is a wheel, always circling. It means we only need survive until this coming spring.’ ‘Easier said than done.’ Kanifa coughed. ‘Dumai, we’ve stayed too long.’ She stood without argument. Great one, we are ready to leave, she called, but Furtia did not reply. While Kanifa gathered the old papers into a sack, Dumai combed the cave once more, searching every crevice, trying to ignore how fast her heart was beating. She returned to Tonra, and noticed, on her second look, that the body was curled around something. A box. She thought it was of Lacustrine design, hammered silver with gilding, its surface beautifully engraved. Its shape put her in mind of fruit. With care, she took it and removed its lid – and there it was, the stone. Big as a plum and smooth as a pearl, it was darkest blue, with a white glimmer at its core. Dumai gazed into those depths, finding herself entranced. ‘Kanifa.’ He crouched beside her. ‘This must be what she was protecting,’ he rasped. ‘What is it?’ ‘I don’t know. Should we take it?’ Kanifa considered, then nodded. ‘She can’t look after it any more. We should try to find out what it is, and why she banished herself with it.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Is Furtia coming?’ ‘I called her.’ Dumai cupped a hand under the gemstone, hesitating as she did it. She felt as low as a graverobber – but they needed any clue they could find. Even through a padded gauntlet, the stone was cold to the touch. She wrapped it in a length of wool and stowed it in the pouch at her hip, pulling the cords tight before she knotted them. An ominous sound came from outside. She joined Kanifa on the balcony to see a storm gathering over the Collar, where dusk had already fallen. As clouds enwheeled Golümtan, the whole city became a weave of burning threads, and Dumai saw a flash of gold. ‘Wyrms,’ she breathed. ‘The gods must have summoned a storm to weaken them. We have to start climbing, Mai, to get below the ceiling.’ ‘We won’t make it that far in this state.’ ‘We can try.’ Shivering, Dumai blinked against an icy blaze of wind. The sun, already tarnished, was turning red. ‘All right,’ she ground out. ‘We go as far as we can and find shelter.’ With the rope between them, they angled themselves over the balcony and picked their way back down the ice. Descending a mountain could be far more dangerous than scaling it, and while every instinct told her to hurry, she resisted. Do not goad the mountain, her mother had said, but they had, by daring to climb as high as gods flew. Furtia, please, hear me. Dumai kicked her spikes into the ice. We can’t breathe this air for much longer. Kanifa lost his grip and fell, and then so did Dumai, wrenched by the rope. They helped each other up and went on foot, following a ridge of bare rock. Soon it had turned


to her lips, and she takes a few sips before falling back on her pillow. “It’s late,” she says in a soft voice. “You should go to bed.” “Let me stay here. I can hold the cup for you.” She turns her head to face the wooden panels on the back wall of the marriage bed. Her fingers press against one of them, idly wiggling it in its frame. “I will have finished the drink by the time you’ve washed your face.” I go to my room, change into bedclothes and sleeping slippers, lie down, and nestle between the goose-down-filled mattress and a cotton quilt. I’m drained by all I’ve seen and find myself drifting off to sleep. I don’t know how much time has passed before I’m awakened abruptly by the sound of people running. In the gloom, I see Poppy sit up and yawn. She lights the oil lamp. The sputtering flame casts dancing shadows on the walls. We quickly dress and go out to the corridor. The rain has stopped, but it’s dark. The birds singing in the trees tell me dawn is coming. Just as we reach Respectful Lady’s room, Cook rushes out and turns so swiftly that she nearly crashes into us. I totter on my bound feet, thrown off-balance. I place a hand on the wall to steady myself. When she sees me, she wipes tears from her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “So sorry. So sorry.” The household is thrown into more commotion as Miss Zhao crosses the courtyard with Doctor Ho behind her. Without pausing, they enter Respectful Lady’s room. I start forward. Cook says, “Don’t go in there.” But I slip past her and through the door. The smell is something I will never forget. A curtain has been hung over the front of the third chamber of my mother’s marriage bed. My father sits on a stool before it. My mother’s bare arm rests in his lap, the palm facing the ceiling. Doctor Ho tells my father to wrap Respectful Lady’s wrist in a linen handkerchief. Once my father finishes this task, the doctor steps forward and places three fingers on the cloth. He closes his eyes to concentrate, but how can he feel anything through the handkerchief? I look away and glimpse the cup I held up to my mother last night. My heart thumps in my chest as I realize she never took another sip. Over the next two days, the entire household is busy. Servants come and go. More herbs are brewed for “invigorating” teas. I’m once again sent in to ask Doctor Ho’s questions and return to him with Respectful Lady’s answers. Nothing helps. Respectful Lady continues to weaken. When I touch her hand or cheek, I feel burning heat. Her foot, still balanced atop the pillow, has grown to the size of a melon. Rather, a cracked melon that oozes foul-smelling fluids. A prized characteristic of a perfectly bound foot is the cleft formed when the toes come back to meet the heel of the


I wish to keep you. You understand?” The ball might have been taking place a hundred miles away. The roar was distant, contained beneath sediment and rock. “Keep me?” said Alice, trying to laugh. “You can’t keep me.” Miss de Vries’s expression changed. “Whyever not?” she said. “Shouldn’t you like it?” Her voice was strained. Miss de Vries was very close, then. It was possible to make out the beating of her pulse. There was something heightened, hectic about it. It matched the rhythm of Alice’s own. Miss de Vries reached for Alice. Her touch wasn’t cool. It transmitted heat. Alice saw Madam’s lips: soft, faintly touched with wine. Would she like it? Alice wondered. The room held its breath. Miss de Vries’s eyes widened, as if checking herself. It was an expression Alice had never seen on Madam’s face before. Uncertainty: delicate, shivering in the heat. Alice reached out to touch the most brittle parts of Madam’s dress, around the shoulders. She alone knew where the joins were, where the clasps could be found. It was her strength that loosened them. Miss de Vries closed her eyes. But she didn’t move. She inched closer, the tiniest, clearest fraction. Alice went further. She closed the breach between them. She kissed her mistress, the air wreathed with orchids, lamplight flickering overhead. * * * Winnie stood back from the smoke machines, her nostrils burning. Her scalp was slick with sweat. Her hands shone with greasepaint. Now, she thought. Now. The Janes nodded. Winnie pulled air into her lungs, opened one of the doors, and let loose a cry. “Fire!” she shouted. Her voice came out as a croak. “Fire, fire!” Figures appeared at the foot of the stairs and she hauled the doors open fully. Smoke billowed out around her. Blueish, stinking, sweet—far more than she could have hoped for. She covered her mouth and ran down the stairs, arms aloft. “Fire!” she cried. * * * The Janes followed Winnie downstairs. They observed the pleasing majesty of it all. Footmen running. Noses turning upward. Disbelief. The orchestra falling silent, waltz frozen midspin. “Fire, fire!” yelled a voice. And then it was real, the fear. It unfurled itself like a ribbon. The guests were like starlings in flight, a drunken, frightened rush of powdered hair and crooked crowns and ermine trains. Jane-two tested her voice. “Fire!” she bellowed. “Everybody out!” “Oh, give over,” muttered Jane-one, pressing a hand to her ear. Together they worked the crowd: pushing, shoving, scaring, very nearly ramming people down the stairs. Mrs. Bone’s men, the ones dressed as guests, helped. “Out, out, out,” they chanted, and it was remarkable to see the world obey them, growing increasingly frightened. “I’m choking!” cried one. “Smoke! It’s in my lungs!” By the time they reached the front porch, they could hear Lord Ashley. Clearly, he was the worst sort of person in a crisis, bellowing orders for horses, buckets, hoses, causing even more confusion than before. Jane-one observed the chaos on the pavement, countesses calling for their husbands, ministers calling for


turns and glances over her shoulder as if she’s looking for someone behind her. My mouth is suddenly dry. I try to stifle the fear that is pooling in my chest, but I can barely move. I force myself to take another step back. “Everybody get inside the office!” I shout. The guests, Porter, and Tasha retreat to the office. Kyle stays beside me, gripping his machete as if its rubber blade will do either one of us any good. “This is my place. My land. All of it.” The woman turns her head and spits on the ground. “You damn kids think you can do whatever you want out here? You think there won’t be consequences?” As the woman rambles on, she keeps the shotgun in the crook of her arm. She touches her face with her free hand, then tilts her head back and laughs. “It’s all fun and games, right? Pay to play? You should be ashamed. If you knew what I know . . .” She trails off, and her eyes glaze over. “What are you talking about?” Kyle asks. The woman’s gaze flits to him. She suddenly rushes the front gate and sticks her hand through, grasping at the front of my shirt. I stumble back and fall into the dirt, but I’m back on my feet a half second later because there’s no way in hell I’m going to trip over my own feet and twist my ankle. That’s not what final girls do. “Charity,” Kyle says as he grips my arm and pulls me toward the office. “Look.” I glance at him, and his eyes are wide and filled with a kind of fear I’ve never seen in his expression before. He taps the breast pocket of his dingy jumpsuit, and in the glow of the floodlight, I can see the outline of the heavy padlock we use to keep the front gate secure while the game is being played. He forgot to lock us in. I glance at the woman just as she leans on the gate and it yawns open. A smile dances across her crooked mouth. I’m running before I can think, my legs pumping under me, my chest heaving. Kyle is at my heels. We barrel toward the office, where Tasha is waiting with the door open. “Get in here!” she screams. I race up the steps and fall into the office as Kyle and Tasha slam the door shut and turn the dead bolt. A bang erupts from the outside as the woman crashes into the door. Her pinched face appears in the window. Backlit by the muted glow from the floodlight in the parking lot and the pitch-black night sky, she looks like she could play the killer in one of our nightly games. Her stringy gray hair obscures her face; the skin that’s visible is loose and reminds me of weathered leather. Her thin lips pull back, exposing her teeth. She turns the shotgun around and bangs the butt of it against the glass. “Little pig, little pig,


