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

saw them, gracefully breaking away from the other ladies she stood with to come give Lore a very tight and very unexpected hug. “You two! Where have you been? We just came from a croquet game on the back lawn; I was sure I’d see you there.” She wiggled her pale brows. “You’ll need to practice if you’re going to make it a good game when we play.” “We were taking a walk,” Gabe answered, just as Lore said, “Bastian took us to the stables.” Gabe’s one eye shot daggers. Lore gave him an apologetic look over Alie’s shoulder. She’d always been told that lies were more believable when you laced them with truth, so didn’t it follow that lying about as little as possible would serve them well here? Alie’s eyes widened. “Well, then. I don’t blame you for picking Bastian over croquet.” She raised a delicate brow at Gabe. “And I assume you felt you had to go along as a chaperone? Probably wise.” “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that,” Lore said. “He was just being courteous.” The other woman grinned mischievously. “Bastian doesn’t really do courteous. He does, however, like to begin illicit propositions by leading his hopeful paramour to the stables.” Lore fought down a mad giggle. Bastian might be in the habit of taking people he wanted to sleep with to the stables, but she was absolutely certain his seduction didn’t usually involve an undead horse. Still, the mere implication was enough to give Gabe a long-suffering expression similar to the boar on the table. “Thank you for the information, Alie.” “Anytime. I have years of court gossip to catch you up on.” Alie turned her grin from Gabe to Lore. “I’ll tell you all the best bits at our game next week. I find rumors go down best when you have a mallet to swing.” Lore, who had not actually decided on any of the invitations in the stack back in their suite, swallowed a mouthful of wine and nodded. “We’ll be there.” “Excellent.” Alie waved over her shoulder as she turned back to her friends, a gaggle of beautifully dressed women whom Lore was trying very hard not to make eye contact with. Cecelia was not among them, and she didn’t recognize anyone from the group taking poison at the masquerade. “See you then!” The smile melted off Lore’s face as she turned back to the food. “At least we know Bastian wasn’t taking me to the stables for his usual reasons.” It was a joke, and she expected Gabe to react to it with his usual eye roll, but the Presque Mort just stabbed another strawberry and knifed it onto his plate. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” he muttered. CHAPTER SIXTEEN To each person is given knowledge according to their station; it is not holy to try to rise above the lot the gods have given you. —The Book of Mortal Law, Tract 90 The afternoon whiled away in a sunlit haze. After eating, Lore made Gabriel give her a tour of the Citadel—somewhat


went faithfully on by herself and did the best she could. She was a housewifely little creature, and helped Hannah keep home neat and comfortable for the workers, never thinking of any reward but to be loved. Long, quiet days she spent, not lonely nor idle, for her little world was peopled with imaginary friends,and she was by nature a busy bee. There were six dolls to be taken up and dressed every morning, for Beth was a child still and and loved her pets as well as ever. Not one whole or handsome one among them, all were outcasts till Beth took them in, for when her sisters outgrew these idols, they passed to her because Amy would have nothing old or ugly. Beth cherished them all the more tenderly for that very reason, and set up a hospital for infirm dolls. No pins were ever stuck into their cotton vitals, no harsh words or blows were ever given them, no neglect ever saddened the heart or the most repulsive, but all were fed and clothed, nursed and caressed with an affection which never failed. One forlorn fragment of dollanity had belonged to Jo and, having led a tempestuous life, was left a wreck in the rag bag, from which dreary poorhouse it was rescued by Beth and taken to her refuge. Having no top to its head, she tied on a neat little cap, and as both arms and legs were gone, she hid these deficiencies by folding it in a blanket and devoting her best bed to this chronic invalid. If any had known the care lavished on that dolly, I think it would have touched their hearts, even while they laughed. She brought it bits of bouquets, she read to it, took it out to breathe fresh air, hidden under her coat, she sang it lullabies and never went to be without kissing its dirty face and whispering tenderly, "I hope you'll have a good night, my poor dear." Beth had her troubles as well as the others, and not being an angel but a very human little girl, she often `wept a little weep' as Jo said, because she couldn't take music lessons and have a fine piano. She loved music so dearly, tried so hard to learn, and practiced away so patiently at the jingling old instrument, that it did seem as if someone (not to hint Aunt March) ought to help her. Nobody did, however, and nobody saw Beth wipe the tears off the yellow keys, that wouldn't keep in tune, when she was all alone. She sang like a little lark about her work, never was too tired for Marmee and the girls, and day after day said hopefully to herself, " I know I'll get my music some time, if I'm good." There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence


