thee better. They'll grow now like Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an' snowdrops, an' these here is narcissuses," turning to another patch, "an here's daffydowndillys. Eh! they will be a sight." He ran from one clearing to another. "Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a little wench," he said, looking her over. "I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm growing stronger. I used always to be tired. When I dig I'm not tired at all. I like to smell the earth when it's turned up." "It's rare good for thee," he said, nodding his head wisely. "There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean earth, except th' smell


the eager watcher of a marionette show, anticipating each flicker of an eyelid, each gesture of his hand, each flick of a finger, the moment before it began. How long had they walked together? Three minutes? Five? Yet how large that time seemed now. How immense a figure she was on the stage before him; what a shadow she threw on the wall with her slender body! He felt that if his eye itched, she might blink. And if the muscles of his jaws stretched imperceptibly, she would yawn long before he would. Why, he thought, now that I think of it, she almost seemed to be waiting for me there, in the street, so damned late at night ... . He opened the bedroom door. It was like coming into the cold marbled room of a mausoleum after the moon had set. Complete darkness, not a hint of the silver world outside, the windows tightly shut, the chamber a tomb-world where no sound from the great city could penetrate. The room was not empty. He listened. The little mosquito-delicate dancing hum in the air, the electrical murmur of a hidden wasp snug in its special pink warm nest. The music was almost loud enough so he could follow the tune. He felt his smile slide away, melt, fold over, and down on itself like a tallow skin, like the stuff of a fantastic candle burning too long and now collapsing and now blown out. Darkness. He was not happy. He was not happy. He said the words to himself. He recognized this as the true state of affairs. He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back. Without turning on the light he imagined how this room would look. His wife stretched on the bed, uncovered and cold, like a body displayed on the lid of a tomb, her eyes fixed to the ceiling by invisible threads of steel, immovable. And in her ears the little Seashells, the thimble radios tamped tight, and an electronic ocean of sound, of music and talk and music and talk coming in, coming in on the shore of her unsleeping mind. The room was indeed empty. Every night the waves came in and bore her off on their great tides of sound, floating her, wide-eyed, toward morning. There had been no night in the last two years that Mildred had not swum that sea, had not gladly gone down in it for the third time. The room was cold but nonetheless he felt he could not breathe. He did not wish to open the curtains and open the french windows, for he did not want the moon to come into the room. So, with the feeling of a man who will die in the next hour for lack of air,.he felt his way toward his open, separate, and therefore cold bed. An instant before his foot hit the


strolled over and said something to her. She stumbled away, laughing. A bitter blast swept across the Square. The gas-lamps flickered, and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their black iron branches as if in pain. He shivered, and went back, closing the window behind him. He passed to the door, turned the key, and opened it. He did not even glance at the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted [85] the fatal portrait, the portrait to which all his misery had been due, had gone out of his life. That was enough. Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished steel. Perhaps it might be missed by his servant, and questions would be asked. He turned back, and took it from the table. How still the man was! How horribly white the long hands looked! He was like a dreadful wax image. He locked the door behind him, and crept quietly down-stairs. The wood-work creaked, and seemed to cry out as if in pain. He stopped several times, and waited. No: everything was still. It was merely the sound of his own footsteps. When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner. They must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that was in the wainscoting, and put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards. Then he pulled out his watch. It was twenty minutes to two. He sat down, and began to think. Every year--every month, almost-- men were strangled in England for what he had done. There had been a madness of murder in the air. Some red star had come too close to the earth. Evidence? What evidence was there against him? Basil Hallward had left the house at eleven. No one had seen him come in again. Most of the servants were at Selby Royal. His valet had gone to bed. Paris! Yes. It was to Paris that Basil had gone, by the midnight train, as he had intended. With his curious reserved habits, it would be months before any suspicions would be aroused. Months? Everything could be destroyed long before then. A sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur coat and hat, and went out into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of the policeman outside on the pavement, and seeing the flash of the lantern reflected in the window. He waited, holding his breath. After a few moments he opened the front door, and slipped out, shutting it very gently behind him. Then he began ringing the bell. In about ten minutes his valet appeared, half dressed, and looking very drowsy. "I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis," he said, stepping in; "but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?" "Five minutes past two, sir," answered the man, looking at the clock


any idea how much you’ve hurt me by going to see that woman?” He pales momentarily, but I’m on a roll, my inner bitch unleashed. “Do you remember last night when you came home? Remember what you said?” 415/551 He stares at me blankly, his face frozen. “Well, you were right. I do choose this defenseless baby over you. That’s what any loving parent does. That’s what your mother should have done for you. And I am sorry that she didn’t—because we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now if she had. But you’re an adult now—you need to grow up and smell the fucking coffee and stop behaving like a petulant adolescent. “You may not be happy about this baby. I’m not ecstatic, given the timing and your less-than-lukewarm reception to this new life, this flesh of your flesh. But you can either do this with me, or I’ll do it on my own. The decision is yours. “While you wallow in your pit of self-pity and self-loathing, I’m going to work. And when I return I’ll be moving my belongings to the room upstairs.” He blinks at me, shocked. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to finish getting dressed.” I am breathing hard. Very slowly, Christian retreats one step, his demeanor hardening. “Is that what you want?” he whispers. “I don’t know what I want any more.” My tone mirrors his, and it takes a mo- numental effort to feign disinterest while I casually dip the tips of my fingers into my moisturizer and smooth it gently over my face. I peer at myself in the mirror. Blue eyes wide, face pale, but cheeks flushed. You’re doing great. Don’t back down now. Don’t back down now. “You don’t want me?” he whispers. Oh—no . . . oh no you don’t, Grey. “I’m still here aren’t I?” I snap. Taking my mascara, I apply some first to my right eye. “You’ve thought about leaving?” His words are barely audible. “When one’s husband prefers the company of his ex-mistress, it’s usually not a good sign.” I pitch the disdain at just the right level, evading his question. Lip gloss now. I pout my shiny lips at the image in the mirror. Stay strong, Steele . . . um—Grey. Holy fuck, I can’t even remember my name. I pick up my boots, stride over to the bed once more, and quickly put them on, tugging them up over my knees. Yep. I look hot just in underwear and boots. I know. Standing, I gaze dis- passionately at him. He blinks at me, and his eyes travel swiftly and greedily down my body. 416/551 “I know what you’re doing here,” he murmurs, and his voice has acquired a warm, seductive edge. “Do you?” And my voice cracks . No, Ana . . . hold on. He swallows and takes a step forward. I step back and hold my hands up. “Don’t even think about it, Grey,” I whisper menacingly. “You’re my wife,” he says softly, threateningly. “I’m the pregnant woman you abandoned yesterday,


to regret tearing up my camellias. You regret it now, don't you?" Jem would say he certainly did. "Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you?" Jem would say he certainly would. "Don't you mutter at me, boy! You hold up your head and say yes ma'am. Don't guess you feel like holding it up, though, with your father what he is." Jem's chin would come up, and he would gaze at Mrs. Dubose with a face devoid of resentment. Through the weeks he had cultivated an expression of polite and detached interest, which he would present to her in answer to her most blood-curdling inventions. At last the day came. When Mrs. Dubose said, "That'll do," one afternoon, she added, "And that's all. Good-day to you." It was over. We bounded down the sidewalk on a spree of sheer relief, leaping and howling. That spring was a good one: the days grew longer and gave us more playing time. Jem's mind was occupied mostly with the vital statistics of every college football player in the nation. Every night Atticus would read us the sports pages of the newspapers. Alabama might go to the Rose Bowl again this year, judging from its prospects, not one of whose names we could pronounce. Atticus was in the middle of Windy Seaton's column one evening when the telephone rang. He answered it, then went to the hat rack in the hall. "I'm going down to Mrs. Dubose's for a while," he said. "I won't be long." But Atticus stayed away until long past my bedtime. When he returned he was carrying a candy box. Atticus sat down in the livingroom and put the box on the floor beside his chair. "What'd she want?" asked Jem. We had not seen Mrs. Dubose for over a month. She was never on the porch any more when we passed. "She's dead, son," said Atticus. "She died a few minutes ago." "Oh," said Jem. "Well." "Well is right," said Atticus. "She's not suffering any more. She was sick for a long time. Son, didn't you know what her fits were?" Jem shook his head. "Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict," said Atticus. "She took it as a pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She'd have spent the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was too contrary-" "Sir?" said Jem. Atticus said, "Just before your escapade she called me to make her will. Dr. Reynolds told her she had only a few months left. Her business affairs were in perfect order but she said, 'There's still one thing out of order.'" "What was that?" Jem was perplexed. "She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. Jem, when you're sick as she was, it's all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn't


