I put them on. "Is it morning?" "No, it's a little after one. Hurry now." That something was wrong finally got through to me. "What's the matter?" By then he did not have to tell me. Just as the birds know where to go when it rains, I knew when there was trouble in our street. Soft taffeta-like sounds and muffled scurrying sounds filled me with helpless dread. "Whose is it?" "Miss Maudie's, hon," said Atticus gently. At the front door, we saw fire spewing from Miss Maudie's diningroom windows. As if to confirm what we saw, the town fire siren wailed up the scale to a treble pitch and remained there, screaming. "It's gone, ain't it?" moaned Jem. "I expect so," said Atticus. "Now listen, both of you. Go down and stand in front of the Radley Place. Keep out of the way, do you hear? See which way the wind's blowing?" "Oh," said Jem. "Atticus, reckon we oughta start moving the furniture out?" "Not yet, son. Do as I tell you. Run now. Take care of Scout, you hear? Don't let her out of your sight." With a push, Atticus started us toward the Radley front gate. We stood watching the street fill with men and cars while fire silently devoured Miss Maudie's house. "Why don't they hurry, why don't they hurry..." muttered Jem. We saw why. The old fire truck, killed by the cold, was being pushed from town by a crowd of men. When the men attached its hose to a hydrant, the hose burst and water shot up, tinkling down on the pavement. "Oh-h Lord, Jem..." Jem put his arm around me. "Hush, Scout," he said. "It ain't time to worry yet. I'll let you know when." The men of Maycomb, in all degrees of dress and undress, took furniture from Miss Maudie's house to a yard across the street. I saw Atticus carrying Miss Maudie's heavy oak rocking chair, and thought it sensible of him to save what she valued most. Sometimes we heard shouts. Then Mr. Avery's face appeared in an upstairs window. He pushed a mattress out the window into the street and threw down furniture until men shouted, "Come down from there, Dick! The stairs are going! Get outta there, Mr. Avery!" Mr. Avery began climbing through the window. "Scout, he's stuck..." breathed Jem. "Oh God..." Mr. Avery was wedged tightly. I buried my head under Jem's arm and didn't look again until Jem cried, "He's got loose, Scout! He's all right!" I looked up to see Mr. Avery cross the upstairs porch. He swung his legs over the railing and was sliding down a pillar when he slipped. He fell, yelled, and hit Miss Maudie's shrubbery. Suddenly I noticed that the men were backing away from Miss Maudie's house, moving down the street toward us. They were no longer carrying furniture. The fire was well into the second floor and had eaten its way to the roof: window frames were black against a vivid orange center. "Jem, it looks like a pumpkin-"


that was spoken. "While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight. "The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of Empires. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants. "These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing. "Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me. While I listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange system of human society was explained to me. I heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty, of rank, descent, and noble blood. "The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat


lost in the moment,” he says unconvincingly. I frown at him, and he sighs. “Ana, orgasm denial is a standard tool in—You never—” He stops. I shift in his lap, and he winces. Oh. I flush. “Sorry,” I mutter. He rolls his eyes, then leans back suddenly, taking me with him, so that we’re both lying on the bed, me in his arms. My bra is uncomfortable, and I adjust it. “Need a hand?” he asks quietly. I shake my head. I don’t want him to touch my breasts. He shifts so he’s looking down at me, and tentatively raising his hand, he strokes his fingers gently down my face. Tears pool in my eyes again. How can he be so callous one minute and so tender the next? “Please don’t cry,” he whispers. I’m dazed and confused by this man. My anger has deserted me in my hour of need . . . I feel numb. I want to curl up in a ball and withdraw. I blink, trying to hold back my tears as I gaze into his harrowed eyes. I take a shuddering breath, my eyes not leaving his. What am I going to do with this controlling man? Learn to be controlled? I don’t think so . . . “I never what?” I ask “Do as you’re told. You changed your mind; you didn’t tell me where you were. Ana, I was in New York, powerless and livid. If I’d been in Seattle I’d have brought you home.” “So you are punishing me?” He swallows, then closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to answer, and I know that punishing me was his exact intention. “You have to stop doing this,” I murmur. His brow furrows. “For a start, you only end up feeling shittier about yourself.” He snorts. “That’s true,” he mutters. “I don’t like to see you like this.” “And I don’t like feeling like this. You said on the Fair Lady that you hadn’t married a submissive.” “I know. I know.” His voice is soft and raw. 242/551 “Well stop treating me like one. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I won’t be so selfish again. I know you worry about me.” He gazes at me, scrutinizing me closely, his eyes bleak and anxious. “Okay. Good,” he says eventually. He leans down, but pauses before his lips touch mine, silently asking if it’s allowed. I raise my face to his, and he kisses me tenderly. “Your lips are always so soft when you’ve been crying,” he murmurs. “I never promised to obey you, Christian,” I whisper. “I know.” “Deal with it, please. For both our sakes. And I will try and be more consid- erate of your . . . controlling tendencies.” He looks lost and vulnerable, completely at sea. “I’ll try,” he murmurs, his voice burning with sincerity. I sigh, a long shuddering sigh. “Please do. Besides, if I had been here . . .” “I know,” he says and blanches. Lying back, he puts his free arm over his face. I curl around him


needed to feel the warmth of her against his suddenly clammy palm. She didn’t hesitate for a single second before taking his hand and squeezing it. Skirmish forgotten. Interesting how they could flip that switch so quickly. What did that mean? “So this is the place you’ve built for my son.” Commander Zelnick stopped, clasped his hands behind his back. His tone was brisk as ever, but warmth seeped through. “Had a week off and finally decided to come see it for myself.” Christ. He’d almost left it behind two days earlier. Out of necessity, sure, but this man would have arrived and found an abandoned vineyard. If it weren’t for Natalie. He pulled her closer without thinking. “Yes. For Sam. It’s a work in progress,” he managed around the object in his throat. “Sir, I would like you to meet Natalie Vos. My fiancée.” Perpetuating the phony relationship to his CO didn’t exactly feel great, but the words were out in the open before he could think better of them. Just hanging there, feeling like the truth. “Natalie, this is Commander Brian Zelnick.” Zelnick nodded, visibly impressed—and a little surprised. “Good to meet you, Natalie.” Of course he would be surprised. Not only was Natalie beautiful in a polished way, she had an air of sophistication and success that she wore like an aura. In other words, not the kind of girl who ended up with a loud asshole who liked to trade battle wound stories and had long ago earned the nickname Bullhorn among his fellow SEALs. “It’s very nice to meet you,” she said, going back to scrutinizing August. He could feel that she wanted to ask about Sam and he pressed a thumb to the small of her wrist, hoping she would know what it meant. That he’d explain later. And somehow she did. She interpreted the action with a nod. “I’ll let you two talk.” To August, she said, “I’ll be inside.” Natalie tugged on her hand three times before August realized he was still holding it in his grip. Finally, he released her and they watched her walk toward the house, go inside, and close the door. August and the commander turned together like a single unit and walked side by side toward the edge of the vines, the earthy, sun-heated aroma of greenery and grapes carrying in their direction on a light breeze. A bead of sweat rolled down August’s temple as he waited for his CO to speak. This man had assured him once that he didn’t blame August for what happened to Sam—and the CO never repeated himself. Nonetheless, August had to swallow the deep urge to ask for those words one more time. God, he needed to hear them and yet, they made no difference. He’d let his friend get killed fifteen yards away from him. Fifteen fucking yards. “I appreciate what you’ve done here, son,” said Zelnick, his voice more gravelly than before. “Sam would have, too.” August cleared his throat hard. “To tell you the truth, I’m a shit winemaker,


conch for silence. "We'll let the fire burn out now. Who would see smoke at night-time, anyway? And we can start the fire again whenever we like. Altos, you can keep the fire going this week, and trebles the next--" The assembly assented gravely. "And we'll be responsible for keeping a lookout too. If we see a ship out there"--they followed the direction of his bony arm with their eyes--"we'll put green branches on. Then there'll be more smoke." They gazed intently at the dense blue of the horizon, as if a little silhouette might appear there at any moment. The sun in the west was a drop of burning gold that slid nearer and nearer the sill of the world. All at once they were aware of the evening as the end of light and warmth. Roger took the conch and looked round at them gloomily. "I've been watching the sea. There hasn't been the trace of a ship. Perhaps we'll never be rescued." A murmur rose and swept away. Ralph took back the conch. "I said before we'll be rescued sometime. We've just got to wait, that's all." Daring, indignant, Piggy took the conch. "That's what I said! I said about our meetings and things and then you said shut up--" His voice lifted into the whine of virtuous recrimination. They stirred and began to shout him down. "You said you wanted a small fire and you been and built a pile like a hayrick. If I say anything," cried Piggy, with bitter realism, "you say shut up; but if Jack or Maurice or Simon--" He paused in the tumult, standing, looking beyond them and down the unfriendly side of the mountain to the great patch where they had found dead wood. Then he laughed so strangely that they were hushed, looking at the flash of his spectacles in astonishment. They followed his gaze to find the sour joke. "You got your small fire all right." Smoke was rising here and there among the creepers that festooned the dead or dying trees. As they watched, a flash of fire appeared at the root of one wisp, and then the smoke thickened. Small flames stirred at the trunk of a tree and crawled away through leaves and brushwood, dividing and increasing. One patch touched a tree trunk and scrambled up like a bright squirrel. The smoke increased, sifted, rolled outwards. The squirrel leapt on the wings of the wind and clung to another standing tree, eating downwards. Beneath the dark canopy of leaves and smoke the fire laid hold on the forest and began to gnaw. Acres of black and yellow smoke rolled steadily toward the sea. At the sight of the flames and the irresistible course of the fire, the boys broke into shrill, excited cheering. The flames, as though they were a kind of wild life, crept as a jaguar creeps on its belly toward a line of birch-like saplings that fledged an outcrop of the pink rock. They flapped at the first of the trees, and the branches