of silence. Every cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. LES PETITES FEMMES. Bold bad girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding Sara by the wame. On the road to Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had left but the name. What do you want for ninepence? Machree, macruiskeen. Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull all together. EX! Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like, seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He've got the chink AD LIB. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the oof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they there Frenchy bilks? Won't wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise de cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. We're nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you. 'Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir. Bantam, two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint, do. Gum, I'm jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for words. With a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he'd like? Rose of Castile. Rows of cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam's flowers. Gemini. He's going to holler. The colleen bawn. My colleen bawn. O, cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand. Had the winner today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey and grahamise. Mare on form hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a cram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the harman beck copped the game. Madden back Madden's a maddening back. O lust our refuge and our strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome, our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her spouse. No fake, old man Leo. S'elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers if I had. There's a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. Through yerd our lord, Amen. You move a motion? Steve boy, you're going it some. More bluggy drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate one expensive inaugurated libation? Give's a breather. Landlord, landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree. Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthe the lot. NOS OMNES BIBERIMUS VIRIDUM TOXICUM DIABOLUS CAPIAT POSTERIORIA NOSTRIA.


to take along.” “Yes, sir,” said he, “this is the spot, to be sure, and very And clapping me in the friendliest way upon the shoul- prettily drawed out. Who might have done that, I wonder? der, he hobbled off forward and went below. The pirates were too ignorant, I reckon. Aye, here it is: ‘Capt. Captain Smollett, the squire, and Dr. Livesey were talking Kidd’s Anchorage’—just the name my shipmate called it. together on the quarter-deck, and anxious as I was to tell There’s a strong current runs along the south, and then away them my story, I durst not interrupt them openly. While I nor’ard up the west coast. Right you was, sir,” says he, “to was still casting about in my thoughts to find some probable haul your wind and keep the weather of the island. Leastways, excuse, Dr. Livesey called me to his side. He had left his pipe if such was your intention as to enter and careen, and there below, and being a slave to tobacco, had meant that I should ain’t no better place for that in these waters.” fetch it; but as soon as I was near enough to speak and not to “Thank you, my man,” says Captain Smollett. “I’ll ask be overheard, I broke immediately, “Doctor, let me speak. Get you later on to give us a help. You may go.” the captain and squire down to the cabin, and then make I was surprised at the coolness with which John avowed some pretence to send for me. I have terrible news.” his knowledge of the island, and I own I was half- frightened The doctor changed countenance a little, but next mo- when I saw him drawing nearer to myself. He did not know, ment he was master of himself. to be sure, that I had overheard his council from the apple “Thank you, Jim,” said he quite loudly, “that was all I barrel, and yet I had by this time taken such a horror of his wanted to know,” as if he had asked me a question. cruelty, duplicity, and power that I could scarce conceal a And with that he turned on his heel and rejoined the other shudder when he laid his hand upon my arm. two. They spoke together for a little, and though none of “Ah,” says he, “this here is a sweet spot, this island— a them started, or raised his voice, or so much as whistled, it was sweet spot for a lad to get ashore on. You’ll bathe, and you’ll plain enough that Dr. Livesey had communicated my request, climb trees, and you’ll hunt goats, you will; and you’ll get for the next thing that I heard was the captain giving an order Contents aloft on them hills like a goat yourself. Why, it makes me to Job Anderson, and all hands were piped on deck. young again. I was going to forget my timber leg, I was. It’s “My lads,” said Captain Smollett, “I’ve a word to say to Robert Louis Stevenson.


