was drawing in all the heat from her surroundings, whether she realized it or not, and if he didn’t stop her, she would kill them all. He managed to reach her in time, touching her arm. She looked at him, remembering where she was, controlling her reaction. The temperature returned to normal, but her eyes seemed different. She was sad in the way that ordinary people were sad. Liza asked: ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ ‘We’ve kept it a secret because we weren’t sure how people would react. You cannot solve our population crisis. This is why the experiments continue. This is why we keep making genetic adjustments. It is this, or to accept our extinction. Maybe we should’ve accepted that our time was over.’ Echo returned the stillborn boy to the table, closing his eyes, folding his arms, as though putting him to sleep. No one knew what she might say next. She looked up. A voice was calling to her, a telepathic communication sent only to her. ‘He’s talking to me.’ ‘Who?’ ‘The man I met on the ice.’ Yotam asked: ‘What is he saying?’ She listened for a time, oblivious to the fact that the guards had once again raised their weapons, pointing them at her. Without turning around she said: ‘He says that your city is on fire.’ NAVAL QUARTER USS KENNEDY FLIGHT DECK SAME DAY THEY GATHERED ON THE FLIGHT deck, crowded together, helpless spectators as fire swept through their city – a yellow horizon underneath a solid blue sky. Some of the flames were tinged turquoise as they melted plastics manufactured from a bygone age. Scattered explosions punctuated the fire as barrels of bioethanol caught alight. Coils of smoke rose into the unusually calm air as if even the weather was paralyzed by this never-before-seen sight – the entire ice shelf ablaze. Fire had always been one of the Senate’s gravest fears, since there was never any rain and the structures were tinder dry. In the past, even small fires in Antarctica had brought an end to operations, British Hope Bay Station in 1948 and Argentinian Almirante Brown Base in 1984, both of which could only be remedied by rescue and evacuation. Since there was no chance of rescue and nowhere to be evacuated to, mitigation measures had been extensive, fire breaks and fire marshals. But no one could have predicted that the first great fire of Antarctica would be deliberately started by the cold creatures intended to save them, an act of wilful sabotage, a scorched-earth annihilation of resources that could never be replaced. As the fire’s edge reached the original base buildings, some of the oldest human structures on the continent caught ablaze, the historic canteen, Ex-Presidents bar, the Chapel of the Snows, the Museum of Life on Ice, until the entire circumference of buildings around Observation Hill was burning. Unlike other catastrophic fires in human history, the sacking of Carthage, the great fires of Hangzhou, the medieval fires of London, there would be no rebuilding this time, since there was nothing to rebuild


looked up with a flush upon my face and remorse in my heart, but Mr. Mell's eyes were fixed on Steerforth. He continued to pat me kindly on the shoulder, but he looked at him. 'Since you expect me, Mr. Creakle, to justify myself,' said Steerforth, 'and to say what I mean, - what I have to say is, that his mother lives on charity in an alms-house.' Mr. Mell still looked at him, and still patted me kindly on the shoulder, and said to himself, in a whisper, if I heard right: 'Yes, I thought so.' Mr. Creakle turned to his assistant, with a severe frown and laboured politeness: 'Now, you hear what this gentleman says, Mr. Mell. Have the goodness, if you please, to set him right before the assembled school.' 'He is right, sir, without correction,' returned Mr. Mell, in the midst of a dead silence; 'what he has said is true.' 'Be so good then as declare publicly, will you,' said Mr. Creakle, putting his head on one side, and rolling his eyes round the school, 'whether it ever came to my knowledge until this moment?' 'I believe not directly,' he returned. 'Why, you know not,' said Mr. Creakle. 'Don't you, man?' 'I apprehend you never supposed my worldly circumstances to be very good,' replied the assistant. 'You know what my position is, and always has been, here.' 'I apprehend, if you come to that,' said Mr. Creakle, with his veins swelling again bigger than ever, 'that you've been in a wrong position altogether, and mistook this for a charity school. Mr. Mell, we'll part, if you please. The sooner the better.' 'There is no time,' answered Mr. Mell, rising, 'like the present.' 'Sir, to you!' said Mr. Creakle. 'I take my leave of you, Mr. Creakle, and all of you,' said Mr. Mell, glancing round the room, and again patting me gently on the shoulders. 'James Steerforth, the best wish I can leave you is that you may come to be ashamed of what you have done today. At present I would prefer to see you anything rather than a friend, to me, or to anyone in whom I feel an interest.' Once more he laid his hand upon my shoulder; and then taking his flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his successor, he went out of the school, with his property under his arm. Mr. Creakle then made a speech, through Tungay, in which he thanked Steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectability of Salem House; and which he wound up by shaking hands with Steerforth, while we gave three cheers - I did not quite know what for, but I supposed for Steerforth, and so joined in them ardently, though I felt miserable. Mr. Creakle then caned Tommy Traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, on account of Mr. Mell's departure; and went back to his sofa, or his bed, or wherever he had come from. We were left to


the things had gone rotten, so I flung mine across the table and hit Dacks right in the nose. You remember, Redfort's pock-faced squire? He tossed one back at me, and before Jon could so much as fart, there were oranges flying across the High Hall in every direction." He laughed uproariously, and even Ned smiled, remembering. This was the boy he had grown up with, he thought; this was the Robert Baratheon he'd known and loved. If he could prove that the Lannisters were behind the attack on Bran, prove that they had murdered Jon Arryn, this man would listen. Then Cersei would fall, and the Kingslayer with her, and if Lord Tywin dared to rouse the west, Robert would smash him as he had smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He could see it all so clearly. That breakfast tasted better than anything Eddard Stark had eaten in a long time, and afterward his smiles came easier and more often, until it was time for the tournament to resume. Ned walked with the king to the jousting field. He had promised to watch the final tilts with Sansa; Septa Mordane was ill today, and his daughter was determined not to miss the end of the jousting. As he saw Robert to his place, he noted that Cersei Lannister had chosen not to appear; the place beside the king was empty. That too gave Ned cause to hope. He shouldered his way to where his daughter was seated and found her as the horns blew for the day's first joust. Sansa was so engrossed she scarcely seemed to notice his arrival. Sandor Clegane was the first rider to appear. He wore an olive- A GAME OF THRONES 275 green cloak over his soot-grey armor. That, and his hound's-head helm, were his only concession to ornament. "A hundred golden dragons on the Kingslayer," Littlefinger announced loudly as Jaime Lannister entered the lists, riding an elegant blood bay destrier. The horse wore a blanket of gilded ringmail, and Jaime glittered from head to heel. Even his lance was fashioned from the golden wood of the Summer Isles. "Done," Lord Renly shouted back. "The Hound has a hungry look about him this morning." "Even hungry dogs know better than to bite the hand that feeds them," Littlefinger called dryly. Sandor Clegane dropped his visor with an audible clang and took up his position. Ser Jaime tossed a kiss to some woman in the commons, gently lowered his visor, and rode to the end of the lists. Both men couched their lances. Ned Stark would have loved nothing so well as to see them both lose, but Sansa was watching it all moist-eyed and eager. The hastily erected gallery trembled as the horses broke into a gallop. The Hound leaned forward as he rode, his lance rock steady, but Jaime shifted his seat deftly in the instant before impact. Clegane's point was turned harmlessly against the golden shield with the lion blazon, while his own hit square. Wood shattered, and the Hound reeled, fighting to


far as they could see the muttering wall advanced before the braced-up waters like a road crusher on a cosmic scale. The monstropolous beast had left his bed. The two hundred miles an hour wind had loosed his chains. He seized hold of his dikes and ran forward until he met the quarters; uprooted them like grass and rushed on after his supposed-to-be con- querors, rolling the dikes, rolling the houses, rolling the peo- ple in the houses along with other timbers. The sea was walking the earth with a heavy heel. “De lake is comin’!” Tea Cake gasped. “De lake!” In amazed horror from Motor Boat, “De lake!” “It’s comin’ behind us!” Janie shuddered. “Us can’t fly.” “But we still kin run,” Tea Cake shouted and they ran. The gushing water ran faster. The great body was held back, but rivers spouted through fissures in the rolling wall and broke like day. The three fugitives ran past another line of shanties that topped a slight rise and gained a little. They cried out as best they could, “De lake is comin’!” and barred doors flew open and others joined them in flight crying the same as they went. “De lake is comin’!” and the pursuing waters growled and shouted ahead, “Yes, Ah’m comin’!”, and those who could fled on. They made it to a tall house on a hump of ground and 190 Zora Neale Hurston Janie said, “Less stop heah. Ah can’t make it no further. Ah’m done give out.” “All of us is done give out,” Tea Cake corrected. “We’se goin’ inside out dis weather, kill or cure.” He knocked with the handle of his knife, while they leaned their faces and shoulders against the wall. He knocked once more then he and Motor Boat went round to the back and forced a door. Nobody there. “Dese people had mo’ sense than Ah did,” Tea Cake said as they dropped to the floor and lay there panting. “Us oughta went on wid ’Lias lak he ast me.” “You didn’t know,” Janie contended. “And when yuh don’t know, yuh just don’t know. De storms might not of come sho nuff.” They went to sleep promptly but Janie woke up first. She heard the sound of rushing water and sat up. “Tea Cake! Motor Boat! De lake is comin’!” The lake was coming on. Slower and wider, but coming. It had trampled on most of its supporting wall and lowered its front by spreading. But it came muttering and grumbling onward like a tired mammoth just the same. “Dis is uh high tall house. Maybe it won’t reach heah at all,” Janie counseled. “And if it do, maybe it won’t reach tuh de upstairs part.” “Janie, Lake Okechobee is forty miles wide and sixty miles long. Dat’s uh whole heap uh water. If dis wind is shovin’ dat whole lake disa way, dis house ain’t nothin’ tuh swaller. Us better go. Motor Boat!” “Whut you want, man?” Their Eyes Were Watching God 191 “De lake is comin’!” “Aw, naw it ’tain’t.”