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

And that was enough to make her friends stop, make them nod like the word carried far more meaning than a syllable should be able to shoulder. Brigitte took a sip of tea and grimaced. “I wonder if Bastian has any wine stashed around here.” “It’s Bastian, of course he does.” Danielle stood, holding out a hand for Brigitte. “Let’s look.” “Searching through the Sun Prince’s rooms might be a bit too forward,” Brigitte said, brow arched. “Not if we tell him it was for Alie and Eldelore.” Danielle gave them an exaggerated wink, to which Alie rolled her eyes. “True.” Brigitte took Danielle’s proffered hand. “White or red, ladies?” “Anything, as long as it’s sparkling,” Alie responded. Brigitte bowed deeply, then she and Dani sauntered away, giggling over something. “I apologize,” Alie murmured once the other two women were out of earshot. “I don’t know how many different ways I can tell them there’s nothing between Gabriel and me.” “Because of what his father did?” Lore couldn’t quite make her voice sound neutral. It still made her heart twist, the way everyone here seemed so determined to nail the father’s sins to the son’s back. Alie shook her head, then snorted a rueful, un-lady-like laugh. “Well, that’s part of it,” she said. “But honestly, I think perhaps that could’ve been salvaged. The thing that made it impossible was when he joined the Presque Mort.” Gabe had said something similar. “Your father has always disliked the Church, then?” Lore tried to sound nonchalant, speaking from behind the rim of her china cup. She thought of what Gabe had told her when she asked the same question—complicated tangles of religion and politics, the belief that it should all be consolidated into one ruling body. “I think my father dislikes almost everything.” Alie picked up a pastry, tore off the corner, and put both pieces down without eating one. “It sounds like his beliefs have strained your relationship,” Lore said. “You and your father’s, I mean.” “What relationship?” Alie asked darkly. She picked the pastry on her plate into smaller, still uneaten pieces. “Honestly, we don’t do much at home but pass each other in the halls, and barely even that when we’re at court. My mother died long ago, and I’m the only child.” “That sounds lonely.” Lore knew loneliness. It covered everything she did, a spiderweb that couldn’t be seen but was impossible to free yourself from. It clung. “Yes,” Alie murmured. “Yes, it is.” “No pastries left, then?” The voice was deep, familiar. Lore spun around to face Bastian’s easy grin. He braced his hands on the back of her chair, leaning over her, his shadow darkening her teacup. The tension locking her shoulders leaked out, just a bit. Returning the book to his father’s study must’ve gone smoothly. Part of her had been worried he’d get caught and send all of this crashing down around their ears. Bastian dropped a quick, reassuring wink, like he could read the pattern of Lore’s thoughts on her face. “There’s more where this came


say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment" The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sent at once for Ben Weatherstaff. Ben came as quickly as he could and found the Rajah standing on his feet under a tree and looking very grand but also very beautifully smiling. "Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said. "I want you and Dickon and Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I am going to tell you something very important." "Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff, touching his forehead. (One of the long concealed charms of Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood he had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could reply like a sailor.) "I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the Rajah. "When I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I am going to begin now with this experiment" "Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries. It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourself though he was only ten years old--going on eleven. At this moment he was especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of actually making a sort of speech like a grown-up person. "The great scientific discoveries I am going to make," he went on, "will be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one knows anything about it except a few people in old books--and Mary a little, because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't know he knows it. He charms animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been an animal charmer--which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us--like electricity and horses and steam." This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and really could not keep still. "Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to stand up quite straight. "When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator proceeded. "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific. I


this she brought him in the only way she could, bearing it in her own mouth. No human mother could have shown more unselfish and sacrificing devotion than did this poor, wild brute for the little orphaned waif whom fate had thrown into her keeping. At last the fever abated and the boy commenced to mend. No word of complaint passed his tight set lips, though the pain of his wounds was excruciating. A portion of his chest was laid bare to the ribs, three of which had been broken by the mighty blows of the gorilla. One arm was nearly severed by the giant fangs, and a great piece had been torn from his neck, exposing his jugular vein, which the cruel jaws had missed but by a miracle. With the stoicism of the brutes who had raised him he endured his suffering quietly, preferring to crawl away from the others and lie huddled in some clump of tall grasses rather than to show his misery before their eyes. Kala, alone, he was glad to have with him, but now that he was better she was gone longer at a time, in search of food; for the devoted animal had scarcely eaten enough to support her own life while Tarzan had been so low, and was in consequence, reduced to a mere shadow of her former self. Chapter 7 The Light of Knowledge After what seemed an eternity to the little sufferer he was able to walk once more, and from then on his recovery was so rapid that in another month he was as strong and active as ever. During his convalescence he had gone over in his mind many times the battle with the gorilla, and his first thought was to recover the wonderful little weapon which had transformed him from a hopelessly outclassed weakling to the superior of the mighty terror of the jungle. Also, he was anxious to return to the cabin and continue his investigations of its wondrous contents. So, early one morning, he set forth alone upon his quest. After a little search he located the clean-picked bones of his late adversary, and close by, partly buried beneath the fallen leaves, he found the knife, now red with rust from its exposure to the dampness of the ground and from the dried blood of the gorilla. He did not like the change in its former bright and gleaming surface; but it was still a formidable weapon, and one which he meant to use to advantage whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had in mind that no more would he run from the wanton attacks of old Tublat. In another moment he was at the cabin, and after a short time had again thrown the latch and entered. His first concern was to learn the mechanism of the lock, and this he did by examining it closely while the door was open, so that he could learn precisely what caused it to hold the door, and by what means it released at his touch. He found


and then I realized I forgot to buy Maddy’s book. I still have to go back and pay, by the way. I don’t want that on my conscience.” As if it’s a Pavlovian response, I reach for my glass of water. “Then we wound up back at his hotel. At which point we proceeded to have”—I lower my head to the table made from reclaimed wood, pausing for dramatic effect—“the worst sex of my life.” This time, my cousin drops her fork onto her plate with a sharp clang. “No, no, no—what? That’s not where I thought this was going.” “Trust me, neither did I. It was the Murphy’s Law of sex—everything that could go wrong, did. His watch got caught on my necklace, lube went everywhere, and then he just . . . jackhammered his way through the rest of it.” “And I’m guessing you were left slightly unsatisfied?” I nod. “I don’t even think a map would have saved him. Poor guy was clueless,” I say. “If we’d been dating, I would have tried to help him out a bit more, but it felt so strange, giving instructions to someone I didn’t know.” It strikes me again that I could have said something. Could have told him, Hey, I’m not there yet and showed him how to get me there. I’ve grown comfortable giving directions in bed, but I can’t help thinking it wouldn’t have been worth it during a one-night stand. Besides, I’ve learned that not everyone wants to be coached. Some past boyfriends took it as an insult, although with those who were open to it, we managed to have good, communicative relationships after some initial fumbling. But that definitely wasn’t everyone, and I wasn’t in the mood to do any ego soothing last night. I imagine him waking up this morning, reaching to the other side of the bed only to find it empty. A slight pang of guilt settles in my stomach. But I would have been gone at the end of today, anyway. Noemie gets up and refills her mug, then takes a sip while she leans against the kitchen counter, looking pensive. “I want to ask how sex ed could have failed so many men in this way, but I didn’t know where my clitoris was until I was twenty-five. So, it definitely failed me, too.” This I know, because when she told me a few years ago, I was all too happy to recommend a starter vibrator and a list of my favorite sex-positive influencers. And it wasn’t the first time—I’ve had other friends ask me the same thing. Ever since the first intro course I took for my minor, it’s felt completely natural to talk about. No shame or embarrassment. Or maybe it was always supposed to be natural, but society tried to convince me otherwise. “He seemed to think mine was located in my kidneys.” “I’m sorry. I’m trying so hard not to laugh.” “And I’m trying to erase it from my memory, thanks,” I say, but I can’t help laughing,


suits the occasion - I hope' he added. 'Yes I would like champagne,' she said. With his finger on the page, Bond turned to the sommelier: 'The Taittinger 45?' 'A fine wine, monsieur,' said the sommelier. But if Monsieur will permit,' he pointed with his pencil, 'the Blanc de Blanc Brut 1943 of The same marque is without equal.' Bond smiled. 'So be it,' he said. 'That is not a well-known brand,' Bond explained to his companion, 'but it is probably the finest champagne in the world.' He grinned suddenly at the touch of pretension in his remark. 'You must forgive me,' he said. 'I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It's very pernickety and old-maidish really, but then when I'm working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble.' Vesper smiled at him. 'I like it,' she said. 'I like doing everything fully, getting the most out of everything one does. I think that's the way to live. But it sounds rather schoolgirlish when one says it,' she added apologetically. The little carafe of vodka had arrived in its bowl of crushed ice and Bond filled their glasses. 'Well, I agree with you anyway,' he said, 'and now, here's luck for tonight, Vesper.' 'Yes,' said the girl quietly, as she held up her small glass and looked at him with a curious directness straight in the eyes. 'I hope all will go well tonight.' She seemed to Bond to give a quick involuntary shrug of the shoulders as she spoke, but then she leant impulsively towards him. 'I have some news for you from Mathis. He was longing to tell you himself. It's about the bomb. It's a fantastic story.' CHAPTER 9 - THE GAME IS BACCARAT Bond looked round, but there was no possibility of being overheard, and the caviar would be waiting for the hot toast from the kitchens. 'Tell me.' His eyes glittered with interest. 'They got the third Bulgar, on the road to Paris. He was in a Citron and he had picked up two English hikers as protective colouring. At the road-block his French was so bad that they asked for his papers and he brought out a gun and shot one of the motor-cycle patrol. But the other man got him, I don't know how, and managed to stop him committing suicide. Then they took him down to Rouen and extracted the story - in the usual French fashion, I suppose. 'Apparently they were part of a pool held in France for this sort of job - saboteurs, thugs, and so on - and Mathis's friends are already trying to round up the rest. They were to get two million francs for killing you and the agent who briefed them told them there was absolutely no chance of being caught if they followed his instructions exactly.' She took a sip of


