he knew she was about. Presently she gave over skylarking, and moved irresolutely about, sighing once or twice and glancing furtively and wistfully toward Tom. Then she observed that now Tom was talking more particularly to Amy Lawrence than to any one else. She felt a sharp pang and grew disturbed and uneasy at once. She tried to go away, but her feet were treacherous, and carried her to the group instead. She said to a girl almost at Tom's elbow -- with sham vivacity: "Why, Mary Austin! you bad girl, why didn't you come to Sunday-school?" "I did come -- didn't you see me?" "Why, no! Did you? Where did you sit?" "I was in Miss Peters' class, where I always go. I saw you." "Did you? Why, it's funny I didn't see you. I wanted to tell you about the picnic." "Oh, that's jolly. Who's going to give it?" "My ma's going to let me have one." "Oh, goody; I hope she'll let me come." "Well, she will. The picnic's for me. She'll let anybody come that I want, and I want you." "That's ever so nice. When is it going to be?" --------------------------------------------------------- -186- "By and by. Maybe about vacation." "Oh, won't it be fun! You going to have all the girls and boys?" "Yes, every one that's friends to me -- or wants to be"; and she glanced ever so furtively at Tom, but he talked right along to Amy Lawrence about the terrible storm on the island, and how the lightning tore the great sycamore tree "all to flinders" while he was "standing within three feet of it." "Oh, may I come?" said Grace Miller. "Yes." "And me?" said Sally Rogers. "Yes." "And me, too?" said Susy Harper. "And Joe?" "Yes." And so on, with clapping of joyful hands till all the group had begged for invitations but Tom and Amy. Then Tom turned coolly away, still talking, and took Amy with him. Becky's lips trembled and the tears came to her eyes; she hid these signs with a forced gayety and went on chattering, but the life had gone out of the picnic, now, and out of everything else; she got away as soon as she could and hid herself and had what her sex call "a good cry." Then she sat moody, with wounded pride, till the bell rang. She roused up, now, with a vindictive cast in her eye, and gave her plaited tails a shake and said she knew what she'd do. At recess Tom continued his flirtation with Amy with jubilant self-satisfaction. And he kept drifting --------------------------------------------------------- -187- about to find Becky and lacerate her with the performance. At last hespied her, but there was a sudden falling of his mercury. She was sitting cosily on a little bench behind the schoolhouse looking at a picture-book with Alfred Temple -- and so absorbed were they, and their heads so close together over the book, that they did not seem to be conscious of anything in the world besides. Jealousy ran red-hot through


a man could also die on an unpoisoned blade. "Scum!" Feyd-Rautha gasped. At the key word, the gladiator's muscles obeyed with a momentary slackness. It was enough for Feyd-Rautha. He opened a space between them sufficient for the long blade. Its poisoned tip flicked out, drew a red line down the slave's chest. There was instant agony in the poison. The man disengaged himself, staggered backward. Now, let my dear family watch, Feyd-Rautha thought. Let them think on this slave who tried to turn the knife he thought poisoned and use it against me. Let them wonder how a gladiator could come into this arena ready for such an attempt. And let them always be aware they cannot know for sure which of my hands carries the poison. Feyd-Rautha stood in silence, watching the slowed motions of the slave. The man moved within a hesitation-awareness. There was an orthographic thing on his face now for every watcher to recognize. The death was written there. The slave knew it had been done to him and he knew how it had been done. The wrong blade had carried the poison. "You!" the man moaned. Feyd-Rautha drew back to give death its space. The paralyzing drug in the poison had yet to take full effect, but the man's slowness told of its advance. The slave staggered forward as though drawn by a string--one dragging step at a time. Each step was the only step in his universe. He still clutched his knife, but its point wavered. "One day . . . one . . . of us . . . will . . . get . . . you," he gasped. A sad little moue contorted his mouth. He sat, sagged, then stiffened and rolled away from Feyd-Rautha, face down. Feyd-Rautha advanced in the silent arena, put a toe under the gladiator and rolled him onto his back to give the galleries a clear view of the face when the poison began its twisting, wrenching work on the muscles. But the gladiator came over with his own knife, protruding from his breast. In spite of frustration, there was for Feyd-Rautha a measure of admiration for the effort this slave had managed in overcoming the paralysis to do this thing to himself. With the admiration came the realization that here was truly a thing to fear. That which makes a man superhuman is terrifying. As he focused on this thought, Feyd-Rautha became conscious of the eruption of noise from the stands and galleries around him. They were cheering with utter abandon. Feyd-Rautha turned, looking up at them. All were cheering except the Baron, who sat with hand to chin in deep contemplation--and the Count and his lady, both of whom were staring down at him, their faces masked by smiles. Count Fenring turned to his lady, said: "Ah-h-h-um-m-m, a resourceful um-m-m-m young man. Eh, mm-m-m-ah, my dear?" "His ah-h-h synaptic responses are very swift," she said. The Baron looked at her, at the Count, returned his attention to the arena, thinking: If someone could get that


Mrs Parsons and made for the door. But he had not gone six steps down the passage when something hit the back of his neck an agonizingly painful blow. It was as though a red-hot wire had been jabbed into him. He spun round just in time to see Mrs Parsons dragging her son back into the doorway while the boy pocketed a catapult. 'Goldstein!' bellowed the boy as the door closed on him. But what most struck Winston was the look of helpless fright on the woman's greyish face. Back in the flat he stepped quickly past the telescreen and sat down at the table again, still rubbing his neck. The music from the telescreen had stopped. Instead, a clipped military voice was reading out, with a sort of brutal relish, a description of the armaments of the new Floating Fortress which had just been anchored between Iceland and the Faroe lslands. With those children, he thought, that wretched woman must lead a life of terror. Another year, two years, and they would be watching her night and day for symptoms of unorthodoxy. Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother--it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which 'The Times' did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak--'child hero' was the phrase generally used--had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police. The sting of the catapult bullet had worn off. He picked up his pen half-heartedly, wondering whether he could find something more to write in the diary. Suddenly he began thinking of O'Brien again. Years ago--how long was it? Seven years it must be--he had dreamed that he was walking through a pitch-dark room. And someone sitting to one side of him had said as he passed: 'We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.' It was said very quietly, almost casually--a statement, not a command. He had walked on without pausing. What was curious was that at the file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (16 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt time, in the dream, the words had not made much impression on him. It was only later and by degrees that they had seemed to take on significance. He could not now remember whether it was before or after having the dream that he had seen O'Brien for the first time, nor could he remember


"Yes; you are just like that." "How wonderful, Basil!" "At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter," said Hallward. "That is something." "What a fuss people make about fidelity!" murmured Lord Henry. "And, after all, it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. It is either an unfortunate accident, or an unpleasant result of temperament. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say." "Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian," said Hallward. "Stop and dine with me." "I can't, really." "Why?" "Because I have promised Lord Henry to go with him." "He won't like you better for keeping your promises. He always breaks his own. I beg you not to go." Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head. "I entreat you." The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them from the tea-table with an amused smile. [22] "I must go, Basil," he answered. "Very well," said Hallward; and he walked over and laid his cup down on the tray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had better lose no time. Good-by, Harry; good-by, Dorian. Come and see me soon. Come to-morrow." "Certainly." "You won't forget?" "No, of course not." "And . . . Harry!" "Yes, Basil?" "Remember what I asked you, when in the garden this morning." "I have forgotten it." "I trust you." "I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing.--"Come, Mr. Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place.-- Good-by, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon." As the door closed behind them, Hallward flung himself down on a sofa, and a look of pain came into his face. CHAPTER III [...22] One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Curzon Street. It was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-colored frieze and ceiling of raised plaster-work, and its brick-dust felt carpet strewn with long-fringed silk Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of "Les Cent Nouvelles," bound for Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve, and powdered with the gilt daisies that the queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars, filled with parrot- tulips, were ranged on the mantel-shelf, and through the small leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-colored light of a summer's day in London. Lord Henry had not come in yet. He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. So the lad was looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages of an elaborately-illustrated edition of "Manon Lescaut" that he had found in one of the bookcases. The formal monotonous ticking of the Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him.


to prayers. It had now ceased, and, all being again still, she forbore to go to St. Aubert's room. Her mind was not disposed for immediate sleep, and the moon-light, that shone into her chamber, invited her to open the casement, and look out upon the country. It was a still and beautiful night, the sky was unobscured by any cloud, and scarce a leaf of the woods beneath trembled in the air. As she listened, the mid-night hymn of the monks rose softly from a chapel, that stood on one of the lower cliffs, an holy strain, that seemed to ascend through the silence of night to heaven, and her thoughts ascended with it. From the consideration of His works, her mind arose to the adoration of the Deity, in His goodness and power; wherever she turned her view, whether on the sleeping earth, or to the vast regions of space, glowing with worlds beyond the reach of human thought, the sublimity of God, and the majesty of His presence appeared. Her eyes were filled with tears of awful love and admiration; and she felt that pure devotion, superior to all the distinctions of human system, which lifts the soul above this world, and seems to expand it into a nobler nature; such devotion as can, perhaps, only be experienced, when the mind, rescued, for a moment, from the humbleness of earthly considerations, aspires to contemplate His power in the sublimity of His works, and His goodness in the infinity of His blessings. Is it not now the hour, The holy hour, when to the cloudless height Of yon starred concave climbs the full-orbed moon, And to this nether world in solemn stillness, Gives sign, that, to the list'ning ear of Heaven Religion's voice should plead? The very babe Knows this, and, chance awak'd, his little hands Lifts to the gods, and on his innocent couch Calls down a blessing.* *Caractacus The midnight chant of the monks soon after dropped into silence; but Emily remained at the casement, watching the setting moon, and the valley sinking into deep shade, and willing to prolong her present state of mind. At length she retired to her mattress, and sunk into tranquil slumber. CHAPTER V While in the rosy vale Love breath'd his infant sighs, from anguish free. Thomson St. Aubert, sufficiently restored by a night's repose to pursue his journey, set out in the morning, with his family and Valancourt, for Rousillon, which he hoped to reach before night-fall. The scenes, through which they now passed, were as wild and romantic, as any they had yet observed, with this difference, that beauty, every now and then, softened the landscape into smiles. Little woody recesses appeared among the mountains, covered with bright verdure and flowers; or a pastoral valley opened its grassy bosom in the shade of the cliffs, with flocks and herds loitering along the banks of a rivulet, that refreshed it with perpetual green. St. Aubert could not repent the having taken this fatiguing road, though he was this day, also, frequently