Once again, he ignores the herbs in the fields for his new "religion" of gold. Notice repeated imagery--the coins are like "unborn children" (another foreshadowing of Eppie) and his life has dwindled to one narrow channel of thought. (Literally, he never walks off the path on his daily journeys. Metaphorically, his life has become like a dried-up rivulet, trickling through the sand.) But now that Silas' metamorphosis is complete, Eliot tells you, an event is coming to change his life. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 3 Eliot leaves you in suspense about Silas' great change while she shifts to the other end of the social spectrum. Squire Cass is the greatest man in Raveloe, she tells you, although her tone is ironic. She first discusses the local gentry as villagers might--pointing out Cass' big brick house, casually mentioning the Osgoods. But then she discusses these landowners with an outsider's perspective. She makes you aware that political conditions later brought this class to ruin, through their wasteful living habits and poor farming. Yet when she describes the generous feasts that people like Cass and Osgood hold, she paints a glowing picture of old-fashioned plenty. (You'll see one of these feasts later, in Chapter 11.) The poor enjoy this bounty, too. Do you think Eliot approves or disapproves of this social system? What evidence supports your opinion? There's a reason why Squire Cass throws big raucous parties and spends his time at the local pub--his wife died long ago. Eliot expresses here her ideal of woman's role--as a source of order, refinement, and loving feelings. Lacking a mother, the Cass sons have turned out badly. Compare this all-male family to Silas Marner's, which seems to consist only of himself, a mother, and a sister. Eliot lets you hear the village gossip about Dunstan and Godfrey. While Dunstan sounds thoroughly bad, Godfrey seems good-hearted. But people have been worried about Godfrey's behavior lately. Everyone's hoping he'll straighten himself out by marrying Nancy Lammeter, obviously the daughter of another important Raveloe family. Now you meet the Cass brothers in person, so you can make up your own mind about them. As Godfrey stands by the fire, the parlor around him defines his gloomy mood. It's dimly lit and messy, full of pleasure's leftovers--discarded hunting clothes, half-empty mugs of beer, ashy pipes, and a dying fire. When Dunsey, who's been drinking, strolls into the room, his jeering tone lives up to the villagers' opinion of him. Agitated, Godfrey demands that Dunstan return the money he borrowed from Godfrey, which was a tenant's rent payment. Dunstan knows how to manipulate Godfrey, though. He threatens to tell the Squire about Godfrey's marriage to drunken Molly Farren, and Godfrey reacts with fear. Now you know why lately Godfrey's been acting strangely. NOTE: PARALLELS Like Silas, Godfrey is taken advantage of by a thieving brother. (Dane was like a brother to Silas.) Both hope to marry a nice young woman but are prevented by shameful situations--Silas' conviction and Godfrey's marriage. What obvious contrasts, however, can you point to? This is the first


didn’t think about Orson, when I didn’t simultaneously worry about and wish pain on him. I imagined him the only crier on his cell block, his cellmate threatening to shank him if he didn’t shut up. I imagined him choking on the rock-hard bread in the chow hall. I imagined him getting pummeled in the yard. I wanted him to suffer, but not too much. In my dreams I would always rescue him, and he would tell me he was sorry, that if he could do it all over again he’d do it differently, that he’d have loved me. Even in my angriest, most bitter moments, I’d pray to a god I didn’t believe in that he was still alive. During the fourth year of my sentence, I was rotated onto suicide watch. A guard would wake me up at 1:30 in the morning, give me maybe fifteen seconds to throw on a shirt, and take me down to the isolation cells, where I would listen to and watch suicidal prisoners to keep them from trying anything. One night, I was in charge of talking to an eighteen-year-old kid named Tyrell who had grown up in an environment so difficult and oppressive that he could barely get out the words to describe it. He was crying as he spoke, but trying to do it quietly, and I was forbidden from touching him, so the only comfort I could offer was listening and saying, “It’s okay,” or, “Keep going,” when he stumbled and began choking up. “It was always some fucked up shit happening at my mom’s,” he told me. “With her and her boyfriend. The kind of boyfriend she had, this guy fucked her up, fucked me up.” “I’m really sorry to hear that.” “Fuck man, no you ain’t. You ain’t know shit about me,” Tyrell shout-whispered, exhausted by then, obviously frustrated with everything. I sat back. “Okay, well, it’s true, I don’t know shit about you. But I care about you.” “Don’t come at me with that faggot-ass bullshit.” “I mean, I am a fag. You know that. I’ve told you that.” Tyrell was silent. Then he laughed. “Yeah, man,” he mumbled. “Come on,” I said. “You want me to let you in on something?” A CO’s heels clicked across the floor outside the isolation block. I could hear Tyrell’s heavy breathing, how he’d exhausted himself with emotion. “I had this business on the outside. It made people, you know, true believers. It made them feel like they could be the best versions of themselves.” “So the fuck what.” “It really works. I can do it in here, you can do it with me, I’ll give you a cut of whatever I get.” “Shit sounds dumb as hell.” “So let me show it to you. What else do we have to do right now?” Tyrell sighed. “Try me,” he said. I Synthesized Tyrell. His breathing slowed and evened. “Damn,” he whispered at the end. “How’d you do that?” Tyrell had only been out of isolation for a week by the time


while I'm stuck here. Directly I'm well enough I'll come with you and you must show me your beach. Of course it's just what I want. It'll be wonderful to get out again.' She pressed his hand and stood up and walked over to the window. After a moment she busied herself with her make-up. Then she came back to the bed. Bond looked at her tenderly. Like all harsh, cold men, he was easily tipped over into sentiment. She was very beautiful and he felt warm towards her. He decided to make his questions as easy as possible. He gave her a cigarette and for a time they talked of the visit of Head of S and of the reactions in London to the rout of Le Chiffre. From what she said it was clear that the final object of the plan had been more than fulfilled. The story was still being splashed all over the world and correspondents of most of the English and American papers had been at Royale trying to trace the Jamaican millionaire who had defeated Le Chiffre at the tables. They had got on to Vesper, but she had covered up well. Her story was that Bond had told her he was going on to Cannes and Monte Carlo to gamble with his winnings. The hunt had moved down to the South of France. Mathis and the police had obliterated all other traces and the papers were forced to concentrate on the Strasbourg angles and the chaos in the ranks of the French Communists. 'By the way, Vesper,' said Bond after a time. 'What really happened to you after you left me in the night club? All I saw was the actual kidnapping.' He told her briefly of the scene outside the Casino. 'I'm afraid I must have lost my head,' said Vesper, avoiding Bond's eyes. 'When I couldn't see Mathis anywhere in the entrance hall I went outside and the commissionaire asked me if I was Miss Lynd, and then told me the man who had sent in the note was waiting in a car down on the right of the steps. Somehow I wasn't particularly surprised. I'd only known Mathis for a day or two and I didn't know how he worked, so I just walked down towards the car. It was away on the right and more or less in the shadows. Just as I was coming up to it, Le Chiffre's two men jumped out from behind one of the other cars in the row and simply scooped my skirt over my head.' Vesper blushed. 'It sounds a childish trick,' she looked penitently at Bond, 'but it's really frightfully effective. One's a complete prisoner and although I screamed I don't expect any sound came out from under my skirt. I kicked out as hard as I could, but that was no use as I couldn't see and my arms were absolutely helpless. I was just a trussed chicken. They picked me up between them and shoved me into the back of the


sprinting out the front door. I grab Bezi and pull her toward the door just as Ms. Keane finds her shotgun on the floor. She swings it up, cursing and sputtering, a line of blood-tinged spittle hanging from her bottom lip. Her shoulder is sloped in a way that tells me it’s either broken or dislocated. She struggles to get the gun under her control. We’re out the front door and sprinting down the drive in a blink. Javier stumbles but doesn’t let himself fall as he runs ahead of us. We’re halfway down the drive when a gunshot splits the air like a bolt of lightning. I throw myself face-first into the dirt, and Bezi falls beside me. A sharp pain rockets through my knee as it strikes the ground. Another shot rings out and splinters a tree just off the driveway to our right. “She’s shooting at us!” Javier screams. “Get up! Go!” We scramble to our feet and keep running. I ignore the pain in my knee. I keep moving even though it feels like I’m trudging through quicksand. As we get to the crest in the driveway, I slide to a grinding halt. A tall figure stands at the bottom of the drive near the road. Another gunshot ricochets through the trees. The figure stalks toward us, and I panic. We can’t go back. We can’t go forward. I step toward the trees as Javier lights the figure up with his flashlight and, in a rush of relief, I realize it’s Kyle. “Come on!” he yells. “We gotta get out of here!” I’ve never been much of an athlete. I passed gym with a C-plus, but I run the entire two miles back to the rear entrance of the camp without stopping. I ignore the ache in my calves and the burning in my lungs. Each time Bezi tries to stop to catch her breath, I pull her forward. We don’t have time to be winded or tired. At the rear gate, we squeeze through the opening as quickly as we can. As soon as we’re safely inside the fence, I race toward the office. I want to call the sheriff, but a part of me feels like he won’t even care. Still, I have to get ahold of somebody. Anybody. We need help. “The office!” I say, gasping. “We gotta call—” I’m moving past the Western Lodge when something catches my eye. Some subtle movement I realize is coming from inside the lodge itself. I come to a full stop for the first time since we left Ms. Keane’s property. The lodge doors are sitting wide open. The fluorescent lights in the kitchen are on, and they’re casting a cold glow throughout the main hall. Standing in front of the unlit fireplace is a person. Bezi is panting beside me when Kyle and Javier notice the figure too. I nearly stop breathing as a sudden chill runs up my back and settles in the nape of my neck. I take a step toward the open doors, blinking,


