lolls back against his pillow, and his lips find my jaw, nip my chin, bite my neck. “I’m going to fuck you everywhere, Elsie.” He licks the hollow of my throat. “Between today and the day we die, I’m going to fuck you everywhere.” I nod. Let him know that he can. There is a tight, liquid pool blooming inside my stomach, twitches of pleasure making their way down my limbs, surging up my spine. I reach for Jack again, pull him to me for the kisses I want, but it doesn’t work. We’re too raw, too new at this, too desperate to catch every drop of this. Our lips press together, then they pause, forgotten by both of us. “Can you come like this?” he asks, his breath a hot wash against my ear. I’m drifting away. I’ll never hear his voice and not think of this. Of the deep, rough bite of it sinking inside my brain. Of the whispered Yes and This way and Perfect and— “Elsie.” His body trembles around mine. On the verge of tipping over. “Can you come this way?” “I don’t know. I—maybe?” I’m close, I think. About to snap. It’s phenomenal, the way he hits everywhere inside me at once, a masterpiece of biology that something could work so gloriously, and I just need a little more —just a little more— “Shit.” His thrusts quicken, he buries his face in my throat, and I think he’s getting close. I think he didn’t expect it. He doesn’t want to come, not yet, but this might be fully out of his control. And it’s what I want. To see him lost in something. “You’re good. This is good,” I urge him, and the word is such a paltry substitute when what I mean is This is the best thing I’ve ever felt and Thank you and Whatever you want, really, whatever you want, just take it. “Fuck,” he says again, and I see it in his face, the second it’s all over for him. His hand closes around my hip, holding me to him while he presses as far as he can go, and then I feel his cock jump in quick, jerky movements. “Elsie.” I’m moaning. He’s gasping. His skin slides against mine, sweaty, and my body clamps down on him. His back tenses into a slab, and I hold him while his hips turn erratic, then stop, then— The heat spreading inside me comes to a halt. I watch Jack’s eyes go blank, feel him bite my collarbone like I’m his anchor, like he wants to be reminded that I’m really here. The grunts he lets out come from somewhere deep inside him, somewhere I doubt he himself knows, and I hold him to myself until his orgasm dies down to a few clumsy, involuntary thrusts. I’m still buzzing with thrumming, unsnapped tension. And it should be frustrating—it is frustrating that he came and I didn’t, that there’s heat pushing against the seams of me, simmering from within. But it was good anyway. And


delicate enamel, or even blown glass, but it was much heavier than that, as if it were all of solid stone. The surface of the shell was covered with tiny scales, and as she turned the egg between her fingers, they shimmered like polished metal in the light of the setting sun. One egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and went depending on how Dany turned it. Another was pale cream streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea, yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls. "What are they?" she asked, her voice hushed and full of wonder. "Dragon's eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai," said Magister Illyrio. "The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty." "I shall treasure them always." Dany had heard tales of such eggs, A GAME OF THRONES 93 but she had never seen one, nor thought to see one. It was a truly magnificent gift, though she knew that Illyrio could afford to be lavish. He had collected a fortune in horses and slaves for his part in selling her to Khal Drogo. The khal's bloodriders offered her the traditional three weapons, and splendid weapons they were. Haggo gave her a great leather whip with a silver handle, Cohollo a magnificent arakh chased in gold, and Qotho a double-curved dragonbone bow taller than she was. Magister Illyrio and Ser Jorah had taught her the traditional refusals for these offerings. "This is a gift worthy of a great warrior, 0 blood of my blood, and I am but a woman. Let my lord husband bear these in my stead." And so Khal Drogo too received his "bride gifts." Other gifts she was given in plenty by other Dothraki: slippers and jewels and silver rings for her hair, medallion belts and painted vests and soft furs, sandsilks and jars of scent, needles and feathers and tiny bottles of purple glass, and a gown made from the skin of a thousand mice. "A handsome gift, Khaleesi," Magister Illyrio said of the last, after he had told her what it was. "Most lucky." The gifts mounted up around her in great piles, more gifts than she could possibly imagine, more gifts than she could want or use. And last of all, Khal Drogo brought forth his own bride gift to her. An expectant hush rippled out from the center of the camp as he left her side, growing until it had swallowed the whole khalasar. When he returned, the dense press of Dothraki gift-givers parted before him, and he led the horse to her. She was a young filly, spirited and splendid. Dany knew just enough about horses to know that this was no ordinary animal. There was something about her that took the breath away. She was grey as the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke. Hesitantly she reached out and stroked the horse's neck, ran her fingers through the silver of her mane. Khal Drogo said something in Dothraki and


of Christian and Hopeful, and catch us yet!" As they passed into the street, Clifford directed Hepzibah's attention to something on one of the posts of the front door. It was merely the initials of his own name, which, with somewhat of his characteristic grace about the forms of the letters, he had cut there when a boy. The brother and sister departed, and left Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old home of his forefathers, all by himself; so heavy and lumpish that we can liken him to nothing better than a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might! XVII The Flight of Two Owls SUMMER as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzibah's few remaining teeth chattering in her head, as she and Clifford faced it, on their way up Pyncheon Street, and towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it the shiver which this pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her feet and hands, especially, had never seemed so death-a-cold as now), but there was a moral sensation, mingling itself with the physical chill, and causing her to shake more in spirit than in body. The world's broad, bleak atmosphere was all so comfortless! Such, indeed, is the impression which it makes on every new adventurer, even if he plunge into it while the warmest tide of life is bubbling through his veins. What, then, must it have been to Hepzibah and Clifford,--so time-stricken as they were, yet so like children in their inexperience,--as they left the doorstep, and passed from beneath the wide shelter of the Pyncheon Elm! They were wandering all abroad, on precisely such a pilgrimage as a child often meditates, to the world's end, with perhaps a sixpence and a biscuit in his pocket. In Hepzibah's mind, there was the wretched consciousness of being adrift. She had lost the faculty of self-guidance; but, in view of the difficulties around her, felt it hardly worth an effort to regain it, and was, moreover, incapable of making one. As they proceeded on their strange expedition, she now and then cast a look sidelong at Clifford, and could not but observe that he was possessed and swayed by a powerful excitement. It was this, indeed, that gave him the control which he had at once, and so irresistibly, established over his movements. It not a little resembled the exhilaration of wine. Or, it might more fancifully be compared to a joyous piece of music, played with wild vivacity, but upon a disordered instrument. As the cracked jarring note might always be heard, and as it jarred loudest amidst the loftiest exultation of the melody, so was there a continual quake through Clifford, causing him most to quiver while he wore a triumphant smile, and seemed almost under a necessity to skip in his gait. They met few people abroad, even on passing from the retired neighborhood of the House of the


said Anne. "I know I can't last out till then!" So her mother handed her some chocolate, and she and the boys munched happily, watching the hills, woods and fields as the car sped by. The picnic was lovely. They had it on the top of a hill, in a sloping field that looked down into a sunny valley. Anne didn't very much like a big brown cow who came up close and stared at her, but it went away when Daddy told it to. The children ate enormously, and Mother said that instead of having a tea-picnic at half-past four they would have to go to a tea-house somewhere, because they had eaten all the tea sandwiches as well as the lunch ones! "What time shall we be at Aunt Fanny's?" asked Julian, finishing up the very last sandwich and wishing there were more. "About six o'clock with luck," said Daddy. "Now who wants to stretch their legs a bit? We've another long spell in the car, you know." The car seemed to eat up the miles as it purred along. Tea-time came, and then the three children began to feel excited all over again. "We must watch out for the sea," said Dick. "I can smell it somewhere near!" He was right. The car suddenly topped a hill- and there, was the shining blue sea, calm and smooth in the evening sun. The three children gave a yell. "There it is!" "Isn't it marvellous!" "Oh, I want to bathe this very minute!" "We shan't be more than twenty minutes now, before we're at Kirrin Bay," said Daddy. "We've made good time. You'll see the bay soon- it's quite a big one- with a funny sort of island at the entrance of the bay." The children looked out for it as they drove along the coast. Then Julian gave a shout. "There it is- that must be Kirrin Bay. Look, Dick- isn't it lovely and blue?" "And look at the rocky little island guarding the entrance of the bay," said Dick. "I'd like to visit that." "Well, I've no doubt you will," said Mother. "Now, let's look out for Aunt Fanny's house. It's called Kirrin Cottage." They soon came to it. It stood on the low cliff overlooking the bay, and was a very old house indeed. It wasn't really a cottage, but quite a big house, built of old white stone. Roses climbed over the front of it, and the garden was gay with flowers. "Here's Kirrin Cottage," said Daddy, and he stopped the car in front of it. "It's supposed to be about three hundred years old! Now- where's Quentin? Hallo, there's Fanny!" Chapter Two THE STRANGE COUSIN Contents- Prev/Next The children's aunt had been watching for the car. She came running out of the old wooden door as soon as she saw it draw up outside. The children liked the look of her at once. "Welcome to Kirrin!" she cried. "Hallo, all of you! It's lovely to see you. And what big children!" There were kisses all round,


in the Church of Scotland—it caused a stir, which I

never understood.

I’ve seen photographs of us going into the church that day, but they bring

back no memories. Did the minister say anything? Did he make it worse?

Did I listen to him or stare at the back of the pew and think about Mummy?

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On the way back to Balmoral, a two-minute drive, it was suggested that

we stop. People had been gathering all morning outside the front gates, some

had begun leaving things. Stuffed animals, flowers, cards. Acknowledgment

should be made.

We pulled over, stepped out. I could see nothing but a matrix of colored

dots. Flowers. And more flowers. I could hear nothing but a rhythmic

clicking from across the road. The press. I reached for my father’s hand, for

comfort, then cursed myself, because that gesture set off an explosion of

clicks.