could take his yew bow and plug a ten-cent piece every time, a mile and a half." "What's a yew bow?" "I don't know. It's some kind of a bow, of course. And if he hit that dime only on the edge he would set down and cry -- and curse. But we'll play Robin Hood -- it's nobby fun. I'll learn you." "I'm agreed." So they played Robin Hood all the afternoon, now and then casting a yearning eye down upon the haunted house and passing a remark about the --------------------------------------------------------- -239- morrow's prospects and possibilities there. As the sun began to sink into the west they took their way homeward athwart the long shadows of the trees and soon were buried from sight in the forests of Cardiff Hill. On Saturday, shortly after noon, the boys were at the dead tree again. They had a smoke and a chat in the shade, and then dug a little in their last hole, not with great hope, but merely because Tom said there were so many cases where people had given up a treasure after getting down within six inches of it, and then somebody else had come along and turned it up with a single thrust of a shovel. The thing failed this time, however, so the boys shouldered their tools and went away feeling that they had not trifled with fortune, but had fulfilled all the requirements that belong to the business of treasure-hunting. When they reached the haunted house there was something so weird and grisly about the dead silence that reigned there under the baking sun, and something so depressing about the loneliness and desolation of the place, that they were afraid, for a moment, to venture in. Then they crept to the door and took a trembling peep. They saw a weed-grown, floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, vacant windows, a ruinous staircase; and here, there, and everywhere hung ragged and abandoned cobwebs. They presently entered, softly, with quickened pulses, talking in whispers, ears alert --------------------------------------------------------- -240- to catch the slightest sound, and muscles tense and ready for instant retreat. In a little while familiarity modified their fears and they gave the place a critical and interested examination, rather admiring their own boldness, and wondering at it, too. Next they wanted to look up-stairs. This was something like cutting off retreat, but they got to daring each other, and of course there could be but one result -- they threw their tools into a corner and made the ascent. Up there were the same signs of decay. In one corner they found a closet that promised mystery, but the promise was a fraud -- there was nothing in it. Their courage was up now and well in hand. They were about to go down and begin work when -- "Sh!" said Tom. "What is it?" whispered Huck, blanching with fright. "Sh! ... There! ... Hear it?" "Yes! ... Oh, my! Let's run!" "Keep still! Don't you budge! They're coming right toward the door." The boys stretched themselves


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

rouleaux, floating quietly along by walls and shady places, dodging quickly from the approaching eyes of men. And it had, though no man had traced it, invariably ended its mysterious flight in the pocket of that agitated gentleman in the obsolete silk hat, sitting outside the little inn on the outskirts of Port Stowe. Chapter 15 The Man Who Was Running In the early evening time Doctor Kemp was sitting in his study in the belvedere on the hill overlooking Burdock. It was a pleasant little room, with three windows, north, west, and south, and bookshelves crowded with books and scientific publications, and a broad writing-table, and, under the north window, a microscope, glass slips, minute instruments, some cultures, and scattered bottles of reagents. Doctor Kemp's solar lamp was lit, albeit the sky was still bright with the sunset light, and his blinds were up because there was no offence of peering outsiders to require them pulled down. Doctor Kemp was a tall and slender young man, with flaxen hair and a moustache almost white, and the work he was upon would earn him, he hoped, the fellowship of the Royal Society, so highly did he think of it. And his eye presently wandering from his work caught the sunset blazing at the back of the hill that is over against his own. For a minute perhaps he sat, pen in mouth, admiring the rich golden colour above the crest, and then his attention was attracted by the little figure of a man, inky black, running over the hill-brow towards him. He was a shortish little man, and he wore a high hat, and he was running so fast that his legs verily twinkled. "Another of those fools," said Doctor Kemp. "Like that ass who ran into me this morning round a corner, with his ''Visible Man a-coming, sir!' I can't imagine what possesses people. One might think we were in the thirteenth century." He got up, went to the window, and stared at the dusky hillside and the dark little figure tearing down it. "He seems in a confounded hurry," said Doctor Kemp, "but he doesn't seem to be getting on. If his pockets were full of lead, he couldn't run heavier. "Spurted, sir," said Doctor Kemp. In another moment the higher of the villas that had clambered up the hill from Burdock had occulted the running figure. He was visible again for a moment, and again, and then again, three times between the three detached houses that came next, and then the terrace hid him. "Asses!" said Doctor Kemp, swinging round on his heel and walking back to his writing-table. But those who saw the fugitive nearer, and perceived the abject terror on his perspiring face, being themselves in the open roadway, did not share in the doctor's contempt. By the man pounded, and as he ran he chinked like a well-filled purse that is tossed to and fro. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but his dilated eyes stared straight downhill to where the lamps were


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

scorn. --Lord Leitrim's coachman, yes, said Mr Dedalus. --They are the Lord's anointed, Dante said. They are an honour to their country. --Tub of guts, said Mr Dedalus coarsely. He has a handsome face, mind you, in repose. You should see that fellow lapping up his bacon and cabbage of a cold winter's day. O Johnny! He twisted his features into a grimace of heavy bestiality and made a lapping noise with his lips. --Really, Simon, you should not speak that way before Stephen. It's not right. --O, he'll remember all this when he grows up, said Dante hotly--the language he heard against God and religion and priests in his own home. --Let him remember too, cried Mr Casey to her from across the table, the language with which the priests and the priests' pawns broke Parnell's heart and hounded him into his grave. Let him remember that too when he grows up. --Sons of bitches! cried Mr Dedalus. When he was down they turned on him to betray him and rend him like rats in a sewer. Low-lived dogs! And they look it! By Christ, they look it! --They behaved rightly, cried Dante. They obeyed their bishops and their priests. Honour to them! --Well, it is perfectly dreadful to say that not even for one day in the year, said Mrs Dedalus, can we be free from these dreadful disputes! Uncle Charles raised his hands mildly and said: --Come now, come now, come now! Can we not have our opinions whatever they are without this bad temper and this bad language? It is too bad surely. Mrs Dedalus spoke to Dante in a low voice but Dante said loudly: --I will not say nothing. I will defend my church and my religion when it is insulted and spit on by renegade catholics. Mr Casey pushed his plate rudely into the middle of the table and, resting his elbows before him, said in a hoarse voice to his host: --Tell me, did I tell you that story about a very famous spit? --You did not, John, said Mr Dedalus. --Why then, said Mr Casey, it is a most instructive story. It happened not long ago in the county Wicklow where we are now. He broke off and, turning towards Dante, said with quiet indignation: --And I may tell you, ma'am, that I, if you mean me, am no renegade catholic. I am a catholic as my father was and his father before him and his father before him again, when we gave up our lives rather than sell our faith. --The more shame to you now, Dante said, to speak as you do. --The story, John, said Mr Dedalus smiling. Let us have the story anyhow. --Catholic indeed! repeated Dante ironically. The blackest protestant in the land would not speak the language I have heard this evening. Mr Dedalus began to sway his head to and fro, crooning like a country singer. --I am no protestant, I tell you again, said Mr Casey, flushing. Mr Dedalus, still crooning and swaying his head,


knees.” I’d heard those instructions before, typically right before Hanim shoved me off a bluff. I glanced at Jeru questioningly. He pointed at my knees. The ground crumbled beneath us, and I dropped straight down. Landing on my heels, I coughed at the explosion of dust. The guards hit the ground smoothly. He wanted to train me underground? Baira’s blessed breath, I would need a miracle tonight. Each passing minute made my prospects of escape more and more unlikely. Not that it mattered. Unlikely or not, I did not plan to spend a single night in this… living grave. I had a complicated relationship with luck, but after the last few days, it owed me. They led me through a complicated series of tunnels. The halls narrowed the longer we walked, until I had to duck my head to avoid brushing the ceiling with my hair. Stale air tickled my nose. Alabaster tiles covered the walls, their edges emanating an iridescent light. I grazed my fingers over the glowing tiles with no small amount of awe. The evidence of magic was everywhere. Who had these tunnels belonged to? Even Jasad’s wealthiest wilayahs wouldn’t have expended the amount of labor and expense needed to build all of this beneath Essam. An underground network of this scale was beyond their eccentricities. Just as I started to think the goal was to suffocate me, the hall ended at the threshold of a towering silver door. Etched along the door’s round frame were intricate gold letters, winding through and into one another. Was the writing… Resar? I squinted at the letters, trying to make out any words. I couldn’t stand this Resar writing style, where the words were written to appear elegant and, as such, made almost unintelligible. Before I could decipher more than the word nahnu, Jeru and Wes extended their fists in unison and knocked twice. A piercing shriek sounded as the door heaved to the side. When I hesitated at the threshold, Wes prodded my arm. “Go on.” With leaden dread, I stepped through the door. The sight that greeted me nearly took me to my knees. High above us, a glass ceiling swirled with pillowy clouds. They moved around an invisible wind, floating halfway down each side of the enormous room, at which point a lively, verdant courtyard overtook the walls. The courtyard of Usr Jasad. Every detail of the palace had been captured. Seven gold pillars soared toward the clouds, supporting the awning curving around the front of the magnificent palace. Beneath them, the staircase stretched almost a quarter of a mile wide, one banister at the first pillar and the second at the last. Silver flames danced beneath the translucent steps, chasing the footsteps of the climbers. I’d spent countless hours darting around those steps, trying to outrun the flames. Guards wearing Jasad’s uniform patrolled at the foot of the stairs. In the courtyard in front of the Usr, children chased a rabbit hopping in midair, just out of their limited reach. Beneath the shade of a fig tree, Niyar


