you. It is not bravery when a man fights with a woman." He turned to Odukwe, and allowed a brief pause. "Odukwe's body, I greet you," he said. "My hand is on the ground," replied Okukwe. "Do you know me?" "No man can know you," replied Odukwe. "I am Evil Forest, I am Dry-meat-that-fills-the-mouth, I am Fire-that-burns-without-faggots. If your in-law brings wine to you, let your sister go with him. I salute you." He pulled his staff from the hard earth and thrust it back. "Umuofia kwenu!" he roared, and the crowd answered. "I don't know why such a trifle should come before, then said one elder to another. "Don't you know what kind of man Uzowulu is? He will not listen to any other decision," replied the other. As they spoke two other groups of people had replaced the first before the egwugwu, and a great land case began. CHAPTER ELEVEN The night was impenetrably dark. The moon had been rising later and later every night until now it was seen only at dawn. And whenever the moon forsook evening and rose at cock-crow the nights were as black as charcoal. Ezinma and her mother sat on a mat on the floor after their supper of yam foo-foo and bitter-leaf soup. A palm-oil lamp gave out yellowish light. Without it, it would have been impossible to eat,-one could not have known where one's mouth was in the darkness of that night. There was an oil lamp in all the four huts on Okonkwo's compound, and each hut seen from the others looked like a soft eye of yellow half-light set in the solid massiveness of night. The world was silent except for the shrill cry of insects, which was part of the night, and the sound of wooden mortar and pestle as Nwayieke pounded her foo-foo. Nwayieke lived four compounds away, and she was notorious for her late cooking. Every woman in the neighbourhood knew the sound of Nwayieke's mortar and pestle. It was also part of the night. Okonkwo had eaten from his wives' dishes and was now reclining with his back against the wall. He searched his bag and brought out his snuff-bottle. He turned it on to his left palm, but nothing came out. He hit the bottle against his knee to shake up the tobacco. That was always the trouble with Okeke's snuff. It very quickly went damp, and there was too much saltpetre in it. Okonkwo had not bought snuff from him for a long time. Idigo was the man who knew how to grind good snuff. But he had recently fallen ill. Low voices, broken now and again by singing, reached Okonkwo from his wives' huts as each woman and her children told folk stories. Ekwefi and her daughter, Ezinma, sat on a mat on the floor. It was Ekwefi's turn to tell a story. "Once upon a time," she began, "all the birds were invited to a feast in the sky. They were very happy and began to prepare themselves for the great day.


it’s just as nebulous right now— “I am, too,” I say, and the fear is worth it for the way he holds me tighter. If anything could scare me off, it’s how new and fragile and precious this feels. How badly I want this to last beyond the reunion, beyond the book. Tonight feels so beautifully normal that I think I might be able to live in these moments forever. “So this is what life is like with Finnegan Walsh?” I ask. He shakes his head, tightens his grip on my waist. “No. This is better.” chapter twenty-five LOS ANGELES, CA Ethan, Finn, Cooper . . . you three over there. Ladies—Juliana, Hallie, Bree—can I get you on the other couch?” Bree lifts one perfectly penciled eyebrow in exactly the way Sofia was known to do on the show, especially whenever she was pissed at Caleb. “You’re really going to have the guys on one side and the girls on the other?” The director considers this. “New plan,” he says, exasperated. “Everyone sit where they want.” But this doesn’t work, because he wants Juliana and Bree next to each other, since a good chunk of the reunion will focus on their characters’ rivalry. But Ethan and Juliana have to be next to each other, as the show’s central couple, and since Cooper’s Wesley eventually ends up with Bree’s Sofia, they should probably be next to each other, too. Cooper is just standing there grinning at all of it, like as the show’s comic relief, he’s just along for the ride. It goes on like this for twenty more minutes, just configuring the proper seating. Twin black leather couches are posed onstage, an Oakhurst University banner in the school’s colors, silver and deep blue, draped behind them. On my way into the studio, I may have gawked a little at the signs indicating where a number of familiar shows are being filmed, but Finn just strolled right inside with a coffee cup in hand, like this is something he does every day. And I guess it used to be. “Hopefully this won’t be too boring for you,” he said this morning. “Going to a rehearsal for my boyfriend’s show? Not at all.” And he grinned at that, boyfriend. I thought it might be strange, slipping into this domestic moment with him, but what’s strangest is that it felt so incredibly natural: our lazy breakfast, showering together, getting back into his Prius and laughing about how he was so nervous yesterday, he thought his car was the best conversation topic. I assured him I couldn’t possibly be bored by anything Nocturnals-related, but now that I’m here, sitting where the live studio audience will be on the day of the taping, I’m starting to reconsider that statement. Although truthfully, I’d have followed him just about anywhere today. Hallie and Bree greeted me with hugs, though Juliana was still a little distant. I remember what Finn said about her rehab and more than understood why she’d be wary of press. Ethan, though . . . Ethan


their pre-burial coming out the following morning or being preserved prior to costuming for a command performance the day after tomorrow. Even as oppressive as that environment had been, Calaphas acknowledges, because of the place, at the age of seven, he came to understand that a great destiny awaited him. Halloween, back in the day. After a well-rewarded evening of trick-or-treating, he falls into bed exhausted at nine o’clock. He wakes two and a half hours later, insomnolent on a lingering sugar high, still much excited by the paraphernalia of the holiday. Black cats, bats, witches on flying brooms, caped vampires, jack-o’-lanterns with candle-flame eyes, ghosts, ghouls, and monsters in infinite variety! Supernatural threats can cast a strangely romantic thrall upon a boy, especially a boy of his high intelligence and uniquely angled mind. Shortly before bed, an elderly man who died from a massive stroke had been brought from the hospital as Durand and his brother were stuffing themselves with chocolate. Gifford dared Durand to meet at midnight and descend into the basement, to the cold-holding chamber adjacent to the embalming room, to spend the witching hour with the deceased. Forbidden from venturing into that place other than in the company of their father or mother, Durand declined. Because of his refusal, he was mocked by Gifford. Now, awake at eleven thirty, he feels it necessary to prove himself by going into the basement alone. Barefoot and in pajamas, with but a penlight and the ambient glow of the city that pales the windows, carrying a single foil-wrapped Hershey’s Kiss for a special purpose, he makes his way down through the funeral home, into the basement, a realm that always seems vast to him. The cold-holding room—which Gifford sometimes calls the “meat locker” when their parents can’t hear—has a white ceramic-tile floor. In fact everything therein is either white or matte-finished stainless steel. Normally, the room itself isn’t as arctic as it is this night. In one wall, three refrigerated morgue drawers can accommodate quiet and respected guests. Death is busy this Halloween; two drawers contain deliveries. Because the third drawer isn’t functioning properly, the temperature of the chamber itself has been set low enough to cause Durand’s breath to feather from him in frosty plumes. The eighty-five-year-old man, concealed beneath a sheet, is on a gurney in the center of the room. Father and his team of technicians will set to work at 5:00 a.m., and all viewings and funerals will be conducted precisely on schedule. This is a windowless space, and after young Durand closes the door and turns on the overhead fluorescent panels, he switches off his penlight. He is very cold and somewhat uneasy, but he is stone determined to hide the Hershey’s Kiss where his father won’t likely find it, so that tomorrow he can tell Gifford where it is and thus prove he has been here. He opens a cabinet door and drops to his knees and tucks the candy behind bottles of whatever, farther back than anything the embalmers and cosmeticians might need for


what is your purpose?" whispered he. "Wave back that woman! Cast off this child All shall be well! Do not blacken your fame, and perish in dishonour! I can yet save you! Would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?" "Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late!" answered the minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. "Thy power is not what it was! With God's help, I shall escape thee now!" He again extended his hand to the woman of the scarlet letter. "Hester Prynne," cried he, with a piercing earnestness, "in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what-- for my own heavy sin and miserable agony--I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!--with all his own might, and the fiend's! Come, Hester--come! Support me up yonder scaffold." The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and so perplexed as to the purport of what they saw--unable to receive the explanation which most Thesaurus blacken: (v) asperse, bespatter, gruesome, macabre, hideous, under. malign, denigrate, cloud, darken, appalling, atrocious; (adv) snatch: (n, v) pinch, snap, catch, grip; defame, calumniate, stain, libel, gruesomely. ANTONYMS: (adj) (v) abduct, clutch, kidnap, seize, jerk, tarnish. ANTONYMS: (v) respect, wonderful, lovely, attractive, capture, pluck. ANTONYM: (v) compliment, glorify, honor, brighten, delightful. release. praise, lighten. guided: (adj) conducted, directed, led. twine: (n, v) coil; (n) string, rope, cord; forth: (adv) away, along, onward, madman: (n) bedlamite, maniac, crazy, (v) lace, entwine, enlace, meander, ahead, before, on, off, on the high loony, nut, madcap, looney, loco, weave, intertwine, twist. road, on the road, on the way, under sufferer, raver, nutcase. ANTONYMS: (v) untwine, way. nether: (adj) lower, inferior, down, straighten, unwind. ghastly: (adj) awful, fearful, low, chthonic, chthonian, infernal, withheld: (adj) hidden, uncommitted. cadaverous, dreadful, grisly, subjacent, less, lesser; (adj, adv) ANTONYM: (adj) ongoing. 244 The Scarlet Letter readily presented itself, or to imagine any other--that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judgement which Providence seemed about to work. They beheld the minister, leaning on Hester's shoulder, and supported by her arm around him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still the little hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore to be present at its closing scene.% "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret--no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me--save on this very scaffold!" "Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!" answered the minister. Yet he trembled, and turned to