I’d given them exactly what they wanted. Emotion. Drama. Pain.

They fired and fired and fired.

5.

H: LATER PA LEFT FOR Paris. Accompanied by Mummy’s sisters,

Aunt Sarah and Aunt Jane. They needed to learn more about the crash,

someone said. And they needed to arrange for the return of Mummy’s body.

Body. People kept using that word. It was a punch in the throat, and a

bloody lie, because Mummy wasn’t dead.

That was my sudden insight. With nothing to do but roam the castle and

talk to myself, a suspicion took hold, which then became a firm belief. This

was all a trick. And for once the trick wasn’t being played by the people

around me, or the press, but by Mummy. Her lifes been miserable, shes

been hounded, harassed, lied about, lied to. So she’s staged an accident as a

diversion and run away.

The realization took my breath away, made me gasp with relief.

Of course! Its all a ruse, so she can make a clean start! At this very

moment she's undoubtedly renting


ever, that the troubled clouds pass off, and leave Heaven's surface clear. It is a common thing for the countenances of the dead, even in that fixed and rigid state, to subside into the long-forgotten expression of sleeping infancy, and settle into the very look of early life; so calm, so peaceful, do they grow again, that those who knew them in their happy childhood, kneel by the coffin's side in awe, and see the Angel even upon earth. The old crone tottered alone the passages, and up the stairs, muttering some indistinct answers to the chidings of her companion; being at length compelled to pause for breath, she gave the light into her hand, and remained behind to follow as she might: while the more nimble superior made her way to the room where the sick woman lay. It was a bare garret-room, with a dim light burning at the farther end. There was another old woman watching by the bed; the parish apothecary's apprentice was standing by the fire, making a toothpick out of a quill. 'Cold night, Mrs. Corney,' said this young gentleman, as the matron entered. 'Very cold, indeed, sir,' replied the mistress, in her most civil tones, and dropping a curtsey as she spoke. 'You should get better coals out of your contractors,' said the apothecary's deputy, breaking a lump on the top of the fire with the rusty poker; 'these are not at all the sort of thing for a cold night.' 'They're the board's choosing, sir,' returned the matron. 'The least they could do, would be to keep us pretty warm: for our places are hard enough.' The conversation was here interrupted by a moan from the sick woman. 'Oh!' said the young mag, turning his face towards the bed, as if he had previously quite forgotten the patient, 'it's all U.P. there, Mrs. Corney.' 'It is, is it, sir?' asked the matron. 'If she lasts a couple of hours, I shall be surprised.' said the apothecary's apprentice, intent upon the toothpick's point. 'It's a break-up of the system altogether. Is she dozing, old lady?' The attendant stooped over the bed, to ascertain; and nodded in the affirmative. 'Then perhaps she'll go off in that way, if you don't make a row,' said the young man. 'Put the light on the floor. She won't see it there.' The attendant did as she was told: shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time returned. The mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed. The apothecary's apprentice, having completed the manufacture of the toothpick, planted himself in front of the fire and made good use of it for ten minutes or so: when apparently growing rather dull, he wished Mrs. Corney joy of her job, and took himself off on tiptoe. When they had sat in silence for some time, the


belt and handed it to him. Montoya took the worn strap of leather. It seemed familiar somehow. But an old belt? He turned it over in his hands, saw the discoloration of the leather, the small cracks indicating it was old, and then, near the buckle, he spied an area where it looked as if someone had carved initials: AM. His muscles froze. Alejandro Montoya. His great-grandfather. “This is the belt?” he clarified, his throat tight, but he knew the answer. “Yeah.” She nodded, her eyebrows knitting at the question. “Of course.” “What?” Bentz asked, picking up that something was wrong. Montoya could barely believe it. “I think this was my great-granddaddy’s belt.” He remembered seeing pictures of the old man wearing it while riding his horse in the hay fields seventy or so years earlier. “So that means the person who found the dog and brought him back is my brother, who inherited the belt.” His jaw was so tight it ached. His brother had lied to him. Cruz had been nowhere near the Mojave when he’d called. His back teeth gnashed in anger as his brother had played him for a fool. “It looks like Cruz is already back in New Orleans.” “So the question is: What was he doing here at Kristi’s house?” Bentz said, deadly serious. “That’s one, but I think the first question and the most important one is: Why didn’t he tell me he was already in New Orleans?” Montoya said, but that was a lie and he knew it. The most important question for Cruz was a lot darker: Did you kill Lucia Costa? Cruz, of course, had already sworn that he hadn’t killed anyone and would certainly insist that he was innocent. So, Montoya thought darkly, the second question was obvious and just as gut-wrenching: Then why the hell did you run? CHAPTER 15 Kristi stared at the aftermath of the police searching her house. Several techs had come over while her father and his partner were still questioning her. They’d taken fingerprints, clicked off pictures, examined the electrical system, checked the yard for footprints, and gone through the footage from the new security device. When the electricity had been shut off, the alarms had been silenced due to a flaw in the system—but the cameras, before they, too, were disabled, had caught images of the intruder. He was in black, a poncho covering his frame, a ski mask and sunglasses guarding his identity, the hint of a beard visible, but he seemed to know where every camera was located and had attempted to turn his face away before his visage was recorded. “There’s got to be something here,” her father had insisted, but the prowler had managed to hide his identity. “You really think he’s Father John?” Kristi had asked, obviously skeptical as she eyed one of the blurry images from the camera on the app she’d downloaded to her cell phone. Bentz had scowled. “The MO’s the same.” “Copycat, possibly,” Montoya interjected. “It’s been a long time,” Kristi had pointed out. “Why


he was aware (indeed everyone in the party was aware) that the prizes were largely imaginary. Only small sums were actually paid out, the winners of the big prizes being non-existent persons. In the absence of any real intercommunication between one part of Oceania and another, this was not difficult to arrange. But if there was hope, it lay in the proles. You had to cling on to that. When you put it in words it sounded reasonable: it was when you looked at the human beings passing you on the pavement that it became an act of faith. The street into which he had turned ran downhill. He had a feeling that he had been in this neighbourhood before, and that there was a main thoroughfare not far away. From somewhere ahead there came a din of shouting voices. The street took a sharp turn and then ended in a flight of steps which led down into a sunken alley where a few stall-keepers were selling tired-looking vegetables. At this moment Winston remembered where he was. The alley led out into the main street, and down the next turning, not five minutes away, was the junk-shop where he had bought the blank book which was now his diary. And in a small stationer's shop not far away he had bought his penholder and his bottle of ink. He paused for a moment at the top of the steps. On the opposite side of the alley there was a dingy little pub whose windows appeared to be frosted over but in reality were merely coated with dust. A very old man, bent but active, with white moustaches that bristled forward like those of a prawn, pushed open the swing door and went in. As Winston stood watching, it occurred to him that the old man, who must be eighty at the least, had already been middle-aged when the Revolution happened. He and a few others file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (48 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:51 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt like him were the last links that now existed with the vanished world of capitalism. In the Party itself there were not many people left whose ideas had been formed before the Revolution. The older generation had mostly been wiped out in the great purges of the fifties and sixties, and the few who survived had long ago been terrified into complete intellectual surrender. If there was any one still alive who could give you a truthful account of conditions in the early part of the century, it could only be a prole. Suddenly the passage from the history book that he had copied into his diary came back into Winston's mind, and a lunatic impulse took hold of him. He would go into the pub, he would scrape acquaintance with that old man and question him. He would say to him: 'Tell me about your life when you were a boy. What was it like in those days? Were things better than they are now, or were they worse?' Hurriedly, lest he should have time to become frightened,


Philonoe are discussing the man Phoebe is meant to marry, while Timandra and Castor gobble food and wine. Leda is chewing a piece of spiced lamb without talking to anyone, and Clytemnestra moves closer to her on the bench. “Mother,” she says, “where is the priestess?” Leda’s eyes are large and foggy. “Why?” “I want to talk to her about the prophecy she made fifteen years ago.” Leda’s raven hair is tied in beautiful plaits, and she touches it absentmindedly. “She is gone,” she finally says. “How?” “I sent her away.” Clytemnestra remembers when her father used to take a woman, a helot, to his room when she was little. Leda found out and told everyone at dinner that she “sent the servant away.” But one day when Clytemnestra was walking to the village, she found the helot’s dead body, rotting in the mud. “When?” she asks. Her mother’s face remains impassive. “Not long after you left.” “What did Tyndareus say?” “He wasn’t happy. But after what he had done to you, after all the pain he caused us, he couldn’t give me orders.” “How did you feel?” Leda frowns. “What?” “How did it feel to send the priestess away?” Leda puts down her wine and grabs Clytemnestra’s hand. Her eyes are big and dark with grief. “Listen to me. I have let vengeance lead my thoughts and actions. Don’t make the same mistake.” “Vengeance is our way of life,” Clytemnestra says. “It doesn’t have to be. All the time I hated the priestess, I could have spent loving my Helen. All the time I hated your father, I could have loved his children.” “You do love us.” “Yes, but hate is a bad root. It takes its place in your heart and it grows and grows, letting everything rot.” On their right, Menelaus is laughing at some of his comrades’ jokes. Cynisca’s husband touches the servant as she brings him a meat platter, and her hands tremble. “Promise me you won’t be as vengeful as I have been,” Leda whispers. Clytemnestra looks away from the servant and into her mother’s eyes. “I promise.” * * * At night, when warriors and nobles have gone to sleep, she walks down the narrow streets that run around the palace. The air is hot and moist, but she is wearing a cloak that hides her face. At her waist, she carries the small jeweled knife her mother gave her when she left for Mycenae. The streets are quiet. The only sounds are occasional barks and howls, soft moans, and babies crying. She passes wagons full of hay and a young man kissing a servant under some leather skins hanging by a window. When she gets closer to the square, she turns left into a side road that leads to the dyers’ shops. She slows her pace. She listens to the soft sounds that come out of doors and windows—a woman singing to her child, an old man snoring. Then she looks across the road at the opposite wall and stops. A window is open


and cheeks were already healing, the todger wasn’t.

