to succeed him. If she was not to be his heir, then does it not make sense that she would find something else to rule?’ Tunuva tried to steady her composure. Gashan spoke as if it were the only conclusion. ‘Your words are a grave insult to the Mother,’ she said quietly. ‘They also dishonour the Lasians who died when the beast attacked Yikala. That you could imagine it was a lie—’ ‘I never said that. I am simply pointing out that stories can be embellished. As to what you saw in Mentendon: it was dark, and I imagine there was a great deal of smoke.’ Gashan nodded to another courtier. ‘Esbar always did have a fervent imagination.’ Esbar would have had a quick retort. Tunuva only had sorrow, clenched like a hand around her throat. When they reached the uppermost floor of the palace, two guards stood aside. ‘His Majesty has many cares, sister,’ Gashan told Tunuva. ‘I trust you will not increase his burden.’ From her tone, Tunuva might have been there to beg favours of the man. She was beginning to see why even the long ride back to the Priory had not been enough to calm Esbar. ‘I am here only to protect the High Ruler,’ she said. ‘You and I are on the same side, Gashan.’ ‘Of course.’ A brief smile. ‘Goodbye, then, Tunuva.’ She left. Tunuva stepped past the armoured women, back into the light of the benighted sun. Usually it would be hotter up high. Instead, the terrace felt pleasantly cool, away from the baked ground. Tunuva admired the city from above before she found the High Ruler of Lasia. Kediko Onjenyu was in his late forties. Seated beneath a canopy, he wore a barkcloth mantle, and was halfway through a roasted quail. Two servants fanned him, a third stood guard with a flywhisk, and one more held a bowl of oak-smoked salt. ‘High Ruler,’ Tunuva said. ‘The Prioress sends her respects.’ He gave her a brief look. His drooping eyelids might have made him appear bored, had his highset brows not lent him an air of constant surprise. In that way, his face whittled at the nerves, since one could never be quite sure if he was pleased or disappointed. ‘A sister of the Priory,’ he observed in Selinyi. ‘My treasurer said you would be coming.’ His skin was the brown of aged bronze. ‘I don’t recall your face.’ ‘Tunuva Melim. I visited when you were still a prince,’ Tunuva said, pressing down her instinctive reply: She is not yours. ‘To deliver a token of friendship to your late mother.’ ‘Do you bear tokens of friendship this time?’ ‘In the form of a message. I come in place of our munguna, Esbar uqNāra.’ ‘I know who Esbar is.’ (Too well was the implication.) ‘Is she too busy to visit?’ ‘Esbar has many responsibilities at the Priory.’ ‘I have many responsibilities here, yet I make time to receive you.’ After a long moment, Kediko nodded to the daybed on the other side of the table.


the mole behind Orson’s right ear. “People like yourself, people with severe hyperopia, are much more likely to develop glaucoma than the rest of the population.” The mole behind his right ear was irregularly shaped. It looked kind of like the state of Ohio. “The yellow here, this is only going to get bigger. Do you see what I’m saying?” “Sure.” “You have glaucoma.” This felt like a hurtful and inconvenient thing to say, and I wanted to tell her that but my phone rang. It was Orson calling. “I have to take this,” I said. “Ezra, you could go blind.” “Just give me a second.” I left the exam room and went into the hallway. “Hi!” Orson crowed. He sounded buoyant, and I found myself breaking into a smile. I asked him what was up. “Ez, this is—you’ve got to come see this. Where are you right now?” “New York.” “What’s going on?” I looked around—Mengetsu was behind me, and I stepped forward as though this would remove me from her line of sight. “I’m at the doctor’s,” I said. “Just getting a checkup.” “Clean bill of health?” “Clean bill of health.” There was a voice in the background, a woman’s squawk, and Orson said, “Just leave it where it is, thanks.” “Who’s that?” “Emily. She flew out here for the week. She brought all these Hollywood people. They’re all—” I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “They’re all very excited about Synthesis.” My hand tightened around my phone. “Wow. That’s great.” “Isn’t it? There’s this guy who’s a two-time Academy Award winner. He was in that biopic about that dude from Queen. Not Freddie Mercury.” “Brian May,” I said. “Please Stop Me Now.” “Yes! That’s it! Old dude, but he’s really sweet. Really excited about our project. You really should come up here, Ez. We need all hands on deck anyway.” “I can. I can definitely do that.” “Okay, I have to go, it’s getting kind of busy here. Call me later, when you’re back from the doctor’s. I’ll be free.” He hung up. Mengetsu was still standing behind me. “I’m going to prescribe some eye drops,” she said. “It’s called Lumigan. You use them twice a day to reduce the pressure in your eyes. Just put them in when you wake up and again before you go to sleep.” “Okay,” I said, feeling my phone buzz in my pocket. “Ezra, I’m asking you to take this seriously.” “I will,” I said. “I’ll get the eye drops.” I had her phone in the prescription to a pharmacy in Midtown, where I knew I’d be obscure, but when I got there the place was unusually crowded. I got in line behind an old man in a newsboy hat and let my gaze wander, too preoccupied with Mengetsu to occupy this liminal time with my phone. She was self-righteous, I decided, pleased with her bona fides, pleased with what I assumed was her perfect eyesight. She didn’t even wear contacts—people who wore contacts always blinked a bit more than people


a large platter of fruits so brightly colorful they must have come straight from the Flying Orchards of the Neraida Plains. The two sisters fell into the easy rhythm of a shared past: carrying the trays to the back porch, arranging porcelain coffee cups and small crystal dishes for the spoon sweets on the patio table. Io was so entranced by the effortless way they had fallen back into their old selves that she only noticed the table when it was set. For six. “I thought,” she said carefully, “that we were having coffee alone.” “Oh, Io, don’t be shy. We have a campaign meeting here in a few minutes, and I’m dying for you to meet Luc. You’ll love him, Io—he’s got Baba’s sweetness and Mama’s humor and Ava’s taste in music and your razor-sharp wits. And have you seen his smile? Just wait, he’s going to charm you off your feet.” Her sister’s whole face beamed. A cold bitterness slithered around Io’s heart, squeezing tighter and tighter. All their life, she had fought and sacrificed to make Thais happy, and here was Saint-Yves, a man she couldn’t have met more than a couple of years ago, and he was making Thais beam with joy. The very man who was the primary suspect in Io’s investigation. Gods. She had to warn her sister. Protect her. “I have to tell you something,” she said. Immediately, her sister’s smile dropped, the sharp intelligence called forth. “Did Ava tell you what I’ve been doing for a living these past two years?” “You’ve grown our little business into quite the household name,” Thais said proudly. “That’s why I want you to meet him. His ideas, the Initiative—he seeks to do precisely what you have done with our detective business but on a larger scale, bringing the investigations to court.” Io shook her head. “Thais, listen to me. I was hired to investigate a series of murders in the Silts. Corrupt other-born have been turning up dead. The murderers are women who use their severed life-threads to kill, claiming to be sent by someone to deliver justice. I couldn’t confirm if they’re other-born because Saint-Yves pulled all other-born records from the public registry. The women signed up as volunteers for his Initiative. Their victims were people Saint-Yves tried to prosecute and failed. And yesterday, I overheard one of his men insinuate that Saint-Yves is behind it all.” Thais grew very still. Hands on the back of the porch bench, eyes nailed on Io. “Luc wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she said with finality, as if that was that, and took off. Io followed at her heels through the back door to the downstairs bathroom, where she stood at the doorframe, watching her sister wash her hands. “I know it’s hard to believe, but all evidence points toward him. I have reason to believe Bianca Rossi might take matters into her own hands, which is why we need to go—” “How is Bianca Rossi involved in this?” “She’s the one that hired me. She knows my suspicions.” “You


what other people had seen. I’d never been good at trust. “So why are you so freaked out now? Just because he died?” Cass’s lips wrinkled into a frown. “I got a letter from Stahl’s son,” I said. “He knows that I lied. He says his father wasn’t the one who attacked me. Is there any way—if you were wrong—” Cass held up a hand. “Hold on. He knows you lied? How?” “I…” The letter hadn’t gone into detail, had it? My memory was foggy. “I’m not sure.” “If he knew that you’d lied, if he knew his dad hadn’t done it, don’t you think he would have said something? The guy is probably just messed up about his dad dying and lashing out. I think you need to ask yourself why you’re so eager to find something that’s your fault.” I flinched. She gave me no ground, keeping her gaze locked on mine. “Bad things happened to you. It doesn’t mean you deserved them. You have earned the right to protect yourself. You don’t owe the world anything. It owes you.” She adjusted her jacket. “Let’s go.” She stalked off. I followed, half dazed. Guilt and doubt had been my constant companions for decades. I didn’t know if I could let them go. Cass didn’t understand. She couldn’t. She knew what she’d seen—she had the certainty of her own memory. And maybe it should feel horrible—the knowledge of what I had caused with my words. That wasn’t the kind of weight you should just be able to leave behind. Was it? “There it is,” Cass said at last. The boulder had been dropped here millennia ago by some glacier and settled into the landscape to stay. Soil had built up above it, letting the forest grow over it, forming a gentle hill. Only the face of the stone was visible, gray and craggy. It reached about a foot above my head. At its base was a seam of shadow. It seemed impossibly small. I knelt by the seam and bent down, shining the flashlight into the gap. All I could see was dirt and stone; the shape of the boulder obscured the area beyond. “We’re going to have to go in,” I said. “Liv’s not here. There would have been some sign of her. We should just go,” Cass said. “We have to be sure,” I insisted. Liv could be in there. And even if she wasn’t, I needed to see. Ever since Liv had spoken the name, Persephone had been haunting my thoughts. Part of me needed to know that she was real—that she wasn’t just part of the game we’d played. Cass didn’t budge. I set my jaw. Fine. I dropped to my stomach and carefully wriggled my way under the lip of stone, into the narrow gap beneath. Rock scraped my back. This had been easier at eleven. The dirt floor sloped away as soon as you were inside. I levered myself down bit by bit and then I was past the lip of stone and the space


