to do what you all do--I want to feel cared for and safe." He was touched, as he had been the evening before when she spoke of her need of guidance. "That's what your friends want you to feel. New York's an awfully safe place," he added with a flash of sarcasm. "Yes, isn't it? One feels that," she cried, missing the mockery. "Being here is like--like--being taken on a holiday when one has been a good little girl and done all one's lessons." The analogy was well meant, but did not altogether please him. He did not mind being flippant about New York, but disliked to hear any one else take the same tone. He wondered if she did not begin to see what a powerful engine it was, and how nearly it had crushed her. The Lovell Mingotts' dinner, patched up in extremis out of all sorts of social odds and ends, ought to have taught her the narrowness of her escape; but either she had been all along unaware of having skirted disaster, or else she had lost sight of it in the triumph of the van der Luyden evening. Archer inclined to the former theory; he fancied that her New York was still completely undifferentiated, and the conjecture nettled him. "Last night," he said, "New York laid itself out for you. The van der Luydens do nothing by halves." "No: how kind they are! It was such a nice party. Every one seems to have such an esteem for them." The terms were hardly adequate; she might have spoken in that way of a tea-party at the dear old Miss Lannings'. "The van der Luydens," said Archer, feeling himself pompous as he spoke, "are the most powerful influence in New York society. Unfortunately--owing to her health--they receive very seldom." She unclasped her hands from behind her head, and looked at him meditatively. "Isn't that perhaps the reason?" "The reason--?" "For their great influence; that they make themselves so rare." He coloured a little, stared at her--and suddenly felt the penetration of the remark. At a stroke she had pricked the van der Luydens and they collapsed. He laughed, and sacrificed them. Nastasia brought the tea, with handleless Japanese cups and little covered dishes, placing the tray on a low table. "But you'll explain these things to me--you'll tell me all I ought to know," Madame Olenska continued, leaning forward to hand him his cup. "It's you who are telling me; opening my eyes to things I'd looked at so long that I'd ceased to see them." She detached a small gold cigarette-case from one of her bracelets, held it out to him, and took a cigarette herself. On the chimney were long spills for lighting them. "Ah, then we can both help each other. But I want help so much more. You must tell me just what to do." It was on the tip of his tongue to reply: "Don't be seen driving about the streets with Beaufort--" but he was being too deeply drawn into the atmosphere


end. "It is not our custom to fight for our gods," said one of them. "Let us not presume to do so now. If a man kills the sacred python in the secrecy of his hut, the matter lies between him and the god. We did not see it. If we put ourselves between the god and his victim we may receive blows intended for the offender. When a man blasphemes, what do we do? Do we go and stop his mouth? No. We put our fingers into our ears to stop us hearing. That is a wise action." "Let us not reason like cowards," said Okonkwo. "If a man comes into my hut and defecates on the floor, what do I do? Do I shut my eyes? No! I take a stick and break his head That is what a man does. These people are daily pouring filth over us, and Okeke says we should pretend not to see." Okonkwo made a sound full of disgust. This was a womanly clan, he thought. Such a thing could never happen in his fatherland, Umuofia. "Okonkwo has spoken the truth," said another man. "We should do something. But let us ostracise these men. We would then not be held accountable for their abominations." Everybody in the assembly spoke, and in the end it was decided to ostracise the Christians. Okonkwo ground his teeth in disgust. That night a bellman went through the length and breadth of Mbanta proclaiming that the adherents of the new faith were thenceforth excluded from the life and privileges of the clan. The Christians had grown in number and were now a small community of men, women and children, self-assured and confident. Mr. Brown, the white missionary, paid regular visits to them. "When I think that it is only eighteen months since the Seed was first sown among you," he said, "I marvel at what the Lord hath wrought." It was Wednesday in Holy Week and Mr. Kiaga had asked the women to bring red earth and white chalk and water to scrub the church for Easter, and the women had formed themselves into three groups for this purpose. They set out early that morning, some of them with their waterpots to the stream, another group with hoes and baskets to the village earth pit, and the others to the chalk quarry. Mr. Kiaga was praying in the church when he heard the women talking excitedly. He rounded off his prayer and went to see what it was all about. The women had come to the church with empty waterpots. They said that some young men had chased them away from the stream with whips. Soon after, the women who had gone for red earth returned with empty baskets. Some of them had been heavily whipped. The chalk women also returned to tell a similar story. "What does it all mean?" asked Mr. Kiaga, who was greatly perplexed. "The village has outlawed us," said one of the women. "The bellman announced it last night. But it is not our


“Maddie was on her way over when I told her the news,” she says. “Her plans were to be with her father on his birthday.” Auntie Mabel clucks with affectionate pity I don’t deserve. “Indeed, it was a sad day,” she concludes. They should have known something was wrong with him. I blink hard at this accusatory thought. But no one sounds fine and then dies hours later. You would have been able to tell, right? I pinch my arm until a dent forms. He would have sounded off to you and you would have called the doctor, like you always do. I bow my head and silently cry. We next discuss the financial aspect of the funeral but run short of reaching a conclusion. Dad’s brother tells us how he’d had money set aside in Ghana but somehow, due to either the economy or dubious family members—my grasp on Fante is looser than I thought—it’s now gone. I look over at James and he appears to be following the conversation better than I am. Maybe the three years before me gave him the space to learn. The bottom line (and everyone agrees) is that we need money, but no one has any. They all promise to do their best but what this means is left open to interpretation. * * * When everyone begins to filter out of the house, I tidy away what’s left in the living room and take it to the kitchen sink. A man (the husband of the couple whose names are still a mystery) pops his head round. I smile politely, hoping he’s taken a wrong turn to the bathroom. “You don’t remember me, do you?” He’s quite a circular man, with a round stomach and a head reminiscent of a football. “Sorry, no.” “I’m your uncle Kojo,” he says. “I used to know your father, years ago.” And where have you been since? “The last time I saw you, you were small-small,” he says. “Young. Maybe ten years old?” “Oh.” I don’t know how to react to this revelation. It’s been a long time since I was small-small. “Well, it’s nice to see you again then.” “You really don’t remember me?” “Fifteen years is a long time.” He nods. “Of course it is. My condolences to you.” My hands drip soapy water as I say, “Thank you.” He stands and nods. I turn back to the sink. “I am sorry for your loss, but it’s not the last time you will see him, you know?” I sigh. “Yes.” “Don’t cry too hard, yes?” “Yes.” “Lamentation is just an opportunity to renew your trust and faith in God, you see?” I look at him. The corners of his eyes crease without aid and silver-gray threads hide within his nose. I don’t know this man. He hasn’t kept in touch, so of course I don’t know him. It strikes me that the dedications “auntie” and “uncle” have lost all meaning. Anyone can wander off the street, tell me they’re my aunt/uncle from years ago, drive it home


thought I’d scream if I had to spend one more minute inside its walls. Whenever I got that way, the only cure was to be outside. I loved the grounds and the sea and the sky. They always managed to soothe me, which is exactly what they did that day. Standing on the terrace, I inhaled the salty air and felt the cool wind on my face. I leaned against the railing and stared up at the tall windows that ran around the southeastern corner of the house. My mother’s bedroom, which was separate from my father’s. The two of them had long stopped sharing a bed. The drapes were drawn, which meant she was suffering another one of her “nervous episodes.” By then, she rarely left her bedroom. I shuddered at the sight of those tightly closed curtains. I couldn’t imagine being trapped in my room all day, every day, never leaving. To me, that seemed like a fate worse than death. Yet here I am, living that exact scenario. It turns out I was right. Because here’s an intriguing fact about Hope’s End: The doors to all the bedrooms can only be locked from the outside, with individual keys required to open them. When my sister and I were young, one of my father’s favorite games was to lock us in our bedrooms. Whoever went the longest without begging to be let out received a prize. Usually a bit of money or a fancy dessert and, once, a gold bracelet. The winner also got to decide how much longer the loser had to stay in her room. My sister won every single time. She never minded the game, but, oh, how it drove me crazy. I could never last more than a few hours before the walls felt like they were closing in and would trap me forever if I didn’t get out. Because I was always the first to beg my father to open the door, I then had to stay in my room for as long as my sister decided. Once, she chose to keep me locked in for an additional twelve hours. I spent that entire night screaming and pounding on the door, demanding to be let out. When that didn’t work, I tried breaking down the door by throwing myself against it. The door never budged. Even though I had lost, my father and sister never relented. I remained locked inside until midmorning. That’s how it feels to be in this house, this room, this body. Like I’ve been locked inside during one of my father’s games and there’s no one on the other side of the door holding the key that can set me free. SIX Lenora and I have adjoining rooms, a fact I discover after bringing my belongings upstairs. The first thing I unpack is the metal lockbox I use to store medication. The same one that got me suspended and investigated by the police after I failed to use it. Now empty, I slide it under the bed and drop the key


it was a matter of confidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you have been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now, as the first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu. I take up my pen again to do what I have just told you I would not, but circumstances are such, that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to come here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do, I am sure I know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to be at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence my uncle's advice and assistance would be every thing in the world; he will immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness.'' ``Oh! where, where is my uncle?'' cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him without losing a moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door, it was opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous manner made him start, and before he could recover himself enough to speak, she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation, hastily exclaimed, ``I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not a moment to lose.'' ``Good God! what is the matter?'' cried he, with more feeling than politeness; then recollecting himself, ``I will not detain you a minute, but let me, or let the servant, go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are not well enough; -- you cannot go yourself.'' Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her, and she felt how little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and mistress home instantly. On his quitting the room, she sat down, unable to support herself, and looking so miserably ill that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her, or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration, ``Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take, to give you present relief? -- A glass of wine; -- shall I get you one? -- You are very ill.'' ``No, I thank you;'' she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. ``There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well. I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received