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was Bartleby hot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby. Probably he preferred it should have none. Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable with me. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt strangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit some angry spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor soap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the following little scene ensued: “Bartleby,” said I, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you.” “I would prefer not to.” “How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?” No answer. I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey and Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner— “He says, a second time, he won’t examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?” It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted papers. “Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him!” So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s combativeness after dinner. “Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?” “Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim.” “Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind then—you speak very gently of him now.” “All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of


by its name at night, because it would hear. It was called a string. And so on this particular night as the crier's voice was gradually swallowed up in the distance, silence returned to the world, a vibrant silence made more intense by the universal trill of a million million forest insects. On a moonlight night it would be different. The happy voices of children playing in open fields would then be heard. And perhaps those not so young would be playing in pairs in less open places, and old men and women would remember their youth. As the Ibo say: "When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk." But this particular night was dark and silent. And in all the nine villages of Umuofia a town crier with his ogene asked every man to be present tomorrow morning. Okonkwo on his bamboo bed tried to figure out the nature of the emergency - war with a neighbouring clan? That seemed the most likely reason, and he was not afraid of war. He was a man of action, a man of war. Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood. In Umuofia's latest war he was the first to bring home a human head. That was his fifth head and he was not an old man yet. On great occasions such as the funeral of a village celebrity he drank his palm-wine from his first human head. In the morning the market place was full. There must have been about ten thousand men there, all talking in low voices. At last Ogbuefi Ezeugo stood up in the midst of them and bellowed four times, "Umuofia kwenu," and on each occasion he faced a different direction and seemed to push the air with a clenched fist. And ten thousand men answered "Yaa!" each time. Then there was perfect silence. Ogbuefi Ezeugo was a powerful orator and was always chosen to speak on such occasions. He moved his hand over his white head and stroked his white beard. He then adjusted his cloth, which was passed under his right arm-pit and tied above his left shoulder. "Umuofia kwenu," he bellowed a fifth time, and the crowd yelled in answer. And then suddenly like one possessed he shot out his left hand and pointed in the direction of Mbaino, and said through gleaming white teeth firmly clenched: "Those sons of wild animals have dared to murder a daughter of Umuofia." He threw his head down and gnashed his teeth, and allowed a murmur of suppressed anger to sweep the crowd. When he began again, the anger on his face was gone, and in its place a sort of smile hovered, more terrible and more sinister than the anger. And in a clear unemotional voice he told Umuofia how their daughter had gone to market at Mbaino and had been killed. That woman, said Ezeugo, was the wife of Ogbuefi Udo, and he pointed to a man who sat near him with a bowed head. The crowd then shouted with


was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse, inaccessible though it was to me,as compared with the narrow darkness of the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings. God knows that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place! I looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight till it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed to cheer me. There was peace and comfort in every breath I drew. As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the windows of the Count's own room would look out. The window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and though weatherworn, was still complete. But it was evidently many a day since the case had been there. I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully out. What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had some many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature, is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me. I am in fear, in awful fear, and there is no escape for me. I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of. 15 May.--Once more I have seen the count go out in his lizard fashion. He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down,


not to rest but to get other things done: doctor appointments, washing my hair, immigration office visits when we realized Dad’s visa had expired. Even yesterday saw me cleaning the house and sorting through bills whenever Dad slept. God, I can’t tell Mum I’ve been fired. There exists no greater shame in her mind than forced unemployment. She’d think it was my fault because there’s always a reason someone is fired. What reason do I give her? A missed invite in Katherine’s calendar that I didn’t even accept? She’d never believe me. Understandably. Because aren’t you supposed to get fired for atrocities like sleeping with the married boss, embezzling money or, you know, murder? All that had died in that office was my will to live; all I did was … I’m still not clear on what I did or didn’t do, but I know it didn’t warrant immediate dismissal. I still had my midmorning snack in my bag. Had I even taken my jacket off since I shrugged it on this morning? I shuffle on the spot before heading back into the train station. I sit and wait for the 9:33 A.M. train. I have never gotten on the 9:33 A.M. train. At least the carriages will be empty. Google: What to do when you’ve been fired Shit! You’ve been fired! Here’s what you need to do next: Rejoice—you’re free from the repressing, grinding perpetual cog of capitalism. Search for a new job—you may want to return to the repressing, grinding perpetual cog of capitalism, and that’s okay. It’s never too early or too soon to dust off the old CV and start looking for new jobs. The sooner, the better. Make a claim to the employment tribunal (p.s. it is a faff and it’s unlikely you’ll win the case) and/or submit a grievance—if you have been unjustly fired, this is the best way to stick it to the man who did the firing. Start budgeting—because, let’s face it, you’re broke now, or at least will be once you realize your next paycheck won’t come until after interviews, job acceptance, and a full month of employment. I try a different search result. What to do after you’ve been fired Ask for a written and signed statement explaining your termination Seek unemployment benefits Have faith in yourself and your future I place a damp hand on my forehead to cool it down. A text message rolls down my phone screen from an unsaved number. Hi Maddie. It’s Ben from the other night. How have you been? Ben. Of course this is when he’d decide to text me. Then I remember the flat I’ve just paid the deposit and first month’s rent for. I can’t deal with all of this right now. I switch off my phone and take a deep breath. “Fuck.” I exhale. The man in a suit sitting two seats from me with grease on his tie looks up from his before-10:00 A.M. burger and says, “Same.” Chapter Six Let’s just pause here and take a second to look at


I’m just going to sleep and eat microwaved gluten-free frozen dinners in it? What mental illness is it that makes you buy multiple bottles of wine and a case of mineral water for a place furnished with only two drinking glasses, especially when you don’t even drink wine? What is my fucking damage, Heather??? I thought as I wedged the Pendleton throw blanket I had purchased to make a living room I literally never sat in look like the inside of a special-edition Kinfolk magazine into the back seat next to the angled broom whose cellophane wrapper I hadn’t even had a chance to remove. I tucked paper bags filled with shelf-stable pantry foods (How much chickpea pasta does a person actually need?) into the passenger seat footwell and crossed my fingers that no one would find smashing a car window to steal a discount vase I got from the Crate and Barrel clearance section worth the considerable effort. On that last normal day, Illinois had pretty much shut down as I tentatively piloted my whisper-quiet rental SUV down the winding maze of the deserted parking garage out onto Franklin (empty) and left onto Grand (also startlingly empty) then right on Orleans (okay, scary empty???), past all the barren sidewalks and storefronts. The highway was postapocalyptic horror movie desolate too, which, if we’re keeping it all the way real, was kind of a relief. Pandemic cons? Death, uncertainty, economic collapse, the fall of society. Pandemic pro? Absolutely zero traffic on eastbound I-94 at rush hour on a Wednesday. I’m sorry! I hate merging! But it was also bone-chillingly creepy, speeding down the expressway with seven other cars at 9:00 a.m. on a weekday. I kept waiting for the sky to turn black or zombies to surround the car and drag me out from behind the wheel so they could peel all the flesh off my bones. Does the add-on insurance the salesman talked me into cover destruction by the undead? But none of that happened, just me and a podcast about how social media destroys your brain barreled toward Michigan going ninety miles per hour and hoping not to get pulled over by an infected state trooper. I didn’t want to stop to pee (or poop, can you fucking imagine?) because in those early days, before we knew officially that people couldn’t cough near you or breathe in the same room you were in, avoiding touching your face and singing “Happy Birthday” while you washed your hands was the thing, and no place on this planet is worse for trying to keep bacteria off your goddamn hands than a gas station bathroom some stranger barfed in and pissed all over. I had wanted to get a coffee as big as my head on my way out of town, but I resisted, resigning myself to the two swallows of water it took to get a couple of Advil and an allergy pill down my throat so I could make the two-plus-hours drive back to Michigan without stopping. An hour into the trip my