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 provided for himself as well. But come!" She had helplessly gloomed at the upper regions. "You leave him--?" "So long with Quint? Yes--I don't mind that now." She always ended, at these moments, by getting possession of my hand, and in this manner she could at present still stay me. But after gasping an instant at my sudden resignation, "Because of your letter?" she eagerly brought out. I quickly, by way of answer, felt for my letter, drew it forth, held it up, and then, freeing myself, went and laid it on the great hall table. "Luke will take it," I said as I came back. I reached the house door and opened it; I was already on the steps. My companion still demurred: the storm of the night and the early morning had dropped, but the afternoon was damp and gray. I came down to the drive while she stood in the doorway. "You go with nothing on?" "What do I care when the child has nothing? I can't wait to dress," I cried, "and if you must do so, I leave you. Try meanwhile, yourself, upstairs." "With THEM?" Oh, on this, the poor woman promptly joined me! XIX We went straight to the lake, as it was called at Bly, and I daresay rightly called, though I reflect that it may in fact have been a sheet of water less remarkable than it appeared to my untraveled eyes. My acquaintance with sheets of water was small, and the pool of Bly, at all events on the few occasions of my consenting, under the protection of my pupils, to affront its surface in the old flat-bottomed boat moored there for our use, had impressed me both with its extent and its agitation. The usual place of embarkation was half a mile from the house, but I had an intimate conviction that, wherever Flora might be, she was not near home. She had not given me the slip for any small adventure, and, since the day of the very great one that I had shared with her by the pond, I had been aware, in our walks, of the quarter to which she most inclined. This was why I had now given to Mrs. Grose's steps so marked a direction--a direction that made her, when she perceived it, oppose a resistance that showed me she was freshly mystified. "You're going to the water, Miss?--you think she's IN--?" "She may be, though the depth is, I believe, nowhere


the wrong Magic--to begin by saying "too late." Even Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic--either black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sowerby had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature had realized that the boy was much worse--was fatally ill. If he had not been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession of him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in better things. "Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good and control him? " he thought. "I will go and see her on my way to Misselthwaite." But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the cottage, seven or eight children who were playing about gathered in a group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the morning to help a woman who had a new baby. "Our Dickon," they volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens where he went several days each week. Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest. "If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each of, you," he said. Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind. The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing. Why did it seem to give him a sense of homecoming which he had been sure he could never feel again--that sense of the beauty of land and sky and purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing, nearer to the great old house which had held those of his blood for six hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering to think of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the four-posted bed with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that perhaps he might find him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his shrinking from him? How real that dream had been--how wonderful and clear the voice which called back to him, "In the garden--In the garden!" "I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door. I must--though I don't know why." When he arrived at the Manor the servants who


her and up the steps to the terrace. “I need to collect tonight.” “That won’t be possible,” he called back. Of course it couldn’t be easy. Alex gave a tug on the schoolteacher, drawing her closer to the mansion, along the streets of Old Greenwich. But the Gray would be a last resort. She followed Linus Reiter up the steps. “So what’s with the Gatsby act?” she asked as she followed him into a vast living room decorated with cream-colored couches and blue chinoiserie. White candles glowed on the mantel, the big glass coffee table, and the bar in the corner, illuminating shelves of expensive bottles that gleamed like buried treasure, amber, green, and ruby red. Billowing clouds of white hydrangeas were arranged in heavy vases. It was all very glamorous and grandmotherly at the same time. “I was aiming for Tom Wolfe,” said her host, heading behind the bar. “But I’ll take what I can get. What can I offer you…?” He was searching for a name, but all she said was, “I’m on a schedule.” If you were stupid enough to break rule number one and follow a stranger into his house, then rule number two was do not drink anything from a rich stranger who was on the precipice of being upgraded to rich weirdo. Reiter sighed. “The modern world keeps such an unrelenting pace.” “Tell me about it. Listen, you seem…” She was unsure how to continue. Pleasant? Genteel? A little eccentric but harmless? He was surprisingly young, maybe thirty, and handsome in a delicate way. Tall, slender, fineboned, his skin pale, his golden hair long enough to brush his shoulders, the rock god style at odds with that impeccable white suit. “Well, I don’t know what you seem, but you’re extremely polite. I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to threaten you, but that’s my job.” “How long have you worked for Eitan?” he asked, assembling glasses, ice, bourbon. “Not long.” He was watching her closely, his eyes a pale grayish blue. “You’re an addict?” “No.” “Then it’s for money?” Alex couldn’t help the bitter laugh that escaped her. “Yes and no. Eitan has me in a bind. Just like you.” Now he smiled, his teeth even whiter than his skin, and Alex had to resist the urge to take a step back. There was something unnatural in that grin, the waxen face, the princely hair. She jammed her hands in her pockets, slipping her fingers back into Samson’s knuckles. “Darling girl,” Reiter said. “Eitan Harel has never and will never have me in a bind. But I’m still trying to solve the puzzle of you. Fascinating.” Alex couldn’t tell if he was hitting on her, and it didn’t really matter. “You’re not short on cash, so why not transfer the fifty to Eitan, and I’ll leave you to whatever wealthy men get up to in their mansions on a quiet Wednesday night. You can move around the furniture or fire a butler or something.” Reiter took his drink and settled himself on one


his wedding toast, to get to witness your love and commitment. We can’t wait to see the life you’ll build together. They never saw me as choosing one kind of family over another, one dream or one life over another. They could not imagine a future in which I did not pursue everything I wanted. * * * We drove all over the region with my parents that week, taking advantage of the good weather and the timing of our trip; mountain roads that would have been impassable during the winter months were clear and open in early fall, and the occasional drizzle didn’t deter us. Mom made us pose for pictures in front of a lighthouse, at the seaside botanical gardens she loved, on a bridge stretching over a rushing river gorge. My anxiety eased as the visit wore on, and it was a pleasant surprise to discover how much I enjoyed reacquainting myself with our little corner of the Northwest; time and distance had increased my appreciation, and I forgot to feel trapped or out of place when I saw my husband wide-eyed at the deep cerulean beauty of Crater Lake, the serene glory of a redwood grove, the wild cliffs overlooking the Pacific. I took pleasure in being the one to introduce him to these places I felt an uncomplicated love for, places that had been a familiar solace to me growing up. Sometimes, though, I noticed that my father would lag a bit behind or wait in the car while the rest of us tackled a trail. There were nights when he would pick small, petty fights with me, the way he sometimes did when his blood sugar was uncontrolled and his mood fluctuated as a result. Hurt, confused, I argued back, simultaneously angry and embarrassed that Dan was there to witness our bickering. In calmer moments, when I asked Dad if he was feeling all right, the most he’d admit to was being a little tired. Mom quietly told me that he was experiencing some neuropathy in his feet. His eyesight was worsening, too; he needed a new prescription. I don’t remember if I thought to ask whether he was getting the treatment and medications he needed. I know I watched him more closely after that, but he didn’t seem to have any trouble maneuvering around the house or the neighborhood. It was the last time I would return to my childhood home, although I didn’t know it then. Soon my parents would sell the house and move into a manufactured home fifteen minutes up the highway, with a view of different mountains. By the time our visit with them was over, I felt foolish for having worried about it. My family had been overjoyed to see us, and Dan, easygoing middle child that he was, had not been remotely fazed by our little squabbles. I could almost imagine bringing our future kids back here one day, showing them the sights. Sometimes, looking at my mother, I felt sure that she was picturing the same. 5 My


“Hush yo’ mouf! And she down heah on de muck lak anybody else!” “Janie is wherever Ah wants tuh be. Dat’s de kind uh wife she is and Ah love her for it. Ah wouldn’t be knockin’ her around. Ah didn’t wants whup her last night, but ol’ Mis’ Turner done sent for her brother tuh come tuh bait Janie in and take her way from me. Ah didn’t whup Janie ’cause she done nothin’. Ah beat her tuh show dem Turners who is boss. Ah set in de kitchen one day and heard dat woman tell mah wife Ah’m too black fuh her. She don’t see how Janie can stand me.” “Tell her husband on her.” 174 Zora Neale Hurston “Shucks! Ah b’lieve he’s skeered of her.” “Knock her teeth down her throat.” “Dat would look like she had some influence when she ain’t. Ah jus’ let her see dat Ah got control.” “So she live offa our money and don’t lak black folks, huh? O.K. we’ll have her gone from here befo’ two weeks is up. Ah’m goin’ right off tuh all de men and drop rocks aginst her.” “Ah ain’t mad wid her for whut she done, ’cause she ain’t done me nothin’ yet. Ah’m mad at her for thinkin’. Her and her gang got tuh go.” “Us is wid yuh, Tea Cake. You know dat already. Dat Turner woman is real smart, accordin’ tuh her notions. Reckon she done heard ’bout dat money yo’ wife got in de bank and she’s bound tuh rope her in tuh her family one way or another.” “Sop, Ah don’t think it’s half de money as it is de looks. She’s color-struck. She ain’t got de kind of uh mind you meet every day. She ain’t a fact and neither do she make a good story when you tell about her.” “Ah yeah, she’s too smart tuh stay round heah. She fig- gers we’se jus’ uh bunch uh dumb niggers so she think she’ll grow horns. But dat’s uh lie. She’ll die butt-headed.” Saturday afternoon when the work tickets were turned into cash everybody began to buy coon-dick and get drunk. By dusk dark Belle Glade was full of loud-talking, staggering men. Plenty women had gotten their knots charged too. The police chief in his speedy Ford was rushing from jook to jook and eating house trying to keep order, but making few Their Eyes Were Watching God 175 arrests. Not enough jail-space for all the drunks so why bother with a few? All he could do to keep down fights and get the white men out of colored town by nine o’clock. Dick Sterrett and Coodemay seemed to be the worst off. Their likker told them to go from place to place pushing and shov- ing and loud-talking and they were doing it. Way after a while they arrived at Mrs. Turner’s eating house and found the place full to the limit. Tea Cake, Stew Beef, Sop-de-Bottom, Bootyny, Motor Boat and all the famil- iar crowd was there. Coodemay straightened up