and at every moment being aware of it. Men of strong minds, great force of character, and a hard texture of the sensibilities, are very capable of falling into mistakes of this kind. They are ordinarily men to whom forms are of paramount importance. Their field of action lies among the external phenomena of life. They possess vast ability in grasping, and arranging, and appropriating to themselves, the big, heavy, solid unrealities, such as gold, landed estate, offices of trust and emolument, and public honors. With these materials, and with deeds of goodly aspect, done in the public eye, an individual of this class builds up, as it were, a tall and stately edifice, which, in the view of other people, and ultimately in his own view, is no other than the man's character, or the man himself. Behold, therefore, a palace! Its splendid halls and suites of spacious apartments are floored with a mosaic-work of costly marbles; its windows, the whole height of each room, admit the sunshine through the most transparent of plate-glass; its high cornices are gilded, and its ceilings gorgeously painted; and a lofty dome--through which, from the central pavement, you may gaze up to the sky, as with no obstructing medium between--surmounts the whole. With what fairer and nobler emblem could any man desire to shadow forth his character? Ah! but in some low and obscure nook, --some narrow closet on the ground-floor, shut, locked and bolted, and the key flung away,--or beneath the marble pavement, in a stagnant water-puddle, with the richest pattern of mosaic-work above,--may lie a corpse, half decayed, and still decaying, and diffusing its death-scent all through the palace! The inhabitant will not be conscious of it, for it has long been his daily breath! Neither will the visitors, for they smell only the rich odors which the master sedulously scatters through the palace, and the incense which they bring, and delight to burn before him! Now and then, perchance, comes in a seer, before whose sadly gifted eye the whole structure melts into thin air, leaving only the hidden nook, the bolted closet, with the cobwebs festooned over its forgotten door, or the deadly hole under the pavement, and the decaying corpse within. Here, then, we are to seek the true emblem of the man's character, and of the deed that gives whatever reality it possesses to his life. And, beneath the show of a marble palace, that pool of stagnant water, foul with many impurities, and, perhaps, tinged with blood,--that secret abomination, above which, possibly, he may say his prayers, without remembering it,--is this man's miserable soul! To apply this train of remark somewhat more closely to Judge Pyncheon. We might say (without in the least imputing crime to a personage of his eminent respectability) that there was enough of splendid rubbish in his life to cover up and paralyze a more active and subtile conscience than the Judge was ever troubled with. The purity of his judicial character, while on the bench; the faithfulness of his public service in subsequent


of the beasts fighting over the corpses they had left behind. Marillion grew visibly pale. Tyrion trotted up beside him. "Craven, " he said, "rhymes nicely with raven." He kicked his horse and moved past the singer, up to Ser Rodrik and Catelyn Stark. 298 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN She looked at him, lips pressed tightly together. "As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted," Tyrion began, "there is a serious flaw in Littlefinger's fable. Whatever you may believe of me, Lady Stark, I promise you this-1 never bet against my family." ARYA The one-eared black tom arched his back and hissed at her. Arya padded down the alley, balanced lightly on the balls of her bare feet, listening to the flutter of her heart, breathing slow deep breaths. Quiet as a shadow, she told herself, light as a feather. The tomcat watched her come, his eyes wary. Catching cats was hard. Her hands were covered with half-healed scratches, and both knees were scabbed over where she had scraped them raw in tumbles. At first even the cook's huge fat kitchen cat had been able to elude her, but Syrio had kept her at it day and night. When she'd run to him with her hands bleeding, he had said, "So slow? Be quicker, girl. Your enemies will give you more than scratches." He had dabbed her wounds with Myrish fire, which burned so bad she had had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. Then he sent her out after more cats. The Red Keep was full of cats: lazy old cats dozing in the sun, coldeyed mousers twitching their tails, quick little kittens with claws like needles, ladies' cats all combed and trusting, ragged shadows prowling the midden heaps. One by one Arya had chased them down and snatched them up and brought them proudly to Syrio Forel . . . all but this one, this one-eared black devil of a tomcat. "That's the real king of this castle right there," one of the gold cloaks had told her. "Older than sin and twice as mean. One time, the king was feasting the 300 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN queen's father, and that black bastard hopped up on the table and snatched a roast quail right out of Lord Tywin's fingers. Robert laughed so hard he like to burst. You stay away from that one, child." He had run her halfway across the castle; twice around the Tower of the Hand, across the inner bailey, through the stables, down the serpentine steps, past the small kitchen and the pig yard and the barracks of the gold cloaks, along the base of the river wall and up more steps and back and forth over Traitor's Walk, and then down again and through a gate and around a well and in and out of strange buildings until Arya didn't know where she was. Now at last she had him. High walls pressed close on either side, and ahead was a blank windowless mass of stone. Quiet as a shadow, she repeated, sliding


as I try to prepare for the next hour. The time allotted for the tributes to say goodbye to their loved ones. I cannot afford to get upset, to leave this room with puf- fy eyes and a red nose. Crying is not an option. There will be more cameras at the train station. My sister and my mother come first. I reach out to Prim and she climbs on my lap, her arms around my neck, head on my shoulder, just like she did when she was a toddler. My mother sits beside me and wraps her arms around us. For a few minutes, we say nothing. Then I start telling them all the things they must remember to do, now that I will not be there to do them for them. 35 Prim is not to take any tesserae. They can get by, if they’re careful, on selling Prim’s goat milk and cheese and the small apothecary business my mother now runs for the people in the Seam. Gale will get her the herbs she doesn’t grow her- self, but she must be very careful to describe them because he’s not as familiar with them as I am. He’ll also bring them game — he and I made a pact about this a year or so ago — and will probably not ask for compensation, but they should thank him with some kind of trade, like milk or medicine. I don’t bother suggesting Prim learn to hunt. I tried to teach her a couple of times and it was disastrous. The woods terri- fied her, and whenever I shot something, she’d get teary and talk about how we might be able to heal it if we got it home soon enough. But she makes out well with her goat, so I con- centrate on that. When I am done with instructions about fuel, and trading, and staying in school, I turn to my mother and grip her arm, hard. “Listen to me. Are you listening to me?” She nods, alarmed by my intensity. She must know what’s coming. “You can’t leave again,” I say. My mother’s eyes find the floor. “I know. I won’t. I couldn’t help what—” “Well, you have to help it this time. You can’t clock out and leave Prim on her own. There’s no me now to keep you both alive. It doesn’t matter what happens. Whatever you see on the screen. You have to promise me you’ll fight through it!” My voice has risen to a shout. In it is all the anger, all the fear I felt at her abandonment. 36 She pulls her arm from my grasp, moved to anger herself now. “I was ill. I could have treated myself if I’d had the medi- cine I have now.” That part about her being ill might be true. I’ve seen her bring back people suffering from immobilizing sadness since. Perhaps it is a sickness, but it’s one we can’t afford. “Then take it. And take care of her!” I say. “I’ll be all


my God. She seems so happy. Horse camp saves the day! On the Fourth of July, Maud organized a canoe trip with the girls, borrowing canoes from Frazer and Lydia. She wanted to find the remnants of a folly—a false ruin popular during the Gilded Age—on the island across from Montgomery Place. Guests at the estate used to take evening rowboat excursions to see the stone structure, which was lit by torches and contained plundered Mayan statues. When she announced the plan to the girls on Friday night, Louise jumped up and down. “Gabriel was hoping to come,” Maud said, “but it’s up to you guys.” “Sure,” Ella said. “Maybe he can rescue us if we drown.” “We’re not going to drown. What do you think, Louise?” “Yes! But I want to row.” The next morning, the four of them walked the canoes across the road from Frazer and Lydia’s farm, wearing moldy teal life vests, flip-flops slapping on the asphalt. “I don’t get why you want to see a folly,” Ella said as they navigated through the gates. “It’s fake history in history. Just like Disneyland but back then.” “My parents boycott Disneyland,” Louise explained to Gabriel. She was walking in the shade of the canoe that he was carrying over his head. “There are more interesting places to go,” Maud told Louise, then said to Ella, “Maybe you won’t like the folly, but you’ll like canoeing.” “I hate canoeing,” Ella said. “You’ve never been canoeing.” “I’ve been rowboating. Same thing.” “I thought you loved going to Stowe Lake.” When they’d lived in England and visited her parents, she used to take the girls to Golden Gate Park, as she’d once done with her favorite grandmother. They tossed pink popcorn to passing ducks on Stowe Lake, held their breath under the bridge with the troll living under it, and then strolled from the lake to the Japanese Tea Garden for sesame cookies and sencha served in thimble-like cups. But Ella wasn’t buying nostalgia. “Follies are fake history in history,” she said. “That’s all I’m saying.” “My parents wouldn’t even let us get the Disney Princesses,” Louise told Gabriel as she carefully matched his pace to stay out of the sun. “Everyone had them but us.” “Help,” Maud said to Gabriel. “Mutiny.” “Drop the canoe and run,” Gabriel said. “Yeah, do that,” Ella said. “Then we won’t have to get in it.” But her grumpiness this morning was almost playful. The woods moved over them and, with them, mosquitoes. “Shithead,” Ella said. She stopped to stomp a mosquito off her leg, and Maud almost dropped her half of the canoe. “Ella,” she said. “Well, they are. And I can’t use my hands because I’m carrying this stupid canoe.” “Yes, yes, we know the canoe is stupid.” “They bite me too,” Gabriel said. “We let off a lot of carbon dioxide, you and me. Let’s move faster, maybe that’ll help.” He started to run, and Ella ran with him, pulling Maud down the hill. At the river, Louise stood on the shore and