what difference would that make? Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The party is immortal.' As usual, the voice had battered Winston into helplessness. Moreover he was in dread that if he persisted in his disagreement O'Brien would twist the dial again. And yet he could not keep silent. Feebly, without arguments, with nothing to support him except his inarticulate horror of what O'Brien had said, he returned to the attack. 'I don't know--I don't care. Somehow you will fail. Something will defeat you. Life will defeat you.' 'We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable. Or perhaps you have returned to your old idea that the proletarians or the slaves will arise and overthrow us. Put it out of your mind. They are helpless, like the animals. Humanity is the Party. The others are outside--irrelevant.' 'I don't care. In the end they will beat you. Sooner or later they will file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (147 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt see you for what you are, and then they will tear you to pieces.' 'Do you see any evidence that that is happening? Or any reason why it should?' 'No. I believe it. I KNOW that you will fail. There is something in the universe--I don't know, some spirit, some principle--that you will never overcome.' 'Do you believe in God, Winston?' 'No.' 'Then what is it, this principle that will defeat us?' 'I don't know. The spirit of Man.' 'And do you consider yourself a man?' 'Yes.' 'If you are a man, Winston, you are the last man. Your kind is extinct; we are the inheritors. Do you understand that you are ALONE? You are outside history, you are non-existent.' His manner changed and he said more harshly: 'And you consider yourself morally superior to us, with our lies and our cruelty?' 'Yes, I consider myself superior.' O'Brien did not speak. Two other voices were speaking. After a moment Winston recognized one of them as his own. It was a sound-track of the conversation he had had with O'Brien, on the night when he had enrolled himself in the Brotherhood. He heard himself promising to lie, to steal, to forge, to murder, to encourage drug-taking and prostitution, to disseminate venereal diseases, to throw vitriol in a child's face. O'Brien made a small impatient gesture, as though to say that the demonstration was hardly worth making. Then he turned a switch and the voices stopped. 'Get up from that bed,' he said. The bonds had loosened themselves. Winston lowered himself to the floor and stood up unsteadily. 'You are the last man,' said O'Brien. 'You are the guardian of the human spirit. You shall see


the headache in your place, Marilla. I would have endured it joyfully for your sake." "I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me rest," said Marilla. "You seem to have got on fairly well and made fewer mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn't exactly necessary to starch Matthew's handkerchiefs! And most people when they put a pie in the oven to warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of leaving it to be burned to a crisp. But that doesn't seem to be your way evidently." Headaches always left Marilla somewhat sarcastic. "Oh, I'm so sorry," said Anne penitently. "I never thought about that pie from the moment I put it in the oven till now, although I felt INSTINCTIVELY that there was something missing on the dinner table. I was firmly resolved, when you left me in charge this morning, not to imagine anything, but keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until I put the pie in, and then an irresistible temptation came to me to imagine I was an enchanted princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome knight riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that is how I came to forget the pie. I didn't know I starched the handkerchiefs. All the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a name for a new island Diana and I have discovered up the brook. It's the most ravishing spot, Marilla. There are two maple trees on it and the brook flows right around it. At last it struck me that it would be splendid to call it Victoria Island because we found it on the Queen's birthday. Both Diana and I are very loyal. But I'm sorry about that pie and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra good today because it's an anniversary. Do you remember what happened this day last year, Marilla?" "No, I can't think of anything special." "Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never forget it. It was the turning point in my life. Of course it wouldn't seem so important to you. I've been here for a year and I've been so happy. Of course, I've had my troubles, but one can live down troubles. Are you sorry you kept me, Marilla?" "No, I can't say I'm sorry," said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables, "no, not exactly sorry. If you've finished your lessons, Anne, I want you to run over and ask Mrs. Barry if she'll lend me Diana's apron pattern." "Oh-it's-it's too dark," cried Anne. "Too dark? Why, it's only twilight. And goodness knows you've gone over often enough after dark." "I'll go over early in the morning," said Anne eagerly. "I'll get up at sunrise and go over, Marilla." "What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern to cut out your new apron this evening.


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 if you came too close. And now Menelaus has made her sister angry, and she has left. Did Helen leave before Castor was killed? How could she leave Polydeuces alone and little Hermione behind? She tries to picture her sister on a ship to Troy with Paris, but the thought slips away like sea breeze. Some drunken men stumble in the street, walking back to their houses. The trees are one with the sky, and the last sounds of the night are dying out. “Do goddesses sleep?” Castor asked her once. She chuckled. “I don’t think so. Why?” “I want to catch one. I want to see what they look like.” “And then what will you do?” “Seduce her, of course,” he said, and they laughed. So that night, when everyone slept, they sneaked outside and walked to the river. There they waited and waited for Artemis to appear until Clytemnestra fell asleep on Castor’s shoulder. Artemis never came, and for years after, Castor would make fun of that night spent together shivering, wishing to see a goddess who wouldn’t pay them any attention. Clytemnestra feels her heart clench. He’s gone. He’s dead and now you must live with that. * * * In front of the door that leads to the gynaeceum, Calchas is waiting for her. His head looks like a crumpled, sickly leaf in the torchlight. She has the urge to walk past him but instead she asks, “Have you come to give me the news of someone else’s death?” “No,” he says. “Your remaining brother and sisters will live for a long time.” “That is good to hear.” He tilts his head as if to study her better. “Do I unnerve you?” “I am not easily unnerved.” “I thought so. Yet you don’t respect me. You should be careful with that. Disrespecting me means disrespecting the gods.” She has never heard such a sweet voice speak such menacing words. It is like drinking mulled wine, savoring it on the tongue before realizing it is poisoned. “We each serve the gods in our own ways. You kill a sheep and tear open its belly to look at the liver. I rule a city and its people.” “Your husband rules.” “We both do. I am sure he would agree with me.” Calchas sighs. The sound is a hiss. “Power is strange. All men want it, but few achieve it.” “I am sure you have something to say about the gods now.” “The gods have nothing to do with it.” “Then what?” she asks. “Who gets it and who doesn’t?” The light casts moving shadows on his scarred face. One moment, he looks like an ordinary man; the next, he seems monstrous. “If you ask the people of Mycenae who rules their city,” he asks, “what


to meet Atticus coming home that evening. We skulked around the kitchen until Calpurnia threw us out. By some voo-doo system Calpurnia seemed to know all about it. She was a less than satisfactory source of palliation, but she did give Jem a hot biscuit-and-butter which he tore in half and shared with me. It tasted like cotton. We went to the livingroom. I picked up a football magazine, found a picture of Dixie Howell, showed it to Jem and said, "This looks like you." That was the nicest thing I could think to say to him, but it was no help. He sat by the windows, hunched down in a rocking chair, scowling, waiting. Daylight faded. Two geological ages later, we heard the soles of Atticus's shoes scrape the front steps. The screen door slammed, there was a pause- Atticus was at the hat rack in the hall- and we heard him call, "Jem!" His voice was like the winter wind. Atticus switched on the ceiling light in the livingroom and found us there, frozen still. He carried my baton in one hand; its filthy yellow tassel trailed on the rug. He held out his other hand; it contained fat camellia buds. "Jem," he said, "are you responsible for this?" "Yes sir." "Why'd you do it?" Jem said softly, "She said you lawed for niggers and trash." "You did this because she said that?" Jem's lips moved, but his, "Yes sir," was inaudible. "Son, I have no doubt that you've been annoyed by your contemporaries about me lawing for niggers, as you say, but to do something like this to a sick old lady is inexcusable. I strongly advise you to go down and have a talk with Mrs. Dubose," said Atticus. "Come straight home afterward." Jem did not move. "Go on, I said." I followed Jem out of the livingroom. "Come back here," Atticus said to me. I came back. Atticus picked up the Mobile Press and sat down in the rocking chair Jem had vacated. For the life of me, I did not understand how he could sit there in cold blood and read a newspaper when his only son stood an excellent chance of being murdered with a Confederate Army relic. Of course Jem antagonized me sometimes until I could kill him, but when it came down to it he was all I had. Atticus did not seem to realize this, or if he did he didn't care. I hated him for that, but when you are in trouble you become easily tired: soon I was hiding in his lap and his arms were around me. "You're mighty big to be rocked," he said. "You don't care what happens to him," I said. "You just send him on to get shot at when all he was doin' was standin' up for you." Atticus pushed my head under his chin. "It's not time to worry yet," he said. "I never thought Jem'd be the one to lose his head over this- thought I'd have more trouble with you." I


the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye.     I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home: but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield.     Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its caliber when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could describe that sermon; but it is past my power. I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.     It began calm and, indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went it was calm to the end; and earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained, zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language. This grew to force compressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher; neither was softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines election, predestination, reprobation were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me I know not whether equally so to others that the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding; he had no more found it, I thought, than had I; with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium regrets to which I have lately avoided referring; but which possessed me and tyrannized over me ruthlessly.     Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each held a situation in a family by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependents, and who neither knew nor sought one of