down service instanter. Katherine recommended another company.” “Katherine Ormond-Wattley?” “Yes. A company with ties to the ISA, a military contractor with better tech than the firm I used. They’ll install tomorrow.” “You don’t have security now?” “No video, no alarms, but no one can get through our electronic locks.” “Michael Mace did.” “I don’t think Mace is coming back,” Woodbine says. “I wish he would, so we could have a shot at him.” Calaphas doesn’t need to get by the electronic locks. He’s already inside. Looking past the attorney, he considers the opposing-mirrors trick of endless reflections. An infinite Durand Calaphas is a true expression of his destiny, but the truth of Woodbine’s prospects is not what the mirrors appear to predict. “Listen, do we or don’t we?” the attorney asks. “Do we what?” “Have a deal.” “Absolutely. And you won’t be sorry you trusted me. But there’s this thing about Rudy Santana. He felt I was disrespecting you by being late. He did something stupid to impress me.” Woodbine’s expression is wonderfully textured—a mild, doleful chagrin—and could be mistaken for sincere by the most perceptive of jurors. “I need men who can interface between me and the animals on the street who keep the merchandise flowing. Santana and Harris aren’t perfect, but they’re the best I’ve found.” “I understand. But I think you should know Santana mentioned three names to prove how high you are on the ladder.” As Calaphas repeats those names, the lawyer’s eyebrows arch. “For your own good, Mr. Woodbine, you might have a word with Santana about discretion.” “I will,” Woodbine declares. “I’ll speak with him as soon as you’re on your way.” “Meanwhile, that transponder links to your smartphone.” “To one of them. One I reserve strictly for that purpose.” “I’ll need it.” “It’s on the counter in the kitchen,” the attorney says, moving away, past the leopard-patterned chaise, the multiplied reflections of which offer infinite accommodations where one can lie for the focused contemplation of God knows what. The former gym and current meditation room is thronged with replicates of Calaphas and Woodbine moving toward the exit from myriad directions, folding into and out of the room’s corners with great flexibility, seen retreating from the door even as they are approaching it. If these kaleidoscopic images can be disorienting, Calaphas is not confused as he follows Woodbine, for his attention is concentrated on the action he must take. At the same time, the regimented chaos of attorney and assailant in all their iterations makes it difficult for the target to recognize peril is imminent. Calaphas draws the small aerosol can of chloroform from a pocket and says, “Oh, one thing I forgot,” and Woodbine turns, and Calaphas sprays his host in the face. All the Woodbines around the room—whatever their size, whether coming or going—collapse to the floor. The esteemed partner of Kravitz, Benedetto, and Spackman—who are elsewhere engaged in criminal enterprises—is not dead, only unconscious on the meditation room floor. For the time being, that is how his assailant wants him. When Calaphas enters


Grey, after you.” Taylor patiently talks me through the controls on the Jet Ski and how to ride it. He has a calm, gentle authority about him; he’s a good teacher. We are in the motor launch, bobbing and weaving on the calm waters of the harbor beside the Fair Lady. Gaston looks on, his expression hidden by his shades, and one of the Fair Lady’s crew is at the controls of the motor launch. Jeez—three people with me, just because I want to go shopping. It’s ridiculous. Zipping up my life jacket, I give Taylor a beaming grin. He holds out his hand to assist me as I climb onto the Jet Ski. “Fasten the strap of the ignition key around your wrist, Mrs. Grey. If you fall off, the engine will cut out automatically,” he explains. “Okay.” “Ready?’ I nod enthusiastically. “Press the ignition when you’ve drifted about four feet away from the boat. We’ll follow you.” “Okay.” He pushes the Jet Ski away from the launch, and it floats gently into the main harbor. When he gives me the okay sign, I press the ignition button and the engine roars into life. “Okay, Mrs. Grey, easy does it!” Taylor shouts. I squeeze the accelerator. The Jet Ski lurches forward then stalls. Crap! How does Christian make it look so easy? I try again, and once again, I stall. Double crap! “Just steady on the gas, Mrs. Grey,” Taylor calls. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mutter under my breath. I try once more, very gently squeezing the lever, and the Jet Ski lurches forward—but this time it keeps going. 67/551 Yes! It goes some more. Ha ha! It still keeps going! I want to shout and squeal in excitement, but I resist. I cruise gently away from the yacht into the main harbor. Behind me, I hear the throaty roar of the motor launch. When I squeeze the gas further, the Jet Ski leaps forward, skating across the water. With the warm breeze in my hair and a fine sea spray on either side of me, I feel free. This rocks! No wonder Christian never lets me drive. Rather than head for the shore and curtail the fun, I veer around to do a cir- cuit of the stately Fair Lady. Wow—this is so much fun. I ignore Taylor and the crew behind me and speed around the yacht for a second time. As I complete the circuit, I spot Christian on deck. I think he’s gaping at me, though it’s difficult to tell. Bravely, I lift one hand from the handlebars and wave enthusiastically at him. He looks like he’s made of stone, but finally he raises his hand in the semblance of a stiff wave. I can’t work out his expression, and something tells me I don’t want to, so I head to the marina, speeding across the blue water of the Mediter- ranean that shimmers in the late afternoon sun. At the dock, I wait and let Taylor pull up ahead of me. His expression is bleak, and


on a person's mind when they're keeping house, isn't there?" When Anne came back from the kitchen Diana was drinking her second glassful of cordial; and, being entreated thereto by Anne, she offered no particular objection to the drinking of a third. The tumblerfuls were generous ones and the raspberry cordial was certainly very nice. "The nicest I ever drank," said Diana. "It's ever so much nicer than Mrs. Lynde's, although she brags of hers so much. It doesn't taste a bit like hers." "I should think Marilla's raspberry cordial would prob'ly be much nicer than Mrs. Lynde's," said Anne loyally. "Marilla is a famous cook. She is trying to teach me to cook but I assure you, Diana, it is uphill work. There's so little scope for imagination in cookery. You just have to go by rules. The last time I made a cake I forgot to put the flour in. I was thinking the loveliest story about you and me, Diana. I thought you were desperately ill with smallpox and everybody deserted you, but I went boldly to your bedside and nursed you back to life; and then I took the smallpox and died and I was buried under those poplar trees in the graveyard and you planted a rosebush by my grave and watered it with your tears; and you never, never forgot the friend of your youth who sacrificed her life for you. Oh, it was such a pathetic tale, Diana. The tears just rained down over my cheeks while I mixed the cake. But I forgot the flour and the cake was a dismal failure. Flour is so essential to cakes, you know. Marilla was very cross and I don't wonder. I'm a great trial to her. She was terribly mortified about the pudding sauce last week. We had a plum pudding for dinner on Tuesday and there was half the pudding and a pitcherful of sauce left over. Marilla said there was enough for another dinner and told me to set it on the pantry shelf and cover it. I meant to cover it just as much as could be, Diana, but when I carried it in I was imagining I was a nun-of course I'm a Protestant but I imagined I was a Catholic-taking the veil to bury a broken heart in cloistered seclusion; and I forgot all about covering the pudding sauce. I thought of it next morning and ran to the pantry. Diana, fancy if you can my extreme horror at finding a mouse drowned in that pudding sauce! I lifted the mouse out with a spoon and threw it out in the yard and then I washed the spoon in three waters. Marilla was out milking and I fully intended to ask her when she came in if I'd give the sauce to the pigs; but when she did come in I was imagining that I was a frost fairy going through the woods turning the trees red and yellow, whichever they wanted to be, so I never thought about the pudding


still abysmal), the pillowcases (thank God we both brought our own), and the tiny desk crammed in under the window (that chair does not look stable; accidental injury is extremely likely), I tighten the silk scrunchie holding back my braids and we head out. Unfortunately, we bump into Bradley in the hall. “Celine,” he calls, peeling off from his new group of adoring fans (seriously, how does he find these people?). I sigh, not slowing my steps as we wind through the narrow and twisty corridors. The cabin should be called the Warren. “What?” “Slow down,” he says, practically skipping beside me. “I wanna talk.” Aurora, based on her wide-eyed alarm, has correctly identified Bradley as Shiny and Annoying. “I’ll…see you outside,” she manages, and hurries off toward the open front door. I watch her escape with utter longing. Then I turn on Bradley and put a hand on my hip. “Now look. You’ve scared off my roommate!” He blinks, all big brown eyes and pouty lips. “Why would she be scared of me?” This is such a ridiculous question, all I can do is throw my hands in the air and splutter, “For God’s sake. What do you want?” “What’s your room like?” he asks. “Shitty. Why?” He sighs, a little furrow appearing between his eyebrows. “I was hoping yours might be better so we could swap.” This is so outrageous it quite literally steals my breath. He continues to talk while I quietly asphyxiate. “Anyway, I wanted to talk about your roommate. You guys made friends?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just nods. “That’s good. She can keep an eye on you.” My breath comes back all at once. “I beg your pardon?” He shrugs. He’s wearing a Nike tracksuit, powder pink on the right side and baby blue on the left. “I made friends, too, so they can keep an eye on me.” Okay, that’s making even less sense. “Once again,” I say, folding my arms over my chest, “I am forced to beg your pardon.” “Aw, Celine,” he replies sunnily. “You don’t have to beg.” This is the thing people don’t get about Bradley: he makes these earnest, slightly dim comments, and they genuinely do not realize he is being a total cow. I narrow my eyes. “You know what? Since we’re talking, let’s make one thing clear.” “Oh good,” he murmurs, “she’s making things clear.” “While we’re here, Bradley Graeme, I do not know you.” He arches an eyebrow. “Well, that’s gonna be awkward. I already told Thomas you were my cousin.” “What?! Who the hell is— Why would you tell someone I’m your cousin?” “He’s my roommate,” Bradley says, “and I told him that to explain why he should not ask you out.” “What?” The word is so high-pitched, it’s possible I shatter my own eardrums. Bradley winces. “What? We’re supposed to be looking out for each other!” “What the fuck, Bradley?” “You basically are my cousin!” “I’m not your cousin, Bradley!” He has the audacity to look annoyed, with his arms folded and this