ten-minute walk, if you cut through the side streets. But Winnie was right: it was Miss de Vries, with those familiar cold, gray eyes. They narrowed now in recognition. “I’m busy,” she said, but her voice was uncertain. She seemed stooped, somehow: smaller. Mrs. King felt a sudden urge to straighten her, correct her posture. The feeling gave her pause. “Have you come to laugh at me?” Miss de Vries said finally. “Not in the least.” “I could laugh at you. You look a fright.” Mrs. King examined her sleeves. She’d bought this coat to please Mrs. Bone, who had developed a mad love of furs and ruffles and violent patterns. “This was very expensive,” she said mildly. “Good for you,” Miss de Vries said, without emotion. Her hands looked chapped and sore: the way Alice’s always had. She’s come down in the world, thought Mrs. King. She’s become one of us. It didn’t feel like a triumph. It felt like a great injustice. “Who made you so hard?” she said. “Our father? Or did you do it yourself?” It was evident Miss de Vries didn’t wish to answer this. She wasn’t willing to plumb those depths for any person, for any reason. She said, voice rough, “You’re hardly gentle in your methods, Mrs. King.” Mrs. King smiled at this. “You’d have done the same,” she said. “You’d have taken any action required to get what belonged to you.” Miss de Vries didn’t move. The fight didn’t leave her eyes, but it shifted. It retreated into the back of her head. “You did take action,” Mrs. King said. “Didn’t you?” This thought had circled in her mind almost the instant she heard that the old master had died. Miss de Vries looked at her cautiously. Her expression changed altogether. It was a deeply strange look: almost shy. “No,” she said, and her voice sounded quite different, too. The faint flush in her cheeks, the little glow of something self-congratulatory, told Mrs. King that she was lying. “I would understand,” Mrs. King said, “if you had.” She meant it. She remembered standing in Mr. de Vries’s bedroom. Silken pillows, bursting with goose feathers. Tawny light, clinging to everything. Mr. de Vries flailing, struggling. Miss de Vries, small as she was, had always been densely constructed. She could have easily pressed a pillow down, muffled any noises, stolen the breath from her father’s lungs. To stop him repeating that slander: Mrs. King has rights on you. “If I were you,” said Mrs. King softly, “I would start looking to make some new friends. Protection. In case anyone else works it out.” Miss de Vries disliked this: it showed in her face. “I don’t need protection,” she said. “I can help you.” “How?” Mrs. King reached into her coat, drew out a small silver watch. The letters flashed at them: WdV. Miss de Vries took a tiny breath. “Sell it,” Mrs. King said. “If you like. It’s an heirloom. It will have enormous value.” “You’re mad,” Miss de Vries replied. “I could report you.” Chairs


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit some angry spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following little scene ensued: “Bartleby,” said I, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you.” “I would prefer not to.” “How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?” No answer. I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey and Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner— “He says, a second time, he won’t examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?” It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted papers. “Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him!” So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s combativeness after dinner. “Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?” “Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim.” “Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind then—you speak very gently of him now.” “All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I dined together to-day. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?” “You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey,” I replied; “pray, put up your fists.” I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office. “Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minute walk,) and see if there is any thing for me.” “I would prefer not to.” “You will not?” “I prefer not.” I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?—my hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he will be sure to refuse to do? “Bartleby!” No answer. “Bartleby,” in a louder tone. No answer. “Bartleby,” I roared. Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons,


the bank of the road, where St. Aubert tried to bind up his arm, but his hands trembled so excessively that he could not accomplish it; and, Michael being now gone in pursuit of the horse, which, on being disengaged from his rider, had galloped off, he called Emily to his assistance. Receiving no answer, he went to the carriage, and found her sunk on the seat in a fainting fit. Between the distress of this circumstance and that of leaving Valancourt bleeding, he scarcely knew what he did; he endeavoured, however, to raise her, and called to Michael to fetch water from the rivulet that flowed by the road, but Michael was gone beyond the reach of his voice. Valancourt, who heard these calls, and also the repeated name of Emily, instantly understood the subject of his distress; and, almost forgetting his own condition, he hastened to her relief. She was reviving when he reached the carriage; and then, understanding that anxiety for him had occasioned her indisposition, he assured her, in a voice that trembled, but not from anguish, that his wound was of no consequence. While he said this St. Aubert turned round, and perceiving that he was still bleeding, the subject of his alarm changed again, and he hastily formed some handkerchiefs into a bandage. This stopped the effusion of the blood; but St. Aubert, dreading the consequence of the wound, enquired repeatedly how far they were from Beaujeu; when, learning that it was at two leagues' distance, his distress increased, since he knew not how Valancourt, in his present state, would bear the motion of the carriage, and perceived that he was already faint from loss of blood. When he mentioned the subject of his anxiety, Valancourt entreated that he would not suffer himself to be thus alarmed on his account, for that he had no doubt he should be able to support himself very well; and then he talked of the accident as a slight one. The muleteer being now returned with Valancourt's horse, assisted him into the chaise; and, as Emily was now revived, they moved slowly on towards Beaujeu. St. Aubert, when he had recovered from the terror occasioned him by this accident, expressed surprise on seeing Valancourt, who explained his unexpected appearance by saying, 'You, sir, renewed my taste for society; when you had left the hamlet, it did indeed appear a solitude. I determined, therefore, since my object was merely amusement, to change the scene; and I took this road, because I knew it led through a more romantic tract of mountains than the spot I have left. Besides,' added he, hesitating for an instant, 'I will own, and why should I not? that I had some hope of overtaking you.' 'And I have made you a very unexpected return for the compliment,' said St. Aubert, who lamented again the rashness which had produced the accident, and explained the cause of his late alarm. But Valancourt seemed anxious only to remove from the minds of his companions every unpleasant feeling relative to


blond guy gets in his car and starts the engine. He looks like he’s thinking about leaving his companions behind, but after the others retrieve their belongings from their cabin, they pile into the car and turn out of the parking lot. “Aren’t you gonna get statements from them or something?” I ask Sheriff Lillard. “They all saw what happened.” “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” he says as the guests take off down the road, a cloud of dust swirling behind them. I jog down the stairs and stand in front of Sheriff Lillard. We’ve met twice before. First when he came up to the camp to introduce himself when I initially got hired. He told me he was just a phone call away in the event of an emergency. And the second time was when he arrested that staff member who got too carried away. Now he’s looking at me like he doesn’t recognize me. “I’m Charity,” I say, pulling off my wig. “I’m the manager here. I want—” Recognition seems to wash over him, and he cuts me off mid-sentence. “Oh, right. You’re that little girl Lamont’s got running this shit show. You know he’s supposed to be on premises, right?” “He is,” I lie. “He checks in every day. That’s not what we’re talking about, though.” Sheriff Lillard rolls his eyes. Our first interactions had been friendly enough, but now he seems oddly dismissive. Like he doesn’t want to be up here even though a weird lady with a gun was threatening us. I have to take a second to check myself. I know full well that the police aren’t here to protect and serve; they’re here to enforce compliance with whatever set of rules they’re following today. “Shit show or not, are you gonna do anything about her?” I point to the woman. “She was waving that gun around, and she fired it into the air. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.” He glances over his shoulder at her. “Nancy. Tell me you weren’t firing that thing around these kids.” Nancy opens the rear door of the police cruiser, and I realize Sheriff Lillard didn’t even close the door all the way. I have to clench my jaw to keep my mouth from falling open. She shrugs and laughs a little. “Aw, hell. If I wanted to shoot them, I’d have done it.” “Then we’d have a real problem on our hands,” Sheriff Lillard says sarcastically as he pulls at his neck. He sounds like every other backwoods law-enforcement official I’ve ever come across in Groton—way too sure of himself, glaring air of supremacy. I’m feeling all the stress of being under threat from the lady with the shotgun and the person who is supposed to at least be pretending to keep us safe. “I don’t think we need to do anything,” Sheriff Lillard says. “I’ll probably take her home and make sure she gets some rest.” “Probably take her home?” I repeat, like the words don’t make sense. I’m not surprised that this heffa is getting special