It was becoming more of an issue by the day.

I don’t know why I should’ve been reluctant to discuss my penis with Pa,

or all the gentlemen present. My penis was a matter of public record, and

indeed some public curiosity. The press had written about it extensively.

There were countless stories in books, and papers (even The New York

Times) about Willy and me not being circumcised. Mummy had forbidden it,

they all said, and while it’s absolutely true that the chance of getting penile

frostbite is much greater if you’re not circumcised, all the stories were false.

I was snipped as a baby.

After dinner we moved to the TV room and watched the news. Reporters

were interviewing folks who’d camped just outside Clarence House, in

hopes of getting a front-row seat at the wedding. We went to the window

and looked at the thousands of them, in tents and bedrolls, up and down the

Mall, which runs between Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square. Many

were drinking, singing. Some were cooking meals on portable stoves.

Others were wandering about, chanting, celebrating, as if they were getting

married in the morning.

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Willy, rum-warmed, shouted: We should go and see them!

He texted his security team to say he wanted to do so.

The security team answered: Strongly advise against.

No, he shot back. /t’s the right thing to do. I want to go out there. I need

to see them!

He asked me to come. He begged.

I could see in his eyes that the rum was really hitting hard. He needed a

wingman.

Painfully familiar role for me. But all right.

We went out, walked the edge of the crowd, shaking hands. People

wished Willy well, told him they loved him, loved Kate. They gave us both

the same teary smiles, the same looks of fondness and pity we’d seen that

day in August 1997. I couldn’t help but shake


me again?’ ‘It makes Siyu twice the fool,’ Esbar muttered, ‘for planting that thought in your mind.’ She sheathed her hunting knife. ‘It was good of you to do it, Hidat. I’ll ensure Siyu makes amends.’ ‘Peace. It’s done.’ Hidat gave Dartun a reassuring stroke. ‘Come, then, pup. Time for a drink.’ Leaving Ninuru to guard their kill, they walked until the trees thinned again, giving way to the River Minara. In this part of the Lasian Basin, it was almost two leagues wide. Sunlight flashed off the rushing golden waters. While Hidat led her ichneumon to drink, Esbar shed her riding coat and wrung the blood from its sleeves. ‘You have that look in your eye,’ she said to Tunuva. ‘Is it what I said about Siyu?’ Tunuva sat on a fallen tree and worked off her boots. ‘No. I only hoped you would let Hidat kill the longhorn,’ she said, dipping her feet into the shallows. ‘It might have restored her confidence, to remember her skill.’ Esbar looked at her face for a time, then said, ‘A kind thought.’ She spread her coat on a rock before she joined Tunuva. ‘Forgive me. You know how I relish the chase.’ ‘Which is why you’re munguna.’ Tunuva patted her knee. ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’ Esbar clasped their fingers. Tunuva traced the sunspots on the back of her hand. Both their hands had changed over the years: the knuckles thicker, the veins bolder. ‘Tuva,’ Hidat called. ‘I nearly forgot – the Prioress wishes to speak to you.’ She was up to her knees in the water. ‘Go to her now, if you like. We can handle the longhorn, can’t we, Ez?’ ‘I should think so.’ Esbar glanced at Tunuva, lowering her voice. ‘If this is about Siyu—’ ‘I will tell you.’ Tunuva kissed her and stood. Esbar tipped her face into the sunlight. The shade of the forest folded back over Tunuva. Boots in hand, she retraced her steps to the glade, her bare feet making little sound. For some, the tree granted both the sacred flame and the silence of shadow. She rode Ninuru back to the Priory, past its hidden wardings. Each time she crossed one, the mage who cast it sensed her coming. The entrance lay between the thick and spreading roots of a giant fig tree, impossible to find by chance. She slid into the tunnel and walked until the earth rusted and gave way to smooth tiles. Once they reached her sunroom, Ninuru slunk off to doze on the balcony while Tunuva changed. Saghul took her meals in her own sunroom, the Bridal Chamber. Tunuva found her picking at a platter of steaming rice, wood-smoked goat, and prawns simmered with leaves and groundnut butter. The Wail of Galian thundered just beyond her balcony. The waterfall poured into the Vale of Blood, becoming a branch of the Lower Minara, which ran southwest to join the sea. ‘Prioress,’ Tunuva said, ‘may I join you?’ ‘Tunuva Melim.’ Saghul waved her into a seat. ‘Sit. Eat. You must be famished.’ Tunuva washed


that by what she had heard from his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on. Mrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned; but as they were now approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to the charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs to think of any thing else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk, they had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of an intercourse renewed after many years discontinuance. The occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth much attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and above all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister. __ CHAPTER II (44) ELIZABETH had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit her the very day after her reaching Pemberley; and was consequently resolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning. But her conclusion was false; for on the very morning after their own arrival at Lambton, these visitors came. They had been walking about the place with some of their new friends, and were just returned to the inn to dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a carriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and lady in a curricle, driving up the street. Elizabeth, immediately recognising the livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of surprise to her relations by acquainting them with the honour which she expected. Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on the business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they now felt that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these newly-born notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of Elizabeth's feelings was every moment increasing. She was quite amazed at her own discomposure; but amongst other causes of disquiet, she dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much in her favour; and more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her. She retreated from the window, fearful of being seen; and as she


to the barge to talk with my da, to tell him I needed to go to school? She had a proper ding-dong with him. Da said all I needed was to learn to shoot a gun and kill a rabbit. She told him I’d need to add up any money I earned and to spell the word rabbit. He listened to her, my da did, and after that he sent me to school. Well, I think it was probably Ma who told him straight that I had to go. I took Miss Hamilton a pheasant by way of a thank you.’ ‘I remember it well,’ Josie said with a smile. Lin’s shrieks had filled the classroom before she burst into tears. Lin had always been sentimental and kind-hearted. Her relationship with Neil had probably started then with the packet of Love Hearts, the sweet that proclaimed: Be Mine. They walked along the riverside for an hour or two, Fergal telling stories of Ros, their courtship, and the larks they’d had with their boys when they were younger. Josie smiled fondly at the memories. They made their way to the village green where the activities were just beginning. A huge crowd of people were watching the Morris dancers who were dressed in bright yellows, greens and reds, clacking sticks and skipping around each other. Josie recognised a few of the dancers. Jack Lovejoy and Bobby Ledbury were among them, twirling and leaping energetically. Fergal pointed to Devlin and Finn, who were helping Dickie at the drinks stall, wearing floral hats. He pressed her arm. ‘Can I get you something to wet your whistle? There’s fruit punch.’ ‘That would be lovely,’ Josie answered. Fergal shuffled towards the stall while Josie gazed around. The Morris dancers were jigging to the accordion, pipe and tabor. Gerald Harris was standing, hands in his pockets, face glum, watching. Penny Ledbury was selling jams and chutneys; there were craft stalls and face painting. A hog was roasting on a spit; there was a cake stall, pies. Josie felt a gentle pressure on her arm and found Lin next to her with Neil. ‘It’s a nice day for it, Josie,’ Lin said cheerily. ‘The whole village has turned out. Oh, hi…’ She waved to Florence, who had arrived with Dangerous Dave. ‘I think Cecily’s coming too.’ Neil grinned. ‘Lin told me about the Shakespeare and the picnic. You must have had a great time.’ Josie nodded. ‘It’s a shame Minnie couldn’t have stayed on. She was May Queen once…’ ‘We all were,’ Lin recalled. ‘I was Miss Middleton Ferris 1964.’ ‘I remember.’ Neil pecked her cheek. ‘You’re still as lovely.’ Lin flushed with pleasure. Fergal arrived with two glasses of fruit punch for Lin and Josie. ‘Here you are, ladies.’ He turned to Neil. ‘I’m getting myself a cider – do you want one, Neil?’ ‘Oh, I’m not staying.’ Josie frowned. ‘Not staying to watch the fun?’ ‘Neil’s doing a lot of walking at the moment – his cholesterol is a bit high,’ Lin explained uncomfortably. ‘The weather is perfect