but I called the cops on a dude who came on board as a runner. His only job was to sprint down Path #3 and scream at the top of his lungs while trailing his fake severed arm behind him. He took it upon himself to grab one of the guests and tie her up in the boathouse. The Groton sheriff came out here and escorted him off the property right in the middle of a game. I had one new hire earlier in the season tell me that “technically” if someone runs into his knife, it’s not murder. I cut him loose immediately. And then there’s staff like Heather and Jordan. Too busy doing freak-nasty stuff in the old arts-and-crafts building to do their jobs, then just bailing whenever they feel like it. We’ve lost three full-time staff members this season alone. ME: I’ll call some friends in the morning and see if they can come up and help us out KYLE: Should we call Mr. Lamont? Mr. Lamont owns Camp Mirror Lake, and while he never bothers to come out here and do any actual work, he does like to micromanage things over the phone. ME: No. We can handle the last few nights ourselves. I’ll call him after the season’s over and let him know we’ll need to bring on some more people for next summer. No big deal. KYLE: Ok. Cool. I think for a moment. ME: Hey. Were you trying to scare me in the showers just now? I went over there and it was already unlocked. There is a long pause. I check the signal—two bars. Finally, my phone buzzes. KYLE: Come on now. I’d never do that to you. This job getting to you, Charity? ME: Shut up lol You think I’m scared? KYLE: Me, you, and Tasha are the only Black folks here. Horror movies say we should be dead by now. ME: I’m the final girl, boo. I will survive no matter what. It’s my job. Kyle texts me a series of butcher knife emojis and a meme of Michael Myers trying to grab Jamie Lee Curtis while she cowers in a closet. ME: Jamie Lee is the ultimate final girl. Right behind Neve Campbell. Michael Myers can choke. I’ve been a fan of horror movies and scary stories my whole life. I’ve read every Tananarive Due novel, seen every Jordan Peele film. I love horror movies even when everybody else thinks they’re garbage. I will gladly debate anybody who got something to say about the masterpiece that is Crimson Peak. So when Rob shoved the job advertisement in my face and forced me to call the number for an interview, I jumped at the chance to be involved in the Camp Mirror Lake experience. I’m not scared of much, but I also know when not to press my luck. This job isn’t getting to me, but walking into the unlocked community showers, which are supposed to be locked, while my flashlight is acting up? No, ma’am. Absolutely not. I say good night


anything be said over me. I tell you I have nearly attained my heaven, and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me." "And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by that means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk?" I said, shocked at his godless indifference. "How would you like it?" "They won't do that," he replied. "If they did, you must have me removed secretly; and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the dead are not an- nihilated." As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he retired to his den, and I breathed freer. But in the afternoon, while Joseph and Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and with a wild look bade me come and sit in the house; he wanted somebody with him. I declined, telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his companion alone. "I believe you think me a fiend," he said, with his dismal laugh---"something too horrible to live under a decent roof." Then turning to Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he added, half sneeringly, "Will you come, chuck? I'll not hurt you. No! To you I've made myself worse than the devil. Well, there is one who won't shrink from my company. By God, she's relentless! Oh, damn it! It's unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear---even mine." He solicited the society of no one more. At dusk he went into his chamber. Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him groaning and mur- muring to himself. Hareton was anxious to enter, but I bade him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him. When he came, and I requested admit- tance and tried to open the door, I found it locked, and Heathcliff bade us be damned. He was better, and would be left alone; so the doctor went away. The following evening was very wet---indeed it poured down till day-dawn; and as I took my morn- ing walk round the house I observed the master's win- dow swinging open, and the rain driving straight in. He cannot be in bed, I thought; those showers would drench him through. He must either be up or out. But I'll make no more ado; I'll go boldly and look." Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to unclose the panels, for the chamber was vacant. Quickly pushing them aside, I peeped in. Mr. Heathcliff was there, laid on his back. His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I started; and then he seemed to smile. I could not think him dead; but his face and throat were washed with rain, the bedclothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill. No blood trickled from


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

cold until now, and gooseflesh rippled across her skin almost painfully, as if making up for lost time. She shivered, turned back to her room. “I’m going back to bed, I think. I know I slept for a week, but it wasn’t good sleep.” “Who was here?” Lore’s brows knit as she glanced back at Gabe. His eye was on the tray full of half-eaten peahen. The twitch of his fingers—curled like a fist, then forced straight—said he already knew the answer. “Bastian,” Lore said, and refused to make it sound regretful. “He was here when I woke up.” She didn’t mean for it to seem like an admonition, but the way Gabe turned his face toward the fire said he took it as one. It was nearly a flinch. Orange flame-light bathed his features, made the shadows of them stark. The sight plucked at something almost like a memory in Lore’s still-tired mind. She shook it away. “Do you think Malcolm would let us into the Church library?” she asked. “If we had a good reason. Do we?” Lore bit the inside of her cheek, working out how she wanted to phrase it. “You know Bastian’s presence makes it hard to call Mortem,” she said finally. “Like that night at the boxing ring, and then later, in the vaults. You felt it, too. But while I was… out… I felt it when he came in the room. Felt his presence, again.” The Presque Mort’s face was expressionless beneath his eye patch, his shoulders held tense. She shrugged. “It helped.” Weak words for something so strange. “And I think it might have something to do with Spiritum. With the Arceneaux line.” “I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion,” Gabe said quickly. “I understand it was strange—and somewhat alarming, in the vaults—but even though the Tracts say Apollius gave them the gift, there’s disputes about the literal interpretation—” “That’s why I want to take a look at what’s in the library,” Lore interrupted. “Just to see if there’s more information. And not just about Spiritum and the Arceneaux line, about all of this.” Her hand waved in the air, encompassing them and Bastian, the villages, a Mortem leak after so long without. “It’s all connected, somehow. Maybe there’s something in the Church library that can help us make sense of it.” A moment of stillness, then Gabe nodded, perfunctory and business-like. “We’ll ask Malcolm tomorrow.” His eye flicked to her, finally. “Did you tell Bastian of your suspicions?” He kept his tone even, but there was something dark behind it. They might be bought and bound by Bastian’s threat of the Isles—a threat Lore knew wasn’t idle—but Gabe’s loyalty was free, and it wasn’t for the Sun Prince. It never would be. “No.” Lore shook her head. “No, I didn’t.” Relief softened Gabe’s shoulders. He nodded. For a moment, they stood there, and they could’ve filled the space between them with so many things. But Lore turned on her heel and left it empty. Behind her shut door, Lore put the salve on her


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


my world expanding beyond anything I’d been able to imagine, I rarely stopped to think about what it meant that I was now far more comfortable in the rarefied air of campus than I had ever been in my hometown. Then I would fly back home and it would hit me anew, that cold prickle of awareness somewhere between my shoulder blades. I felt small and somehow trapped whenever I returned, as though I wouldn’t be allowed to leave, even though I was only a visitor now, the interloper I’d always looked like. My visits got shorter and shorter, and it was impossible to ignore the mingled guilt and relief I felt every time I boarded a flight headed east. Campus was where I had a life, a purpose, new ideas to absorb—where things were always changing, where no one stared at me when I entered a room, where I no longer questioned the fact that I belonged. * * * We pulled up to my parents’ house, a little white 1970s ranch house with rust-red shutters sitting at a bend in the road, where they had lived since the year before I was born. To the left, slanting high above the part of our yard my family called “the back forty,” the rounded summit of one of the lesser but nearer peaks in the western Cascades loomed dark blue in the gathering dusk, appearing so close that I used to imagine we could walk right up to it from our house. Again, Dan admired the view, but I was focused on silently fretting as we followed my parents up the driveway. I was “home,” and I wasn’t; now, when I thought of home, I thought about the seven-hundred-square-foot city apartment where Dan and I lived. Though he had never been to Oregon with me before, I’d now spent several holidays at his parents’ home in Connecticut, which was far easier for us to reach. To me, one of seventeen guests they hosted one Thanksgiving, the trappings of their upper-middle-class life looked like wealth, although Dan had once jokingly referred to them as “your basic hardworking, flinty New Englanders”—by which he seemed to mean that while they didn’t have to worry about money the way my family did, they kept the thermostat low in the winter, refused to get cable, and felt the impact of the sizable tuition checks they were able to write. Even when he and I were in the college bubble, leading lives that looked similar on the surface, I was aware that our experiences diverged in any number of ways. His parents probably outearned mine ten times over. He worked a campus job for extra cash, as I did, but if his bank account was getting low, funds were a phone call away. His number of trips home wasn’t limited by the cost of plane tickets. He was meeting the status quo by going to a good university; he had multiple relatives with advanced degrees, familial expectations that went well beyond college. There was a reason that he