The last time we visited the Connors before Hank’s death, Wyn’s father cried from happiness when we got there. As we were getting ready for bed that night, he gave me a tight hug and said, Sleep well, love you so much, kiddo, and afterward I’d shut myself in the bathroom and run the water while I cried for reasons I didn’t entirely understand. More homesickness, I guess. That lights-on-in-an-unfamiliar-kitchen pang. Love you so much, kiddo had been such a constant refrain of Wyn’s childhood that he and his sisters had all gotten it tattooed in Hank’s handwriting when we went to Montana for the funeral. They said I could too, but it didn’t seem fair. Hank didn’t belong to me. Now he never will. The tracks of our lives split little by little, but the moments we’re together, my love still feels so big and violent it could consume me. Every once in a while, Wyn asks if I want to look at venues or go sample cakes. He tries to be happy. I try to be enough in this small, small life I’ve pulled him into. “There’s no rush,” I promise. “I’m so busy at the hospital anyway.” I don’t want to make him celebrate. I don’t want him to feel like he has to be happy when he’s still acclimating to a world without Hank Connor in it. It shouldn’t have happened like this. Hank was eleven years older than Gloria, sure, but he was still only in his early seventies. And aren’t seventies supposed to be like fifties now? Sometimes we eat dinner together between his shifts. But most nights, we don’t see each other until he comes to kiss me on the head while I read in bed, before taking his shower. Sometimes when he comes back, and he thinks I’m asleep, he’ll finally let himself cry, and I think, though I don’t know to whom or what, Please, please help. Please help him stop hurting this much. I’ll make bargains with the universe: If I make the apartment cozier. If I don’t complain about work. If I make the most of the constant rain. If I need nothing from him, he’ll be okay. We’ll get through this. One night, some of the other interns invite me out. They always do. I never go. But lately Wyn has been pushing me to. “I won’t be home anyway,” he says. “You need to have friends.” “I have friends,” I say. “Not here,” he says. “You need those too.” So I go out, and it’s nice, fun, but I lose track of time, and when I get home, Wyn’s asleep in our bed, and it breaks my heart to have missed even five waking minutes with him. I feel guilty. I feel lost. I don’t know how to fix any of it. The next morning, when I tell him I missed him, he says, “Honestly, I crashed as soon as I got home. I wouldn’t have been any fun.” After that, I go out a couple of times a


to say.” “Sure there is.” “You promised.” “I know, but—” He took her arm and cocked his head in the direction of the door that led out to a small balcony. “Come out here, let me explain.” They withdrew and closed the balcony door behind them. Peter stood in the middle of the room, drink in hand, looking about uncomfortably. Marion hadn’t expected to see Peter again, not after that strange dinner. But here he was. She should really go and get ready for the next show, but leaving him seemed rude. He gestured to one of the couches. “I guess we’ll have to make small talk until whatever is going on is settled.” She sat, and he did as well. She placed her drink on the coffee table, and he did also. It was like they were playing a game of Simon Says. “How’s the show going?” asked Peter. “Fine, thanks.” Peter leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “Look, to be honest, when Dale said we were going to stop by Radio City, I kind of hoped I’d see you again.” She plastered a vague smile on her face and braced herself for what was coming next. He’d want to take her to dinner, just the two of them, most likely. While it was true that she and Nathaniel were going through a rough patch, she certainly wasn’t interested in going on a date with anyone else. “I wanted to apologize for the way I acted at the restaurant a few weeks ago,” said Peter finally. “For analyzing you without your consent. That was wrong of me.” She hadn’t expected an apology. Peter was looking at her strangely, and it took her a moment to figure out what was different about his gaze. Men tended to have three ways of reacting to Marion: In most cases, they stammered and made terrible jokes in an effort to impress. Others became cold and dismissive, as if they figured they could win her over by taking the opposite tack and throwing her off-balance. Finally, there was a minority of men with inflated egos who had been unexpectedly spurned at one time. They were the most dangerous to interact with, as they tended to be domineering and resentful. Peter wasn’t in the first category. He wasn’t affected by her beauty, not glancing from her neck to her lips to her bustline, unsure of where to look. Nor did he seem cold or resentful. His eyes remained glued on hers—he was simply taking in her reaction to his words. In spite of herself, she blushed. “I appreciate your apology. And yes, I wouldn’t recommend doing that on future dates.” Marion paused. “Even if you were right.” She wasn’t sure why she’d just told him that. Peter was studying her so intently, and being so unabashedly honest, she couldn’t help it. He looked pained. “Even more apologies on my part, then. It was unprofessional.” He cleared his throat. “Look, I know this is awkward. I agreed to meet Dale for a drink but seem to


to her sister again, I may as well mention here that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion; and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her fortune.     How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know; I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child, after a long walk to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returning was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. To return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.     My journey seemed tedious very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments: I saw her disfigured and discolored face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants few was the number of relatives the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana: I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analyzed their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveler's bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.     I was going back to Thornfield; but how long was I to stay there? Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage. She said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. "You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it," was my mental comment. "I don't doubt it."     The question followed: "Where was I to go?" I dreamed of Miss Ingram all the night; in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded smiling sardonically,