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

into bed was he free to think about it: the invisibility cloak and whoever had sent it. Ron, full of turkey and cake and with nothing mysterious to bother him, fell asleep almost as soon as he'd drawn the curtains of his four-poster. Harry leaned over the side of his own bed and pulled the cloak out from under it. His father's...this had been his father's. He let the material flow over his hands, smoother than silk, light as air. Use it well, the note had said. He had to try it, now. He slipped out of bed and wrapped the cloak around himself. Looking down at his legs, he saw only moonlight and shadows. It was a very funny feeling. Use it well. Suddenly, Harry felt wide-awake. The whole of Hogwarts was open to him in this cloak. Excitement flooded through him as he stood there in the dark and silence. He could go anywhere in this, anywhere, and Filch would never know. Ron grunted in his sleep. Should Harry wake him? Something held him back -- his father's cloak -- he felt that this time -- the first time -- he wanted to use it alone. He crept out of the dormitory, down the stairs, across the common room, and climbed through the portrait hole. "Who's there?" squawked the Fat Lady. Harry said nothing. He walked quickly down the corridor. Where should he go? He stopped, his heart racing, and thought. And then it came to him. The Restricted Section in the library. He'd be able to read as long as he liked, as long as it took to find out who Flamel was. He set off, drawing the invisibility cloak tight around him as he walked. The library was pitch-black and very eerie. Harry lit a lamp to see his way along the rows of books. The lamp looked as if it was floating along in midair, and even though Harry could feel his arm supporting it, the sight gave him the creeps. The Restricted Section was right at the back of the library. Stepping carefully over the rope that separated these books from the rest of the library, he held up his lamp to read the titles. They didn't tell him much. Their peeling, faded gold letters spelled words in languages Harry couldn't understand. Some had no title at all. One book had a dark stain on it that looked horribly like blood. The hairs on the back of Harry's neck prickled. Maybe he was imagining it, maybe not, but he thought a faint whispering was coming from the books, as though they knew someone was there who shouldn't be. He had to start somewhere. Setting the lamp down carefully on the floor, he looked along the bottom shelf for an interesting-looking book. A large black and silver volume caught his eye. He pulled it out with difficulty, because it was very heavy, and, balancing it on his knee, let it fall open. A piercing, bloodcurdling shriek split the silence -- the book was screaming! Harry snapped it


didn’t recognize. Probably a couple of VIPs who were getting a backstage tour. She hadn’t slept at all the night before, mulling over her father’s devastating revelations. Had Lucille been so bored with her life as a mother that she had been willing to leave Judy and Marion behind? Or maybe her passion for theater was so overwhelming that she was prepared to abandon the two daughters who loved her. Or even worse, perhaps Marion and Judy weren’t good enough, smart enough, or entertaining enough to make her stick around? The image of Lucille that Marion had nurtured all these years—a kind, patient, loving woman who laughed at her daughters’ antics and held them when they cried—had not been that at all. It had all been an act. Which meant all those times that Marion had come into the kitchen to find her mother staring into space, a cup of tea cooling on the table in front of her, and assumed she was content and peaceful, enjoying a quiet moment while her children played upstairs, may, in fact, have been something completely different: a bored, angry woman making plans to escape the dreary life around her. In a way, Marion was glad Judy had never known the truth, that she had died thinking the Brooks family was a happy one. Although it would have been nice to be able to share the pain of Lucille’s rejection with her sister. Before she’d come to rehearsal, Marion had called the house and burst into tears the minute Mrs. Hornsby picked up. “Is it true?” she’d asked. Mrs. Hornsby had patiently waited until Marion was able to repeat what her father had told her. Marion had prayed he had been lying as a way to break Lucille’s hold on her. But Mrs. Hornsby didn’t deny it. “She loved you both,” she said right off. “After Judy was born, your mother did some local community theater—she tried to keep her hand in acting—but once you came along, your father insisted she give it all up. He’s a fine man, Mr. Brooks, but he has certain way of looking at the world. It comes from his upbringing, where women remained in the home their entire lives.” Marion understood that. The streets her father grew up on were dangerous; women didn’t dare venture out alone after dark. It was a different era. “What happened? Why did she leave when she did?” “When your mother came to me, she was at her wit’s end. As far as I remember, she’d been asked to take the leading role in a play. Your father wouldn’t have it, but she was determined to go anyway. She asked if I’d step up and be ready to take care of you both while she was in Boston. It was temporary, as far as I understood it.” Temporary. Was that true, or had Lucille said that as a way of making a quick escape? They’d never know. Mrs. Hornsby continued. “Your father told everyone that Lucille was visiting a sick friend and insisted I do


say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don't know whether it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax-candles, but she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark was never gayer than that excellent woman. I suppose - I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose - that Mrs. Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at that point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without: besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over it, as if if had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen fireplace. But we were not in condition to judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the 'young gal' had dropped it all upon the stairs - where it remained, by the by, in a long train, until it was worn out. The pigeon-pie was not bad, but it was a delusive pie: the crust being like a disappointing head, phrenologically speaking: full of lumps and bumps, with nothing particular underneath. In short, the banquet was such a failure that I should have been quite unhappy - about the failure, I mean, for I was always unhappy about Dora - if I had not been relieved by the great good humour of my company, and by a bright suggestion from Mr. Micawber. 'My dear friend Copperfield,' said Mr. Micawber, 'accidents will occur in the best-regulated families; and in families not regulated by that pervading influence which sanctifies while it enhances the - a - I would say, in short, by the influence of Woman, in the lofty character of Wife, they may be expected with confidence, and must be borne with philosophy. If you will allow me to take the liberty of remarking that there are few comestibles better, in their way, than a Devil, and that I believe, with a little division of labour, we could accomplish a good one if the young person in attendance could produce a gridiron, I would put it to you, that this little misfortune may be easily repaired.' There was a gridiron in the pantry, on which my morning rasher of bacon was cooked. We had it in, in a twinkling, and immediately applied ourselves to carrying Mr. Micawber's idea into effect. The division of labour to which he had referred was this: - Traddles cut the mutton into slices; Mr. Micawber (who could do anything of this sort to


“when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you.” “I would prefer not to.” “How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?” No answer. I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey and Nippers, exclaimed in an excited manner— “He says, a second time, he won’t examine his papers. What do you think of it, Turkey?” It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass boiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blotted papers. “Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his screen, and black his eyes for him!” So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic position. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I detained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s combativeness after dinner. “Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do you think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately dismissing Bartleby?” “Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing whim.” “Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind then—you speak very gently of him now.” “All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I dined together to-day. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?” “You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey,” I replied; “pray, put up your fists.” I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt additional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled against again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office. “Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minute walk,) and see if there is any thing for me.” “I would prefer not to.” “You will not?” “I prefer not.” I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind inveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure myself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?—my hired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he will be sure to refuse to do? “Bartleby!” No answer. “Bartleby,” in a louder tone. No answer. “Bartleby,” I roared. Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage. “Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me.” “I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared. “Very good, Bartleby,” said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severe self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended something of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on


up at Hawat. "This is clearly a time for water decision. Both wounded and unwounded must look to the tribe's future." The tribe's future, Hawat thought. The tribe of Atreides. There's sense in that. He forced himself to the question he had been avoiding. "Have you word of my Duke or his son?" Unreadable blue eyes stared upward into Hawat's. "Word?" "Their fate!" Hawat snapped. "Fate is the same for everyone," the Fremen said. "Your Duke, it is said, has met his fate. As to the Lisan al-Gaib, his son, that is in Liet's hands. Liet has not said." I knew the answer without asking, Hawat thought. He glanced back at his men. They were all awake now. They had heard. They were staring out across the sand, the realization in their expressions: there was no returning to Caladan for them, and now Arrakis was lost. Hawat turned back to the Fremen. "Have you heard of Duncan Idaho?" "He was in the great house when the shield went down," the Fremen said. "This I've heard . . . no more." She dropped the shield and let in the Harkonnens, he thought. I was the one who sat with my back to a door. How could she do this when it meant turning also against her own son? But . . . who knows how a Bene Gesserit witch thinks . . . if you can call it thinking? Hawat tried to swallow in a dry throat. "When will you hear about the boy?" "We know little of what happens in Arrakeen," the Fremen said. He shrugged. "Who knows?" "You have ways of finding out?" "Perhaps." The Fremen rubbed at the scar beside his nose. "Tell me, Thufir Hawat, do you have knowledge of the big weapons the Harkonnens used?" The artillery, Hawat thought bitterly. Who could have guessed they'd use artillery in this day of shields? "You refer to the artillery they used to trap our people in the caves," he said. "I've . . . theoretical knowledge of such explosive weapons." "Any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die," the Fremen said. "Why do you ask about these weapons?" "Liet wishes it." Is that what he wants from us? Hawat wondered. He said: "Did you come here seeking information about the big guns?" "Liet wished to see one of the weapons for himself." "Then you should just go take one," Hawat sneered. "Yes," the Fremen said. "We took one. We have it hidden where Stilgar can study it for Liet and where Liet can see it for himself if he wishes. But I doubt he'll want to: the weapon is not a very good one. Poor design for Arrakis." "You . . . took one?" Hawat asked. "It was a good fight," the Fremen said. "We lost only two men and spilled the water from more than a hundred of theirs." There were Sardaukar at every gun, Hawat thought. This desert madman speaks casually of losing only two men against Sardaukar! "We would not