one step, a wait, another step. Always slow, daughter, her father had taught her, in one of his gentler lessons. A flame that burns too quickly lives a short and senseless life. Nikeya stopped to brace her ribs. Each breath threatened to splinter them. Inchmeal, she pressed on, drawing on her last reserves – lifting one boot, then the other, each step harder than the last. The first time she had done this, she had brought servants and a guide. This time she had refused all help. The villagers had warned her to reach the temple by dusk at the latest, or the cold would freeze her. The sun had just disappeared when she got there. She slid to her knees, gazing at the High Temple of Kwiriki, the place where she had met the woman she would come to love. How long had she waited for Dumai since then, watching the sky for the ghost of a dragon? Nikeya hardly remembered. Those first days had rolled like smoke over fog, hard to distinguish from each other. She still wore grey, as everyone did, to mourn the thousands of dead. Seiiki had been found later than the mainland, but on an island, there had been nowhere to run. Unora came to meet her at the entrance. ‘Nikeya.’ Her face was thinner, weary. ‘You’re alive.’ ‘Maiden Officiant.’ Nikeya held her furs close. ‘May I come in?’ Silence lay on the temple, much as it did on the city below. Unora led her to the Inner Hall, where the Grand Empress of Seiiki sat beside a sunken hearth. Nikeya had never seen her, despite many attempts. She was small and pale in the grey folds of her mantle. ‘Your Majesty.’ Nikeya bowed, her stiff body protesting. ‘It is my honour to meet you in person.’ ‘I am hardly a picture of majesty now,’ the Grand Empress said in a dry tone. ‘Only the rotten stump of a tree.’ Her hair was white. ‘I wondered when you would return here, Lady Nikeya. Did your father send you to finish the undoing of the Noziken?’ ‘Kuposa pa Fotaja is dead.’ Unora stood in the corner, watching. ‘My father went to Muysima, the isle of exiles, where Taugran the Golden filled him with a strange form of the red sickness. The wyrm saw through his eyes.’ Nikeya forced the words past her trembling lips. ‘After Taugran fell, my father declined at once, and soon died.’ ‘You were with him?’ ‘Yes.’ She could have killed him when he started to howl. A blade would have been a kinder fate, but he had taught her to savour all poetry. He had been the one who sought to set his blood on fire. ‘A year has passed since then,’ the Grand Empress stated. ‘Where have you been?’ ‘I have been searching for Dumai, as have many others.’ ‘And did you find my granddaughter?’ Nikeya clenched her jaw. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Only the great Furtia.’ That first long walk along the coast still lingered in her dreams. A mist had swathed


their faces. The earth gave forth its freshness. There was something strange in the tremulous night, and something, you knew not what, seemed to be waiting; the silence was on a sudden pregnant with meaning. Philip had a queer feeling in his heart, it seemed very full, it seemed to melt (the hackneyed phrases expressed precisely the curious sensation), he felt happy and anxious and expectant. To his memory came back those lines in which Jessica and Lorenzo murmur melodious words to one another, capping each other's utterance; but passion shines bright and clear through the conceits that amuse them. He did not know what there was in the air that made his senses so strangely alert; it seemed to him that he was pure soul to enjoy the scents and the sounds and the savours of the earth. He had never felt such an exquisite capacity for beauty. He was afraid that Sally by speaking would break the spell, but she said never a word, and he wanted to hear the sound of her voice. Its low richness was the voice of the country night itself. They arrived at the field through which she had to walk to get back to the huts. Philip went in to hold the gate open for her. "Well, here I think I'll say good-night." "Thank you for coming all that way with me." She gave him her hand, and as he took it, he said: "If you were very nice you'd kiss me good-night like the rest of the family." "I don't mind," she said. Philip had spoken in jest. He merely wanted to kiss her, because he was happy and he liked her and the night was so lovely. "Good-night then," he said, with a little laugh, drawing her towards him. She gave him her lips; they were warm and full and soft; he lingered a little, they were like a flower; then, he knew not how, without meaning it, he flung his arms round her. She yielded quite silently. Her body was firm and strong. He felt her heart beat against his. Then he lost his head. His senses overwhelmed him like a flood of rushing waters. He drew her into the darker shadow of the hedge. CHAPTER CXX PHILIP slept like a log and awoke with a start to find Harold tickling his face with a feather. There was a shout of delight when he opened his eyes. He was drunken with sleep. "Come on, lazybones," said Jane. "Sally says she won't wait for you unless you hurry up." Then he remembered what had happened. His heart sank, and, half out of bed already, he stopped; he did not know how he was going to face her; he was overwhelmed with a sudden rush of self-reproach, and bitterly, bitterly, he regretted what he had done. What would she say to him that morning? He dreaded meeting her, and he asked himself how he could have been such a fool. But the children gave him no time; Edward took his bathing-drawers and his


a jumbled pile of disconnected features. I missed it. I missed seeing my face. But I’d been instructed not to give up hope, and I was nothing if not obedient. It would come back, I kept telling myself. There was a very good chance, at least. But now I was at the point, with just over two weeks before the portrait deadline, when I had to trudge forward—fusiform face gyrus or no. I mean, even if I magically resolved my face blindness tomorrow, I’d still need time to paint the painting. It was a make-it-work moment. And so I’d been researching the brain. I’d been reading up on painting techniques and neuroplasticity, and how creativity worked. I’d been hunting through different strategies for making lots of different art. My best idea was to try to bypass the fusiform face gyrus altogether, if I could. To use other senses rather than sight. To sneak around my own assumption that I had to see faces the way I’d always seen them before I could paint them. Maybe there was another way of seeing. Maybe if Sue described her face to me in words, the words could make a new path for me to follow. Maybe I could capture her face before my fusiform face gyrus figured out what I was up to. Another idea was to try to turn Sue’s face upside down, or maybe sideways, so that my brain didn’t realize it was a face. Maybe if we just thought we were doing shapes and colors and lines, the FFG would never have a reason to cause trouble. And then, if neither of those worked, I’d turn to math. My least appealing option, since I was quite math-challenged. But artist Chuck Close had mapped photographs with faces using a grid. Who’s to say I couldn’t do the same thing on a real face? If worse came to worse, I might draw an actual grid on Sue’s actual face. She didn’t know that yet, of course. But these were desperate times. * * * AND SO THERE they were. Countless late nights of research, distilled down into my best three ideas. Or more accurately, my final three shots in the dark. I knew I couldn’t paint the way I’d always done it. My only remaining chance was to try something new. And what if none of them worked? Well, I wasn’t going to think about that. Anyway, that’s what I was planning as Peanut peed on every clover flower between my building and the bayou: all the crazy new portrait techniques I’d try tonight with Sue. I had the canvas all ready and a measuring tape and a projector with a grid. We’d start with words and go from there. Maybe it would work better than I feared. Maybe my fusiform face gyrus would surprise me. I was giving myself that pep talk when a fat plop of rain hit my nose. Followed by another on my arm. And then I lost count completely as some dam broke in the sky and Peanut and


the sea. “A palace with walls the color of wheat,” an envoy had told her once, “its buildings inside so high that the people there are closer to the gods.” Paris shrugs. “Compared to Troy, yes. Our city has walls and towers higher than mountains. From the ramparts, you can see the land stretching around the city. It is like molten gold.” He pauses, sipping his wine, and a strand of hair falls on his face. “But I didn’t grow up in Troy. When I was born, my mother dreamed she gave birth to a flaming torch. A warning, the seer at court said, a sign foretelling the downfall of Troy.” He smirks, as if mocking the seer. “He declared that the only way to spare the kingdom was to kill me, and my father believed him. Our people are deeply religious . . . They would cut off their own arms rather than disappoint the gods.” The music is quieter now, and Paris’s voice rolls on it as if he were singing. “My mother couldn’t kill me. She couldn’t ignore the seer, but she couldn’t kill her son. So she left me on Mount Ida, sure that I would die there.” A shadow passes over his face, but he quickly covers it with his bright smile. “But who knows what plans the gods have for us? A herdsman found me on the rocky outcrop where my mother left me. He could have killed me, thrown me into the river, but he took me in as his own.” Clytemnestra gazes at his dazzling face. He doesn’t look like a man who lived among sheep and goats. Any other prince would be ashamed to speak so, but not him. Paris seems prouder of his upbringing than of his birthright. But perhaps that is his way into people’s hearts—not his beauty, not his wealth, but his story. “If you didn’t grow up in Troy,” Clytemnestra asks, “why were you sent here?” “I didn’t want to grow old as a shepherd,” he says as if stating the obvious. “The herdsman told me the truth when I came of age. I traveled to the city, leaving my life behind. I wanted the king to recognize me as his son.” Clytemnestra can easily imagine him, in a dirty tunic, walking inside the mighty walls of Troy, kneeling in front of the old man. King Priam must have been quick to claim him this time—the gods gave him a chance to mend a past mistake. “Your father is said to have fifty sons and fifty daughters,” Clytemnestra says. “Why did he choose to send you here?” Helen touches her hand as if asking her to stop questioning the prince. But Paris seems neither annoyed nor affronted. Answers come to him with no hesitation. “I asked to come. I wanted to show my father that I am as worthy as his other sons.” The music stops. On Clytemnestra’s right, Phoebe and Hilaeira are telling some story to little Hermione. She is giggling, and Polydeuces smooths Hilaeira’s hair, listening to