killed or merely maimed for life, Tarzan had tied one end of his rope securely about Mr. Philander's neck. "Tut, tut, Mr. Philander," remonstrated Professor Porter; "it is most unbeseeming in you to submit to such indignities." But scarcely were the words out of his mouth ere he, too, had been seized and securely bound by the neck with the same rope. Then Tarzan set off toward the north, leading the now thoroughly frightened professor and his secretary. In deathly silence they proceeded for what seemed hours to the two tired and hopeless old men; but presently as they topped a little rise of ground they were overjoyed to see the cabin lying before them, not a hundred yards distant. Here Tarzan released them, and, pointing toward the little building, vanished into the jungle beside them. "Most remarkable, most remarkable!" gasped the professor. "But you see, Mr. Philander, that I was quite right, as usual; and but for your stubborn willfulness we should have escaped a series of most humiliating, not to say dangerous accidents. Pray allow yourself to be guided by a more mature and practical mind hereafter when in need of wise counsel." Mr. Samuel T. Philander was too much relieved at the happy outcome to their adventure to take umbrage at the professor's cruel fling. Instead he grasped his friend's arm and hastened him forward in the direction of the cabin. It was a much-relieved party of castaways that found itself once more united. Dawn discovered them still recounting their various adventures and speculating upon the identity of the strange guardian and protector they had found on this savage shore. Esmeralda was positive that it was none other than an angel of the Lord, sent down especially to watch over them. "Had you seen him devour the raw meat of the lion, Esmeralda," laughed Clayton, "you would have thought him a very material angel." "There was nothing heavenly about his voice," said Jane Porter, with a little shudder at recollection of the awful roar which had followed the killing of the lioness. "Nor did it precisely comport with my preconceived ideas of the dignity of divine messengers," remarked Professor Porter, "when the--ah--gentleman tied two highly respectable and erudite scholars neck to neck and dragged them through the jungle as though they had been cows." Chapter 17 Burials As it was now quite light, the party, none of whom had eaten or slept since the previous morning, began to bestir themselves to prepare food. Chapter 17 The mutineers of the Arrow had landed a small supply of dried meats, canned soups and vegetables, crackers, flour, tea, and coffee for the five they had marooned, and these were hurriedly drawn upon to satisfy the craving of long-famished appetites. The next task was to make the cabin habitable, and to this end it was decided to at once remove the gruesome relics of the tragedy which had taken place there on some bygone day. Professor Porter and Mr. Philander were deeply interested in examining the skeletons. The two larger, they stated, had


for another twelve years, thanks to the doctor who saved him. But his personality changed drastically. Where he once was an even-keeled, decent man, after his recovery he was prone to swearing, quick to anger, and impulsive.” “Because that particular part of his brain was damaged?” “Exactly.” “It’s amazing he lived at all.” Peter added pasta to the water once it was boiling, and when it was ready, he spooned it into two bowls, followed by tomato sauce and a sprinkle of basil. Marion carried the bowls over to the dining room table. She had to move some papers to make room, and a familiar grid caught her eye. “You do crosswords?” she asked. He joined her at the table and nodded. “That’s one I’m working on from the Times.” “I do the Sunday one, but only in pencil.” Marion’s father worked religiously on that crossword every Sunday morning after breakfast. Marion had only taken it up since she’d started dancing as a Rockette. There was something comforting about knowing they were probably working on it at the same moment, Simon in his easy chair and Marion at her dressing table. “I always have to erase and it ends up being a mess, but so far I’ve been able to finish.” She was quite proud of that fact. Peter wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I actually create the puzzle, then send it to the Times and hope they use it. So far, they’ve published three of mine.” Was there anything this guy couldn’t do? “You are multitalented, clearly. When do you sleep?” “I don’t need much, and there’s so much work to be done.” “And here I am thinking four shows a day is tough. You’re putting the rest of us to shame, you know. You’re basically doing two full-time jobs as well as a side hobby.” Peter refused to meet her eyes as he twirled the pasta on his fork. The compliment had upset him in some way, which was not what she’d intended. She replayed the conversation in her head, trying to figure out what she’d said that might have offended him. “My dad does the crossword,” she said, trying to fill the space. “I’ll have to tell him that I know one of the creators. He’ll be very impressed.” “How is your dad doing?” asked Peter. “It must be hard, with everything that’s going on.” The sudden intimacy of the question made her choke up inside. She couldn’t get a read on Peter at all. The more she got to know him, the more she realized how complex he was, something of an enigma. Nathaniel had always been an open book in many ways, his life unfolding smoothly out in front of him: wife, children, a nine-to-five job. Marion couldn’t picture him chopping basil in a kitchen or attempting a crossword puzzle. Or stepping foot in the Bowery. “To be honest, I’m not sure,” she said. “I think my father still blames me for Judy’s death. Meanwhile, he wants me to move home and lock myself away so


hair: which he held to be decidedly unlawful. Mr. Chitling wound up his observations by stating that he had not touched a drop of anything for forty-two moral long hard-working days; and that he 'wished he might be busted if he warn't as dry as a lime-basket.' 'Where do you think the gentleman has come from, Oliver?' inquired the Jew, with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of spirits on the table. 'I--I--don't know, sir,' replied Oliver. 'Who's that?' inquired Tom Chitling, casting a contemptuous look at Oliver. 'A young friend of mine, my dear,' replied the Jew. 'He's in luck, then,' said the young man, with a meaning look at Fagin. 'Never mind where I came from, young 'un; you'll find your way there, soon enough, I'll bet a crown!' At this sally, the boys laughed. After some more jokes on the same subject, they exchanged a few short whispers with Fagin; and withdrew. After some words apart between the last comer and Fagin, they drew their chairs towards the fire; and the Jew, telling Oliver to come and sit by him, led the conversation to the topics most calculated to interest his hearers. These were, the great advantages of the trade, the proficiency of the Dodger, the amiability of Charley Bates, and the liberality of the Jew himself. At length these subjects displayed signs of being thoroughly exhausted; and Mr. Chitling did the same: for the house of correction becomes fatiguing after a week or two. Miss Betsy accordingly withdrew; and left the party to their repose. From this day, Oliver was seldom left alone; but was placed in almost constant communication with the two boys, who played the old game with the Jew every day: whether for their own improvement or Oliver's, Mr. Fagin best knew. At other times the old man would tell them stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days: mixed up with so much that was droll and curious, that Oliver could not help laughing heartily, and showing that he was amused in spite of all his better feelings. In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils. Having prepared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue for ever. CHAPTER XIX IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON It was a chill, damp, windy night, when the Jew: buttoning his great-coat tight round his shrivelled body, and pulling the collar up over his ears so as completely to obscure the lower part of his face: emerged from his den. He paused on the step as the door was locked and chained behind him; and having listened while the boys made all secure, and until their retreating footsteps were no longer audible, slunk down the street as quickly as he could. The house to which Oliver had been conveyed,


flow of gifts from the sponsors. I know he hates me. He’s made that clear enough. But enough to let me die? From this? He can’t do that, can he? If a mentor mi- streats his tributes, he’ll be held accountable by the viewers, by the people back in District 12. Even Haymitch wouldn’t risk that, would he? Say what you will about my fellow traders in the Hob, but I don’t think they’d welcome him back there if he let me die this way. And then where would he get his liquor? So . . . what? Is he trying to make me suffer for defying him? Is he directing all the sponsors toward Peeta? Is he just too drunk to even notice what’s going on at the moment? Some- how I don’t believe that and I don’t believe he’s trying to kill me off by neglect, either. He has, in fact, in his own unpleasant way, genuinely been trying to prepare me for this. Then what is going on? I bury my face in my hands. There’s no danger of tears now, I couldn’t produce one to save my life. What is Haymitch 167 doing? Despite my anger, hatred, and suspicions, a small voice in the back of my head whispers an answer. Maybe he’s sending you a message, it says. A message. Say- ing what? Then I know. There’s only one good reason Hay- mitch could be withholding water from me. Because he knows I’ve almost found it. I grit my teeth and pull myself to my feet. My backpack seems to have tripled in weight. I find a broken branch that will do for a walking stick and I start off. The sun’s beating down, even more searing than the first two days. I feel like an old piece of leather, drying and cracking in the heat. every step is an effort, but I refuse to stop. I refuse to sit down. If I sit, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to get up again, that I won’t even remember my task. What easy prey I am! Any tribute, even tiny Rue, could take me right now, merely shove me over and kill me with my own knife, and I’d have little strength to resist. But if anyone is in my part of the woods, they ignore me. The truth is, I feel a mil- lion miles from another living soul. Not alone though. No, they’ve surely got a camera tracking me now. I think back to the years of watching tributes starve, freeze, bleed, and dehydrate to death. Unless there’s a really good fight going on somewhere, I’m being featured. My thoughts turn to Prim. It’s likely she won’t be watching me live, but they’ll show updates at the school during lunch. For her sake, I try to look as least desperate as I can. 168 But by afternoon, I know the end is coming. My legs are shaking and my heart too quick. I keep forgetting, exactly what I’m doing. I’ve stumbled repeatedly and