thought my mother was sorry to see me standing in the room so scared and strange, and that, presently, when I stole to a chair, she followed me with her eyes more sorrowfully still - missing, perhaps, some freedom in my childish tread - but the word was not spoken, and the time for it was gone. We dined alone, we three together. He seemed to be very fond of my mother - I am afraid I liked him none the better for that - and she was very fond of him. I gathered from what they said, that an elder sister of his was coming to stay with them, and that she was expected that evening. I am not certain whether I found out then, or afterwards, that, without being actively concerned in any business, he had some share in, or some annual charge upon the profits of, a wine-merchant's house in London, with which his family had been connected from his great-grandfather's time, and in which his sister had a similar interest; but I may mention it in this place, whether or no. After dinner, when we were sitting by the fire, and I was meditating an escape to Peggotty without having the hardihood to slip away, lest it should offend the master of the house, a coach drove up to the garden-gate and he went out to receive the visitor. My mother followed him. I was timidly following her, when she turned round at the parlour door, in the dusk, and taking me in her embrace as she had been used to do, whispered me to love my new father and be obedient to him. She did this hurriedly and secretly, as if it were wrong, but tenderly; and, putting out her hand behind her, held mine in it, until we came near to where he was standing in the garden, where she let mine go, and drew hers through his arm. It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was; dark, like her brother, whom she greatly resembled in face and voice; and with very heavy eyebrows, nearly meeting over her large nose, as if, being disabled by the wrongs of her sex from wearing whiskers, she had carried them to that account. She brought with her two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was. She was brought into the parlour with many tokens of welcome, and there formally recognized my mother as a new and near relation. Then she looked at me, and said: 'Is that your boy, sister-in-law?' My mother acknowledged me. 'Generally speaking,' said Miss Murdstone, 'I don't like boys. How d'ye do, boy?' Under these


feelings for her. That he loved her and was powerless to do anything but help her succeed. Not because of her family’s influence with the local loan officer. She’d be totally fine with that and wouldn’t kick his nut sack at all. A pause lingered between them, a line popping up between her brows. She took a final look at the phone—he’d lied and she knew it. Fix it before you cross the line of no return. Having her suspicious of him was worse than weathering a little anger, right? “Natalie, I have to tell—” “I’m going to New York,” she blurted. “In five days.” “What?” Without answering, she turned and slammed the door, leaving him panting out in the cold, his breath forming clouds of condensation around his face. Did that just happen? What was happening? He’d been eating her out less than six fucking hours ago. Now apparently he wasn’t the only thing going south. Their short-lived, unspoken truce was joining him. “Natalie,” he growled through his teeth, storming into the house behind her. Just in time to watch her disappear into her bedroom, the white sheet trailing behind her on the ground. The cat pounced on the dragging linen, wrestling with it briefly before shooting off into the darkness. “Come back here.” He tried the handle, expecting to find it locked, and he wasn’t disappointed. “Open the door.” “Why?” she called through the heavy wood. “You can’t just drop a bomb like ‘I’m going to New York’ and strut away.” “Oh, I’m the one who struts, bicep flexer?” “That’s fair.” He laid his hands flat on the door, willing it to dissolve. “I’m sorry for implying that you don’t know how to cook.” “I don’t,” he thought he heard her say, very quietly. And that tiny admission set his throat on fire. “Natalie, please. I just want to talk.” No response. She’s not angry about the cooking joke, fuckwit. She’s locked you out because you lied and she’s more than smart enough to see through it. “I was on the phone with my CO.” August scrambled to open the call log, got down on his knees, and slid his phone under her door. “We’re both early risers.” The longer the silence stretched, the more he wanted to bang his head against the door. But finally, there was a low creak of the floorboards in the bedroom, a shifting of shadows. He exhaled inaudibly and closed his eyes, the pressure ebbing slightly from his chest. He needed to tell her the rest. Confess why his CO had called. But he needed to clear up one thing first. “Did you think I was on the phone with another woman or something?” That would be the day. Other women might as well be invisible since he’d met this one. “No,” she said right away, and he relaxed his shoulders. “I didn’t think that.” He dropped his forehead against the door. “Good.” “Although technically . . . we’re only married on paper. I-I guess you’re allowed, right?” His shoulders bunched right back up,


is going to have the best time,” Mary Stuart agreed. “Do you ever think about what our lives would have been like if we hadn’t all been in the Songbird Cabin together?” I asked. “I loved you guys right away,” Daphne said. She smiled at me, and I knew then I had all but forgiven her. Daphne was always there for me, even from that first day we held hands and ran through the open field to feed the Holly Springs horses. I had no idea then that she and I would become family, that I would protect her in ways I couldn’t even dream of. She would have—and had—done the same for me. It wasn’t her fault her job prevented her from telling me everything about my fiancé. “If we die out here tonight,” I said, ninety-five percent joking, “I want you two to know that having you as my best friends has been the highlight of my life.” “I agree,” Daphne said. “You two have gotten me through all the hard stuff.” “We always will.” I looked out toward the riverbank, and, from the direction of Rock Springs, I could swear a boat was heading in our direction. “Is that a—” “Ah! It’s a boat!” Mary Stuart exclaimed. We all started waving with both arms as it approached. “Finally,” Daphne said, sighing. I realized how worried she had been. “At least they can radio Sea Tow or something. How did that damn wind die down so quickly?” “It’s fine,” Mary Stuart said. “It wasn’t your fault.” “It was a memorable start to my bachelorette party,” I said. “No harm, no foul.” As the boat came into view, I blinked and then blinked again. It was like déjà vu. “I’m hallucinating,” I said. It was close enough that we could hear the engine of one of Rock Springs’s twenty-five-horsepower Scouts. “You are not hallucinating,” Mary Stuart said. “Unless we both are.” Daphne squinted and then burst out laughing. “It can’t be,” I whispered. “And yet it is,” Mary Stuart said. “Did you orchestrate this, you psycho?” I hissed. Daphne laughed ironically. “Are you serious? Don’t you think if I had orchestrated this, I would have had him arrive a long time ago?” “This isn’t exactly the boat stripper I had planned,” Mary Stuart chimed in. “Is this the sign of which you speak?” Daphne asked pointedly. I wanted to say no. I wanted to tell her she was crazy. But as Rich McNabb caught the mast line that Daphne threw, wrapped it around the Scout’s cleat to tow us in, and said, “Ladies, we have got to stop meeting like this,” I was completely speechless. Rich was here. My heart was beating out of my chest. And, just like all those years ago when we were kids at camp, I couldn’t deny that, at first glance, I was completely smitten. * * * Mary Stuart, Daphne, and I were the counselors for the youngest girls, the Songbirds we’d once been, the summer after our senior year of high school. We had


to support my spirits. I love you very tenderly. Remember me with affection, should you never hear from me again. Your affectionate brother, Robert Walton Letter 3 To Mrs. Saville, England July 7th, 17- My dear Sister, I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe--and well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good spirits: my men are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We have already reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales, which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not expected. No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a letter. One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record, and I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage. Adieu, my dear Margaret. Be assured that for my own sake, as well as yours, I will not rashly encounter danger. I will be cool, persevering, and prudent. But success SHALL crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man? My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But must finish. Heaven bless my beloved sister! R.W. Letter 4 To Mrs. Saville, England August 5th, 17- So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before these papers can come into your possession. Last Monday (July 3lst) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather. About two o'clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a being which had