hour when the longer and the shorter indicator were at the same angle of inclination, VIDELICET, 5 5/11 minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression. In what manners did she reciprocate? She remembered: on the 27th anniversary of his birth she presented to him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware. She provided: at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases had been made by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his necessities, anticipating his desires. She admired: a natural phenomenon having been explained by him to her she expressed the immediate desire to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part. What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist, make to Stephen, noctambulist? To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of his host and hostess. What various advantages would or might have resulted from a prolongation of such an extemporisation? For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian pronunciation. Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and a hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent eventuality of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew's daughter? Because the way to daughter led through mother, the way to mother through daughter. To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest return a monosyllabic negative answer? If he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at Sydney Parade railway station, 14 October 1903. What inchoate corollary statement was consequently suppressed by the host? A statement explanatory of his absence on the occasion of the interment of Mrs Mary Dedalus (born Goulding), 26 June 1903, vigil of the anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag). Was the proposal of asylum accepted? Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined. What exchange of money took place between host and guest? The former returned to the latter, without interest, a sum of money (1-7-0), one pound seven shillings sterling, advanced by the latter to the former. What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified, declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed? To inaugurate a prearranged course of Italian instruction, place the residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal instruction, place the residence of the instructress. To inaugurate a series of static semistatic and peripatetic intellectual dialogues, places the residence of both speakers (if both speakers were resident in the same place), the Ship hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey street (W. and E. Connery, proprietors), the National Library of Ireland, 10 Kildare street, the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, a public garden, the vicinity of a place of worship, a conjunction of two or more public thoroughfares, the point of bisection of a right line drawn between


My brow furrowed. How had Marek been aware of it? Arin’s gloved hand closed around Felix’s briefly. “Indeed. Shall we move to more private quarters to continue our reacquaintance?” Felix glanced around. “Has the waleema concluded?” “Nearly.” The first signs of impatience leaked into the Nizahl Heir’s tone. He glanced at the kneeling crowd. “You must be weary from your journey.” “Nothing a hearty brew cannot fix,” said the royal dunce. He instructed the rider to house the horses with Arin’s and not “leave them alone with a half-wit stable hand.” Maneuvering a carriage in such a tight space irritated the horses. They harrumphed, hooves clomping in a wide loop. One of Nadia’s chairs stood directly in the path of the carriage’s wheels. My heart dropped. I knew what would happen as soon as the rider reined the horses back, but I was too late. “Stop! Stop!” Fairel shouted, launching herself toward the chair. I vaulted to my feet, braced to watch her get split in two. Yuli grabbed Fairel’s frock before she could intercept the carriage’s path. The chair splintered beneath the wheels, and Fairel shrieked. Spooked, the horses reared, sending an Omalian guardsman crashing into Felix. They went down in a heap. Dusty and red with embarrassment, Felix slapped aside the guard’s hand and clamored to his feet. He glowered at Fairel. “Come here.” Pulse pounding, I took a step from the shadows. The crowd sobered, watching Yuli unwillingly release Fairel. Bowed in front of the Omal Heir, her braids coming loose from their upturned horns, she was as much a threat as a river gnat. “I apologize sincerely, my lord,” Fairel hurried to say. “The chairs—they’re my responsibility, you see, my mistress tasked me with their safe return—” Felix shoved Fairel in front of the horses. Later, I would wonder whether I might have acted differently had it been anyone other than Fairel, who was mine since the day Raya brought her to the keep. If under alternate conditions, I might have stayed hidden and merely added this kernel of rage to the collection. The villagers screamed as the clustered horses kicked at Fairel, and the sound of breaking bones fired across the main road. My magic seethed forward, and I gripped my dagger, Felix’s viscera bright in my mind’s eye. I was moving for Felix before the horses had finished their assault on Fairel’s still body. Arin moved faster. I hadn’t taken more than a step, and he was already there, blocking my path. He knocked the dagger from my hand. My magic did not approve, howling as the horses trotted past Fairel, their hooves red with her blood. The pressure on my cuffs tightened, familiar pain roaring beneath my skin, and then—the impossible. The dagger shuddered into the air and flew. My magic hummed, keeping the dagger’s course true. I gasped, the incomprehensible sight made more confounding by the cuffs’ unchanged presence around my wrists. Arin didn’t turn around to see the dagger embed itself into Felix’s thigh, not even when the other Heir screamed. He didn’t