looking at the floor and then over my shoulder. “Okay, this is no offense, but, like, I know you do a lot of true crime on your podcast, and I think it’s a problematic genre.” She waited, as if I were supposed to repent. I said, “That comes up. But we’re following the workings of the studio system, not chasing gore.” “I’m concerned about the tropes of true crime, the way it’s turned into entertainment.” “That’s sharp of you,” I said. “It’s definitely a matter of approach. When we fetishize things—” “Right, no. I listened to your podcast, and I get, even when you did the Patricia Douglas thing, or the Black Dahlia thing, I get that you’re doing—it’s more about structures and—like I said, no offense. I just, I see so much fetishizing, and I don’t want to be another white girl giggling about murder.” I said, “Most violent crime is remarkably boring.” I pulled out a chair and sat back down, gestured to Britt to do the same, but she didn’t, just stood tugging her backpack straps. I went into my panelist answer. “The vast majority of murders are two young men getting into an altercation; one kills the other. You dig deep on unsolved crimes, or quote-unquote interesting crimes, and most of what you find is a man killing his partner. So either you talk structural racism, domestic violence, policing issues, or you end up picking one story that’s interesting in specific ways. Usually in ways that break those molds. One concern is that those cases are misrepresentative. And sure, there’s a temptation to sensationalize things. Are you—” I expected to find her glazed over, but she wasn’t blinking. “Are you interested in pursuing this as a subject?” Britt said, “Like, also, me as a white person, if I wanted to tell the story of a white person’s murder, then I’m ignoring the violence done to Black and brown bodies. But I can’t tell a story of violence against people of color, because I’m white and that would be appropriation.” She sounded frustrated. I shouldn’t have been surprised that she talked like an Oberlin freshman who cared deeply but hadn’t fully worked things out—I used to teach undergrads, after all—but it felt so incongruous here at Granby, where we’d all once spoken with such blithe, hurtful carelessness. And hadn’t that been just yesterday? I said, “I really don’t think that’s appropriation. And honestly, this is for a small audience.” I gestured at the bare trees outside the window, hoping Britt would see what I did: that we were in the woods, not—as it certainly felt to a twelfth grader—at the center of the universe. She said, “In that email, you had two murders. The one from the ’70s and the one from the ’90s. I was thinking I’d do one of those. But—” I could feel my pulse in my neck. It was like being a child in an audience as the magician asked for volunteers, utterly terrified he’d pick you but also thrilled he might. Whether I could


cookies,” she said. “It does,” Louise agreed. She didn’t know if it was energy or vibes or ghosts or memories, or maybe even her dad sending one final message to the three of them, but it didn’t matter. For a little while, for the last time, Mark and Louise stood in the house where they grew up and smelled the scent of their dad’s stollen baking in the oven. Finally, Louise said, “We should go.” Mark turned to her, looking stricken. “Lulu,” he said. “Everything else was Freddie, or Pupkin, or whatever, but this . . . it’s actually Dad . . .” She shook her head. “It’s time to go,” she repeated. He swallowed. Then nodded. Then the four of them—Mark, Louise, Poppy, and Red Rabbit—walked out of the house and closed the door behind them. And after a while, the smell of stollen faded away. — For Louise, it came and went. Sometimes it wouldn’t bother her for years, and sometimes it hit hard. The worst was when she dreamed they were still alive and it had all been a terrible mistake. In those dreams, she was still thirty-nine and when she got Mark’s call she called home and this time her dad answered the phone and she talked to him and then to her mom and she would wake up glowing. She’d open her eyes and sit up in bed full of energy and actually reach for her phone, and that’s when she’d remember they were dead and it would hit her all over again, as hard as it did the very first time. When that happened, she felt a deep ache inside her chest, like her rib cage was being split open with an axe. When that happened, she needed to call the only other person who knew how this felt. When that happened, she called her brother. In loving memory CELEBRATE THE LIVES AND ART OF Eric Joyner & Nancy Cooke Joyner ORDER OF SERVICE Call to Worship—Reverend Michael Bullin “This Little Light of Mine” performed by The Doll Wiggler Quartet (featuring Joshua Bilmes, Adam Goldworm, Harold Brown, Daniel Passman) TESTIMONIALS Miss Mouse in the House & Her Human, Eddie Schneider Monsieur Brady McReynolds with His Friends Jacques & Andre Valentina “Mrs. Snowball” Sainato “The Five Penguins” performed by Susan Velazquez Jessica “Make a Joyful Noise” Wade Kitty-Cat Camacho MUSICAL INTERLUDE A Tribute to Nancy Joyner in Body Music, performed by Doogie Horner and His Body “Candle in the Wind” performed by The Treblemakers Alexis Nixon Danielle Keir Fareeda Bullert Daniela Reidlová Jin Yu Craig Burke Gabbie Pachon Lauren Burnstein TESTIMONIALS “My Ducky Has Big Eyes” recited by Claire Zion A Silent Meditation led by Jeanne-Marie Hudson and Oliver the Ostrich Emily Osborne and Scarlett Flufflebear Laura Corless the Dancing Meerkat Anthony Ramondo and Snocchio Hosannas and Praise by The Australian Trio MUSICAL INTERLUDE Eine kleine Nachtmusik by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, performed by Megha Jain (spoons) “Where Have All the Flowers Gone” by Pete Seeger, performed by William Barr (harmonica) TESTIMONIALS “I Mime the Body Electric,” an


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

“Good morning, Brenna,” I say. She spins around, cheeks flushed. “It certainly is!” Trent rounds the corner, briefcase and car keys still in hand. He looks as tired as I feel. Confused, he surveys the chaos around us. “What in the fresh hell is happening?” “Casting,” I tell him. “We’re narrowing down the final contestants for my dating show, The True Love Experiment.” He continues to look around, and I imagine his bewildered expression looks much like mine did barely ten minutes ago. “What are you doing here, anyway?” I ask. “I thought you were on a bus for six weeks.” He runs an exhausted hand down his face. “I’ve got to meet with some lawyers and fly right back out tonight. I’ve barely slept in four days; these contestants never shut up, and there are just so many rules! Did you know there are insurance clauses about different protective cups for this type of show?” Brenna tilts her head, confused. “Different… oh.” “Right.” He nods. “I’ll never forgive Blaine for putting phrases like ‘testicular degloving’ in my vocabulary.” At both our horrified expressions, he adds, “It’s absolutely as bad as it sounds. Learn from my mistakes and don’t google that one.” Brenna gently turns Trent back toward the kitchen. “Why don’t we get you some coffee before your meeting?” Trent continues to mumble about penis dislocations as they move down the hall. “Be grateful you got a dating show, Connor,” he says over his shoulder. * * * Later that morning, I’m set up with Brenna; the casting director, Kathy; and our director, Rory, in North Star’s largest conference room. We’ve successfully signed on a viral YouTube sensation named Lanelle Turner to be the show’s host—an intermittent role requiring her only to pop in at the beginning and end of each episode—but the bulk of the day’s work stretches ahead of us, with a call sheet approximately seventy beefcakes deep. Fizzy insisted that she doesn’t have a physical type per se, but having walked through the halls of North Star Media today, I think it’s safe to say these men are everyone’s type. Our first possible Hero is Isaac Moore. He’s tall and fit, Black, with short, cropped hair and a smile so arresting it makes Brenna flush from head to toe when he shakes her hand. Isaac has two sisters, collects vintage board games, and works in AI modeling and development. I make a note, checking a box next to Hot Nerd. “What does that mean exactly?” Kathy asks, looking at him over the top of her tortoiseshell glasses. She’s in her midfifties, with curly red hair and a diamond on her ring finger that’s so large I’d imagine her left arm is significantly stronger than her right. Kathy has been brought on as a consultant; she doesn’t usually cast the kinds of things I make—obvious, perhaps, given that the kinds of things I make usually feature marine mammals—so we’ve never worked together before. “AI modeling and development?” “I work with artificial intelligence systems that build and implement engagement algorithms.


the back of the house, where there was a kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window. I attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them. Then with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the sashes and opened the window. I helped the Professor in, and followed him. There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants' rooms, which were close at hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the dining room, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four servant women lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the room left no doubt as to their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said, "We can attend to them later."Then we ascended to Lucy's room. For an instant or two we paused at the door to listen, but there was no sound that we could hear. With white faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently, and entered the room. How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her mother. The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the drought through the broken window, showing the drawn, white, face, with a look of terror fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and still more drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mother's bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head almost touching poor Lucy's breast. Then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me, "It is not yet too late! Quick! Quick! Bring the brandy!" I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I found on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I fancied that the narcotic was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, but returned to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy, as on another occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists and the palms of her hands. He said to me, "I can do this, all that can be at the present. You go wake those maids. Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as that beside her. She will need be heated before we


up, but she craned her aching neck to look at the greenhouse. It was a slaughter. CHAPTER XXXIV THE WHIP IS DEATH THREE SECURITY GUARDS lay dead at the doors, guns glistening useless in their hands. There were other bodies strewn across the marble floor, their expensive furs discarded around them. Five of the Nine were dead: Erato, head slumped back on the couch, dress drenched in champagne. Young Polyhymnia, only feet away from the settee, and three of the Muses Io hadn’t met in the middle of the carpet, as though they had tried to run. Their bodies were crooked, necklaces of bruises around their necks. The four remaining Muses were cowering behind furniture, too frantic to make an escape through the open panels of the greenhouse. In the center of the greenhouse, Bianca was moving with impossible speed, her limbs so fast they were a blur. Where the other wraiths had been chaotic, Bianca was precise. As Io and Edei watched, Calliope made a run for the doors—the whip-thread soared through the air, pulling the Muse down by the ankle. Her face smacked against the marble. Bianca pulled the whip back and launched it again, wrapping it around Calliope’s neck. For a few short moments, barely long enough for Io to realize what was happening, the Muse writhed. And then went completely still. The whip is justice, Io thought. The whip is death. Clio, Urania, and a third muse-born Io hadn’t met screamed as their sister slumped lifeless a few inches away from their faces, where they hid behind the bigger sofa. Shots split the air—there was a single security woman left alive in the greenhouse, firing bullet after bullet at Bianca. But again, the mob queen was uncannily fast: she dodged the first two shots and snapped the third straight out of the air with her whip. “We need to go.” Edei was panting by Io’s side. His eyes studied her face with a pained expression. “We need to get you to Samiya.” The left side of Io’s face was throbbing with pain. Blood poured down her nose, sticky on her lips, staining her sweater scarlet. Edei was leaning sideways, stepping on his right knee gingerly. What had happened to him while she was knocked out? “Please!” the Muse of history croaked behind the sofa, tearing Io’s attention from Edei. She was cradling Urania and the other young Muse in her arms, like a mother comforting a baby. “Spare the little ones. They were toddlers when the Riots happened. They are faultless.” Bianca cocked her head, meeting Clio’s gaze through the reflection on the greenhouse windowpanes. “It’s too late for mercy, don’t you think, Clio?” she said. “Twelve years too late. They’ll kill us all, you told me. End this, end them. So I did. I sent my kids to the slaughter, and I killed every last one of the Furies.” “Don’t pretend innocence!” cried Clio. “You knew about the plan from the get-go. You and every influential other-born in the city agreed. We would let the next gang