therapy, and certainly in this area). They still live in Arlington, Virginia, and they’re both retired, but my dad was a tax lawyer and my mom worked in admissions at a K-8 private school. They are WASPs in every sense (read: snobs), and they’ve always seen my career as distasteful because of being so public. Plus, they think the music industry and L.A. are filled with unsavory people. Even before the pandemic, they led a very insular life of playing tennis at their country club, drinks and dinners with a small group of friends, and spending the summers in Maine. Obviously, I don’t have anything to complain about, and there are clear advantages I have had in terms of my education even if I squandered the chance to attend college, and in terms of the financial safety net under me. But most of all there’s the advantage of believing there would be a place in the world for my music. Because I was a shy, freaky goth weirdo as a teen, it took me years to cop to the entitlement or even arrogance inherent in thinking you have the right to pursue and share your art. It turns out a disproportionate number of people in the music industry grew up privileged, and many of them will go to great lengths to make you think otherwise. For sure, there are also a lot of musicians who overcame obstacles, including no money, and those people are usually more talented and much more enjoyable to hang out with. I hope this isn’t all too much information. I found your description of your stepdad so interesting that I thought I would try to give a comparable description. One thing I am very lucky about is that I really do consider my sister Vicky to be one of my best friends. She was there when I hosted TNO, and you two met briefly. Our parents disapprove of her in a different way from how they disapprove of me (she’s a social worker who helps kids in foster care find “forever families,” which to me makes her a hero while to my parents she is prioritizing other people’s kids over her own—my nephew Jonah is six and my nephew Billy is four—plus she is divorced, which they also are ridiculously judgmental about). Vicky and I coordinate our annual visit to our parents so we can buffer each other. Should I ask what your screenplay is about or does a genius not reveal the details of her work in progress? I assume it’s a romantic comedy and that it features an Indigo Girls song at the climactic moment, but are you willing to say what happens in it beyond that? I am glad to now know that the secret to becoming an award-winning TNO writer is getting your own TV in 5th grade! I guess one of the reasons I had to go into music is that I didn’t have my own TV until adulthood. As for a day in the life…yours is a lot more interesting between dogs,


bruises and scars were hidden except the thin white bracelets on wrists and ankles and the mark of SMERSH on his right hand. He slipped his feet into a pair of dark-blue leather sandals and went downstairs and out of the house and across the terrace to the beach. As he passed across the front of the house he thought of Vesper, but he refrained from looking up to see if she was still standing at the window. If she saw him, she gave no sign. He walked along the waterline on the hard golden sand until he was out of sight of the inn. Then he threw off his pyjama-coat and took a short run and a quick flat dive into the small waves. The beach shelved quickly and he kept underwater as long as he could, swimming with powerful strokes and feeling the soft coolness all over him. Then he surfaced and brushed the hair out of his eyes. It was nearly seven and the sun had lost much of its heat. Before long it would sink beneath the further arm of the bay, but now it was straight in his eyes and he turned on his back and swam away from it so that he could keep it with him as long as possible. When came ashore nearly a mile down the bay the shadows had already engulfed his distant pyjamas but he knew he had time to lie on the hard sand and dry before the tide of dusk reached him. He took off his bathing-trunks and looked down at his body. There were only a few traces left of his injuries. He shrugged his shoulders and lay down with his limbs spread out in a star and gazed up at the empty blue sky and thought of Vesper. His feelings for her were confused and he was impatient with the confusion. They had been so simple. He had intended to sleep with her as soon as he could, because he desired her and also because, and he admitted it to himself, he wanted coldly to put the repairs to his body to the final test. He thought they would sleep together for a few days and then he might see something of her in London. Then would come the inevitable disengagement which would be all the easier because of their positions in the Service. If it was not easy, he could go off on an assignment abroad or, which was also in his mind, he could resign and travel to different parts of the world as he had always wanted. But somehow she had crept under his skin and over the last two weeks his feelings had gradually changed. He found her companionship easy and unexacting. There was something enigmatic about her which was a constant stimulus. She gave little of her real personality away and he felt that however long they were together there would always be a private room inside her which he could never invade. She was thoughtful and full of consideration without being


steel teeth biting into his infinity sign. She tasted her brother’s blood. She began to hyperventilate. “He’s a little creepy at first,” Ian said, “but he grows on you. And the Popster loves him to death.” “Pupkin home! Pupkin home!” Pupkin danced from side to side, chanting it over and over again, his voice higher because Poppy’s vocal cords were less developed, her lungs smaller, her palate softer. Louise heard Pupkin screaming through Mark’s throat, bringing the hammer down on her skull. The left side of her forehead gave a sharp, precise pang. Her lower body went numb and hot urine squirted between her thighs. “Pupkin home! Pupkin home!” The puppet danced toward Louise on the end of Poppy’s arm, then away, taunting her. “Lou?” Ian said. She wanted to stop. She couldn’t stop. Sticky, hot piss ran down her legs and soaked her socks, puddling in the heels of her shoes. “Lou!” Ian said. “Pupkin wants a kiss-kiss!” He pressed himself up at Louise’s mouth, leering, contaminating her daughter, corrupting her daughter, her daughter she’d sworn to protect, her daughter she’d failed. “No!” Louise shouted, way too loud, her wet pants already turning cold. “No!” She grabbed Pupkin and felt her daughter’s arm inside his sleeve. Pupkin felt different, rougher, made of cheaper fabric. She yanked, jerking Poppy’s arm with it. “Lou!” Ian snapped behind her. “Ow!” Poppy shrieked. Louise hauled on Poppy’s arm, over and over, standing there in her soaking pants, not caring how it looked, needing to get Pupkin off her daughter’s arm, shaking it like a pit bull. Poppy made a fist inside Pupkin’s body and held on. Louise seized Poppy’s elbow, fingers digging in hard, and yanked Pupkin’s head backward with her other hand, not caring if she hurt Poppy, just needing to get this puppet out of her house, away from her family. “Jesus, Lou, stop!” Ian said. “What is wrong with you!” Poppy started to scream, a single, high, sustained, unbroken note that filled the room and vibrated the walls. Louise chanted “no” with every yank: “No! No! No!” She dug her fingers into Poppy’s elbow harder, her fingers digging deeper —she couldn’t afford to show Pupkin an ounce of mercy. Impossibly, Poppy’s scream got higher and Louise felt it vibrating her teeth now. Poppy became deadweight, collapsing to the floor, her mouth yawning wide. Louise felt Pupkin slacken, slip—she almost had him—then something bit into her biceps so hard her left hand opened, and Ian had her by both arms, yanking her away, spinning her toward him. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he shouted in her face. Poppy’s screams turned into sobs and Ian lowered his voice. “You want to leave bruises? Christ Almighty.” He shoved Louise toward the door, putting himself between her and her own daughter. Poppy curled up on her green beanbag, Pupkin cradled against her chest, her entire body folded over him. Ian crouched beside her saying soothing things, one hand rubbing her back, focused entirely on his daughter the way a parent should, leaving Louise standing


what do you mean?” “You must be making bank from that book, right?” His eyes dart around, checking for eavesdroppers. “Don’t lie. I saw that advance announcement. Mid–six figures, wasn’t it? And I know you’ve already earned out.” My throat bobs. “You . . . you’re blackmailing me?” “I just think it could be a profitable arrangement for the both of us,” he says. “You keep selling your books. I keep your secret. Win-win, no? Shall we discuss my rates?” Jesus Christ. How stupid is he? Does he hear the words coming out of his mouth? I imagine leaking this sound bite all over Twitter, and the rage that would follow. Geoff would never make a cent from writing again. He’d have to go into hiding. He’d never be able to exist again, publicly, as himself. But such an implosion would be messy, and I’d likely be caught in the blast radius. What I need is to make this all quietly disappear. “Hmm . . . no.” I make a big show of tapping my lip, and then pouting. “No, I don’t think I’ll do that.” Geoff’s eyes narrow. “You don’t really get a choice here.” “Don’t I?” “What do you think will happen when everyone finds out?” “They’re not going to find out.” I shrug. “Because it’s not true. You’re full of shit, Geoffrey, and we both know it.” “I know you stole the book—” “But you don’t know. You don’t have a shred of proof; you’re just making things up to get a reaction.” I tap my side pocket, where my iPhone sits secure behind a zipper, recording this whole conversation. “What I do have, though, is a record of you trying to blackmail me for a cut of the royalties on a book you claim was stolen. You’re not doing this for Athena. You’re trying to leech off her legacy. And when this leaks, Geoff, do you think you’re ever going to get another publishing deal in your life?” Geoff looks like he wants to strangle me. His eyes have gone so wide I can see the whites around his pupils. His lips curl back, revealing canines. For a moment I’m nervous I’ve overplayed my hand, that I’ve pushed him off the edge. I think of all those films about nice-seeming young white men who snap. Chris Evans in Knives Out. That rapist in Promising Young Woman. Maybe Geoff will jump across the table and stab me in the collarbone. Maybe he’ll tamp down his anger now, watch me walk away, and then hit me with his car on the way home. But this isn’t a movie, it’s real life, and Geoffrey Carlino isn’t an alpha male whose fury can’t be tamed. He’s a pathetic, insecure little boy who’s all bluster, who has no more cards up his sleeve. He doesn’t have the drive to take this any further. Rage shrinks to defeat. I watch his shoulders deflate. “You’re a horrible person,” he spits. “I am a brilliant writer and a good friend,” I say. “You, on the other