was everywhere, in her bones and liver and lungs. But it had started in her left breast. 9 Early the next morning, before they were due in court, I met for practice testimony with two of the assistant defense counsel in the “Blue Ballroom” of the Calvin Inn—a room that resembled a ballroom only in size. Its blueness came from an elaborate paisley carpet that must have camouflaged a few decades of stains. They’d pushed banquet tables together, and we sat on padded white-and-gold chairs with high backs, ones clearly meant for weddings. We’d originally thought I might testify that afternoon, but the state was taking far more time than anticipated to cross-examine each witness, and now it was likely I’d go late tomorrow. More time to second-guess every word I planned to say. Britt would take the stand today, I knew from Alder’s texts, and speak to the discovery of the blood evidence. I’d told Alder he could let me know who was testifying, as long as he didn’t report what they said. He was also allowed to tell how the judge seemed (Looks like a serious dude who’s secretly a fun grandpa, Alder wrote, unhelpfully. Wish I could read his mindddd) and how Omar was doing (Hard to tell. He’s not supposed to react . . .), but I’d get to see both those things for myself soon. “Amy wanted me to remind you about sequestration,” the younger attorney, Hector, said. I cringed, assuming I was in trouble, but he handed me a sheet from a pile, one with the judge’s orders typed out in bullet points. It wasn’t personal. “It’s a small town,” he said, “so it’ll be hard, but just don’t do anything that would look bad, okay?” Hector was right out of law school, with a trace of what I’d learned was a Colombian accent, and pained, intelligent eyes. He came across as nervous in person as he had on Zoom, every sentence quavering out like he was onstage and hated public speaking. The older one, Liz, looked like Lisa Kudrow. Liz, who would be playing Amy for the session, launched right in. Hector recorded everything on his phone for Amy to review later. Easy questions first: my name, my job, the dates I attended Granby, the dates I roomed with Thalia. Then some tougher ones about my time on campus in 2018, my role in the podcast, my role in the discovery of the blood. Then: “Defense Exhibit 58 is this Granby planner for the 1993 to 1994 school year. Do you recognize this planner?” In this instance it was only a thin stack of colored Xeroxes, but I nodded, then remembered to say “yes.” I explained the color-coding system; it was good for me to practice aloud. We went through the ’94–’95 planner next, me offering my interpretation. Which was still, I knew, just an interpretation. Liz asked, “Do you have knowledge of anyone Thalia Keith had sexual relations with, aside from her boyfriend, Robbie Serenho?” “I had, and still have, strong reason to believe


the kind of person who’d seen it all. Standing with one arm folded and a cigarette held in a limp hand, she looked as though nothing would surprise her. I envied people like that. If there was a nuclear explosion right now with bricks and mortar falling around our ears, Nora would probably still be stood there with her cigarette, rollers in her hair, wondering who’d made that racket and then getting on with frying some eggs for tea. ‘No thanks, Nora. I ate pie and chips at the pub.’ I had never met anyone so concerned with my diet and most of our conversations ended with anxiety over my weight – there generally being not enough of it for her liking. ‘Oh good, that’ll stick to your ribs.’ She nodded approvingly. ‘And you’ll have the full Irish in the morning,’ she told me, in no uncertain terms. I nodded politely and began heading up the stairs to my room with the frilly curtains and shiny bedspread, but despite the decor, the house had felt immediately like home. Not my home, of course. But the concept of being at home. Perhaps it was Nora’s way of making you feel as though she’d known you for years. As though you were part of the family, which, from what I could tell, consisted of three Jack Russells and a husband called Barry who remained safely out of sight. ‘He lives in that shed,’ she’d said, as she showed me the shared bathroom on my first night, replete with an avocado suite. The sound of a hammer hitting wood had echoed up from the backyard. ‘If I could just get him to sleep out there,’ she had said, with an indulgent sigh. ‘There’s a letter for you by the way,’ she said now, fishing it out of a pocket in the front of her apron. ‘From the council. Looks official. I didn’t read it,’ she added hastily, confirming that she had. Chapter Four OPALINE As the gangplanks were lifted and handkerchiefs fluttered in the air, my heart was a mix of excitement and trepidation. Having spent a cold and sleepless night on a mail train to Dover, I had countless hours to question the wisdom of my decision to escape to France. There was just enough time to send a telegram to Jane and I bitterly regretted not having the chance to say a proper goodbye to the one person I would miss. I knew not what lay ahead of me, but was keenly aware of what I was leaving behind. My mother would doubtless be distressed at my departure, if not for the loss of a daughter, then surely for the gossip and notoriety that would befall our family name. I was bringing shame to them both, but I had no choice. It was their pride or my future and I could not, would not, sacrifice myself on the altar of their expectations. I had enough schooling to get by, or so I thought, and would soon realise that the university of life was


and rose to his feet before offering his hand to help her up. “I thought everyone learned to skip stones as a child,” he said. “Not everyone grows up in a life of leisure,” she replied. “Our lands struggled too much to give us an adequate income, so I worked alongside my father from the day I was old enough to use a needle and thread, using any free time I had to study everything I needed to know to be a proper lady should I catch the eye of a suitor later in life. And I didn’t have a pond to practice skipping stones on. But I heard other children talk about it, and it sounded amusing.” Though he winced with appreciated sympathy and apology for forgetting their very different positions in life, Lucy hadn’t intended to make him pity her. They were out here to help him, so she bent down and picked up the roundest pebble she could find. “Not that one,” Simon said immediately, and he wrapped his hand around hers, holding onto her while he searched for a better rock. When he found one, he replaced the one in her palm with an exceptionally flat one. “The thinner the stone, the easier it skims the water.” Grabbing a similar stone, he turned with his left side facing the pond and tossed the rock across the water. It skipped three times before it slid beneath the surface. Well, that didn’t look so difficult. Mimicking his stance, Lucy did the same motion and threw her own rock, only hers went straight into the water with a plunk. Simon chuckled as he picked up another stone. “Hold it like this,” he said, demonstrating the way he curled his finger around the edge. “Use your wrist and throw it as flat as you can.” Her second attempt was worse than the first, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Perhaps I am not meant to skip them,” she said with a grin. “Try one more time.” This time, instead of demonstrating, he stepped behind her and put a hand on her elbow. “Get a little closer to the water.” He guided her directly to the edge of the water, and though it was a bit muddy in that spot, he didn’t seem to mind in the least. She would have expected him to at least grimace at the state of his boots, but he didn’t give them a passing glance. The differences between him and Mr. Granger were growing by the minute. Even if Lucy had no reason to compare the two of them. It wasn’t as if Simon wanted to marry her. “Keep your movement low,” he instructed as he guided her through the action, though she was a bit distracted by his soft voice in her ear. “Think of it as the rock flying from your fingers, not falling, and aim for the far shore.” With Simon standing so close that she could smell him again—he smelled clean, masculine—Lucy tried one more time to skip her rock, throwing it exactly


home, my mother had said playfully, "I have a pretty present for my Victor--tomorrow he shall have it." And when, on the morrow, she presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine--mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me--my more than sister, since till death she was to be mine only. Chapter 2 We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home --the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of our Alpine summers--she found ample scope for admiration and delight. While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the earliest sensations I can remember. On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who


and gave the word of command to open the door. Brittles obeyed; the group, peeping timourously over each other's shoulders, beheld no more formidable object than poor little Oliver Twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes, and mutely solicited their compassion. 'A boy!' exclaimed Mr. Giles, valiantly, pushing the tinker into the background. 'What's the matter with the--eh?--Why--Brittles--look here--don't you know?' Brittles, who had got behind the door to open it, no sooner saw Oliver, than he uttered a loud cry. Mr. Giles, seizing the boy by one leg and one arm (fortunately not the broken limb) lugged him straight into the hall, and deposited him at full length on the floor thereof. 'Here he is!' bawled Giles, calling in a state of great excitement, up the staircase; 'here's one of the thieves, ma'am! Here's a thief, miss! Wounded, miss! I shot him, miss; and Brittles held the light.' '--In a lantern, miss,' cried Brittles, applying one hand to the side of his mouth, so that his voice might travel the better. The two women-servants ran upstairs to carry the intelligence that Mr. Giles had captured a robber; and the tinker busied himself in endeavouring to restore Oliver, lest he should die before he could be hanged. In the midst of all this noise and commotion, there was heard a sweet female voice, which quelled it in an instant. 'Giles!' whispered the voice from the stair-head. 'I'm here, miss,' replied Mr. Giles. 'Don't be frightened, miss; I ain't much injured. He didn't make a very desperate resistance, miss! I was soon too many for him.' 'Hush!' replied the young lady; 'you frighten my aunt as much as the thieves did. Is the poor creature much hurt?' 'Wounded desperate, miss,' replied Giles, with indescribable complacency. 'He looks as if he was a-going, miss,' bawled Brittles, in the same manner as before. 'Wouldn't you like to come and look at him, miss, in case he should?' 'Hush, pray; there's a good man!' rejoined the lady. 'Wait quietly only one instant, while I speak to aunt.' With a footstep as soft and gentle as the voice, the speaker tripped away. She soon returned, with the direction that the wounded person was to be carried, carefully, upstairs to Mr. Giles's room; and that Brittles was to saddle the pony and betake himself instantly to Chertsey: from which place, he was to despatch, with all speed, a constable and doctor. 'But won't you take one look at him, first, miss?' asked Mr. Giles, with as much pride as if Oliver were some bird of rare plumage, that he had skilfully brought down. 'Not one little peep, miss?' 'Not now, for the world,' replied the young lady. 'Poor fellow! Oh! treat him kindly, Giles for my sake!' The old servant looked up at the speaker, as she turned away, with a glance as proud and admiring as if she had been his own child. Then, bending over Oliver, he helped to carry him upstairs, with the care and solicitude of a woman. CHAPTER XXIX HAS AN