Mr. Armas’s upgrade to the cottage: he had the old stone cellar converted to a top-of-the-line vault for his immense and immensely expensive wine collection. It’s password protected and everything, though Sabrina always leaves it open so any of us can run down and grab something. Too quickly I find a bottle whose label matches the one on the table. I’m guessing that means it’s not a thousand-dollar prosecco, but with Sabrina, you never know. She might’ve pulled out all the stops for us, regardless of whether our unrefined palates are able to appreciate said pulled stops. It makes my heart twinge, thinking of this perfect final week she’s planned for us and my utter inability to enjoy it. One day. Let them have one perfect day, and tomorrow we’ll come clean. By the time I get back upstairs, everyone’s laughing, the very picture of a laid-back best friends’ trip. Wyn’s gaze snags on mine, and his dimpled smile doesn’t fall or even falter. He’s fine! No big deal that his ex-fiancée’s here, or that we’re essentially staying in a honeymoon suite with an extreme every-surface-here-is- specifically-designed-with-fucking-in-mind vibe! No discernible reaction to my presence. This time, the zing that goes down my spine feels less like a zipper undone and more like angry flame on a streak of gasoline. It’s not fair that he’s fine. It’s not fair that being here with me doesn’t feel like having his heart roasted on a spit, like it does for me. You can do this, Harriet. If he’s fine, you can be too. For your friends. I set the wine bottle on the table as I round it and come to stand behind Wyn, sliding my hands down his shoulders to his chest, until my face is beside his and I can feel his heartbeat in my hands, even and unbothered. Not good enough. If I’m going to be tormented, so is he. I burrow my face into the side of his neck, all warm pine and clove. “So,” I say, “who’s up for a swim?” Goose bumps rise from his skin. This time, the zing feels like victory. • • • “I’M STARTING TO suspect,” Kimmy says, “that we might be a wee bit in-bree- biated. In-bee-biatred.” “Who? Us?” I say, slowly trying to push myself to my feet on the slippery stand-up paddle mat as Kimmy crouches on the far end. Wife Number Five bought the mats for “aqua yoga” a couple of years back, and I’d forgotten all about them until tonight. Kimmy screams, and Parth dives out of the way as the mat flips over, dumping us back into the pool for easily the sixth time. The three of us pop out of the water. Kimmy flicks her head back to get her matted red-gold hair out of her face. “Us,” she confirms. “All of us.” “Well,” I say, jerking my head toward the patio table, where Cleo, Sabrina, and Wyn are deep in a game of poker, “maybe not them.” “Oh, no,” Parth says. “Sabrina absolutely is. But competition sobers


going. Somehow he had picked up the spilled books; he didn't remember bending or touching them. He kept moving them from hand to hand as if they were a poker hand he could not figure. I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse? He stopped and his mind said it again, very loud. I wonder if they were the ones who killed Clarisse! He wanted to run after them yelling. His eyes watered. The thing that had saved him was falling flat. The driver of that car, seeing Montag down, instinctively considered the probability that running over a body at that speed might turn the car upside down and spill them out. If Montag had remained an upright target. . . ? Montag gasped. Far down the boulevard, four blocks away, the beetle had slowed, spun about on two wheels, and was now racing back, slanting over on the wrong side of the street, picking up speed. But Montag was gone, hidden in the safety of the dark alley for which he had set out on a long journey, an hour or was it a minute, ago? He stood shivering in the night, looking back out as the beetle ran by and skidded back to the centre of the avenue, whirling laughter in the air all about it, gone. Further on, as Montag moved in darkness, he could see the helicopters falling, falling, like the first flakes of snow in the long winter. to come.... The house was silent. Montag approached from the rear, creeping through a thick night-moistened scent of daffodils and roses and wet grass. He touched the screen door in back, found it open, slipped in, moved across the porch, listening. Mrs. Black, are you asleep in there? he thought. This isn't good, but your husband did it to others and never asked and never wondered and never worried. And now since you're a fireman's wife, it's your house and your turn, for all the houses your husband burned and the people he hurt without thinking. . The house did not reply. He hid the books in the kitchen and moved from the house again to the alley and looked back and the house was still dark and quiet, sleeping. On his way across town, with the helicopters fluttering like torn bits of paper in the sky, he phoned the alarm at a lonely phone booth outside a store that was closed for the night. Then he stood in the cold night air, waiting and at a distance he heard the fire sirens start up and run, and the Salamanders coming, coming to bum Mr. Black's house while he was away at work, to make his wife stand shivering in the morning air while the roof let go and dropped in upon the fire. But now, she was still asleep. Good night, Mrs. Black, he thought. - "Faber! " Another rap, a whisper, and a long waiting. Then, after a minute, a small light flickered inside Faber's small house. After another pause, the back door opened. They


different ways of getting hot and tired were gone through with, and by and --------------------------------------------------------- -262- by the rovers straggled back to camp fortified with responsible appetites, and then the destruction of the good things began. After the feast there was a refreshing season of rest and chat in the shade of spreading oaks. By-and-by somebody shouted: "Who's ready for the cave?" Everybody was. Bundles of candles were procured, and straightway there was a general scamper up the hill. The mouth of the cave was up the hillside -- an opening shaped like a letter A. Its massive oaken door stood unbarred. Within was a small chamber, chilly as an ice-house, and walled by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat. It was romantic and mysterious to stand here in the deep gloom and look out upon the green valley shining in the sun. But the impressiveness of the situation quickly wore off, and the romping began again. The moment a candle was lighted there was a general rush upon the owner of it; a struggle and a gallant defence followed, but the candle was soon knocked down or blown out, and then there was a glad clamor of laughter and a new chase. But all things have an end. By-and-by the procession went filing down the steep descent of the main avenue, the flickering rank of lights dimly revealing the lofty walls of rock almost to their point of junction sixty feet overhead. This main avenue was not more than eight or ten feet wide. Every few steps other lofty and still narrower crevices branched from it on either hand -- for Mc- --------------------------------------------------------- -263- Dougal's cave was but a vast labyrinth of crooked aisles that ran into each other and out again and led nowhere. It was said that one might wander days and nights together through its intricate tangle of rifts and chasms, and never find the end of the cave; and that he might go down, and down, and still down, into the earth, and it was just the same -- labyrinth under labyrinth, and no end to any of them. No man "knew" the cave. That was an impossible thing. Most of the young men knew a portion of it, and it was not customary to venture much beyond this known portion. Tom Sawyer knew as much of the cave as any one. The procession moved along the main avenue some three-quarters of a mile, and then groups and couples began to slip aside into branch avenues, fly along the dismal corridors, and take each other by surprise at points where the corridors joined again. Parties were able to elude each other for the space of half an hour without going beyond the "known" ground. By-and-by, one group after another came straggling back to the mouth of the cave, panting, hilarious, smeared from head to foot with tallow drippings, daubed with clay, and entirely delighted with the success of the day. Then they were astonished to find that they had been taking no


damp, potpourri’d public bathroom air. I bought a tallboy of Diet Coke and two corn dogs and one pocket-sized Purell for every pocket of every single item of clothing I own, and I took all this to my car full of shit I didn’t need, slid behind the steering wheel, and cried from the stress and confusion of it all. Then I got worried that the virus had somehow attached itself to my corn dogs between the station and the car I had to return to Enterprise with a minimum half a tank, so I tossed them in a nearby trash can just in case those rumors about stomach acid killing Coronavirus weren’t true (they weren’t, imagine that, and even if stomach acid were the cure, how would you bypass all your infectable organs to submerge the Covid in its frothy death bath?), and I drove the rest of the way home without stopping, thinking about the bleach bath I would need to take once I got there. david matthews’s greatest romantic hits People always pretend to be shocked when I say I unabashedly love Dave Matthews, but…why? Sure, I don’t play hacky sack or whatever (Is that how you do it, do you “play” hacky sack?) so maybe I don’t look like I fit his target demographic, but I’ve played bags before. That’s gotta count for something!! I love Dave Matthews for real, passionately and without shame. Every time I make that declaration in public someone says, “You’re doing a bit, right.” I see why you might think so, but I promise you I am not. Here’s a thing people who are not me don’t talk about enough: Dave Matthews can write the shit out of a love song. I know everyone thinks his albums are made up of twelve-minute-long jam-band odes to tie-dye and weed. But he has so many gut-wrenching songs about love and heartache and regret and desire, and I know it’s hilarious to make fun of the bus poop and clown a dude who has flutes in his music. BUT: my man has an undeniably gorgeous voice (His falsetto!!!!!!!!! Sorry, but it rules!) and makes music that is extremely listenable. Stop fronting like he’s not great! Why am I forced to petition on this man’s behalf like he’s my son filming himself playing the recorder and I need him to get some likes, and not a person who has been (mostly unsuccessfully) nominated for fourteen Grammys?! Here is my list of the greatest Dave Matthews songs to swoon over: 1. “If Only” most romantic lyric, to me: “So help me get my way back to you” I do not believe in helping a man, AND YET…When Dave asks this woman I’m sure he dumped with neither cause nor due process to take him back, please—it breaks my cold, dead heart. I cry to this song a distressing amount, as I am interested in sex-weeping, especially because he does this plaintive keening near the end that sounds like he’s crying for his woman to take him back, a