a little pug nose, and he looked out of the corners of his wide eyes like he was up to some kind of mischief. His mouth and eyes were outlined in thick black lines and he wore a bloodred bodysuit with a pointed hood and a yellow stomach. Sitting here in the dark with the Home Shopping Network flickering across his face, he looked like he’d crawled straight out of a nightmare. Louise hated Pupkin, but right now she was scared of him again, the way she’d been scared of him when she was little, because how had he moved? How had he gotten into this chair? Mark. Of course. Her back unclenched and her grip around the hammer relaxed. Mark had come in after she’d left, seen the dolls in the garage, and set all this up. He knew how much she hated Pupkin and he knew she’d come by at some point and he wanted to freak her out. She turned on the hall light. One of the bulbs had burned out. Her dad always replaced bulbs the instant they went dead, but he must have fallen behind because of his ankle. “. . . doll really brings me back to my childhood, and that warm, safe feeling that everything is going to be . . .” She picked up the remote to turn off the TV, then stopped. It would be better to leave everything the way it was and not say a word to Mark. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. He’d go crazy wondering if she’d even seen it. Sitting in Dad’s chair, Pupkin looked like he owned the house. He looked like he belonged here more than Louise. He made her feel like an intruder. After all, she’d broken a window to come inside. Pupkin had been here before her or Mark were even born. He’d known their mom since she was seven years old. He’d traveled with her to all her shows while they’d waited for her at home. Louise hated him. Before she could change her mind, Louise walked to the kitchen and got a plastic bag from underneath the sink. She came back into the living room and while the dolls all watched she scooped Pupkin up inside the bag and tied the top. Then she took him out to the garage, and under the blank gazes of the Mark and Louise dolls on the shelf, she opened the trash can and dropped Pupkin inside. If Mark asked where Pupkin was, she’d say she hadn’t seen him. Let him wonder what had happened. She turned off the TV, turned out the lights, and closed up the house while the dolls watched her every move. — Back in her hotel room she put the extra lock on her door and FaceTimed Ian as she turned on all the lights, looked inside her closets, looked under the bed. “Hey!” Ian answered, taken off guard. “I didn’t realize you were going to call.” He turned offscreen. “Poppy? Do you want to see Mommy?” Poppy didn’t want


"I'm frightened. Of us. I want to go home. Oh God, I want to go home." "It was an accident," said Piggy stubbornly, "and that's that." He touched Ralph's bare shoulder and Ralph shuddered at the human contact. "And look, Ralph"--Piggy glanced round quickly, then leaned close--"don't let on we was in that dance. Not to Samneric." "But we were! All of us!" Piggy shook his head. "Not us till last. They never noticed in the dark. Anyway you said I was only on the outside." "So was I," muttered Ralph, "I was on the outside too." Piggy nodded eagerly. "That's right. We was on the outside. We never done nothing, we never seen nothing." Piggy paused, then went on. "We'll live on our own, the four of us--" "Four of us. We aren't enough to keep the fire burning." "We'll try. See? I lit it." Samneric came dragging a great log out of the forest. They dumped it by the fire and turned to the pool. Ralph jumped to his feet. "Hi! You two!" The twins checked a moment, then walked on. "They're going to bathe, Ralph." "Better get it over." The twins were very surprised to see Ralph. They flushed and looked past him into the air. "Hullo. Fancy meeting you, Ralph." "We just been in the forest--" "--to get wood for the fire--" "--we got lost last night." Ralph examined his toes. "You got lost after the . . ." Piggy cleaned his lens. "After the feast," said Sam in a stifled voice. Eric nodded. "Yes, after the feast." "We left early," said Piggy quickly, "because we were tired." "So did we--" "--very early--" "--we were very tired." Sam touched a scratch on his forehead and then hurriedly took his hand away. Eric fingered his split lip. "Yes. We were very tired," repeated Sam, "so we left early. Was it a good--" The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. Sam twisted and the obscene word shot out of him. "--dance?" Memory of the dance that none of them had attended shook all four boys convulsively. "We left early." When Roger came to the neck of land that joined the Castle Rock to the mainland he was not surprised to be challenged. He had reckoned, during the terrible night, on finding at least some of the tribe holding out against the horrors of the island in the safest place. The voice rang out sharply from on high, where the diminishing crags were balanced one on another. "Halt! Who goes there?" "Roger." "Advance, friend." Roger advanced. "You could see who I was." "The chief said we got to challenge everyone." Roger peered up. "You couldn't stop me coming if I wanted." "Couldn't I? Climb up and see." Roger clambered up the ladder-like cliff. "Look at this." A log had been jammed under the topmost rock and another lever under that. Robert leaned lightly on the lever and the rock groaned. A full effort would send the rock thundering down to the neck of land. Roger admired. "He's a proper chief, isn't


the Heir had personally called for his beheading. “Go.” I massaged the roots of my hair with a wince. First the Nizahl soldier in the woods, now Vaun. My scalp had taken a beating in the last two weeks. I remained close to the door, carefully avoiding glancing at Arin. I didn’t want to risk exiting into the hall with Vaun still nearby, so I took my time studying the Heir’s room. There wasn’t much to see. A tall wardrobe, a bed only slightly bigger than my own, a tiny square table no wider than a book, and a much larger table covered in inkwells and partially unrolled maps. I wondered what he thought of the tiny table. They were once a staple in every Jasadi household, folded and tucked behind the furniture until a guest arrived. The host would place a saucer and an aromatic, palm-size cup of ahwa on that table, maybe slide a plate of biscuits or kunafa beside it. I’d loved the smell of ahwa, though the one time I’d tasted it I’d spat it right out. But Soraya would still sneak me empty cups from the kitchen so I could sniff the leftover dark sludge like a candle. I couldn’t seem to get Jasad out of my head lately. Surrounded by Nizahlans wasn’t the optimal setting to be dwelling on my former home. A small box at the corner of the small table held the Nizahl royal seal and a bottle of wax. I picked it up. The seal was untainted iron, heavy in my palm. Molded into the bottom were two swords clashing. A raven emerged where the swords met, its wings unfurling on each side. I traced its contours, mesmerized. “Careful,” Arin said. “Wax burns.” The seal fumbled in my grip. I dropped it, trying to claw at the fog over my senses. Navigating a conversation with the Heir drained me on a good day, and today was far from good. “What do you use this for?” I held up the seal, expecting him to wrench it from my grip and toss me from the room. “My maps.” He satisfied a part of my prediction and held his hand out for the seal. I dropped it into his palm, careful to maintain distance from his bare skin. “Can I see them?” Arin regarded me for a long minute. I squared my chin, anticipating some remark on my literacy or intelligence. He pivoted to the map table. I blinked at his back. “Well?” he said. “Come and see.” I tripped over my feet in my rush. Dozens and dozens of maps sprawled over the table’s broad surface. A pitcher full of a lavender liquid sat in the corner with the inkwells. I couldn’t believe he was allowing me to see this. The Commander’s maps were almost as infamous as his gloves. Some of the sketches were undoubtedly collected by the Nizahl spies scattered across the kingdoms, but I doubted he placed a high value on them. His nature did not seem to allow for anything less


Madam. But, knowing how many people will be here tonight, I thought perhaps it was best...” Winnie would have approved of that, she thought, feeling sick. She was following the plan perfectly. But it made her feel as if her rib cage were being squeezed. Her nerves were dancing in her skin. Miss de Vries’s tone was hard. “I’ll be the judge of that.” She was walking so quickly, faster than Alice could have expected, hurtling out of the room and toward the stairs. When Alice had told her, Miss de Vries had clenched her hands, digging her nails into her palms, as if to punish herself. As if she expected treachery in her household, as if she’d been waiting for it all along. She’d hastened to her dressing table, yanking open the drawers, rummaging inside, searching, realizing what was missing. She’d turned to Alice, face pale. “You’re right. It’s gone.” She was angry, but the anger was operating somewhere deeper than Alice had seen before, something right down at the base of the bone. She could hear it in the roughness of Miss de Vries’s voice. “I cannot stand it,” she said. “Being preyed on like this.” Alice said, feeling a prickling in her spine, “I should go and fetch Mr. Shepherd, Madam. Really, I should have gone to him first...” It was the right move to make. “Shepherd is a fool. He won’t fix a thing. These are my personal possessions.” She waved Alice away. “I’m going down to the servants’ hall myself.” They’d counted on this. They needed her downstairs, dragging the household with her, holding everyone there while the attic doors were softly opened, and Mrs. Bone’s men began trickling downstairs. They hastened toward the lift, and Alice looked over Miss de Vries’s shoulder. Stifling a gasp, she spotted the Janes on a pair of stepladders in one of the adjoining bedrooms. The door must have swung open. They were right on their tiptoes, lifting the huge, brocade drapes clean from their rails. “I’d best come down with you, Madam,” Alice said, voice rising. “To back you up.” She squeezed herself into the lift, blocking the Janes from view. “Down we go,” she said, breath tight, punching the button. * * * Later, Mrs. Bone would remember the moment, the fear and the thrill, when her niece came below stairs. She was sideswiping a bread roll, stuffing it in her mouth, trying to fill her belly before someone shoved another mop and bucket in her direction. Then she felt it, the faintest tremor overhead. Footsteps, quick ones. Here we go, she thought. It’s happening. She rubbed her fist over her mouth, wiping away the crumbs. Swallowed. Cook was at the stove, closely encircled by her girls. The other servants were fighting to get past one another, impeded by the constant crush. There was a terrific hullabaloo, a medley of banging tins, shouts, wild bursts of laughter, a good deal of it aided and abetted by her own men in their costumes. Mrs. Bone took a breath, flexed her