like talking to Rory and Tom is like making conversation with a pollster’s hypothetical Average American, or with a blank Facebook profile. What are your thoughts on movies? On music? I’ve tried asking Tom about work, but it seems there is nothing interesting to say about the duties of an IT technician. Or is there? A thought occurs to me. “Hey, Tom? Could you trace the IP address of, like, any random Twitter account?” His brows furrow. “What do you need an IP address for?” “Um, there’s this account that’s been harassing me.” I pause, wondering how much to explain, or whether I could even explain things in a way that makes sense to people not keyed deeply into publishing. “Like, spreading lies about me and stuff.” “Couldn’t you report the account to Twitter?” “I did that.” Brett’s been encouraging people to report and block accounts that are flinging vitriol my way, but Twitter is notoriously bad about enforcing its antiharassment policies, and as far as I can tell it hasn’t made a difference. “I don’t think they’re going to do anything about it, though.” “I see. Well, I don’t think you’re going to be able to find them using a Twitter handle.” “Don’t websites store the IP addresses of visitors?” “Yes, but Twitter’s data is protected. All major social media sites protect their data; they have to by law.” “You couldn’t, like, break into it? Aren’t you a hacker?” He chuckles. “Not that kind of hacker. And a data breach like that would make headlines. That’s a huge privacy violation. Not trying to go to prison here, Junie.” “But if I owned and ran my own website, I could see the IP addresses of anyone who visited?” Tom considers this, then shrugs. “Well, I guess, yeah. There are plug-ins for that sort of thing. You could even do it on WordPress. But the problem is that an IP address doesn’t tell you all that much. You can find out what city they live in, maybe. Or even what neighborhood. But it’s not like in TV shows, where it magically pinpoints their exact GPS location. And it makes a difference whether they’re accessing a website from their cell phone, or from their home internet router . . .” “But you could tell me a broad geographical range,” I say. “That is, if I got you the address?” Tom hesitates. “You’re not doing anything illegal, are you?” “Of course not. Jesus. I’m not going to like, throw a Molotov cocktail through their window.” I’m trying to be funny, but the specificity of this scenario puts him off. He fiddles with the rim of his beer bottle. “Then could you tell me a bit more about what you need? Because if they really are harassing you, then maybe it’s not safe—” “I just want to know who it is,” I say. “Or just generally, where they are, and if they’re nearby—you know, so I can make sure they’re not a physical threat. Like, whether I should be worried about them stalking me, or—” “Stalking?


me." Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try. "Basil," he said, coming over quite close, and looking him straight in the face, "we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I will tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?" Hallward shuddered in spite of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame or reputation." "No, Basil, you must tell me," murmured Dorian Gray. "I think I have a right to know." His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity had taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's mystery. "Let us sit down, Dorian," said Hallward, looking pale and pained. "Let us sit down. I will sit in the shadow, and you shall sit in the sunlight. Our lives are like that. Just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the picture something that you did not like?-- something that probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?" "Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling hands, and gazing at him with wild, startled eyes. "I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. It is quite true that I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man usually gives to a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman. I suppose I never had time. Perhaps, as [57] Harry says, a really 'grande passion' is the privilege of those who have nothing to do, and that is the use of the idle classes in a country. Well, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I quite admit that I adored you madly, extravagantly, absurdly. I was jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When I was away from you, you were still present in my art. It was all wrong and foolish. It is all wrong and foolish still. Of course I never let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible. You would not have understood it; I did not understand it myself. One day I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you. It was to have been my masterpiece. It is my masterpiece. But, as I worked at it, every flake and film of color seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that the world would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian,


for something that wasn’t his fault. The cop took mercy on Rich and only gave him a drinking ticket when he could easily have given him an open container ticket as well. And Rich and I got a free ride back to our respective camps. I didn’t say one word in the back of that cop car, didn’t catch Rich’s eye, didn’t apologize. I was afraid if I so much as moved wrong, I would get a ticket too. But the thought of what I had done to Rich hurt maybe even worse than losing my scholarship would have. I knew I had made the wrong choice. The next session of camp started the next morning. When I went to take a long letter of apology to drop in the inter-camp mailbox, June said, “Oh, honey, didn’t you hear? Rich got fired.” Her face looked stern and sad. “He got a drinking ticket. We have a strict no-alcohol policy. We didn’t have a choice.” That was a make-or-break moment for me, a time when I could have come clean about it all. June and I were close. Almost family. I could have told her the truth, that I was the one who should have gotten the ticket, that Rich was only taking the blame for me, that I should be the one fired, and he should have the job. But I stood silent. “I know, honey.” She took my silence for sadness. “I’m upset, too, but rules are rules.” “Can he come back?” “Maybe next year,” June said, continuing to sort the mail. “You know Rich is beloved around here.” I walked away with my letter, couldn’t bring myself to send it. Was he furious with me? Of course he was. I had used his love, caused him to lose his job. I couldn’t even look at myself in the mirror, and I certainly couldn’t respond to the three letters he sent me over the next week. I didn’t even open them. I couldn’t. He quit sending them. And I never saw Rich McNabb, my first great love, again. Until now. I looked up into his face, bathing in shame all over again, as Mary Stuart said, “Okay, I’m off to the basketball courts. I let Ted pick our activity, obviously.” As she walked away, I said the truest thing I could think of. “Mary Stuart is still a Songbird. Even though it’s been decades, she’s exactly the same.” “I think that’s what I like about her,” Rich said. “Me too.” Rich loved my friends. And, really, they were his friends too. They had known Rich as long as I had, and Daphne in particular saw him frequently on her visits to see June. Rich’s phone lit up with a notification. He looked at it. “Great,” he said under his breath. “What?” “That storm that I thought was going to pass over looks like it isn’t. We have about another hour, but that’s it.” That would put us at four o’clock. “I don’t think anyone will mind an afternoon rest.” “Least of


into anything of Nick’s and he can’t keep walking around in his wrinkled school uniform. The weather is decent, so they walk to the good bagel place on MacDougal. They each order a bagel with cream cheese, and then Nick orders another half dozen plain bagels. He figures Sal will have put away three by the time they get home. As he’s placing the order, Nick remembers all the other times he’s bought bagels during the past two months, usually with Andy at his side, bleary-eyed and begging for coffee. It’s become a Sunday morning ritual, and even though it isn’t Sunday, Nick feels its absence. “You know what?” Nick says when they step outside into sunlight that suddenly seems blinding after the dim bagel shop. “I nearly forgot. I have to go see Andy about something. Come on.” He begins to walk toward the Bleecker Street subway station. “You see him every day at work,” Sal points out. “It’s urgent.” “You could call him. There’s a pay phone across the street.” “Pipe down and eat another bagel.” The holy mother and all the saints must be smiling down on them because a Lexington Avenue Local rolls into the station just as Nick and Sal reach the platform. And by another miracle, Nick remembers Andy’s father’s address from the New Year’s Eve party. It can’t be more than five minutes before Nick and a bewildered but bagel-drunk Sal emerge onto Sixty-Eighth Street. They stop at a Chock full o’Nuts and get a pair of coffees in little paper cups, one with about a pound of sugar and the other the way normal people like it. Sal gets a doughnut. “Nick Russo here to see Mr. Fleming,” Nick tells the doorman when they arrive at the building, wishing he were wearing something less scruffy than a pair of Levi’s and the first shirt he managed to lay his hands on, which is somehow already rumpled, and the sleeves of which are rolled up. He looks like the janitor and Sal looks like an urchin he rescued from a street fight. Jesus Christ. They’re going to wind up in jail. The doorman picks up a telephone receiver. “Mr. Fleming says to go on up. Seventeenth floor,” he says a moment later, looking as if he wishes Nick and Sal would hurry up and get on the elevator and stop cluttering up his lobby. Nick grabs Sal by the sleeve and tows him along. The elevator operator manages not to look scandalized. He probably has better things to do than judge however many hundred people he sees in his elevator every day. “Jeez,” Sal says. “This elevator is nicer than most churches.” Sal’s not wrong. The elevator is fitted in shiny brass and polished wood. Nick remembers when he first visited Andy’s old apartment to fix his sink and spent the rest of the day vaguely disoriented to realize that he was now friends with someone who not only was rich, but lived like a rich person, with gleaming dark doors and soft carpets and


deserted them. He wasn’t here to stop the ritual. Maybe he’d never planned on it in the first place. Maybe he’d only pretended, as a way to keep them docile, keep them from running. A gentle touch on the rabbit’s neck before you broke it. She caught a glimpse of Gabe’s face. He hadn’t quite been able to make himself draw his dagger on his fellows. Through his snarl, he looked lost, stricken. Across the room, Bellegarde held on to Alie’s hand, tight enough to leave a mark. The slighter woman had no chance of getting away, but still she strained forward, panic on her face. “Gabe!” Something about his name in Alie’s mouth shook Gabe from his stasis. With an anguished sound, he finally drew his knife, slashed at one of the Presque Mort. They were on him in an instant, overwhelming him, hauling him away. He gave a wordless shout, one that almost resolved into Alie’s name but never quite made it there. A sickening thunk as a fist crashed into his temple; he slumped to the ground. Someone grabbed Lore’s braid, fallen from its jet pins, and jerked it backward. She snarled, but the Presque Mort’s arms closed around her, kept her confined. It took two to do the same to Bastian; the Sun Prince thrashed, shouting curses that echoed through the slowly darkening atrium. One of the monks struck out with a dagger; the sharp edge sliced through Bastian’s eyebrow, sheeting blood and shocking him into enough stillness to be subdued, arms twisted behind his back. The shadow of the moon moved closer to the low-hanging sun. The Presque Mort who held Lore steered her toward August’s throne. The Sainted King stood motionless and aloof, hands behind his back. Another Presque Mort—the one from the leak, walking almost normally on a prosthetic foot—approached the dais and handed the King a dagger, cast in silver and scrolled over with gold. It matched his throne, a marriage of night and day, sun and moon. “It was always meant to be this way,” he said quietly, pitched so only Lore and Bastian could hear. “Mortem and Spiritum, bound together, held by the same person. The age of many gods is past; now, there’s only room for one.” “So you decided it should be you?” Lore’s voice was harsh, made hoarse by the way the Presque Mort held on to her hair, her neck stretched forward like an offering. She had to strain to see August, fingering his fine knife. “Apollius decided it should be someone in our family.” August shrugged. “He chose incorrectly, when deciding on the specific person, but that can be easily remedied. When we are one—when I become His avatar, His vessel— He will understand.” The Presque Mort hauled Bastian up on the platform as he spat and cursed, twisting in their grip like a cat. His flailing fists had connected with more than one of them—the Mort who held his arms had a rapidly blackening eye, and a bruise bloomed on another’s cheek as his hand tangled