almost stumbled, just catching herself on the wall with her good hand. Her first wild thought was that the gallery must have been walled up. Then the hanging was drawn back, and a stricken face appeared, cast into shadow. ‘Who in Halgalant are you?’ Glorian demanded. Pain and embarrassment sharpened her voice. She had not thought to see anyone up here. The man – a young man, not much older than her – stared back at her in shock. ‘My lady.’ Recovering, he lowered his head. ‘Your pardon. Are you hurt?’ His accent was a flinty burr. She could have sworn it had the rime of the North on it. ‘Hurt?’ Glorian snapped. ‘I am vexed, by your presence. Why are you lurking up here in the dark?’ He seemed at a loss for words. She knew she was being rude, but she needed him to get out of the way, before she fainted on him. Her bone hurt so badly it made her sight prickle. A second face looked out from behind the young man. A woman, about the same age, brown hair plaited over her pale forehead. When Glorian realised what she must have interrupted, she flushed. ‘Unless you two are wed, you should not be trysting.’ She drew herself up to her full, considerable height, her arm throbbing. ‘Off with you, or Queen Sabran will hear of this.’ ‘We weren’t—’ the woman started, but the man cut her off. ‘Aye, my lady. Forgive us.’ He ushered his friend away, and they were gone. Glorian waited until their footsteps had faded before she doubled over, painting the floor with vomit and bramble wine. Somehow, she thought gloomily, just as her guards caught up, I suspect Mother would have handled this better. **** Half an hour later, she sat at the high table in the Old Hall. Three hundred of the most important guests, including the delegation from Carmentum, had been invited to the more intimate chamber. Her guards had summoned the bonesetter, Kell Bourn, who had fastened her arm to her chest. Now Glorian felt steadier, though her body ached. She had chewed on some catmint to freshen her breath, and a mantle hid the slender leather strap from the Carmenti. Her fourth suitor was beside her. The first had been too shy to do anything more than whisper his name; the second had been odd (‘Lady, your eyes are as green as two smooth toads’), and the third, heir to an olive region in Yscalin, had not even managed to meet her gaze. This one was Magnaust Vatten, elder son of the Steward of Mentendon. His eyes were steely grey, and his white face was a picture of disdain. Where the Inysh were a blaze of autumn reds and golds, he wore sealskin and black tooled leather, defiant in his severity. He drew wary looks from all over the hall, this son of the man they had once called the Sea King. Glorian, daughter of a real king, was unimpressed. Magnaust had done little but complain while he sawed


the lower side of the frame to this day. hurt in the scuffle with the stranger. I got the rum, to be That blow was the last of the battle. Once out upon the sure, and tried to put it down his throat, but his teeth were road, Black Dog, in spite of his wound, showed a wonderful tightly shut and his jaws as strong as iron. It was a happy clean pair of heels and disappeared over the edge of the hill in relief for us when the door opened and Doctor Livesey came half a minute. The captain, for his part, stood staring at the in, on his visit to my father. signboard like a bewildered man. Then he passed his hand “Oh, doctor,” we cried, “what shall we do? Where is he over his eyes several times and at last turned back into the wounded?” house. “Wounded? A fiddle-stick’s end!” said the doctor. “No “Jim,” says he, “rum”; and as he spoke, he reeled a little, more wounded than you or I. The man has had a stroke, as I and caught himself with one hand against the wall. warned him. Now, Mrs. Hawkins, just you run upstairs to “Are you hurt?” cried I. your husband and tell him, if possible, nothing about it. For Contents “Rum,” he repeated. “I must get away from here. Rum! my part, I must do my best to save this fellow’s trebly worth- Rum!” less life; Jim, you get me a basin.” Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 18 19 When I got back with the basin, the doctor had already “Much I care,” returned the doctor. “It’s the name of a ripped up the captain’s sleeve and exposed his great sinewy buccaneer of my acquaintance; and I call you by it for the arm. It was tattooed in several places. “Here’s luck,” “A fair sake of shortness, and what I have to say to you is this; one wind,” and “Billy Bones his fancy,” were very neatly and clearly glass of rum won’t kill you, but if you take one you’ll take executed on the forearm; and up near the shoulder there was another and another, and I stake my wig if you don’t break off a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from it—done, as I short, you’ll die— do you understand that?—die, and go to thought, with great spirit. your own place, like the man in the Bible. Come, now, make “Prophetic,” said the doctor, touching this picture with an effort. I’ll help you to your bed for once.” his finger. “And now, Master Billy Bones, if that be your Between us, with much trouble, we managed to hoist him name, we’ll have a look at the colour of your blood. Jim,” he upstairs, and laid him on his bed, where his head fell back on said, “are you afraid of blood?” the pillow as if he were almost fainting. “No, sir,” said I. “Now, mind you,” said the doctor, “I clear my conscience— “Well, then,” said he, “you


quickly after.” His tone is wary, like he’s choosing his words carefully. “Why didn’t she go back?” He exhales. “There were . . . issues. With the lead researcher of her group.” “Why?” “They had some . . . disagreement over their joint research. He was intensely controlling. She refused to abide. You can imagine the rest.” His face is blank. “Her diaries are . . . She wasn’t well when she found out that she wouldn’t be allowed back.” “That’s bullshit. How dare he cut her out of her own research group?” Jack doesn’t respond. His pause feels a little longer than normal. “Her work was on semiconductors.” My eyes widen. It’s not my field, but I know a bit about it, because it’s one of the topics my mentor works on. I wonder if I read Jack’s mom’s papers years ago without even realizing it. An invisible string, tying us together. “Good stuff?” “Very solid, yes.” “I bet she was great. I mean, she was a theoretical physicist.” “True. On the other hand, she did marry my dad.” “Good point. Maybe he used to be more . . . engaged with his surroundings?” “Maybe. Maybe she needed a green card? Or the Smith money.” “She was a grad student. It’s a move I can respect.” “For sure.” His smile is fond. And has me asking, “Do you miss her?” A long pause. “I don’t think you can miss someone you’ve never met, but . . .” He organizes his thoughts. Orders his feelings. “It’s easy to look at how dysfunctional my family is and laugh it off now that I have my own life. But when I was in my teens, there were times when things got really bad at home. And I’d read her diaries and think that maybe if she’d been around, everything could have been . . .” His throat works. “But she wasn’t.” I’ve felt out of place my entire life, and nothing anyone ever said made me feel any less so. So I stay silent and just lean forward, hide my face in Jack’s throat, press a kiss to his Adam’s apple right as it moves. His hand comes up to cup my head, keep it there, and I feel him turn to the screen again. Bella’s pregnancy complications are getting alien-like, and he groans into my hair. “Elsie. I can’t watch this.” “But it’s the best part. The emotional roller coaster of her transformation. The inappropriate Jacob plotline. Her face when she drinks blood.” “No way.” “Fine. You may amuse yourself otherwise. But stay close, because you’re a space heater disguised as an organic life-form.” “Perfect.” He lifts me like I’m a pliant little thing, flips us around, braces himself over me. I can only watch him in confusion while he lowers himself down my body with a concentrated frown between his brows and then lifts my hoodie as though . . . Is he . . . He’s not . . . Is he actually? “What are you doing?” “You told me to


put a hand on the boy’s head, made him wait while he talked to Fran. I remembered that I could pretend to look at my phone, so I did that until Max, clinging to the gutter, lost his kickboard; I knelt and reached over the water and sent it sailing to him, then tossed him rings to dive for. Robbie’s voice grew loud, traveled across the pool. He’d turned in my direction. “I know I can’t talk to Bodie,” he half shouted, “but I hope you’ll tell her it’s good to see her.” Thank God. I laughed, shrugged, waved again. He said, to the middle of the room, “Please tell her I think she turned out pretty cool. No hard feelings. Tell her my wife’s a big fan!” He turned his attention to the younger boy, who looked about seven. As Fran walked back to me, he picked the boy up and swung him—a giggling sack of potatoes—into the water. Robbie backed up, ran to the pool edge himself, grabbed his own legs in a cannonball, flew. 11 At 11:45, a text from Alder: Shit shit shit. I resisted answering. At 11:47: Very not good. 11:50: Can I not even tell u why??? It’s bad. Britt still on stand, state bringing u into it on cross. I was at Rite Aid, buying the dental floss and antacid I’d neglected to pack. 11:52: Flipping out. They’re doing the timeline of when u got involved and they’re going, was this the same week her husband was in the spotlight, was this before or after she got backlash for the following tweets. Batshit omfg 11:55: Like, they’re trying to say u did all this to get attention off u and husband? Fucking Jerome. If Jerome and his antics and my poor reaction ended up being the reason we lost, I’d never forgive him. Or myself. I’d stopped in the digestive aisle, by the rows of Pepto-Bismol. I should tell Alder to stop texting, but didn’t I need to know this? 11:59: Making u sound like this desperate person. Amy objecting to like every word but judge allowing?? It was everything I’d once feared—looking like a desperate interloper—but now I cared far less about that than about what this might do to Britt’s testimony, or what it might do to my own testimony tomorrow. Omar did not deserve this. 12:20: So they’ve been in bench conference forever, I can hardly even hear anything ughghghghgh I was at the checkout counter; I was walking down the icy sidewalk; I was drinking my bottled Frappuccino on the corner like a wino. 12:45: They got like 2 more qs out and now another bench conference 1:15: Can’t believe I’m missing class to stare at these lawyers’ backs The call from Amy March came a little after five. I was lying on the bed in a sandpapery hotel robe, my hair wet, unable to nap because the elevator was too loud through my wall. She said, “I know you might have heard some things today. I don’t want you to