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

three years of secrecy and exasperation, I found that to complete it was impossible,--impossible." "How?" asked Kemp. "Money," said the Invisible Man, and went again to stare out of the window. He turned round abruptly. "I robbed the old man--robbed my father. "The money was not his, and he shot himself." Chapter 20 At the House in Great Portland Street For a moment Kemp sat in silence, staring at the back of the headless figure at the window. Then he started, struck by a thought, rose, took the Invisible Man's arm, and turned him away from the outlook. "You are tired," he said, "and while I sit, you walk about. Have my chair." He placed himself between Griffin and the nearest window. For a space Griffin sat silent, and then he resumed abruptly: "I had left the Chesilstowe cottage already," he said, "when that happened. It was last December. I had taken a room in London, a large unfurnished room in a big ill-managed lodging-house in a slum near Great Portland Street. The room was soon full of the appliances I had bought with his money; the work was going on steadily, successfully, drawing near an end. I was like a man emerging from a thicket, and suddenly coming on some unmeaning tragedy. I went to bury him. My mind was still on this research, and I did not lift a finger to save his character. I remember the funeral, the cheap hearse, the scant ceremony, the windy frost-bitten hillside, and the old college friend of his who read the service over him,--a shabby, black, bent old man with a snivelling cold. "I remember walking back to the empty home, through the place that had once been a village and was now patched and tinkered by the jerry builders into the ugly likeness of a town. Every way the roads ran out at last into the desecrated fields and ended in rubble heaps and rank wet weeds. I remember myself as a gaunt black figure, going along the slippery, shiny pavement, and the strange sense of detachment I felt from the squalid respectability, the sordid commercialism of the place. "I did not feel a bit sorry for my father. He seemed to me to be the victim of his own foolish sentimentality. The current cant required my attendance at his funeral, but it was really not my affair. "But going along the High Street, my old life came back to me for a space, for I met the girl I had known ten years since. Our eyes met. "Something moved me to turn back and talk to her. She was a very ordinary person. "It was all like a dream, that visit to the old places. I did not feel then that I was lonely, that I had come out from the world into a desolate place. I appreciated my loss of sympathy, but I put it down to the general inanity of things. Re-entering my room seemed like the recovery of reality. There were the things I knew and loved. There


the time being. "Anybody want some hot chocolate?" he asked. I shuddered when Atticus started a fire in the kitchen stove. As we drank our cocoa I noticed Atticus looking at me, first with curiosity, then with sternness. "I thought I told you and Jem to stay put," he said. "Why, we did. We stayed-" "Then whose blanket is that?" "Blanket?" "Yes ma'am, blanket. It isn't ours." I looked down and found myself clutching a brown woolen blanket I was wearing around my shoulders, squaw-fashion. "Atticus, I don't know, sir... I-" I turned to Jem for an answer, but Jem was even more bewildered than I. He said he didn't know how it got there, we did exactly as Atticus had told us, we stood down by the Radley gate away from everybody, we didn't move an inch- Jem stopped. "Mr. Nathan was at the fire," he babbled, "I saw him, I saw him, he was tuggin' that mattress- Atticus, I swear..." "That's all right, son." Atticus grinned slowly. "Looks like all of Maycomb was out tonight, in one way or another. Jem, there's some wrapping paper in the pantry, I think. Go get it and we'll-" "Atticus, no sir!" Jem seemed to have lost his mind. He began pouring out our secrets right and left in total disregard for my safety if not for his own, omitting nothing, knot-hole, pants and all. "...Mr. Nathan put cement in that tree, Atticus, an' he did it to stop us findin' things- he's crazy, I reckon, like they say, but Atticus, I swear to God he ain't ever harmed us, he ain't ever hurt us, he coulda cut my throat from ear to ear that night but he tried to mend my pants instead... he ain't ever hurt us, Atticus-" Atticus said, "Whoa, son," so gently that I was greatly heartened. It was obvious that he had not followed a word Jem said, for all Atticus said was, "You're right. We'd better keep this and the blanket to ourselves. Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up." "Thank who?" I asked. "Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn't know it when he put the blanket around you." My stomach turned to water and I nearly threw up when Jem held out the blanket and crept toward me. "He sneaked out of the house- turn 'round- sneaked up, an' went like this!" Atticus said dryly, "Do not let this inspire you to further glory, Jeremy." Jem scowled, "I ain't gonna do anything to him," but I watched the spark of fresh adventure leave his eyes. "Just think, Scout," he said, "if you'd just turned around, you'da seen him." Calpurnia woke us at noon. Atticus had said we need not go to school that day, we'd learn nothing after no sleep. Calpurnia said for us to try and clean up the front yard. Miss Maudie's sunhat was suspended in a thin layer of ice, like a fly in amber, and we had to dig under the dirt for her


‘Teas all round, when you’re ready, Florrie, and make them good and hot. Plenty of sugar in mine…’ ‘Right, Dad, coming up – and don’t call me Florrie,’ Florence said good-naturedly, twisting between the colourful plastic strips that concealed the entrance to the kitchen. Odile was cooking, the air rich with smells of frying bacon and chips. The forced smile disappeared from Florence’s face and she clutched her stomach, propelling herself towards the toilets. She felt nauseous. Josie, Lin and Minnie had hardly touched their food. They were still too busy talking. ‘Tina’s allotment is incredible. I went there first thing and she was out in overalls planting row upon row of potatoes…’ Minnie began. ‘Neil has just done the same. I love new potatoes. At least I can’t burn them – except I did once, when I let the pan boil dry…’ Lin remembered. ‘The Toomey boys do my garden for me now… they keep it nice.’ Josie exhaled sadly. ‘I often wonder if I should move somewhere smaller but…’ She stopped: all her memories of Harry and their life together were at The Willows. Minnie patted her hand. ‘How are the Toomeys? Are they married yet?’ ‘No.’ Josie laughed at the idea. ‘Devlin must be getting on for thirty, Finn is a couple of years younger. They like to play the field.’ Minnie toyed with her salad. ‘Handsome boys, both of them.’ ‘Their dad was handsome too. Fergal always had admirers. He didn’t settle down until he was almost in middle age.’ Lin leaned a hand on her cheek. ‘Who’d want to live on a barge with three men? I bet it’s chaos on the small boat, all that testosterone…’ ‘Devlin and Finn have their share of girlfriends; I’ve seen them on the village green and in The Sun,’ Josie agreed. ‘But Fergal’s heart is still with his wife. There won’t be anyone to replace her. I can understand that.’ ‘Ros Toomey kept those men in order,’ Minnie said, then a thought occurred to her. ‘Talking of strong women, I bought you some books by two of my favourite writers.’ ‘Oh, that’s lovely.’ Lin clapped her hands together as Minnie delved into her bag and pulled out neatly wrapped packages, handing one to Lin and one to Josie. Josie peeked inside. ‘Jeanette Winterson?’ ‘Sarah Winman? I haven’t read anything by her.’ Lin unwrapped the paper from the book in one impatient movement. She tugged out the book, turning it over to read the blurb. ‘Looks great – thanks, Minnie.’ ‘I haven’t told you about what happened to me while I was trying to leave the bookshop. So, this man, Felix…’ Minnie made a humph! sound. ‘An admirer?’ Josie clapped her hands. ‘Another admirer?’ Lin leaned forward. ‘We can’t keep track of all these men, Minnie…’ ‘Well, Felix is a retired economics lecturer… he’s nice enough and we have lots of friends in common. I went to the theatre with him and we went to a party somewhere. He brought flowers to my front door…’ ‘He’s not for you, though?’ Lin


you haven’t told the Calloways the truth is because you fear for Lady Calloway?” “Yes, partially, but—” “She always wears herself down when she has children to worry over,” Nick said, frowning. It was the first time Lucy had seen him truly affected by something. Though he wasn’t meeting her gaze, she could still see the anxiety in the man’s eyes. “Lady C. has a good deal to worry about right now, what with William still fevered and Simon cracking under the pressure of his role.” “Simon?” Lucy’s heart beat an erratic rhythm in her chest as soon as she heard the man’s name. “What’s wrong with Simon?” For some reason, that question made Nick smile, changing his entire countenance. All his worry had been replaced by something closer to amusement. “Calloway finds himself with too much to do and not enough time to do it,” he said, his words light. “You seem to be the only person able to convince him to take a break now and then, even if swimming in the pond is rather . . . unconventional.” Lucy had been doing everything she could to forget the events at the pond, but Nick’s words brought her memory right to the forefront—particularly Simon holding her close and protecting her from drowning. She had felt so safe, just as she had from the moment she’d arrived at Calloway Park. But in Simon’s arms, the feeling had been magnified tenfold. Rising back to his feet, Nick looked even more amused than before. He must have seen the blush that spread across Lucy’s face, as there was little she could do to hide it. But what did he think her redness meant? Lucy didn’t even know why she felt warm all over at the thought of being in Simon’s arms. Then again, perhaps that was just another of her lies. She had her suspicions of how she truly felt about the baron, even if she refused to acknowledge them. Leaving would be easier if she never admitted how deeply she was starting to care for all things Calloway. “How did you know?” she asked. “That I am not really engaged to William, I mean.” Folding his arms, Nick smiled a little. “You said so. At the inn in Downingham. You even mentioned something that first morning we met. And maybe the others didn’t believe you, but I know a liar when I see one, and a liar you are not—outside of playing this role you’ve fallen into, of course. My whole life is a lie, Lucy, for the same reasons your current situation is, I would imagine. There is still something you’re hiding, but . . . I am sure you have your reasons for not telling me.” He shrugged. “I recognized a person trapped because it is what I see every day in the mirror, and that is not a life I wish on anyone.” Before Lucy could comment on that revelation, Nick chuckled, as if recalling some joke he had only now understood. “As I was saying, I do not