the activities in Wuxi. First, I was a baby and too young. Then my feet were being bound. I could have gone last year, but I had a fever and had to stay in bed. My father took Respectful Lady and Yifeng. How they talked about the fun they had—describing the decorations on each boat, the colorful costumes the rowers wore, and the strategies the boatmen used to win. I remember as well how upset Miss Zhao was that my father hadn’t let her join the party and how quietly pleased my mother was to see the concubine sulk. This year, my father took Miss Zhao, which left my mother more melancholy than usual. Miss Zhao turns to me. “Maybe we can go together next year.” I can tell she’s trying to be nice to me—and I’ve always wanted to go—but does she think she can buy my favor as easily as she bought the bodyguards? I keep my answer short. “Maybe.” She draws in her chin and looks away. After a long silence, she says, “We don’t know what awaits us at your grandparents’ home. I am not your mother, and it seems you don’t want me as a friend either, but you might want to reconsider that. When we step over this new threshold, you will know only three people—Poppy, your brother, and me. It’s important for women—and girls—to find friendship and steadfastness where they can. I can be those things for you if you’ll let me.” She holds up a hand to keep me from speaking. “We’re almost there. I’ll gather our belongings.” Suddenly I’m scared. Everything the concubine said is true. My entire life has been turned upside down, and now we’re about to enter a strange household where we won’t know a single soul apart from each other. The boat turns onto a new canal just as Miss Zhao comes back onto the deck. Both banks are lined with walled enclaves from which roofs sprout like small villages. The boatman steers the sampan to a stone dock, which looks like a floating pavilion with its upturned eaves and stone balustrades. My grandparents’ home is called the Mansion of Golden Light. The gray walls that protect the property stretch down the road that parallels the canal in both directions. The main gate rises proudly, with the family name carved in the plinth at the top. A pair of stone lions stand guard, one on either side of the heavily carved wooden doors. The gatekeeper calls to someone inside, “They’re here! They’re here!” I take a last look around me, positive that once I step over the threshold and into the Mansion of Golden Light I won’t leave it again until my wedding day. Then I give myself a little shake and return my gaze to the gate, still nervous after Miss Zhao’s caution. The threshold is high to show the importance of the family, and Miss Zhao and I must be careful as we step over it. To the right and left, servants’ rooms edge against the protective


speedily sinks again into apparent lifelessness. I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny. This morning, as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friend-- his eyes half closed and his limbs hanging listlessly--I was roused by half a dozen of the sailors, who demanded admission into the cabin. They entered, and their leader addressed me. He told me that he and his companions had been chosen by the other sailors to come in deputation to me to make me a requisition which, in justice, I could not refuse. We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my course southwards. This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice, or even in possibility, refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered, when Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and indeed appeared hardly to have force enough to attend, now roused himself; his eyes sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning towards the men, he said, "What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? "And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm - firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of


society rather than play his part in it. Even though the genetic computations had nothing to do with him, nonetheless, people saw these creatures as manifestations of his psyche, seeking revenge against a society he’d never been truly invested in. Only President Mues’ support had kept him from facing a barbarous mob justice, being tossed overboard into the freezing ocean or strung up as a warning to all who wondered which side they should pick. Standing in the assembly as both a prisoner and an expert witness, since he understood their enemy better than anyone, Yotam listened as the president discussed what action to take, whether to launch an expedition force to track down and kill the escaped colony or wait for them to attack. There were only thirty snow gorillas, some of whom had been killed in the chamber, only thirteen unique asylum species and just twenty of the most advanced cold-adapted species, of which Eitan was their leader. Asked for his opinion, Yotam pointed out that each of the females, no longer drugged to suppress their fertility, could carry six infants at any one time, with the duration of the pregnancy only two months and the infants able to fend for themselves from birth. If ordinary-born people delayed, they were handing control of the continent to these new species and by winter the colony of cold creatures would be far larger. They were genetically engineered to solve the population crisis; their colony would grow at an exponential rate. ‘You will never have a better chance.’ ‘He’s lying! He wants us to leave the ship. We’ll be killed.’ ‘This is the warmest time of the year. There’s sunlight. If you wish to fight, you should fight now; it would be playing to their advantage to fight in winter, in the coldest of conditions. They are able to see in the dark and able to launch attacks even if the temperature is minus seventy outside.’ ‘He’s setting a trap.’ But President Mues concurred with Yotam. ‘We must attack now. Our only advantage is numbers. We have lost access to our food factories. We cannot hide in these boats. Our casualties will be terrible. Many will die. But if we don’t act now, then by winter we won’t stand a chance. They will pick us off, one by one, while their numbers grow.’ At this point the new arrivals led by Echo and her family were escorted to the front of the discussion. Despite there being numerous ice-adapted students in the class, all eyes turned to Echo, dressed in burgundy Dr Martens leather boots, army slacks and a lumberjack’s plaid shirt, her glossy hexagonal scales now obsidian-black as a reaction against the heat of this hangar. This wasn’t the vision of a well-behaved, even-tempered young woman conveyed in monthly school reports. They’d been expecting someone emotionally neutral, as brilliant as she was prim and proper, the top student from an elite Swiss boarding school with an aristocratic coolness about her manner. Fascinated with this young woman, President Mues addressed them as a group:


just picking up where you left off. So maybe that’s what we’re doing. All I know is that the thought of being with Huff makes me feel whole. He takes my hand and turns to look at me. “Daph, let me be clear. You are it for me. I will move in with you—or you can move in with me. I will face off with my sister no matter how mad she is at first. I could not possibly love a person more, and I will love your son just that much. Okay?” I know this, but hearing him say it gives me that face-breaking smile again. I know he will be an incredible stepfather to Henry. Not only did Huff have an amazing example of a father but he is also a doctor, a caretaker. And I know how he’s taken care of me. “This is a lot of talking,” I whisper. He nods enthusiastically, his mouth disappearing into mine. For a moment, a split second, I wonder how this is all going to play out. Can we make it work this time? Really make it stick without letting drama get in the way? Surely Lanier will see how in love we are, will understand that this is real—that this is healthy—and that we are meant to be together, after all. She will be excited because she knows that I have been completely clean for seven years and will continue to be for the rest of my life, so she won’t worry. But, for a second, none of that matters. For now, it feels so magnificent to be lost in the moment that I can’t worry about any of it. Lanier THROWBACK Five Weeks Later Subject: Hard Things To: marystuart@harrispr.com; lanier@bookmasters.com Dear Songbirds: Lanier, you know we will help make your wedding favors. No problem at all. MS, I truly cannot think of anything I’d rather do than be the plus one at your aunt’s retirement party. (I can’t believe Ted would go fishing and miss that!) Now that that’s out of the way… Are we ready for the big weekend? Can you believe it’s finally here? Six weeks of campaigning, one hundred families. You two are dynamos. Lanier, the videos of local authors talking about their favorite camp experiences was nothing short of inspired. Mary Stuart, tapping into sorority and fraternity mailing lists to find interested families? Genius. I love you two more than words can say, and I cannot wait to party like it’s 1999 with you this weekend! Fair winds and following seas, Daphne I smiled as I closed out of my email, realizing that Daphne hadn’t asked for any hard things. It made sense since Mary Stuart and I had devoted every free second to pulling together an epic family camp weekend on such short notice. There would be sailing, of course, and all the usual activities like horseback riding, archery, canoeing, riflery, basketball, softball, and arts and crafts. And it wouldn’t be camp without a talent show—and a Holly Springs vs. Rock Springs softball game! One