because while many women had found their own voices, they also knew when it was better not to use it. What was most remarkable about the energetic and at times heated discussion that followed Stepto’s and Walker’s remarks was the assumption of everyone in that room that Their Eyes was a shared text, that a novel that just ten years earlier was unknown and unavailable had entered into critical acceptance as perhaps the most widely known and the most privileged text in the African-American literary canon. That MLA session was important for another reason. Walker’s defense of Janie’s choice (actually Hurston’s choice) to be silent in the crucial places in the novel turned out to be the earliest feminist reading of voice in Their Eyes, a reading that was later supported by many other Hurston scholars. In a recent essay on Their Eyes, and the question of voice, Michael Awkward argues that Janie’s voice at the end of the novel is a communal one, that when she tells Pheoby to tell her story (“You can tell’em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat’s just de same as me ‘cause mah tongue is in mah fiend’s mout”) she is choosing a collective rather than an individual voice, demonstrating her closeness to the collective spirit of the African-American oral tradition. Thad Davis agrees with this reading of voice, adding that while Janie is the teller of the tale, Pheoby is the bearer of the tale. Davis says that Janie’s experimental life may not allow her to effect changes beyond what she causes in Pheoby’s life; but Pheoby, standing within the traditional role of women, is the one most suited to take the message back to the community. Although, like Stepto, I too am uncomfortable with the absence of Janie’s voice in the courtroom scene, I think that silence reflects Hurston’s discomfort with the model of the male hero who asserts himself through his powerful voice. When Hurston chose a female hero for the story she faced an interesting dilemma: the female presence was inherently a critique of the male-dominated folk culture and therefore could not be its heroic representative. When Janie says at the end of her story that “talkin’ don’t amount to much” if it’s divorced from experience, she is testifying to the limitations of voice and critiquing the culture that celebrates orality to the exclusion of inner growth. Her final speech to Pheoby at the end of Their Eyes actually casts doubt on the relevance of oral speech and supports Alice Walker’s claim that women’s silence can be intentional and useful: ’Course, talkin’ don’t amount tuh uh hill uh beans when yuh can’t do nothin’ else…Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo papa and yo mama and nobody else can’t tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves. The language of the men in Their Eyes is almost always divorced from any kind of interiority, and the


it. No line like that warped his red lips. What did it mean? He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent. He threw himself into a chair, and began to think. Suddenly there flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the day the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly. He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his prayer had not been answered? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to think of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the touch of cruelty in the mouth. Cruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his. He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little child. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why had he been made like that? Why had such a soul been given to him? But he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of torture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a moment, if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. Why should he trouble about Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him now. But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again? No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that [43] makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to think so. Yet it was watching


and was pressed and prodded till he cried out many times. Something was wrong inside, but they could locate no broken bones, could not make it out. By the time Cassiar Bar was reached, he was so weak that he was falling repeatedly in the traces. The Scotch half-breed called a halt and took him out of the team, making the next dog, Sol-leks, fast to the sled. His intention was to rest Dave, letting him run free behind the sled. Sick as he was, Dave resented being taken out, grunting and growling while the traces were unfastened, and whimpering broken-heartedly when he saw Sol-leks in the position he had held and served so long. For the pride of trace and trail was his, and, sick unto death, he could not bear that another dog should do his work. When the sled started, he floundered in the soft snow alongside the beaten trail, attacking Sol-leks with his teeth, rushing against him and trying to thrust him off into the soft snow on the other side, striving to leap inside his traces and get between him and the sled, and all the while whining and yelping and crying with grief and pain. The half-breed tried to drive him away with the whip; but he paid no heed to the stinging lash, and the man had not the heart to strike harder. Dave refused to run quietly on the trail behind the sled, where the going was easy, but continued to flounder alongside in the soft snow, where the going was most difficult, till exhausted. Then he fell, and lay where he fell, howling lugubriously as the long train of sleds churned by. With the last remnant of his strength he managed to stagger along behind till the train made another stop, when he floundered past the sleds to his own, where he stood alongside Sol-leks. His driver lingered a moment to get a light for his pipe from the man behind. Then he returned and started his dogs. They swung out on the trail with remarkable lack of exertion, turned their heads uneasily, and stopped in surprise. The driver was surprised, too; the sled had not moved. He called his comrades to witness the sight. Dave had bitten through both of Sol-leks's traces, and was standing directly in front of the sled in his proper place. He pleaded with his eyes to remain there. The driver was perplexed. His comrades talked of how a dog could break its heart through being denied the work that killed it, and recalled instances they had known, where dogs, too old for the toil, or injured, had died because they were cut out of the traces. Also, they held it a mercy, since Dave was to die anyway, that he should die in the traces, heart-easy and content. So he was harnessed in again, and proudly he pulled as of old, though more than once he cried out involuntarily from the bite of his inward hurt. Several times he fell down and was dragged in the traces,