He put together a map that gave each worker a territory as well as a system for appointments that saved time and money while increasing efficiency. Before he knew it, he was the boss of his team, then the boss of the whole repair division, and, eventually, vice president in charge of hiring, evaluating, and paying thousands of Met Power employees. This last promotion had come five years ago, with Simon Brooks heralded as a shining example of American ingenuity and grit. The three “Employee of the Year” awards on the bookshelf behind him—in addition to the one in his home study—were a testament to his standing in the company. He threw himself into his work and enjoyed it immensely. “What’s going on, then?” asked Simon. He opened the file Judy had given him and smoothed it flat on his desk. “I have something I wanted to tell you,” she said. His eyes went to her left hand. “Is Nathaniel back already?” She covered her bare finger with the other hand, annoyed that was the only thing that ever came to his mind these days. She disliked being treated like chattel. No doubt Simon intended on giving away a few goats for her dowry as well. “No. It’s not that. You see, yesterday I went to Radio City—” “Simon! We have bad news.” She turned. Two men had charged into the office, concerned looks on their faces. Judy slipped in after them and closed the door behind her. “What is it?” asked Simon. One of the men caught sight of Marion and blushed. “Gosh, nice to see you, Marion.” Marion nodded back, unable to remember the man’s name. She’d been introduced to him at last year’s Christmas party, probably. “There’s been another bombing,” said the other man. “That makes four just this year.” “Where?” Simon rubbed his face. “The New York Public Library. In a phone booth.” “Anyone hurt?” “Not this time. Luckily.” Her father rose from his chair. “We have to see the chairman. Girls, I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.” The men were gone as fast as they’d come in. “How many does this make?” asked Marion. “Thirty-one,” answered Judy. Both sisters knew the story well. For the past sixteen years, starting in 1940, someone had been planting pipe bombs around New York City, in subway stations, department stores, theaters, even Grand Central Terminal. The newspapers called the culprit the Big Apple Bomber, and so far, a dozen people had been injured, some seriously. The very first bomb was planted in a toolbox at a Met Power compound on Sixty-Fourth Street, with a note reading Met Power crooks—this is for you. That one hadn’t gone off. But since then, the bomber had expanded his reach and his skill, setting off explosions in well-populated places like the Port Authority and Penn Station, sometimes repeating the same target years later. And now he’d hit the library. Even worse, the madman’s pace was picking up. After the very first bomb and note, the Big Apple Bomber had struck Met Power twice more, leaving


moment, she lay there, feeling his body against hers. The heat. The softness. A dulcet sense of embarrassment. Then she extracted herself from him and noiselessly slipped out of the pod. It was just before dawn, pink light draping softly over curtains and metal pods. The boarders slumbered, gentle sleeping noises heightening the early-morning tranquility. The window at the end of the room was cracked open. Rosa leaned on the sill with an older woman, chatting in Rossk and blowing their cigarette smoke out to the flushed city sky. When she saw Io approaching, the woman dropped her cigarette, inclined her head, and quickly left the room. “She’s a Drifter,” Rosa said, watching the woman recede. “You know how they are with cutters.” Drifters were nomadic travelers that journeyed the Wastelands from shelter to shelter. They were very superstitious about the moira-born. According to their lore, cutters in particular were believed to have had some nefarious part in the Collapse. Drifters didn’t like to interact with them. “So,” said Rosa, eyeing Io wickedly. She offered Io her cup of coffee. The liquid was lukewarm and bitter, and Io handed it back after a single sip. “Did you sleep with a boy?” “I slept next to a boy,” Io answered quickly. Her lack of sexual experience was not something she cared to discuss before breakfast. “Bah. Such a coward.” “Such a busybody.” Rosa snorted through her nose, puffing a cloud of smoke. “Where’s Saint-Yves’s man?” asked Io. With her cigarette, Rosa pointed to a man propped against the wall in the corridor, legs splayed before him, mouth open and drooling on his own shoulder. A casualty of Rosa’s powers. Rosa was oneiroi-born, descended from the gods of dreams; a single touch from her at a person’s sleep cords and they dropped like a fly. Io had seen her do it many times: when men hassled them in bars, when Rosa needed her parents to sleep so they could sneak out. Rosa could see dream cords in the same way Io saw the Quilt. They looked like violin strings, she had explained once, and touching them sounded like music. The man would wake up in a few hours, thinking he had just fallen asleep on the job. Io had spent most of last night tracking the man’s movements on the Quilt. He had paced the length of the building, never straying far from the exits. Io thought he might be the moira-born, so she didn’t dare make a run for it. Edei had fallen asleep first, and his deep breaths had eventually lullabied Io to sleep, too. “Why didn’t you wake us up sooner?” Rosa shrugged. “I woke up half an hour ago, but you guys were getting it on—” “We were not.” Chuckling, Rosa shook her head. “You make it too easy.” Io’s answering smile was a tired, flickering thing. Her body was jittery from a sleep laced with terror and achy from her fight with Horatio and Raina yesterday—how was it only yesterday!—morning. She was hungry and thirsty and in desperate need


him. “Your sister might have taken a walk,” he said, as if that made any sense. Maud ran down the drive toward the mansion, through the sticky, damp night, past clumps of trees, the empty lawn, the flash of eyes from a phantom deer. The conservatory glowed in the moonlight. No Ella. The mansion was locked, so she couldn’t be inside. The pond? She looked down the slope, calculating shapes. “Where are you?” she said. She headed to the coach house, hurrying through its crepuscular rooms filled with two centuries of ice cutters and carriages. Nothing. No one. The gravel on the drive crunched like bones breaking. She stopped by the trail to the woods and phoned Peter. “Anything?” “No. We’re back. I’m ringing the police.” Down the trail into the trees she ran, stumbling over a root. “Please, God,” she said. The blood whooshed through her head. An owl screeched. Would Ella come here? Why would she be in any of these places? But where else to look? If only she were around that bend, standing on the shore, looking at the Hudson. But the shore was empty. The oak leaves rattled in the breeze. As she ran back up the trail, that terrifying thought rose again: a stranger, a kidnapping, Ella dragged from her bed. She slowed down and texted Gabriel: Ella’s gone. Do you know where she could be? She was crying by the time she reached the top of the trail. Please, God, she thought. Give her back. She would return home with Peter and the girls. She would stay in the marriage. She would never speak to Gabriel again. She would do anything. Back in front of the farmhouse, Peter was talking to a police officer, a man with a goatee whose calm demeanor made Maud more frightened. He said they had sent out patrol cars to look for Ella. “We almost always find these kids in the first hours,” he said. Maud heard only “almost.” “Has your daughter had problems lately?” the officer added. “She’s a teenager,” Peter said. “But nothing out of the ordinary.” Maud had never seen him so afraid, his face so closed, his voice so wobbly. But this wasn’t his fault. She was the one who had decided the girls should leave early. She had made Ella run away. The officer asked her to list everywhere that she’d taken Ella, repeating the places into his walkie-talkie for the other officers who were searching. Sleepy Hollow. The Italian restaurant. “We also went to the city.” Maud told him the name of the camp. “These places are all so far away.” “She might have hitched,” the officer said. “Has she before?” “No. No. She’s never done anything like this.” Who was on the roads in the middle of the night? Men. Men who had drunk too much and wove their cars into the bike lanes. Men with guns in their glove compartments. Men with rope in their trunks. “And no one around lately at this place?” the officer said. “Any strangers? Anything you’ve noticed?”