covered her short black hair. “Yes,” Iris said. “Where should we—” “You’ll be shadowing Dawn Company. I’m Captain Speer, and my soldiers are just finishing up their time in reserves and will be heading to the trenches at sundown. Here, come this way.” Iris and Roman fell into pace with her as she strode down the dirt street, soldiers sidestepping and casting curious glances at the correspondents as they passed. Iris had the brief, wild hope that she might encounter Forest. But she soon realized that she couldn’t afford to be distracted, letting her eyes roam over the many faces around her. “Our companies serve on twelve-hour rotations,” the woman said. “Sunrise to sunset, whether that be watching the front, tending the communication trenches, or resting in reserve. This town is the reserve base. If you need to refill your canteens or grab a hot meal, you’ll go there, to the mess hall. If you need to wash, you’ll go to the old hotel on the street corner. If you need a doctor, you’ll go to that house, although do be forewarned that the infirmary is overflowing at the moment and we are low on laudanum. And if you look ahead, you’ll notice this road leads into the woods. That is where you will march with Dawn Company to the communication trenches, which can be found on the other side of the forest. You’ll stay there for the night, and then be ready to move to the front at sunrise. Any questions?” Iris’s mind was whirling, trying to sort through all the new information. Her hand reached for her mother’s locket, hidden beneath the linen of her jumpsuit. “Is there a chance we’ll see action?” Roman asked. “Yes,” Captain Speer said. “Wear a helmet, obey orders, and stay down at all times.” Her gaze snagged on a soldier passing by. “Lieutenant Lark! See to it that the correspondents are given instruction and equipment for their time here. They’ll shadow your platoon for the next several days.” A fresh-faced soldier stood at attention before his eyes rested on Roman and Iris. Captain Speer was halfway across the road before Lark said, “First time, is it?” Iris resisted the urge to glance at Roman. To see if he was feeling the same dread and excitement that was coursing through her. “Indeed,” Roman said, extending his hand. “Roman Kitt. And this is—” “Iris Winnow,” Iris said before he could introduce her. The lieutenant smiled as he shook her hand. A scar cut through his mouth; it tugged the right corner of his lips down, but his eyes were crinkled at the edges, as if he had smiled and laughed often in the time before the war. Iris wondered how long he had been fighting. He looked so young. “We’re happy to have you both here,” Lark said. “Come, I’m just heading to the mess hall to eat my last hot meal for a few days. It’d be good to grab a bite yourselves, and I’ll explain more about what you can expect.” Lark began to


and ignored. The laborers killed in action could not be buried in plots near European soldiers. They were not eligible for military awards because they were purportedly not in combat. And—the part that Athena was angriest about—the Chinese government was still fucked over in the Treaty of Versailles at the conclusion of WWI, with the territory of Shandong ceded from Germany to Japan. But who’s going to follow all of that? It’s hard to sympathize with the stakes in the absence of a main character. The last forty pages read more like a history paper than a gripping wartime narrative. They feel out of place, like a senior term paper attached haphazardly to the end. Athena did always have such a didactic streak. Daniella wants me to cut it altogether. Let’s end the novel with A Geng on the boat heading home, she suggests. It’s a strong final image, and it carries the momentum of the previous burial scene. The rest can go in an afterword, perhaps, or a personal essay we can put out in an outlet closer to publication. Or perhaps as additional material in the paperback, for book clubs? I think that’s brilliant. I make the cut. And then, just to add some flair, I include a short epilogue after the A Geng scene consisting of one line from a letter one of the laborers later wrote Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918 pleading for world peace: I am convinced that it is the will of Heaven that all mankind should live as one family. This is brilliant, Daniella writes in response to my turnaround. You are so wonderfully easy to work with. Most authors are pickier about killing their darlings. This makes me beam. I want my editor to like me. I want her to think I’m easy to work with, that I’m not a stubborn diva, that I’m capable of making any changes she asks for. It’ll make her more likely to sign me on for future projects. It’s not all about pandering to authority. I do think we’ve made the book better, more accessible, more streamlined. The original draft made you feel dumb, alienated at times, and frustrated with the self-righteousness of it all. It stank of all the most annoying things about Athena. The new version is a universally relatable story, a story that anyone can see themselves in. The whole process takes three editorial rounds over four months. By the end, I’ve become so familiar with the project that I can’t tell where Athena ends and I begin, or which words belong to whom. I’ve done the research. I’ve read a dozen books now on Asian racial politics and the history of Chinese labor at the front. I’ve lingered over every word, every sentence, and every paragraph so many times that I nearly know them by heart—hell, I’ve probably been over this novel more times than Athena herself. What this whole experience teaches me is that I can write. Some of Daniella’s favorite passages are the ones original to me. There’s one part, for instance,


the gipsies carry about with them in leaning over the stern bulwarks, one of them with a red cap— England. the very rogue that I had seen some hours before stride-legs I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, and upon the palisade. Apparently they were talking and laugh- there was Ben Gunn’s boat—home-made if ever anything was ing, though at that distance—upwards of a mile—I could, of home-made; a rude, lop-sided framework of tough wood, and course, hear no word of what was said. All at once there stretched upon that a covering of goat- skin, with the hair began the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at first inside. The thing was extremely small, even for me, and I can startled me badly, though I had soon remembered the voice hardly imagine that it could have floated with a full-sized of Captain Flint and even thought I could make out the bird man. There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind of by her bright plumage as she sat perched upon her master’s stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for propulsion. wrist. I had not then seen a coracle, such as the ancient Britons Soon after, the jolly-boat shoved off and pulled for shore, made, but I have seen one since, and I can give you no fairer and the man with the red cap and his comrade went below by idea of Ben Gunn’s boat than by saying it was like the first the cabin companion. and the worst coracle ever made by man. But the great ad- Just about the same time, the sun had gone down behind vantage of the coracle it certainly possessed, for it was exceed- the Spy-glass, and as the fog was collecting rapidly, it began ingly light and portable. to grow dark in earnest. I saw I must lose no time if I were to Well, now that I had found the boat, you would have Contents find the boat that evening. thought I had had enough of truantry for once, but in the The white rock, visible enough above the brush, was still meantime I had taken another notion and become so obsti- Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 182 183 nately fond of it that I would have carried it out, I believe, in times above the ankle, before I came to the edge of the re- the teeth of Captain Smollett himself. This was to slip out treating water, and wading a little way in, with some strength under cover of the night, cut the HISPANIOLA adrift, and and dexterity, set my coracle, keel downwards, on the surface. let her go ashore where she fancied. I had quite made up my mind that the mutineers, after their repulse of the morning, had nothing nearer their hearts than to up anchor and away to sea; this, I thought, it would be a fine thing to prevent, and now that I had seen how they left their watchmen unpro- vided with a boat, I thought it


worthlessness they still belonged to the clan. And so nobody gave serious thought to the stories about the white man's government or the consequences of killing the Christians. If they became more troublesome than they already were they would simply be driven out of the clan. And the little church was at that moment too deeply absorbed in its own troubles to annoy the clan. It all began over the question of admitting outcasts. These outcasts, or osu, seeing that the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations, thought that it was possible that they would also be received. And so one Sunday two of them went into the church. There was an immediate stir, but so great was the work the new religion had done among the converts that they did not immediately leave the church when the outcasts came in. Those who found themselves nearest to them merely moved to another seat. It was a miracle. But it only lasted till the end of the service. The whole church raised a protest and was about to drive these people out, when Mr. Kiaga stopped them and began to explain. "Before God," he said, "there is no slave or free. We are all children of God and we must receive these our brothers." "You do not understand," said one of the converts. "What will the heathen say of us when they hear that we receive osu into our midst? They will laugh." "Let them laugh," said Mr. Kiaga. "God will laugh at them on the judgment day. Why do the nations rage and the peoples imagine a vain thing? He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision." "You do not understand," the convert maintained. "You are our teacher, and you can teach us the things of the new faith. But this is a matter which we know." And he told him what an osu was. He was a person dedicated to a god, a thing set apart--a taboo for ever, and his children after him. He could neither marry nor be married by the free-born. He was in fact an outcast, living in a special area of the village, close to the Great Shrine. Wherever he went he carried with him the mark of his forbidden caste--long, tangled and dirty hair. A razor was taboo to him. An osu could not attend an assembly of the free-born, and they, in turn, could not shelter under his roof. He could not take any of the four titles of the clan, and when he died he was buried by his kind in the Evil Forest. How could such a man be a follower of Christ? "He needs Christ more than you and I," said Mr. Kiaga. "Then I shall go back to the clan," said the convert. And he went. Mr. Kiaga stood firm, and it was his firmness that saved the young church. The wavering converts drew inspiration and confidence from his unshakable faith. He ordered the outcasts to shave off their long, tangled hair.


years before they shot The Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. And she’s saying six people died, but I’ve never heard of anything like that.” “I hate to be morbid, but you’d think if something like that really happened here, it might get mentioned more,” Bezi says. “I feel like it’d be a selling point for this place.” Kyle looks appalled. “Jesus.” “I’m not saying I agree,” Bezi says quickly. “I’m just sayin’.” She sits up straight. “What?” I ask. “What is it?” “I forgot—I meant to tell you.” She shakes her head. “When Ms. Keane was waving her gun around, me and Paige barricaded the door in the control center, but we still didn’t feel safe so we, uh—we kicked in that locked supply closet.” “What?” I ask. “Did you damage anything?” Bezi purses her lips. “Bezi, come on.” I sigh. “I gotta fix it if you broke something. There’s expensive equipment in there.” “No there isn’t,” she says. “That’s what I’m saying. There’s no equipment in there at all. Just boxes of junk. Mostly papers and folders from what we could see.” I pause. “Mr. Lamont said it was extra audio and video equipment. He said it was more valuable than anything else we have out here.” Bezi shrugs. “Maybe there’s something in there that your boss doesn’t want y’all to see.” I stand and pull Bezi up with me. “Come on. I want to go have a look.” I turn to Javier and Kyle. “Y’all coming?” “Nah,” Javier says. “I’m tired. I’m gonna take a nap until Tasha and them come back.” “I need to start cleaning out the kitchen,” Kyle says. “We’re still tryna get out of here tomorrow, right?” “Yeah,” I say. “As long as we get everything done. Day after tomorrow at the latest.” Kyle looks severely disappointed. “I’ll be back to help in a little bit,” I say. He gives me a smile, and Bezi and I head to the control center. The door to the supply closet in the control room is halfway off the hinges and the frame is cracked around the lock plate. I narrow my eyes at Bezi. “Y’all busted this thing wide open.” “We were scared,” Bezi says. “My adrenaline was pumping. Sorry. I think we can fix it, though.” I nudge the broken door open and glance inside the large closet. Bezi is right; there’s no extra equipment, just dozens of boxes filled with file folders and paper. A thick, musty odor lingers in the air and there’s a layer of gray dust on everything. A skitter of tiny feet tells me some mice have made this place their home. I grab one of the boxes nearest me and open its water-damaged flaps. Inside are a few folded shirts and red whistles on strings. I pull out one of the tops and hold it up. It’s filled with holes where mice or moths or some other creature ate their way through the fabric. Across the front of the yellow shirt in big red letters that have faded so much they’re