how when yuh take de second look at her. Ah had to sorta pass by de house on de way back and seen her good. ’Tain’t nothin’ to her ’ceptin’ dat long hair.” “Umph!” “And anyhow, Ah done took uhlikin’ tuh de man. Ah wouldn’t harm him at all. She ain’t half ez pretty ez uh gal Ah run off and left up in South Cal’lina.” “Hicks, Ah’d git mad and say you wuz lyin’ if Ah didn’t know yuh so good. You just talkin’ to consolate yo’self by word of mouth. You got uh willin’ mind, but youse too light behind. A whole heap uh men seen de same thing you seen but they got better sense than you. You oughta know you can’t take no ’oman lak dat from no man lak him. A man dat ups and buys two hundred acres uh land at one whack and pays cash for it.” “Naw! He didn’t buy it sho nuff?” “He sho did. Come off wid de papers in his pocket. He done called a meetin’ on his porch tomorrow. Ain’t never seen no sich uh colored man befo’ in all mah bawn days. He’s gointuh put up uh store and git uh post office from de Goven’ment.” That irritated Hicks and he didn’t know why. He was the average mortal. It troubled him to get used to the world one way and then suddenly have it turn different. He wasn’t ready to think of colored people in post offices yet. He laughed bois- terously. 46 Zora Neale Hurston “Y’all let dat stray darky tell y’all any ole lie! Uh colored man sittin’ up in uh post office!” He made an obscene sound. “He’s liable tuh do it too, Hicks. Ah hope so anyhow. Us colored folks is too envious of one ’nother. Dat’s how come us don’t git no further than us do. Us talks about de white man keepin’ us down! Shucks! He don’t have tuh. Us keeps our own selves down.” “Now who said Ah didn’t want de man tuh git us uh post office? He kin be de king uh Jerusalem fuh all Ah keer. Still and all, ’tain’t no use in telling lies just ’cause uh heap uh folks don’t know no better. Yo’ common sense oughta tell yuh de white folks ain’t goin’ tuh ’low him tuh run no post office.” “Dat we don’t know, Hicks. He say he kin and Ah b’lieve he know whut he’s talkin’ ’bout. Ah reckon if colored folks got they own town they kin have post offices and whatsoever they please, regardless. And then agin, Ah don’t speck de white folks way off yonder give uh damn. Less us wait and see.” “Oh, Ah’m waitin’ all right. Specks tuh keep on waitin’ till hell freeze over.” “Aw, git reconciled! Dat woman don’t want you. You got tuh learn dat all de women in de world ain’t been brought up on no teppentine still, and no saw-mill camp. There’s some women dat jus’ ain’t for you tuh broach. You can’t


to me that each day we had been staying a little longer at Mrs. Dubose's, that the alarm clock went off a few minutes later every day, and that she was well into one of her fits by the time it sounded. Today she had antagonized Jem for nearly two hours with no intention of having a fit, and I felt hopelessly trapped. The alarm clock was the signal for our release; if one day it did not ring, what would we do? "I have a feeling that Jem's reading days are numbered," said Atticus. "Only a week longer, I think," she said, "just to make sure..." Jem rose. "But-" Atticus put out his hand and Jem was silent. On the way home, Jem said he had to do it just for a month and the month was up and it wasn't fair. "Just one more week, son," said Atticus. "No," said Jem. "Yes," said Atticus. The following week found us back at Mrs. Dubose's. The alarm clock had ceased sounding, but Mrs. Dubose would release us with, "That'll do," so late in the afternoon Atticus would be home reading the paper when we returned. Although her fits had passed off, she was in every other way her old self: when Sir Walter Scott became involved in lengthy descriptions of moats and castles, Mrs. Dubose would become bored and pick on us: "Jeremy Finch, I told you you'd live to regret tearing up my camellias. You regret it now, don't you?" Jem would say he certainly did. "Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well, Jessie says the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you?" Jem would say he certainly would. "Don't you mutter at me, boy! You hold up your head and say yes ma'am. Don't guess you feel like holding it up, though, with your father what he is." Jem's chin would come up, and he would gaze at Mrs. Dubose with a face devoid of resentment. Through the weeks he had cultivated an expression of polite and detached interest, which he would present to her in answer to her most blood-curdling inventions. At last the day came. When Mrs. Dubose said, "That'll do," one afternoon, she added, "And that's all. Good-day to you." It was over. We bounded down the sidewalk on a spree of sheer relief, leaping and howling. That spring was a good one: the days grew longer and gave us more playing time. Jem's mind was occupied mostly with the vital statistics of every college football player in the nation. Every night Atticus would read us the sports pages of the newspapers. Alabama might go to the Rose Bowl again this year, judging from its prospects, not one of whose names we could pronounce. Atticus was in the middle of Windy Seaton's column one evening when the telephone rang. He answered it, then went to the hat rack in the hall. "I'm going down to Mrs. Dubose's for