Maybe he isn’t a bad guy; maybe he just made a bad choice. Maybe I should let it go. But whether Lanier lets it go is a choice she has the right to make. “Think we could break them up?” Mary Stuart asks suddenly. Everything inside me lights up. Why haven’t I thought of this? I don’t have to tell the truth. I don’t have to get disbarred or choose between my best friend and my family’s stability. The answer is so clear, and it was right there all along. “Yes!” I say. “Yes! We just make her see what we see, and she’ll call off the wedding.” This gives me an idea. “Hey, could you do Lanier’s bachelorette at camp weekend after next?” Mary Stuart nods. “For sure. Can Lanier?” I’m going to say that Lanier has only two weekends she can’t make work, but I can see Mary Stuart’s mind has floated somewhere else, her eyes glassy. I follow her gaze across the pool to Ted. She sucks her breath. She looks at me, her face scrunching in horror. “I just became a Hoffenmeyer.” I smile. Ted and Mary Stuart are kind of a mismatch. Ted is plain, a little chubby, and exactly Mary Stuart’s height when she isn’t wearing heels. She didn’t accept his offer of a first date for weeks after they met at a magazine launch party Mary Stuart was coordinating and Ted was attending. But Ted chased her relentlessly and, once he finally caught her, he worshipped her. She seemed genuinely happy, and that was what mattered. “But you love that Hoffenmeyer over there with all your heart,” I remind her. She smiles, and we watch as Huff joins Ted, clapping him on the back. Mary Stuart looks at me seriously. “I know you’re never getting married and blah, blah, blah, but I swear, Daph, if you find someone you love as much as I love Ted, I think you’ll change your mind.” I don’t answer, but as Huff catches my eye, smiling at me from across the way, a tingling knowledge washes over me: I already have. June HAPPY PLACE THE GLOW OF THE WEDDING had worn off, and I was back in my happy place—my camp—knowing that it might not be my happy place for much longer. I walked to the end of the long dock and sat down, feet swinging, like my sister and I used to do when we were little girls. I hadn’t been able to save my sister. And now, I might not be able to save Holly Springs. I took a deep breath, listening to the rustle of the light breeze through the trees on the riverbank. The wooden swim platform bobbed effortlessly in the river twenty-five yards in the distance. I could still remember the first time I swam all the way out to it alone, how I felt like I could take on the world, I could do anything, be anyone. Where had that little girl gone? She was tired. Tired of fighting a battle every day.


his movie. But she couldn’t look away and must find out who had killed Abel. That she knew, like she knew when a musical cue was about to play on screen. She didn’t want to attribute any supernatural qualities to this feeling, but perhaps there was something of that to it. Abel had said once a spell is in motion, it must conclude. It could also be a run-of-the-mill obsession, simple boredom. The tiresome echoes of her humdrum life that now pushed her to find that frisson of excitement. She felt alert and eager, like she hadn’t in a long time. “It’s none of your business,” she told Nando. “When you ask for someone’s help you should at least pretend to be polite. I thought you were going to buy something, but you’re wasting my time,” Nando said, scratching at the skin right above the elastic waist of his sweatpants. Montserrat took a couple of bills from her wallet and slammed them on the table, next to the beer bottle. She didn’t have money to be throwing around, but she also didn’t want to spend an hour chatting up Nando. “There. Now give me his contact information.” Nando took both bills and stuffed them in his sweatpants’ pocket and shrugged. “Beats me.” “You don’t know.” “I have no idea,” Nando said, shaking his head and taking another swig of beer. “You fucker. How were you going to get the script authenticated, then?” “I met the guy when I was selling at El Chopo. He stopped by my stall, I gave him my info. I’ve bought a few things from him. Lobby cards, other scripts, that kind of stuff. But he’s the one who contacts me.” “Give me back my money, you bastard,” she said, stretching out a hand and glaring at him. “You’re cute when you’re pissed off. If you want to play detective, maybe you should seduce me to get your answer.” “You touch me, I’ll kick you in the balls,” she said matter-of-factly. He rolled his eyes. “Fine. If you need him, you could try the coffee shop where I normally meet him. It’s always the same place. The Maupassant. They sell crepes, about two blocks from Metro Chilpancingo. I think he’s friends with the owners. What’s your research about? Golden Age writers?” “Something of the sort. Does he still write?” “No. I think he’s a copy editor. He has memorabilia from back in the day and sells it from time to time, to pay for a vacation or whatnot. Nice fellow.” “What does he look like?” “Tall, gray hair, has a beard. Wears a hat. Do you want to look at a new shipment—” “Thanks,” Montserrat said. She quickly stood up, shook Nando’s hand, and before he could attempt to give her a kiss on the cheek, hurried outside the apartment. Creep. “Crush a spider in your left hand,” she muttered to herself, wishing she could crush this guy. The Maupassant was on Minería. It advertised authentic Parisian crepes as well as enchiladas on its windows. Neither offering seemed


of a patriarch, who might establish his own headquarters in the front gable and assign one of the remainder to each of his six children, while the great chimney in the centre should symbolize the old fellow's hospitable heart, which kept them all warm, and made a great whole of the seven smaller ones. There was a vertical sundial on the front gable; and as the carpenter passed beneath it, he looked up and noted the hour. "Three o'clock!" said he to himself. "My father told me that dial was put up only an hour before the old Colonel's death. How truly it has kept time these seven-and-thirty years past! The shadow creeps and creeps, and is always looking over the shoulder of the sunshine!" It might have befitted a craftsman, like Matthew Maule, on being sent for to a gentleman's house, to go to the back door, where servants and work-people were usually admitted; or at least to the side entrance, where the better class of tradesmen made application. But the carpenter had a great deal of pride and stiffness in his nature; and, at this moment, moreover, his heart was bitter with the sense of hereditary wrong, because he considered the great Pyncheon House to be standing on soil which should have been his own. On this very site, beside a spring of delicious water, his grandfather had felled the pine-trees and built a cottage, in which children had been born to him; and it was only from a dead man's stiffened fingers that Colonel Pyncheon had wrested away the title-deeds. So young Maule went straight to the principal entrance, beneath a portal of carved oak, and gave such a peal of the iron knocker that you would have imagined the stern old wizard himself to be standing at the threshold. Black Scipio answered the summons in a prodigious, hurry; but showed the whites of his eyes in amazement on beholding only the carpenter. "Lord-a-mercy! what a great man he be, this carpenter fellow." mumbled Scipio, down in his throat. "Anybody think he beat on the door with his biggest hammer!" "Here I am!" said Maule sternly. "Show me the way to your master's parlor." As he stept into the house, a note of sweet and melancholy music thrilled and vibrated along the passage-way, proceeding from one of the rooms above stairs. It was the harpsichord which Alice Pyncheon had brought with her from beyond the sea. The fair Alice bestowed most of her maiden leisure between flowers and music, although the former were apt to droop, and the melodies were often sad. She was of foreign education, and could not take kindly to the New England modes of life, in which nothing beautiful had ever been developed. As Mr. Pyncheon had been impatiently awaiting Maule's arrival, black Scipio, of course, lost no time in ushering the carpenter into his master's presence. The room in which this gentleman sat was a parlor of moderate size, looking out upon the garden of the house, and having its windows partly shadowed by


that must be some form of wild turkey. Anyway, it looks plenty edible to me. By late afternoon, I decide to build a small fire to cook the meat, betting that dusk will help conceal the smoke and I can quench the fire by nightfall. I clean the game, taking extra care with the bird, but there’s nothing alarming about it. Once the feathers are plucked, it’s no bigger than a chicken, but it’s plump and firm. I’ve just placed the first lot over the coals when I hear the twig snap. In one motion, I turn to the sound, bringing the bow and ar- row to my shoulder. There’s no one there. No one I can see anyway. Then I spot the tip of a child’s boot just peeking out from behind the trunk of a tree. My shoulders relax and I grin. She can move through the woods like a shadow, you have to give her that. How else could she have followed me? The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them. “You know, they’re not the only ones who can form al- liances,” I say. 198 For a moment, no response. Then one of Rue’s eyes edges around the trunk. “You want me for an ally?” “Why not? You saved me with those tracker jackers. You’re smart enough to still be alive. And I can’t seem to shake you anyway,” I say. She blinks at me, trying to decide. “You hun- gry?” I can see her swallow hard, her eye flickering to the meat. “Come on then, I’ve had two kills today.” Rue tentatively steps out into the open. “I can fix your stings.” “Can you?” I ask. “How?” She digs in the pack she carries and pulls out a handful of leaves. I’m almost certain they’re the ones my mother uses. “Where’d you find those?” “Just around. We all carry them when we work in the orc- hards. They left a lot of nests there,” says Rue. “There are a lot here, too.” “That’s right. You’re District Eleven. Agriculture,” I say. “Orchards, huh? That must be how you can fly around the trees like you’ve got wings.” Rue smiles. I’ve landed on one of the few things she’ll admit pride in. “Well, come on, then. Fix me up.” I plunk down by the fire and roll up my pant leg to reveal the sting on my knee. To my surprise, Rue places the handful of leaves into her mouth and begins to chew them. My mother would use other methods, but it’s not like we have a lot of op- tions. After a minute or so, Rue presses a gloppy green wad of chewed leaves and spit on my knee. 199 “Ohhh.” The sound comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. It’s as if the leaves are actually leaching the pain right out of the sting. Rue gives a giggle. “Lucky you had the sense to pull the stingers out or you’d be a lot worse.” “Do my neck! Do my