Dunstan sell his horse for him. That way he can go to a party where he'll see Nancy, and avoid the town where Molly lives. After all his soul-searching, he lets his mind slide back into bad habits and heads for the pub. Eliot shows his growing hardness as he pushes his dog aside. The dog follows him, however, because she's too dumb to assert herself--just like Godfrey. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 4 You enter Dunstan's thoughts as he rides Wildfire to the hunt the next morning. Passing Silas' cottage, he remembers village rumors about the weaver's hoard of money and considers getting Godfrey to borrow money from Silas. These are idle thoughts, such as you might have about anybody when you drive past that person's house. Nevertheless, Eliot told you at the end of Chapter 2 that a change was coming in Silas' life, so now you should be on guard. Dunstan doesn't think the plan through, but the idea is planted in his mind. He decides to go on and sell Wildfire, though, for the fun of horse-trading and of hurting Godfrey. Notice that Dunstan's motives are all negative. At the hunt, he lies for the sake of lying. The other men, Bryce and Keating, however, understand what Dunstan's up to--they don't seem any better than he is. Maybe his vices are typical of this social class. Do you think Dunsey's an interesting Villain? Why? Dunstan wangles a high price for the horse, as he expected. But this good luck goes to his head. He doesn't do the sensible thing, which would be to deliver the horse safely right away. Instead, he takes Wildfire on the hunt. When he falls behind the other hunters, he rides recklessly. He pushes the horse to jump over a hedge, and Wildfire falls onto a sharp stake. The horse is killed, yet Dunstan doesn't even seem upset about this accident--he's just glad that no one was watching. He doesn't reflect that his luck has turned bad, or that he's to blame. All of his reasoning centers on what he can do next. He figures Godfrey won't be too angry because Dunstan has another plan--borrowing money from Silas--to offer him. He'd like to rent another horse to ride home, but since he hasn't got enough money, he convinces himself that it's a shorter route to go straight home. With a cocky air, he sets off, thinking about how he'll make people at the pub admire him when he boasts of how he walked all the way home. NOTE: WEATHER Notice the mist gathering here. It may remind you of scenes in movies in which swirling mist creates a sense of imminent danger. The mist in this chapter, however, also symbolizes Dunstan's confused sense of right and wrong. Eliot often uses weather to express a moral environment. This chapter, for example, started on a cold, wet morning, attuned to Dunstan's malicious mind. Watch the role that weather plays as the story moves on. Typically, Dunstan still thinks he's a lucky fellow, just because he's getting home


as my dress, but Portia’s put him in long black pants. No sandals, ei- 354 ther, but a pair of sturdy black boots he keeps solidly planted on the stage. I wish Cinna had given me a similar outfit, I feel so vulnerable in this flimsy dress. But I guess that was the point. Caesar Flickerman makes a few more jokes, and then it’s time for the show. This will last exactly three hours and is re- quired viewing for all of Panem. As the lights dim and the seal appears on the screen, I realize I’m unprepared for this. I do not want to watch my twenty-two fellow tributes die. I saw enough of them die the first time. My heart starts pounding and I have a strong impulse to run. How have the other victors faced this alone? During the highlights, they periodically show the winner’s reaction up on a box in the corner of the screen. I think back to earlier years . . . some are triumphant, pumping their fists in the air, beating their chests. Most just seem stunned. All I know is that the only thing keeping me on this love seat is Peeta — his arm around my shoulder, his other hand claimed by both of mine. Of course, the previous victors didn’t have the Capitol looking for a way to destroy them. Condensing several weeks into three hours is quite a feat, especially when you consider how many cameras were going at once. Whoever puts together the highlights has to choose what sort of story to tell. This year, for the first time, they tell a love story. I know Peeta and I won, but a disproportionate amount of time is spent on us, right from the beginning. I’m glad though, because it supports the whole crazy-in-love thing that’s my defense for defying the Capitol, plus it means we won’t have as much time to linger over the deaths. 355 The first half hour or so focuses on the pre-arena events, the reaping, the chariot ride through the Capitol, our training scores, and our interviews. There’s this sort of upbeat soundtrack playing under it that makes it twice as awful be- cause, of course, almost everyone on-screen is dead. Once we’re in the arena, there’s detailed coverage of the bloodbath and then the filmmakers basically alternate be- tween shots of tributes dying and shots of us. Mostly Peeta re- ally, there’s no question he’s carrying this romance thing on his shoulders. Now I see what the audience saw, how he misled the Careers about me, stayed awake the entire night under the tracker jacker tree, fought Cato to let me escape and even while he lay in that mud bank, whispered my name in his sleep. I seem heartless in comparison — dodging fireballs, dropping nests, and blowing up supplies — until I go hunting for Rue. They play her death in full, the spearing, my failed rescue attempt, my arrow through the boy from District 1’s throat, Rue drawing her last breath in


her, the blood picked up speed, hiding everything else from sight. And Io felt, in her chest, something ripping. Like a ship’s sail against a gale or a page snatched from a book. Like a life-thread severing. “I told you, little cutter,” Bianca hissed, “what happens to crowing roosters.” Their larynxes torn out to hang like a chicken’s wattle. Desperately, Io swiped at Bianca with a fist, but the woman was faster. Bianca maneuvered her arms behind her back; the red plumed brighter, coming for Io’s face. Io felt—Io knew—this was it. Bianca would force that blood-red wind inside her lungs and use her as a serrated knife. Was this how the wraiths had been made? Death poured in their chests, little by little, until they screamed for release? Their remnants manipulated like the strings of a puppet to do Bianca’s bidding? Bianca’s killing? The particles sneaked into Io’s nostrils, her mouth, her eyes. A freezing cold, a hand on her cheek, a scream—Io was jerked awake. * * * The giant, round bed was drenched. Drops lingered on Io’s skin and hair as she came upright, gasping for air. Her robe had opened, the wet nightgown sticking to her chest. Rosa was standing over the bed, a pitcher hanging empty in one hand. The moment she noticed Io’s eyes were open, she breathed a sigh of relief, dragged Io up, and backed them both against the wall. Her eyes bulged with fear. Room number eight of the Mister Hypnos dream palace was in chaos. Officers were coming in, pointing their guns at Io and Rosa first, then at the struggling bodies on the bed. Three figures wrestled on the silk coverlets: Edei, Bianca, and . . . Aris Lefteriou. Next to Io, her friend was shaking uncontrollably. “Rosa, are you all right?” “He—gods.” Rosa was trembling. “He barged in, forced me to put him in Bianca’s dream. I don’t know what you guys were seeing, but moments after he joined you, you all started convulsing, eyes rolling back. I couldn’t wake you. I had to—” She raised the pitcher. She had to jolt them awake with the freezing water. “Lefteriou woke first and gave out some call. I guess the other cops must have been waiting in the corridor outside the room, because next thing I knew they were breaking down the door and—shit!” Io glimpsed the shimmer of a gun raised to the ceiling. A shot followed, cracking through their skulls. Everyone in the room froze, Edei and Aris and Bianca in a tangled mess on the bed. At the door stood Luc Saint-Yves, his arm still raised. A lit cigar hung from his mouth, curling smoke into the room. The Police Commissioner’s gaze slid to Io. “We had an inkling you might be planning something, dear sister-in-law, so we sent Aris to follow you. I hope you don’t mind. It looks like we arrived just in time.” He leveled the gun at Bianca’s head. “Arrest her.” The officers sprang into action, removing Edei and Aris Lefteriou from the bed


