past within a hair’s breadth of my starboard side wing. Only now did I see the blackened char marks left behind. So not a miss, just survivable damage. “Dammit!” They were on me like three unshakable shadows. An energy bolt suddenly clipped my canopy, leaving a visible, blackened scar upon the curved diamond glass above me. A new alarm shrieked to life; the cockpit was losing atmosphere. Terrific. I nosedived and kept with the forward, looping trajectory—an ass-over-teakettle move that was most definitely not sanctioned by US Space-Navy piloting protocols. The Arrow’s framework complained with an audible squeal as g-forces pushed and pulled, bending the superstructure like a child’s plastic toy. I pulled back on the controls at the zenith of my spiraling loop-de-loop, coming to a jarring, lung-expelling deceleration. Zip zip zip, all three scorpion-flies flew past me. I watched as they tried, in vain, to slow, to correct their maneuvering miscalculations. I took the Phazon Pulsars off autotracking, manually taking over targeting. I let loose with a barrage of plasma fire. Being at such close range, the three bug ships exploded simultaneously, disintegrating without so much as an errant hull panel or landing strut surviving the blast. “Not bad, Brigs,” Akari said, her Arrow zipping by overhead. Clearly, she’d had my six, just in case. Glancing to my right, I did a double take. There was the Hub Gunther, slow and awkward-looking, her own Phazon Pulsars active and taking care of business. And I thought her hull was a mess before … The old mining craft had taken a good bit of damage. It was another hour before the last of the scorpion-flies had been destroyed. Now, the only fighter craft traversing this debris-filled, battle-torn section of space were Arrows. The dozen or so earlier deployed from Adams’ flight bay, and those piloted by Ryder, Akari, and me. “Thanks for the help, you three,” came an unfamiliar voice over the open channel. “You do know … we had things fully under control, though … Over.” Akari said, “No thanks necessary. Admit it; you’ve been schooled. Over.” There was laughter from the other pilots. I’ve missed this, I thought. I didn’t realize at the time the heavy cost in human life this battle had extracted from our already limited rank-and-file flight crew. There would be time later to grieve and honor those we’d left behind. With the visibly ailing Hub Gunther in the lead, spewing something—probably drive coolant—we all fell in behind her. I said, “That was some piloting you did back there, Hardy. You all doing okay in there? Over.” There was a pregnant pause before I heard Hardy’s Boston-accented words. “No, Cap … We’re not all doing okay. Over.” The Arrow’s cockpit had been measurably cooling from loss of atmosphere, but I knew the chill I was feeling at that moment was not from the breached canopy. I wanted to ask questions, to interrogate Hardy and get answers. But the tone of his voice had spoken volumes. I needed to just shut up and get with my people. Chapter


“I don’t slavishly rely on Ewers’s runic system and elemental divisions for my spells.” “The tattoos on your forearms—” “Defensive symbols, but not duplicates of Ewers’s runes,” López said, pulling up a sleeve and showing them his arm. “They’re altered; refined designs of my own making, if you will.” Indeed, those were not clones of Ewers’s runes. Montserrat recognized certain elements, but López had put his touch on them. She supposed it was like fingerprints: no two were identical. López pulled his sleeve down and continued building his sandwich. “A premonition doesn’t explain why you saved our lives.” “Those dogs outside your building: I had never seen that. Theoretically, Ewers talked about such spells. Practically? We didn’t have that. Yet in the past few days I have felt a thread of magic weaving around me unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. You’ve caused a nuclear explosion,” López said as he took a big bite of his sandwich. The white cat picked that moment to wander into the kitchen and rub itself against Montserrat’s leg. “In 1961 Ewers died and his spell was ruined. Afterward, most people associated with the film had bad luck, I understand that. But I don’t see how we ended up with a nuclear explosion,” she said. “I’m not entirely sure, either, because I didn’t design the spell: Ewers did. I wasn’t aware of all its components; he kept certain details hidden. But magic is energy. It has to go somewhere. You can picture what happened in 1961 as an accident at a power plant. An amount of radiation leaked when Ewers died. It affected us. Then imagine if a damaged reactor was powered up again. You’d end up with a big explosion, and anyone in the control room drenched in radiation. Only instead of dying a horrible death you became Spider-Man.” It made Montserrat think of frequency-shifted keying, one of the easiest ways to synchronize electronic instruments. Easy, yes, but you could also mess it up. If you recorded your FSK tone too loudly it would leak onto adjacent tracks. That’s what Ewers had done. His magic was leaking onto others, distorting not sound, but lives. López took a sip of milk. “What, you don’t read comic books? Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider.” “Maybe it’s more like The Fly,” Tristán suggested. “Pick your metaphor, kid. Anyway, it needs to be shut down for good, before Clarimonde and her army of crazies try to bring Ewers back to life. Or Alma keeps taking advantage of the situation.” “But she wants Ewers destroyed,” Tristán said. “Don’t be silly, of course she doesn’t. Alma is the only person who has benefited from this whole thing. All these years she’s been using the magic Ewers originally invoked in those nitrate reels to keep herself young.” Montserrat shook her head. “That didn’t happen. The spell was supposed to give her back her youth, but Ewers was working behind her back, and the spell was never intended for Alma.” The old man scoffed and looked at her as if he were talking


I don’t want to let go, and she doesn’t release me. “We’re all fine. I’m so glad you’re alive,” she murmurs. “I was terrified for you and your children. Tell me. Is Lian well?” All I can do is nod into her neck. She takes my shoulders and pushes me away to study my face. Wordlessly, she reads the grief that has etched my features. Staring back at her, I see not a woman who recently came close to death but my friend who is as beautiful as the day we first met. She releases me and asks the polite questions. “Have you eaten? Would you like some tea?” We sit together at a table by an open window overlooking the courtyard. The sounds of the city rise up around us, a reminder that life goes on. We exchange pleasantries. I compliment her on her pretty home. I gently inquire about her injuries, all of which she says have healed. After a proper amount of time has passed, I say, “I’m not here just to visit.” I tell her what Miss Chen said when her son died. I always assured him our son would become master of the Garden of Fragrant Delights. Now Manzi never will. When Meiling stares at me blankly, I realize I’ve jumped too quickly into the subject. “Let me start over. We know Doctor Wong gave Poppy herbs intended to harm my baby, but we couldn’t figure out why.” Meiling blinks a couple of times, still adjusting to the turn in the conversation. For a moment, I think that maybe she doesn’t want to revisit what happened. “Yes, I remember,” she says at last, “but what does that have to do with what Miss Chen said about her son?” I lean forward. “Who do you think she was talking about when she said, ‘I always assured him’?” “Master Yang, the child’s father,” Meiling answers. “But that doesn’t make sense. She would never need to say such a thing to Master Yang, let alone multiple times, because he would never have a question about who would become master when he died. First it would be Maoren. Then, if something happened to Maoren or if Maoren and I never had a son, Manzi would become the master.” “Manzi,” she repeats. “My father-in-law would know that down to his bones.” I watch as she considers what I’ve said. “So I asked myself, with whom would she discuss this?” I pause. Meiling waits. “It made me wonder if Manzi wasn’t Master Yang’s son.” Meiling tucks her chin. “Do you have any proof of what you’re suggesting?” “Manzi didn’t look like a Yang man. Not his father, my husband, or Second Uncle—” “That is hardly proof. It could be argued Manzi resembled Miss Chen’s father or her brothers. There would be no way to prove otherwise.” “Maybe it’s better to think about who would have a motive to make sure I didn’t have a son. If I didn’t give birth to a boy, then Manzi’s succession would have been guaranteed. The ingredients of