pardon once again, good sir, if my speech give the shadow of offence. You, sir, of all men whom I have known, are he whose body is the closest conjoined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument." "Then I need ask no further," said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. "You deal not, I take it, in medicine for the soul!" "Thus, a sickness," continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,--"a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil? How may this be unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?" "No, not to thee! not to an earthly physician!" cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. "Not to thee! But, if it be the soul's disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with His good pleasure, can cure, or he can kill. Let Him do with me as, in His justice and wisdom, He shall see good. But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter? that dares thrust himself between the sufferer and his God?" With a frantic gesture he rushed out of the room.% "It is as well to have made this step," said Roger Chillingworth to himself, looking after the minister, with a grave smile. "There is nothing lost. We shall be friends again anon. But see, now, how passion takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself! As with one passion so with another. He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Master Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart. " It proved not difficult to re-establish the intimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. The young clergyman, Thesaurus ailment: (n) complaint, affection, associate, accompanying, adjunct. ANTONYMS: (n) friendliness, disease, trouble, condition, ill, earthly: (adj, n) terrestrial; (adj) carnal, calmness, meekness. disorder, sickness, affliction; (adj, n) worldly, conceivable, human, geotic, footing: (n) foothold, base, bottom, infirmity; (v) distemper. secular, terrene, temporal, telluric, foundation, status, rank, foot, anon: (adv) directly, immediately, sublunary. ANTONYMS: (adj) pedestal, situation, relation, root. early, readily, soon, instantly, again, spiritual, divine, ethereal, immortal, ANTONYM: (n) top. forthwith, promptly, shortly, rath. impossible, improbable, re-establish: (v) restore, reconstruct, companions: (n) circle, entourage, inconceivable, celestial. renew, regenerate, reestablish, return. people. fierceness: (n) ferocity, violence, unaltered: (adj) unalterable, unmoved, conjoined: (adj) concomitant, conjunct, cruelty, force, brutality, rage, same, unaffected. ANTONYM: (adj) associated, concurrent, united, intensity, strength, vehemence, affected. inseparable, coincident, attending, wildness, ferociousness. Nathaniel Hawthorne 129 after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly


unit, as though he had grown up to see them as fundamentally indivisible. “You mean they like my parents,” she said. “They think you’re from a suitable family.” Her parents thought the same of him. In the first manifestation of any interest in her romantic choices, her father had taken to asking her about Kúnlé’s welfare. He was coughing during that last newscast, is he well? How is he getting on with the job? How far with his transfer? The conversations ended with her father remarking that Kúnlé was a good man, his parents were good people, he was from good stock. She had learnt through bans on the kinds of girls she could invite to visit when she was in secondary school that her father’s view of anyone was refracted through his opinion of their parents. And it was clear that, as far as he was concerned, Kúnlé was the best boyfriend Wúràọlá could ever have, one he already deemed eligible to father his grandchildren. Kúnlé held the door open for her as they left the boys’ quarters. He tried to hold her as they approached the main house through a maze of ixoras and hibiscus plants, but she shrugged him off. He seemed to find this amusing. It was impossible for him to understand what she knew and had explained to him every night she had refused to stay over. That his parents would judge her with different standards than the ones they judged him with—hell, her own parents would too. It did not matter that the Cokers thought she was from a good family, whatever that meant; the fact that she acquiesced, no, asked to have sex with Kúnlé was not going to be seen by his parents as a good thing. It had been clear to her since puberty that the extent of her desires would not be judged suitable. Boys were supposed to want sex, and she was to fend them off; that was what good girls did so they would not disgrace their families. Wúràọlá wished she was the sort of woman who no longer cared about this. If only so she could enjoy what she wanted without guilt and look Professor Coker in the eye as he’d stared her down. But she did care. What he thought of her, and, more important, his wife’s opinion, mattered to her. Wúràọlá had been trying to copy Professor Cordelia Coker’s perfectly arched brows since she stole her first eye pencil from her mother’s dressing table. Her admiration had veered so close to utter worship during her ophthalmology rotation in medical school that she’d briefly considered going into the same specialty so that Professor Cordelia might be her mentor. The woman had become a consultant before she was thirty, and a professor at forty-six. She spoke in a voice that tinkled and seemed to float through hospital corridors in a cloud of floral perfume. Half of Wúràọlá’s class had developed a crush on her. Wúràọlá was glad Professor Cordelia wasn’t the one who had walked into Kúnlé’s living room.


as an extra in several forgettable flicks before landing a steady gig at Televisa. By 1977, when the twenty-two-year-old made his debut in a soap opera, he had the chiseled good looks of a star, and Montserrat’s love became a roaring passion that was eventually dampened by his utter indifference. She loved him still, but it was not with the desperate romantic yearning of her younger years. She’d eventually admitted that Tristán was a bit of a shit at times and more than a little fucked up. He could be a horrible, selfish prick, and his numerous personal problems took their toll on their friendship. Yet she loved him. However, despite this deep affection, she would not give him her car. She immediately tensed and put her cup down. “Is that all you wanted? To borrow my car?” “Come on, no. It’s been a while since I last saw you. I wanted to say hello.” “And conveniently borrow my car.” “It would only be a tiny trip.” “No. You’re not going to lug around your mattress on top of my car to save yourself money with the movers.” He laughed. “I’m not tying the mattress to the roof of your car. Come on, Momo.” “No. That’s it, no. Take a cab. Or have Yolanda drive you there.” Tristán’s lips were pressed tight together, and he was staring at her. But she wasn’t going to let him have the car. She’d wanted a car the Saint drove on the TV when they were kids, a Volvo P1800. Since she couldn’t get one, she’d settled on a Volkswagen that ran like a dream. It was white, immaculate, and kept safe and sound in a reliable garage spot she rented a block from her home. It was not the car of a TV hero, but it was her precious four wheels, and she didn’t need Tristán stinking it up with his cigarettes, imported or not. The waitress came by and told them she could move them to the smoking section. Montserrat took her cup of coffee, and he grabbed his soft drink. When they sat down again Tristán again toyed with his box of cigarettes. Montserrat extended a hand and placed it over his. “I’d like it if you stopped smoking.” “I’ve told you, it keeps me thin.” “If not for your health, think about your teeth.” “That’s why I have veneers.” “Tristán.” “We switched sections so I could smoke.” “We switched because you’re a stubborn fucker,” she said, almost hissing at him. “Mmm,” he replied as he lit his cigarette and took a drag. “Yolanda and I broke up, so she’s not driving me anywhere.” This startled her. Usually, Tristán called Montserrat at the end of his relationships. He used her as a confessional booth. “What? When?” “Two weeks ago.” “You didn’t say anything over the phone.” “I was trying to figure out if I could patch it over. I mean, seriously patch it over, not just flowers and a box of chocolates. Therapy, maybe. Couples counseling.” “That’s a bit—” “Mature of me?” he


me by becoming my wife. That seemed to make the matter no better, so then I lost my temper too, and I answered him rather more hotly than I should perhaps, consider- ing that she was standing by. So it ended by his going off with her, as you saw, and here am I as badly puzzled a man as any in this county. Just tell me what it all means, Watson, and I'll owe you more than ever I can hope to pay." I tried one or two explanations, but, indeed, I was completely puzzled myself. Our friend's title, his fortune, his age, his character, and his appearance are all in his favour, and I know nothing against him unless it be this dark fate which runs in his family. That his advances should be rejected so brusquely with- out any reference to the lady's own wishes and that the lady should accept the situation without protest is very amazing. However, our conjectures were set at rest by a visit from Stapleton himself that very afternoon. He had come to offer apologies for his rudeness of the morning, and after a long private interview with Sir Henry in his study the upshot of their conversation was that the breach is quite healed, and that we are to dine at Merripit House next Friday as a sign of it. "l don't say now that he isn't a crazy man," said Sir Henry "I can't forget the look in his eyes when he ran at me this morning, but I must allow that no man could make a more handsome apology than he has done." "Did he give any explanation of his conduct?" "His sister is everything in his life, he says. That is natural enough, and I am glad that he should understand her value. They have always been together, and according to his account he has been a very lonely man with only her as a companion, so that the thought of losing her was really terrible to him. He had not understood, he said, that I was becoming attached to her, but when he saw with his own eyes that it was really so, and that she might be taken away from him, it gave him such a shock that for a time he was not responsible for what he said or did. He was very sorry for all that had passed, and he recognized how foolish and how selfish it was that he should imagine that he could hold a beautiful woman like his sister to himself for her whole life. If she had to leave him he had rather it was to a neighbour like myself than to anyone else. But in any case it was a blow to him and it would take him some time before he could prepare himself to meet it. He would withdraw all opposition upon his part if I would promise for three months to let the matter rest and to be content with cultivating the lady's friendship during that time without