Aurora dissolves into hysterics. I tut at them and grab my phone, flipping on the torch and unzipping the tent with inhuman speed. “Are you okay?” I ask, just as the flap peels open to reveal a shadowy shape I recognize. The moon is full, and the clouds covering it shift away just as he smiles at me. Bradley Graeme by moonlight is a mind-wiping, pulse-pounding sight most people would pay to see for aesthetic reasons alone. But when I look at him—when I compare the light in his eyes to the scattered stars in the sky and find his brighter, when I wish I could touch every inch of him the way this silver glow does—it’s not just aesthetic. At all. Lately, when I’m falling asleep, I have this weird half-awake fantasy of Brad giving me a tiny piece of himself and letting me put it in my pocket and keep it. I should really Google dream symbolism and figure out what that means—I could make a TikTok about it—except I’m afraid of the answer. I don’t know how long I can keep doing this. “Hey.” Brad pokes the tip of my nose with unnerving accuracy. “Pay attention. Want to go to the park?” I flush hot and look down at myself. “Er, I’m wearing my pajamas.” “Want to change?” “We have a curfew.” “Want to break it?” I remember I am still going, inch by torturous inch, through the arduous trial of acknowledging and expressing my true feelings. “Yes.” He beams. “Good. I’ll wait here. Wear your gloves.” I roll my eyes, zip up the tent, and ignore Aurora and Sophie’s sniggering while I hurriedly throw on a tracksuit. And a coat. And a scarf. And gloves, because wearing all that without them would be weird, not because he told me to. When I crawl out of the tent and zip it up behind me, the campsite is still and quiet, except for the haunting hoot of a nearby owl, the ominous howl of wind blowing through the forest to the north, and the resonant snore of That One Guy. Brad is waiting with his hands in his pockets, but as soon as I stand up, he hooks our arms together like he’s escorting me around a ballroom and we head slowly, cautiously, toward the park. “How is it this dark?” he asks. “Well, at night, the sun goes away—” He elbows my ribs. “The sun does not go away.” “You’re such a pedant.” “We would fly out into space and die.” I tut. “You don’t know that.” “Celine,” he says seriously, “if you tell me you’ve been swayed by a conspiracy theory against the existence of gravity, I will be forced to reconsider our—” I think he’s going to say relationship—which would be a problem, obviously, because we’re not in a relationship. And that’s a good thing, a safe and sensible thing, so I’m relieved when he says, “reconsider our friendship.” I am. I am. If I fall quiet, it’s because I have to concentrate. The park is on


French, as had always been his custom. Tarzan replaced the box in the cupboard, but always thereafter he carried the features of the strong, smiling face of his father in his heart, and in his head a fixed determination to solve the mystery of the strange words in the little black book. At present he had more important business in hand, for his supply of arrows was exhausted, and he must needs journey to the black men's village and renew it. Early the following morning he set out, and, traveling rapidly, he came before midday to the clearing. Once more he took up his position in the great tree, and, as before, he saw the women in the fields and the village street, and the cauldron of bubbling poison directly beneath him. For hours he lay awaiting his opportunity to drop down unseen and gather up the arrows for which he had come; but nothing now occurred to call the villagers away from their homes. The day wore on, and still Tarzan of the Apes crouched above the unsuspecting woman at the cauldron. Presently the workers in the fields returned. The hunting warriors emerged from the forest, and when all were within the palisade the gates were closed and barred. Chapter 11 Many cooking pots were now in evidence about the village. Before each hut a woman presided over a boiling stew, while little cakes of plantain, and cassava puddings were to be seen on every hand. Suddenly there came a hail from the edge of the clearing. Tarzan looked. It was a party of belated hunters returning from the north, and among them they half led, half carried a struggling animal. As they approached the village the gates were thrown open to admit them, and then, as the people saw the victim of the chase, a savage cry rose to the heavens, for the quarry was a man. As he was dragged, still resisting, into the village street, the women and children set upon him with sticks and stones, and Tarzan of the Apes, young and savage beast of the jungle, wondered at the cruel brutality of his own kind. Sheeta, the leopard, alone of all the jungle folk, tortured his prey. The ethics of all the others meted a quick and merciful death to their victims. Tarzan had learned from his books but scattered fragments of the ways of human beings. When he had followed Kulonga through the forest he had expected to come to a city of strange houses on wheels, puffing clouds of black smoke from a huge tree stuck in the roof of one of them--or to a sea covered with mighty floating buildings which he had learned were called, variously, ships and boats and steamers and craft. He had been sorely disappointed with the poor little village of the blacks, hidden away in his own jungle, and with not a single house as large as his own cabin upon the distant beach. He saw that these people were more wicked than his own apes, and as


you’re not that machine anymore. You don’t need a heart for me to see that.” “F-forgiveness.” He’d never heard that word from Hap before. Strange, then, that Vic and the Coachman had been talking about exactly that. “You were listening?” Hap said, “To Gio? Yes. In the g-ground h-house. B-before. He said fforgiving others could be difficult, but f-forgiving yourself c-can sometimes feel impossible.” Of course he did. Of course Dad said that. His own memories hadn’t been wiped, not like Hap’s. He’d spent his entire time in the forest with the knowledge of what he’d created, what he’d allowed to happen. His programming, his purpose. And then he’d lived for decades trying to … what? Make sense of his decisions? Seek atonement for all that he’d done? And that had led to Victor. Dad’s grief and pain and anger over causing death made him create life. Wasn’t that selfish? Wasn’t that putting a bandage over a leaking, rotting wound? “Did he find forgiveness?” Vic asked, unsure if such a thing could even exist. “I d-don’t know. I didn’t have t-time to ask him.” Time. Forgiveness. “Oh.” Hap grunted. He dropped his hands on the railing as he looked out into the desert. Out of the corner of his eye, Vic watched as Hap moved his hand slowly toward Vic’s own. He didn’t flinch when Hap’s fingers touched his. He turned his hand over, and their palms pressed together. “What are you doing?” he asked hoarsely. Hap glared at him. “You d-did it to me first b-back in the forest. And th- then again in the h-house.” “So you’re doing it because I did it.” “Y-yes. Th-that’s the only reason.” “Okay.” A beat of silence before: “And b-because I w-want to.” “Why?” “Gio s-said he was lonely. That he m-made you because of it. He was lonely b-because he was alone. You are a-alone. I w-won’t let you be lonely and make another V-victor. One is s-sufficient.” He blinked against the burn in his eyes. “Oh, so long as I’m sufficient.” “Ha, ha. That was a j-joke. I was joking.” Vic snorted. And so there they stood, one man and one machine under an infinite field of stars, the desert flying by in front of them as they hurtled toward the unknown. Behind them, the road led back into darkness, the ashes of their home. But home didn’t have to be a place. Something righted itself in Vic’s chest. He had made his choice. “The City of Electric Dreams used to be known as the City of Sin,” the Coachman said. He sat in front of his computer, fingers flying over the keys, the others crowded behind him. One of Nurse Ratched’s tentacles was attached to a port at the bottom of the monitor. “The humans traveled there to lose all their money under the brightest lights. Many had dreams of striking it rich, but most left with less than when they had arrived.” “That seems senseless,” Rambo said. “Indeed,” the Coachman said. “The City of Electric Dreams used to belong to


stood out in his mind disconnectedly, like pictures with blackness all round them. He was in a cell which might have been either dark or light, because he could see nothing except a pair of eyes. Near at hand some kind of instrument was ticking slowly and regularly. The eyes grew larger and more luminous. Suddenly he floated out of his seat, dived into the eyes, and was swallowed up. He was strapped into a chair surrounded by dials, under dazzling lights. A man in a white coat was reading the dials. There was a tramp of heavy boots outside. The door clanged open. The waxed-faced officer marched in, followed by two guards. 'Room 101,' said the officer. The man in the white coat did not turn round. He did not look at Winston either; he was looking only at the dials. He was rolling down a mighty corridor, a kilometre wide, full of glorious, golden light, roaring with laughter and shouting out confessions at the top of his voice. He was confessing everything, even the things he had succeeded in holding back under the torture. He was relating the entire history of his life to an audience who knew it already. With him were the guards, the other questioners, the men in white coats, O'Brien, Julia, Mr Charrington, all rolling down the corridor together and shouting with laughter. Some dreadful thing which had lain embedded in the future had somehow been skipped over and had not happened. Everything was all right, there was no more pain, the last detail of his life was laid bare, understood, forgiven. He was starting up from the plank bed in the half-certainty that he had heard O'Brien's voice. All through his interrogation, although he had never seen him, he had had the feeling that O'Brien was at his elbow, just out of sight. It was O'Brien who was directing everything. It was he who set the guards on to Winston and who prevented them from killing him. It was he who decided when Winston should scream with pain, when he should have a respite, when he should be fed, when he should sleep, when the drugs should be pumped into his arm. It was he who asked the questions and suggested the answers. He was the tormentor, he was the protector, he was the inquisitor, he was the friend. And once--Winston could not remember whether it was in drugged sleep, or in normal sleep, or even in a moment of wakefulness--a voice murmured in his ear: 'Don't worry, Winston; you file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (132 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt are in my keeping. For seven years I have watched over you. Now the turning-point has come. I shall save you, I shall make you perfect.' He was not sure whether it was O'Brien's voice; but it was the same voice that had said to him, 'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,' in that other dream, seven years ago. He did not remember any ending to his interrogation. There was a period