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

youngest brother! Got past McGonagall's giant chess set!" At last there was silence again. "Second -- to Miss Hermione Granger...for the use of cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points." Hermione buried her face in her arms; Harry strongly suspected she had burst into tears. Gryffindors up and down the table were beside themselves -- they were a hundred points up. "Third -- to Mr. Harry Potter..." said Dumbledore. The room went deadly quiet. "...for pure nerve and outstanding courage, I award Gryffindor house sixty points." The din was deafening. Those who could add up while yelling themselves hoarse knew that Gryffindor now had four hundred and seventy-two points -- exactly the same as Slytherin. They had tied for the house cup -- if only Dumbledore had given Harry just one more point. Dumbledore raised his hand. The room gradually fell silent. "There are all kinds of courage," said Dumbledore, smiling. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends. I therefore award ten points to Mr. Neville Longbottom." Someone standing outside the Great Hall might well have thought some sort of explosion had taken place, so loud was the noise that erupted from the Gryffindor table. Harry, Ron, and Hermione stood up to yell and cheer as Neville, white with shock, disappeared under a pile of people hugging him. He had never won so much as a point for Gryffindor before. Harry, still cheering, nudged Ron in the ribs and pointed at Malfoy, who couldn't have looked more stunned and horrified if he'd just had the Body-Bind Curse put on him. "Which means," Dumbledore called over the storm of applause, for even Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were celebrating the downfall of Slytherin, "we need a little change of decoration." He clapped his hands. In an instant, the green hangings became scarlet and the silver became gold; the huge Slytherin serpent vanished and a towering Gryffindor lion took its place. Snape was shaking Professor McGonagall's hand, with a horrible, forced smile. He caught Harry's eye and Harry knew at once that Snape's feelings toward him hadn't changed one jot. This didn't worry Harry. It seemed as though life would be back to normal next year, or as normal as it ever was at Hogwarts. It was the best evening of Harry's life, better than winning at Quidditch, or Christmas, or knocking out mountain trolls...he would never, ever forget tonight. *** Harry had almost forgotten that the exam results were still to come, but come they did. To their great surprise, both he and Ron passed with good marks; Hermione, of course, had the best grades of the first years. Even Neville scraped through, his good Herbology mark making up for his abysmal Potions one. They had hoped that Goyle, who was almost as stupid as he was mean, might be thrown out, but he had passed, too. It was a shame, but as Ron said, you couldn't have everything in life. And suddenly,


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

out of the room. “I’ll be off, too.” Alie rose from the table. She smiled at Lore. “Thank you for coming, truly. I know being in the Citadel can be overwhelming, but it’s easier with friends in your corner.” She arched a brow at Bastian. “Am I safe to leave her in your care, or will you require a chaperone?” “I probably always require a chaperone, but never fear.” Bastian tugged Lore up by the hand and then tucked her fingers into his elbow. “I’ll take Lady Remaut back to her rooms, and I’m sure her pet Presque Mort is there, so we’ll have all the chaperoning we need.” Alie colored a bit at the mention of Gabe, but Bastian didn’t comment on it. The three of them drifted out of the prince’s palatial apartments and down the stairs. Alie gave Lore’s hand a squeeze before turning down the hallway below Bastian’s, apparently toward her own rooms. Lore waited a couple more flights before speaking, pitching her voice low. “I think the people being hired at the docks are moving the bodies.” “Obviously.” A courtier came up the stairs; Lore tensed, but Bastian didn’t, giving them a lazy smile and waiting for them to disappear before speaking again. “So we need to go down there again. Preferably tonight.” “Tonight? But it was only two weeks ago that—” “While I’m touched by your concern, I will be just fine.” He looked at her, then, and his smile was so warm she could almost forgive the chill it left in his eyes. “I think I scared the ruffians who found us out last time enough to keep them quiet.” “Whoever is hiring the dockworkers apparently scares them enough to keep quiet, too.” She didn’t have to draw the parallel. Whoever was hiring had to be someone with considerable power, if they could intimidate a whole crew of cargo haulers into silence. Maybe someone as powerful as another Arceneaux. Bastian’s jaw tightened, highlighting the dark stubble on his chin. “I’ve considered that,” he murmured. Hiding the bodies didn’t necessarily mean that August had something to do with the deaths. But hiding the bodies coupled with his insistence on implicating Kirythea—implicating Bastian, and thus clearing the way to choose another heir—didn’t paint a pretty picture. Especially now that they knew August was ill. That he was desperately searching for a way to cheat death, whether through poison or through manipulating Spiritum. And how did Anton fit into it? Clearly, he was looking for ways August could heal himself with Spiritum, too. And he and August had worked together closely to bring her here; they both had to be involved in tampering with the corpses. But did that mean they were complicit in killing the villages, or just being dishonest with what happened afterward? Either way, they couldn’t trust Anton any more than they could trust August. Though she knew Gabe would think differently. Bastian kept quiet as he led her through the front hall, past the great doors that led out of the Citadel, into the


had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind.% The discipline of the family in those days was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge. But the task was beyond her skill. after testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew Thesaurus calculable: (adj) computable, melancholy, gloom, sadness, seriousness. numerable, arithmetical, analytic, hopelessness, desolation, anguish, imbibing: (n) drinking, absorption, algebraic, measurable, reckonable, grief. ANTONYMS: (n) happiness, intake, swillings, drink, potation, countable, estimable, able to be hopefulness, cheerfulness, joy, drunkenness, gulping, boozing, gauged, assessable. ANTONYMS: resilience, delight, cheer. crapulence; (adj) absorbent. (adj) incalculable, inestimable. enjoined: (adj) lawful. perpetuated: (adj) perpetuate. caprice: (n) fancy, fantasy, humor, flightiness: (n) levity, capriciousness, untempered: (adj) unrestrained, quirk, freak, notion, impulse, fit, fickleness, frivolity, giddiness, unhardened, uncontrolled, capriccio, fad, vagary. ANTONYMS: instability, lightness, arbitrariness, flamboyant, resplendent, mad, (n) plan, strategy, blueprint, reality. irresponsibleness, flippancy, intemperate, frantic, excited, despondency: (n) despair, waywardness. ANTONYMS: (n) delirious, inordinate. desperation, dejection, despondence, dependability, responsibility, whether: (pron) where. 86 The Scarlet Letter acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist, persuade or plead.% It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, perverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning at such moments whether Pearl was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after playing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remoteness and intangibility: it was as if she were hovering in the air, and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child--to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began--to snatch her


a crisis, so I turned away and made my exit, rambling leisurely along with the glow of a sinking sun behind, and the mild glory of a rising moon in front---one fad- ing and the other brightening---as I quitted the park and climbed the stony by-road branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west; but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by that splendid moon. I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock; it yielded to my hand. That is an improvement, I thought. And I no- ticed another by the aid of my nostrils---a fragrance of stocks and wallflowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees. Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usu- ally the case in a coal district, a fine, red fire illumi- nated the chimney. The comfort which the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable. But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence, and accordingly what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows. I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and listened in consequence, being moved thereto by a mingled sense of curiosity and envy that grew as I lingered. "Con-trary!" said a voice as sweet as a silver bell. "That for the third time, you dunce! I'm not going to tell you again. Recollect, or I'll pull your hair." "Contrary, then," answered another, in deep but softened tones. "And now, kiss me for minding so well." "No; read it over first correctly, without a single mistake." The male speaker began to read. He was a young man respectably dressed and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a smart slap on the cheek whenever its owner detected such signs of inattention. Its owner stood behind, her light, shining ringlets blending at in- tervals with his brown locks, as she bent to superintend his studies; and her face---it was lucky he could not see her face, or he would never have been so steady. I could, and I bit my lip in spite at having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something be- sides staring at its smiting beauty. The task was done---not free from further blunders; but the pupil claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses, which, however, he generously returned. Then they came to the door, and from their conver- sation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the moors. I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw's heart, if not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal


They came together again; Bastian slipped a hand around her waist, and she did the same as they circled each other, a movement that would’ve looked predatory without the softness dancing brought it. “That dress suits you,” Bastian said, not trying to hide the turn of his eyes up and down her form. “I didn’t get a very good look at you during the Consecration—or yesterday morning in the gardens, occupied as I was—but I thought it might.” So he did recognize her from the gardens. Lore gave him a selfdeprecating smile. “That was you? How embarrassing. My belongings didn’t arrive on time, so I had to borrow a dress from the Church’s donations.” Hands left waists, came to face height and hovered within an inch of each other, palms flat as Lore orbited around him. “How fortunate,” Bastian murmured, “to have such a close contact in the Church.” The dance ended. Around them, other couples were in a pose with their right hands together and the other curved above their heads, but Bastian and Lore still stood with their palms facing between them, almost touching but not quite. “I look forward to having you around, Lore.” His voice was low, breath brushing her temple as he leaned forward to speak into her ear. “It certainly has the potential to be interesting.” “Do you think so, Your Highness?” He was close enough that she felt the brush of his lips curving. “I know so.” Across the room, Alie watched them, giggling behind her hand. Next to her, Gabe caught Lore’s eye, arched a sardonic brow. She tried to make a face that communicated what else am I supposed to do? but mostly just succeeded in looking nauseous. Bastian stepped back. He reached into his coat, and for a wild moment, Lore thought he was going to pull out a dagger or one of those tiny pistols, prove himself the Kirythean informant his father thought he was by taking care of her right here in the middle of his own party. The courtiers would probably love it. They’d all bring in peasants to murder at their own balls; it’d be the next big trend in masquerade hosting. But all Bastian pulled from his coat was a pressed flower, a line of palepurple blooms on a green stem. “A foxglove for a foxglove.” Bastian handed it to her with a bow and a flourish. “Beautiful and poisonous. Much like yourself, if I may be so bold as to make an assessment after our brief acquaintance.” Gingerly, Lore took the bloom. The dry petals crunched slightly between her fingers. “Until next time, Lore.” Bastian turned and walked away, a drop of ink in a sea of color. Lore closed the door to the apartments behind her and leaned back against it. “I suppose that went about as well as it could.” “You performed your assignment admirably,” Gabriel said, sitting down on the couch with a long sigh. “It seems ingratiating myself with Bastian won’t be the hard part.” Lore pulled off her mask and let