then looked at Ford. He suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny sublimal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth it is never possible to be further than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed. Ford Prefect was at this moment under great stress, and he was born 600 light years away in the near vicinity of Betelgeuse. The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of distance. He didn't know what it meant, but he looked at Ford Prefect with a new sense of respect, almost awe. "Are you serious, sir?" he said in a small whisper which had the effect of silencing the pub. "You think the world's going to end?" "Yes," said Ford. "But, this afternoon?" Ford had recovered himself. He was at his flippest. "Yes," he said gaily, "in less than two minutes I would estimate." The barman couldn't believe the conversation he was having, but he couldn't believe the sensation he had just had either. "Isn't there anything we can do about it then?" he said. "No, nothing," said Ford, stuffing the peanuts into his pockets. Someone in the hushed bar suddenly laughed raucously at how stupid everyone had become. The man sitting next to Ford was a bit sozzled by now. His eyes waved their way up to Ford. "I thought," he said, "that if the world was going to end we were meant to lie down or put a paper bag over our head or something." "If you like, yes," said Ford. "That's what they told us in the army," said the man, and his eyes began the long trek back down to his whisky. "Will that help?" asked the barman. "No," said Ford and gave him a friendly smile. "Excuse me," he said, "I've got to go." With a wave, he left. The pub was silent for a moment longer, and then, embarrassingly enough, the man with the raucous laugh did it again. The girl he had dragged along to the pub with him had grown to loathe him dearly over the last hour or so, and it would probably have been a great satisfaction to her to know that in a minute and a half or so he would suddenly evaporate into a whiff of hydrogen, ozone and carbon monoxide. However, when the moment came she would be too busy evaporating herself to notice it. The barman cleared his throat. He heard himself say: "Last orders, please." The huge yellow machines began to sink downward and to move faster. Ford knew they were there. This wasn't the way he had wanted it. Running up the lane, Arthur had nearly reached his house. He didn't notice how cold it had suddenly


and a secret purpose to shed tears in her own chamber that he had brighter objects now before his eyes than her aged and uncomely features. They never possessed a charm; and if they had, the canker of her grief for him would long since have destroyed it. The guest leaned back in his chair. Mingled in his countenance with a dreamy delight, there was a troubled look of effort and unrest. He was seeking to make himself more fully sensible of the scene around him; or, perhaps, dreading it to be a dream, or a play of imagination, was vexing the fair moment with a struggle for some added brilliancy and more durable illusion. "How pleasant!--How delightful!" he murmured, but not as if addressing any one. "Will it last? How balmy the atmosphere through that open window! An open window! How beautiful that play of sunshine! Those flowers, how very fragrant! That young girl's face, how cheerful, how blooming!--a flower with the dew on it, and sunbeams in the dew-drops! Ah! this must be all a dream! A dream! A dream! But it has quite hidden the four stone walls" Then his face darkened, as if the shadow of a cavern or a dungeon had come over it; there was no more light in its expression than might have come through the iron grates of a prison window-still lessening, too, as if he were sinking farther into the depths. Phoebe (being of that quickness and activity of temperament that she seldom long refrained from taking a part, and generally a good one, in what was going forward) now felt herself moved to address the stranger. "Here is a new kind of rose, which I found this morning in the garden," said she, choosing a small crimson one from among the flowers in the vase. "There will be but five or six on the bush this season. This is the most perfect of them all; not a speck of blight or mildew in it. And how sweet it is!--sweet like no other rose! One can never forget that scent!" "Ah!--let me see!--let me hold it!" cried the guest, eagerly seizing the flower, which, by the spell peculiar to remembered odors, brought innumerable associations along with the fragrance that it exhaled. "Thank you! This has done me good. I remember how I used to prize this flower,--long ago, I suppose, very long ago!--or was it only yesterday? It makes me feel young again! Am I young? Either this remembrance is singularly distinct, or this consciousness strangely dim! But how kind of the fair young girl! Thank you! Thank you!" The favorable excitement derived from this little crimson rose afforded Clifford the brightest moment which he enjoyed at the breakfast-table. It might have lasted longer, but that his eyes happened, soon afterwards, to rest on the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking down on the scene like a ghost, and a most ill-tempered and ungenial one. The guest made an impatient gesture of the


time, she would have ignored the call, but she happened to glance over and see Julian’s name on the screen. Her brother wouldn’t pick up a phone unless there was a good reason. She had to answer. “Sorry, it’s my brother,” she said, pushing her fingers through her husband’s hair. When August admitted defeat and rolled over, misery etched in every line of his face, she finally picked up her phone and hit talk. “Hello?” “Hey, it’s me,” came her brother’s voice from the other end. “Julian, hey—” “Are you watching the news?” “What?” she pulled away from the phone momentarily to check the time. Nine A.M. “No, I just woke up. Is something happening?” “Yes. Is August there? He’s not answering his phone.” Natalie frowned, a weird sort of clinch happening in her middle. “He’s here. I’ll put you on speaker.” She tapped the screen. “Okay, you’ve got both of us.” “There’s been a flash flood in St. Helena,” said Julian, without preamble. Brisk, as usual, but slightly choppy. “There’s helicopter footage on the news. A whole road turned into a river and there’s a minivan stuck in the middle of it.” He paused. “Kids and a mom.” “Oh my God,” Natalie breathed, tossing aside the sheets, her feet finding the cold floor. “Search and rescue are dealing with similar situations all over the region. They’re bringing in reserves from other counties, but the roads are causing delays. The police are at the scene, but their first attempt to reach the van wasn’t successful—” August pulled up his pants and disappeared from the bedroom. Just boom. Gone. His feet pounded across the floorboards of the kitchen. The creak of a door opening and closing in the hallway, a distinct click she recognized as the linen closet. Was he taking a shower? Or was that wishful thinking? Because she had the sudden fear that her fake-for-now husband was heading straight to a flash flood. “He’s . . . I don’t know what he’s doing. Hold on.” With Julian still on speakerphone, Natalie jogged from the bedroom with her stupid heart lodged in her throat. “August?” She found him in the hallway. But this man was a stranger. Gone was his golden retriever, tongue lolling out, lazy beers at the lake kind of demeanor. He’d been replaced with a soldier. His expression was hard, focused, the movements of his hands precise and efficient. And from somewhere in the linen closet she’d opened multiple times, he’d unearthed a gigantic backpack. He checked the contents now, nodded, threw it on his back, and strode for the door. “You’re going?” Natalie moved like a ghost in his wake. “You’re going.” “I’m going,” August said without stopping. “He’s going,” Julian echoed, sounding relieved. Relieved? Natalie felt like someone had shoved a stick of dynamite into her chest. Her feet were barely functioning, but she ran after August, anyway, barefoot in a nightshirt. Outside. Within seconds, she was soaked to the skin. So was August, though he seemed almost at home in the rain, cutting through it like


Godfrey at arm's length because she's heard bad rumors about him. Even after Molly has died and he is free to marry Nancy, Godfrey is reluctant to tell her about Molly because he fears her disapproval. Later, Nancy's strict code also keeps her from agreeing to adopt a child, which creates the only unhappiness in her marriage to Godfrey. As you read, consider: Is Nancy a good moral example or are her strict principles a flaw in her character? ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: DOLLY WINTHROP Dolly represents Raveloe's values of what an individual should be. She's hardworking, skillful, and so efficient that she has time left over to care for her neighbor Silas. She doesn't hesitate to give advice and get involved with other people's lives. She is motherly, not only toward her own child Aaron but toward Eppie. As a wife, she's tolerant of her husband's drinking but fairly independent. She knows she's no scholar, but she earns great respect from Silas for her ability to see matters clearly, almost instinctively. Dolly's friendship with Silas demonstrates concretely how the village gradually accepts him. But Dolly serves another function, too--she is the spokesperson for Raveloe religion, holding it up against Silas' Lantern-Yard beliefs. Dolly believes in religion without knowing the fine points of doctrine. While the rituals of the church comfort her, she concentrates on good deeds here on Earth rather than on a relationship with God. Her concept of God is almost pagan, a fuzzy vision of "Them up above." But with true peasant wisdom, she sees a divine pattern in events, working out over long years. She makes Silas look upon his life with this kind of long-range view, showing him that all his sorrows were simply a path leading to his finding Eppie. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: EPPIE On the title page of Silas Marner, George Eliot placed a quotation from Wordsworth's poem "Michael": A child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts. In the novel, that prophecy is fulfilled by Eppie, the abandoned child that Silas Marner adopts. Symbolically, she is the golden treasure that replaces his stolen gold. Psychologically, she is the force that pulls Silas out of his isolation and restores him to harmony with the human race, as well as with his own past. Although Eppie fulfills these functions in the novel, she is also an interesting character in her own right. She is believable as a toddler, wandering away from her careless mother toward a shiny light. Her needs are simple--she's hungry and her feet are wet--and she clings lovingly to Silas once he has taken care of these needs. Later, you see her as an active little child, getting into anything that's in her reach. Pretty Eppie is blonde like her biological father, Godfrey. She's no common village girl, though Eliot says this is the result of her loving environment, not her upperclass blood. In her simple emotions and her strong attachments, Eppie is like her adoptive father, Silas. But she also has