Vanessa shook her head quickly, hair against her cheeks. “She wasn’t sleeping with Omar. If they’d had a relationship he would have said so even after he recanted his confession. He would’ve used it to explain his DNA on her.” “I agree. It wasn’t Omar. Wait.” We traded planners and on a hunch, I started scanning our senior winter. Thalia had convocation practice with you on Mondays, right before I did. There was a purple X on Monday, January 30. One on Monday, February 6. None the next week, which was Feb Week, when she was off with Robbie and there were plenty of blue ones. A purple one on Monday, February 20. Not every single Monday, but enough of them. Good God, if I was right, you were sleeping together while I was out there waiting in the hallway. On the couch, the brown corduroy couch beside your desk? And so let me get this straight: I would come into the room, I’d sit on that couch, and you’d talk to me, you’d look at me sitting right where this had happened. I could not process that in the coffee shop, and I can’t process it now. On Saturday, February 25, less than a week before she died, she’d written DB, o/y. You’d have to tell me what the second part meant (one year? only you?), but on the same day was a purple X. I turned the planner around for Vanessa. “Have you heard the name Denny Bloch?” I told her everything I suspected about your relationship with Thalia, and she was disgusted but not shocked. How could any woman truly be shocked by predation? We pored over the planners for the next twenty minutes, both of us mindful of the time—I’d have to race back for class—and there were definite patterns, like the correlations back in the fall between purple Xs and the nights we had Follies practice. And then, a gold mine: During the October opera trip to New York, three blue Xs and two purple ones. “There were only two other guys on the trip,” I said. “Definitely not Omar Evans.” I wrote the other names on a napkin for Vanessa: Kellan TenEyck, who was dead, and Kwan Li, now a principal tenor with the English National Opera. I told Vanessa what I’d seen at Bethesda Fountain. Even so, the purple and the blue could both have been Robbie—could have been, for instance, intercourse and blow jobs. Vanessa was the one who proved otherwise. I went through ’94–’95 and she went through ’93–’94. We were quiet until she hit her pen on the table. “Here,” she said. Thalia had written Ski Team—away at Hebron across the whole weekend of March 4 to 6, 1994. A time when the ski team was definitively gone to Maine. But there was a purple X that Saturday. “She wouldn’t have gone with the ski team, would she?” I shook my head. “They didn’t let friends travel with the team. She maybe could have signed out to someone’s house and—but no, look,


tint, and the same thickness. But then the impossibility of the thing obtruded itself upon me. How could my hair have been locked in the drawer? With trembling hands I undid my trunk, turned out the contents, and drew from the bonom my own hair. I laid the two tresses together, and I assure you that they were identical. Was it not extraordinary? Puzzle as I would, I could make nothing at all of what it meant. I returned the strange hair to the drawer, and I said nothing of the matter to the Rucastles as I felt that I had put myself in the wrong by opening a drawer which they had locked. "I am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, Mr. Holmes, and I soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head. There was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited at all. A door which faced that which led into the quarters of the Tollers opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked. One day, however, as I ascended the stair, I met Mr. Rucastle coming out through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on his face which made him a very different person to the round, jovial man to whom I was accustomed. His cheeks were red, his brow was all crinkled with anger, and the veins stood out at his temples with passion. He locked the door and hurried past me without a word or a look. "This aroused my curiosity, so when I went out for a walk in the grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four of them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the fourth was shuttered up. They were evidently all deserted. As I strolled up and down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle came out to me, looking as merry and jovial as ever. "'Ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if I passed you without a word, my dear young lady. I was preoccupied with business matters.' "I assured him that I was not offended. 'By the way,' said I, 'you seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one of them has the shutters up.' "He looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled at my remark. "'Photography is one of my hobbies,' said he. 'I have made my dark room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we have come upon. Who would have believed it? Who would have ever believed it?' He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest in his eyes as he looked at me. I read suspicion there and annoyance, but no jest. "Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there was something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, I was all on fire to go


not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn. You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. it exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art." Philip quietly put away the various things which he had shown. "I'm afraid that sounds as if you didn't think I had much chance." Monsieur Foinet slightly shrugged his shoulders. "You have a certain manual dexterity. With hard work and perseverance there is no reason why you should not become a careful, not incompetent painter. You would find hundreds who painted worse than you, hundreds who painted as well. I see no talent in anything you have shown me. I see industry and intelligence. You will never be anything but mediocre." Philip obliged himself to answer quite steadily. "I'm very grateful to you for having taken so much trouble. I can't thank you enough." Monsieur Foinet got up and made as if to go, but he changed his mind and, stopping, put his hand on Philip's shoulder. "But if you were to ask me my advice, I should say: take your courage in both hands and try your luck at something else. It sounds very hard, but let me tell you this: I would give all I have in the world if someone had given me that advice when I was your age and I had taken it." Philip looked up at him with surprise. The master forced his lips into a smile, but his eyes remained grave and sad. "It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late. It does not improve the temper." He gave a little laugh as he said the last words and quickly walked out of the room. Philip mechanically took up the letter from his uncle. The sight of his handwriting made him anxious, for it was his aunt who always wrote to him. She had been ill for the last three months, and he had offered to go over to England and see her; but she, fearing it would interfere with his work, had refused. She did not want him to put himself to inconvenience; she said she would wait till August and then she hoped he would come and stay at the vicarage for two or three weeks. If by any chance she grew worse she would let him know, since she did not wish to die without seeing him again. If his uncle wrote to him it must be because she was too ill to hold a pen. Philip opened the letter. it ran as follows: My dear Philip, I regret


a child given the keys to a toy shop. I found my attention being pulled hither and thither by books of every age, every subject and binding. I couldn’t help but wonder who they had once belonged to? Where had they travelled from? What is the scent? ‘You shall be no use to me if you insist on behaving like a customer, Opaline,’ Sylvia announced sharply, and over the following days I made a concerted effort not to be swayed by every interesting book I saw, which was often. She was determined that I should learn the business from the ground up. I began by lugging books around and shelving them carefully, as well as serving customers as best I could. On quieter days, whilst dusting the shelves or the books themselves, she explained the finer details of being a book trader. ‘Now, an old book isn’t necessarily rare, Opaline. A book becomes rare when it’s both hard to find and highly sought after. And it’s not just books that are valuable to collectors; manuscripts, prints, etchings, archives – even letters. Especially letters. Anything that will feed the insatiable curiosity that surrounds the greatest minds.’ I must have looked unsure because she stopped what she was doing for a moment and turned to face me. ‘Not convinced?’ ‘I just, I’m not sure why someone would want to collect someone’s letters. How could they even be sure they were authentic?’ ‘Very good question, we’ll make a literary sleuth out of you yet. Who’s your favourite author?’ she asked. ‘Easy,’ I said. ‘Emily Brontë.’ ‘Right, well, isn’t there anything you’d like to know about Miss Brontë other than the fact that she lived a quiet life on the moors?’ I thought about it for a moment. There were many questions I had, like did she ever fall in love? Was she happy or sad? ‘What I’ve always wondered, I mean, the one question that always frustrated me is whether or not she began writing a second novel before she died and if so, what had happened to it?’ ‘There you are then. Now you have your question you can start searching for the answer.’ Chapter Eight MARTHA ‘Well, that was mortifying,’ I muttered to myself, as I let myself back into the house. ‘What are you talking about?’ Madame Bowden called, startling me. She was stood in the doorway of the parlour, cigarette in hand, mischief in her eyes. ‘Oh, nothing, I didn’t realise I was talking out loud,’ I said, taking off my jacket. ‘Well, your face is the colour of beetroot and I’m bored, so tell all.’ She took me by the shoulders and led me into the room as though I were one of her guests. ‘I-I just, there’s this guy …’ ‘A man, why didn’t you say!’ She laughed, her eyes widening with pleasure. She pulled back the curtains and scanned the street. ‘Where is he?’ ‘He’s nowhere. He’s gone. It’s not important. Is there anything you need before I get started on dinner?’ ‘It’s cocktail hour, Martha, and I


you in, Mr. Holmes, without disclosing these facts to the world, and I have already given my reasons for not wishing to do so. Besides, besides --" "Why do you hesitate?" "There is a realm in which the most acute and most experi- enced of detectives is helpless." "You mean that the thing is supernatural?" "I did not positively say so." "No, but you evidently think it." "Since the tragedy, Mr. Holmes, there have come to my ears several incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of Nature." "For example?" "I find that before the terrible event occurred several people had seen a creature upon the moor which corresponds with this Baskerville demon, and which could not possibly be any animal known to science. They all agreed that it was a huge creature, luminous, ghastly, and spectral. I have cross-examined these men, one of them a hard-headed countryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer, who all tell the same story of this dreadful apparition, exactly corresponding to the hell-hound of the legend. I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the district, and that it is a hardy man who will cross the moor at night." "And you, a trained man of science, believe it to be super- natural?" "I do not know what to believe." Holmes shrugged his shoulders. "I have hitherto confined my investigations to this world," said he. "In a modest way I have combated evil, but to take on the Father of Evil himself would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task. Yet you must admit that the footmark is material." "The original hound was material enough to tug a man's throat out, and yet he was diabolical as well." "I see that you have quite gone over to the supernaturalists. But now, Dr. Mortimer, tell me this. If you hold these views why have you come to consult me at all? You tell me in the same breath that it is useless to investigate Sir Charles's death, and that you desire me to do it." "I did not say that I desired you to do it." "Then, how can I assist you?" "By advising me as to what I should do with Sir Henry Baskerville, who arrives at Waterloo Station" -- Dr. Mortimer looked at his watch -- "in exactly one hour and a quarter." "He being the heir?" "Yes. On the death of Sir Charles we inquired for this young gentleman and found that he had been farming in Canada. From the accounts which have reached us he is an excellent fellow in every way. I speak now not as a medical man but as a trustee and executor of Sir Charles's will." "There is no other claimant, I presume?" "None. The only other kinsman whom we have been able to trace was Rodger Baskerville, the youngest of three brothers of whom poor Sir Charles was the elder. The second brother, who died young, is the father of this lad Henry. The third, Rodger, was the black sheep of