pride. He could not understand what it all meant. What did they want with him, these strange men? Why were they keeping him pent up in this narrow crate? He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impending calamity. Several times during the night he sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled open, expecting to see the Judge, or the boys at least. But each time it was the bulging face of the saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a tallow candle. And each time the joyful bark that trembled in Buck's throat was twisted into a savage growl. But the saloon-keeper let him alone, and in the morning four men entered and picked up the crate. More tormentors, Buck decided, for they were evil-looking creatures, ragged and unkempt; and he stormed and raged at them through the bars. They only laughed and poked sticks at him, which he promptly assailed with his teeth till he realized that that was what they wanted. Whereupon he lay down sullenly and allowed the crate to be lifted into a wagon. Then he, and the crate in which he was imprisoned, began a passage through many hands. Clerks in the express office took charge of him; he was carted about in another wagon; a truck carried him, with an assortment of boxes and parcels, upon a ferry steamer; he was trucked off the steamer into a great railway depot, and finally he was deposited in an express car. For two days and nights this express car was dragged along at the tail of shrieking locomotives; and for two days and nights Buck neither ate nor drank. In his anger he had met the first advances of the express messengers with growls, and they had retaliated by teasing him. When he flung himself against the bars, quivering and frothing, they laughed at him and taunted him. They growled and barked like detestable dogs, mewed, and flapped their arms and crowed. It was all very silly, he knew; but therefore the more outrage to his dignity, and his anger waxed and waxed. He did not mind the hunger so much, but the lack of water caused him severe suffering and fanned his wrath to fever-pitch. For that matter, high-strung and finely sensitive, the ill treatment had flung him into a fever, which was fed by the inflammation of his parched and swollen throat and tongue. He was glad for one thing: the rope was off his neck. That had given them an unfair advantage; but now that it was off, he would show them. They would never get another rope around his neck. Upon that he was resolved. For two days and nights he neither ate nor drank, and during those two days and nights of torment, he accumulated a fund of wrath that boded ill for whoever first fell foul of him. His eyes turned blood-shot, and he was metamorphosed into a raging fiend. So changed was he that the Judge himself would


different.” “It is different! This is the last time!” “You are not real.” I close my eyes, trying to drive away the apparition, but Grandmother doesn’t—won’t—leave. “I am real.” Her voice finally begins to lower as she returns to the matter-of-fact approach I know so well. “Like Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy who sees into the hearts of all women, I’ve always felt that I could see through to your heart. Forever I’ve worried about your melancholic turn of mind and how it physically affected your body. This is your weakness, and it has been the pattern in your life. Why do you think I paired you with the daughter of a midwife? Her qi is exuberant, and I knew she would always take care of you. But now you must change. Do you think being feeble and pitiable presents a good example to your children?” When I don’t answer, she goes on. “You may think this illness is fatal, but it isn’t. I’m going to help you one last time. You have my special book of cases. Go to page fifty-eight. Follow the directions. In a few days, you will begin to feel better.” I consider this possibility. “You have done your duty to your husband and his family,” Grandmother goes on. “Now you must turn your attentions elsewhere. You were born to be a doctor of women, and a special destiny awaits you. You’ll use the arts you learned from me to save the sick, and you will have a good, useful, and extraordinarily long life—living until you reach seventy-three years.” Could her prophecy possibly be real? “But know this,” she continues. “The sickly constitution you have endured will help you going forward. A doctor who understands her own nature—and the sufferings of her own body—can better treat another woman, for their natures and bodies are in sympathy.” She starts to back away. I watch to see if she’ll open the door, melt through a wall, or simply vanish. “You still have an important task ahead of you. I couldn’t help Meiling, but you can. Give her the gift she desires. And remember, follow my medicine.” I jolt upright. Meiling still sits on the stool, asleep, with her head on my quilt. Poppy is curled on the floor in the first antechamber. I pry loose the hidden panel in my bed and pull out Grandmother’s notebook. I gently touch Meiling’s cheek. Her eyes widen to see me sitting up. “Can you help me?” I ask. She nods uncertainly. I rise and steady myself by grasping the carvings that grace that half-moon entrance to my bed. Meiling supports me as I wobble forward. The only reason I can walk at all is that she took care of my feet. We pass through the dressing room, step over Poppy, out of the marriage bed, and into my room. I sway as I turn over in my mind everything Grandmother told me. “Take me to my desk,” I request. When we reach it, Meiling raises the wicks on two lamps, and I open


Fagin, assuming an unusual flow of spirits, gradually brought Mr. Sikes into a better temper, by affecting to regard his threats as a little pleasant banter; and, moreover, by laughing very heartily at one or two rough jokes, which, after repeated applications to the spirit-bottle, he condescended to make. 'It's all very well,' said Mr. Sikes; 'but I must have some blunt from you to-night.' 'I haven't a piece of coin about me,' replied the Jew. 'Then you've got lots at home,' retorted Sikes; 'and I must have some from there.' 'Lots!' cried Fagin, holding up is hands. 'I haven't so much as would--' 'I don't know how much you've got, and I dare say you hardly know yourself, as it would take a pretty long time to count it,' said Sikes; 'but I must have some to-night; and that's flat.' 'Well, well,' said Fagin, with a sigh, 'I'll send the Artful round presently.' 'You won't do nothing of the kind,' rejoined Mr. Sikes. 'The Artful's a deal too artful, and would forget to come, or lose his way, or get dodged by traps and so be perwented, or anything for an excuse, if you put him up to it. Nancy shall go to the ken and fetch it, to make all sure; and I'll lie down and have a snooze while she's gone.' After a great deal of haggling and squabbling, Fagin beat down the amount of the required advance from five pounds to three pounds four and sixpence: protesting with many solemn asseverations that that would only leave him eighteen-pence to keep house with; Mr. Sikes sullenly remarking that if he couldn't get any more he must accompany him home; with the Dodger and Master Bates put the eatables in the cupboard. The Jew then, taking leave of his affectionate friend, returned homeward, attended by Nancy and the boys: Mr. Sikes, meanwhile, flinging himself on the bed, and composing himself to sleep away the time until the young lady's return. In due course, they arrived at Fagin's abode, where they found Toby Crackit and Mr. Chitling intent upon their fifteenth game at cribbage, which it is scarcely necessary to say the latter gentleman lost, and with it, his fifteenth and last sixpence: much to the amusement of his young friends. Mr. Crackit, apparently somewhat ashamed at being found relaxing himself with a gentleman so much his inferior in station and mental endowments, yawned, and inquiring after Sikes, took up his hat to go. 'Has nobody been, Toby?' asked Fagin. 'Not a living leg,' answered Mr. Crackit, pulling up his collar; 'it's been as dull as swipes. You ought to stand something handsome, Fagin, to recompense me for keeping house so long. Damme, I'm as flat as a juryman; and should have gone to sleep, as fast as Newgate, if I hadn't had the good natur' to amuse this youngster. Horrid dull, I'm blessed if I an't!' With these and other ejaculations of the same kind, Mr. Toby Crackit swept up his winnings, and crammed them into his waistcoat pocket with


her own indifference-- (for still her resolution held of never marrying)--the honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint acquaintance. Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her extremely--thought her very beautiful and very charming; and with so much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him harshly. As Mrs. Weston observed, "all young people would have their little whims." There was one person among his new acquaintance in Surry, not so leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of Donwell and Highbury, with great candour; liberal allowances were made for the little excesses of such a handsome young man-- one who smiled so often and bowed so well; but there was one spirit among them not to be softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smiles--Mr. Knightley. The circumstance was told him at Hartfield; for the moment, he was silent; but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself, over a newspaper he held in his hand, "Hum! just the trifling, silly fellow I took him for." She had half a mind to resent; but an instant's observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his own feelings, and not meant to provoke; and therefore she let it pass. Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and Mrs. Weston's visit this morning was in another respect particularly opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma want their advice; and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly the advice they gave. This was the occurrence:--The Coles had been settled some years in Highbury, and were very good sort of people--friendly, liberal, and unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade, and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country, they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had brought them a considerable increase of means-- the house in town had yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With their wealth, their views increased; their want of a larger house, their inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time were, in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield. Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared every body for their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma could hardly suppose they would presume to invite-- neither Donwell, nor Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt her to go, if they did; and she regretted that her father's known habits would be giving her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very respectable in their way, but