“So she plays by herself. You should see her. She draws the most wonderful things in the sand, and sometimes she makes adornments with feathers.” “So does Chrysothemis,” Clytemnestra says. “And Mother? How is she?” Helen shrugs. “She didn’t take well the departures of Phoebe and Philonoe. Phoebe was good with her, especially when Mother drank too much.” “We should hide the wine then.” “I have tried. It just makes her angry. She spends most of her time in her room now, so we visit her.” She sits again on the stone floor at the temple’s entrance. Her hair is plaited and it makes her eyes look bigger. “We need to speak to Castor and Polydeuces,” Clytemnestra says. “They must let the women go back to the men they were promised to.” Helen’s face is amused. “You never change. You’ve just arrived and are already planning to fix everything.” “If I don’t, who else will?” “With everything that happened to us, we should have learned to let things be. We don’t want to end up like Tyndareus.” We don’t want to end up like Leda either, Clytemnestra thinks. Their mother has always believed the gods decided for most men, but Clytemnestra never accepted that. To exist in the shivering knowledge that gods could do and undo things as they wished: how could anyone live such a life? No. The gods are cruel and have little time for mortals. Helen takes her hand. “Besides, our brothers aren’t holding anyone against their will.” “What do you mean?” “Phoebe and Hilaeira came here of their own accord. They love Castor and Polydeuces.” She looks down, then adds, “Who wouldn’t?” Clytemnestra draws away. “We can’t force Sparta into civil war. These women were promised to the king of Messenia’s sons.” Helen stares at her, frowning. “I can’t stay here and fight a war while Menelaus is away. I have a family, children to take care of.” “We are your family too,” Helen says with a sad smile. “I am not risking a civil war against Messenia,” Clytemnestra repeats, “so that Castor can sleep with yet another woman.” Helen stands, shaking her head. “This is different. I will take you to him now if you like. He’ll make you understand.” * * * On their way back to the palace, they pass the working helots and the stables, where the mares are resting. By the haystacks, next to a black stallion, a girl is retching, her hands keeping her hair out of her face. She lifts her head to look at them—her face is wet with sweat and sickness. “Pregnant,” Helen says. “We have all been there,” Clytemnestra replies. “She will be happy once the child is born.” “Will she?” Clytemnestra turns to look at her sister, but Helen’s face is unreadable. Inside the palace, Helen stops just outside the wooden door of Castor’s room. “You go in,” she says, “Menelaus will be leaving soon, and I must say goodbye.” Clytemnestra nods and Helen hurries back the way they came, her shadow following her, long and lean


a fantastic idea, he texted back. On July 31, a FedEx package arrived at Jerry’s house: the twelve-count case of protein bars, an eleven-by-sixteen-inch spiral-bound road atlas, and a gray T-shirt that said California in a yellow 1980s font. In the accompanying note, he’d written, Sally, I can’t wait to see you! Your pen pal, Noah. I had never seen his handwriting, and even that seemed touching, and filled me with yearning: the way the S in Sally connected from its base to the a, the unadorned capital I, the straight unlooped line jutting down from the y in you. But was pen pal intended to be read as an inside joke or a reference to our platonic status? That night, we ended our conversation at midnight, meaning early, and I set the alarm on my phone for 6:15 a.m. Though I’d told Jerry he didn’t need to get up in the morning, he did; in his white-and-blue seersucker bathrobe, he carried my box of protein bars and masks outside and set it on the passenger side in the front seat, then he embraced me and said, “Some states let you drive eighty, but I think a bit slower is safer.” Sugar frolicked at our feet, and I crouched to pet her. I had explained to Jerry that I was going to visit a friend in L.A. for a week or two, and his sister, my aunt Donna, whom I’d been grocery shopping for when I shopped for Jerry and me, had offered her car; she’d said since she and my uncle Richard hardly went anywhere these days, they didn’t need two. It was strange to leave Jerry’s house; it was strange not to know how long I’d be in California; it was strange, even after five years, to live in the world without my mother; it was strange to be a person during a global pandemic. I started the engine and backed out of the driveway, waved goodbye to Jerry and Sugar from the street, and turned up the volume on the folky women satellite radio station, and a Mary Chapin Carpenter song I knew all the words to filled the car. I was both excited and melancholy as I drove south on State Line Road, through the early morning summer light, and my melancholy lifted some as I reached the Shawnee Mission Parkway and by the time I passed through Olathe, Kansas, half an hour later, it was almost completely gone, or at least eclipsed by giddiness and nervousness and sheer horniness. The highway in front of me was long and mostly flat, and I realized that I had been this excited and terrified only one other time in my life; it had been when I interviewed at TNO. * * * — The Albuquerque Hampton Inn was four stories flanked by a mostly empty parking lot of bleak concrete, with the Sandia Mountains visible in the east. Sitting on the bed in my room, I ate dinner at 8:15 mountain time: two protein bars, a banana, and an orange


"Hey!" the pilot laughed. "Cub's got a bark. Ain't got no bite, though." And Jessica thought; Paul's pitching his voice too high. It may work, though. They flew on in silence. These poor fools, Jessica thought, studying her guards and reviewing the Baron's words. They'll be killed as soon as they report success on their mission. The Baron wants no witnesses. The 'thopter banked over the southern rim of the Shield Wall, and Jessica saw a moonshadowed expanse of sand beneath them. "This oughta be far enough," the pilot said. "The traitor said to put'em on the sand anywhere near the Shield Wall." He dipped the craft toward the dunes in a long, falling stoop, brought it up stiffly over the desert surface. Jessica saw Paul begin taking the rhythmic breaths of the calming exercise. He closed his eyes, opened them. Jessica stared, helpless to aid him. He hasn't mastered the Voice yet, she thought, if he fails . . . The 'thopter touched sand with a soft lurch, and Jessica, looking north back across the Shield Wall, saw a shadow of wings settle out of sight up there. Someone's following us! she thought. Who? Then: The ones the Baron set to watch this pair. And there'll be watchers for the watchers, too. Czigo shut off his wing rotors. Silence flooded in upon them. Jessica turned her head. She could see out the window beyond Scarface a dim glow of light from a rising moon, a frosted rim of rock rising from the desert. Sandblast ridges streaked its sides. Paul cleared his throat. The pilot said: "Now, Kinet?" "I dunno, Czigo." Czigo turned, said: "Ah-h-h, look." He reached out for Jessica's skirt. "Remove her gag," Paul commanded. Jessica felt the words rolling in the air. The tone, the timbre excellent--imperative, very sharp. A slightly lower pitch would have been better, but it could still fall within this man's spectrum. Czigo shifted his hand up to the band around Jessica's mouth, slipped the knot on the gag. "Stop that!" Kinet ordered. "Ah, shut your trap," Czigo said. "Her hands're tied." He freed the knot and the binding dropped. His eyes glittered as he studied Jessica. Kinet put a hand on the pilot's arm. "Look, Czigo, no need to . . . " Jessica twisted her neck, spat out the gag. She pitched her voice in low, intimate tones. "Gentlemen! No need to fight over me." At the same time, she writhed sinuously for Kinet's benefit. She saw them grow tense, knowing that in this instant they were convinced of the need to fight over her. Their disagreement required no other reason. In their minds, they were fighting over her. She held her face high in the instrument glow to be sure Kinet would read her lips, said: "You mustn't disagree." They drew farther apart, glanced warily at each other. "Is any woman worth fighting over?" she asked. By uttering the words, by being there, she made herself infinitely worth their fighting. Paul clamped his lips tightly closed, forced himself to be silent. There


spot where the roads parted, and his heart took a more affectionate leave of him than is usual after so short an acquaintance. Valancourt talked long by the side of the carriage; seemed more than once to be going, but still lingered, and appeared to search anxiously for topics of conversation to account for his delay. At length he took leave. As he went, St. Aubert observed him look with an earnest and pensive eye at Emily, who bowed to him with a countenance full of timid sweetness, while the carriage drove on. St. Aubert, for whatever reason, soon after looked from the window, and saw Valancourt standing upon the bank of the road, resting on his pike with folded arms, and following the carriage with his eyes. He waved his hand, and Valancourt, seeming to awake from his reverie, returned the salute, and started away. The aspect of the country now began to change, and the travellers soon found themselves among mountains covered from their base nearly to their summits with forests of gloomy pine, except where a rock of granite shot up from the vale, and lost its snowy top in the clouds. The rivulet, which had hitherto accompanied them, now expanded into a river; and, flowing deeply and silently along, reflected, as in a mirror, the blackness of the impending shades. Sometimes a cliff was seen lifting its bold head above the woods and the vapours, that floated mid-way down the mountains; and sometimes a face of perpendicular marble rose from the water's edge, over which the larch threw his gigantic arms, here scathed with lightning, and there floating in luxuriant foliage. They continued to travel over a rough and unfrequented road, seeing now and then at a distance the solitary shepherd, with his dog, stalking along the valley, and hearing only the dashing of torrents, which the woods concealed from the eye, the long sullen murmur of the breeze, as it swept over the pines, or the notes of the eagle and the vulture, which were seen towering round the beetling cliff. Often, as the carriage moved slowly over uneven ground, St. Aubert alighted, and amused himself with examining the curious plants that grew on the banks of the road, and with which these regions abound; while Emily, wrapt in high enthusiasm, wandered away under the shades, listening in deep silence to the lonely murmur of the woods. Neither village nor hamlet was seen for many leagues; the goat-herd's or the hunter's cabin, perched among the cliffs of the rocks, were the only human habitations that appeared. The travellers again took their dinner in the open air, on a pleasant spot in the valley, under the spreading shade of cedars; and then set forward towards Beaujeu. The road now began to descend, and, leaving the pine forests behind, wound among rocky precipices. The evening twilight again fell over the scene, and the travellers were ignorant how far they might yet be from Beaujeu. St. Aubert, however, conjectured that the distance could not be very great, and comforted himself