“Drop your weapons and surrender.” Weapons? The woman held none that Io could see. She said, “Or what?” The question threw Bianca off; no answer came. The rogue gang’s leader began to walk, body bent at the waist. “You have done nothing wrong yet. But the moment you raise your iron bars against us, your fate is sealed. Turn around and leave, and you will all live another day.” Close to Io, a pair of sisters with white-blond hair glanced at each other, eyes wide. Others in Bianca’s group were getting anxious, too. The younger sister took a step back, but Bianca raised a hand in her direction, palm up, still looking straight at the woman. “For days,” Bianca told the leader, “we have hoped your rage would stop. But it won’t. Not unless we end this slaughter ourselves.” “Slaughter?” the leader said. “Oh, no, girl. This is your penance.” Bianca responded with a soft exhale. Io knew what would follow. She had seen Bianca do it before: decide violence on the spot, without hesitation. “Kill her,” Bianca ordered. “Kill every last one of them.” CHAPTER XXX DYING SOLDIERS THE YOUNG PEOPLE around Io let out a unified war cry. They raised iron bars, gripped knives, unholstered guns, and ran across the roof. The great mass of Bianca’s mob swept Io in their midst, bodies closing around her, screams of fury echoing in her ears. She was shorter than most of them; for a moment, she lost her bearings. Rage and violence pressed all around her, elbows and iron bars, the sharp stink of sweat and gunpowder. Then an arm around her waist, pulling her into his side. Edei paved a way through the bodies for them, managing to tear away from the mob just as it reached the rogue gang leader on the bridge. The woman took out the first boy who attacked her with a sweep of her arm, but they were far too many for her—they overwhelmed her within seconds, the smaller ones sneaking past her while the bigger ones coordinated to take her down. Three gunshots, the last one followed by a forlorn cry of pain. Through the red hovering in midair, Io saw Bianca’s group of teenagers cross the bridge in a gallop and collide with the rogue gang and the fury-born on the rooftop of the school. They became a sea of bodies, rising and falling in angry waves, iron bars frothing white with every crack of thunder above. “You were right,” said Edei. He and Io stood at the foot of the bridge, surveying the crush of limbs before them. She was still tucked close to his side, his arm clasped tight around her shoulder. “It all had to do with the Riots. The victims were all involved in the carnage under the Moonset. The wraiths are taking vengeance on them.” “But who is guiding the wraiths?” “It could be any one of these people: one of Bianca’s disgruntled allies or former rivals, a member of the unnamed rogue gang.” “It could be Bianca herself,”


only one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish. 'Well,' said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite: 'have you done?' There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the affirmative. 'Then come with me,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way upstairs; 'your bed's under the counter. You don't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else. Come; don't keep me here all night!' Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress. CHAPTER V OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE FIRST TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER'S BUSINESS Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like that a cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror. Against the wall were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm boards cut in the same shape: looking in the dim light, like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets. Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by four black steeds, approaching in the distance. The shop was close and hot. The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust, looked like a grave. Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver. He was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and well-remembered face sank heavily into his heart. But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep. Oliver was


depth he is, how ill-equipped and ignorant he is and always will be, and how what the Chronicle really needs is competent leadership, when his father sighs and leans back in his chair. Andy watches the expression of businesslike alertness slide from his face. The man looks—he looks tired and unwell, there’s no way around it. During the meeting he looked like his old self, and Andy realizes that his father must be worn out from whatever effort that cost him. “Do you need anything?” Andy asks. He doesn’t expect his father to say yes—his father has always had secretaries to fetch things for him and he certainly doesn’t need Andy. “A glass of water,” he says. “Please.” Andy pours water from the carafe that stands on a sideboard, then places the glass in front of his father. “You ought to rest,” he says, even though it’s none of his business. His father cracks a weary smile. “I’ll take a nap on the sofa in my office, as soon as I have the energy to get to my office.” Jesus. He hadn’t expected his father to agree. His surprise must show on his face because his father goes on. “It’s an unusually bad day.” It hits home, then, a truth that Andy hasn’t wanted to face. His father can’t keep running the Chronicle. He’s not just shoving it at Andy on a whim. He’s tired, he’s unwell, he needs to rest, and he’s at an age when anyone would be thinking of retiring. It’s selfish for Andy to ask him to stay on. Andy has never been good at asking for anything; it’s always better to be the kind of person who doesn’t ask, who doesn’t cause too much trouble, who’s likable. Part of him can’t believe that he was about to ask his father for something as monumental as continuing to work at a job that’s making him ill. He waits until his father has finished his water and then helps him back to his office, seeing him settled on his sofa with a thick blanket pulled over his legs. “Thank you,” his father says. “It’s good to have you here.” “I’m happy to help,” Andy says, because it’s true. “I don’t mean that. It’s just good to see you.” Andy doesn’t know what to say. There were years—decades—when he only saw his father every couple of months for an awkward lunch. He always assumed his father wasn’t terribly interested in him. He was born a few months after his parents’ marriage and a few months before his parents’ divorce. You don’t have to be especially good at math to see that Andy hadn’t been part of the plan. Andy has never been especially bothered by it. Most of his friends were in constant conflict with their fathers, and not having one in the picture seemed to be a net gain. It hadn’t ever occurred to Andy that his father might want more to do with him. It’s too late for that, isn’t it? Andy’s sure that he ought to think


a book of his cases. It features standard remedies for common illnesses and recipes for “special formulas” to make perfumes, eliminate wrinkles, and glisten hair. But the most annoying, it seems to me, is that he chronicled solely the cases of the wealthy or illustrious. (Yes, that means he included cases from the Yang family.) Grandmother explained it this way: “Writing a book of this sort is a well-known shortcut to being named a ming yi—a famous doctor. The arrogance of it!” Seeing my hesitancy, Meiling sighs. “Don’t forget, it’s thanks to Doctor Wong that you and I see more of each other when I accompany him to your home.” That’s true. As the official doctor for the Yang family, he comes to the Garden of Fragrant Delights each month to offer his services first to the men and boys. Then he visits the inner chambers to check on the women, including me. Meiling and I don’t get to spend much time together during these sessions, but we’re able to look into each other’s eyes while she relays Doctor Wong’s inquiries to me and my answers to him. “I’m grateful for anything that allows us to be together, however fleeting,” I say. But my words of conciliation are not enough for Meiling. “I don’t understand why you don’t have more respect for Doctor Wong. He and I have been in difficult situations, and they don’t always end with a good result, but I don’t know another doctor in the city who is as good at telling a husband that his wife has left this world. And did you see? He even included me in some of the cases he wrote about in his book. By name!” I feel like she’s run through the inside of my body with a rasp. Doctor Wong wouldn’t have to tell a husband that his wife had died if he did a better job. More troubling, is Meiling becoming a person desiring the same kind of fame Doctor Wong is seeking? I decide to change the subject to a topic that concerns us both. “Sometimes a husband and wife need help with bedroom affairs.” But I’m too clumsy, too abrupt. Meiling shakes her shoulders, as if brushing off cherry blossom petals falling in spring. After a moment, she says, “Kailoo and I enjoy bedroom affairs. That’s not our problem. I sip this, he sips that, but we can’t make one baby.” I reach across the table to take her hand. “I wonder if I could help.” She stares at me, her expression impenetrable. “What are you thinking?” I ask. “Why won’t you let me doctor you? Is it that I’m a woman? That I’m still too young?” She swats away those ideas, but in that gesture—knowing her so well—I understand that she’s keeping something from me. “Is Doctor Wong giving you formulas to take?” I ask. “Yes.” I’m hurt straight through to my marrow. Trying to cover my feelings, I ask, “What has he prescribed?” Meiling waves a hand. “I don’t want to worry you with that.”