out of her nails. She did this in secret, when she assumed Mrs. Bone wasn’t looking, as if a little coal was something of which to be ashamed. “Hurry along, Sue,” Mrs. Bone said for the third time. “It’s hot,” whispered Sue. She was wiping her face with a damp flannel, over and over. “Better than the cold, my girl,” said Mrs. Bone. “Better than your toes falling off. Get into bed.” Sue was taking an age, and the air was curdling like milk. When the knock came, it startled her. A hard thump, fist against wood, not friendly. Sue froze, hands on the basin. “Who’s that, then?” said Mrs. Bone as she hurried to the door, swung it open. That boy was there, that weasel-faced little rat. “Whatchoo doing?” said Mrs. Bone. “Get away with you. Coming up here. These are the ladies’ quarters.” “You’re wanted, Sue,” he said, not looking at Mrs. Bone. And in that moment Mrs. Bone understood, and she was revolted. She had lived long enough to understand that look. Whether from an old man or a young one, a rich man or a poor one, there was a certain sort of summons you gave a girl that wasn’t right at all. Here, in Danny’s house? It wasn’t disbelief. It was something clicking into place. Here, same as everywhere. Mrs. Bone was always a very pragmatic sort of lady. She assessed trades coolly, dispassionately: she weighed them on the scales and picked the most lucrative ones every time. But there was one business she wouldn’t touch. She pictured Danny, the gleam of his curls. Felt her flesh crawling. “Sue’s sick,” she said. The boy frowned. “I was told to fetch her.” “Tell ’em she’s sick, and tell ’em I told you so, and tell ’em I said it was for the best.” She stared at him levelly. “Trust me.” He stared back. Calculating. “Fine,” he said. He didn’t waste time. He turned and ran away, back to whoever had sent him, heels echoing as he went. And he didn’t lock their door. Mrs. Bone closed the door. She leaned against it, hands behind her back, tightly clasped. “Anyone asked for you before?” Better to ask straight out, not to fudge the question. There was a silence. Sue shook her head. And then she spoke, in a voice that sounded hard, snapped off at the edges. “But he told me to get ready,” she said, nodding to the door, meaning the boy. “He said someone might ask for me tonight.” Mrs. Bone made her expression appear unruffled, unbothered. “Stuff and nonsense. What’s anyone going to want with a goose like you?” She went to the bed, fingers shaking, and wrenched down the covers. “You come to me if he speaks to you again.” She snapped her fingers. “Bed, Sue. Get in.” She looked again at the floorboards, the nicks and scratches and marks, and wondered how many girls had been dragging their bed across the floor to bar the door. 11:00 p.m. Alice felt an ache right in


bushes, and was a bowl of heat and light. A great tree, fallen across one corner, leaned against the trees that still stood and a rapid climber flaunted red and yellow sprays right to the top. Simon paused. He looked over his shoulder as Jack had done at the close ways behind him and glanced swiftly round to confirm that he was utterly alone. For a moment his movements were almost furtive. Then he bent down and wormed his way into the center of the mat. The creepers and the bushes were so close that he left his sweat on them and they pulled together behind him. When he was secure in the middle he was in a little cabin screened off from the open space by a few leaves. He squatted down, parted the leaves and looked out into the clearing. Nothing moved but a pair of gaudy butterflies that danced round each other in the hot air. Holding his breath he cocked a critical ear at the sounds of the island. Evening was advancing toward the island; the sounds of the bright fantastic birds, the bee-sounds, even the crying of the gulls that were returning to their roosts among the square rocks, were fainter. The deep sea breaking miles away on the reef made an undertone less perceptible than the susurration of the blood. Simon dropped the screen of leaves back into place. The slope of the bars of honey-colored sunlight decreased; they slid up the bushes, passed over the green candle-like buds, moved up toward the canopy, and darkness thickened under the trees. With the fading of the light the riotous colors died and the heat and urgency cooled away. The candlebuds stirred. Their green sepals drew back a little and the white tips of the flowers rose delicately to meet the open air. Now the sunlight had lifted clear of the open space and withdrawn from the sky. Darkness poured out, submerging the ways between the trees till they were dim and strange as the bottom of the sea. The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that pricked down from the first stars. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island. CHAPTER FOUR Painted Faces and Long Hair The first rhythm that they became used to was the slow swing from dawn to quick dusk. They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten. Toward noon, as the floods of light fell more nearly to the perpendicular, the stark colors of the morning were smoothed in pearl and opalescence; and the heat--as though the impending sun's height gave it momentum--became a blow that they ducked, running to the shade and lying there, perhaps even sleeping. Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few stunted palms that clung to the