it might get mentioned more,” Bezi says. “I feel like it’d be a selling point for this place.” Kyle looks appalled. “Jesus.” “I’m not saying I agree,” Bezi says quickly. “I’m just sayin’.” She sits up straight. “What?” I ask. “What is it?” “I forgot—I meant to tell you.” She shakes her head. “When Ms. Keane was waving her gun around, me and Paige barricaded the door in the control center, but we still didn’t feel safe so we, uh—we kicked in that locked supply closet.” “What?” I ask. “Did you damage anything?” Bezi purses her lips. “Bezi, come on.” I sigh. “I gotta fix it if you broke something. There’s expensive equipment in there.” “No there isn’t,” she says. “That’s what I’m saying. There’s no equipment in there at all. Just boxes of junk. Mostly papers and folders from what we could see.” I pause. “Mr. Lamont said it was extra audio and video equipment. He said it was more valuable than anything else we have out here.” Bezi shrugs. “Maybe there’s something in there that your boss doesn’t want y’all to see.” I stand and pull Bezi up with me. “Come on. I want to go have a look.” I turn to Javier and Kyle. “Y’all coming?” “Nah,” Javier says. “I’m tired. I’m gonna take a nap until Tasha and them come back.” “I need to start cleaning out the kitchen,” Kyle says. “We’re still tryna get out of here tomorrow, right?” “Yeah,” I say. “As long as we get everything done. Day after tomorrow at the latest.” Kyle looks severely disappointed. “I’ll be back to help in a little bit,” I say. He gives me a smile, and Bezi and I head to the control center. The door to the supply closet in the control room is halfway off the hinges and the frame is cracked around the lock plate. I narrow my eyes at Bezi. “Y’all busted this thing wide open.” “We were scared,” Bezi says. “My adrenaline was pumping. Sorry. I think we can fix it, though.” I nudge the broken door open and glance inside the large closet. Bezi is right; there’s no extra equipment, just dozens of boxes filled with file folders and paper. A thick, musty odor lingers in the air and there’s a layer of gray dust on everything. A skitter of tiny feet tells me some mice have made this place their home. I grab one of the boxes nearest me and open its water-damaged flaps. Inside are a few folded shirts and red whistles on strings. I pull out one of the tops and hold it up. It’s filled with holes where mice or moths or some other creature ate their way through the fabric. Across the front of the yellow shirt in big red letters that have faded so much they’re nearly invisible, I can just make out the words Camp Mirror Lake and underneath that, the word Counselor. “These are uniforms?” Bezi asks. “Like from the movie?” I try to think about the details of The Curse of Camp


it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, `My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!' The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. `Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round. `I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and he hurried off. Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went in search of her hedgehog. The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree. By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: `but it doesn't matter much,' thought Alice, `as all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.' So she tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for a little more conversation with her friend. When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable. The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said. The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin at HIS time of life. The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense. The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.) Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to the Duchess: you'd better ask HER about it.' `She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner: `fetch her here.' And the executioner went off like an arrow. The


liked it as much as the “Saws.” So they began to hold dances night after night in the quarters, usually behind Tea Cake’s house. Often now, Tea Cake and Janie stayed up so late at the fire dances that Tea Cake would not let her go with him to the field. He wanted her to get her rest. So she was home by herself one afternoon when she saw a band of Seminoles passing by. The men walking in front and the laden, stolid women following them like burros. She had seen Indians several times in the ’Glades, in twos and threes, but this was a large party. They were headed towards the Palm Beach road and kept moving steadily. About an hour later another party appeared and went the same way. Then another just before sundown. This time she asked Their Eyes Were Watching God 181 where they were all going and at last one of the men answered her. “Going to high ground. Saw-grass bloom. Hurricane com- ing.” Everybody was talking about it that night. But nobody was worried. The fire dance kept up till nearly dawn. The next day, more Indians moved east, unhurried but steady. Still a blue sky and fair weather. Beans running fine and prices good, so the Indians could be, must be, wrong. You couldn’t have a hurricane when you’re making seven and eight dollars a day picking beans. Indians are dumb anyhow, always were. Another night of Stew Beef making dynamic subtleties with his drum and living, sculptural, grotesques in the dance. Next day, no Indians passed at all. It was hot and sultry and Janie left the field and went home. Morning came without motion. The winds, to the tini- est, lisping baby breath had left the earth. Even before the sun gave light, dead day was creeping from bush to bush watching man. Some rabbits scurried through the quarters going east. Some possums slunk by and their route was definite. One or two at a time, then more. By the time the people left the fields the procession was constant. Snakes, rattlesnakes began to cross the quarters. The men killed a few, but they could not be missed from the crawling horde. People stayed indoors until daylight. Several times during the night Janie heard the snort of big animals like deer. Once the muted voice of a pan- ther. Going east and east. That night the palm and banana trees began that long distance talk with rain. Several people 182 Zora Neale Hurston took fright and picked up and went in to Palm Beach anyway. A thousand buzzards held a flying meet and then went above the clouds and stayed. One of the Bahaman boys stopped by Tea Cake’s house in a car and hollered. Tea Cake came out throwin’ laughter over his shoulder into the house. “Hello Tea Cake.” “Hello ’Lias. You leavin’, Ah see.” “Yeah man. You and Janie wanta go? Ah wouldn’t give nobody else uh chawnce at uh seat till Ah found out if you all had anyway


lounge; Florence could hear the TV chattering, the chant of a football crowd. She called out, ‘Dad, I’m home.’ She took a deep breath: she was ready. ‘In here, princess,’ he called. She plastered a smile on her face and walked into the lounge. The gas fire was blazing. She scanned the TV; Chelsea were drawing 1-1, so it probably wasn’t the best time to chat. Dave sipped from a beer can. ‘I made a sandwich for my tea. I made you one too – cheese and pickle. It’s in the kitchen.’ ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Florence was standing in the doorway; she didn’t move. ‘How was Stratford?’ Her father grinned. ‘Imagine my princess going to the theatre and watching Shakespeare. Did you have a good time?’ ‘I did.’ Florence heard the surprise in her voice. ‘The women I went with were lovely.’ ‘I like Lin and Josie…’ Dave muttered before taking another swig. ‘They are proper old school – and Neil’s a good bloke.’ ‘He is… he’s made her dinner.’ ‘Oh, right – he’s a good cook.’ ‘Have you had a nice day, Dad?’ ‘Oh, ah, yes – I had a couple of drinks in The Sun at lunchtime. I met the rambling group coming back from their Sunday hike. I felt sorry for them – there were only three of them, the vicar and two women… not the best turnout. I expect there will be more when the weather gets warmer.’ ‘Ah…’ Florence paused. ‘Dad?’ She took a breath. ‘Florence.’ He twisted round, giving her his full attention, a smile ready on his face. ‘I have something to tell you.’ ‘Oh?’ Dave raised his brows. ‘It’s really difficult…’ She fidgeted, moving from one foot to the other, chewing a nail. Suddenly she wondered if she should tell him at all. It would be easy to say something else, to talk about the picnic, the river, the play. She didn’t need to tell him about the baby, not yet. It was too hard; she didn’t want to see his face crumble. There was cheering on the TV. The commentator was yelling. Someone had scored, but Dave’s eyes were on his daughter. ‘It’s not difficult, love. I know.’ ‘What do you know?’ Florence froze. The room spun a little bit. ‘I found the thingy – the testing stick – in your bin when I was emptying the rubbish… I wasn’t sure at first, then it occurred to me what it was.’ Dave offered a weak smile. ‘So, I’m going to be a grandad?’ ‘Oh, Dad – I’m sorry…’ Florence fought back tears. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to be strong. Then he was up from his seat, taking her in sturdy arms. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Florence sniffed. Her face was wet, dampening his T-shirt. ‘What do you want to know?’ ‘How are you feeling? Are you over the moon? Do you have morning sickness? I remember your mum did…’ Then they were both crying. Florence tried to catch her breath. ‘Are you angry, Dad?’ ‘Why would I