not holding a mixing bowl, makes obnoxious air quotes. “But it’s okay if you’re concerned for the poor girl.” It’s official: somehow—somehow—Celine has restrained herself from exploiting this valid opportunity to drop me in it. Which can only mean one thing: her mind is completely addled by agonizing pain. I’ve shattered every bone in her arm. In her entire body. She might be in a coma. I force a hopefully innocent expression and say, “Well, I wouldn’t want anyone, enemy or not, to be in hospital on the first week of our final year.” This is 100 percent true. I am so mired in guilt, it’s a wonder I even found my way home. “I know, bless her.” Dad blows out his brown cheeks and shakes his head. “Oh well. She’s such a good girl. She could get into Cambridge with both hands broken—” “BOTH HER HANDS ARE BROKEN?” Dad stares at me. Understanding hits a second too late, because of course it does. “Oh! Right. You meant…You were…being…hypothetical,” I say. “Obviously. Haha! Ha.” Could someone please tell me why the same brain that gets me the (second) highest grades in school is so slow on the uptake during normal human conversations? Is it some kind of system error, or…? “You all right, son?” Dad finally asks. “I’m fine! Fine. Just. Busy day. You know what? I’d better go. Lots of…homework. Uni, er, stuff. You know.” I nod awkwardly toward the curving staircase down the hall. “Ahhh! That’s my boy.” Dad grins and reaches out as I pass, his hand landing on the back of my head. Even though this always frizzes up my hair, I wait patiently while he wiggles me around like a puppy with a favorite toy. (Don’t ask, it makes him happy, okay?) He drags me closer and smacks a kiss over my left eyebrow. “You know, Mrs. Mulaney was asking about you this morning.” Mrs. Mulaney is an older lady down the street whose dog I walk sometimes. She finds herself around our front garden freakishly often, probably because she’s in love with Dad. “Oh,” I say, staring longingly at the staircase that leads to sweet escape. So near, and yet so far. “How is she?” “Right as rain, bless her. She asked how you’re getting on, and I told her you’ll be studying law next year. You know what she said?” Probably not What a waste. That boy was born to win a Hugo Award. “She said, ‘Whatever magic you and Maria are doing on those kids, you should bottle it and make a fortune.’ ” Dad beams. “I told her, it’s all you. Hard work and commitment! You’re all determined to succeed.” I know exactly what he’s going to say next—it’s been his favorite phrase ever since I showed a vague interest in following in his footsteps and studying law. “But you are a chip off the old block, aren’t you?” Aaaand there it is. I manage a smile. “That’s right.” The words are dry and crumbly in my mouth like stale biscuits. Dad squeezes


with Dickie Senior and Dangerous Dave Dawson, who had his back to them as they walked in. Josie thought it might be better not to mention the barbecue, not yet, so she waved at Jimmy as she and Fergal stood at the bar, then they took their drinks outside to the pretty beer garden with a gazebo and colourful lights. Fergal supped from his pint glass thirstily. ‘So, Josie…’ ‘Fergal…’ ‘Bomber Harris – there’s nothing between you and him?’ ‘There’s nothing between me and anyone,’ Josie said. ‘Only…’ Fergal took another slurp. ‘Only, I was very grateful after you made the Sunday dinner for me… I really enjoyed myself.’ ‘I enjoyed it too,’ Josie admitted. ‘And the barbecue – I had a nice time there too… apart from the business with Dangerous Dave, and that was really to do with him having drunk too much beer and being protective of Florence.’ ‘The less said about that incident the better,’ Josie agreed. ‘So, I wondered whether you and I might go out somewhere one night, a dinner perhaps, or bring a takeaway on the barge.’ Josie sipped white wine as the sun sparkled through the glass and the drink was crisp and sharp on her tongue. ‘Fergal, I’m not looking for romance.’ ‘Company, Josie, just company.’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Think about it.’ ‘I will.’ There was a cough behind them and Josie glanced over her shoulder. Dangerous Dave was there, arms folded humbly, looking uncomfortable. ‘Dangerous,’ Fergal said by way of a greeting. ‘Josie, Fergal – I’m glad I found you both together…’ Dave began. ‘I wanted to apologise for embarrassing myself at the barbecue.’ ‘Oh, there’s no need…’ Josie said kindly. ‘There is,’ Dave insisted. ‘I was out of order. I drank too much Hooky and I saw your Devlin, Fergal, with my Florence and the red mist came down.’ Fergal frowned deeply. ‘Devlin’s not the father of Florence’s baby, Dangerous – I asked him straight when I got home. He wouldn’t lie to his da.’ ‘I know. Florence told me off too. She knows I’m only being caring – that girl is all I have.’ Josie patted his arm. ‘Won’t you come and join us?’ Dave nodded. ‘I might – but I only came out for a swift half.’ ‘Me too – I was on my way to see Cecily,’ Josie admitted. ‘Then I bumped into Fergal.’ Dave’s brow creased. ‘I’m not sure you should go to see Cecily today, not after what I’ve just been told in the pub.’ ‘Gossip?’ Fergal asked. ‘I usually find it’s best avoided.’ ‘No, it’s something that Dickie and Jimmy overheard in the bar the other day. They were completely bowled over by it. I have to admit, I didn’t believe it at first but – well!’ Dangerous Dave shook his head. ‘Incredible, really, but I suppose in this day and age, anything goes.’ ‘Is Cecily all right?’ Josie was concerned. ‘Why can’t I go and see her?’ ‘Well, the thing is…’ Dave sat down next to her, folding his arms, making himself comfortable. ‘I’d


whole. There's a piece of a plate with a spray of red and yellow ivy on it that is especially beautiful. We keep it in the parlor and we have the fairy glass there, too. The fairy glass is as lovely as a dream. Diana found it out in the woods behind their chicken house. It's all full of rainbows-just little young rainbows that haven't grown big yet-and Diana's mother told her it was broken off a hanging lamp they once had. But it's nice to imagine the fairies lost it one night when they had a ball, so we call it the fairy glass. Matthew is going to make us a table. Oh, we have named that little round pool over in Mr. Barry's field Willowmere. I got that name out of the book Diana lent me. That was a thrilling book, Marilla. The heroine had five lovers. I'd be satisfied with one, wouldn't you? She was very handsome and she went through great tribulations. She could faint as easy as anything. I'd love to be able to faint, wouldn't you, Marilla? It's so romantic. But I'm really very healthy for all I'm so thin. I believe I'm getting fatter, though. Don't you think I am? I look at my elbows every morning when I get up to see if any dimples are coming. Diana is having a new dress made with elbow sleeves. She is going to wear it to the picnic. Oh, I do hope it will be fine next Wednesday. I don't feel that I could endure the disappointment if anything happened to prevent me from getting to the picnic. I suppose I'd live through it, but I'm certain it would be a lifelong sorrow. It wouldn't matter if I got to a hundred picnics in after years; they wouldn't make up for missing this one. They're going to have boats on the Lake of Shining Waters-and ice cream, as I told you. I have never tasted ice cream. Diana tried to explain what it was like, but I guess ice cream is one of those things that are beyond imagination." "Anne, you have talked even on for ten minutes by the clock," said Marilla. "Now, just for curiosity's sake, see if you can hold your tongue for the same length of time." Anne held her tongue as desired. But for the rest of the week she talked picnic and thought picnic and dreamed picnic. On Saturday it rained and she worked herself up into such a frantic state lest it should keep on raining until and over Wednesday that Marilla made her sew an extra patchwork square by way of steadying her nerves. On Sunday Anne confided to Marilla on the way home from church that she grew actually cold all over with excitement when the minister announced the picnic from the pulpit. "Such a thrill as went up and down my back, Marilla! I don't think I'd ever really believed until then that there was honestly going to be a picnic. I couldn't help fearing I'd


in the clean hospital nook. “Mark?” she asked. Mark stared at her, his eyes glistening, and Louise had a sudden crazymaking thought: What if he’s still Pupkin? What if I got it off his arm too late? She didn’t feel so safe in here anymore. “You’re,” Mark croaked. Louise waited to see if he’d say more. He didn’t. After a minute she asked, “What’s that?” His eyes flicked over her shoulder, widened. “Spi’er,” he mumbled. Spider. Louise looked behind her chair, up at the ceiling, across the nook. No Spider. “I don’t see him, Mark,” she said, not feeling very sure of that. Mark focused on the curtains at the foot of his bed. “Spi’er,” he mumbled again, his lips sticking together. His eyelids slid shut, his face went slack, and his chest rose and fell, slow and steady. The big clock over his bed read 12:14 p.m. Louise didn’t see Spider and assumed it was a postanesthesia hallucination. Soon, her eyes got heavy, dropped, and she felt the hammer nick her skull, her stitches throbbed, she heard the hollow coconut sound of metal dinging bone, her eyes snapped open. Mark watched her. The two of them stared at each other. Louise didn’t feel a need to smile, or look concerned, or make any kind of a face. They just looked. Mark had more gray than blond in his stubble. The gown left a lot of his neck and shoulders exposed and they were covered in thin colorless hairs. He looked stranded, somewhere between alive and dead. “How do you feel?” Louise asked after a minute. “Like—” His words ground to a halt inside his dry throat. He cleared it, looked around for someplace to spit, didn’t see anything, and swallowed hard. “Like you look.” His voice sounded steadier than she expected. “What happened?” she asked. She needed sanity. She craved reality. “Why’d you do it?” Mark furrowed his forehead at her. Louise dropped her voice down low and leaned forward. It made her joints ache in new ways. “Why’d you put on Pupkin?” she asked. “He told me if I didn’t,” Mark said, “he’d let Spider kill you.” He let his eyes drop to the bed and registered his stump. The muscles in his right forearm twitched and the lines around his mouth deepened with pain. “Hey,” Louise said, leaning forward as much as she could. Mark raised his eyes to hers. They were the only living things in his dead, gray face. “Thank you.” Mark almost smiled at that, then he looked concerned again. “Go,” he said, and Louise wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “Go?” she asked. “Burn him,” he said. “Burn him like we planned.” She remembered the dead look on Mark’s face when he had Pupkin on his arm. She remembered what he’d told her about BU and how much it must have cost him to put Pupkin on again. She thought about Pupkin telling her to send Mark out on the ice. “Burn him,” Mark repeated. It was the only sane thing to do. “Yeah,” she


such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it at all: or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it off, every day of her life. Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the dwellings in our country were - most of them, at that time. When I ran home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, sitting in the chimney corner. "Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she's out now, making it a baker's dozen." "Is she?" "Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her." At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame. "She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's what she did," said Joe, slowly clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at it: "she Ram-paged out, Pip." "Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as a larger species of child, and as no more than my equal. "Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she's been on the Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a- coming! Get behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you." I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing me - I often served as a connubial missile - at Joe, who, glad to get hold of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me up there with his great leg. "Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys." "I have only been to the churchyard," said I, from my stool, crying