came away so fast he nearly dropped her. He turned, arms aloft, hair askew, and the best families in London cheered for him. She tried not to stumble. Shepherd was on her, Lockwood right behind. “Her Royal Highness is here, Madam.” “What? Where?” “Her motor just pulled up at the front door.” Lockwood still looked pale. “Excellent news, Miss de Vries.” “Where’s Lady Montagu?” she asked. Shepherd frowned. “Indisposed, Madam. We took her to the Boiserie to—” “Ah, there she is,” said Miss de Vries. She saw a familiar gleam of pink satin, hoop skirts lurching through the crowd. A powdered wig bobbed furiously in the air. “Come.” They all followed the duchess, who was half running down the grand escalier. * * * Hephzibah thanked God for her hoop skirts. They kept people at arm’s length. Everyone caught up with her at the foot of the stairs, a perfect traffic jam. There was Miss de Vries, descending behind her, butler and lawyer at her side. In the opposite direction, she saw the Princess Victoria’s people, clustered at the front porch, waiting for someone to come and receive them. Oh, Lord, she thought. “Lady Montagu?” Miss de Vries was moving toward her at double speed. Hephzibah turned. I refuse to be rushed, she said to herself, trying to blink her dizziness away. Men stood under the portico. Real policemen, she realized, feeling sick. “Miss de Vries!” she said. “Splendid, you’re here.” Guests on the right, guests on the left. No way out. Could you be arrested for fraud? Naturally. But on the spot, without clear charges? Hephzibah’s mind spun like a loose wheel about to fall off. She wished, in this moment, that she had someone solid beside her, someone to reassure her. Winnie would help her, if she were here. Buck up, Hephzibah, she told herself. Buck up, do. Miss de Vries frowned. “Aren’t you going to meet the princess, Your Grace?” Hephzibah summoned all the severity she could muster. “You are the lady of this house, Miss de Vries,” she said. “Her Royal Highness is waiting for you.” She threw her arm wide, as if to say, Do hurry up. Hephzibah had never been trained to be a lady. She’d never been schooled in dance, posture, elocution. She’d refined herself on her own, for the stage—keeping her wits about her, her eyes open, watching other people, learning how to do it: how to live, how to be. But Miss de Vries had been trained. Belts and chokers and laces and straps on her flesh. She was alert, ready, all the time. She gave Hephzibah a hard, penetrating stare. Hephzibah dug her fingernails into her palms, made her face smooth. She raised an eyebrow. Another second and she would have failed. Miss de Vries would have seen a line of sweat creeping out from under her wig. She would have smelled the acrid scent rising off Hephzibah’s body. Fear. Hephzibah could already smell it on herself. But Mr. Shepherd leaned forward, worried, eyes on the clock. Hephzibah saw the saliva on


and ended in a magnet, an earpiece containing a magnet, and an arm extending to the base of the chin that ended in a microphone. When worn, the magnets of the Bliss-Mini sat just above either of the user’s ears. Orson held the device out to Steven and Loren and nodded. “Go ahead and try it,” he said. Loren lifted it from Orson’s hands and fit it around his wide face. “So I just say, what?” “You say, ‘begin,’ ” I said. “And it does what?” “It’s a process called transcranial magnetic stimulation,” Orson said. “It stimulates the nervous system in a way that induces the kind of reflective state only ever experienced by Daoshi.” Steven laughed. “How do you know that?” “We measured their brainwaves,” I said without hesitation. “At Stanford when a group of them came to visit. We found that Bliss-Mini wearers unlock all the mental agility and spiritual nullity that comes with Taoist meditation without the years and years of practice.” “ ‘Spiritual nullity?’ ” “That’s right,” I said. “Begin,” Loren said, and the Bliss-Mini lit up red, then green. We watched Loren’s eyes widen as he watched us. “You should be feeling a complete nervous realignment,” Orson said. “The precursor to calm, which is the precursor to memory dissolution, where you lose track of everything that was preoccupying you prior to putting on the Bliss-Mini.” “What comes after memory dissolution?” Loren asked. “Bliss,” I said. Loren rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and then back down to the table’s surface and then closed them. He smiled, his thick cheeks dimpling, and when he opened his eyes again, they were cheerful half-moons. “I can feel it,” he said. Orson nodded enthusiastically. “It feels kind of strange at first, doesn’t it?” “Almost like a tingling sensation. But I’m feeling—” “Clarity?” I asked. “Yes,” Loren said, incredulous, as though I’d somehow guessed his middle name. “Calm.” “Do you want to try it?” Orson asked Steven. He shook his head. “I’m more of an observer.” “Nothing wrong with the sidelines,” I said. I noticed then that Orson had ordered what looked like a cabernet for Steven, Loren, and me, that no one had touched. I poured myself a glass and took a sip. Orson leaned forward on his elbows. “So you’ll be at the demonstration tomorrow, I’m assuming?” “Well, of course,” Loren said, and looked at Steven for confirmation. Steven sighed obligingly. “I’m interested to see how this works for multiple users,” he said. “I’m selective about who gets my money, but as you boys know, I’m very founder-friendly.” “We have no objection to that,” I said, and could feel Orson warming next to me. His excitement was irresistible. He got like this when everything was running smoothly, when we were building on each other and things kept getting bigger and better. It was hard not to want him to myself in those moments, to just sit back and behold him glowing with happiness. We left them with two orders of lobster and descended into the subway, where Orson briefly


card on which was printed his name: Miguel Ajuria. Miguel sat regularly, and though he refused to accept payment he borrowed fifty francs from Philip every now and then: it was a little more expensive than if Philip had paid for the sittings in the usual way; but gave the Spaniard a satisfactory feeling that he was not earning his living in a degrading manner. His nationality made Philip regard him as a representative of romance, and he asked him about Seville and Granada, Velasquez and Calderon. But Miguel bad no patience with the grandeur of his country. For him, as for so many of his compatriots, France was the only country for a man of intelligence and Paris the centre of the world. "Spain is dead," he cried. "It has no writers, it has no art, it has nothing." Little by little, with the exuberant rhetoric of his race, he revealed his ambitions. He was writing a novel which he hoped would make his name. He was under the influence of Zola, and he had set his scene in Paris. He told Philip the story at length. To Philip it seemed crude and stupid; the naive obscenity-- _c'est la vie, mon cher, c'est la vie_, he cried--the naive obscenity served only to emphasise the conventionality of the anecdote. He had written for two years, amid incredible hardships, denying himself all the pleasures of life which had attracted him to Paris, fighting with starvation for art's sake, determined that nothing should hinder his great achievement. The effort was heroic. "But why don't you write about Spain?" cried Philip. "It would be so much more interesting. You know the life." "But Paris is the only place worth writing about. Paris is life." One day he brought part of the manuscript, and in his bad French, translating excitedly as he went along so that Philip could scarcely understand, he read passages. It was lamentable. Philip, puzzled, looked at the picture he was painting: the mind behind that broad brow was trivial; and the flashing, passionate eyes saw nothing in life but the obvious. Philip was not satisfied with his portrait, and at the end of a sitting he nearly always scraped out what he had done. It was all very well to aim at the intention of the soul: who could tell what that was when people seemed a mass of contradictions? He liked Miguel, and it distressed him to realise that his magnificent struggle was futile: he had everything to make a good writer but talent. Philip looked at his own work. How could you tell whether there was anything in it or whether you were wasting your time? It was clear that the will to achieve could not help you and confidence in yourself meant nothing. Philip thought of Fanny Price; she had a vehement belief in her talent; her strength of will was extraordinary. "If I thought I wasn't going to be really good, I'd rather give up painting," said Philip. "I don't see any use in being a second-rate painter."


hands free and grab Poppy and make her stop talking this way. She wanted to make her give straight answers. But she had lost her daughter. There was only Pupkin now. She forced herself to stay put. To be strong. To trust her aunt to drive this demon out of her little girl. “Foul liar!” Aunt Gail said. “Tell me your name! Your defiance is hollow vanity!” “Nancy!” Pupkin cheered. “Pupkin Nancy!” Aunt Gail let go of Louise’s hand and fished a cross necklace out of the collar of her Joy! sweater and stretched it out at Pupkin. “See the Cross of the Lord!” she said. “Tell me your name, hostile power!” Pupkin cackled. Then he tilted his head back and crowed, “Kakawewe!” “Tell me your name, unholy one,” Aunt Gail said. “Or I shall bind you with Warrior Angels in a cage five hundred thousand times too small, and sealed with the Blood of our King, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!” Pupkin turned to Louise, locking eyes with her. “Pupkin went out one day,” he chanted. “To find his friend so they could play. Girl Sparrow was her name, a bird girl good at all the games.” “Reveal your name, I compel you,” Aunt Gail shouted. “Before he set out into the trees,” Pupkin continued, tiny eyes glued to Louise. “His mother said—” From the couch, Mark picked it up without missing a beat, “Pupkin, listen, pretty please. Stay only on the path, my son. The woods are not a place for fun.” Pupkin turned his head toward Mark, who looked terrified. “If you get lost I’ll cry and cry,” Mark kept helplessly reciting. “I’ll cry so much that I might die.” In the silence that followed, Mark said, “Mom. It’s Mom’s story. I heard it a million times before bed as a kid.” Mark sagged. Pupkin looked brighter, stronger, more alive. “By the power of God, tell me your name,” Aunt Gail said. “Pupkin is my name!” he squeaked. “Happy happy is my game!” Something clanked in the kitchen and Louise jumped, then realized it was just dishes settling in the dish rack. Something shifted in the corner of her eye. Louise looked but only saw row after row of motionless dolls and their dead porcelain faces. why did we come here? we’re surrounded by dolls, we’re outnumbered Barb’s hand felt slippery in hers. this is pupkin’s place, these are pupkin’s friends “By the power of God, tell me your name,” Aunt Gail said. “Satan? Lucifer?” “No, no, no, no!” Pupkin chanted. he’s laughing at us, he thinks this is funny A clank as the dishes in the rack settled again, then a clatter as a fork dropped into the sink. Everyone jumped. Barb clutched Louise’s hand tight. “Don’t look,” Aunt Gail commanded. “It’s a distraction. By the power of God, tell me your name! Beelzebub? Leviathan?” “No! No! No! No!” Pupkin said. Something thumped onto the floor behind her and Louise twisted in her seat. A little boy doll in a sailor suit lay facedown on the carpet.