Have you yesterday's Times, Watson?" "It is here in the corner." "Might I trouble you for it -- the inside page, please, with the leading articles?" He glanced swiftly over it, running his eyes up and down the columns. "Capital article this on free trade. Permit me to give you an extract from it. "You may be cajoled into imagining that your own spe- cial trade or your own industry will be encouraged by a protective tariff, but it stands to reason that such legislation must in the long run keep away wealth from the country, diminish the value of our imports, and lower the general conditions of life in this island. "What do you think of that, Watson?" cried Holmes in high glee, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. "Don't you think that is an admirable sentiment?" Dr. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air of professional interest, and Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark eyes upon me. "I don't know much about the tariff and things of that kind," said he, "but it seems to me we've got a bit off the trail so far as that note is concerned." "On the contrary, I think we are particularly hot upon the trail, Sir Henry. Watson here knows more about my methods than you do, but I fear that even he has not quite grasped the significance of this sentence." "No, I confess that I see no connection." "And yet, my dear Watson, there is so very close a connec- tion that the one is extracted out of the other. 'You,' 'your,' 'your,' 'life,' 'reason,' 'value,' 'keep away,' 'from the.' Don't you see now whence these words have been taken?" "By thunder, you're right! Well, if that isn't smart!" cried Sir Henry. "If any possible doubt remained it is settled by the fact that 'keep away' and 'from the' are cut out in one piece." "Well, now -- so it is!" "Really, Mr. Holmes, this exceeds anything which I could have imagined," said Dr. Mortimer, gazing at my friend in amazement. "I could understand anyone saying that the words were from a newspaper; but that you should name which, and add that it came from the leading article, is really one of the most remarkable things which I have ever known. How did you do it?" "I presume, Doctor, that you could tell the skull of a negro from that of an Esquimau?" "Most certainly." "But how?" "Because that is my special hobby. The differences are obvi- ous. The supra-orbital crest, the facial angle, the maxillary curve, the --" "But this is my special hobby, and the differences are equally obvious. There is as much difference to my eyes between the leaded bourgeois type of a Times article and the slovenly print of an evening half-penny paper as there could be between your negro and your Esquimau. The detection of types is one of the most elementary branches of knowledge to the special expert in crime, though I confess that once when I was very young I confused


became fervent Trump supporters when they escaped to the West. [4/?] Does Athena Liu’s support of democracy extend only to PRC bashing? What’s more, many of Athena’s statements about her father’s experiences are inconsistent. Her representation of her entire family history is inconsistent, for that matter. [5/?] And on and on for sixteen tweets, culminating in a linked Google Doc with more evidence of Athena’s crimes. Athena, @NoHeroesNoGods concludes, was out of touch with most radical Asian diaspora movements. Athena was not a real Marxist; she was a champagne socialist at best. Athena lied about her family history to make it seem more tragic than it was—for convenience, for claims to authenticity, for attention. Athena, like Maxine Hong Kingston, always presented the worst of Chinese history and culture to milk sympathy from her white audience. Athena was a race traitor. Most people on Twitter have no fucking clue what’s going on, because no one is that deep into Chinese history or politics, nor have they read Athena’s work closely enough to make a smart judgment. But what they see, and what they latch on to, is “Athena Liu = Problematic.” Then the second wave of the shitstorm starts, this time with Athena at the center. Most of the accounts that participate so clearly do not care about the truth. They’re here for the entertainment. These people love to have a target, and they’ll tear apart anything you put in front of them. What a piece of shit!!! I always knew she was fake. Glad this bitch has finally been exposed. I’ve been iffy on Athena for years. A TikTok of someone ripping all the pages out of Athena’s books and throwing them on a bonfire goes viral. (This sparks another debate about Nazis and book burning, but I won’t drag you down that corner of the internet.) Kimberly Deng, the YouTuber at UCLA, posts an hour-long video dissecting “problematic” lines in each one of Athena’s books. (Athena once wrote about a love interest’s “almond-shaped eyes,” which buys into Western standards of beauty and the objectification of Asian women.) There’s something disturbing, almost gleeful, about the way they rip into her. It’s like they’ve been waiting for this opportunity all along, like they’ve been preparing these barbs for years. I’m not surprised, to be honest. Athena is such a perfect target. She was too pretty, too successful, too suspiciously clean to have nothing on her ledger. She had it coming for her, and I’m sure some blowback like this would have happened sooner or later, even if she hadn’t choked to death on a pandan pancake. Marnie: Wow, are you guys seeing this stuff about Athena Liu? Jen: Yeah, wild . . . sorry, what’s a Han supremacist? Marnie: I think like a white supremacist, but for Chinese ethnic groups. I mean, her lack of inclusion of other Chinese minorities in her work is CONSPICUOUS. Jen: I didn’t know you liked her books Marnie: Oh I only read one. Lol. Couldn’t get past the first page. Very try-hard litfic, if you know what


his own family and friends don't seem to care when Dunstan disappears. His nickname, Dunsey, sounds like "dunce," and Dunstan doesn't seem very bright. He allows himself to be propelled by circumstances, which he thinks of as "luck." He doesn't plot to rob Silas, but when the opportunity comes his way, he takes it. Soon after, however, he falls into the stone-pit and is drowned. Is this bad luck--or a fitting punishment for his crime? ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: SQUIRE CASS In Squire Cass, Eliot embodies what she sees as the worst characteristics of the English gentry--the upper class of country society. He bullies his sons and he patronizes the common people of Raveloe. He's dull-witted and narrow-minded. He isn't hard-working and his pleasures are crude--eating red meat, swilling ale, and making lewd jokes. (Note that his last name sounds like the word "crass.") Squire Cass is a great man in the community because of his hereditary position. The poor never question his wasteful life. But Eliot does, just as she questions the way he has raised his sons. Godfrey wishes his father had disciplined him more. You'll have to decide whether you blame Squire Cass for the tragic events brought about by his wayward sons. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: AARON WINTHROP When Aaron first comes with his mother Dolly to visit Silas, he's still a small child. Silas regards him as an alien creature, but this encounter foreshadows the impact Eppie will have upon Silas. When he's grown up, Aaron becomes Eppie's sweetheart (although she doesn't seem sexually attracted to him). Like Eppie, he is in touch with nature, a gifted gardener. Some readers think Aaron is a cardboard figure, a stereotype of the manly young laborer whom Eppie should choose over a life with Godfrey. Yet others think that his kind, brotherly affection for Eppie represents Eliot's idea of perfect, wholesome love. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: PRISCILLA LAMMETER When blunt-spoken, dumpy Priscilla appears beside her sister Nancy, Nancy's beauty and grace are all the more evident. These sisters show a strong family affection for each other, as the Cass brothers do not. Together with their father, they demonstrate that strong family love does exist in the upper class. Priscilla defines even more strongly than Nancy certain positive traits of the gentry. She is hard-working, practical, and devoted to farming. She doesn't put on upperclass airs. While some readers feel she's too rude and opinionated, others feel that Eliot wanted her that way, to show that, in the country, the leading families may not be as refined as you would expect. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: MOLLY FARREN Godfrey's unfortunate first wife is seen only briefly, in Chapter 12. Up until then she has simply been a nuisance to Godfrey, but now you see her as a living character, struggling through the snow. Her goal is the Red House where she hopes to have her revenge on Godfrey. Yet she seems like a victim herself, rather than a strong avenger. She has sparks of motherly tenderness, which almost stop her from taking her fatal dose of


likely. I calm down. They still need a girl tribute from District 12, don’t they? If the Gamemakers want to pu- nish me, they can do it publicly. Wait until I’m in the arena and sic starving wild animals on me. You can bet they’ll make sure I don’t have a bow and arrow to defend myself. Before that though, they’ll give me a score so low, no one in their right mind would sponsor me. That’s what will happen tonight. Since the training isn’t open to viewers, the Game- makers announce a score for each player. It gives the audience a starting place for the betting that will continue throughout the Games. The number, which is between one and twelve, one being irredeemably bad and twelve being unattainably high, signifies the promise of the tribute. The mark is not a guarantee of which person will win. It’s only an indication of the potential a tribute showed in training. Often, because of the variables in the actual arena, high-scoring tributes go 104 down almost immediately. And a few years ago, the boy who won the Games only received a three. Still, the scores can help or hurt an individual tribute in terms of sponsorship. I had been hoping my shooting skills might get me a six or a seven, even if I’m not particularly powerful. Now I’m sure I’ll have the lowest score of the twenty-four. If no one sponsors me, my odds of staying alive decrease to almost zero. When Effie taps on the door to call me to dinner, I decide I may as well go. The scores will be televised tonight. It’s not like I can hide what happened forever. I go to the bathroom and wash my face, but it’s still red and splotchy. Everyone’s waiting at the table, even Cinna and Portia. I wish the stylists hadn’t shown up because for some reason, I don’t like the idea of disappointing them. It’s as if I’ve thrown away all the good work they did on the opening ceremonies without a thought. I avoid looking at anyone as I take tiny spoonfuls of fish soup. The saltiness reminds me of my tears. The adults begin some chitchat about the weather forecast, and I let my eyes meet Peeta’s. He raises his eyebrows. A ques- tion. What happened? I just give my head a small shake. Then, as they’re serving the main course, I hear Haymitch say, “Okay, enough small talk, just how bad were you today?” Peeta jumps in. “I don’t know that it mattered. By the time I showed up, no one even bothered to look at me. They were singing some kind of drinking song, I think. So, I threw around some heavy objects until they told me I could go.” That makes me feel a bit better. It’s not like Peeta attacked the Gamemakers, but at least he was provoked, too. 105 “And you, sweetheart?” says Haymitch. Somehow Haymitch calling me sweetheart ticks me off enough that I’m at least able to speak. “I shot an