of the real deal. The soda shop, Main Street, Galvin’s boyhood friends … his parents. The memories stuck with her like the embrace of a close friend. “All right, Vivian. I’m gonna let you go. Gotta check in on Mrs. Hayden’s horse. I’m currently wearing different hats. Our veterinarian died a few weeks back. It’s slow here but never boring, you know.” Griffin gave her a dashing wink and signed off. “See you soon, Griffin,” Viv said aloud to the dimming 3D projection. She slumped back in her chair as the hologram dissolved into nothingness. Chapter 6 Alternate Universe… USS Adams Captain Galvin Quintos Two sun-like stars, like distant headlights, illuminated the spectacle before us. It wasn’t like any asteroid field I’d ever encountered. Gone were the telltale jagged tumbling rocks and fine mist of space dust. I turned to look at Bosun Polk. She continued to tap at her board, and a line formed between her brows. “What the …” she glanced up. “Not an asteroid field. What we have here is a recently destroyed world.” As our squad of three spacecraft approached, more detail became apparent on the halo display. “Clouds?” someone commented. Polk said, “Ship’s sensors are detecting a field of debris composed of various minerals and compounds. No ready indication of what caused the explosion. But whatever it was, it caused the planet’s crust to rupture and break into these large chunks. This was a water world. Ocean waters have evaporated and expanded into the cloud vapor still visible around some of the larger chunks.” “It’s beautiful,” Akari said. Moving closer still, we could see the mist had somewhat diffused, spreading out from the larger chunks of debris as they moved through space. The halo display feed zoomed in to the point we could see individual droplets of water sparkling in the sunlight, creating a shimmering halo around the debris field. As Adams continued forward, a sudden, brilliant prismatic rainbow effect radiated throughout the field of view. So beautiful, so spectacular was the visual spectacle, no one spoke; no one so much as took a breath. A full minute passed before Polk spoke again. Perhaps in reverence for what they had all just witnessed, her voice was soft, just above a whisper. “Sensors are detecting the chemical composition of the vapor and have determined the amount of water and other gases that were released.” “What’s that?” Grimes said, pointing to an area glowing white-yellow and amber. “What’s left of the world’s core?” I said, looking to Polk for verification. She nodded, letting out a breath. “Analyzing specific minerals and materials, I’m getting a better feel for things … for the composition of the original planet. The debris field contains a mix of silicates, metals, and other compounds that were part of the planet’s crust, mantle, and core. Overall, I’m finding it difficult to distinguish the readings from those of Earth if she, too, had been so violently … eviscerated.” I said, “Mr. Grimes, find us a substantial, uh, segment to position Adams and our two sidekick vessels.” “Aye,


They most always put in a dead man when they bury a treasure under a tree, to look out for it." "Lordy!" "Yes, they do. I've always heard that." "Tom, I don't like to fool around much where there's dead people. A body's bound to get into trouble with 'em, sure." "I don't like to stir 'em up, either. S'pose this one here was to stick his skull out and say something!" "Don't Tom! It's awful." "Well, it just is. Huck, I don't feel comfortable a bit." --------------------------------------------------------- -235- "Say, Tom, let's give this place up, and try somewheres else." "All right, I reckon we better." "What'll it be?" Tom considered awhile; and then said: "The ha'nted house. That's it!" "Blame it, I don't like ha'nted houses, Tom. Why, they're a dern sight worse'n dead people. Dead people might talk, maybe, but they don't come sliding around in a shroud, when you ain't noticing, and peep over your shoulder all of a sudden and grit their teeth, the way a ghost does. I couldn't stand such a thing as that, Tom -- nobody could." "Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don't travel around only at night. They won't hender us from digging there in the daytime." "Well, that's so. But you know mighty well people don't go about that ha'nted house in the day nor the night." "Well, that's mostly because they don't like to go where a man's been murdered, anyway -- but nothing's ever been seen around that house except in the night -- just some blue lights slipping by the windows -- no regular ghosts." "Well, where you see one of them blue lights flickering around, Tom, you can bet there's a ghost mighty close behind it. It stands to reason. Becuz you know that they don't anybody but ghosts use 'em." --------------------------------------------------------- -236- "Yes, that's so. But anyway they don't come around in the daytime, so what's the use of our being afeard?" "Well, all right. We'll tackle the ha'nted house if you say so -- but I reckon it's taking chances." They had started down the hill by this time. There in the middle of the moonlit valley below them stood the "ha'nted" house, utterly isolated, its fences gone long ago, rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps, the chimney crumbled to ruin, the window-sashes vacant, a corner of the roof caved in. The boys gazed awhile, half expecting to see a blue light flit past a window; then talking in a low tone, as befitted the time and the circumstances, they struck far off to the right, to give the haunted house a wide berth, and took their way homeward through the woods that adorned the rearward side of Cardiff Hill. --------------------------------------------------------- -237- Chapter XXVI ABOUT noon the next day the boys arrived at the dead tree; they had come for their tools. Tom was impatient to go to the haunted house; Huck was measurably so, also -- but suddenly said: "Lookyhere, Tom, do you know what day it is?" Tom mentally ran over the days of the week,


to die.” The screen lurched to one side, then lifted and showed her Ian’s face from way too close. “Lying just makes it worse,” he said. “I’m sorry,” Louise said, “but I just—” “You shouldn’t have told her about your parents in the first place,” he said. “She’s overtired. We’ll talk tomorrow.” “Wait,” Louise said. He turned off the call. I’m not a bad mother. Louise took a hot shower. She tried to think of anything but Poppy, alone and miserable and terrified of her parents dying, and how that was her fault. What does Mark want to do at the funeral? It popped into her head right before she fell asleep. What was so important that he wanted to plan? Playing “Stairway to Heaven” on the bagpipes? She remembered he’d said something about “FCP,” and that rang a bell, then it popped into her head like she’d never forgotten it: The Fellowship of Christian Puppeteers. How many dinners had she spent picking at a piece of Hawaiian pineapple quiche while ignoring her mom’s tale of the latest scandal in the good old FCP? There’d been her mom’s friend Judi, who giggled at her own jokes and introduced herself as the FCP’s “string-puller in chief.” Mark would probably invite her and a bunch of other puppet people to the funeral to speak. Before he dropped out of BU, Mark had always liked their mom’s puppets, and after that he didn’t like much of anything. He’d even liked Pupkin when they were kids, but she knew that Pupkin hated them. Especially her. And now she’d thrown him away and he was going to be so angry and— Dolls don’t have feelings, she told herself, cutting off that thought before it could get out of control. She needed to stay under control. Chapter 7 L ouise stood in front of Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church and watched a pink-feathered ostrich walk up the front steps and go inside. The sun shone warm and bright for January, and the male ushers wore three-piece suits in Hawaiian prints while the female ushers wore pineapple-print dresses. Old men in suspenders and cartoon-character ties stood on the sidewalk chatting with middle-aged women in fairy wings. There were Panama hats and fascinators and almost every single person wore a puppet on one arm. “I didn’t think it would be like this,” Constance said, standing beside Louise. “He said it’d be like Jim Henson’s funeral,” Louise said. Constance shrugged. “If it was good enough for Jim Henson . . .” she said. “Exactly,” said Louise. She’d had second thoughts about letting Mark plan the service when she saw the email from the FCP about “gathering for a FUNeral not a funeral” and “celebrating Nancy and Eric Joyner’s ascent into GLORY,” but Mark had told her he’d make sure it was tasteful. He told her he’d already talked to the minister. He reminded her that the FCP were Christians first and puppeteers second. He’d asked her if she was going to second-guess every single one of his decisions because if that was


table and from me, but I’m desperate. “Maybe it will get better and I just have to keep trying?” “I can’t know you’re in pain and still…” He looks up, at least. “I really am sorry.” It’s that easy to get rid of me. To erase me from his life and whatever slot I may have filled in his future. He doesn’t need to think on me a little longer. Short-term. Just like you wanted, right? I nod my head because this is what I deserve, and he does the same. One thing I can appreciate is his honesty, because God knows he received none of that from me. Chapter Thirty-six Friday afternoon, Penny reminds me of my first official appointment with Angelina. I nod. “I’m going now.” Penny never reminds me of anything because it’s my job to do that for her, but I know it’s because I look like the bird the cat dragged in, and I can only imagine what people told her once I’d left the office yesterday. I put my computer in sleep mode and head downstairs. * * * Today Angelina’s hair is straight and tucked behind her ears and her wooden earrings almost rest on her collarbone. Her lips, like her nails, are painted a burnt orange—how bold. “Maddie, you look … Are you all right?” “Of course,” I answer. Last time, the HR room was hot, but I’m shivering today. “My dad’s funeral is tomorrow, so I’ve not had much sleep. I’m fine, though. I’ve been meaning to ask, do you have a yellow pantsuit?” Her face remains illegible. “I do.” “Me too, but I still haven’t worn it.” I look at the clock. Only two minutes have passed. “I talk to myself a lot. In my head and out loud,” I tell her. “Is that weird?” “Why do you talk to yourself out loud?” I shrug. “Sometimes my head is too full and it makes what I’m thinking clearer. I know not to do it in public.” “So you’re often alone, I take it?” she asks. “If you talk to yourself a lot, but not in public, you must be by yourself quite a bit.” “I like my own company.” “Have you always?” “What do you mean?” “I believe in two dominant introvert types. Those who have always enjoyed their own company and those who have grown to prefer it because they weren’t given much of a choice. Which do you think you fit into?” I think about how small my room back home is and how I used to tell myself I loved it because its purpose was to house only one and I fit comfortably inside. James had a life I wasn’t cool or old enough to fit into, Mum had a life on another continent, and my dad had his slowly taken away. “Maybe the second,” I answer. “Do you talk much to other people?” “Of course.” “About more significant things?” Angelina clarifies. “Not just everyday pleasantries, but private matters. How you are and what you’re thinking, for example.” “Why?”