Sophie said, "But if it is the Church who is responsible for this attack, why would they act now? After all these years? The Priory keeps the Sangreal documents hidden. They pose no immediate threat to the Church." Teabing heaved an ominous sigh and glanced at Langdon. "Robert, I assume you are familiar with the Priory's final charge?" Langdon felt his breath catch at the thought. "I am." "Miss Neveu," Teabing said, "the Church and the Priory have had a tacit understanding for years. That is, the Church does not attack the Priory, and the Priory keeps the Sangreal documents hidden." He paused. "However, part of the Priory history has always included a plan to unveil the secret. With the arrival of a specific date in history, the brotherhood plans to break the silence and carry out its ultimate triumph by unveiling the Sangreal documents to the world and shouting the true story of Jesus Christ from the mountaintops." Sophie stared at Teabing in silence. Finally, she too sat down. "And you think that date is approaching? And the Church knows it?" "A speculation," Teabing said, "but it would certainly provide the Church motivation for an all-out attack to find the documents before it was too late." Langdon had the uneasy feeling that Teabing was making good sense. "Do you think the Church would actually be capable of uncovering hard evidence of the Priory's date?" 179 "Why not-if we're assuming the Church was able to uncover the identities of the Priory members, then certainly they could have learned of their plans. And even if they don't have the exact date, their superstitions may be getting the best of them." "Superstitions?" Sophie asked. "In terms of prophecy," Teabing said, "we are currently in an epoch of enormous change. The millennium has recently passed, and with it has ended the two-thousandyear- long astrological Age of Pisces-the fish, which is also the sign of Jesus. As any astrological symbologist will tell you, the Piscean ideal believes that man must be told what to do by higher powers because man is incapable of thinking for himself. Hence it has been a time of fervent religion. Now, however, we are entering the Age of Aquarius-the water bearer-whose ideals claim that man will learn the truth and be able to think for himself. The ideological shift is enormous, and it is occurring right now." Langdon felt a shiver. Astrological prophecy never held much interest or credibility for him, but he knew there were those in the Church who followed it very closely. "The Church calls this transitional period the End of Days." Sophie looked skeptical. "As in the end of the world? The Apocalypse?" "No." Langdon replied. "That's a common misconception. Many religions speak of the End of Days. It refers not to the end of the world, but rather the end of our current age-Pisces, which began at the time of Christ's birth, spanned two thousand years, and waned with the passing of the millennium. Now that we've passed into the Age of Aquarius, the End of


own woods, skinning one of the Mallisters' own bucks, and it had been a choice of putting on the black or losing a hand. No one could move through the woods as silent as Will, and it had not taken the black brothers long to discover his talent. "The camp is two miles farther on, over that ridge, hard beside a stream," Will said. "I got close as I dared. There's eight of them, men and women both. No children I could see. They put up a lean-to against the rock. The snow's pretty well covered it now, but I could still make it out. No fire burning, but the firepit was still plain as day. No one moving. I watched a long time. No living man ever lay so still." "Did you see any blood?" "Well, no," Will admitted. "Did you see any weapons?" "Some swords, a few bows. One man had an axe. Heavy-looking, double-bladed, a cruel piece of iron. It was on the ground beside him, right by his hand." "Did you make note of the position of the bodies?" Will shrugged. "A couple are sitting up against the rock. Most of them on the ground. Fallen, like." "Or sleeping," Royce suggested. "Fallen," Will insisted. "There's one woman up an ironwood, halfhid in the branches. A far-eyes." He smiled thinly. "I took care she never saw me. When I got closer, I saw that she wasn't moving neither." Despite himself, he shivered. "You have a chill?" Royce asked. "Some," Will muttered. "The wind, m'lord." The young knight turned back to his grizzled man-at-arms. Frostfallen leaves whispered past them, and Royce's destrier moved restlessly. "What do you think might have killed these men, Gared?" Ser Waymar asked casually. He adjusted the drape of his long sable cloak. "It was the cold," Gared said with iron certainty. "I saw men freeze 4 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN last winter, and the one before, when I was half a boy. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the ice wind comes howling out of the north, but the real enemy is the cold. It steals up on you quieter than Will, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet and dream of mulled wine and nice hot fires. It burns, it does. Nothing burns like the cold. But only for a while. Then it gets inside you and starts to fill you up, and after a while you don't have the strength to fight it. It's easier just to sit down or go to sleep. They say you don't feel any pain toward the end. First you go weak and drowsy, and everything starts to fade, and then it's like sinking into a sea of warm milk. Peaceful, like." "Such eloquence, Gared," Ser Waymar observed. "I never suspected you had it in you." "I've had the cold in me too, lordling." Gared pulled back his hood, giving Ser Waymar a good long look at the stumps where his ears had been. "Two ears, three toes, and


cricket jumped onto the corpse’s cheek. I watched it crawl into his nose and grimaced. I could predict what came next in the song. Or rather, who didn’t. In the early days, the four original kingdoms—Lukub, Omal, Orban, and Jasad—had been flush with magic. Nizahl came after the Awaleen’s entombment, created to arbitrate peace between the other four kingdoms. But the centuries passed, each taking a little more magic with it, until only Jasad’s magic remained. Nizahl’s armies grew, scaring Lukub and Omal, even battle-hungry Orban. But not Jasad. Not even Nizahlan armies stood a chance against Jasad’s unassailable fortress. At least, they shouldn’t have. To my surprise, Sefa’s song continued, albeit softer and more reserved. “Rovial heard the hum of Jasad and gave his soul to keep her awake. Abound! Abou—” “Quiet.” I stopped walking and listened. There it was, the best song of them all—the gurgle of Hirun. We broke through the trees, skidding to a halt at the edge of the riverbank. “Oh,” Sefa breathed. “I have never seen Hirun with its banks so far apart.” Hirun wound through every kingdom like a mighty serpent, sustaining life across the land. In some areas of Essam, the river stretched no wider than a tree trunk. Here, the opposite bank of Hirun was at least half a mile away. The full moon’s reflection rippled on its dark surface. “I’ll take him.” Marek rolled the body down the riverbank, mindful of his weight on the damp earth. He grunted as he carried boulders to place around and beneath the body. I could feel Sefa’s gaze boring into the side of my head. “Can I ask you a question?” My teeth hurt from grinding down the answer I wanted to give her. “I suppose.” “Why did you need to break his back? Isn’t a broken neck enough to make it seem like he slipped?” Sefa asked. I could hear only curiosity in her voice, but I still paused before responding. “If they decide to investigate his death as a killing, the broken back means they will be searching for a man.” Her lips parted. “Because of the force needed to cause such a break.” “Yes.” It felt beyond strange to share this part of myself. The balance of our relationships had shifted, and I no longer knew where we stood. If you were the girl I raised you to be, you would finish them here, Hanim said. I scraped a hand down my face. When would she go away? Once Marek finished arranging the body, Sefa helped him out of the riverbank. I lingered out of reach. A touch right now would snap the last of my already fraying calm. “We need to run. Fast as you can. We won’t be in Mahair in time for the shift change, but we need to be within the boundary of the raven-marked trees.” I picked at my wrist, gaze somewhere above their heads. “Thank you. This favor will not be forgotten.” We ran against the dawn. Sefa stumbled more than once, but Marek remained near