whiskers he's quite clean-shaven. He gives me a sort of sense of looking like an actor." "An actor!" It was impossible to resemble one less, at least, than Mrs. Grose at that moment. "I've never seen one, but so I suppose them. He's tall, active, erect," I continued, "but never--no, never!--a gentleman." My companion's face had blanched as I went on; her round eyes started and her mild mouth gaped. "A gentleman?" she gasped, confounded, stupefied: "a gentleman HE?" "You know him then?" She visibly tried to hold herself. "But he IS handsome?" I saw the way to help her. "Remarkably!" "And dressed--?" "In somebody's clothes. "They're smart, but they're not his own." She broke into a breathless affirmative groan: "They're the master's!" I caught it up. "You DO know him?" She faltered but a second. "Quint!" she cried. "Quint?" "Peter Quint--his own man, his valet, when he was here!" "When the master was?" Gaping still, but meeting me, she pieced it all together. "He never wore his hat, but he did wear--well, there were waistcoats missed. They were both here--last year. Then the master went, and Quint was alone." I followed, but halting a little. "Alone?" "Alone with US." Then, as from a deeper depth, "In charge," she added. "And what became of him?" She hung fire so long that I was still more mystified. "He went, too," she brought out at last. "Went where?" Her expression, at this, became extraordinary. "God knows where! He died." "Died?" I almost shrieked. She seemed fairly to square herself, plant herself more firmly to utter the wonder of it. "Yes. Mr. Quint is dead." VI It took of course more than that particular passage to place us together in presence of what we had now to live with as we could-- my dreadful liability to impressions of the order so vividly exemplified, and my companion's knowledge, henceforth--a knowledge half consternation and half compassion--of that liability. There had been, this evening, after the revelation left me, for an hour, so prostrate--there had been, for either of us, no attendance on any service but a little service of tears and vows, of prayers and promises, a climax to the series of mutual challenges and pledges that had straightway ensued on our retreating together to the schoolroom and shutting ourselves up there to have everything out. The result of our having everything out was simply to reduce our situation to the last rigor of its elements. She herself had seen nothing, not the shadow of a shadow, and nobody in the house but the governess was in the governess's plight; yet she accepted without directly impugning my sanity the truth as I gave it to her, and ended by showing me, on this ground, an awestricken tenderness, an expression of the sense of my more than questionable privilege, of which the very breath has remained with me as that of the sweetest of human charities. What was settled between us, accordingly, that night, was that we thought we might bear things together; and I was not even


himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this effect: ``MY DEAR LlZZY, I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not. Your's, &c.'' As it happened that Elizabeth had _much_ rather not, she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every intreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; her's lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her. Though Darcy could never receive _him_ at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth's sake, he assisted him farther in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently staid so long, that even Bingley's good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to _talk_ of giving them a hint to be gone. Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy's marriage; but as she thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility to Elizabeth. Pemberley was now Georgiana's home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive, manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect which almost overcame her affection,


Nor-Westers, Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoom, might blow Moby Dick into .. <p 199 > the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's circumnavigating wake. But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in the thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but be unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter to himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he would throw himself back in reveries --tallied him, and shall he escape? His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep's ear! And here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a weariness and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air of the deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms. often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused .. <p 200 > him to burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its


ached again. Damn polluted, cold Decembers. They wreaked havoc on her body. The stress probably didn’t help. “Why did you do it?” “I’m tired. At my age, spell casting is not easy.” “I asked why.” López spun around and stared at her. “I saved your life today.” “I’d like to know the reason.” López sat down on the rattan couch. The center table was also rattan, as were two matching chairs with a pattern of palm trees on the cushions. Montserrat leaned against the back of a chair but did not sit down, watching the old man. “The reason won’t make any difference.” “Indulge me,” she said. He sighed. “Alma was a great actress in her day, but by the time Ewers came along her career was finished. He appealed to her vanity, but what’s the harm in that? We all want to be admired, once in a while. “Ewers promised things. Wealth, fame, fortune. To Alma he promised her lost beauty and her youth. The spell he was designing was supposed to achieve that. He lied. The spell was for him. He’d weave it on film with his runes and his special alchemy of sound and movement. And then, when the film had been screened and hundreds of people had seen this glorious movie, he’d commit suicide in a special ritual and be reborn a healthy man. I told Alma his true plan, and she was the one who stabbed him.” “And then, she did what?” “She must have used the film stock for her own rituals. I don’t know and did not ask. Magic does not easily dissipate, it lingers in the air,” López said, raising a hand, his fingers tracing a beam of light that illuminated a section of the floor. Tiny dust particles floated in the sunbeam. “Like radiation,” López continued. “Or a recurring infection, I suppose.” “Then Alma benefited from this but everyone else was cursed?” Tristán asked. He was also standing behind a wicker chair, in imitation of Montserrat. Perhaps he feared to sit down. In his arms he still carried the cat, which was beginning to wriggle, impatient. “Not everyone. Just as radiation may give someone cancer, it could leave the person standing next to them in good enough shape.” “You haven’t said why you wanted him dead,” Montserrat said. “Because I knew who he was.” The cat tried to bite Tristán. He put it down, and it ran off to a dark corner of the room. Montserrat sat down on the chair and placed her purse on her lap. “When I met Wilhelm Ewers I was forty-one years old. Clarimonde and Abel were still practically kids, but I was on my way out. Abel was not even thirty yet. I’d been writing since I was sixteen with no luck. I worked on minor projects, polished a few lines here and there. I earned most of my money as a copy editor, which is what I still do to this day to pay the bills. José López the copy editor and Romeo Donderis the writer.


we were all young enough to think someone smarter had the answers. Maybe it was the one we got wrong. Maybe it was the one we all, collectively, each bearing only the weight of a feather, got wrong. Part I 1 I first watched the video in 2016. I was in bed on my laptop, with headphones, worried Jerome would wake up and I’d have to explain. Down the hall, my children slept. I could have gone and checked on them, felt their warm cheeks and hot breath. I could have smelled my daughter’s hair—and maybe the scent of damp lavender and a toddler’s scalp would have been enough to send me to sleep. But a friend I hadn’t seen in twenty years had just sent me the link, and so I clicked. Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot. I was both stage manager and tech director. One fixed camera, too close to the orchestra, too far from the unmiked adolescent singers, 1995 VHS quality, some member of the AV club behind the lens. And my God, we knew we weren’t great, but we weren’t even as good as we thought we were. Whoever uploaded it two decades later, whoever added the notes below with the exact time markers for when Thalia Keith shows up, had also posted the list of cast and crew. Beth Docherty as a petite Guinevere, Sakina John glowing as Morgan le Fay with a crown of gold spikes atop her cornrows, Mike Stiles beautiful and embarrassed as King Arthur. My name is misspelled, but it’s there, too. The curtain call is the last shot where you clearly see Thalia, her dark curls distinguishing her from the washed-out mass. Then most everyone stays onstage to sing “Happy Birthday” to Mrs. Ross, our director, to pull her up from the front row where she sat every night jotting notes. She’s so young, something I hadn’t registered then. A few kids exit, return in confusion. Orchestra members hop onstage to sing, Mrs. Ross’s husband springs from the audience with flowers, the crew comes on in black shirts and black jeans. I don’t appear; I assume I stayed up in the box. It would have been like me to sit it out. Including the regrouping and singing, the birthday business lasts fifty-two seconds, during which you never see Thalia clearly. In the comments, someone had zoomed in on a bit of green dress at one side of the frame, posted side-by-side photos of that smear of color and the dress Thalia wore—first covered in gauze as Nimue, the enchantress, the Lady of the Lake, and then ungauzed, with a simple headdress, as Lady Anne. But there were several green dresses. My friend Carlotta’s was one. There’s a chance that, by then, Thalia was gone. Most of the discussion below the video focused on timing. The show was set to begin at 7:00, but we likely started our mercifully abridged version five minutes late. Maybe more. The tape omitted intermission, and there was speculation on how long the intermission of a high school musical