finally she grabbed the lid with both hands and forced it back. Inside lay a child’s body, curled around itself. Bones, mostly, but scraps of skin clung to its cheeks and wrists, along with some wisps of pale hair that the rain immediately plastered to its open-mouthed skull, his small hands drawn up and folded delicately beneath his chin, a little boy in faded blue jeans and—this is what stabbed Louise through the heart—a red sweater. his mother hadn’t wanted him to be cold “It’s you,” Louise shouted through the rain at Pupkin. “It’s you, Freddie.” Pupkin turned his face from the body of the little boy to Louise, then back to the case. The rain beat down on them like clubs. Black paint dripped from Pupkin’s chin as his features blurred and disappeared. “You have to go now, Pupkin,” Louise said. “It’s time to go home.” Pupkin shivered on the end of Poppy’s arm, a sad, peeling wet thing, looking at his own corpse. “Pupkin no go,” he said. “Pupkin stay and play and play . . .” “There’s no one left,” Louise said. “They’re all gone.” “Pupkin real! Pupkin alive!” he cheered. “No,” Louise said, too exhausted to say more. “Why?!” Pupkin howled. “Because when your body gets hurt very, very badly, it stops working, and you die, and that means you go away forever. And that’s what’s happened to you.” “No . . .” Pupkin whined. “Not fair . . .” “No,” Louise agreed. “Not fair.” The ruined, melting face of Pupkin turned itself to her on the end of Poppy’s arm. “Why?” he asked again, and it was a child’s voice, lost, with no way home. In that moment Louise thought of The Velveteen Rabbit and she knew why she had always hated it. Being loved didn’t mean you were alive. People loved lots of inanimate things: stuffed animals, cars, puppets. Being alive meant something else. “Because you’re real, Pupkin,” Louise said. “And nothing real can last forever. That’s how you know you’re real. Because one day you die.” Rain smashed down on the three of them sitting in the mud. Finally, Pupkin spoke in a voice so small Louise almost didn’t hear him over the rain. “I’m scared,” he said. Louise dragged herself around the trunk and through the cold puddle forming around them, and she sat down behind her daughter and pulled her into her lap, then reached for the soaked and waterlogged Pupkin on the end of her arm. His face had melted to an unrecognizable lump, but she could still see the faint contours of his eye sockets, his mouth, his chin, his upturned nose. Because she was a mother, Louise gripped his sleeve and slid him off her daughter’s arm, then slid him over her own because she couldn’t let a child, any child, face this alone. Pupkin felt cold and wet and heavy, instantly freezing her knuckles to ice, and then she felt his tiny body surge to life, and the rain faded away and the world lurched to one side and


typewriter. “Gone?” It’s strange how a word so short can contain so many possibilities. Lenora could have had a miscarriage. Or the baby was stillborn. Or left this world shortly after entering it. Or was bundled up and left on the front steps of a church on Christmas morning. That single word—gone—could also mean something happier. The child was born, grew up, left Hope’s End, and now has a family of their own. Although, going by Lenora’s reaction, I don’t think that’s what happened. “Did the baby die?” I say. Lenora makes no indication she wants to type more. Her hands sit in her lap, the useful left one atop the useless right, and she stares at them as if she didn’t hear me. “Who was the father?” I say, pressing. “Was it Ricky?” Still nothing from Lenora. No acknowledging the question. No acknowledging me. Without saying a word, she’s made her message clear—she doesn’t want to talk about it. I can’t blame her. She was pregnant. The baby’s now gone. She probably thinks there’s nothing else to be said. Only there is. And Lenora told it to at least one other person—Mary. Considering what happened to her, I should be grateful Lenora now refuses to tell me. Maybe that’s another reason for her silence. She doesn’t want to put me in more danger than I might already be. Once again, I think about leaving. It would take only minutes to pack my suitcase and box, grab my medical bag, and walk away from Hope’s End without looking back. But I can’t bring myself to do it. Even though I haven’t been told everything, what I do know is enough to keep me here. I need to learn the rest. The Hope family murders. Lenora’s pregnancy. Mary’s death. They’re all tied together in a complex knot of secrets, lies, and misdeeds both past and present. I’m certain that if I can unravel it, the truth will be revealed. About Carter and Mary, yes, but most of all about Lenora. She’s the person I need to understand the most. So I stay, letting the morning pass slowly and silently. With any other patient, I would have busied myself with light housework or cooking lunch or even just watching TV with them. None of those options are available to me at Hope’s End. So I pass the time reading a Danielle Steel novel on the divan while Lenora sits in her wheelchair and stares out the window. It reminds me of my mother’s final days, when she was too fragile and pain-wracked to be moved to the couch in the living room. Stuck in a room without a television and its comforting background noise, the silence became so thick it was almost unbearable. Today isn’t quite that bad, but it’s enough to make me appreciate the few moments of sound and activity. Fetching lunch. Feeding Lenora. Even assisting her in the bathroom because it’s something to do besides sitting here and thinking. While I tackle the tasks with endless chatter, Lenora does nothing in


Independent public servants are an essential check on power. If laws are enforced selectively, democracy’s diagnosis is terminal. Thankfully, President Joe Biden rescinded the Schedule F order, but it could easily be reinstated and expanded by a MAGA successor. Congress must forbid such reclassifications of federal positions, enshrine protections that allow careerists to do their jobs without fear of retaliation, and make it harder to circumvent vacancy laws to appoint un-confirmable diehards to lead agencies. Still, no reforms can fully shield agencies from corrupt appointees. An incoming president chooses his or her team, and often those lieutenants are more conniving than the leader. GOP Congressman Denver Riggleman pointed to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. “Stalin was awful, but you had Little Stalins that were much more abusive and terroristic than he was because they thought that they were allowed to be that way,” he said. The Next Trump will bring aides into government who lack character, experience, or both—and are ready for retribution. Michael Karloutsos was surprised by the vindictiveness of staffers who swept into the State Department during the Trump administration. He was appointed by the president to serve as the head of diplomatic protocol, responsible for managing meetings with the world’s most powerful people—kings, queens, presidents, and prime ministers. From the outset, Karloutsos witnessed the bizarre behavior of his fellow appointees, such as the day he walked into the State Department office that archives gifts given to the United States by foreign leaders. “There was a bunch of young people scratching out Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s names,” he recalled. “Their job was to go through items from the last administration—cups, candlesticks, you name it—and deface them.” Karloutsos objected. Erasing history is what autocrats did, he said. “You’d think that I was advocating for reelecting [Obama]. People looked at me sideways. That set the tone.” Every administration is staffed by flawed souls who enter public service with conflicting motivations. Ambition, altruism, greed, goodwill, and love—of country, or of self. The Next Trump won’t choose people who are conflicted at all. He or she will pick staffers who put the president first, above all else. There will be no treasonous conversations about the chief executive’s mental state, let alone the thought of correcting him. The best place to hear White House staff speak candidly is a tiny anteroom just down the hall from the Oval Office. Before important meetings, aides huddle in the cramped space adjoining the chief of staff’s office to rehearse, vent, and sometimes to scheme. I spoke to one of the young aides who was assigned to a desk there during the Trump administration (a space later occupied by White House whistle-blower Cassidy Hutchinson). “I characterize my time there as pure insanity,” the junior official reflected. At first, according to the person, the room was trafficked by people frantically trying to counteract bad Trump decisions. Appointees with a conscience. By the end, it was a waypoint for aides “fully unwilling to stand up to the president” and conspiring to thwart the Deep State on his behalf. These personalities—“the most


the original so harshly as a perception of the truth compelled her to do. But still she gazed, because the face of the picture enabled her--at least, she fancied so--to read more accurately, and to a greater depth, the face which she had just seen in the street. "This is the very man!" murmured she to herself. "Let Jaffrey Pyncheon smile as he will, there is that look beneath! Put on him a skull-cap, and a band, and a black cloak, and a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other,--then let Jaffrey smile as he might,--nobody would doubt that it was the old Pyncheon come again. He has proved himself the very man to build up a new house! Perhaps, too, to draw down a new curse!" Thus did Hepzibah bewilder herself with these fantasies of the old time. She had dwelt too much alone,--too long in the Pyncheon House, --until her very brain was impregnated with the dry-rot of its timbers. She needed a walk along the noonday street to keep her sane. By the spell of contrast, another portrait rose up before her, painted with more daring flattery than any artist would have ventured upon, but yet so delicately touched that the likeness remained perfect. Malbone's miniature, though from the same original, was far inferior to Hepzibah's air-drawn picture, at which affection and sorrowful remembrance wrought together. Soft, mildly, and cheerfully contemplative, with full, red lips, just on the verge of a smile, which the eyes seemed to herald by a gentle kindling-up of their orbs! Feminine traits, moulded inseparably with those of the other sex! The miniature, likewise, had this last peculiarity; so that you inevitably thought of the original as resembling his mother, and she a lovely and lovable woman, with perhaps some beautiful infirmity of character, that made it all the pleasanter to know and easier to love her. "Yes," thought Hepzibah, with grief of which it was only the more tolerable portion that welled up from her heart to her eyelids, "they persecuted his mother in him! He never was a Pyncheon!" But here the shop-bell rang; it was like a sound from a remote distance,--so far had Hepzibah descended into the sepulchral depths of her reminiscences. On entering the shop, she found an old man there, a humble resident of Pyncheon Street, and whom, for a great many years past, she had suffered to be a kind of familiar of the house. He was an immemorial personage, who seemed always to have had a white head and wrinkles, and never to have possessed but a single tooth, and that a half-decayed one, in the front of the upper jaw. Well advanced as Hepzibah was, she could not remember when Uncle Venner, as the neighborhood called him, had not gone up and down the street, stooping a little and drawing his feet heavily over the gravel or pavement. But still there was something tough and vigorous about him, that not only kept him in daily breath, but enabled him to fill a place