Well, he did have it; and it consisted--in part at least--of his coming in at about eight o'clock and sitting down with me in silence. On the removal of the tea things I had blown out the candles and drawn my chair closer: I was conscious of a mortal coldness and felt as if I should never again be warm. So, when he appeared, I was sitting in the glow with my thoughts. He paused a moment by the door as if to look at me; then--as if to share them-- came to the other side of the hearth and sank into a chair. We sat there in absolute stillness; yet he wanted, I felt, to be with me. XXI Before a new day, in my room, had fully broken, my eyes opened to Mrs. Grose, who had come to my bedside with worse news. Flora was so markedly feverish that an illness was perhaps at hand; she had passed a night of extreme unrest, a night agitated above all by fears that had for their subject not in the least her former, but wholly her present, governess. It was not against the possible re-entrance of Miss Jessel on the scene that she protested-- it was conspicuously and passionately against mine. I was promptly on my feet of course, and with an immense deal to ask; the more that my friend had discernibly now girded her loins to meet me once more. This I felt as soon as I had put to her the question of her sense of the child's sincerity as against my own. "She persists in denying to you that she saw, or has ever seen, anything?" My visitor's trouble, truly, was great. "Ah, miss, it isn't a matter on which I can push her! Yet it isn't either, I must say, as if I much needed to. It has made her, every inch of her, quite old." "Oh, I see her perfectly from here. She resents, for all the world like some high little personage, the imputation on her truthfulness and, as it were, her respectability. `Miss Jessel indeed--SHE!' Ah, she's `respectable,' the chit! The impression she gave me there yesterday was, I assure you, the very strangest of all; it was quite beyond any of the others. I DID put my foot in it! She'll never speak to me again." Hideous and obscure as it all was, it held Mrs. Grose briefly silent; then she granted my point with a frankness which, I made sure, had more behind it. "I think indeed, miss, she never will. She do have a grand manner about it!" "And that manner"--I summed it up--"is practically what's the matter with her now!" Oh, that manner, I could see in my visitor's face, and not a little else besides! "She asks me every three minutes if I think you're coming in." "I see--I see." I, too, on my side, had so much more than worked it out. "Has she said to you since yesterday--except to repudiate her familiarity with anything so dreadful--a single


he complimented her because he loved her, there was no hidden agenda. She watched him tuck into his boiled egg with the same boyish enthusiasm, the same easy-going nature she’d always loved. She reached for the mug of coffee. ‘You are coming to the picnic by the barge today?’ ‘Oh?’ Neil frowned. ‘I thought it was next week.’ ‘No, today, 12 August.’ Lin indicated the kitchen window as if it was proof. ‘The weather’s perfect – it’s going to be glorious.’ Neil’s face took on an expression of anguish. ‘Lindy, I promised a man in Tadderly that I’d go and look at his car for him.’ ‘What man in Tadderly?’ Lin was surprised by how irritated she sounded. Neil’s eyes were on the ceiling, then on his plate. ‘You don’t know him – a customer from when I had the garage.’ ‘Can’t Dangerous Dave do it?’ Neil sighed. ‘This customer asked for me – he’s an older man, our age – he thinks Dangerous is a bit, you know, heavy handed…’ Lin pushed her plate away. ‘So you can’t make the barbecue?’ ‘I’m sure I can: if I set off now, maybe I’ll be back by about two…’ Neil looked around him shiftily. ‘It depends how long the job takes.’ ‘All right.’ Lin was visibly disappointed. ‘It just seems that I’m on my own all the time now whenever we are invited anywhere. You keep making excuses and disappearing…’ Neil was shocked. ‘I don’t make excuses, love.’ ‘You do,’ Lin countered. ‘You’re always helping someone or going walking or – all sorts of things, you’ll do anything rather than be with me.’ ‘No, that’s not true.’ ‘It is, Neil.’ Lin pushed her chair back, making a harsh squeak, and rushed to the kitchen sink. ‘If you’re not doing one thing then it’s another.’ ‘Don’t be silly.’ ‘Silly?’ Lin felt the tears spring to her eyes. ‘You think I’m silly?’ ‘No, Lindy.’ Neil was next to her, wrapping his arms around her. ‘Of course I don’t. I’m sorry, I just meant…’ She glared at him. ‘What did you mean?’ ‘I’m just helping someone.’ ‘So you say.’ Lin couldn’t stop her words. ‘You’ll help anyone else but you don’t care about me.’ ‘Please don’t say that.’ He looked hurt. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can. You’re the most important thing in my life.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I promise you that.’ Lin blinked, staring at her husband through tears. ‘You promise?’ ‘Of course.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘I’m sorry I forgot the date, but I won’t be long. I’ll be quick…’ He kissed her nose. ‘Look, I’ll get going now, and I’ll rush through the job. Is that all right? I mean, if you want, I’ll stay with you and we’ll go to the picnic – I don’t have to help this man with his car…’ ‘No, you go, if you’ve promised,’ Lin huffed. ‘I’ll be back in a jiffy.’ Neil reached for his jacket, the smart one, then he changed his mind. ‘It’s warm outside – I’ll


in front of the canvas. I wanted to see the colors. I wanted to watch the brushstrokes happen. I wanted to see the painting appear in front of my eyes. No matter what else might happen with this painting, the process of making it was bliss. That counted for something. At last, when I finally worked up the courage to sketch his face, I didn’t try to make it make sense. I wasn’t thinking, What would Norman Rockwell do? I was thinking about what I would do. What I needed to do—with each mark and each line—to render my experience of Joe’s face. I was following my own compass. Wherever it would lead. And it turned out, Sue was right. That was a win in itself. * * * I PAINTED—AND TOUCHED, and painted and touched—Joe for two solid hours that night. He was endlessly patient. Didn’t check his phone or fall asleep or even ask for a glass of water. He just stayed with me the whole time, taking it all in. When I’d done everything I could do for the night and I had a pretty full, dynamic early painted sketch, I thanked him, like he could go. “Anyway,” I said, washing my hands at the sink. “I really appreciate you doing this for me. Congratulations. You’re almost free.” “Free from what?” Joe asked. “From me. Once the art show is over, we won’t have to see each other anymore.” “Why wouldn’t we see each other?” “I’m just saying. I’ve taken up a lot of your time.” “I was hoping you’d give me roller-skating lessons.” “But how would Dr. Michaux feel about that?” Joe frowned. “Why would Dr. Michaux feel anything about that?” “Aren’t you … you know?” “What?” Joe took a swig of water. “Didn’t we talk about this?” “You said you weren’t dating. But I figured you must be hooking up.” Joe coughed. “What?” “You’re always … coming out of her apartment,” I said. And a bunch of others. “Yeah? So?” “So aren’t you guys … together?” “Wait—you thought we were—what?” My fingers were still tingling from touching him. I shrugged. Joe started laughing then, but I didn’t think it was funny. He leaned his head back and let out a big sigh. “I’m not dating Dr. Michaux. I am pet-sitting her snakes.” Now it was my turn to be befuddled. “You’re what-sitting her whats?” “Her snakes,” Joe confirmed. “Remember? Herpetologist? She has a whole den of snakes in there. Even an Indonesian flying snake. It’s pretty complicated, keeping them healthy.” Okay. I could freak out about a penthouse full of flying snakes later. First things first. I needed to get this straight: “You’re … a snake sitter?” “Pet sitter,” Joe corrected. “Why do you think I was feeding Parker’s cat?” “That’s what you do for a living?” I could feel Joe frowning, like that question was really odd. “It’s one of the things I do for a living,” he said. “All that time … you were going in there to feed snakes?” Joe nodded. “ “And so


My courageous, kindhearted mom. She would have given anything to go to this exact show fourteen years ago. She would give anything to be here right now, fully alive, facing whatever life threw at her, and just cherishing it all. Maybe the best way to hold on to her wasn’t to obsess over her paintings or wear her skates or listen to her music or copy her style or worry over what would happen when I finally lost Peanut. Maybe the best way to keep her with me was to embrace her spirit. To emulate her courage. To bring the warmth and love to the world that she always—fearlessly—had. She had loved us without reservation. She adored us wildly. And laughed. And danced. And soaked it all up—every atom of her life—every moment of her time She felt it all. She lived it all. That’s what I loved about her. Not just that she was a great mom or a great wife or a great dog rescuer. She was a great person. She knew some divine secret about how to open up to being alive that the rest of us kept stubbornly missing. She’d wanted me to know it, too. She’d wanted me to say yes to everything. She’d wanted me to go all in. But when she died, I went the other way. I’m not judging myself. I was a kid. I didn’t know how to cope with losing her—or any of the hardships that followed. But I guess that’s the great thing about life—it gives you chance after chance to rethink it all. Who you want to be. How you want to live. What really matters. I did want to go to the art show. I’d earned my right to be there. I didn’t, of course, want to be humiliated. But it was looking like I couldn’t have one without the other. And I just wasn’t going to let the things I was afraid of hold me back anymore. I had no idea how that decision would turn out, but I knew one thing for sure: My mom would approve. As the time approached, I zipped myself into her pink dress—much tighter and slinkier now. Sue had gifted me a makeover from her cousin who worked at Macy’s and a hair blowout from her cousin’s roommate. I did it all. If I had to go to this art show all alone, I would do my damnedest to look good. There was, of course, still a chance that Joe might show up in a surprise twist and whisk me off like Cinderella. But as I clanked down the metal stairs from the rooftop in a set of gorgeous but actively painful heels, he was running out of time. I walked down our long hallway, hoping to see him. I rode down in the elevator, hoping to see him. I walked out to the street in front of our building to meet my Uber, still hoping to see him. Waiting there in the late-afternoon light—my hair done, a daisy behind my ear