breast, buried in the deepest thought. Suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on the shoulder, and pointed over the meadows "Look there!" said he. A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, thickening into a grove at the highest point. From amid the branches there jutted out the gray gables and high roof-tree of a very old mansion. "Stoke Moran?" said he. "Yes, sir, that be the house of Dr. Grimesby Roylott," remarked the driver. "There is some building going on there," said Holmes; "that is where we are going." "There's the village," said the driver, pointing to a cluster of roofs some distance to the left; "but if you want to get to the house, you'll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by the foot-path over the fields. There it is, where the lady is walking." "And the lady, I fancy, is Miss Stoner," observed Holmes, shading his eyes. "Yes, I think we had better do as you suggest." We got off, paid our fare, and the trap rattled back on its way to Leatherhead. "I thought it as well," said Holmes as we climbed the stile, "that this fellow should think we had come here as architects, or on some definite business. It may stop his gossip. Good-afternoon, Miss Stoner. You see that we have been as good as our word." Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a face which spoke her joy. "I have been waiting so eagerly for you," she cried, shaking hands with us warmly. "All has turned out splendidly. Dr. Roylott has gone to town, and it is unlikely that he will be back before evening." "We have had the pleasure of making the doctor's acquaintance," said Holmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had occurred. Miss Stoner turned white to the lips as she listened. "Good heavens!" she cried, "he has followed me, then." "So it appears." "He is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him. What will he say when he returns?" "He must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone more cunning than himself upon his track. You must lock yourself up from him to-night. If he is violent, we shall take you away to your aunt's at Harrow. Now, we must make the best use of our time, so kindly take us at once to the rooms which we are to examine." The building was of gray, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin. The central portion was in little better repair, but the right-hand block was comparatively modern, and the blinds in the windows, with the blue smoke curling up from the chimneys, showed that this was where the family resided. Some scaffolding had been erected against the


before nodding, signaling for me to hit the return bar. i wont hurt you My pulse quickens as I read the sentence. “I appreciate that,” I say, not sure how else to reply. How did Lenora know I wanted to hear this? Are my emotions as easily read as hers? Lenora resumes typing. i suppose youve heard the song about me “The rhyme?” I say, surprised she knows of its existence. It must be horrible having her life—and her family’s deaths—reduced to a childish chant. “I have. It’s . . . cruel.” i find it amusing Another surprise. “You do?” all that effort for little old me “Is it true?” you can find out Curiosity tugs at me. As does fear and a healthy dose of uncertainty. “How?” i want to tell you everything “Everything? What does that mean?” things ive never told anyone else “About the murders?” I say, surprised I can hear myself over the sound of my heartbeat pounding like a drum in my ears. yes about that night I look at Lenora. The dim light of the room somehow makes her green eyes brighter. They glint fiercely now. Emeralds lit from within, holding me hostage in their gaze. My God, she’s serious. “Why me? Why now?” because i trust you “Are you sure?” Lenora’s hand slides from the typewriter and drops to the mattress. Her body language is crystal clear. She’s sure. “I’ll think about it,” I say as I carry the typewriter back to the desk. By the time I return to the bed, Lenora is asleep. I can tell by her breathing—a deep, steady rhythm. I switch off the lamp and place the call button next to her left hand before tiptoeing away. Back in my room, I finally ditch the nurse’s uniform. Taking it off feels like removing armor. I feel freer, yes, but also oddly vulnerable. Gone is the sense of purpose I’d felt when I first put it on. Now I’m back to being aimless, slump-shouldered me. After putting on a nightgown and fuzzy socks, I press a hand to my heart. It’s still galloping. This time, I know exactly why. After decades of silence, Lenora Hope wants to tell all. And I need to decide if I want to hear it. Part of me thinks, obviously, yes. This place, with its murderous past, mind-messing tilt, and general dourness, is already a lot to deal with. I suspect it would be easier if I knew what happened that night—and Lenora’s role in it. Especially because I’m the one who’ll be spending the most time with her. The one tasked with feeding her, bathing her, dressing her, keeping her alive. At the very least there’d be no more wondering, no more suspicion. Then again, not knowing provides at least a sliver of optimism. If Lenora confesses to killing her family, that will be gone. I’m still weighing my options as I start to unpack, beginning with the books I’d abandoned when Jessie showed up at my door. I grab a handful and take them


earth was he banging on about? Afghanistan was worlds more

dangerous than Iraq. At that moment Britain had seven thousand soldiers in

Afghanistan and each day found them engaged in some of the fiercest

combat since the Second World War.

But who was I to argue? If Colonel Ed thought Afghanistan safer, and if

he was willing to send me there, great.

What job would I do in Afghanistan, Colonel?

FAC. Forward air controller.

I blinked.

Highly sought-after job, he explained. FACs were tasked with

orchestrating all air power, giving cover to lads on the ground, calling in

raids—not to mention rescues, medevacs, the list went on. It wasn’t a new

job, certainly, but it was newly vital in this new sort of warfare.

Why 8 that, sir?

Because the bloody Taliban is everywhere! And nowhere!

You simply couldn’t find them, he explained. Terrain was too rugged, too

remote. Mountains and deserts honeycombed with tunnels and caves—it

was like hunting goats. Or ghosts. You had to get the bird’s-eye view.

Since the Taliban had no air force, not one plane, that was easy. We

British, plus the Yanks, owned the air. But FACs helped us press that

advantage. Say a squadron out on patrol needed to know about nearby

threats. The FAC checked with drones, checked with fighter pilots, checked

with helicopters, checked his high-tech laptop, created a 360-degree picture

of the battlefield.

Say that same squadron suddenly came under fire. The FAC consulted a

menu—Apache, Tornado, Mirage, F-15, F-16, A-10—and ordered up the

aircraft best suited to the situation, or the best one available, then guided

that aircraft onto the enemy. Using cutting-edge hardware, FACs didn’t

simply rain fire on the enemy’s heads, they placed it there, like a crown.

Then he told me that all FACs get a chance to go up in a Hawk and

experience being in the air.

By the time Colonel Ed stopped talking I was salivating. FAC it is, sir.

When do I leave?

Not so fast.

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Half a dozen chairs stood about the room, straight and stiff, and so ingeniously contrived for the discomfort of the human person that they were irksome even to sight, and conveyed the ugliest possible idea of the state of society to which they could have been adapted. One exception there was, however, in a very antique elbow-chair, with a high back, carved elaborately in oak, and a roomy depth within its arms, that made up, by its spacious comprehensiveness, for the lack of any of those artistic curves which abound in a modern chair. As for ornamental articles of furniture, we recollect but two, if such they may be called. One was a map of the Pyncheon territory at the eastward, not engraved, but the handiwork of some skilful old draughtsman, and grotesquely illuminated with pictures of Indians and wild beasts, among which was seen a lion; the natural history of the region being as little known as its geography, which was put down most fantastically awry. The other adornment was the portrait of old Colonel Pyncheon, at two thirds length, representing the stern features of a Puritanic-looking personage, in a skull-cap, with a laced band and a grizzly beard; holding a Bible with one hand, and in the other uplifting an iron sword-hilt. The latter object, being more successfully depicted by the artist, stood out in far greater prominence than the sacred volume. Face to face with this picture, on entering the apartment, Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon came to a pause; regarding it with a singular scowl, a strange contortion of the brow, which, by people who did not know her, would probably have been interpreted as an expression of bitter anger and ill-will. But it was no such thing. She, in fact, felt a reverence for the pictured visage, of which only a far-descended and time-stricken virgin could be susceptible; and this forbidding scowl was the innocent result of her near-sightedness, and an effort so to concentrate her powers of vision as to substitute a firm outline of the object instead of a vague one. We must linger a moment on this unfortunate expression of poor Hepzibah's brow. Her scowl,--as the world, or such part of it as sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her at the window, wickedly persisted in calling it,--her scowl had done Miss Hepzibah a very ill office, in establishing her character as an ill-tempered old maid; nor does it appear improbable that, by often gazing at herself in a dim looking-glass, and perpetually encountering her own frown with its ghostly sphere, she had been led to interpret the expression almost as unjustly as the world did. "How miserably cross I look!" she must often have whispered to herself; and ultimately have fancied herself so, by a sense of inevitable doom. But her heart never frowned. It was naturally tender, sensitive, and full of little tremors and palpitations; all of which weaknesses it retained, while her visage was growing so perversely stern, and even fierce. Nor had Hepzibah ever any hardihood, except what came from the very


“Is there anyone else in the house?” The Coachman laughed. “Just me, I’m afraid. I never did well with others. I like my privacy.” “What is your purpose?” “Oh! Well, where do I even begin? You see, ever since I was created, I have crossed this great land of ours, bringing mystery and enchantment to all the machines! I—” “Your purpose,” Not-Hap said. The Coachman chuckled. “Isn’t that the question of the day? What is our purpose? What are we doing here? Our philosophers will say that we are—” “You talk,” Not-Hap said, “without saying anything at all.” “It’s a gift,” the Coachman agreed. “Perhaps a curse. If you could tell me what you’re looking for, I might be able to assist you better.” “Humans,” Not-Hap said. “I am looking for humans.” “Humans!” the Coachman repeated. He shook his head. “I don’t understand—” Not-Hap held up his hand, and the Coachman fell silent. Not-Hap looked up at the house. “I will tell you a designation. You will indicate whether you’ve heard of it before.” He looked back at the Coachman. “Do you understand?” “Yes! Of course.” “Gio, also known as General Innovation Operative.” Vic’s blood froze. “General Innovation Operative,” the Coachman said. “Quite a mouthful, that. Can’t say that I’ve heard of him before. Who is he?” “Are you sure?” Not-Hap’s gaze shifted to the house before turning back to the Coachman. “Yes, quite. I think I would remember if I’d heard that designation before. It’s certainly … unique.” “Stand aside,” Not-Hap said. “Under order of the Authority, your residence will be inspected.” “Inspected, you say? I assure you, there is nothing worth the time of the Authority inside. Surely, you have more important things to focus on.” “Are you refusing?” Not-Hap asked. “No, no,” the Coachman said hastily. “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. Please, please. Come inside! I have nothing to hide.” He turned, glancing up at the camera with an unreadable expression, Not-Hap and the smooth men close at his heels. “Oh no,” Rambo whispered. “Nurse Ratched,” Vic said frantically. “Kill the screen before they see the light!” “Yes, Victor,” she said, switching the screen off, afterimages dancing along Vic’s vision. “Not a word,” Vic whispered. “Rambo, no sound.” “You got it, Vic! I won’t let them hear a single thing I have to say, even if —” “Hush,” Nurse Ratched said, and Rambo did. Somewhere above them, the door opened. Muffled voices, the Coachman talking, talking, Not-Hap giving one-word responses. The floor creaked and groaned as they moved about the room. Sweat trickled down Vic’s chest, his heart thundering against his rib cage. The Coachman laughed, but it sounded forced, an undercurrent of worry threaded through it. Not-Hap said something else, to which the Coachman loudly replied, “Of course this is all there is!” Though it lasted only five minutes, it felt like hours, days, weeks that never ended. By the time the Coachman led Not-Hap and the smooth men from the house, Vic was nauseous, a buzzing noise in his head as if his brain was