you there with me.” “But Alex got us out,” Turner said. Alex shifted in her seat. “And left the door open for our demons to follow us through.” “I don’t understand,” Dawes said. “Why are there no warnings about the Gauntlet in the Lethe library? Why are there no records of its construction, of what happened to the first pilgrims who walked it, of Lionel Reiter?” “I don’t know,” Darlington admitted. “It wouldn’t be the first cover-up in Lethe’s history.” Alex met Dawes’s gaze. They knew that well enough. Lethe’s members, its board, the few in the Yale administration who knew the true occupation of the secret societies, had a long history of sweeping all kinds of atrocities under the rug. Magical casualties, mysterious power outages, strange disappearances, the map in the Peabody basement. Everyone had believed Daniel Arlington was in Spain for most of last semester, and almost no one knew Elliot Sandow had turned out to be a murderer. There were no consequences, not if you just kept finding new places to bury your mistakes. Mercy had set her red notebook next to her soup bowl and she was drawing a series of concentric circles in it. “So they covered it up. But Lionel Reiter became a vampire. We don’t even know what happened to the other pilgrims or their sentinel. Why leave the Gauntlet intact if they knew how dangerous it was?” There was silence then, because no one had the answer, but they all knew the truth couldn’t be good. Something had gone wrong on that first journey, something bad enough that the Gauntlet had been wiped from the books and Rudolph Kittscher’s diary had been hidden or destroyed. It might just be that Reiter had been followed by a demon, that Lethe was responsible for creating a vampire. But then why not hunt him? Why leave him to prey on innocent people for nearly a hundred years? “Could I go alone?” Alex asked. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to do it. But they might be down one pilgrim, and the longer they waited, the worse it was going to get. “I don’t need the Gauntlet. Why can’t I just walk back through that circle and find some way to drag our demons with me?” “That’s awfully self-sacrificing,” said Turner. He glanced at Darlington. “She fall on her head?” “I’m not doing it to play hero,” Alex said sourly. “But I already got Tripp killed.” “You don’t know that,” protested Dawes. “I can make an educated guess.” She hoped it wasn’t true. She hoped Tripp was safely tucked away in his fancy loft apartment, eating bowls of vegan chili, but she doubted that was the case. “I roped him into this, and there’s a good chance he’s not coming back from it.” “You can’t just walk in by yourself,” said Darlington. “You might pull your own demon with you, but you’ll all have to go through to get rid of the others.” “What about Spenser?” Mercy asked. “Uh … Not Spenser, Tripp’s demon?” “If


way--never to be an old woman- -but then--always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't like THAT!' `Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself. `How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no room at all for any lesson-books!' And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. `Mary Ann! Mary Ann!' said the voice. `Fetch me my gloves this moment!' Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself `Then I'll go round and get in at the window.' `THAT you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--`Pat! Pat! Where are you?' And then a voice she had never heard before, `Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honour!' `Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily. `Here! Come and help me out of THIS!' (Sounds of more broken glass.) `Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?' `Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!' (He pronounced it `arrum.') `An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window!' `Sure, it does, yer honour: but it's an arm for all that.' `Well, it's got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!' There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then; such as, `Sure, I don't like it, yer honour, at all, at all!' `Do as I tell you, you coward!' and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. `What a number of cucumber-frames there must be!' thought Alice. `I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they COULD! I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any longer!' She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voice all talking together:


the mutts and Cato’s death are as gruesome as ever, but again, I feel it happens to people I have never met. And then comes the moment with the berries. I can hear the audience hushing one another, not wanting to miss any- thing. A wave of gratitude to the filmmakers sweeps over me when they end not with the announcement of our victory, but with me pounding on the glass door of the hovercraft, scream- ing Peeta’s name as they try to revive him. In terms of survival, it’s my best moment all night. The anthem’s playing yet again and we rise as President Snow himself takes the stage followed by a little girl carrying a cushion that holds the crown. There’s just one crown, though, and you can hear the crowd’s confusion — whose head will he place it on? — until President Snow gives it a twist and it separates into two halves. He places the first around Peeta’s brow with a smile. He’s still smiling when he settles the second on my head, but his eyes, just inches from mine, are as unforgiving as a snake’s. That’s when I know that even though both of us would have eaten the berries, I am to blame for having the idea. I’m the in- stigator. I’m the one to be punished. Much bowing and cheering follows. My arm is about to fall off from waving when Caesar Flickerman finally bids the au- dience good night, reminding them to tune in tomorrow for the final interviews. As if they have a choice. Peeta and I are whisked to the president’s mansion for the Victory Banquet, where we have very little time to eat as Capi- 357 tol officials and particularly generous sponsors elbow one another out of the way as they try to get their picture with us. Face after beaming face flashes by, becoming increasingly in- toxicated as the evening wears on. Occasionally, I catch a glimpse of Haymitch, which is reassuring, or President Snow, which is terrifying, but I keep laughing and thanking people and smiling as my picture is taken. The one thing I never do is let go of Peeta’s hand. The sun is just peeking over the horizon when we straggle back to the twelfth floor of the Training Center. I think now I’ll finally get a word alone with Peeta, but Haymitch sends him off with Portia to get something fitted for the interview and personally escorts me to my door. “Why can’t I talk to him?” I ask. “Plenty of time for talk when we get home,” says Haymitch. “Go to bed, you’re on air at two.” Despite Haymitch’s running interference, I’m determined to see Peeta privately. After I toss and turn for a few hours, I slip into the hall. My first thought is to check the roof, but it’s emp- ty. Even the city streets far below are deserted after the cele- bration last night. I go back to bed for a while and then decide to go directly to his room,


The lobby was dark, but it was the usual darkness of old buildings and enclosed spaces. She yanked the front door open and stepped out into the street, colliding with a wild-eyed Tristán. The collar of his shirt was smeared with blood. 17 Tristán had hoped he’d be able to duck out of Dorotea’s apartment and meet up with Montserrat downtown, at the address she’d pinpointed as the offices of Ediciones B. But he now doubted that would happen anytime soon. He’d already asked Dorotea twice how long this might go on and had received no real answers. Instead, Dorotea had palmed his cheek and offered him a diet soda. He supposed he should have been grateful to Dorotea for organizing a full-fledged photo shoot, with makeup artists, a hairdresser, wardrobe, and all manner of assistants coming and going, rather than handing out an old file photo. But he was feeling rather tired. All this attention, coming after years of indifference and neglect, was like gorging on sweets. He was overwhelmed and nervous as a boy who had never stood before a camera lens. It didn’t help matters that he hated the clothes Dorotea had picked for him. He had thought to have his photo taken in a suit or a tasteful turtleneck, but Dorotea had brought costumes in the style of the soap he was going to star in. It was a riff on The Count of Monte Cristo, a historical melodrama where the ladies would wear anachronistic dresses that showed too much boob and Tristán would be stuffed into slim, dark suits with cravats at the throat. Tristán’s role demanded a long, Fabio-like mane of hair. Tristán’s hair was cropped short, which meant they’d brought wigs. The photographer regarded him with a critically raised eyebrow and declared he wanted an “Eduardo Palomo as Juan del Diablo” look, not whatever the fuck was going on with that rat’s nest on his head. Off came the wig they had given him and on came a different one. Tristán had never acted in a period piece. His soaps were contemporary Cinderella tales, stories of country girls who moved to the big city and caught the eye of millionaires. Or else sickly sweet ensemble teenage dramas. He played fresh-faced playboys and heirs to enormous fortunes. Karina had served as his perfect foil. She had that upbeat look and sassy smile that made for good posters. He wasn’t even sure he could pull period garb off. Some people had faces that were too modern. You couldn’t imagine Bibi Gaytán as a French courtesan. “I thought you said this was a sure thing,” Tristán muttered. “Soda, darling?” Dorotea replied. “I’d like to smoke a cigarette.” “The photographer doesn’t smoke, darling.” “And? I do.” “You should stop. It’ll stain your teeth.” “So will Coca-Cola,” he said, pushing away the can of soda Dorotea’s assistant was trying to wave in his face. He moved to the side, pulling Dorotea with him by the arm. “This feels like a casting call.” Dorotea daintily drank her diet soda with a