my shoes away, all wrapped up in one of her woolly blue cardigans because she feels the cold every winter, even with the heat on. “Hey, baby!” She’s shoved her long, dark curls up into an enormous bun, but it’s slipping down as we speak. “We’re playing some game on your brother’s Switch. Come and join us.” I swallow my apprehension. “Okay.” “How was the meeting? How were your friends?” “Friends are good. Me and Celine had chocolate orange cookie dough.” And then I put my tongue in her mouth and broke my own heart, but I keep that part to myself as we walk into the living room. “The meeting went well.” Our Christmas tree is huge and sparkly in the corner, the main lights turned off, so all focus is on the TV screen. Dad and Mason are running on the spot in front of it, but Dad still manages to grin over his shoulder. “That’s my boy! You got that scholarship in the bag.” “Maybe.” Mum laughs and puts an arm around my shoulders, kissing my cheek. “Cheer up, Eeyore. It doesn’t matter if you get the scholarship or not. Student loans never killed anybody.” This is the part where I joke, “No, but law might,” and it is so smooth and charming everyone’s too busy laughing to freak out over my sudden and abrupt change of life plan. Except I clearly don’t have the guts God gave an eel because instead, I smile and hug Mum back and decide I’ll mention it later. Later, as in months from now when (if) I get acceptance letters. Time fixes everything, right? I’m halfway to the sofa when I freeze, that last thought bouncing around the walls of my brain like a squash ball. Time fixes everything. “Brad?” Mum says. “You okay?” “Yeah,” I reply. I’m not. I’m having a holy-shit, jump-out-of-the-bath epiphany. If time fixes everything, it could fix me and Celine. All I have to do is be patient, right? She thinks I’m gonna leave, so I won’t. She thinks nobody stays, so I will. It’s really that simple. I won’t tell her I’m trustworthy, I’ll prove it. The storm cloud above my head drifts away in the face of this genius plan. I sink into the sofa, my mood officially transformed, and announce, “I’ll play Mason next.” “I’m gonna obliterate you,” my little brother pants. I grin. “Bring it on.” CHAPTER FOURTEEN CELINE SUNDAY, 6:56 P.M. Minnie: soooo I got into Edge Lake Celine: WHAT??? Celine: I KNEW IT!!! Minnie: Celine: A SWAN, MICHAELA. YOU ARE AN EDGE LAKE SWAN Minnie: thank u babe Celine: pizza party when I get back Minnie: well, who am i to decline pizza Minnie: but in the meantime Minnie: are you gonna be okay spending the week alone w ur new boyf? Celine: we won’t be alone Celine: + why wouldn’t I be okay??? Minnie: idk your animal lust might bubble over and you could lose your v card in the woods Celine: virginity is a social construct and I have opted


He burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own supper of game. .. <p 424 > .. < chapter xcviii 2 STOWING DOWN AND CLEARING UP > Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire; --but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description by rehearsing --singing, if I may -- the romantic proceeding of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities, sliding along beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to rise and blow. While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap, rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, ex officio, every sailor is a cooper. At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up. In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred .. <p 425 > quarter-deck enormous masses of the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is deafening. But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a most


investigation backing up her claims, there’s still something in it all that doesn’t sit right with him. Having watched her so easily lie about their affair and be so quick to fake her resuscitation efforts after he shot Carr gives him a gnawing feeling that he can’t shake. He returns his focus to the assault case when Jonah’s desk phone rings. “Detective Nolan.” Ethan reads the assault victim is thirty-two-old Hannah West, who was attacked on her way to a bus stop last night at eleven p.m. on her way home from work. There were no witnesses, and it was on a poorly lit street, so she didn’t get a good look at her attacker. He was wearing a dark hood, had a beard. He came at her from behind, hurling his fist into her face when she turned around, before swinging a blunt object at the side of her head. She collapsed and passed out. An Uber driver called 911 after finding her ten minutes later. Ethan finds that the only upside to the report. “Okay, thanks,” he hears Jonah say before hanging up. “That was Pete.” His partner’s voice takes on a wary tone. “Chelsea Carr’s toxicology just came back.” Ethan spins around. “And?” “It’s positive for oxycodone. It doesn’t change her cause of death being drowning. Pete said the amount of opioids in her system wasn’t likely enough to cause respiratory depression, although it would depend on her tolerance for the drug. It does explain why she didn’t put up much of a fight to free herself. Or fight off her husband, if that’s what happened.” Jonah taps a pen against his desk. “We will have no way of knowing whether she took them herself or if Carr somehow slipped them to her.” Jonah lifts his gaze to Ethan’s. “Which adds to the other things we don’t have answers to in this case.” From the look on Jonah’s face, it’s clear one of the things is Sloane’s possible involvement in Chelsea’s death. After Jonah turns back to his desk, Ethan does the same. He stares at the open case file, thinking back to when the fire captain told him and Jonah about the ER doctor shouting at the nurse who suggested Narcan. Behind him, Jonah rolls back his chair. “I’ve got a witness to interview. Call me if you need me.” “Okay.” Ethan shuts the case file. “Oh.” Jonah stands from his chair. “Maybe your wife told you already, but I got word Bayside finished their medical review of Chelsea’s resuscitation this morning. Found no evidence of malpractice in Chelsea’s medical care. So, there’s that. The hospital thinks they can trust her. ” Jonah walks out of the unit without waiting for his partner to respond. Leaning his elbows on his desk, he presses his hands together and lets his chin rest against the sides of his fingers. Sloane said she had no reason to believe Chelsea had drugs in her system, but after all he’s seen of Sloane in the last couple of months, can he really trust


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

Cuss stopped. There was no mistaking the sincerity of his panic. He turned round in a helpless way and took a second glass of the excellent vicar's very inferior sherry. "When I hit his cuff," said Cuss, "I tell you, it felt exactly like hitting an arm. And there wasn't an arm! There wasn't the ghost of an arm!" Mr. Bunting thought it over. He looked suspiciously at Cuss. "It's a most remarkable story," he said. He looked very wise and grave indeed. "It's really," said Mr. Bunting with judicial emphasis, "a most remarkable story." Chapter 5 The Burglary at the Vicarage The facts of the burlgary at the vicarage came to us chiefly through the medium of the vicar and his wife. It occurred in the small hours of Whit-Monday--the day devoted in Iping to the Club festivities. Mrs. Bunting, it seems, woke up suddenly in the stillness that comes before the dawn, with the strong impression that the door of their bedroom had opened and closed. She did not arouse her husband at first, but sat up in bed listening. She then distinctly heard the pad, pad, pad of bare feet coming out of the adjoining dressing-room and walking along the passage towards the staircase. As soon as she felt assured of this, she aroused the Rev. Mr. Bunting as quietly as possible. He did not strike a light, but putting on his spectacles, her dressing-gown, and his bath slippers, he went out on the landing to listen. He heard quite distinctly a fumbling going on at his study desk downstairs, and then a violent sneeze. At that he returned to his bedroom, armed himself with the most obvious weapon, the poker, and descended the staircase as noiselessly as possible. Mrs. Bunting came out on the landing. The hour was about four, and the ultimate darkness of the night was past. There was a faint shimmer of light in the hall, but the study doorway yawned impenetrably black. Everything was still except the faint creaking of the stairs under Mr. Bunting's tread, and the slight movements in the study. Then something snapped, the drawer was opened, and there was a rustle of papers. Then came an imprecation, and a match was struck and the study was flooded with yellow light. Mr. Bunting was now in the hall, and through the crack of the door he could see the desk and the open drawer and a candle burning on the desk. But the robber he could not see. He stood there in the hall undecided what to do, and Mrs. Bunting, her face white and intent, crept slowly downstairs after him. One thing kept up Mr. Bunting's courage: the persuasion that this burglar was a resident in the village. They heard the chink of money, and realised that the robber had found the housekeeping reserve of gold--two pounds ten in half- sovereigns altogether. At that sound Mr. Bunting was nerved to abrupt action. Gripping the poker firmly, he rushed into the room, closely followed by Mrs. Bunting. "Surrender!" cried Mr. Bunting,