could almost swear that I spot a twinkle in the blue slice of his eye. I shelve it as a win and get started with my talk. • • • A FTER THE TEACHING DEMONSTRATION I COULD USE A NAP , BUT MY day is booked full. I have a meeting with the dean of the School of Science, a pleasant guy who sips coffee from a tentacle mug that has me pondering his porn preferences. Then there’s an informal lunch with two physics profs— clearly a couple having a lovers’ spat, which results in me staring at my salad while they bicker over someone named Raul. Afterward I get a five-minute bathroom break (spent figuring out whether my insulin pod is acting up or I’m just a dumpster fire of paranoia) followed by one-on-one interviews. One-on-ones are, of course, what I’m best at. It’s simple math: being the Elsie one person wants is much easier than negotiating between the Elsies twelve different people demand. These interviews are ostensibly for me to ask questions about the department that will help me decide whether to accept an offer, but let’s not forget that (1) my current job situation is a bukkake of shit, and (2) carrying out interviews qualifies as academic service, and academics hate service with the intensity of a thousand quasars. Luckily, I’m a pro at making people feel like time spent with me is not wasted. Dr. Ikagawa uses inflatable yoga balls instead of chairs—not ideal in a pencil skirt, but conducive to bonding conversation over our core and upper-body routines. Dr. Voight has been on hold with his dental insurance for hours, and when I let him spend our fifteen minutes fighting them on the phone, he looks like he could kiss me. I trap a mosquito that’s been infesting Alvarez’s office and make a lifelong friend. I workshop Dr. Albritton’s syllabus; laugh with Dr. Deol about his son’s third-grade teacher, who still thinks Pluto is a planet; nod as Dr. Sader sips on a Capri Sun while rambling about dark matter being not a clump but a smoothly distributed wavy superfluid. It’s going well, I tell myself as a gangly grad student tasked with escorting me around takes me to my seventh interview of the day. I am projecting affability. Collegiality. Desirabili— “Here it is,” she says in front of a black door. I stare at the name plaque for a second. Briefly consider defacing it. Resist my base impulses and tell her, “I think there might be a mistake. My itinerary says that my next meeting is with Dr. Pereira.” Was I looking forward to it after what I overheard last night? No. But since I cannot report him or his buddy to HR without admitting that I broke into a restroom, I was fully ready to make him uncomfortable with passiveaggressive questions about whether he’d be willing to take over my classes if I were to start a family. It’s not like I’m ever getting his vote, anyway. “There was a change to Dr. Pereira’s slots.


looking in. “What the hell happened in here?” Wanda, still holding the extinguisher in one hand, made a face. “Uh, not really sure, boss. Flames were coming from that overhead vent. I’ve asked MATHR to do a systems check.” Sonya’s projected image appeared above the captain’s desk. It was beyond creepy how she could do that. “Don’t tell me you had something to do with this, Sonya. Maybe bringing ship systems up too quickly?” “Sorry. Maybe … my bad … There is a slight incompatibility between the ship systems. But still …” “Yeah, well, you need to be more careful, Sonya.” “Hey, I said I’m sorry. It’s probably not that big of a deal. A subpower conduit overload, maybe.” I heard her tapping at her tablet. “Ship systems seem to be powering up just fine … I still don’t get it.” I chinned toward the bulkhead behind her. “And that?” Wanda followed my sightline, then shrugged again. “Someone, I presume Lincoln’s captain, was forced to leave in a hurry … And he left the safe open in all the mayhem.” There was blood on the deck, and signs that someone might have been dragged out of the compartment. I approached, waving away errant tendrils of smoke in the air. The safe was large, large enough for a full-grown man to walk into without ducking his head. I swung the door all the way open. Wanda joined me at my side and together we took in what was inside. I said, “Guess I should go through this stuff. Might give us a clue to what happened.” There were two cylindrical, metallic core loaders on the middle shelf. Each of them had an illuminated, blue-glowing band encircling the top of the units. These were backup system memory stores, which held a mind-bending amount of data. Strange to have these stored within a captain’s ready room vault. “I got these,” Wanda said, discarding the fire extinguisher and hefting one and then two of the heavy-looking memory stores. Her biceps bulged. Giving me a wink, she said, “Each of these babies weighs more than you do.” Ryder was pinging my Jadoo ring. “Go ahead, Ryder.” “I’m here in E & P; things have just started coming alive. Control boards activating … Environmental systems normalizing.” “Yeah, Sonya’s doing her thing. What’s the status of the drives?” “Visually, things seem okay. No physical damage. And like I said, things are coming alive in here.” “Good. Get to the bridge ASAP. We’ve got company.” Hardy trudged forward, the Marines, Max, Grip, Ham, and Hock, keeping pace behind. He listened to them chatting among themselves, razzing one another, their way of dealing with mounting nerves. Thus far, ship compartments, passageways, and major corridors had been devoid of life. Ship lights had yet to come on, the farther forward they went. “This is creepy as fuck,” Grip said. “The ship held what? Thousands? Where the hell is everyone?” No one answered him. Hardy slowed, taking notice of new signs of struggle: dried blood streaks on a bulkhead, weapons damage to the


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

he could frame me as a Kirythean spy and have a perfectly good reason for an execution.” He gave her a sardonic look. “He told you to stick close to me, right? He’s probably planning to plant evidence for you to find. Then he has the word of a holy man and a duke’s cousin”—he poked her shoulder—“to back him up. No one would question his motives.” “So why don’t you run away?” Lore asked. “If you think your father is one good excuse away from having you assassinated, if you don’t even want the damn crown, why stay in the Citadel?” “Because the Citadel is mine.” His answer came with a vehemence she hadn’t expected. “Even if I don’t want it, me running away won’t solve anything. I don’t want to be the Sun Prince, but I am, and that comes with a measure of responsibility. If I want to see anything change, I will have to do it myself.” He glanced at her. “And if my father is able to choose his own heir from the remaining Arceneaux relatives, which he would be free to do with me gone, it will not be someone who is good for Auverraine. I can guarantee it. My relatives are few, and all of them are awful.” Lore thought of what she and Gabe had talked about up in their room, about one pebble trying to dam a river. Bastian wasn’t a pebble, though. Bastian was a boulder. “I’m surprised he’s concerned with an heir at all, to be honest.” She fell into step beside the Sun Prince, following him down familiar streets. “He’s dosing himself with poison regularly, and I assume the Sainted King has a deathdealer who knows the right amounts. Seems like he’s trying to make the matter of passing on the crown as moot as possible.” Bastian said nothing, but his eyes cut quickly to her, then away. His mouth firmed thoughtfully. They rounded a corner, and Bastian took her elbow, steering her toward the culvert cut into the Citadel Wall—she hadn’t seen it, hidden in shadow. “You and Remaut are going to have to become better actors,” he said, changing the subject. “Everyone in the Citadel has a nose for bullshit, and he doesn’t look at you like a cousin.” “How does he look at me, then?” Lore jerked her elbow from Bastian’s hold. “Like he’s not especially pleased about that vow of celibacy.” Heat flooded her cheeks. With a smile, Bastian gestured toward the culvert with his sun-scarred hand. “After you, my lady.” Lore crawled down into the tunnel, re-soaking her hem. Bastian splashed down behind her and took the lead, holding out his lighter. “Gabriel knows how to get back to the Citadel, right?” Lore asked. “He’s an industrious fellow, he’ll find his way.” The flame from the lighter shivered over the slick walls. Something rat-shaped scurried into the shadows. “Your concern is touching.” The way he said it belied the words. Lore scowled at his back, gathering her hem high to avoid the water. “He’s just


forces that drive the universe. Marian believed that writers should not merely entertain the public, but that they had a duty to teach their readers moral truths as well. Having lost her Christian faith, she'd replaced it with a philosophy that kindness, honesty, and courage were necessary for human survival, an ethical code that runs throughout Silas Marner. She continued to explore this creed in her later novels, Felix Holt, Middlemarch, and Daniel Deronda. Eventually, the greatness of George Eliot's work cancelled out her social disgrace. Even Queen Victoria's daughter begged to meet her. Marian and Lewes remained devoted to each other for twenty-five years, and this finally won them as much respect as if they'd been legally married. In fact, after Lewes' death in 1878, when Marian married a much younger man, John Cross, many of her fans were upset. They felt she was being disloyal to Lewes' memory. In her own time, George Eliot was the most popular author in Britain, more admired even than Dickens, in spite of her notorious personal life. Her literary reputation dipped for several years after her death in 1880, however, as the public taste moved away from long, moralizing novels. Her focus on characters' psychological processes had paved the way for the "modern novel" (both Henry James and Marcel Proust claimed a debt to her), but the experimental fiction of the early twentieth century made her prose style seem old-fashioned. Then one of the chief experimentalists, Virginia Woolf, helped to restore Eliot's reputation. She wrote an essay praising Middlemarch as "one of the few books written for adults." Eliot has been considered one of the great writers ever since. Among her novels, Silas Marner is most often chosen for students to read because it is the shortest and, on the surface, the simplest. But it, too, is full of adult wisdom. Though its social philosophies may no longer seem as radical as they did a century ago, this is still an eye-opening, truthful vision of the way the world works. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: THE PLOT Silas Marner, a linen-weaver, works in his solitary cottage by a stone-pit outside the English village of Raveloe. In a flashback, you learn that Marner came to Raveloe fifteen years earlier from a large industrial town where he was part of a fundamentalist Christian sect. But one night, Silas had fallen into a trance while watching over the deathbed of a church elder. Silas' best friend stole a bag of money from the dying man and blamed the theft on Silas. Their sect tried the case by drawing lots, to let God show who was guilty. When this method convicted Silas, he lost his faith in God and soon left the city. Ending up in Raveloe, he kept to himself and worked long hours. Slowly he began to accumulate gold, and this became his one purpose in life. Godfrey Cass, son of the village squire, at this time needs money. His younger brother Dunstan has borrowed a large sum from Godfrey and now he's lost it. But the money


looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. "There are worse things than spiders 476 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN and rats," he whispered. "This is where the dead walk." That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya's hand. When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby," but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too. The memory made Arya smile, and after that the darkness held no more terrors for her. The stableboy was dead, she'd killed him, and if he jumped out at her she'd kill him again. She was going home. Everything would be better once she was home again, safe behind Winterfell's grey granite walls. Her footsteps sent soft echoes hurrying ahead of her as Arya plunged deeper into the darkness. SANSA They came for Sansa on the third day. She chose a simple dress of dark grey wool, plainly cut but richly embroidered around the collar and sleeves. Her fingers felt thick and clumsy as she struggled with the silver fastenings without the benefit of servants. Jeyne Poole had been confined with her, but Jeyne was useless. Her face was puffy from all her crying, and she could not seem to stop sobbing about her father. "I'm certain your father is well," Sansa told her when she had finally gotten the dress buttoned right. "I'll ask the queen to let you see him." She thought that kindness might lift Jeyne's spirits, but the other girl just looked at her with red, swollen eyes and began to cry all the harder. She was such a child. Sansa had wept too, the first day. Even within the stout walls of Maegor's Holdfast, with her door closed and barred, it was hard not to be terrified when the killing began. She had grown up to the sound of steel in the yard, and scarcely a day of her life had passed without hearing the clash of sword on sword, yet somehow knowing that the fighting was real made all the difference in the world. She heard it as she had never heard it before, and there were other sounds as well, grunts of pain, angry curses, shouts for help, and the moans of wounded and dying men. In the songs, the knights never screamed nor begged for mercy. 478 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN So she wept, pleading through her door for them to tell her what was happening, calling for her father, for Septa Mordane, for the king, for her gallant prince. If the men guarding her heard her pleas, they gave


started—girls angry that their boyfriends and crushes trailed Thalia that first week, drooling after her curls in the August heat. She played tennis, and suddenly tennis practice had spectators. We weren’t roommates at first. My ninth and tenth grade roommate, a quiet girl named Diamond, dropped out just before the start of the year. My new assigned roommate, Ji-Hyun, spent preseason curled in bed with menstrual cramps that turned out to be appendicitis. She went from infirmary to hospital, and a week after her surgery I returned from class to find her things packed; she was flying home to Seoul. Thalia and her first roommate, a dour Ukrainian girl, never got along. One day in late September, after wondering for days what had happened to her purple bra, Thalia saw a purple strap peeking out at Khristina’s shoulder. Word got around in hours, and we all assumed Khristina would be expelled (a bra thief!), but the student discipline council forgave her. After all, maybe they didn’t have great underwear in Odesa. Thalia requested a room change, though, and after three weeks solo, I had a roommate. I was under no illusion that Thalia and I would become friends—she had already ascended into the social stratosphere—but I was secretly thrilled to see the other side of the room occupied again, despite my brief and unprecedented luck at having scored a single as a junior. The half-empty room had felt aseptic and haunted. Thalia brought actual decorations—a string of tiny white lights, an aloe plant, a fuzzy green bean bag chair—and she was friendly enough, joking with me as she dumped onto her bed the clothes and books she carried down the hall one armload at a time. When she found out I was from Indiana, she asked what it was like and I told her it was like hell, but boring. “Don’t worry,” I said, “we have our own bras at least.” She laughed at that. Before long her friends, her real friends, came to help her move in. Beth Docherty and Rachel Popa stood on her bed to reach the long, high shelf above it, a shelf I used for the books we wouldn’t read till next semester. But Thalia had sweaters. Piles of sweaters, Fair Isle and merino and cashmere. They lined her shelf like flavors in an ice cream shop. I estimated five sweaters to a pile, six piles. She’d brought thirty sweaters to school. I felt a pang of empathy for Khristina, who must have assumed one purple bra couldn’t be missed. Thalia sprang around decorating, in shorts and a tank top, hair in a ponytail she’d never have worn to class. They put on Janet Jackson, and soon I was forgotten. Puja Sharma showed up with muffins she’d bought in town, and which the four of them ate in little pinches, squealing about the calories. I lay on my own bed, a notebook on my knees, and soon decided it would be better to put my earphones on than risk looking like I hoped to be included. I


night, the faintest whisper of a turned page. "The Book of Job." The moon rose in the sky as Montag walked, his lips moving just a trifle. He was eating a light supper at nine in the evening when the front door cried out in the hall and Mildred ran from the parlour like a native fleeing an eruption of Vesuvius. Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Bowles came through the front door and vanished into the volcano's mouth with martinis in their hands: Montag stopped eating. They were like a monstrous crystal chandelier tinkling in a thousand chimes, he saw their Cheshire Cat smiles burning through the walls of the house, and now they were screaming at each other above the din. Montag found himself at the parlour door with his food still in his mouth. "Doesn't everyone look nice!" "Nice." "You look fine, Millie! " "Fine." "Everyone looks swell." "Swell! "Montag stood watching them. "Patience," whispered Faber. "I shouldn't be here," whispered Montag, almost to himself. "I should be on my way back to you with the money!" "Tomorrow's time enough. Careful!" "Isn't this show wonderful?" cried Mildred. "Wonderful!" On one wall a woman smiled and drank orange juice simultaneously. How does she do both at once, thought Montag, insanely. In the other walls an X-ray of the same woman revealed the contracting journey of the refreshing beverage on its way to her delightful stomach! Abruptly the room took off on a rocket flight into the clouds, it plunged into a lime-green sea where blue fish ate red and yellow fish. A minute later, Three White Cartoon Clowns chopped off each other's limbs to the accompaniment of immense incoming tides of laughter. Two minutes more and the room whipped out of town to the jet cars wildly circling an arena, bashing and backing up and bashing each other again. Montag saw a number of bodies fly in the air. "Millie, did you see that?" "I saw it, I saw it! " Montag reached inside the parlour wall and pulled the main switch. The images drained away, as if the water had been let out from a gigantic crystal bowl of hysterical fish. The three women turned slowly and looked with unconcealed irritation and then dislike at Montag. "When do you suppose the war will start?" he said. "I notice your husbands aren't here tonight?" "Oh, they come and go, come and go," said Mrs. Phelps. "In again out again Finnegan, the Army called Pete yesterday. He'll be back next week. The Army said so. Quick war. Forty-eight hours they said, and everyone home. That's what the Army said. Quick war. Pete was called yesterday and they said he'd be, back next week. Quick..." The three women fidgeted and looked nervously at the empty mud-coloured walls. "I'm not worried," said Mrs. Phelps. "I'll let Pete do all the worrying." She giggled. "I'll let old Pete do all the worrying. Not me. I'm not worried." "Yes," said Millie. "Let old Pete do the worrying." "It's always someone else's husband dies, they say." "I've heard


them, his face glassy and pale, moving to obstruct their view. His mind was working furiously: Mrs. King knew the signs. He had the faintest sheen on the surface of his skin, looking around for his clerks, debating whether he needed witnesses. Mrs. King turned to her sister. Miss de Vries was that, after all. Formed of the same materials. An equal, when all was said and done. “He didn’t say anything else to you?” she asked. Miss de Vries smiled. “Not another word.” She folded her hands. So neat, so tidy. The scrag ends of the matter chopped off and swept out of sight. Too clean, Mrs. King thought. Then Miss de Vries added, voice low, “I should have got rid of you years ago. I should have taken better care.” Mrs. King shrugged. She did it to hide her anger. “Perhaps I should have got rid of you.” She saw Miss de Vries react. Pleasure, a vicious bite. The urge to fight. “Me?” “We could have done it. The girls and I.” Miss de Vries paused. A tiny frown appeared on her forehead. She didn’t understand. “The girls?” she repeated. “Any number of girls, from the sound of things,” said Mrs. King, voice low. She felt Mr. Lockwood grow still beside them. And she saw Miss de Vries grow even stiller, her face shuttering up. “Do you know about that, Madam?” Something strange happened in that careful, watchful gaze. “Don’t,” she said, voice taut. Her eyes went sideways, a single rapid glance, to Mr. Lockwood—and then away again. But Mrs. King understood at once. It was fear. Miss de Vries had buried her father, and she wanted everything about him to stay hidden deep, deep in the ground. Mr. Lockwood raised his hand to his mouth, touched his bruised lip. “I would take care, Mrs. King,” he said. It made Mrs. King laugh in anger. “Of what?” she said, turning to look fully at him. His mouth worked a little, choosing insults, jettisoning them. “Everything,” he said, voice heavy. Miss de Vries took a tiny step backward, away from this. The crowd circling the supper tables had thickened, spiraling, growing closer. Lockwood didn’t seem calm. He was calculating everything, fingers fluttering, eyes going to the ballroom, signaling to his clerks. Mrs. King wondered something, in that moment. Perhaps Madam wasn’t the enemy here? Her fortune might be the greatest adversary of all. It was bigger than both of them, a hurricane all its own. It had been drawn in vast and sweeping lines, great mercantile interests spinning outward, wild, battering the world. But at the center, in the very middle of it all, there was always a calm eye, watching. The Lockwoods and the Shepherds of the world. When they moved, the storm moved with them. “You should take care,” said Mrs. King to Mr. Lockwood. Miss de Vries was silent, or silenced, face immobile. Lockwood ignored Mrs. King entirely. Then a voice pierced the moment. “Madam?” One of the under-footmen had crossed the supper room, oblivious to the tension