Laurence, what an odd name." "My first name is Theodore, but I don't like it, for the fellows called me Dora, so I made the say Laurie instead." "I hate my name, too, so sentimental! I wish every one would say Jo instead of Josephine. How did you make the boys stop calling you Dora?" "I thrashed `em." "I can't thrash Aunt March, so I suppose I shall have to bear it." And Jo resigned herself with a sigh. "Don't you like to dance, Miss Jo?" asked Laurie, looking as if he thought the name suited her. "I like it well enough if there is plenty of room, and everyone is lively. In a place like this I'm sure to upset something, tread on people's toes, or do something dreadful, so I keep out of mischief and let Meg sail about. Don't you dance?" "Sometimes. You see I've been abroad a good many years, and haven't been into company enough yet to know how you do things here." "Abroad!." cried Jo. "Oh, tell me about it! I love dearly to hear people describe their travels." Laurie didn't seem to know where to begin, but Jo's eager questions soon set him going, and he told her how he had been at school in Vevay, where the boys never wore hats and had a fleet of boats on the lake, and for holiday fun went on walking trips about Switzerland with their teachers. "Don't I wish I'd been there!" cried Jo. "Did you go to Paris?" "We spent last winter there." "Can you talk French?" "We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vevay." "Do say some! I can read it, but can't pronounce." "Quel nom a cette jeune demoiselle en les pantoulles jolis?" "How nicely you do it! Let me see . . . you said, `Who is the young lady in the pretty slippers', didn't you?" "Oui, mademoiselle." "It's my sister Margaret, and you knew it was! Do you think she is pretty?" "Yes, she makes me think of the German girls, she looks so fresh and quiet, and dances like a lady." Jo quite glowed with pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister, and stored it up to repeat to Meg. Both peeped and criticized and chatted till they felt like old acquaintances. Laurie's bashfulness soon wore off, for Jo's gentlemanly demeanor amused and set him at his ease, and Jo was her merry self again, because her dress was forgotten and nobody lifted their eyebrows at her. She liked the `Laurence boy' better than ever and took several good looks at him, so that she might describe him to the girls, for they had no brothers, very few male cousins, and boys were almost unknown creatures to them. "Curly black hair, brown skin, big black eyes, handsome nose, fine teeth, small hands and feet, taller than I am, very polite, for a boy, and altogether jolly. Wonder how old he is?" It was on the tip of Jo's tongue to ask, but she checked herself in time and,


Oscar in those days. And I hadn’t known Jessi because I made sure to find somewhere else to be when he was around. “She was nice. She liked to ruffle my hair and she called me sweetheart a lot. Oscar was a complete dope around her. Totally, uselessly in love.” A little smile tucked up the corner of her mouth. “I remember Miller dragging him home because he was drunk as a skunk, trying to apologize to her through her apartment door for something. I think singing was involved.” My heart thudded in my chest. Everyone said the same thing—that Oscar was madly in love. Except for Oscar, who seemed intent on downplaying it. Was it ego? Or self-preservation? Cass gave a little shiver. She folded her arms again and gave me a level look. “I get that you’re trying to find the truth, Naomi. But what makes you think you’re going to be able to find it if no one else has? You don’t even like murder mysteries. You have no idea what you’re doing.” “Ethan’s been helping me,” I said defensively. She made a disbelieving noise. “So it’s true, then. You really are sleeping with the enemy.” Bitter amusement laced the words. “He’s a good guy,” I told her. “You don’t sleep with good guys, Naomi,” she reminded me, so matter-of-fact that I could only wince in acknowledgment. “Just … look out for yourself there.” She was long past the days of trying to talk me out of bad relationships, and the only thing in her eyes now was weary acceptance. But Ethan was a good guy, I thought. Improbably enough. And I couldn’t help the hint of a smile at the thought of him, which only made Cass sigh heavily again. “The funeral’s tomorrow. I don’t want us to be angry with each other, not right now. We can’t turn on each other, or we’re never going to get through this.” I nodded mutely. She squeezed my arm and then gave me a fragile smile. “You can’t get rid of me, Naomi. You’re my best friend, remember? And I’ve only got one left.” She stepped past me, moving briskly as if she would start crying if she didn’t. She opened the door to leave, revealing Ethan, in the middle of raising his hand to knock. They stared at each other for a moment in surprise, then Cass glanced back at me. “Well. At least he’s cute,” she said in resignation. “Excuse me.” She strode out past the bemused Ethan, crossing the lot toward her car. “What was that about?” Ethan asked. I watched as Cass climbed into her car and started the engine. My gut churned. When Cass decided on a reality, nothing could dissuade her. If she’d decided that it hadn’t been Oscar she’d seen, she could have convinced even herself. Or convinced herself that lying was the right thing to do. “Naomi?” Ethan prompted. I let out a long breath. “Can we hit Pause?” I asked him. “Until the funeral, at least. I can’t deal with all


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

melted away. "If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook. "How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Harry asked. "About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin. Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least -- but at first he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask. "Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid. *** One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life -- more money than even Dudley had ever had. "Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam Malkin's shop alone, feeling nervous. Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve. "Hogwarts, clear?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here -- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact." In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length. "Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?" "Yes," said Harry. "My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow." Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley. "Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on. "No," said Harry. "Play Quidditch at all?" "No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be. "I do -- Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?" "No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute. "Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they,


have been weary, but I know I never fell asleep.’ ‘Denag could have. Perhaps this happened after she took over,’ Tunuva said gently. ‘Hidat did not give us a precise time, and the line between dusk and night is not clean.’ ‘I feel mad.’ Esbar kneaded her forehead. ‘But it’s done.’ ‘How long can we keep it from Siyu?’ Esbar looked as if all the light had gone out of her. ‘He escaped into the forest,’ she said at last, ‘and we have no idea what became of him. We’ll tell her after Saghul passes.’ Such a disappearance was believable. After all, it had happened before. ‘She trusts us. She loves us,’ Tunuva said in a whisper. ‘How can we deceive her?’ ‘To protect her. The truth stays between the two of us, Hidat, and Imsurin.’ Tunuva breathed in, arms drawn over her heart, fingers pressed into her shoulders. She imagined the terrible weight of that secret; the way its sharp edges would chisel at her. She imagined having to lie to Siyu every day for the rest of her life. And then she imagined losing her for good, and one moment with that thought was too long. ‘I will speak to Denag,’ she finally said. ‘You should rest, Esbar.’ Esbar let out a low, dark laugh, a sound Tunuva had never heard her make. ‘I will try.’ Tunuva padded into the Bridal Chamber, where she found Saghul in a light drowse, eyes restless beneath their lids. Finding Denag asleep in a chair, Tunuva woke her with a touch and sent her to her own bed. They could speak in the morning. She sat beside Saghul, whose ichneumon was still awake at the foot of her bed. His fur had long since turned grey, but he would stay with his little sister until the end. ‘Saghul,’ Tunuva said softly. ‘It’s Tunuva. Can you hear me?’ A tiny nod. ‘Anyso is dead. The outsider. Did you ask Hidat to do this?’ With clear difficulty, Saghul reached for her, lips moving. Tunuva leaned close, but even with the sharp hearing of a mage, she could make out no more than a faint sough of breath. She took Saghul by the hand, which felt too fragile to have ever held a blade. ‘I’m here, old friend.’ Saghul looked towards her voice with a deep weariness, yellow in the whites of her eyes. Tunuva stroked her head until she dozed back off. **** Tunuva stayed in that chair all night, praying for the woman who had led them for so long. At dawn, when Esbar came, she went to where Anyso lay, finding a silent Hidat watching over him. Anyso was on his bed. The poison had stained his lips, but otherwise he could have been asleep. Tunuva sat beside him and brushed his loose curls away from his brow. Forgive us. She closed her damp eyes. Forgive us. 37 East A short way beyond the city of Mozom Alph, a waterfall tumbled into a sheltered gorge. Above its plunge pool, Dumai dashed along a bridge,


reps, weights—for his clients. There are pages of them. Nothing valuable or interesting. I turn to a page with an H at the top. Does it stand for Hazel? The workout makes sense. Light weights, lots of reps, the focus on butt and abs. I am about to toss the notebook aside when I spot something. In the top corner of the page, in a tiny scrawl, is a number: 206. It’s the area code for Seattle. I flip through the journal, searching for further digits. Several pages later, I find four more numbers in the same precise handwriting. And then, on the inside back cover, three. It’s a phone number. It has to be. Jesse had been afraid to keep the number stored in his phone, and he didn’t want to write it down in sequence, in case someone found it. But the area code gives it away. If I dial it, who will answer? It’s not Hazel’s number. Who was Jesse calling? I grab the hotel phone and punch in *67 to block the caller ID. My mouth is dry, my pulse pounding in my temple as I listen to it ring. Once. Twice. Three, and then four times… “Hello?” It is a man’s voice, cool and deep. It sends a shudder through me. Do I ask who is speaking? Pretend I got a wrong number? But before I can say another word, the man speaks again. His voice is cold and mechanical. “Lee? Is that you?” The phone slips in my hand as fear grips my throat. Who have I called? How does he know me? The voice travels from the receiver now pressed to my chest. “Tell me where you are…” I slam the handset into the cradle. 42 RAIN SPATTERS THE WINDSHIELD AND headlights bounce off the puddles on the pavement, straining my eyes. It is 5:06 a.m. Soon, the late spring sun will rise, but for now, it is dark, the highway lit by streetlights and a stream of early morning commuters. I checked out of the motel, sacrificing the hundred-dollar security deposit in my haste to get away. I need to find Sean Sumner. And then I need to get on a plane. I am driving north, headed for Bellingham. The small city close to the Canadian border is an hour and a half’s drive from Seattle. The halfway house is on the edge of town, in a stately old home. Inside are twenty men, struggling to rebuild lives destroyed by the crimes they have committed. They are offered support services, like drug and alcohol counseling, employment training, and anger management classes… but finding work, and eventually a place to live, is up to them. When the sun has risen and the city traffic thins, I pull into a drive-through coffee shop. I’m nervous to get out of my car—still worried someone could be watching me—but I need caffeine and some real food. Last night I’d had chips from the vending machine for dinner and my stomach is growling. I order a large coffee and