a grin. Alex smiled back. “More Shakespeare.” “There’s also this.” Dawes held up a photo of a stone grid of numbers. “Sudoku?” asked Tripp. Dawes looked at him as if she wasn’t sure whether to put him to bed with a hot water bottle or hit him with a shovel. “It’s the magic square from Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia. Every direction you add the numbers, the sum is always the same. I think it’s a gesture toward containment.” “A perfect puzzle for a demon to get caught up in,” Alex said. “Exactly. And of all the details from Dürer’s works, it has no real reason to be in this courtyard.” “What’s at the center?” Turner asked. “What are we all marching toward?” Mercy wrinkled her nose. “There’s a fountain, but it’s not much to look at. More of a big square basin with some cherubs stuck on the corners.” “It was added later,” Dawes said. “After the library was built. Because something was seeping up through the stones.” Silence settled over the room. Turner scrubbed a hand over his head. “Fine. We get to the middle. Then what happens?” Now Dawes hesitated. “We descend. I don’t know what that entails. Some people describe hallucinations and an actual sensation of falling, others describe a complete disconnect from the body and a feeling of flight.” “Sweet,” said Tripp. “But that could be because of the datura.” “That’s a poison,” said Turner. “Had a case where a woman was growing it in her backyard, putting it in lotions and ointments.” “It does have medicinal uses,” said Dawes. “It just needs a steady hand.” “Sure,” said Turner. “Are you going to tell them its other name?” Dawes looked down at her notes and mumbled, “Devil’s trumpet. The pilgrims are anointed with it before they begin. It loosens the soul’s tether to this world. We can’t cross over without it.” “And then we die,” said Alex. Tripp gave a nervous laugh. “Metaphorically, right?” Slowly, Dawes shook her head. “From what I can tell, we’ll be buried alive.” “Shit,” said Turner. “The verb is unclear,” Dawes offered. “It might mean buried or submerged.” Tripp pushed back from the table. “Are we sure … Is this a good idea?” “We’re out of good ideas,” said Alex. “This is what we have left.” But Turner wasn’t interested in Tripp’s nerves. “So we die,” he said as if he were asking for directions to the bank. “Then what?” Dawes had bit so deeply into her lip a thin line of blood had appeared. “At some point, we should encounter Darlington—or the part of him still stuck in hell. We secure his soul in a vessel, then we return to this plane and take it to Black Elm. That’s when we’ll be at our most vulnerable.” “Vulnerable how?” Alex asked. Turner tapped the open book in front of him. “If we don’t close off the Gauntlet, something can follow us.” “Something?” Mercy finally sounded scared, and Alex was almost grateful for that. She needed to take this seriously. “What we’re doing is considered


Andy won’t believe a single word of it. So he pokes Andy’s shoulder. “Afraid you’ll sprain your ankle?” Andy coughs out a startled laugh. “Oh fuck off.” Nick takes Andy’s hand, looks deep into his eyes, and says, “Afraid you’ll slip on a banana peel?” “Oh my God, please go to hell.” Andy is fighting back a smile, and even though Nick knows he hasn’t exactly set Andy’s mind at ease, he thinks he’s done some good. * * * After that, the rest of the day should have been awkward, Nick is sure of it. Instead Andy makes coffee (“I know it’s four o’clock, Nick, shut up”) while listening to the tail end of a baseball game on the radio. Nick irons his shirts, cursing his decision not to have them sent out. It’s so normal, it’s almost anticlimactic. But when Andy has to squeeze past Nick to get to the radio, he puts a hand on Nick’s waist and lets it linger there. Nick nearly drops the iron. And then when Nick walks past where Andy sits on the couch, he bends down and kisses the top of Andy’s head. Andy doesn’t even blush, the fucker. “How are you so calm about this?” Nick asks. “I once saw you almost hyperventilate when the supermarket was out of your favorite brand of applesauce. But having a gay affair doesn’t even ruffle your feathers?” Andy snorts. “A gay affair. I mean, when you put it like that, it sounds alarming.” Before Nick can ask what on earth he’d call it instead, Andy goes on. “Besides, I’m not calm at all. It’s just that you’re clearly about to lose your marbles and there really can be only one crazy person at a time here.” Nick opens his mouth to deny it, but Andy is right. “Fair.” “What has you so agitated, anyway? I know you’re, um, experienced.” Nick aggressively irons a wrinkle out of his shirt. “You’re not some guy I picked up in the park and took home to fuck over the back of the couch.” Andy stares, his mouth slightly open, his eyes unfocused, as if he’s picturing that. And excellent work, Nick. Great job coming up with a scenario that will put Andy right off the idea of sex. “This couch?” Andy asks eventually. He looks accusingly at it, as if it’s made a lot of mistakes in its life. “Usually their couch, actually.” “Hmm.” Andy swallows. “I’m not sure I’m game for that. At least not at the moment.” Nick can’t look at him. He becomes fascinated by the cuff of his shirt, which he’s ironed about fifty times in the last five minutes. “God. I wasn’t going to suggest it. Give me some credit.” Andy goes back to listening to the game and Nick resumes ironing his shirt, thinking the conversation is done. When the game is over, Andy flicks off the radio and wanders over to the bookcase. He does that all the time, taking a book out and examining the cover, flipping through a few pages


and better suited than I am. They get Maurice out of the trailer. Somewhere, out of sight, the pigs have heard the engine and make little noises of delight. * * * — Zoegar cuts Maurice out of the duct tape with the kind of long knife that has implications. It’s got a spine so thick the section is almost a triangle, and all three edges look sharp enough to make you wish you were someplace else. The back end has a fat, flat pommel on it like a mushroom, where you can lean in. It’s a knife for penetrating an abnormally resistant rib cage, say, or the skull of one of those dogs bred to hunt bears. Maurice’s eyes track it as Zoegar slices through most of the tape around his arms, then steps back to let him finish the job himself. It still takes a minute or two of straining, because Zoegar is a conservative sort of man. I give him a little fuck-you wave. “Hi, Maurice, it’s me, Cal.” “Sounder—” But then he doesn’t have anything to say. “You sure that’s it?” Maurice looks away. We’re in the living room of Doublewide’s hobby farm. It’s big and rustic and cosy, with thick rugs all over the walls and a fireplace in the middle with a stack of pine logs. A few hours and some red velvet and you could make Santa’s Grotto in here, no trouble at all. I look at Maurice, his legs bandaged quite professionally by Zoegar. They haven’t bothered to restrain him in the leather high-back love seat because he can barely stay upright without holding on to the arms. “I suggest you start with sorry. ‘I am sorry I came to your office to kill you, Cal. It was personal and I understand you’re upset.’ I mean, I don’t imagine it gets said a lot in this situation. You could try an actual apology. They’re free.” Nothing. “Mr. Nugent, do people generally apologise at this point?” “You shock me, Mr. Sounder, with the implication that I would know such a thing. This experience is quite entirely new to me.” I look at him. He does the salamander smile again. Zoegar rolls his eyes. Apparently this is too fey even for him. I tell Doublewide I’m sorry I asked. He beams. “You are forgiven!” “You see, Maurice? That’s how it goes. You want to try it?” Maurice isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at Doublewide. Titans always think other Titans are in charge. They’re also almost always right about that, even when the appearance is against it. “Who are you?” “Lyman Nugent,” Doublewide says. “Beggar king. Big fan of your uncle, though perhaps that’s the wrong word. Let us say I admire his…reach.” He flexes one mantis arm, reaching two metres to lift an apple out of the fruit bowl and take a bite. He’s dainty with it, but half the fruit disappears into his mouth. Maurice watches him. They say that Stefan Tonfamecasca’s arm reaches anywhere in the world, but they haven’t met Lyman Nugent.


choice in their evil, but humans choose it deliberately. My parents chose to sell my younger sister to the khawaga. They convinced themselves they had no choice; how could they leave their prosperous town for a village overrun by vagrants? They traded my gentle sister for a taller roof and nicer walls. The khawaga returned my sister in pieces. I punished my mother and father for each part of her I buried.” “Forty-three stab wounds each,” I remembered. “I hope they lived long enough to feel every single one.” Diya smiled faintly. “I can make choices, too.” The carriage rumbled to a stop. “Orban Champion, descend!” Diya paused at the door. “Do try not to die. I would hate to listen to Mehti yammer on a third time.” I fluttered my lashes. “Why, Diya. Is this your formal offer of friendship?” She considered the distance between herself and the ground. “Die, then.” She leapt. I shook with laughter. I ignored the driver’s grumbling and stuck my head out the window as the carriage forged on. “But I accept!” The driver snapped the reins, and Diya disappeared between the trees. I tipped my chin up, searching for the sun in the cloudy skies. I’d missed the feel of it in the tunnels more than I realized. “Nizahl Champion, descend!” Taking a deep breath, I jumped from the carriage. The driver did not spare me a glance, urging the horses in the opposite direction of Dar al Mansi. A layer of dew covered the weapons left at the bottom of the tree. Omalian winters were not an ideal setting for a trial that depended on the acuity of sight and sound. A pale fog hovered around us. Thin shafts of sunlight peeked from the gray sky. I listened for movement and encountered silence too complete to be natural. I evaluated the weapons. Arin’s instructions were clear. Two weapons I could tuck into my clothing and one I would carry. I chose a rounded dagger with its scabbard, tucking it between my breasts. I had wrapped a tight undergarment around my breasts and ribs for this precise purpose. Poor Wes turned the color of a plum during training when I refused to tuck the dagger into my waist and reached into my tunic instead. I slid the second, shorter blade into my boot. I chewed my bottom lip, deliberating between the axe and the spear. I practiced almost exclusively with the spear. Its weight would be familiar, and it was Arin’s weapon of choice. I ran my nail along the sharp line of the axe. Too much comfort in battle was its own danger. A piercing shriek rang from above me. I threw myself to the ground, curling below the nearest tree. Through the blanket of skeletal branches, I watched with breathless awe as Al Anqa’a was released over Dar al Mansi. Wings the size of a carriage unfurled. The limited light reflected off glass feathers fading into the colors of a sunset, a gradient of magnificent oranges and pinks blending along its wings, ending