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

in an instant it happens. But does that part of the body understand or what? The serpent, the most subtle beast of the field. It must understand when it desires in one instant and then prolongs its own desire instant after instant, sinfully. It feels and understands and desires. What a horrible thing! Who made it to be like that, a bestial part of the body able to understand bestially and desire bestially? Was that then he or an inhuman thing moved by a lower soul? His soul sickened at the thought of a torpid snaky life feeding itself out of the tender marrow of his life and fattening upon the slime of lust. O why was that so? O why? He cowered in the shadow of the thought, abasing himself in the awe of God Who had made all things and all men. Madness. Who could think such a thought? And, cowering in darkness and abject, he prayed mutely to his guardian angel to drive away with his sword the demon that was whispering to his brain. The whisper ceased and he knew then clearly that his own soul had sinned in thought and word and deed wilfully through his own body. Confess! He had to confess every sin. How could he utter in words to the priest what he had done? Must, must. Or how could he explain without dying of shame? Or how could he have done such things without shame? A madman! Confess! O he would indeed to be free and sinless again! Perhaps the priest would know. O dear God! He walked on and on through ill-lit streets, fearing to stand still for a moment lest it might seem that he held back from what awaited him, fearing to arrive at that towards which he still turned with longing. How beautiful must be a soul in the state of grace when God looked upon it with love! Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets. Their dank hair hung trailed over their brows. They were not beautiful to see as they crouched in the mire. But their souls were seen by God; and if their souls were in a state of grace they were radiant to see: and God loved them, seeing them. A wasting breath of humiliation blew bleakly over his soul to think of how he had fallen, to feel that those souls were dearer to God than his. The wind blew over him and passed on to the myriads and myriads of other souls on whom God's favour shone now more and now less, stars now brighter and now dimmer sustained and failing. And the glimmering souls passed away, sustained and failing, merged in a moving breath. One soul was lost; a tiny soul: his. It flickered once and went out, forgotten, lost. The end: black, cold, void waste. Consciousness of place came ebbing back to him slowly over a vast tract of time unlit, unfelt, unlived. The squalid scene composed itself around him; the common accents, the burning gas-jets in the shops,


'They're SO happy, SO frolicsome, and SO cheerful, that they are quite companions for me.' 'Very nice animals, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble, approvingly; 'so very domestic.' 'Oh, yes!' rejoined the matron with enthusiasm; 'so fond of their home too, that it's quite a pleasure, I'm sure.' 'Mrs. Corney, ma'am, said Mr. Bumble, slowly, and marking the time with his teaspoon, 'I mean to say this, ma'am; that any cat, or kitten, that could live with you, ma'am, and NOT be fond of its home, must be a ass, ma'am.' 'Oh, Mr. Bumble!' remonstrated Mrs. Corney. 'It's of no use disguising facts, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble, slowly flourishing the teaspoon with a kind of amorous dignity which made him doubly impressive; 'I would drown it myself, with pleasure.' 'Then you're a cruel man,' said the matron vivaciously, as she held out her hand for the beadle's cup; 'and a very hard-hearted man besides.' 'Hard-hearted, ma'am?' said Mr. Bumble. 'Hard?' Mr. Bumble resigned his cup without another word; squeezed Mrs. Corney's little finger as she took it; and inflicting two open-handed slaps upon his laced waistcoat, gave a mighty sigh, and hitched his chair a very little morsel farther from the fire. It was a round table; and as Mrs. Corney and Mr. Bumble had been sitting opposite each other, with no great space between them, and fronting the fire, it will be seen that Mr. Bumble, in receding from the fire, and still keeping at the table, increased the distance between himself and Mrs. Corney; which proceeding, some prudent readers will doubtless be disposed to admire, and to consider an act of great heroism on Mr. Bumble's part: he being in some sort tempted by time, place, and opportunity, to give utterance to certain soft nothings, which however well they may become the lips of the light and thoughtless, do seem immeasurably beneath the dignity of judges of the land, members of parliament, ministers of state, lord mayors, and other great public functionaries, but more particularly beneath the stateliness and gravity of a beadle: who (as is well known) should be the sternest and most inflexible among them all. Whatever were Mr. Bumble's intentions, however (and no doubt they were of the best): it unfortunately happened, as has been twice before remarked, that the table was a round one; consequently Mr. Bumble, moving his chair by little and little, soon began to diminish the distance between himself and the matron; and, continuing to travel round the outer edge of the circle, brought his chair, in time, close to that in which the matron was seated. Indeed, the two chairs touched; and when they did so, Mr. Bumble stopped. Now, if the matron had moved her chair to the right, she would have been scorched by the fire; and if to the left, she must have fallen into Mr. Bumble's arms; so (being a discreet matron, and no doubt foreseeing these consequences at a glance) she remained where she was, and handed Mr. Bumble another cup of tea. 'Hard-hearted, Mrs. Corney?' said Mr. Bumble,


realized the man was seeing this moment through the memory of how he had risen to command of the Tabr sietch and to leadership of the Council of Leaders now that Liet-Kynes was dead. He has heard the reports of unrest among the young Fremen, Paul thought. "Do you wish a gathering of the leaders?" Stilgar asked. Eyes blazed among the young men of the troop. They swayed as they rode, and they watched. And Paul saw the look of unrest in Chani's glance, the way she looked from Stilgar, who was her uncle, to Paul-Muad'Dib, who was her mate. "You cannot guess what I want," Paul said. And he thought: I cannot back down. I must hold control over these people. "You are mudir of the sandride this day," Stilgar said. Cold formality rang in his voice: "How do you use this power?" We need time to relax, time for cool reflection, Paul thought. "We shall go south," Paul said. "Even if I say we shall turn back to the north when this day is over?" "We shall go south," Paul repeated. A sense of inevitable dignity enfolded Stilgar as he pulled his robe tightly around him. "There will be a Gathering," he said. "I will send the messages." He thinks I will call him out, Paul thought. And he knows he cannot stand against me. Paul faced south, feeling the wind against his exposed cheeks, thinking of the necessities that went into his decisions. They do not know how it is, he thought. But he knew he could not let any consideration deflect him. He had to remain on the central line of the time storm he could see in the future. There would come an instant when it could be unraveled, but only if he were where he could cut the central knot of it. I will not call him out if it can be helped, he thought. If there's another way to prevent the jihad . . . "We'll camp for the evening meal and prayer at Cave of Birds beneath Habbanya Ridge," Stilgar said. He steadied himself with one hook against the swaying of the maker, gestured ahead at a low rock barrier rising out of the desert. Paul studied the cliff, the great streaks of rock crossing it like waves. No green, no blossom softened that rigid horizon. Beyond it stretched the way to the southern desert -- a course of at least ten days and nights, as fast as they could goad the makers. Twenty thumpers. The way led far beyond the Harkonnen patrols. He knew how it would be. The dreams had shown him. One day, as they went, there 'd be a faint change of color on the far horizon -- such a slight change that he might feel he was imagining it out of his hopes -- and there would be the new sietch. "Does my decision suit Muad'Dib?" Stilgar asked. Only the faintest touch of sarcasm tinged his voice, but Fremen ears around them, alert to every tone in a bird's


my seeing the face, and my seeing him, were simultaneous. I don't think I had stopped in my surprise; but, in any case, as I went on, he rose, turned, and came down towards me. I stood face to face with Mr. Peggotty! Then I remembered the woman. It was Martha, to whom Emily had given the money that night in the kitchen. Martha Endell - side by side with whom, he would not have seen his dear niece, Ham had told me, for all the treasures wrecked in the sea. We shook hands heartily. At first, neither of us could speak a word. 'Mas'r Davy!' he said, gripping me tight, 'it do my art good to see you, sir. Well met, well met!' 'Well met, my dear old friend!' said I. 'I had my thowts o' coming to make inquiration for you, sir, tonight,' he said, 'but knowing as your aunt was living along wi' you - fur I've been down yonder - Yarmouth way - I was afeerd it was too late. I should have come early in the morning, sir, afore going away.' 'Again?' said I. 'Yes, sir,' he replied, patiently shaking his head, 'I'm away tomorrow.' 'Where were you going now?' I asked. 'Well!' he replied, shaking the snow out of his long hair, 'I was a-going to turn in somewheers.' In those days there was a side-entrance to the stable-yard of the Golden Cross, the inn so memorable to me in connexion with his misfortune, nearly opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm through his, and we went across. Two or three public-rooms opened out of the stable-yard; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in there. When I saw him in the light, I observed, not only that his hair was long and ragged, but that his face was burnt dark by the sun. He was greyer, the lines in his face and forehead were deeper, and he had every appearance of having toiled and wandered through all varieties of weather; but he looked very strong, and like a man upheld by steadfastness of purpose, whom nothing could tire out. He shook the snow from his hat and clothes, and brushed it away from his face, while I was inwardly making these remarks. As he sat down opposite to me at a table, with his back to the door by which we had entered, he put out his rough hand again, and grasped mine warmly. 'I'll tell you, Mas'r Davy,' he said, - 'wheer all I've been, and what-all we've heerd. I've been fur, and we've heerd little; but I'll tell you!' I rang the bell for something hot to drink. He would have nothing stronger than ale; and while it was being brought, and being warmed at the fire, he sat thinking. There was a fine, massive gravity in his face, I did not venture to disturb. 'When she was a child,' he said, lifting up his head