(WINCING) Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which women love. THE FAN: (TAPPING) We have met. You are mine. It is fate. BLOOM: (COWED) Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle as you probably ... (HE WINCES) Ah! RICHIE GOULDING: (BAGWEIGHTED, PASSES THE DOOR) Mocking is catch. Best value in Dub. Fit for a prince's. Liver and kidney. THE FAN: (TAPPING) All things end. Be mine. Now, BLOOM: (UNDECIDED) All now? I should not have parted with my talisman. Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my time of life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause. THE FAN: (POINTS DOWNWARDS SLOWLY) You may. BLOOM: (LOOKS DOWNWARDS AND PERCEIVES HER UNFASTENED BOOTLACE) We are observed. THE FAN: (POINTS DOWNWARDS QUICKLY) You must. BLOOM: (WITH DESIRE, WITH RELUCTANCE) I can make a true black knot. Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for Kellett's. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. I knelt once before today. Ah! (BELLA RAISES HER GOWN SLIGHTLY AND, STEADYING HER POSE, LIFTS TO THE EDGE OF A CHAIR A PLUMP BUSKINED HOOF AND A FULL PASTERN, SILKSOCKED. BLOOM, STIFFLEGGED, AGING, BENDS OVER HER HOOF AND WITH GENTLE FINGERS DRAWS OUT AND IN HER LACES.) BLOOM: (MURMURS LOVINGLY) To be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my love's young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb toe, as worn in Paris. THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight. BLOOM: (CROSSLACING) Too tight? THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you. BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her ... person you mentioned. That night she met ... Now! (HE KNOTS THE LACE. BELLA PLACES HER FOOT ON THE FLOOR. BLOOM RAISES HIS HEAD. HER HEAVY FACE, HER EYES STRIKE HIM IN MIDBROW. HIS EYES GROW DULL, DARKER AND POUCHED, HIS NOSE THICKENS.) BLOOM: (MUMBLES) Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen, ... BELLO: (WITH A HARD BASILISK STARE, IN A BARITONE VOICE) Hound of dishonour! BLOOM:


but where she was, and she swallowed as her fingers pressed against the solid muscle of his chest. Honestly, how was the man so strong? Was he a pugilist on the weekends? Did he spend his mornings wrestling lions? “Um . . .” Lucy tested her foothold, hoping something had changed over the last several seconds, but she slid yet again and had to wrap her arms around Simon’s torso to keep herself from falling. “I should . . .” She had no idea what she should do, but she couldn’t very well stay where she was. She felt Simon swallow, his heart racing in her ear. “I am going to—” What he was going to do Lucy never found out because as soon as he moved even the slightest bit, their feet slid out from under them, and they tumbled into the pond. Cold water hit Lucy like a slap to the face, and though she told herself she’d needed that, she quickly became focused on the fact that the pond was much deeper than she had anticipated and her feet could not reach the bottom without submerging her head in the water. Panicking, she fought to rise to the surface but seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper with the weight of her skirts and the fact that she had never learned to swim. She had never needed to. An arm went around her back, and suddenly she was rising with impressive speed until her face hit blessed air. Coughing and spluttering, she breathed as quickly as she could and clung to the body that held her up, as if he might let her go. “Easy,” Simon’s soft voice said, and his gentle fingers brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Breathe normally. I have you.” Lucy wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder as she cried, though she didn’t even know why she was crying. And then she laughed because Simon was standing perfectly still while keeping both their heads above the water, which meant the pond wasn’t nearly as deep as she’d imagined. How dramatic she was! “Lucy?” Fear colored his words, and he must have thought her absolutely mad for crying and laughing at the same time. “I’m sorry,” she replied shakily. “I thought— You must think me ridiculous.” The circle of his arms around her tightened along with his jaw, which was right in front of her eyes and somewhat stubbled with hair. “You should never feel ridiculous for being afraid. I take it you can’t swim.” “Never tried,” she corrected. She had no reason to hold to him so tightly—she knew he would not let her sink again—but she did anyway. She never wanted to let go. “Like I said, I did not have a pond where I grew up, and swimming has never been a very ladylike pastime.” It may have been her imagination, but Simon seemed to pull her even closer. “Something tells me you would be marvelous at it if you tried,” he said, his voice


me. Jem, I don't want you and Scout downtown today, please." As Atticus departed, Dill came bounding down the hall into the diningroom. "It's all over town this morning," he announced, "all about how we held off a hundred folks with our bare hands...." Aunt Alexandra stared him to silence. "It was not a hundred folks," she said, "and nobody held anybody off. It was just a nest of those Cunninghams, drunk and disorderly." "Aw, Aunty, that's just Dill's way," said Jem. He signaled us to follow him. "You all stay in the yard today," she said, as we made our way to the front porch. It was like Saturday. People from the south end of the county passed our house in a leisurely but steady stream. Mr. Dolphus Raymond lurched by on his thoroughbred. "Don't see how he stays in the saddle," murmured Jem. "How c'n you stand to get drunk 'fore eight in the morning?" A wagonload of ladies rattled past us. They wore cotton sunbonnets and dresses with long sleeves. A bearded man in a wool hat drove them. "Yonder's some Mennonites," Jem said to Dill. "They don't have buttons." They lived deep in the woods, did most of their trading across the river, and rarely came to Maycomb. Dill was interested. "They've all got blue eyes," Jem explained, "and the men can't shave after they marry. Their wives like for 'em to tickle 'em with their beards." Mr. X Billups rode by on a mule and waved to us. "He's a funny man," said Jem. "X's his name, not his initial. He was in court one time and they asked him his name. He said X Billups. Clerk asked him to spell it and he said X. Asked him again and he said X. They kept at it till he wrote X on a sheet of paper and held it up for everybody to see. They asked him where he got his name and he said that's the way his folks signed him up when he was born." As the county went by us, Jem gave Dill the histories and general attitudes of the more prominent figures: Mr. Tensaw Jones voted the straight Prohibition ticket; Miss Emily Davis dipped snuff in private; Mr. Byron Waller could play the violin; Mr. Jake Slade was cutting his third set of teeth. A wagonload of unusually stern-faced citizens appeared. When they pointed to Miss Maudie Atkinson's yard, ablaze with summer flowers, Miss Maudie herself came out on the porch. There was an odd thing about Miss Maudie- on her porch she was too far away for us to see her features clearly, but we could always catch her mood by the way she stood. She was now standing arms akimbo, her shoulders drooping a little, her head cocked to one side, her glasses winking in the sunlight. We knew she wore a grin of the uttermost wickedness. The driver of the wagon slowed down his mules, and a shrill-voiced woman called out: "He that cometh in vanity departeth in darkness!" Miss


will be just as incredible. But even with a free stay, I can’t technically afford it. Clothes shopping, takeaways, traveling to and from Zone 1 and going from £450 rent to almost double means I’ve had nothing to save this month. But can you really turn down your first partially free trip to Italy? Cam narrows her eyes at Jo. “So you get to bring two people with you for a free stay in Italy and we were your first choice?” Jo shrugs. “Em and I have mutual friends she’s already invited.” “And?” Jo sighs. “And my other friends already have summer holidays booked.” “There it is.” “But so what?” Jo says. “You weren’t my last choice, and it’s seven nights’ free stay in Florence! First of August to the eighth! I thought I’d get more excitement out of the two of you.” “The first? The flight out is on my dad’s birthday,” I tell them. “I can’t miss it.” “What about joining after?” Jo says. “Come a couple of days later, especially if you’re nervous about taking that much holiday from work so soon?” I suppose I could use my savings—just a bit of it. I mean, what else is it there for? “Fuck it,” Cam says. “I’m in.” Pre-scream, Jo turns to me. I suddenly nod. “Me too!” “Yes!” Jo pulls her MacBook out from her bag, sits at the table and looks up seats available on Emma’s flight. “Maddie, we can book yours tomorrow when you’ve checked in with work, in case they say no, but they won’t. They can’t.” * * * Ben Florence? Now I HAVE to make us pasta for dinner Second date sorted Maddie Are you sure you don’t mind cooking again? Wouldn’t you rather we go out for dinner, maybe? Ben But … my pasta machine I smile at my phone screen. Ben’s been very excited by his recently purchased pasta machine. He’s been sending me pictures of pasta he’s made and the meals he’s turned them into for the past three days. Maddie I’m starting to think you might like this pasta machine more than you like me Ben Maddie, please don’t make me choose Did I tell you it has TEN thickness settings? Maddie Yes. You also happened to mention that it came with a table clamp, a drying function, and that it can make 700g of fresh pasta in minutes Ben 750g! Maddie Fine, but this had better be the best pasta I’ve ever tasted Ben Challenge accepted See you tomorrow? I sigh. Not because I don’t want to see Ben again, I really do, but—and I know you’re going to think, Maddie, I don’t get what the problem is—I need to wash my hair. I was going to wait until Saturday, but what if Ben decides to kiss the top of my head and all he smells is the sweat and dust collected from running around the OTP offices and my scalp stewing on the underground? I call it wash day because it really is a twenty-four-hour process that I’ve