future with him; it was because I could only see a future with you. So Steven and I might have a bedtime routine with Henry, but what you and I have is a real, true love story. It’s a connection I’ve never felt with anyone else, and I know I never will. If you want to throw that away because the logistics are hard, then that’s fine. I hear you. We’re grown-ups and we have our own lives, and logistics are hard.” I sound confident, but this still gives me butterflies. What if Huff takes my offer and walks away? “This new situation is something Steven and I have been talking about and will continue to talk about. But I need you to know that no matter what we decide about our living situation, I will never, ever stop loving you.” Huff lies down, his hands under his neck. “For real?” he asks. “For real,” I say, lying down beside him. “Then I guess I’m the luckiest guy in the world.” He kisses me, running his fingers through my hair. He pulls me closer. “I mean, I guess I could get used to having Steven as a roommate if it means getting to do this all the time.” But as I kiss him, a wave of panic washes over me. This hiccup reminds me how much I don’t like change. Steven and I have made magic of our coparenting, of being there for our son in a way that feels healthy and honest. How would adding Huff to that dynamic affect that? Could I let Steven solo parent on his weekends without feeling totally bereft? Will Henry be able to accept two dads in his life? I know Huff will be an incredible stepfather. But I can’t quite reconcile how we will get there just yet. “I love you,” Huff whispers. “You’re right. It will all work out. I am willing to do whatever it takes.” I nod and smile as we get up and he walks back toward the room he is sharing with his sister, my best friend, the one I am betraying with every breath. Instead of going into my room, I walk down to the river’s edge, the stars seemingly not just in the sky but all around me, glittering and twinkling, as alive and vibrant as children’s laughter. I sit on the bank of the river, watching the ripples the wind makes on the flowing water. I remember the summer when Huff and I were counselors, the last time we were here together, in fact. What possessed him, I don’t know, but my father had shown up, totally unannounced. I hadn’t seen him in four years. In that time, he had sobered up, gotten married. He was having a baby and he wanted me to know my sister. He wanted us to be a family. I told him I had a family. I wasn’t interested in another one. I had spent most of my life feeling scattered, forgotten, tossed about. I had learned that just because you


against the wood. It was rather dashing. It added a dimension to the android’s face Vic hadn’t considered before. It made Vic nervous, unsure, even as he felt the satisfaction of a job well done. In short order, they had fit the bigger pieces to the back and chest. The chest piece was harder as they had to make sure it didn’t interfere with the power cavity. They opened and closed the compartment at each stage of the fusing to make sure the latch wouldn’t catch on the wood. At the end of the second week, they pieced together the arm, circles like rings locking between each joint of the fingers, before moving to the forearm and the bicep. Once they figured out the arm, the leg came easier. Two pieces for the thigh, one on top and one on the bottom. The same for the shin. The heel was curved and polished, having been soaked in a wood stabilizer to keep it from cracking. Vic marveled at the detail. Nurse Ratched had seen fit to carve toenails into the tips of the wood. He slid on each individual toe, careful to avoid breaking the pieces. He held them with the tips of his fingers while Nurse Ratched fused them in place, the heat from her laser hot against his skin, even through the heavy gloves he wore. “There,” she said on the fifteenth day since they’d found the android. “That should do it.” Vic looked up at her from where he was crouched at the end of the table. “That’s it? We’re done?” “We are. Aside from a power source, there is nothing left to do.” He stood up slowly, knees popping. Rambo rose on his lift, sensors flashing near the android’s head. “Whoa,” he whispered. “He looks so cool. Like a pirate. Can we remove one of his eyes and give him a patch instead?” “Yes,” Nurse Ratched said. “Let us do that. I will remove the eye myself.” “No,” Vic said quickly. “We’re not taking out his eye.” “Aw,” Rambo muttered. “We never get to do what I want to do.” Vic stared down at the android, heart rabbiting in his chest. “Do you think he’ll like it?” “I do not know,” Nurse Ratched said. “But it will not matter if there is no power. As of now, he is merely decorative. If we are unable to find a new battery, perhaps we can use him to hold potted plants.” Vic sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “We’ll figure something out.” He yawned, jaw cracking. “We’ve come this far. We can’t stop now.” “Why do you care so much?” Rambo asked. Vic blinked. “What do you mean?” “You found him,” Rambo said. “And you’re trying to fix him. You did the same for me and Nurse Ratched. Why?” Vic shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know. It’s just…” Nurse Ratched beeped. “It is as Gio said. Searching for a connection. Making something out of nothing so the spaces between us do not seem so far.” “Are you going to connect


her thigh. “He’s weird. I don’t like him.” “He’s just nervous!” she said. “Now go get some dog stuff.” I gave him one last look before putting on my mask and going into a store where a bunch of teenagers were gonna lecture me on stuff I already knew about dogs and their care. I got a cart and walked up and down every aisle, throwing in a bed and leashes and toys and a crate, and no one talked to me until I got to the food section, where a person I could’ve given birth to said, “Are you sure about that Royal Canin? Let me talk to you about Purina One!” Listen, I don’t know anything about history or geography, I don’t know who invented lightning or what plants are poisonous, I can’t tell you anything about any movie that does not feature Tommy Lee Jones prominently in it, but the one thing I do know? Shit about dog food. I answered the phone at an animal hospital for fourteen years, which is why I knew enough to get out of that conversational death trap by telling my daughter that I wanted “a breed-specific kibble for its palatability and chewing ease.” Maybe I should have gone to vet school. In any case, here’s an abbreviated list of why, I assume, this dog was left in a bassinet outside the SPCA doors like Baby Moses by that biblical river: He barks at everything. He’s very dumb. He’s very dumb and very naughty. If you put him in a crate he screams. He’s a picky eater. He barks at everything. His eyes leak constantly. He stinks. If you take him out of a crate he screams. He’s too loud. He fights the cats. If he sees a squirrel during a walk, he will spin in a circle ninety-two times before you can move. He jumps on the dining room table and buries his face in your dinner. He barks at everything. If the doorbell rings, he goes apoplectic. He stands on the corner of his indoor pee grass and pisses off the side and onto the floor. He steals cat food. If you leave for longer than he likes, he scratches paint off the door. He will not walk if it’s raining. He commandeers every blanket in the house for himself. He refuses to sleep in any of his many beds at night, preferring the human bed. He barks at everything. His one trick is “shake,” and he’s bad at it. He screams at the vet. He tries to get tough with dangerous wildlife. He only likes Kirsten. He insists on being in your lap in the car. He’s always trembling, even when it’s hot. He’s so fucking bossy! If you’re chopping vegetables on a cutting board, he thinks someone is knocking on the door and loses his mind. He’ll bark his head off at a precious blade of spring grass if it is ruffled by a gentle breeze. He is not cuddly. He’s always aggressively cutting his eyes at me. He


made of thick oak. The children had to bend their heads to get about. It seemed as if there were places that might have been cabins, though it was difficult to tell now, for everything was so battered, sea-drenched and seaweedy. The smell was really horrid, though it was mostly of drying seaweed. The children slipped about on the seaweed as they went round the inside of the ship. It didn't seem so big inside after all. There was a big hold under the cabins, which the children saw by the light of their torch. "That's where the boxes of gold would have been kept, I expect," said Julian. But there was nothing in the hold except water and fish! The children couldn't go down because the water was too deep. One or two barrels floated in the water, but they had burst open and were quite empty. "I expect they were water-barrels, or barrels of pork or biscuit," said George. "Let's go round the other part of the ship again- where the cabins are. Isn't it strange to see bunks there that sailors have slept in- and look at that old wooden chair. Fancy it still being here after all these years! Look at the things on those hooks too- they are all rusty now, and covered with seaweedy stuff- but they must have been the cook's pans and dishes!" It was a very queer trip round the old wreck. The children were all on the look-out for boxes which might contain bars of gold- but there didn't seem to be one single box of any kind anywhere! They came to a rather bigger cabin than the others. It had a bunk in one corner, in which a large crab rested. An old bit of furniture looking rather like a tablet with two legs, all encrusted with greyish shells, lay against the bunk. Wooden shelves, festooned with grey-green seaweed, hung crookedly on the walls of the cabin. "This must have been the captain's own cabin," said Julian. "It's the biggest one. Look, what's that in the corner?" "An old cup!" said Anne, picking it up. "And here's half of a saucer. I expect the captain was sitting here having a cup of tea when the ship went down." This made the children feel rather queer. It was dark and smelly in the little cabin, and the floor was wet and slippery to their feet. George began to feel that her wreck was really more pleasant sunk under the water than raised above it! "Let's go," she said, with a shiver. "I don't like it much. It is exciting, I know- but it's a bit frightening too." They turned to go. Julian flashed his torch round the little cabin for the last time. He was about to switch it off and follow the others up to the deck above when he caught sight of something that made him stop. He flashed his torch on to it, and then called to the others. "I say! Wait a bit. There's a cupboard here in