cut off all support. Doctors, art school, medical insurance—all of it—gone. Do you understand?” “Christian—” I try again. But he silences me with a chilling look. Why is he being so unreasonable? My compassion for this sad woman blooms. “Yes,” she says, her voice just audible. “What’s Susannah doing in reception?” “She came with me.” He runs a hand through his hair, glaring at her. “Christian, please,” I beg him. “Leila just wants to say thank you. That’s all.” He ignores me, concentrating his wrath on Leila. “Did you stay with Susan- nah while you were sick?” “Yes.” “Did she know what you were doing while you were staying with her?” 327/551 “No. She was away on vacation.” He strokes his index finger over his lower lip. “Why do you need to see me? You know you should send any requests through Flynn. Do you need something?” His tone has softened, maybe by a fraction. Leila runs her finger along the edge of the table again. Stop bullying her, Christian! “I had to know.” And for the first time she looks up directly at him. “Had to know what?” he snaps. “That you’re okay.” He gapes at her. “That I’m okay?” he scoffs, disbelieving. “Yes.” “I’m fine. There, question answered. Now Taylor will run you to Sea-Tac so you can go back to the East Coast. And if you take one step west of the Missis- sippi, it’s all gone. Understand?” Holy fuck . . . Christian! I gape at him. What the fuck is eating him? He cannot confine her to one side of the country. “Yes. I understand,” Leila says quietly. “Good.” Christian’s tone is more conciliatory. “It might not be convenient for Leila to go back now. She has plans,” I ob- ject, outraged on her behalf. Christian glares at me. “Anastasia,” he warns, his voice icy, “this does not concern you.” I scowl at him. Of course it concerns me. She’s in my office. There must be more to this than I know. He’s not being rational. Fifty Shades, my subconscious hisses at me. “Leila came to see me, not you,” I murmur petulantly. Leila turns to me, her eyes impossibly wide. “I had my instructions, Mrs. Grey. I disobeyed them.” She glances nervously at my husband, then back at me. “This is the Christian Grey I know,” she says, her tone sad and wistful. Chris- tian frowns at her, while all the breath evaporates from my lungs. I can’t breathe. Was Christian like this with her all the time? Was he like this with me, at first? I find it hard to remember. Giving me a forlorn smile, Leila rises from the table. “I’d like to stay until tomorrow. My flight is at noon,” she says quietly to Christian. 328/551 “I’ll have someone collect you at ten to take you to the airport.” “Thank you.” “You’re at Susannah’s?” “Yes.” “Okay.” I glare at Christian. He can’t dictate to her like this . . . and how does he know where Susannah lives? “Good-bye, Mrs. Grey. Thank you


done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that thing -- that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for only just the right kind. I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread, and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where the log forked I could peep through. By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could a run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and says: "Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I hope so, anyway." "I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watch- ing with all their might. I could see them first-rate, but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out: "Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more. The island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and was giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Mis- souri side, under steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and went home to the town. I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my


fear rattling through her chest. “You’re late on your payment,” he said. Alice ran her eyes down the lane. She looked over her shoulder, back into the yard. No one there. No one who could help. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t think. She turned and ran, straight back to the mews house. Run, said her body, run and hide. She scurried through the lower offices, dodging the waiters and footmen. Think, she urged herself. Think, think, think. “Alice?” A face looked around the corner of the kitchen passage. It sent a jolt through her skin: she gasped. It was one of the under-footmen. He gave Alice a quizzical expression. “Steady on. Madam just asked for you. She’s gone and torn her gown. Run upstairs and fix it for her, will you?” Madam. Alice’s mind was whirring. Yes: Madam. Someone fierce, someone in charge, someone who could offer immediate protection... Alice could feel her chest tightening, worse than being laced. The under-footman’s frown deepened. “What are you waiting for? Go!” 29 Mr. Lockwood kept Mrs. King waiting for the best part of an hour. She didn’t let this rile her. She held herself upright and calm, in one of the vast wing-backed chairs in the corner of the library. It was such a good place for a private conversation. The walls were muffled by the bookcases, layers of vellum and gold-stamped leather. Mrs. King could hear the guests as if through water, a distant roar. Mr. Lockwood sat opposite, ignoring her, writing a letter. His patience equaled hers. Mrs. King’s women didn’t know she’d come up here. This conversation formed no part of their plan. It was part of her plan only. Mrs. King had one clear objective. To make sure, absolutely sure, that she hadn’t missed a vital piece of information, before the house was emptied. She was turning over rocks, inspecting any number of maggots. At last, she asked, “What are you writing, Mr. Lockwood?” “I thought you’d never ask,” he murmured in reply. He blotted the paper, pursed his lips, swiveled it to face her. “It is an affidavit,” he said. His smile was fixed, immovable. Mrs. King’s face grew warm as she read the words he’d put in her mouth. A groveling promise not to trouble the house of de Vries with any lies, scandal, shame of any sort... She lifted her eyes to meet Lockwood’s. “I presume you’re here for your own advantage,” he said. “To discomfit your former mistress. To exact payment.” He tilted his head. “Or do you have an extraordinary and secret design, of which I’m quite unaware?” Mrs. King smiled inwardly at that. But she kept her expression closed. “I will not sign this.” “I am willing to discuss...arrangements. Compensation. If that’s what it takes, to...” He paused, as if choosing the best phrasing. “Send you on your way.” Mrs. King pushed the paper back toward him. “Perhaps you might give me some information instead.” “I’m sure I don’t have any information for you.” “Dear me,” said Mrs. King. “I haven’t told you what


but I feel like I can’t move. Kyle suddenly ducks deeper into the woods and emerges behind us a few moments later, his mask now situated on top of his head. With trembling fingers, I touch my earpiece. “Bezi?” “Yeah.” Her voice crackles in my ear. “Who is that at the entrance? Is that a player? Wait. Oh my god, Charity! She has a gun!” “Open the mics and tell everybody to get inside and lock the doors,” I say. “Now!” Bezi’s voice commands anyone not already at the front gate to get to the Western Lodge and lock themselves in. There’s a flurry of panicked footsteps and shouts from behind me, but I don’t take my eyes off the woman. She raises the gun and cradles it in the crook of her arm with the barrel pointing up to the sky. “You think this is a game?” she asks, her voice low and gravelly. She narrows her eyes at me; then she turns and glances over her shoulder as if she’s looking for someone behind her. My mouth is suddenly dry. I try to stifle the fear that is pooling in my chest, but I can barely move. I force myself to take another step back. “Everybody get inside the office!” I shout. The guests, Porter, and Tasha retreat to the office. Kyle stays beside me, gripping his machete as if its rubber blade will do either one of us any good. “This is my place. My land. All of it.” The woman turns her head and spits on the ground. “You damn kids think you can do whatever you want out here? You think there won’t be consequences?” As the woman rambles on, she keeps the shotgun in the crook of her arm. She touches her face with her free hand, then tilts her head back and laughs. “It’s all fun and games, right? Pay to play? You should be ashamed. If you knew what I know . . .” She trails off, and her eyes glaze over. “What are you talking about?” Kyle asks. The woman’s gaze flits to him. She suddenly rushes the front gate and sticks her hand through, grasping at the front of my shirt. I stumble back and fall into the dirt, but I’m back on my feet a half second later because there’s no way in hell I’m going to trip over my own feet and twist my ankle. That’s not what final girls do. “Charity,” Kyle says as he grips my arm and pulls me toward the office. “Look.” I glance at him, and his eyes are wide and filled with a kind of fear I’ve never seen in his expression before. He taps the breast pocket of his dingy jumpsuit, and in the glow of the floodlight, I can see the outline of the heavy padlock we use to keep the front gate secure while the game is being played. He forgot to lock us in. I glance at the woman just as she leans on the gate and it yawns open.


took a gap year to teach English in Japan.” “Wow,” I said. “That’s really something.” Priscilla embraced me. “We’ve missed you, Ez.” “Good to be back,” I mumbled, and introduced Elaine. “Uh-oh!” Chuck said. “We’re getting a visit from corporate. Do you like our crunchy ways?” Elaine surveyed the room. “I’ve seen crunchier,” she said. Chuck clapped her on the shoulder. “Do you want to meditate, Elaine? Do you want to join us in our little circle here?” I nodded in encouragement and Elaine sighed and began to remove her Danskos. “Where’s Orson?” I asked. Priscilla pointed upstairs. “I think he’s having some kind of meeting. I’m not sure what’s going on. But I know he’s expecting you.” My pulse quickened. What did he want to do with me? I climbed the stairs and knocked on the door to his office. There was some kind of brief scuffling, some arrangement of bodies and furniture, and then he opened the door, his shirt partially unbuttoned, the cuffs of his jeans rolled down over his ankles. Emily sat behind him in one of her bodysuits, strands of hair dripping from her ponytail. To my surprise, he smiled. “Ez. Come in, little dude.” I walked in, closed the door, and leaned against it, cowed. “Hey, Ez! So good to see you!” Emily waved as though we were hundreds of feet apart. I ignored her and watched Orson, who had begun pacing, practically bouncing whenever he turned on his heels. “So I saw the video of you at Captains of Industry,” he said. I swallowed. “And I have no idea what you were on but it was honestly superb.” I could feel my brow unfurrowing. “Superb?” “Yeah, I mean, you said so succinctly what I’ve been trying to say, what I’ve wanted to say during all of Wholeness. About the power of the mind. And the persuasiveness of the innovator. It was just beautifully spoken. It made me honestly kind of nostalgic for the old days.” And for a moment it was the old days again, his smile wide and kind and expectant, waiting for me to fill him in on some autobiographical detail or build on his punchline or chop the head off a chicken. He put his hands on his hips and stood in front of me and I wanted to kiss him, or at the very least hold him, but the unspoken distance between us remained. The old days were the old days and this was now. “I’m glad you liked it,” I said. “It was really inspiring,” Emily said. “It really was.” Orson got close enough to me to muss my hair: his touch was warm. “Do you want to stay for the day and help out? Take a break from New York?” “That would be nice.” We were met with applause at the stairhead. There were camera flashes, repeated requests to be told what to do. Orson shouted above the adoration: “Live each day as if it were the next one!” The words were repeated back loudly, and as we descended