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

stubble on his jaw, Lore would think his voice still hadn’t cracked—glanced at his companion, then rubbed at his neck. A constellation of bruises bloomed there, deep purple and new. “I might,” he said slowly. “But the details aren’t mine to share.” Gabe’s jaw tightened, and the slight man stepped back, eyes widening in brief alarm. Lore didn’t blame him. Gabe didn’t look like the kind of person you’d want to anger. “How could one find someone willing to impart details?” Gabe asked. The man’s companion—larger than he, but still young looking—let out a harsh laugh. “Lose,” he said, cutting a hand toward the ring. Lore looked back. The blond fighter was up again, but blood trickled steadily from a cut across her forehead, dripping into her eyes. “Lose?” Gabe’s confusion drew his brows together, wrinkled the black domino mask. “Lose a fight,” the slight man mumbled, rubbing at his fresh bruises again. “They only approach people who lose a fight.” “Why?” “Gods damn me if I know,” he replied snappishly. “I guess because you have to buy in to fight a match, and those of us who just lost money are more likely not to ask questions.” Another roar from the crowd. The blond fighter was down, this time for good. A huge man with a tangled black beard stepped over the hay bales, laughing, and lifted the other fighter’s arms over her head. Her eye was blackened, her smile viciously triumphant. Gabe looked back at Lore and Bastian, then sighed. “Who do I talk to about getting in the ring?” “You can’t.” The bruised man looked Gabe up and down, then shook his head. “Not tonight, anyway. It’s Lightweight Night.” Three eyes turned to Lore—Gabe’s one, Bastian’s two, a question in them all. “Fuck,” Lore muttered. CHAPTER THIRTY The past will always have its last word. —Eroccan proverb Ten minutes and a handful of Bastian’s gold later, Lore, the Presque Mort, and the Sun Prince stood right at the outside edge of the hay-bale ring and waited for her opponent to arrive. “I know the point is to lose,” Bastian said, wrapping white linen around her knuckles. “But do at least try to give them a show. I doubt anyone will approach you about cargo running if you go down at the first punch.” “I’ll do my best.” She was too nervous for wit. Next to her, Gabe stood glowering, jaw set tight enough to bristle his reddish beard stubble. “I don’t like this.” “I’m not exactly thrilled myself.” Lore bounced on her knees, nervous energy imploring her to move. “Shockingly, I’m not very good at fistfights.” Bastian stopped wrapping and arched a brow. “You were a poison runner, yet you weren’t good at fistfights? What were you good at?” She bared her teeth. “Running.” “Brawling doesn’t take much skill,” Gabe said. “Survival instinct takes over. And you have that in spades.” “Debatable,” Bastian muttered. Gabe and Lore both pretended not to hear him. A moment, then Gabe sighed, as if finally resigning himself to what was about to happen.


like the dumb shit I like? and questioning your entire life’s history of tastes and choices, all because you had the nerve to…express enjoyment of something mundane. Or the interaction can go something like this: Me: I thought [name of innocuous movie that is perfectly fine] was good! Them (feigning shock): You did? Well I thought it was sophomoric garbage with no character development and an implausible ending. [Seriously, we’re talking about a thoroughly enjoyable popcorn movie here.] I can’t believe you’re into it! This is where they stop—a satisfied smugness spreading across their slimy face—and wait expectantly for you to conjure a defense for a movie (or a book or a television show or the store where you buy shirts or the place where you get your cat groomed or…) you didn’t make and have no emotional attachment to. Whenever this happens to me, my automatic reaction is to feel stupid and ashamed, like I should apologize for not understanding that a thing I enjoyed was poorly made or offensive to people who actually know what quality is. I get embarrassed for being a person with basic tastes who does not interrogate things very deeply, a person who needs to be smacked in the face with the subliminal message because I absolutely will not suss it out for myself. Can someone explain Parasite to me, please? The embarrassment usually leads to my second-guessing both myself and my interpretation of whatever it is we’re talking about: “Oh so what you’re trying to say is that I’m not supposed to think Mission: Impossible—Fallout is intellectually stimulating and the greatest film of all time?” This then devolves into an even more embarrassing apology: “I’m so sorry for not understanding what ‘good acting’ is!” And that continues until I shrivel into a husk and die, vowing with my dying breaths to never again publicly express joy or excitement. Some friend of my wife’s said to me—who am I, a balding stand-up comic in 1987??—after using the dry cleaner recommendation she’d asked me for a week earlier, “That strip mall where you told me to get my pants hemmed is so depressing. I can’t believe you go there.” I leaned against my open front door, in a fraying hoodie and soiled pajama bottoms, blinking at her over my first Diet Coke of the day. What did she want from me? What was I supposed to say? “I can’t believe you go there!” she repeated, and it became clear to me that she wanted…an explanation. An apology. Unfortunately, I was in no mood to be forced to atone for a place I: did not conceptualize. did not build. do not own. do not live in. do not profit from. frequently use with satisfaction. told her about as a courtesy because she asked me! Wanting to keep this early-morning interaction as brief as possible, my brain cycled through the possibilities of how to respond. I could: apologize for, uhh, helping her and solving her problem? apologize for having poor taste in local shopping plazas? apologize for being alive?


of thought that I should have happened at such a moment to be particularly and very gratefully struck with the obedience of my little charges. Why did they never resent my inexorable, my perpetual society? Something or other had brought nearer home to me that I had all but pinned the boy to my shawl and that, in the way our companions were marshaled before me, I might have appeared to provide against some danger of rebellion. I was like a gaoler with an eye to possible surprises and escapes. But all this belonged--I mean their magnificent little surrender-- just to the special array of the facts that were most abysmal. Turned out for Sunday by his uncle's tailor, who had had a free hand and a notion of pretty waistcoats and of his grand little air, Miles's whole title to independence, the rights of his sex and situation, were so stamped upon him that if he had suddenly struck for freedom I should have had nothing to say. I was by the strangest of chances wondering how I should meet him when the revolution unmistakably occurred. I call it a revolution because I now see how, with the word he spoke, the curtain rose on the last act of my dreadful drama, and the catastrophe was precipitated. "Look here, my dear, you know," he charmingly said, "when in the world, please, am I going back to school?" Transcribed here the speech sounds harmless enough, particularly as uttered in the sweet, high, casual pipe with which, at all interlocutors, but above all at his eternal governess, he threw off intonations as if he were tossing roses. There was something in them that always made one "catch," and I caught, at any rate, now so effectually that I stopped as short as if one of the trees of the park had fallen across the road. There was something new, on the spot, between us, and he was perfectly aware that I recognized it, though, to enable me to do so, he had no need to look a whit less candid and charming than usual. I could feel in him how he already, from my at first finding nothing to reply, perceived the advantage he had gained. I was so slow to find anything that he had plenty of time, after a minute, to continue with his suggestive but inconclusive smile: "You know, my dear, that for a fellow to be with a lady ALWAYS--!" His "my dear" was constantly on his lips for me, and nothing could have expressed more the exact shade of the sentiment with which I desired to inspire my pupils than its fond familiarity. It was so respectfully easy. But, oh, how I felt that at present I must pick my own phrases! I remember that, to gain time, I tried to laugh, and I seemed to see in the beautiful face with which he watched me how ugly and queer I looked. "And always with the same lady?" I returned. He neither blanched nor winked. The whole thing


even my top thousand, but I’m not about to waltz back to my tent in a towel—at least, not in this weather. So I awkwardly balance on my shower shoes to avoid touching the wet and mildly gross tiled floor while I layer on my tracksuit, then stuff my pajamas into a bag and ram my little towel on top. I wasn’t even planning to shower on this expedition—I thought I’d just wash the necessities and keep it moving, mainly to avoid this exact situation, but I needed a shower for emotional purposes because my brain is scrambled. Unfortunately, the water was lukewarm, the pressure was weak, and the snakes under my ribs slither on. What would I rather do: tell Brad the truth before I’m ready or have him figure it out? I still haven’t decided. So obviously, when I open the bathroom door, he’s standing right there. “Celine!” He straightens up from the mammoth fir trunk he’s been leaning on, a smile lighting up his face. He’s wearing his glasses, the gold frames bright against his brown skin in the morning sun, and I want to put my fingertip in his shallow little dimple. I want to kiss him and taste all that happiness. For God’s sake, I’m supposed to be in turmoil right now. This boy is so contagious, the World Health Organization should be notified. “What are you doing here?” I ask, and my voice comes out breathless. There’s an odd little pause before he answers. “I came to walk you back so you wouldn’t get eaten by wolves. Did you shower? Give me that.” He takes my bag and eyes the towel sitting on top as we fall into step together. “I hope you’re going to dry that properly, Celine. You can catch communicable diseases from towels. Damp fabric is a breeding ground for bacteria and wet skin is receptive to all kinds of…” He breaks off with a shudder. “Although, how you’re supposed to dry anything properly in this damp— God, who even invented camping?” “I don’t think it was a matter of invention,” I say. He laughs and I see liquid gold rolling through the air. I adore him. Then his smile fades slightly and he says, “I thought maybe we could talk.” His voice is quiet. Cautious. The snakes in my middle lift their heads and flick out their tongues, tasting the breeze, unanimous in their conclusion: smells like doom. There are only two types of talking: the type that is fine and normal, which doesn’t need announcing, and the type that’s terrible, which requires an Official Moment. People say they want to talk before they break up with you, but Brad and I can’t break up because we’re not together. Still, my throat constricts. It turns out a lack of official title and public affection doesn’t help much when you love someone regardless. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. If Aurora noticed how I feel, Brad must have noticed too, and now he’s going to tell me it’s too much. I’m too much. I have


with long- drawn wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself--one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was to them fear and mystery. And that he should be stirred by it marked the completeness with which he harked back through the ages of fire and roof to the raw beginnings of life in the howling ages. Seven days from the time they pulled into Dawson, they dropped down the steep bank by the Barracks to the Yukon Trail, and pulled for Dyea and Salt Water. Perrault was carrying despatches if anything more urgent than those he had brought in; also, the travel pride had gripped him, and he purposed to make the record trip of the year. Several things favored him in this. The week's rest had recuperated the dogs and put them in thorough trim. The trail they had broken into the country was packed hard by later journeyers. And further, the police had arranged in two or three places deposits of grub for dog and man, and he was travelling light. They made Sixty Mile, which is a fifty-mile run, on the first day; and the second day saw them booming up the Yukon well on their way to Pelly. But such splendid running was achieved not without great trouble and vexation on the part of Francois. The insidious revolt led by Buck had destroyed the solidarity of the team. It no longer was as one dog leaping in the traces. The encouragement Buck gave the rebels led them into all kinds of petty misdemeanors. No more was Spitz a leader greatly to be feared. The old awe departed, and they grew equal to challenging his authority. Pike robbed him of half a fish one night, and gulped it down under the protection of Buck. Another night Dub and Joe fought Spitz and made him forego the punishment they deserved. And even Billee, the good-natured, was less good-natured, and whined not half so placatingly as in former days. Buck never came near Spitz without snarling and bristling menacingly. In fact, his conduct approached that of a bully, and he was given to swaggering up and down before Spitz's very nose. The breaking down of discipline likewise affected the dogs in their relations with one another. They quarrelled and bickered more than ever among themselves, till at times the camp was a howling bedlam. Dave and Sol-leks alone were unaltered, though they were made irritable by the unending squabbling. Francois swore strange barbarous oaths, and stamped the snow in futile rage, and tore his hair. His lash was always singing among the dogs, but