There’s no way Virginia’s baby is the same one left on that church doorstep on Christmas morning. He’s no more related to the Hope family than I am. At the same time, it appears to exonerate Lenora, the person I thought was responsible. Since Carter isn’t related to Virginia, he’ll inherit nothing. There was no reason for Lenora to keep him and Mary from finding that out. “Miss Baker wrote to me a few weeks after the murders,” Lenora says. “She’d heard what happened and said that, under the circumstances, it would be best if she continued to raise the child as her own. I didn’t protest.” I stare at her, shocked. “But he was your nephew.” “What do you think I should have done?” “Kept him!” I cry. “Raised him. Loved him. And you damn well should have let Virginia love him.” “And what kind of life would that have been? For both Virginia and the child? She couldn’t hold him, let alone feed him. She couldn’t talk to him or play with him or do anything for him.” “You would have figured out a way.” “How?” Lenora says. “I was seventeen. I knew nothing about taking care of a baby.” “That’s still no reason to keep your sister and her child apart!” Anger churns in my chest, crashing inside me like the waves smashing against the cliff directly below us. “How could you be so cruel?” “Cruel?” Lenora says. “It’s quite the opposite, I assure you. Keeping that child away from this family was the ultimate act of kindness. Because of me and Miss Baker, that child grew up never knowing that his real mother was a murderer.” “And you’re punishing Virginia because of that fact.” “She deserves punishment! After what she did, a price needed to be paid. But I’m protecting her, too. I always have. Think about what would happen to a woman in her condition if the police learned what she’d done.” I shake my head. That’s not a good enough reason. Especially when, other than trying to hang herself, there’s nothing to suggest Virginia killed her parents. “Why are you so certain she did it? What about Ricardo Mayhew?” “What about him?” “He and Virginia were having an affair,” I say. “He was the baby’s father. And Berniece Mayhew followed him here that night.” Lenora laughs. The last reaction I’d expected. There’s nothing remotely funny about the fact that she’s blamed her sister for murders she might not have committed. Yet Lenora keeps laughing, a low chuckle that’s more disbelieving than amused. “That’s impossible,” she says. “Why?” I hear footsteps on the service stairs. A second later, Archie emerges into the kitchen. I have no idea how long he’s been there or how much he’s heard. All I know is it was long enough for him to answer my question. “Because Ricardo was with me that night.” It takes me a second to understand what he’s getting at. When I do, all I can say is, “Oh. The two of you were—” “Lovers,” Archie says, sparing


both hands, then pulled an energy bar from his top left pocket. Holding it out in front of himself, he looked to Pristy and smiled. He tossed the bar onto the green rectangle. Instead of falling to the floor as expected, it flew upward, gravity clearly having changed direction. “Who wants to go first?” he said. “I do,” Aubrey said without hesitation and already moving toward the rectangle. Resnick placed a restraining hand onto her shoulder. “Remember, we’re not here.” “Got it, stealth is my middle name,” she said, pushing past him. She stopped just long enough to consider how she was going to do this, then, instead of stepping, she jumped, as if hopping from one hopscotch box to another. Up she went, her hands reaching high overhead—Super Girl incarnate. Resnick looked to the others. “Who’s next?” There were a series of gravity vaults, and not all of them were as vertical as the first one had been. Once Pristy had gotten accustomed to the method of moving between floors, she found it not only super easy, but exhilarating and fun. There were a number of gooey wet puddles, one of which caused LaSalle to lose his footing, but other than that, they made it safely to Resnick’s intended destination. The compound’s primary control center. Huddled outside, Pristy put an ear to the hatch door and listened. “I hear … something.” She made a face. “Maybe tapping on an input device?” She looked to Resnick. “This is your mission.” He checked his ChronoLink. “We’re out of time.” No one said anything. “Stay here,” he said, stepping toward the hatchway. It slid open so silently that unless one were looking right at it, you’d never know it opened. Pristy, ignoring his orders, followed him in. The first of her senses to be affronted were olfactory. The smell was revolting, rotting flesh, flatulence, urine … Looking around, she saw that virtually every inch of bulkhead space held a boxy, old-fashioned- looking display monitor. There were too many consoles jammed together for the cramped space, and the floor, the deck … it was disgusting. Pristy didn’t even want to guess what that gooey brown shit was smeared to her right. There was an elevated, poor man’s captain’s mount, shaped for the elongated conures of a Liquilid. In front of it, a table of sorts. Whatever the station commander had been eating, at least partially, was still there, moldy and putrid-looking. As technologically advanced as this alien race was, in some ways they were also backward. She glanced up to see an irritated-looking Resnick looking back at her. He put a finger to his lips and turned back to the reason he was here. There, two feet in front of him, was a Liquilid creature, and just as she’d heard earlier, he, or she, was tapping away at an input device. Her breath caught; the monitor in front of him/her displayed none other than USS Adams, making her way through the perilous asteroid field. And here they were, in an attempt to make it even


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

warm moist unsustaining air and he smelt again the moist warm air which hung in the bath in Clongowes above the sluggish turf-coloured water. Some instinct, waking at these memories, stronger than education or piety, quickened within him at every near approach to that life, an instinct subtle and hostile, and armed him against acquiescence. The chill and order of the life repelled him. He saw himself rising in the cold of the morning and filing down with the others to early mass and trying vainly to struggle with his prayers against the fainting sickness of his stomach. He saw himself sitting at dinner with the community of a college. What, then, had become of that deep-rooted shyness of his which had made him loth to eat or drink under a strange roof? What had come of the pride of his spirit which had always made him conceive himself as a being apart in every order? The Reverend Stephen Dedalus, S.J. His name in that new life leaped into characters before his eyes and to it there followed a mental sensation of an undefined face or colour of a face. The colour faded and became strong like a changing glow of pallid brick red. Was it the raw reddish glow he had so often seen on wintry mornings on the shaven gills of the priests? The face was eyeless and sour-favoured and devout, shot with pink tinges of suffocated anger. Was it not a mental spectre of the face of one of the jesuits whom some of the boys called Lantern Jaws and others Foxy Campbell? He was passing at that moment before the jesuit house in Gardiner Street and wondered vaguely which window would be his if he ever joined the order. Then he wondered at the vagueness of his wonder, at the remoteness of his own soul from what he had hitherto imagined her sanctuary, at the frail hold which so many years of order and obedience had of him when once a definite and irrevocable act of his threatened to end for ever, in time and in eternity, his freedom. The voice of the director urging upon him the proud claims of the church and the mystery and power of the priestly office repeated itself idly in his memory. His soul was not there to hear and greet it and he knew now that the exhortation he had listened to had already fallen into an idle formal tale. He would never swing the thurible before the tabernacle as priest. His destiny was to be elusive of social or religious orders. The wisdom of the priest's appeal did not touch him to the quick. He was destined to learn his own wisdom apart from others or to learn the wisdom of others himself wandering among the snares of the world. The snares of the world were its ways of sin. He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant. Not to fall was too hard, too hard; and he felt the silent lapse


table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But that was certainly very coolly done by him, and every .. <p 31 > one knows that in most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly. We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he eschewed coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I sallied out for a stroll. .. <p 31 > .. < chapter vi 11 THE STREET > If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford. In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare. But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatabooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still more curious, certainly more comical. .. <p 32 > There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak. No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one -- I mean a downright bumpkin dandy --a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the


be well within their rights to turn you away, especially since you could bring down the might of the Authority upon them.” “Th-they’ll help us,” Hap said. “Ah, I see your heart has made you imprudent,” the Coachman said. “How endearing! How positively catastrophic!” His eyes narrowed as his mustache twitched. “Say, what would you think about letting me have a go at it? Just for a little while. I want to see what it would feel like to have a heart of my own. I promise I would give it back.” Hap folded his arms. “Sure.” The Coachman blinked. “Really?” Hap nodded. “C-come and t-take it if you c-can.” “I think I like my limbs as they are,” the Coachman said hastily. “You’re very possessive of it, though I don’t blame you. I would be the same way.” He looked at Vic, a sly expression on his face. “Perhaps you could make one for me. In exchange for my help, of course.” He wiggled his fingers at Vic. “Consider it recompense for putting myself on the line for you.” “You kidnapped us and put us in cages,” Nurse Ratched said. “I think getting us to the city will make us even.” “Everyone’s a critic,” the Coachman muttered. “Fine, you’ve made your point, though I am offended you consider me a kidnapper. I like to think it was more of an enthusiastic recruitment.” “H-how will we g-get into the city?” “Ah,” the Coachman said. “That’s another matter entirely.” He went back to the monitor, shoving his chair out of the way, fingers flying over the keys. The image changed again, this time showing the outskirts of the city, surrounded by blowing sand and dust. The lights of the city were so bright, Vic had to squint to look at the screen. “We can’t get you in through normal means,” the Coachman said. “You’ll be noticed immediately, especially since you don’t have a barcode. But worry not! I have a plan.” The image shifted dizzily, the city spinning in a circle, before enhancing. “I know certain … machines, willing to look the other way in exchange for … well. That’s probably better left to your imagination. There are backdoors into the city.” The image showed a pair of large gates, wooden, with a strip of black metal across the top. “This is where you’ll enter. Once inside, you’ll need to keep to the side streets. Nurse Ratched, how goes the download?” “Nearly complete,” Nurse Ratched said. “She’ll be able to lead you,” the Coachman said. “I’ve given her a map of the city. So long as you stick to the shadows, you should be able to make it to Heaven without much trouble.” “And that’s it?” Vic asked. “That’s it,” the Coachman said. “Simple on the surface, though rife with dangers underneath. Rambo and Nurse Ratched should be fine. Hap too, so long as his face remains hidden. Victor, your disguise is adequate, but don’t for a moment believe it’ll last if you find yourself in trouble. You can’t let them find you