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

inn, it is necessary to go back to the moment when Mr. Marvel first came into view of Mr. Huxter's window. At that precise moment Mr. Cuss and Mr. Bunting were in the parlour. They were seriously investigating the strange occurrences of the morning, and were, with Mr. Hall's permission, making a thorough examination of the Invisible Man's belongings. Jaffers had partially recovered from his fall and had gone home in the charge of his sympathetic friends. The stranger's scattered garments had been removed by Mrs. Hall and the room tidied up. And on the table under the window where the stranger had been wont to work, Cuss had hit almost at once on three big books in manuscript labelled "Diary." "Diary!" said Cuss, putting the three books on the table. "Now, at any rate, we shall learn something." The Vicar stood with his hands on the table. "Diary," repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to support the third, and opening it. "H'm--no name on the fly-leaf. Bother!--cypher. And figures." The Vicar came round to look over his shoulder. Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed. "I'm--dear me! It's all cypher, Bunting." "There are no diagrams?" asked Mr. Bunting. "No illustrations throwing light--" "See for yourself," said Mr. Cuss. "Some of it's mathematical and some of it's Russian or some such language (to judge by the letters), and some of it's Greek. Now the Greek I thought you--" "Of course," said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable,--for he had no Greek left in his mind worth talking about; "yes--the Greek, of course, may furnish a clue." "I'll find you a place." "I'd rather glance through the volumes first," said Mr. Bunting, still wiping. "A general impression first, Cuss, and then, you know, we can go looking for clues." He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a leisurely manner. And then something did happen. The door opened suddenly. Both gentlemen started violently, looked around, and were relieved to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. "Tap?" asked the face, and stood staring. "No," said both gentlemen at once. "Over the other side, my man," said Mr. Bunting. And "Please shut that door," said Mr. Cuss irritably. "All right," said the intruder, as it seemed, in a low voice curiously different from the huskiness of its first enquiry. "Right you are," said the intruder in the former voice. "Stand clear!" and he vanished and closed the door. "A sailor, I should judge," said Mr. Bunting. "Amusing fellows they are. Stand clear! indeed. A nautical term referring to his getting back out of the room, I suppose." "I daresay so," said Cuss. "My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite made me jump--the door opening like that." Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. "And now," he said with a sigh, "these books." "One minute,"


degree of courage, excited as he was becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot. He looked at me long and hard. I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet, collected aspect.     "Now for the hitch in Jane's character," he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. "The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle; here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a fraction of Samson's strength, and break the entanglement like tow!"     He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just before me.     "Jane! will you hear reason?" (he stopped and approached his lips to my ear) "because, if you won't, I'll try violence." His voice was hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing with him. The present the passing second of time was all I had in which to control and restrain him: a movement of repulsion, flight, fear, would have sealed my doom and his. But I was not afraid, not in the least. I felt an inward power, a sense of influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm such as an Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of his clinched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him, soothingly: "Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable."     He sat down, but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been struggling with tears for some time; I had taken great pains to repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave way and cried heartily.     Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could not while he was in such a passion.     "But I am not angry, Jane; I only love you too well; and you had steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes."     His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn, became calm. Now, he made an


He wore a white coat and moved with purpose in front of a large console, fingers flying across the keys. At one point, his hands fell to his sides, and he tilted his head back, closing his eyes. “When is this?” Vic asked, taking in as much as he could, barely blinking in fear it was all a dream. “Now,” the Blue Fairy said quietly, sounding as if they were standing right next to Vic, their mouth—or speaker—near his ear. “It’s live. I have means the Authority is unaware of. I’ve accessed their monitoring software to show you that Giovanni Lawson is in the Benevolent Tower at this very moment.” Vic wiped his eyes. “He’s not a prisoner?” “No. He’s not. He is there by choice.” “I don’t understand.” “Surely you know, child,” the Blue Fairy said, not unkindly. “Whatever memories he held of you are gone. He doesn’t know you. He does not remember you. The life you shared. The love he felt for you. He’s not the Giovanni you knew. He’s not even the one who came to me so many years ago, yearning to be free. He is a machine once again, following his protocol. Nothing more.” The screen went dark. “No,” Vic muttered, rushing forward, pressing a hand against warm glass. “Bring it back. Bring him back.” “I will not,” the Blue Fairy said, the screen flashing angrily. “Not until you witness the truth of all things. And it’ll be the HARP who reveals that which lays hidden. You say he is loyal to you. I merely wish to see how far that loyalty extends. Tell the HARP it’s time to dream.” “Why?” Vic demanded, pounding a fist against glass. “Why should I let you do anything to him?” “Let? Let? Do you own him? Is he your possession? You say he was given a choice. And yet, here you are, doing everything in your power to take that from him. How positively human of you.” Vic dropped his hands, taking a step back. “That’s not … I wasn’t—” “Vic.” He turned. Hap shook his head. “It’s okay. I c-can do this.” Vic shook his head furiously. “No. They can’t make you. I can’t make you do anything you don’t want.” “Y-you’re not,” Hap said. He tried to smile, but it cracked. “It’s m-my choice, r-r-remember? And if this w-will help us, then I’ll d-do it.” He looked around at the screens. “H-how does this w-work?” “It’s like falling asleep,” the Blue Fairy said, and Vic thought he heard a tinge of hunger in their voice, like a monster from a fairy tale, a witch in a candy house. “You will sleep and dream. We’ll see what’s locked inside you. I will know your heart and all that beats within it.” Vic tried one last time. “Take me instead. Leave him out of this.” “No,” the Blue Fairy said, all the screens flashing again. “I know what you are, human. And though you are certainly unique, your evolution is not what interests me. If your HARP has been


if I put on crushed airs and tried to be dismal, as you do, we should be in a nice state. Thank goodness, I can always find something funny to keep me up. Don't croak any more, but come home jolly, there's a dear." Jo gave her sister an encouraging pat on the shoulder as they parted for the day, each going a different way, each hugging her little warm turnover, and each trying to be cheerful in spite of wintry weather, hard work, and the unsatisfied desires of pleasure-loving youth. When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend,the two oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support, at least. Believing that they could not begin too early to cultivate energy, industry, and independence, their parents consented, and both fell to work with the hearty good will which in spite of all obstacles is sure to succeed at last. Margaret found a place as nursery governess and felt rich with her small salary. As she said, she was `fond of luxury', and her chief trouble was poverty. She found it harder to bear than the others because she could remember a time when home was beautiful,life full of ease and pleasure, and want of any kind unknown. She tried not to be envious or discontented, but it was very natural that the young girl should long for pretty things, gay friends, accomplishments, and a happy life. At the Kings' she daily saw all she wanted, for the children's older sisters were just out, and Meg caught frequent glimpses of dainty ball dresses and bouquets, heard lively gossip about theaters, concerts, sleighing parties, and merrymakings of all kinds, and saw money lavished on trifles which would have been so precious to her. Poor Meg seldom complained,but a sense of injustice made her feel bitter toward everyone sometimes,for she had not yet learned to know how rich she was in the blessings which alone can make life happy. Jo happened to suit Aunt March, who was lame and needed an active person to wait upon her. The childless old lady had offered to adopt one of the girls when the troubles came, and was much offended because her offer was declined. Other friends told the Marches that they had lost all chance of being remembered in the rich old lady's will, but the unworldly Marches only said . . . "We can't give up our girls for a dozen fortunes. Rich or poor, we will keep together and be happy in one another." The old lady wouldn't speak to them for a time, but happening to meet Jo at at a friend's, something in her comical face and blunt manners struck the old lady's fancy, and she proposed to take her for a companion. This did not suit Jo at all, but she accepted the place since nothing better appeared and, to every one's surprise, got on remarkably well with her irascible relative. There was an occasional tempest, and once Jo marched home, declaring


said, rising up, "Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favorite seat, and I cannot leave it, and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide." "That won't harm ye, my pretty, an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why, I've sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't done me no harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn' lie there either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field. There's the clock, and'I must gang. My service to ye, ladies!" And off he hobbled. Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat, and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I haven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month. The same day. I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly. They run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next to the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of donkeys' hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here. DR. SEWARD'S DIARY 5 June.--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed, selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said, "May I have three