people who can put on masks and scare people.” We make our way back to the Western Lodge and bar the doors, cut out the main lights, and take stock of what we have to defend ourselves. It’s not much, but it’s all we have to work with—an assortment of dull kitchen knives, table legs, a half-empty can of bear spray, and the headsets we use to communicate during the game. We plug in our cell phones, and I help Bezi get her headset on. “Just leave the channel open—that way you won’t have to toggle it on and off,” I say. “One of us should get to the control center and see if the cameras are still working. The lock on that outside door is the real deal, so you can lock yourself in there and be pretty safe.” “I’ll go,” Kyle says. “If the cameras are working, we can just avoid these weirdos until help gets here.” “Should we all go to the control center?” Bezi asks. “Just lock ourselves in there?” “I know that’s probably what we should do,” I say. “But Paige might still be out there, and maybe if we can listen in on these people, we can find out if they know where she is.” “I thought we were gonna hide,” Bezi says. “Now we gotta get close to them?” “I’m not saying we go hunt them down. I’m just saying we need to keep our ears open in case they let something slip about Paige or Heather or Jordan.” Bezi nods, but fear is stretched across her face, pulling the corners of her mouth down. I close my hand over hers. Suddenly, there’s a loud click, and the porch light on the lodge goes out. My phone buzzes, signaling to me that it’s not charging anymore. The always-present electrical hum stops, and silence swallows the lodge whole. “The power,” Kyle whispers. My heart ticks up. “The generator will keep the control center running for a few more hours. We gotta get over there.” Kyle sighs and pulls something out of his back pocket—the ghostlike mask he uses during the game. “Put it on,” I say. He slips the mask over his head. “That’s terrifying,” Bezi whispers. “When you get to the control center, talk to me on the headset so we know you’re safe,” I say. Kyle nods, takes a deep breath, and exits the lodge through the rear door. I lock it behind him, and then Bezi and I uncover the hatch in the kitchen floor. I slip my flashlight out of my pocket and shine it down the tunnel. “Electricity’s out down there too.” I lean back and sigh. “If those lights are out, that means power to the main breaker is out. Everything in the entire camp is off that’s not battery powered.” “Shit,” Bezi says. “So what do we do?” I cup my hand over my earpiece as I pick up the half-empty can of bear spray and slip it into my pocket. “Kyle? You okay?” There’s a rustling on the


someone was in here last night,” I say. “Now tell me who it was or no more typing. And certainly no more telling your story.” Lenora studies me, trying to decide if I’m bluffing. Good luck with that. I don’t even know how serious I am. While I suspect I’m as eager to hear the full story as she is to write it, I’m also hesitant. Again, it might not be the whole truth. And if it is, I might not want to know it. Apparently, I look more decisive than I feel, because Lenora starts typing again. someones been here I enjoy a moment of vindication. I knew it wasn’t my imagination! “But not just last night, right? The night before as well.” many nights Jolted with alarm, I say, “Then who is it? Who’s been in your room?” Still hesitant, Lenora sizes me up again. Then she resumes typing with pronounced reluctance. It takes her a full minute to press eight keys. When she’s done, I rip the page from the typewriter. Marking the white paper in ink as black as night is a single name. virginia SEVENTEEN Muzak squawks from the kitchen telephone as I wait for Mr. Gurlain to pick up. It’s been five minutes since he put me on hold. Long enough for a queasy rendition of a Captain & Tennille song to be replaced by an even worse cover of “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” I wait, receiver at my ear, as I look around the empty kitchen, hoping no one enters while I’m here. I don’t want to explain why I’ve left Lenora alone in her wheelchair while I make a phone call. I especially don’t want to talk about the reason for the call. Telling it to Mr. Gurlain is going to be hard enough. When he gets on the line, blessedly cutting off the Muzak, he sounds nervous. I assume he’s thinking about the morning I found my mother dead, which was the last time he got an urgent phone call from me. “Is something wrong?” he says. “No. Well, yes.” I inhale, hold the breath in my chest, exhale. “I’m calling to ask for a new assignment.” “I just gave you a new assignment,” Mr. Gurlain says. “I’d like a different one,” I say, tacking on a polite “please.” “It’s only been a few days, Kit.” “I know. I just—” My voice seizes up. I have no idea what to say. That I’m afraid? I’m not. Fear involves certainty. You know what you’re afraid of. I’m the opposite. Uncertain and unnerved. And who can blame me? I’m in a slanted mansion where three people were murdered. There are bloodstains on the Grand Stairs and a ballroom where a dead girl swung from the chandelier. A dead girl who, apparently, roams my patient’s bedroom at night. I don’t believe in ghosts. I absolutely do not think that what I heard was the spirit of Virginia Hope. But something’s not right at Hope’s End. Obviously. And it might have frightened Mary enough to make


summer, there’s nothing on my calendar between May and August. I strongly considered canceling on the YAWW, but ultimately I couldn’t face an otherwise endless, monotonous summer. Any distraction seemed better than pacing my apartment all day, trying and failing to write a single word. Besides, I’m hoping this might be good for me. Teaching is an unassailably noble calling, and even if this doesn’t redeem me in the public eye, it might at the very least build bridges with a group of students who haven’t decided yet that I’m a public enemy. It might make writing fun again. I’m assigned to lead a daily, four-hour critique session with the select class: all high school upperclassmen I handpicked on the strength of their writing samples. It’s fascinating to meet them in person. I spot the big personalities in the group immediately: there’s Christina Yee, a tiny goth girl with very pronounced black eyeliner whose writing sample involved lots of body horror and teeth; Johnson Chen, who sports gelled-up hair and eighties-style overcoats like some K-pop singer, and whose navel-gazing writing sample had led me to believe he was an ugly duckling but he is actually quite clearly a chick magnet; and Skylar Zhao, a tall and leggy rising senior who, during introductions, declares her intentions to be her generation’s Athena Liu. They slouch casually like they don’t care how they’re perceived, but I can tell how badly they want to impress me. They’ve got the classic fledgling talent mentality—they know they’re good, or could be good, but they crave acknowledgment of this fact, and they’re terrified of rejection. I remember this mix of feelings well: unbridled ambition, a growing pride that one’s own work might in fact be that remarkable, paired with staggering, incurable insecurity. The resulting personality is astoundingly annoying, but I sympathize with these kids. They’re just like myself, ten years ago. A well-phrased barb right now could irreparably destroy their confidence. But the right words of encouragement could help them fly. This summer, I’ve decided I’ll try to be that for them. I’ll put the rest of the world aside. I’ll stop checking Twitter, stop browsing Reddit, and stop agonizing over my own writing. I’ll focus on doing this one thing that I might be good at. The introductions go well. I use the same icebreakers I’ve picked up over years of creative writing classes: What’s your favorite book? (“Voice and Echo,” declares Skylar Zhao, citing Athena’s debut. “Lolita,” Christina responds, chin jutted out as if in challenge. “By Nabokov?”) What’s a book that would be perfect if you could rewrite the ending? (“Anna Karenina,” declares Johnson. “Only Anna wouldn’t kill herself.”) We construct a short story by going around the room, each adding a sentence to the one that came before. We speed-revise that story in under five minutes. We play with different interpretations of the same line of dialogue: “I never said that we should kill him!” By the end of the hour, we’re all laughing and making inside jokes. We are no longer quite so scared


decided to let you watch.’ ‘Watch what?’ ‘The end of people.’ Like a telepathic conference call, Eitan included the president to the conversation: ‘President, let me repeat a story of this continent. When that explorer you admire so much, Roald Amundsen, arrived at the South Pole, he planted the flag of his country in the ice, claimed this continent in the name of his Norwegian king. This explorer, who you consider to be a great man, a legend among people, then proceeded to kill the exhausted dogs who had helped them there, the dogs that had pulled their food and bedding, the dogs that they’d bonded with, travelled with. These brave explorers smashed the skulls of their devoted companions and fed the weakest to the strongest so that all that remained of the dogs who’d served them so devotedly were their indigestible teeth and tails. Ordinary-born people are the exhausted dogs who have carried my species here. I am not angry with you. You should not feel that you have failed. Your work is done. I have not been on trial. You have been. You have not been testing me. I have been testing you. You have not been evaluating my species; we have been evaluating yours. Your conclusion was that we are not suitable partners for you. I agree. Your era is over. Our era has begun.’ With that said, Eitan stood on his back legs, extending his torso, stretching twenty feet tall, claiming possession of this continent, his back legs bolted into the ice, his armour glistening blue in the blizzard that swirled around him. With that, he leapt up, into the winds, as though he knew how to ride these freezing gales, disappearing into the storm, the dogs following behind. The president stepped off the sleigh, staggering to a guard’s mangled body, taking out his radio and speaking into it: ‘Seal the entrance to the Final Stage Chambers. Kill everything under the ice. Do it now.’ MCMURDO CITY THE ROSS ICE SHELF FINAL STAGE CHAMBERS SAME DAY AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE Final Stage Chambers, the only stairway that connected the network of underground tunnels with the surface of the Ross Ice Shelf, hundreds of scientists and support staff were scrambling to escape, clambering up the ice steps, many slipping in panic as the emergency alarms sounded out. The officer in charge of security had been ordered to act immediately, instructions direct from the president, to detonate the charges without delay. Although he had a reputation for ruthlessness, he decided to give these people a chance, to wait a few seconds longer – these were some of the most brilliant minds on the continent, human life was rare and precious. Beside him was a phalanx of heavily armed soldiers, armed with assault rifles and grenades; he was confident they could repel any of the creatures no matter how well adapted they were for the cold. He would save as many people as possible and then seal the entrance. His officers shouted at the people to climb faster, which of