the first three days I was home, I couldn’t seem to make myself leave my apartment. I mostly just did wound care. And ordered takeout. And watched old movies. And availed myself—after much hemming and hawing—of Lucinda’s credit card. I had sworn never to need my dad or Lucinda’s help. But was using that card “needing” them, really? Especially if I was buying luxury items I didn’t need. That was something different from needing them. That was punishing them. Right? If you thought about it the right way, it was a form of winning. And so I went for it. I enjoyed my first bout of recreational shopping in years: a hygge-inspired tea kettle, a string of twinkle lights branded as “wishing stars,” a heart-shaped velveteen pillow … and a totally nutty hybrid cross between a pair of footed pajamas and a fuzzy blanket called a Pajanket. The Pajanket came same-day delivery, and after I zipped myself into it, I swore I would never take it off ever again. It was basically a rectangular human-sized pillowcase with holes at each corner for hands and feet. The foot-holes had booties and the hand-holes had mittens. And the neck had a hoodie. And the plush, buttery, nothing-can-ever-hurt-you-again fabric they’d sewn it out of? Velvety on both sides. It was all I could do not to order a thousand. And so I stayed home. I was on this. I had this. I was fine. I was, as always, completely, utterly, astonishingly okay—putting my life back in order without too much fuss. I shut down my Etsy shop. I put a note on the page and on my Instagram that read: “AT CAPACITY! Thanks for all your orders! This shop is taking an eight-week hiatus. Not accepting new commissions.” That sounded pretty good, right? Like I was just at capacity with work because of the unstoppable thirst the world had for my portraits? Not like I was at capacity emotionally. Or like my entire life was crumbling. Or like I was afraid to leave the house. Not doing any portraits would mean no money coming in. But there wasn’t a choice there. Maybe I’d charge all my bills to my dad’s credit card, too. Maybe it was all about attitude. If a little punishment was good, wouldn’t a lot of punishment be better? I wondered if Mr. Kim would let me charge the rent. When I felt a rising sense of panic, I tried to see it as a positive. After all these years of nonstop hustling, it might be nice to unchain myself from my Etsy shop for a bit. Though I’d still have to check the comments every day. Most people said nice things most of the time, but occasionally a nutter slipped through with a comment like “These portraits look like circus clowns.” Anyway, that was life online. You had to keep an eye on the crazies. Block and delete. Kinda like the rest of my life right now. I had groceries delivered. I took careful showers. And I tried—and failed—over and over


as her men slipped past. She’d sneaked away to make sure they arrived safely: she always liked to oversee a big delivery. And they didn’t seem spooked. They were all working to plan. Everything was simply fine. Finally, she thought, we’re off. All day she’d felt like a horse pawing the ground behind the gate. She needed to get on now, be in motion. She was clutching a pair of vases, her fingers twitching. “What are you up to?” Mrs. Bone jumped. Cook had appeared behind her. Of course you’re here, Mrs. Bone thought, creeping and crawling around, scratching your arse and getting in my business when you should be looking after the young ones, protecting them, keeping them safe... “Hadn’t you better stay below stairs, Cook?” muttered Mrs. Bone. “Isn’t there something for you to be doing?” “If you’re allowed to sneak a peek upstairs, then I’m quite sure I am,” said Cook in a comfortable whisper, leaning on the pillar, not hidden at all. “Would you look at that one—she’s trussed up like a turkey, ain’t she?” Hephzibah was standing at a distance. They could hear Miss de Vries as she said, “I’m afraid I shall have to take my leave of you, Your Grace. I’ve yet to change into my costume.” Hephzibah turned, in full view of Cook. “As you wish, Miss de Vries,” Hephzibah said. “I shall gather my strength in expectation of the dancing.” “Oh,” said Cook, an expulsion of breath. “I know her.” Mrs. Bone felt her chest tighten. She shoved her vase at Cook. “Give me a hand with this. It needs taking down to the courtyard.” It was always going to happen. There was always going to be one of the servants, one of the old guard, who’d remember that scullery girl. Mrs. Bone almost let out a bitter laugh. Of course it would be Cook. She stepped out from behind the pillar, staring desperately at the back of Hephzibah’s head, trying to telegraph a message through the air: Get out of the way, get yourself hidden, quick. Miss de Vries heard the words, and looked straight at Cook. Mrs. Bone froze. She knew what should happen. What would happen, in any normal circumstance. Miss de Vries would frown, glance around for a footman, or Mr. Shepherd, someone who could clear Cook out of the way. But she didn’t. She just studied Cook, curious, and then slowly—oh, dreadfully slowly—turned back to Hephzibah. Hephzibah’s gaze widened, sensing crisis. And later Mrs. Bone thought, if it weren’t for Hephzibah’s courage, her magnificence, if she weren’t such a powdered and painted sort of heathen, they wouldn’t have made it through the night at all. Hephzibah tilted her head toward Miss de Vries and said, in a confidential whisper, “You would seem to have a rather eager sort of woman working for you there.” It felt to Mrs. Bone that the air screwed itself up. She forced the vase into Cook’s hands, feeling light-headed. “Move,” she whispered in her ear. “Now.” She saw Hephzibah moving on, unconcerned. Felt


I frown—at her usage of salmon and at the reminder that why, yes, the guy I’m going out with did do that. And it’s not that I ever forget. It’s just that I truly cannot reconcile it—the way Jack is when we’re together, kind and funny and even admiring of my work, and the fact that fifteen years ago — “Elsie? Is that it?” “No. No, he’s just . . . not planning on having sex with me.” Her eyes widen. “Are you planning on having sex with him?” Maybe. Probably. No. Should I? I want to. I’m scared. Maybe. “I have to go.” I chew on the inside of my cheek and pick up my purse. Then stop at the door when Cece says, “Hey, Elsie?” I turn around. “You look pretty tonight.” Her big eyes are warm. “Even more than usual.” I smile. I think I look medium as usual, but my heart feels open all of a sudden, open for Cece, this beautiful, odd person who cannot read analog clocks or tell the difference between left and right, who’s been sticking with me through thin and thin and thin for the past seven years. For a moment, all I want is to open my mouth and say, I hate art house movies. Could we watch a rom-com sometimes? Riverdale? Literally any Kardashian show? What comes out is “You look like a weirdo, pouring milk before the cereal, but I love you anyway.” I step out to her middle finger. Then my phone rings, and that’s when my night collapses like an accordion. In my defense, I pick up assuming it’s Jack, calling to say that he’s late, or that I’m late, or that someone hammered him in the frontal lobe and the resulting brain injury helped him realize that he doesn’t want to see me ever again. A tragic miscalculation on my part, because: “Elsie, finally. You need to come home right now.” “Mom?” “Lance is now with Dana. And Lucas punched him after the soccer game. Everyone saw.” God. “But I talked to them last week. Lance said he wasn’t interested—” “He lied, Elsie. I’m disappointed in you for not picking up on it.” “I—” I exhale, stepping out of the building. “He seemed sincere.” “That’s why you need to come home and help me sort this out. I have been so tense and jittery. My poor nerves.” “Mom, I can’t. I don’t have a car, for one. And I have classes.” “Just find a substitute teacher.” “That’s not—I’m not—Mom.” I spot Jack’s car. It’s freezing cold. Every instinct yells at me to first finish my conversation, but I cannot resist getting in. The seat is already heated, Jack’s hair still shower damp, curling in soft wisps on his neck. He looks freshly shaved and smells divine—like soap they sell in fancy boutiques and the hollow of his throat when I slept nestled in his arms. One minute, I mouth. He nods. Mom’s going on about how Lance is misunderstood, Lucas is sensitive, Dad is busy with work,


Sun Inn car park: Jack Lovejoy had taken up position not far from the entrance, wearing a colourful cap, playing his guitar. The chords were light on the wind. She thought about going over to him, holding her arms out for a hug: she could do with one. Then she saw Neil and Lin Timms arrive for Sunday lunch, pausing to put money in Jack’s baked beans collection tin. Her father would be there soon for his regular pint. Florence felt the breeze lift the hem of her dress and she smoothed it flat. In the distance, two figures were approaching from Orchard Way. They waved to her and Florence waved back. It was Malia, with Natalie Ledbury. In minutes, they were beside her. Malia threw an arm around Florence’s neck. ‘What are you up to?’ ‘Watching Jack busking.’ Florence sighed, gazing towards the pub. Natalie played with her hair. ‘I used to think he was gorgeous when we were at school, but not as gorgeous as Finn Toomey.’ Malia agreed. ‘Everyone had the hots for Finn Toomey.’ Florence shook her head sadly. It wasn’t a conversation she wanted to join in; talking about boys would eventually lead to secrets she didn’t really want Natalie to know, not yet. She cupped her hands over her belly. ‘You liked Finn, didn’t you, Florence?’ Malia smiled. ‘You liked Adam once too, and I’m sure he still likes you.’ ‘Apparently lots of girls like Bobby.’ Natalie wrinkled her nose. ‘Why anyone would like my moody brother I don’t know, but they do.’ Florence stared at her fingers folded in her lap. Malia asked, ‘What’s Bobby up to nowadays?’ ‘Apart from working? He’s always out late on his bike, goodness knows where. Grandad wants him to start taking more responsibility on the farm. He’s getting on a bit and Dad’s more interested in managing the accounts.’ Natalie waved her left hand, lifting a finger to show a sparkling diamond. ‘Brandon wants to work on the admin side. Grandad will let us have one of the little cottages when we’re married. Of course, the farmhouse is big enough for Grandad and Grandma and my parents, but Brandon and I want some privacy.’ ‘When are you getting married?’ Malia asked. ‘Next summer, after Brandon finishes his farm management course.’ Natalie leaned forward, excited. ‘I’m choosing a wedding dress already. I love going into Tadderly and Charlbury, looking in the windows of the bridal shops. Hey…’ She grabbed her friends’ hands. ‘Come with me next weekend. It’ll be fun.’ ‘We could…’ Malia glanced at Florence, who smiled half-heartedly. ‘Brandon and I are going to wait a few years before we have kids, though.’ Natalie took a deep breath. ‘Brandon wants three or four. I’m not sure. I look at people who were in our class at school who have had kids, and they look so miserable.’ ‘Not everyone ends up like that,’ Malia said quickly. She reached for Florence’s hand. ‘They do,’ Natalie insisted. ‘Do you remember Chelsea Phillips in our class who was pregnant at sixteen? Her little