father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can tell you my mother's put to it to get porridge for 'em all. They tumble about on th' moor an' play there all day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. She says she believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do. Our Dickon, he's twelve years old and he's got a young pony he calls his own." "Where did he get it?" asked Mary. "He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an' he began to make friends with it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck young grass for it. And it got to like him so it follows him about an' it lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an' animals likes him." Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always thought she should like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, and as she had never before been interested in any one but herself, it was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into the room which had been made into a nursery for her, she found that it was rather like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room, but a grown-up person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center was set with a good substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very small appetite, and she looked with something more than indifference at the first plate Martha set before her. "I don't want it," she said. "Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously. "No." "Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit o' sugar." "I don't want it," repeated Mary. "Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste. If our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes." "Why?" said Mary coldly. "Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full in their lives. They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes." "I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the indifference of ignorance. Martha looked indignant. "Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough," she said outspokenly. "I've no patience with folk as sits an' just stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and Phil an' Jane an' th' rest of 'em had what's here under their pinafores." "Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary. "It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean up for mother an' give her a day's rest." Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade. "You wrap up warm an' run out


Copperfield,' he said, in my ear (I did not turn my head), 'you're in quite a wrong position'; which I felt to be true, and that made me chafe the more; 'you can't make this a brave thing, and you can't help being forgiven. I don't intend to mention it to mother, nor to any living soul. I'm determined to forgive you. But I do wonder that you should lift your hand against a person that you knew to be so umble!' I felt only less mean than he. He knew me better than I knew myself. If he had retorted or openly exasperated me, it would have been a relief and a justification; but he had put me on a slow fire, on which I lay tormented half the night. In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a double one. The Doctor gave out that he was not quite well; and remained alone, for a considerable part of every day, during the remainder of the visit. Agnes and her father had been gone a week, before we resumed our usual work. On the day preceding its resumption, the Doctor gave me with his own hands a folded note not sealed. It was addressed to myself; and laid an injunction on me, in a few affectionate words, never to refer to the subject of that evening. I had confided it to my aunt, but to no one else. It was not a subject I could discuss with Agnes, and Agnes certainly had not the least suspicion of what had passed. Neither, I felt convinced, had Mrs. Strong then. Several weeks elapsed before I saw the least change in her. It came on slowly, like a cloud when there is no wind. At first, she seemed to wonder at the gentle compassion with which the Doctor spoke to her, and at his wish that she should have her mother with her, to relieve the dull monotony of her life. Often, when we were at work, and she was sitting by, I would see her pausing and looking at him with that memorable face. Afterwards, I sometimes observed her rise, with her eyes full of tears, and go out of the room. Gradually, an unhappy shadow fell upon her beauty, and deepened every day. Mrs. Markleham was a regular inmate of the cottage then; but she talked and talked, and saw nothing. As this change stole on Annie, once like sunshine in the Doctor's house, the Doctor became


an elite family.” When I shake my head, Meiling says, “Your mother-in-law won’t find out.” After a pause, she adds, “Please, Yunxian. Would you let a woman suffer just because she doesn’t live within the walls of your husband’s home?” “Bring her here the next time I visit—” “That won’t do. We need to go to her.” Before I can argue, she’s on her feet, opening cupboards and pulling out clothes. “You can’t walk the streets looking like that. You’ll need to change.” “Absolutely not!” I exclaim, but after her rejection of my help, I feel I have to do this to show I love her still. Against all the wisdom I’ve acquired in life, I find myself slipping off my gown and pulling on the indigo cotton trousers and jacket Meiling gives me. The pants are longer than those she’s wearing, so they cover my white, withered calves. Three problems remain: the carefully applied makeup that marks me as a wife from an elite family, my hair piled atop my head and decorated with jade and gold ornaments, and my feet. Meiling uses a cloth to wipe away the cream, powder, rouge, and lip paint from my face. “I don’t want to take apart your hair, because we won’t have time to put it back together before you go home,” she says, and then wraps a hand-dyed scarf over my bun and the adornments and ties the cloth at the back of my neck. We stand together to peer into a mirror. These simple changes make us look like sisters, but it also strikes me how only a layer of paint and a hairstyle can separate women by class. And our feet. “Sit down,” Meiling orders. I do as I’m told, while she rummages through more drawers and cupboards. She comes to me with clean rags and a pair of boots. She stuffs cloth into the toe of one of the boots. I slide my silk slipper inside. She prods the toe with her thumb, looks up at me, and says, “There’s still too much room.” I remove my foot, and she adds more rags. This time the boot fits. We go through the process for my other foot. I sit with my heels resting on the floor, my toes pointed toward the ceiling. My feet look disturbingly large. “Try standing,” Meiling says. “Take a few steps.” I wobble as I rise, and panic sweeps through me. “We shouldn’t do this. If someone finds out—” “No one will find out.” She holds my elbow as we go downstairs and slip out the back door into an alley. The boots, which seem huge and as heavy as anchors, make walking awkward. I lift each foot high and then deliberately set it down. Meiling naturally walks faster than I ever could, and she pulls me along at a quicker pace than is comfortable. We turn a corner and enter a busy pathway that edges a canal. We pass shops where customers bargain and negotiate. At an open-air teahouse, I see two men arguing


of the Great Chamber to Sabran VI of Inys. Gladwin Fynch (Lady Gladwin): Duchess of Temperance, descendant of the Knight of Temperance. Guma Vetalda (the Hermit of Hart Grove): High Prince of Yscalin and Duke of Kóvuga, and twin brother of Rozaria III of Yscalin, born a few minutes after her. Uncle to the Donmato Alarico and granduncle to Princess Idrega and Prince Therico. He rules from the stronghold of Hart Grove and is the wealthiest man in Yscalin, thanks to the mines known collectively as the Ufarassus. Helisent Beck (Lady Helisent): A lady-in-waiting to Glorian Berethnet. Daughter of Lord Ordan Beck, the Dowager Earl of Goldenbirch. Idrega Vetalda: Princess of Yscalin and only daughter of the Donmato Alarico and his companion, Thederica Yelarigas. Sister to Therico, grandniece of Prince Guma, and granddaughter of Rozaria III. Julain Crest (Lady Julain): Principal lady-in-waiting to Glorian Berethnet, and daughter of Lady Brangain Crest, the Duchess of Justice. Kell Bourn (Mastress Bourn): A bonesetter and assistant to Doctor Forthard. Liuma afa Dáura: A lady-in-waiting and former tutor to Sabran VI of Inys, who taught her Yscali. Liuma is now Mistress of the Robes. She is from minor Yscali nobility, the daughter of a knight, and is mother to Adeliza afa Dáura. Magnaust Vatten (Lord Magnaust): Firstborn child of Heryon Vattenvarg, the Sea King, making him heir to the Stewardship of Mentendon. Brother to Brenna and Haynrick. Mansell Shore (Lord Mansell): Baron Glenn of Langarth through his marriage to Lord Edrick Glenn, and adoptive father to Roland, Mara and Wulf. He is the younger brother of Baroness Shore of Caddow Hall. Mara Glenn: Niece and adopted daughter of Lord Edrick Glenn, born to his sister, Rosa. Mara is the middle child, sister to Roland and Wulf. Marian III (Marian the Less): A former Queen of Inys, the third and final monarch of the Century of Discontent. Daughter of Jillian III and mother to Sabran VI. Following her abdication, she retired to the coast with her companion, Lord Alfrick Withy, and now resides at Befrith Castle in the Lakes. Mariken: A servant of Florell Glade. Ordan Beck (Lord Ordan): Dowager Earl of Goldenbirch, responsible for the haithwood south of the Wickerwath. Father to Helisent, his heir apparent. He reports to Lady Gladwin Fynch, the highest authority of the Leas. Robart Eller (Lord Robart): Duke of Generosity, head of the noble Eller family, and a descendant of the Knight of Generosity. He is the Lord Chancellor of Inys – ceremonial head of the Virtues Council – and the highest authority in the province of the Lakes, as well as a trusted friend of Sabran VI of Inys. Randroth Withy (Lord Randroth): Duke of Fellowship, head of the noble Withy family, and a descendant of the Knight of Fellowship. Riksard of Sadyrr: An ostler at Langarth. Roland Glenn: Nephew and adopted son of Lord Edrick Glenn. He is brother to Mara and Wulf, and heir apparent to the Barony of Glenn. Rozaria III: Queen of Yscalin and head of the House of Vetalda, one of the three sovereigns of