giving me a lift!” “I’m not your chauffeur.” She left, slamming the door shut so hard he thought it would fall off its hinges. Tristán hurried to his bedroom and changed. As he buttoned his shirt and stood in front of the mirror, he noticed that the tap was dripping again. It was unbelievable that his brand-new apartment could have plumbing issues, but it was the second time that week that he’d closed the tap only to find a trickle of water flowing when he walked into the bathroom later in the day. He did not want to call a plumber. “Dorotea, good to see you,” he told the mirror, smiling with the same zest that had first gotten him his break in fotonovelas. “Dora, you look great.” Tristán had never been good at being alone. That was one quality he admired about Montserrat. She did not seem to have that compulsion to seek others. Tristán, on the other hand, jumped into more than one doomed relationship simply for the sake of hearing someone’s voice in the other room. Yet despite his need for others, he was consistently terrible at maintaining any relationships. He seldom asked anyone out for lunch or cultivated the usual social niceties, instead expecting people to materialize before his door. In his youth, this had been an easy achievement. At twenty-three, Tristán had not lacked invitations and attention. He had a crowd of adulators practically hounding him. As the years went by and his perfect beauty dimmed a little and his fortunes dipped, that constant court of friends and fans had thinned. That was why he’d been surprised to hear from Dorotea. She was a big fish now, working as a creative director and churning out teen soap operas. Alcanzar una Estrella had hit it big three years before, and they were trying to find other products that appealed to that same youthful demographic. He was nervous about the meeting and needed a pep talk, not Montserrat’s agitated recriminations. “Fuck you, Momo,” he muttered as he closed the tap. He’d picked a brown suede jacket and a dark green shirt, plus his trademark sunglasses, for the lunch meeting. He smiled again, wider this time, and telephoned the cab company. The Angus in the Zona Rosa wasn’t his kind of joint. Men went to the Angus for the hostesses, who were supposedly from the northern states and supposedly naturally taller, paler, and therefore prettier—there were a staggering number of pale Mexicans and blondes in ads and commercials. Tristán had always felt uncomfortable with all those women and their plastic smiles. It reminded him, in a way, that he himself was all plastic and had been sold as easily as the steak the women brought to the table. He suspected Dorotea didn’t like the Angus, either, that she simply had acquired the habit of eating there after noticing leering men she wanted to do business with were easily soothed with cuts of meat and beautiful waitresses. Dorotea hadn’t climbed the ranks by being an herbivore; she ate other people up.


too, and so were his cousins and their wives when he sent for them and told them who his guest was. "You must take him to salute our father," said one of the cousins. "Yes," replied Okonkwo. "We are going directly." But before they went he whispered something to his first wife. She nodded, and soon the children were chasing one of their cocks. Uchendu had been told by one of his grandchildren that three strangers had come to Okonkwo's house. He was therefore waiting to receive them. He held out his hands to them when they came into his obi, and after they had shaken hands he asked Okonkwo who they were. "This is Obierika, my great friend. I have already spoken to you about him." "Yes," said the old man, turning to Obierika. "My son has told me about you, and I am happy you have come to see us. I knew your father, Iweka. He was a great man. He had many friends here and came to see them quite often. Those were good days when a man had friends in distant clans. Your generation does not know that. You stay at home, afraid of your next-door neighbour. Even a man's motherland is strange to him nowadays." He looked at Okonkwo. "I am an old man and I like to talk. That is all I am good for now." He got up painfully, went into an inner room and came back with a kola nut. "Who are the young men with you?" he asked as he sat down again on his goatskin. Okonkwo told him. "Ah," he said. "Welcome, my sons." He presented the kola nut to them, and when they had seen it and thanked him, he broke it and they ate. "Go into that room," he said to Okonkwo, pointing with his finger. "You will find a pot of wine there." Okonkwo brought the wine and they began to drink. It was a day old, and very strong. "Yes," said Uchendu after a long silence. "People travelled more in those days. There is not a single clan in these parts that I do not know very well. Aninta, Umuazu, Ikeocha, Elumelu, Abame--I know them all." "Have you heard," asked Obierika, "that Abame is no more?" "How is that?" asked Uchendu and Okonkwo together. "Abame has been wiped out," said Obierika. "It is a strange and terrible story. If I had not seen the few survivors with my own eyes and heard their story with my own ears, I would not have believed. Was it not on an Eke day that they fled into Umuofia?" he asked his two companions, and they nodded their heads. "Three moons ago," said Obierika, "on an Eke market day a little band of fugitives came into our town. Most of them were sons of our land whose mothers had been buried with us. But there were some too who came because they had friends in our town, and others who could think of nowhere else open to escape. And so they fled


ever commits a murder without doing something stupid. But I will have nothing to do with it." "All I ask of you is to perform a certain scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the horrors that you do there don't affect you. If in some hideous dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject. You would not turn a hair. You would not believe that you were doing anything wrong. On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the world, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. What I want you to do is simply what you have often done before. Indeed, to destroy a body must be less horrible than what you are accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence against me. If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be discovered unless you help me." [91] "I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me." "Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before you came I almost fainted with terror. No! don't think of that. Look at the matter purely from the scientific point of view. You don't inquire where the dead things on which you experiment come from. Don't inquire now. I have told you too much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were friends once, Alan." "Don't speak about those days, Dorian: they are dead." "The dead linger sometimes. The man up-stairs will not go away. He is sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. Alan! Alan! if you don't come to my assistance I am ruined. Why, they will hang me, Alan! Don't you understand? They will hang me for what I have done." "There is no good in prolonging this scene. I refuse absolutely to do anything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me." "You refuse absolutely?" "Yes." The same look of pity came into Dorian's eyes, then he stretched out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. He read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the table. Having done this, he got up, and went over to the window. Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and opened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale, and he fell back in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. He felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow. After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round, and came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder. "I am so sorry, Alan," he


would have been out of a job. And it wouldn’t have been easy to get another. The corporate world doesn’t like whistleblowers. I had the two of you to support, and I wanted to 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


have it, and you want to blame someone else.” Agamemnon walks to her. Quick as a serpent, he raises his hand to strike her, but Clytemnestra draws back, grabbing the kitchen knife. His hand slaps the air and his eyes rest on the knife, disbelieving. “Are you going to kill me in front of our children?” he asks. “Are you going to murder a king?” With a quick sway of his arm, he sweeps the platters off the table. “Go back to your room before I order the guards to drag you! And contemplate your sister’s mistake!” She takes Electra and Iphigenia by the arms and pulls them up from the bench. Somewhere behind her, Aileen grabs Chrysothemis’s hand and follows, the child crying softly. Clytemnestra pants as she runs out of the hall, the torches swaying around her, the smell of fish sickening her. Once safe in the dark corridors, she leaves her daughters and keeps running forward, toward the gynaeceum and beyond, out of the palace. * * * The winter sun is long gone beyond the mountains, and now the sky is the color of the sea at night. She walks the streets of the citadel, the darkness soothing her. Dogs rest in every corner, looking up at her as she passes, and a few men are drinking in the artists’ quarter, huddled around a small fire. If she lived in a palace by the sea, she would go for a swim now, scrub herself in the salted water until her skin was raw. But here, in the narrow streets of Mycenae, all she wants to do is set something on fire. A tree, one of those in the main streets, or a granary: the flames would build and build until the fire lapped the sky. Just the thought of it makes her drunk with power. “You have so much rage inside you,” Helen had told her once. “It is like one of those fires for the dead that look like they will never burn out.” “And you don’t?” Clytemnestra asked. “Don’t you ever feel rage?” Helen shrugged. They were ten, and a helot was ministering to some wounds on their shoulders, a courtesy of the priestess’s whip. Helen winced as the servant cleaned hers, but she kept silent. She never talked about her own anger, yet Clytemnestra knew it was there, hidden under the layers of goodness. She would see it at dinner sometimes, when the men’s hands found their way under the servants’ tunics as they passed to pour their wine. Helen would look at them as they asked for more mutton, forcing the girls to come back, and Clytemnestra would see a flicker of rage in her sister’s eyes. It was always the small things that made Helen angry. A wrong comment, a sharp pinch, an unsaid thought. Clytemnestra, on the other hand, kept her anger for the whipping and the fighting, for the beatings and the executions. If Clytemnestra’s rage was a fire, Helen’s was a lamp, warm and thin in the darkness but burning


think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!-- for as to any real knowledge of a person's disposition that Bath, or any public place, can give--it is all nothing; there can be no knowledge. It is only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it is all guess and luck-- and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest of his life!" Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own confederates, spoke now. "Such things do occur, undoubtedly."--She was stopped by a cough. Frank Churchill turned towards her to listen. "You were speaking," said he, gravely. She recovered her voice. "I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise-- but there is generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever." He made no answer; merely looked, and bowed in submission; and soon afterwards said, in a lively tone, "Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?--I am sure I should like any body fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate her." "And make her like myself." "By all means, if you can." "Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife." "She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else. I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return, I shall come to you for my wife. Remember." Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described? Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished. He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment; who could say? Referring the education to her seemed to imply it. "Now, ma'am," said Jane to her aunt, "shall we join Mrs. Elton?" "If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall soon overtake her. There she is--no, that's somebody else. That's one of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.-- Well, I declare--" They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston, his son, Emma,