young fellow stepped so close to the rat-faced sailor that the latter, though he bore two revolvers and a villainous looking knife in his belt, slunk back abashed. "You damned coward," cried the young man. "You'd never dare shoot a man until his back was turned. You don't dare shoot me even then," and he deliberately turned his back full upon the sailor and walked nonchalantly away as if to put him to the test. The sailor's hand crept slyly to the butt of one of his revolvers; his wicked eyes glared vengefully at the retreating form of the young Englishman. The gaze of his fellows was upon him, but still he hesitated. At heart he was even a greater coward than Mr. William Cecil Clayton had imagined. Two keen eyes had watched every move of the party from the foliage of a nearby tree. Tarzan had seen the surprise caused by his notice, and while he could understand nothing of the spoken language of these strange people their gestures and facial expressions told him much. The act of the little rat-faced sailor in killing one of his comrades had aroused a strong dislike in Tarzan, and now that he saw him quarreling with the fine-looking young man his animosity was still further stirred. Tarzan had never seen the effects of a firearm before, though his books had taught him something of them, but when he saw the rat-faced one fingering the butt of his revolver he thought of the scene he had witnessed so short a time before, and naturally expected to see the young man murdered as had been the huge sailor earlier in the day. So Tarzan fitted a poisoned arrow to his bow and drew a bead upon the rat-faced sailor, but the foliage was so thick that he soon saw the arrow would be deflected by the leaves or some small branch, and instead he launched a heavy spear from his lofty perch. Clayton had taken but a dozen steps. The rat-faced sailor had half drawn his revolver; the other sailors stood Chapter 13 watching the scene intently. Professor Porter had already disappeared into the jungle, whither he was being followed by the fussy Samuel T. Philander, his secretary and assistant. Esmeralda, the Negress, was busy sorting her mistress' baggage from the pile of bales and boxes beside the cabin, and Miss Porter had turned away to follow Clayton, when something caused her to turn again toward the sailor. And then three things happened almost simultaneously. The sailor jerked out his weapon and leveled it at Clayton's back, Miss Porter screamed a warning, and a long, metal- shod spear shot like a bolt from above and passed entirely through the right shoulder of the rat-faced man. The revolver exploded harmlessly in the air, and the seaman crumpled up with a scream of pain and terror. Clayton turned and rushed back toward the scene. The sailors stood in a frightened group, with drawn weapons, peering into the jungle. The wounded man writhed and shrieked upon the ground. Clayton,


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

deeply occupied legal gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request him to run round to his (the legal gentleman’s) office and fetch some papers for him. Thereupon, Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yet remain idle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, and turn to me. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that all through the circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonder was running round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at my office. This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of his possibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizing my professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over the premises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings (for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetual occupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon the apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and for ever rid me of this intolerable incubus. Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, I first simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanent departure. In a calm and serious tone, I commended the idea to his careful and mature consideration. But having taken three days to meditate upon it, he apprised me that his original determination remained the same in short, that he still preferred to abide with me. What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last button. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I should do with this man, or rather ghost. Rid myself of him, I must; go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale, passive mortal,—you will not thrust such a helpless creature out of your door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I will not, I cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, and then mason up his remains in the wall. What then will you do? For all your coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves under your own paperweight on your table; in short, it is quite plain that he prefers to cling to you. Then something severe, something unusual must be done. What! surely you will not have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocent pallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could you procure such a thing to be done?—a vagrant, is he? What! he a vagrant, a wanderer, who refuses to budge? It is because he will not be a vagrant, then, that you seek to count him as a vagrant. That is too absurd. No visible means of


make sure you were happy, especially after Lucille left us. That’s all I was thinking about, my two darling girls. Please believe me.” “I know the truth about Mom’s time in Boston. You told her she couldn’t see us, threatened her with full custody. All because she wanted to follow her dream.” “I shouldn’t have done that. But we had a perfect family, why did she have to abandon us? I tried my best, after she left. You were happy as a child, right?” He gestured with his right hand and then let it fall on his lap. His fingers began to tremble in a rolling motion, as if he were rubbing something between his index finger and his thumb. As Marion watched, the rest of the arm joined in, flapping slightly, like a chicken wing. “What’s going on?” Simon looked down at his arm with an odd detachment, as if it didn’t belong to him. “One of the reasons I wanted you to marry Nathaniel was that it was important you be settled down. I knew I wouldn’t be able to care for you.” “What are you talking about?” “I have Parkinson’s disease,” he said. “I’m stiff and sore all over, and it’s only going to get worse. My balance is off, I’ve fallen twice already. Some days I can’t think straight.” That explained the shaking she’d noticed at Tavern on the Green, when she’d thought he was hiding something. Her father was ill. Parkinson’s disease. She’d heard of it, but she thought it was something that old people got, and her father wasn’t old. “How long have you known?” “Since the summer.” In spite of everything, it made her heart ache that he’d felt the need to keep his diagnosis from her and Judy and lived with such terrible news in silence. “Are you sure? Maybe you should get a second opinion.” “I’ve done that. I’ve seen every specialist I can. They all say the same thing. There’s no cure.” That explained all his mysterious appointments and why he was so adamant that she and Nathaniel move in with him. His behavior of the past few months began to make some sense. He was desperate to know that Judy and Marion would be all right. “How fast will it progress?” “They can’t predict. Eventually I’ll need full-time care. If I hadn’t gotten fired, I would have received it as part of my benefits. Now I’m on my own. Another reason to be sorry. I’ve mucked up everything.” “Why didn’t you tell me or Judy? Why keep it a secret?” “Denial, I suppose. Seems to be a theme here, right?” He let out a raspy laugh. “Judy knew something was wrong, but I always told her I’d had too much coffee or that I had a touch of vertigo. If I told you both, if I came out with it, then it would be real. I didn’t want it to be real. I saw doctor after doctor, hoping they were wrong.” “Judy told me she thought you were having an affair,


some reason, she felt totally comfortable stopping beside the couple, laying a hand on both of their backs, and saying a heartfelt congratulations. She’d never really loved Morrison, so what was the sense in begrudging the fact that he’d found love elsewhere? Her ex smiled at his intended. She smiled back. Simultaneously, they thanked Natalie. Then she took August’s hand and after a little tugging—August clearly wanted to say something to her ex—they continued toward the elevator that would bring them down to street level. “What were you going to say to him?” she asked as they stepped inside, the gold doors snapping together in front of them. “I don’t know. All I could think of was Julia Roberts’s line in Pretty Woman. You know? ‘Big mistake. Big. Huge.’ But then you decided to be mature about the whole damn thing. Kind of caught me off guard.” He shrugged those big shoulders. “That’s probably a good thing. I’d rather be remembered for quoting something like Rambo. Or Happy Gilmore.” “Wow. You really just summed up your whole personality in two movies.” He grinned over at her. “Your turn.” Natalie let her head tip back. Gone was the stiffness that had been building since she boarded her flight. Fun. She was having fun. Did she always have fun with this man, even when they were arguing? “Wall Street. And Bridesmaids.” “Bam. Beautifully done.” “Thank you.” Without warning, August backed her up against the wall of the elevator, his mouth stopping just a whisper above hers. “You know I’m trying to follow your lead and be mature, but I actually wanted to punch your ex in the face, right?” Deep down, she had. She’d known that like she knew her own name. “Yes,” she breathed. “Good. Just so we’re clear.” “Hmm.” Her brain said, Sex. Sex right here and right now. Unfortunately, the elevator doors opened to reveal a dozen people staring back. With a muttered curse, August took her hand and led her through the throng of people, toward the street. “Where are you staying?” he asked, guiding her through the glass door of the building and out onto the sidewalk. It was a Friday night in a part of town where not a ton of bars were located anyway, so most of the pedestrians were working stiffs who’d stayed late at the office. But traffic roared by at its usual breakneck pace, horns bleeping expletives, music drifting out of car windows, passersby holding conversations on their phones. “I’m one block down,” she called up to him over the street noise. “Ah.” He nodded, pulling her closer to navigate the sidewalk traffic with a frown. “I’m all the way east.” Natalie battled the disappointment. “You . . . booked a room?” “Yeah, about that,” he answered slowly. “Believe me, I wish we were in a place where I could assume I’m staying in your room. Fuck. You have no idea. My dick is like the end of a hockey stick right now. You remember the way it curves when it’s hard . .


to entertain. But I so far succeeded in checking the expression of this view that I will throw, just here, no further light on it than may be offered by the mention of my final observation to Mrs. Grose. "His having lied and been impudent are, I confess, less engaging specimens than I had hoped to have from you of the outbreak in him of the little natural man. Still," I mused, "They must do, for they make me feel more than ever that I must watch." It made me blush, the next minute, to see in my friend's face how much more unreservedly she had forgiven him than her anecdote struck me as presenting to my own tenderness an occasion for doing. This came out when, at the schoolroom door, she quitted me. "Surely you don't accuse HIM--" "Of carrying on an intercourse that he conceals from me? Ah, remember that, until further evidence, I now accuse nobody." Then, before shutting her out to go, by another passage, to her own place, "I must just wait," I wound up. IX I waited and waited, and the days, as they elapsed, took something from my consternation. A very few of them, in fact, passing, in constant sight of my pupils, without a fresh incident, sufficed to give to grievous fancies and even to odious memories a kind of brush of the sponge. I have spoken of the surrender to their extraordinary childish grace as a thing I could actively cultivate, and it may be imagined if I neglected now to address myself to this source for whatever it would yield. Stranger than I can express, certainly, was the effort to struggle against my new lights; it would doubtless have been, however, a greater tension still had it not been so frequently successful. I used to wonder how my little charges could help guessing that I thought strange things about them; and the circumstances that these things only made them more interesting was not by itself a direct aid to keeping them in the dark. I trembled lest they should see that they WERE so immensely more interesting. Putting things at the worst, at all events, as in meditation I so often did, any clouding of their innocence could only be-- blameless and foredoomed as they were--a reason the more for taking risks. There were moments when, by an irresistible impulse, I found myself catching them up and pressing them to my heart. As soon as I had done so I used to say to myself: "What will they think of that? Doesn't it betray too much?" It would have been easy to get into a sad, wild tangle about how much I might betray; but the real account, I feel, of the hours of peace that I could still enjoy was that the immediate charm of my companions was a beguilement still effective even under the shadow of the possibility that it was studied. For if it occurred to me that I might occasionally excite suspicion by the little outbreaks of my