“But, Lore, this could be an opportunity. This will keep you safer than Mari and I ever could.” Lore didn’t say anything. She stared straight ahead, until the colors in the tapestry whirled together in her wet eyes. Finally, Val stepped away. The door shut softly behind her. “For what it’s worth,” the Priest Exalted said, coming to sit before her in the chair Gabriel hastily provided, “none of us have lied to you. We don’t want to hurt you, Lore.” “Then what do you want?” Her voice still sounded scraped-up, like her throat was made of rock. Lore swallowed. A smile crinkled the handsome side of Anton’s face. “We need assistance,” he said. “And it appears you’re the only one who can provide it.” CHAPTER FOUR The one who can stab you quickest is the one to whom you give a knife. —Kirythean proverb Lore paused. Then she laughed. It was a rough and rasping sound, her mouth still dry from the cotton gag. Lore hung her head and laughed until it ran the risk of becoming a sob. “My help?” She shook her head, though it made her temples throb. The chloroform had knocked loose a bitch of a headache, worse than any hangover. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, priest, but wanting help from an unsanctioned Mortem wielder is more than a little light heresy.” Anton’s expression was almost amused, at least on the side of his face that could show expression. “Heresy can be forgiven, when it’s for the greater good.” Behind Anton, Malcolm still stood with his scarred arms crossed, face unreadable. But at the word heresy, the line of Gabriel’s mouth went flat. “The Bleeding God knows our plight and gives us benediction to do as we must in His service.” All this in a low, pleasing baritone, as if Anton was reciting a prayer. Maybe he was; the Book of Prayer was thick as every hell and seemed to have an entry for everything. “Indeed, it is a vital part of the Presque Mort’s work, the marrow to its bone. We submit ourselves to darkness, knowing that in the end all shadow will be eclipsed in light, as the Buried Goddess was eclipsed by the glory of the Bleeding God.” That didn’t seem to have worked out so well, what with the Mortem still leaking from the goddess’s dead body and all. “If you’re asking me to join your cult,” Lore said, “my answer is a resounding no.” It was Anton’s turn to laugh, a sound as court-cultured as his speaking voice. “Oh, no,” the Priest Exalted chuckled. “That’s not what we want at all. It takes a person of a very… specific… temperament to make it as one of the Presque Mort.” She gave him a beatific smile. “And I’m too pretty.” Malcolm turned his face away, fighting down a smirk. Gabriel didn’t react at all, that one blue eye blazing at her. Anton raised a sardonic brow. “You are unscarred, yes. Clearly, your abilities with Mortem didn’t come through an accident,


needed to be a little clearer. Swallowing his nerves, he took both her hands, enveloping them in each of his and holding them to his chest. “Lucy Hayes, I don’t blame you for anything that happened, and I never will. Do you believe me?” He punctuated that question with a brief kiss because he hoped it would convince her but also because he really wanted to kiss her. She smiled against his lips. “I might need more convincing. I told a good many lies.” Simon kissed her again. “So does Forester.” “Do you kiss him too?” “He has never let me.” As soon as those words left his mouth, Simon made a face of alarm, his eyes wide as his face burned hot. “Oh heavens, that sounded—” Lucy cut him off, grabbing his jacket and pulling him in for a kiss that stole his breath. For a moment, he forgot what they were even talking about, but when his fingers got tangled in her hair, he reluctantly fell back into reality as he tried to free himself. Laughing, Lucy undid the pins holding her hair up. Seeing her long hair down like that nearly undid Simon. If she knew how easily she affected him, she didn’t acknowledge it. She simply continued to pull her dark hair free until it hung down her back. “Yes, by the way.” Simon had been about to lean in for another kiss, but her words stopped him in his tracks. “What?” She grinned. “I know you didn’t technically ask me to marry you, but you did ask if I wanted to be Lady Calloway, and—” “Yes?” Simon whispered. Was she in earnest? But this was Lucy, and she never said anything she didn’t intend to follow through with. He had learned that much about her, at least. “You mean . . .” Biting her lip in the most tempting manner—not that that was her intent, most likely—Lucy slowly slid her arms around Simon’s neck and stretched up on her toes until their noses brushed. “I am only a governess, Simon. The daughter of a tailor. I will never be like the women of Society.” “For which we are all grateful.” She laughed a little. “There is nothing I can give you except my heart, and I fear I lost it to you long ago anyway. Do you want it?” “Want it?” Simon was already planning a business trip to London to give himself a good reason to go to Town to obtain a special license. Three weeks seemed an awfully long time to wait for a wedding. He hadn’t known this woman for three days before he was head-over-heels in love with her. “Lucy Hayes, I have never met a woman like you, and I doubt I ever will again. You are everything I could want in a partner, no matter how unorthodox our match will be. I have never walked within Society’s guidelines, and I am of the opinion that my life would be far better if I lived it my way. With you at my


along the flap. The noise seems louder than it should, and I realize I’m holding my breath. Finn’s eyes scan the letter, and I can’t read his face. He gasps and looks at me, then back at the letter, then back at me. “We didn’t get approved for four hundred thousand,” he says, and I feel like my heart stops. I’m about to launch into a full, exhausted meltdown when he screams, “But we did get two hundred and fifty thousand!” “What? Are you serious?” He nods and jumps up and down. I jump up and down, too, and throw my arms around his neck, and then we are both jumping up and down. I am overwhelmed with relief. The door chimes as it opens and Steven says, “What? What is happening?” “We got the money to save June’s camp!” “You have to go tell her,” he says. “Right now.” “But what about house hunting?” I ask, breathless. “I’ll go chaperone,” Finn says. “You know how much HGTV I watch.” That makes me feel so much better. As I walk out the door, I’m grateful to have so much to celebrate. I think about Steven and June, Huff and Henry, Lanier and Mary Stuart, Paula and John, and now, Finn. In some ways, I think I’ve always felt like that six-year-old girl whose mother forgot her at the airport. But now I’m starting to realize I don’t have to go through it alone. I have people. I have a family. And, no matter what happens with Holly Springs, that’s all I’ve ever really wanted. * * * A few hours later, June, Jillian, and I are sitting in her office at Holly Springs, which feels ridiculous since it’s such a gorgeous day outside. I am staring at a stack of actual books that contain facts and figures from the last several summers. June practically threw them at me when I walked in the door, which prevented me from sharing my news right off the bat. Plus, it’s kind of fun sitting on this secret. I finally set the ledger down, cross-eyed from trying to make sense of all those little numbers. “June, have you ever heard of a spreadsheet?” I ask, exasperated. “I’m trying, Daphne,” Jillian says. “But this one isn’t big on change.” “Maybe you should come down here for the summers and run my numbers for me,” June says. “Bring your husband and son.” “Don’t tempt me.” I shake my head. “What would Huff do? Just say, ‘Please, no one have a ruptured spleen or hernia’ for three months?” This makes Jillian laugh. I like her. “June, Jillian has a business degree. Perhaps you should let her digitize your bookkeeping. Then your accountant and I can have access to records whenever we need them without you having to mail things to us. Just think of all the time that would free up for when you’re away from camp property during the off-season.” June’s forehead crinkles in despair as she drops one of the ledgers to the desk with a thud.


out of the way at that time, and of his reasons for doing so, of course afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him poorer, and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed the point of Provis's animosity." "I want to know," said I, "and particularly, Herbert, whether he told you when this happened?" "Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His expression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I took up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you when you came upon him in the little churchyard?" "I think in my seventh year." "Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would have been about your age." "Herbert," said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, "can you see me best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire?" "By the firelight," answered Herbert, coming close again. "Look at me." "I do look at you, my dear boy." "Touch me." "I do touch you, my dear boy." "You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much disordered by the accident of last night?" "N-no, my dear boy," said Herbert, after taking time to examine me. "You are rather excited, but you are quite yourself." "I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the river, is Estella's Father." Chapter 51 What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving Estella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the question was not before me in a distinct shape, until it was put before me by a wiser head than my own. But, when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down - that I ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come at the bare truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this for Estella's sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in whose preservation I was so much concerned, some rays of the romantic interest that had so long surrounded her. Perhaps the latter possibility may be the nearer to the truth. Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard-street that night. Herbert's representations that if I did, I should probably be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would depend upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again and again reiterated, that come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers to-morrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning we went out together, and at the corner of Giltspur-street by Smithfield, I left