page in the carriage flapping in the breeze. Then, with a grunt and a heave, she hoisted the typewriter over the railing and let it drop. I gasped when it fell from view. Jessie let out a horrified yelp. Even Lenora reacted, her left hand reaching out as far as she could muster, as if that alone might reverse the typewriter’s fall. Pleased with herself, Mrs. Baker wiped her hands together and strode to the French doors. All she said as she passed me was, “Take Miss Hope back upstairs where she belongs.” Carter helped me with that, scooping Lenora in his arms and carrying her up the Grand Stairs as I pulled the wheelchair up step by rattling step. In Lenora’s room, he gently placed her in the wheelchair before turning to me. “What do you think’s going to happen?” “I think I’m going to be fired,” I said. It was the only logical outcome. But it wouldn’t be Mrs. Baker doing the firing. She’d leave that to Mr. Gurlain, who I was certain would be all too happy to banish me from the agency. “Shit,” Carter said. “I’m so sorry, Kit. This is all my fault.” In truth, it was mine. I knew the rules. I broke them anyway, simply because I wanted answers that I’ll never get now that the typewriter is gone. All I received in exchange for my transgression was a tidbit of information that might help Carter. The only silver lining in this dark cloud of a day. “Lenora had the baby,” I said after pulling him into my room and closing the adjoining door so Lenora couldn’t hear us from hers. “A boy. She confirmed it.” “What happened to him?” “She doesn’t know. All Lenora could tell me is that they took the baby away from her.” Carter dropped onto my bed, trying to process it all. Not just the suffering Lenora went through or the cruelty behind it, but also how it seemed to support his theory about being her grandson. “So I might be right,” he said. “Lenora and I might really be related.” “It’s a definite possibility.” I joined him on the bed, our shoulders touching. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find out more.” Carter flashed that crooked smile I’d become slightly enamored of over the past few days. “Don’t be ridiculous. I wouldn’t have learned any of this without you.” “But now that you know it, be careful. Whoever killed Mary is still here.” “Or out there,” Carter said. Maybe, but I doubted it. I thought more than ever that Mary’s killer was someone at Hope’s End. Specifically the woman who would be sending me packing at any minute. But those minutes turned to hours, bleeding from afternoon into evening. In that time, I heard nothing about being let go. Not when Archie brought up dinner for me and Lenora. Not when I mixed her crushed pills into her food or did her circulation exercises or gave her a bath. Now I’m putting Lenora to bed, noticing the way in which her


to put her things on. Hannah scolded, Meg cried, and Jo was at her wits' end, till se decided to take things into her own hands. Slipping out, she ran down and, finding a servant, asked if he could get her a carriage. It happened to be a hired waiter who knew nothing about the neighborhood and Jo was looking round for help when Laurie, who had heard what she said, came up and offered his grandfather's carriage, which had just come for him, he said. "It's so early! You can't mean to go yet?" began Jo. looking relieved but hesitating to accept the offer. "I always go early, I do, truly! Please let me take you home. It's all on my way, you know, and it rains, they say." That settled it, and telling him of Meg's mishap, Jo gratefully accepted and rushed up to bring down the rest of the party. Hannah hated rain as much as a cat does so she made no trouble, and they rolled away in the luxurious close carriage, feeling very festive and elegant. Laurie went on the box so Meg could keep her foot up, and the girls talked over their party in freedom. "I had a capital time. Did you?' asked Jo, rumpling up her hair, and making herself comfortable. "Yes, till I hurt myself. Sallie's friend, Annie Moffat, took a fancy to me, and asked me to come and spend a week with her when Sallie does. She is going in the spring when the opera comes, and it will be perfectly splendid, if Mother only lets me go," answered Meg, cheering up at the thought. "I saw you dancing with the red headed man I ran away from. Was he nice?" "Oh, very! His hair is auburn, not red, and he was very polite, and I had a delicious redowa with him." "He looked like a grasshopper in a fit when he did the new step. Laurie and I couldn't help laughing. Did you hear us?" "No, but it was very rude. What were you about all that time, hidden away there?" Jo told her adventures, and by the time she had finished they were at home. With many thanks, they said good night and crept in, hoping to disturb no one, but the instant their door creaked, two little nightcaps bobbed up, and two sleepy but eager voices cried out . . . "Tell about the party! Tell about the party!" With what Meg called `a great want of manners' Jo had saved some bonbons for the little girls, and they soon subsided, after hearing the most thrilling events of the evening. "I declare, it really seems like being a fine young lady, to come home from the party in a carriage and sit in my dressing gown wit a maid to wait on me," said Meg, as Jo bound up her foot with arnica and brushed her hair. "I don't believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned hair, old


someone isn’t going to kick this door in at any moment. But I can’t spend the night in my car. Not without my knife. I dig Jesse’s journal out of the canvas bag and remove the pen clipped to the cover. Since I took the notebook from his apartment, I have been eager to sift through it. To find some clue as to who he really was and why he is dead. Sitting cross-legged, I open the book in my lap. The first page has a name at the top. Steven And then, a series of letters and numbers. Tri EX 3 x 6—8, 25 KB 3 x 8—10, 25 Bi Curl 3 x 8—10, 25 Shoulders They are workouts—sets, reps, weights—for his clients. There are pages of them. Nothing valuable or interesting. I turn to a page with an H at the top. Does it stand for Hazel? The workout makes sense. Light weights, lots of reps, the focus on butt and abs. I am about to toss the notebook aside when I spot something. In the top corner of the page, in a tiny scrawl, is a number: 206. It’s the area code for Seattle. I flip through the journal, searching for further digits. Several pages later, I find four more numbers in the same precise handwriting. And then, on the inside back cover, three. It’s a phone number. It has to be. Jesse had been afraid to keep the number stored in his phone, and he didn’t want to write it down in sequence, in case someone found it. But the area code gives it away. If I dial it, who will answer? It’s not Hazel’s number. Who was Jesse calling? I grab the hotel phone and punch in *67 to block the caller ID. My mouth is dry, my pulse pounding in my temple as I listen to it ring. Once. Twice. Three, and then four times… “Hello?” It is a man’s voice, cool and deep. It sends a shudder through me. Do I ask who is speaking? Pretend I got a wrong number? But before I can say another word, the man speaks again. His voice is cold and mechanical. “Lee? Is that you?” The phone slips in my hand as fear grips my throat. Who have I called? How does he know me? The voice travels from the receiver now pressed to my chest. “Tell me where you are…” I slam the handset into the cradle. 42 RAIN SPATTERS THE WINDSHIELD AND headlights bounce off the puddles on the pavement, straining my eyes. It is 5:06 a.m. Soon, the late spring sun will rise, but for now, it is dark, the highway lit by streetlights and a stream of early morning commuters. I checked out of the motel, sacrificing the hundred-dollar security deposit in my haste to get away. I need to find Sean Sumner. And then I need to get on a plane. I am driving north, headed for Bellingham. The small city close to the Canadian border is an hour and a half’s drive


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

“Gabriel is right. This isn’t just a matter of strange happenings or morbid curiosity. It’s a case of maintaining our country’s security.” “I think you’re overestimating my patriotism,” Lore said. “It isn’t a question of patriotism. It’s a question of keeping war from our doorstep.” Anton’s scars pulled as he narrowed his working eye, a motion that looked painful. “You know who bears the weight of war. It won’t be the nobles in the Citadel. It will be the peasants in their villages, the poison runners in the streets. People like you.” He said it like it bothered him. She hoped it did. Gabriel appealing to her sense of greater good—did she even have that? She wanted to—and Anton appealing to her sense of self-preservation. Death on one end, blackmail at the other. “This leads us nicely to the second part of your assignment,” Anton said, as if following a carefully constructed script. “Necromancy is not the only skill you possess that is useful to us. You are also an accomplished spy.” “Accomplished might be pushing it,” Lore muttered. Anton continued as if he hadn’t heard. “We have reason to believe that someone within the Court of the Citadel is passing information on to Kirythea. Possibly the Sun Prince himself.” Lore’s eyes widened until they ached. “You want me to spy on the fucking Sun Prince?” “We just want you to stay near him,” Anton said. He gestured to her. “You’re a pretty enough woman, and Bastian likes pretty people. Insinuating yourself into his good graces once you’re established as part of the court shouldn’t be an issue.” She knew what all those words meant individually, but strung together like that, she had a hard time following. “I don’t—what do you mean, part of the court—” “Things will be clearer once we speak to my brother.” Anton glanced upward, as if he could see straight through the ceiling to the sunshine outside and use it to tell the time. “Which we should go do as soon as possible. The Consecration ceremony begins in just a few hours.” His eye came back to rest on her, the handsome side of his face perfectly peaceful. “So what will it be, Lore? The Isles, or the court?” Put so baldly, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. “Fine. I’ll do it.” Gabriel almost looked relieved. Anton inclined his head, like her answer was exactly what he expected. “Come on, then,” he said, headed toward the door. “The Sainted King doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” CHAPTER FIVE And Nyxara, hungry for power, did attempt to take Apollius’s rightful place—thus, He cast Her down, over the sea and the Golden Mount where They dwelt, and over the Fount that had made them gods. Where She landed, the earth blackened into coal, and where He bled, the ground grew jewels like fruit. And They were known from this point as the Buried Goddess and the Bleeding God. —The Book of Holy Law, Tract 3 Apparently, Lore’s oversize man’s shirt and muddy breeches weren’t suitable for an