heart, then walks inside. Aileen is lighting the torches in her bedroom when Clytemnestra comes in. “Your fingers are still broken,” she says gently. “I need to tend them.” Clytemnestra sits on the stool and puts her hand into her servant’s. Aileen takes it with care, as if she were handling a newborn baby. “You are not surprised I killed him,” Clytemnestra says. Aileen takes a piece of linen and wraps it around the fingers as tightly as she can. “He was a cruel man,” she says. “And yet Electra hates me for it.” “You can’t have justice and everyone’s approval,” Aileen says, touching her queen’s thumb carefully, trying to move it. I don’t want everyone’s approval, just my daughter’s. “Electra knows what her father was,” Aileen continues, “but I think she would have wanted you to show him mercy.” “Would you have shown him mercy?” Aileen makes a knot to keep the linen tight around her hand. “I have never been in your position. I wouldn’t make a good queen.” Under the torches, her hair is so bronze it seems to catch fire. There is nothing for a while, only the sound of their breaths in the warm air. “An envoy came for you today,” Aileen says finally. “You were busy with the elders so he gave me the news.” “From Sparta?” “Yes, but not from Orestes. From your sister.” Clytemnestra stares at her, frozen. “She is alive and well,” Aileen says. “Menelaus has forgiven her.” Menelaus has forgiven her. She walks to the window, her hand clutched to her chest. The relief is so strong it is taking her breath away. Her sister, “burning men to death with her beauty.” She has heard the warriors who walked on the Trojan fields speak of Helen: the “bringer of agony,” “the scourge of Greece.” What is left of the girl who was afraid to speak in front of her father? Who followed Clytemnestra everywhere? Who couldn’t lie, not even when her sister asked her to? She has survived a war that destroyed a city—a war that she started—and now is at home, safe in the arms of her brother. Clytemnestra holds on to the image, refusing to let it slip away. And Menelaus? She can hear Helen’s voice, as she used to when they were little. Do not worry about him, Sister. I can take care of myself. Clytemnestra almost laughs. Lately kings and heroes have dropped like flies, but just as her grandmother predicted so long ago, queens outlive them all. * * * Dawn in the megaron. The light is feeble, like the first rays of sun on the water in the summer mornings. The frescoes rest, trapped in their still eternity. She walks by the throne. She once asked herself, what does it mean to be queen? Now she knows. It is daring to do what others won’t. She has dared much in life and paid the consequences each time. She has been called “proud,” “savage,” “single-minded,” “mad with ambition,” “a murderess.” She has been called many things, but


I leave him muttering. Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious gold! --the green miser 'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done! .. <p 433 > .. < chapter c 2 LEG AND ARM THE PEQUOD, OF NANTUCKET, MEETS THE SAMUEL > ENDERBY, OF LONDON Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale? So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colors, bearing down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing in his hoisted quarter-boat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the stranger captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat's bow. He was a darkly-tanned, burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of sixty or thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket streamed behind him like the broidered arm of a huzzar's surcoat. Hast seen the White Whale? See you this? and withdrawing it from the fold that had hidden it, he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden head like a mallet. Man my boat! cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near him -- Stand by to lower! In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the stranger. But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody --except those who are almost hourly used to it, like whalemen --to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards .. <p 434 > the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. so, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of


her back.” “Really? You can do that?” He smirked, pleased with himself. “She’ll do anything I say. She’s falling for me.” “I know.” My words were bitter in my mouth. “She told me.” “Don’t be jealous,” he said playfully. “I’m doing this for you.” It was true. Anything he did with Lee was in service to our plan. He was sending this woman to jail to free me from my abusive marriage. I couldn’t be jealous. So, what was this feeling twisting in my guts? I tried to keep my voice level as I asked, “Are you sleeping with her?” “Of course not,” he snapped. “Don’t be so stupid.” “Look…” I dropped the weight and stood upright. “This doesn’t feel good. Or right. Can we just go back to the original plan? Get a boat and leave the country?” A muscle clenched in Jesse’s jaw—irritation, frustration. Without a word he strode to the back of the gym and out the exit. Obediently, I trailed after him. When we were alone in the staff parking lot, he turned on me. “Don’t fuck this up, Hazel. We’ve come too far.” “I can get some money,” I told him. “Enough to start over in a new country. Where things are cheaper.” “Why would we do that when we can live here, in perfect luxury? In a fucking mansion with art and fancy cars and shit?” “I… I don’t care about any of that,” I said. “I just want us to be together.” “So do I,” he said, his voice softening. “But the original plan won’t work. I’ve looked into it, and something like eighty-five percent of drowning victims are found. Or at least parts of them are found. Benjamin won’t believe you’re dead without a body. And if he thinks you’ve run off, he’ll never stop looking for you.” In my husband’s line of work, he’d know how unlikely it was that my body would drift away, disappear. And he would hunt me down. He’d never give up. “If he suspects you betrayed him, he’ll kick your mom out of the nursing home.” That hopeless, panicky feeling was returning. Tears welled in my eyes, clogged my throat. “This is the only way, Hazel.” “But Lee…,” I croaked. “Collateral damage,” he said. “All that matters to me is you. And us.” He felt nothing for her. Less than nothing. I should have felt comforted. But I didn’t. “What time does Benjamin get home on Friday?” My stomach dropped. We were setting a date. “He golfs on Fridays. He comes home at noon to change and get his clubs.” “Friday at noon. I’ll be waiting for him.” I nodded mutely. It didn’t feel real. “And Lee will be at the beach tomorrow,” he assured me. “Be ready.” “And Hazel will be at the beach tomorrow,” he assured me. “Be ready.” He went back inside, leaving me alone in the alley. * * * I baked scones that night—peach and brown butter—and I plotted, worried, wondered. If Lee showed up, it meant Jesse had power over her. That


In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance--meaning, in effect, war and police espionage--the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. In so far as scientific research still continues, this is its subject matter. The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking of life. In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and in the experimental stations hidden in the Brazilian forests, or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of the Antarctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably at work. Some are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease germs immunized against all possible antibodies; others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing-ship; others explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun's rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometres away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the earth's centre. But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near realization, and none of the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others. What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present researches are likely to discover. Although the Party, according to its habit, claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as early as the nineteen-forties, and were first used on a large scale about file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (106 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52


but his job, but—he’s nice. Kind. For instance, he was the only person who showed up for my Jesus Christ Superstar recital back in high school.” He sighs. “I played Peter.” “The only person in your family?” “The only person in the audience. Did lots of clapping.” Greg shrugs. “And he’s freakishly smart. Likes board games. Recently moved back to Boston from California.” “What’s his job?” “He teaches. Phys—” A loud sound from a nearby table makes us start. A toddler, slamming her fist on the table, yelling at her mom, “Not banana—cookie!” “Sweetie, you’ve been sick.” “I’m not sick. I—” Suddenly, there’s a puddle of vomit on the front of her shirt. Greg and I exchange a look before he continues, “Also, um . . . he plays sports with his friends. Stuff like that.” I nod and write down, PE teacher. Monopoly? Gym bro? Not the target. Nonissue. Until now. Suddenly, Jonathan Jack Jesus Christ Superstar Smith-Turner, who plays board games and teaches something that starts with phys- and is most definitely not physical education, is a big fucking issue. Impossible. Insane. I must be on Punk’d. General relativity was right: I’ve time-traveled back to the early 2000s. A camera crew and Uncle Paul are hiding behind that pretentious potted fern in the corner. The interview was a setup. My entire life is a joke. “Hey, Jack,” Volkov asks from behind me, all sharp, eastern European sounds, “with great power comes . . . ?” “Great current squared times resistance,” Jack murmurs, eyes planted on me. I shiver hot and cold while everyone else laughs. As usual, Jack is inaccessible; I have no idea what’s happening in his brain. As usual, I feel like he’s skinning me like a clementine, seeing all my squishy, secret, hidden bits. How hard will Cece murder me if I puke all over her dress? “MIT party?” The hostess smiles. “Let me show you to your table.” I turn around clumsily, as if wading through water. My brain won’t stop flipping its fins. So Jack’s a physicist—bad. An experimentalist—bad. The experimentalist—bad. He wants to hire some George dude—bad. He knows me as a librarian his brother’s dating—bad. He never liked me—bad. He thinks I made up my Ph.D.—badder—and am conning MIT into hiring me— baddest. “Don’t let him get to you,” Monica whispers in my ear. “W-what?” “The way Jonathan was looking at you, like you’re trying to smuggle a full bottle of shampoo through TSA—definitely one of his power plays. Ignore him.” Shit—what if he narcs me out to Monica? To Volkov? Oh God, am I going to have to explain to my future colleagues about my side gig? About Faux? I bet filet mignon goes great with anecdotes of that debt collector who threatened to shatter my kneecaps. “Okay.” I smile weakly. I’m in deep shit —ten feet under, I estimate. No, fifteen. Rapidly digging when Monica notices that I’m sitting far from Volkov and says, “There’s a terrible draft here. Can someone switch with me? Elsie, would you mind?” Musical chairs ensue.