It was a beautiful fairy story, Marilla. I forgot the end of it, so I made up an end for it myself and Matthew said he couldn't tell where the join came in." "Matthew would think it all right, Anne, if you took a notion to get up and have dinner in the middle of the night. But you keep your wits about you this time. And-I don't really know if I'm doing right-it may make you more addlepated than ever-but you can ask Diana to come over and spend the afternoon with you and have tea here." "Oh, Marilla!" Anne clasped her hands. "How perfectly. lovely! You are able to imagine things after all or else you'd never have understood how I've longed for that very thing. It will seem so nice and grown-uppish. No fear of my forgetting to put the tea to draw when I have company. Oh, Marilla, can I use the rosebud spray tea set?" "No, indeed! The rosebud tea set! Well, what next? You know I never use that except for the minister or the Aids. You'll put down the old brown tea set. But you can open the little yellow crock of cherry preserves. It's time it was being used anyhow-I believe it's beginning to work. And you can cut some fruit cake and have some of the cookies and snaps." "I can just imagine myself sitting down at the head of the table and pouring out the tea," said Anne, shutting her eyes ecstatically. "And asking Diana if she takes sugar! I know she doesn't but of course I'll ask her just as if I didn't know. And then pressing her to take another piece of fruit cake and another helping of preserves. Oh, Marilla, it's a wonderful sensation just to think of it. Can I take her into the spare room to lay off her hat when she comes? And then into the parlor to sit?" "No. The sitting room will do for you and your company. But there's a bottle half full of raspberry cordial that was left over from the church social the other night. It's on the second shelf of the sitting-room closet and you and Diana can have it if you like, and a cooky to eat with it along in the afternoon, for I daresay Matthew'll be late coming in to tea since he's hauling potatoes to the vessel." Anne flew down to the hollow, past the Dryad's Bubble and up the spruce path to Orchard Slope, to ask Diana to tea. As a result just after Marilla had driven off to Carmody, Diana came over, dressed in HER second-best dress and looking exactly as it is proper to look when asked out to tea. At other times she was wont to run into the kitchen without knocking; but now she knocked primly at the front door. And when Anne, dressed in her second best, as primly opened it, both little girls shook hands as gravely as if they had never met before. This unnatural solemnity lasted until


been a contrary town. The good Reverend John Davenport steps up to the pulpit and preaches, ‘Hide the outcasts. Bewray not him that wandereth.’ And hide the outcasts they do. When the British come snooping around, the townspeople keep their secrets and the judges hide out near West Rock.” “At Judges Cave?” “It’s technically just a cluster of big rocks, but yes. Their names were Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell.” Alex hadn’t lived in New Haven long, but she knew those names. They were streets that branched off of Broadway. Follow Whalley long enough and you’d end up in West Rock. Three streets. Three judges. Three murders. There will be a third. That was what Darlington had meant. He’d been trying to make the connection for them even as his demon half had been toying with them, enjoying the riddle the killer had set. “What happened to the judges?” Alex asked. “Did they get caught?” “Lived to a ripe old age. Two of them ended up somewhere in Massachusetts, but Dixwell changed his name and lived out his days in New Haven. His ashes are interred beneath the New Haven Green. British troops used to travel here just to piss on his gravestone, one hundred years after he died. That’s how big a deal these guys were. Martyrs to liberty and all that. And now they’re a footnote, a bit of trivia for me to try to impress you with over lunch.” Alex wasn’t sure whether to be uncomfortable or flattered at the idea of Anselm trying to impress her. “Have you ever wondered why the death words work?” He leaned forward. “Because we all amount to nothing in the end and there is nothing more terrifying than nothing.” Alex hadn’t really cared why they worked so long as they did. “You know a lot about this place.” “I like history. But there isn’t any money in it.” “Not like the law?” Anselm lifted a shoulder. “Lethe makes a lot of promises, so does Yale, but none of them come true in New Haven. This is a place that will never repay your loyalty.” Maybe not much like Darlington after all. “And Lethe?” “Lethe was an extracurricular. It’s silly to think of it as anything else. Dangerous even.” “You’re warning me.” Just as Michelle Alameddine had. “I’m just talking. But I don’t think you came here to listen to me pontificate about Cromwell and the perils of growing old in Connecticut.” So this was it. “You said you read my file. My mom … my mom isn’t doing great.” “She’s ill?” Was chasing after any whiff of a miracle diagnosable? Was there a name for someone doomed to seek invisible patterns in gemstones and horoscopes? Who thought life’s mysteries might be revealed by eliminating dairy from your diet? Or gluten or trans fats? Could Los Angeles be called an illness? “She’s fine,” Alex said. “She’s just not a realist and she’s not good with money.” That was putting it mildly. “Does she embarrass you?” The question startled her, and Alex wasn’t ready for


will look! ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ. HEARTHRUG, NEAR THE FENDER, (WITH ALICE'S LOVE). Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!' Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door. Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. `You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!' But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall. After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!' Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you please, sir--' The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go. Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking: `Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!' And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them. `I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I, and--oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear! I shall never get


take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?" "Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!" "To please their relatives, I suppose." "To please their relatives, you suppose!" This he said with intense scorn. "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?" He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. "Read the lies on that thruff-stone," he said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read, "Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July 29,1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son.`He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.' Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see anything very funny in that!" She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely. "Ye don't see aught funny! Ha-ha! But that's because ye don't gawm the sorrowin'mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was acrewk'd, a regular lamiter he was, an' he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin' crows with. `twarn't for crows then, for it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard him say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle where she was. Now isn't that stean at any rate," he hammered it with his stick as he spoke, "a pack of lies? And won't it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin' ut the grees with the tompstean balanced on his hump, and asks to be took as evidence!" I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she 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


at the very top of the horn, twenty feet above the ground, gasping to catch his breath as he gags over the edge. Now’s my chance to finish him off. I stop midway up the horn and load another arrow, but just as I’m about to let it fly, I hear Peeta cry out. I twist around and see he’s just reached the tail, and the mutts are right on his heels. “Climb!” I yell. Peeta starts up hampered by not only the leg but the knife in his hand. I shoot my arrow down the throat of the first mutt that places its paws on the metal. As it dies the creature lashes out, inadvertently opening gashes on a few of its companions. That’s when I get a look at the claws. Four inches and clearly razor-sharp. Peeta reaches my feet and I grab his arm and pull him along. Then I remember Cato waiting at the top and whip around, but he’s doubled over with cramps and apparently more preoccupied with the mutts than us. He coughs out something unintelligible. The snuffling, growling sound com- ing from the mutts isn’t helping. “What?” I shout at him. “He said, ‘Can they climb it?’” answers Peeta, drawing my focus back to the base of the horn. The mutts are beginning to assemble. As they join together, they raise up again to stand easily on their back legs giving them an eerily human quality. Each has a thick coat, some with fur that is straight and sleek, others curly, and the colors vary from jet black to what I can only describe as blond. 327 There’s something else about them, something that makes the hair rise up on the back of my neck, but I can’t put my finger on it. They put their snouts on the horn, sniffing and tasting the metal, scraping paws over the surface and then making high- pitched yipping sounds to one another. This must be how they communicate because the pack backs up as if to make room. Then one of them, a good-size mutt with silky waves of blond fur takes a running start and leaps onto the horn. Its back legs must be incredibly powerful because it lands a mere ten feet below us, its pink lips pulled back in a snarl. For a moment it hangs there, and in that moment I realize what else unsettled me about the mutts. The green eyes glowering at me are un- like any dog or wolf, any canine I’ve ever seen. They are un- mistakably human. And that revelation has barely registered when I notice the collar with the number 1 inlaid with jewels and the whole horrible thing hits me. The blonde hair, the green eyes, the number . . . it’s Glimmer. A shriek escapes my lips and I’m having trouble holding the arrow in place. I have been waiting to fire, only too aware of my dwindling supply of arrows. Waiting to see if the creatures can, in fact, climb. But now, even though


most of which the reader is referred to the story entitled "THE SCARLET LETTER"; and it should be borne carefully in mind that the main facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue. The original papers, together with the scarlet letter itself--a most curious relic--are still in my possession, and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative, may desire a sight of them I must not be understood affirming that, in the dressing up of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes of passion that influenced the characters who figure in it, I have invariably confined myself within the limits of the old Surveyor's half-a- dozen sheets of foolscap. On the contrary, I have allowed myself, as to such points, nearly, or altogether, as much license as if the facts had been entirely of my own invention. What I contend for is the authenticity of the outline.% This incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its old track. There seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. It impressed me as if the ancient Surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his immortal wig- -which was buried with him, but did not perish in the grave--had bet me in the deserted chamber of the Custom-House. In his port was the dignity of one who Thesaurus affirming: (adj) predicative, predicant, slate, paper; (n) cap. perish: (v) expire, pass away, decease, assertory; (n) confirmation. garb: (n, v) dress, apparel, array, go, fade, decay, depart, fall, pass, authenticated: (adj) genuine, true, real, garment; (n) attire, clothing, costume, ruin, annihilate. ANTONYMS: (v) valid, authentic, official, legal, frock, outfit, clothes; (v) clothe. survive, live, appear. documented, authoritative, groundwork: (n) bottom, basis, base, personage: (n) person, notable, legitimate. foundation, bed, ground, footing, celebrity, personality, individual, doings: (n) conduct, behavior, bedrock, fundament, background, bigwig, figure, somebody, human, behaviour, deportment, demeanour, substructure. character, being. proceeding, episode, traffic; (v) act, immemorial: (adj) ancient, respecting: (prep) about, regarding, deed, job. prescriptive, pristine, primaeval, apropos, as regards, pertaining to; foolscap: (v) table, vellum, tablet, primeval, traditional, old, eternal, (adj) relative, not absolute, marble, papyrus, parchment, pillar, customary. pertaining, referring, loving. Nathaniel Hawthorne 33 had borne His Majesty's commission, and who was therefore illuminated by a ray of the splendour that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike alas the hangdog look of a republican official, who, as the servant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the lowest of his masters. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen, but majestic, figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol and the little roll of explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him--who might reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor--to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public. "Do this," said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its memorable wig; "do