pride of rebellion that is half the fascination of sin, and smiling, with secret pleasure, at the misshapen shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own. After a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and gave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as well as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where he had more than once spent his winter. He hated to be separated from the picture that was such a part of his life, and he was also afraid that during his absence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the elaborate bolts and bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door. He was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true that the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness of the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn from that? He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him. He had not painted it. What was it to him how vile and full of shame it looked? Even if he told them, would they believe it? Yet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great [74] house in Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank who were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton luxury and gorgeous splendor of his mode of life, he would suddenly leave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not been tampered with and that the picture was still there. What if it should be stolen? The mere thought made him cold with horror. Surely the world would know his secret then. Perhaps the world already suspected it. For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him. He was blackballed at a West End club of which his birth and social position fully entitled him to become a member, and on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the smoking-room of the Carlton, the Duke of Berwick and another gentleman got up in a marked manner and went out. Curious stories became current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year. It was said that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. His extraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear again in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass him with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as if they were determined to discover his secret. Of such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice, and in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his charming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth that seemed never to leave him,


a mayor for a dad. “I got to thinking. If it wasn’t Stahl who attacked you, why would you say that it was? Unless you were covering for someone. Like the mayor’s son.” “Why would Oscar try to kill me?” I asked, shaking my head. “Maybe you knew something that could derail his privileged little life,” Sawant suggested. “Something he’d done.” Bones in the woods, I thought. She used to hang around with Oscar Green. “I can’t imagine what that would be. And to be clear: I wouldn’t cover up littering for Oscar Green. I sure as shit wouldn’t fail to mention he’d stabbed me.” But would Cass? I wondered, and hated myself immediately for thinking it. “Interesting. Because I’ve heard some things about the two of you that might cast doubt on that,” Sawant said. “Lies have a way of rippling out. Sometimes the consequences arrive years later. Liv wanted to tell the truth. Did you want that, Naomi?” The truth. I could have told him everything. I could have made Agent Sawant my savior, my way out—hand over everything I knew, everything I’d done, and trust him to put the pieces together. It was the smart thing to do. The right thing to do. And I couldn’t. I’d held on too long and too tightly. The truth belonged to me, and I would be the one to find it. To find her, I thought, and I wasn’t sure if I meant Liv or Persephone, or why it still felt like they were lost. “I’m done having you call me a liar,” I said. I stood abruptly, powering through the burst of pain. “We’re finished.” “Naomi—” “The lady said she’s finished,” Dougherty said. He put a hand on my shoulder as I walked past Sawant and ushered me out into the hall. I glanced behind me. Sawant turned in the chair, relaxed with one elbow on the table, watching me with sharp eyes. He wasn’t fooled. But was he right? I couldn’t avoid Oscar any longer. I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what Bishop is thinking, letting him spring all that on you,” Dougherty said once we were safely out of earshot. Past him, down the hall, Bishop herself stood in her office doorway, watching us. She’d stayed out of the room. Left herself room to claim she had nothing to do with it, if the wrong people got pissed. She straightened up and walked toward us. “Bunch of nonsense, really. Oscar’s rough around the edges, but he’s a good kid,” Dougherty said, just as she got to us. That “kid” was forty. “Can I go now?” I asked Bishop. Dougherty half-turned, as if just realizing she was there. “We really can’t keep you,” he said. Bishop’s cheek twitched like she was trying not to scowl at him. “No, we can’t,” she agreed. “Okay, then,” I said. I headed down the hall, shoulders tensed and ribs twinging, leaving them to their little power struggle. The problem wasn’t that Sawant had been off base. The problem was that he was almost


judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge -- made his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beauti- ful room, which was the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they come to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could navigate it. The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way. CHAPTER VI. WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That law trial was a slow business -- appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on it; so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money he got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited -- this kind of thing was right in his line. He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so she told him at last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble for him. Well, WASN'T he mad? He said he would show who was Huck Finn's boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was. He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we


he replies, and everyone laughs. I hate him. Though that’s not news. What is news is how he looks in my direction and politely says, as though last night I didn’t threaten to feed his rotting corpse to the earthworms, “Welcome, Dr. Hannaway. I started the monitor for you.” He’s smiling, but there’s an edge to it. A challenge. Like he’s asking me to jump into a puddle that’s actually twenty feet deep. “Thank you.” Our arms brush together on my way to the podium. I remember his hands, warm, unwavering around my waist, a hushed settle down murmured against my temple, and I suppress a shiver. Have I mentioned that I hate him? “Good morning, and thank you for having me,” I say once my PowerPoint is loaded. The class is (predictably) 90 percent male and (predictably) made of students who are around my age. It’s complicated, being a woman in STEM. Even more so when you’re young and unproven. And even more so when you have a semi-pathological need to get along with others. As the only female grad in my department, I’ve had ample opportunity to contemplate the tightrope that those who are not white cishet men tread in academic spaces. Do I want to be seen as a congenial, affable colleague? Yes, and thanks to a lifetime of APE, I know the exact combination to achieve that: charming self-deprecation, modesty, humorous tangents, admitting to doubt and fallibility. It’s not rocket science (incidentally, a branch of experimental physics I’m obliged to scoff at). Using jokes and simple examples to be a charismatic, engaging speaker is a pretty textbook way to come across as a likable guy. Guy being the operative word. Because when you’re a woman talking about your research, there are anywhere between one and a million STEMlords ready to exploit every little weakness—every little sign that you’re not a lean, mean science machine. The you people want is sharp, impeccable, perfect enough to justify your intrusion in a field that for centuries has been “rightfully” male. But not too perfect, because apparently only “stone-cold bitches” are like that, and they do not make for congenial, affable colleagues. STEM culture has been a boys’ club for so long, I often feel like I can be allowed to play only if I follow the rules men made. And those rules? They downright suck. Like I said, a tightrope. With a bunch of crocodiles throwing their maws open in wait for fresh meat. Well. Here goes. I make my smile a combination of warm and selfassured that doesn’t exist in nature, and say, “Since this class deals with current topics in physics, I’ve prepared a lecture on Wigner crystals, a highly discussed—” A groan. Did someone groan? I look around, puzzled. Students stare at me expectantly. I imagined it. “Wigner crystallization occurs when electron gases that live in a periodic lattice—” “Excuse me?” Cole. Of the green hair. “Dr. Hannaway, are you going to talk about the topic of Wigner crystals from a theoretical perspective?” “Great question. Mostly theory, but


was the minute to tell him. Colin knew something new was coming. "Because what?" he cried eagerly. Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool and came to him and caught hold of both his hands. "Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him. Can I trust you--for sure--for sure?" she implored. Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered his answer. "Yes--yes!" "Well, Dickon will come to see you tomorrow morning, and he'll bring his creatures with him." "Oh! Oh!" Colin cried out in delight. "But that's not all," Mary went on, almost pale with solemn excitement. "The rest is better. There is a door into the garden. I found it. It is under the ivy on the wall." If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably have shouted "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" but he was weak and rather hysterical; his eyes grew bigger and bigger and he gasped for breath. "Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob. "Shall I see it? Shall I get into it? Shall I live to get into it?" and he clutched her hands and dragged her toward him. "Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly. "Of course you'll live to get into it! Don't be silly!" And she was so un-hysterical and natural and childish that she brought him to his senses and he began to laugh at himself and a few minutes afterward she was sitting on her stool again telling him not what she imagined the secret garden to be like but what it really was, and Colin's aches and tiredness were forgotten and he was listening enraptured. "It is just what you thought it would be," he said at last. "It sounds just as if you had really seen it. You know I said that when you told me first." Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke the truth. "I had seen it--and I had been in," she said. "I found the key and got in weeks ago. But I daren't tell you--I daren't because I was so afraid I couldn't trust you--for sure!" CHAPTER XIX "IT HAS COME!" Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after Colin had had his tantrum. He was always sent for at once when such a thing occurred and he always found, when he arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his bed, sulky and still so hysterical that he was ready to break into fresh sobbing at the least word. In fact, Dr. Craven dreaded and detested the difficulties of these visits. On this occasion he was away from Misselthwaite Manor until afternoon. "How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when he arrived. "He will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day. The boy is half insane with hysteria and self-indulgence." "Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe your eyes when you see him. That plain sour-faced child that's almost as bad as himself has just bewitched him. How she's done it


slow weedy waterway he had floated on his raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at the auction but a lady's. Developing waterways. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will without writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock by lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now. --I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said. --Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said. --How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping, I suppose? --Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear. The carriage steered left for Finglas road. The stonecutter's yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence: appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. Passed. On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown yawning boot. After life's journey. Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses. Mr Power pointed. --That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house. --So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off. Murdered his brother. Or so they said. --The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said. --Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That's the maxim of the law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to be wrongfully condemned. They looked. Murderer's ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered, tenantless, unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned. Murder. The murderer's image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading about it. Man's head found in a garden. Her clothing consisted of. How she met her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used. Murderer is still at large. Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed. Murder will out. Cramped in this carriage. She mightn't like me to come that way without letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with their pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen. The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars, rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the air. The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with his knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed. Change that soap now. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his