the pitcher of pudding sauce WARMED UP, in the other. Diana, that was a terrible moment. I remembered everything and I just stood up in my place and shrieked out 'Marilla, you mustn't use that pudding sauce. There was a mouse drowned in it. I forgot to tell you before.' Oh, Diana, I shall never forget that awful moment if I live to be a hundred. Mrs. Chester Ross just LOOKED at me and I thought I would sink through the floor with mortification. She is such a perfect housekeeper and fancy what she must have thought of us. Marilla turned red as fire but she never said a word-then. She just carried that sauce and pudding out and brought in some strawberry preserves. She even offered me some, but I couldn't swallow a mouthful. It was like heaping coals of fire on my head. After Mrs. Chester Ross went away, Marilla gave me a dreadful scolding. Why, Diana, what is the matter?" Diana had stood up very unsteadily; then she sat down again, putting her hands to her head. "I'm-I'm awful sick," she said, a little thickly. "I-I-must go right home." "Oh, you mustn't dream of going home without your tea," cried Anne in distress. "I'll get it right off-I'll go and put the tea down this very minute." "I must go home," repeated Diana, stupidly but determinedly. "Let me get you a lunch anyhow," implored Anne. "Let me give you a bit of fruit cake and some of the cherry preserves. Lie down on the sofa for a little while and you'll be better. Where do you feel bad?" "I must go home," said Diana, and that was all she would say. In vain Anne pleaded. "I never heard of company going home without tea," she mourned. "Oh, Diana, do you suppose that it's possible you're really taking the smallpox? If you are I'll go and nurse you, you can depend on that. I'll never forsake you. But I do wish you'd stay till after tea. Where do you feel bad?" "I'm awful dizzy," said Diana. And indeed, she walked very dizzily. Anne, with tears of disappointment in her eyes, got Diana's hat and went with her as far as the Barry yard fence. Then she wept all the way back to Green Gables, where she sorrowfully put the remainder of the raspberry cordial back into the pantry and got tea ready for Matthew and Jerry, with all the zest gone out of the performance. The next day was Sunday and as the rain poured down in torrents from dawn till dusk Anne did not stir abroad from Green Gables. Monday afternoon Marilla sent her down to Mrs. Lynde's on an errand. In a very short space of time Anne came flying back up the lane with tears rolling down her cheeks. Into the kitchen she dashed and flung herself face downward on the sofa in an agony. "Whatever has gone wrong now, Anne?" queried Marilla in doubt and dismay. "I do hope you haven't gone and been saucy to


can you transfer me some more money, please?” “Hello, Mum. How are you?” She laughs and it tinkles effervescently. “Hello, darling. I am blessed. Now, I’ve found someone with better conversion rates than last time, so let me give you the address. Do you have pen and paper?” “I don’t have any spare cash this month.” “Why? Have you been recklessly spending?” “No.” Pause. “What’s wrong, Maame? You don’t sound right. Tell your mother.” Mum alternates between calling me one of three things: my name and all its variations included, a term of endearment, or Maame. “Maame” has many meanings in Twi, but in my case, it means “woman.” I’ve been called Maame ever since I can remember and I loved being referred to as a woman when I was still a girl. I loved being viewed as a grown-up before I’d even gotten my period. But now I— “Maddie?” And I can hear the impatience coating the edge of her syllables like ever-present shadows. “I’m not feeling very well.” The sun stays out late now, so I’ve shut the curtains in my room. I’m sat in a corner of my bed with my knees to my chest and I think about how to best describe how low I’ve felt without being able to list any defining reasons for it. When I feel my time to explain is running out, I say, “I’m just sad and, I think, anxious.” “About what?” “Just everything I’m doing at home and at work. I feel heavy and hopeless and tired and like I’m not really living—” Mum sighs. “Maddie, please.” She stretches each word to emphasize the weariness behind her begging. “You like to complain about this too much. You’re not doing a lot, really, are you? You should see how the children here live. Don’t you relax when you come home from work and on the weekends? It’s because you don’t ever go out.” My eyes begin to water. “I have said you need to go outside more because you’ll never find a husband sitting at home,” she continues. “Your father doesn’t need company during all the sun’s hours. That’s why you’re sad all the time—you have no fun.” I almost tell her that fun doesn’t equate to happiness; at the very least, it lends you happiness and I want to know how to keep it. I’ve googled “How to be happy”; I’ve taken walks in the park and written long gratitude lists; I’m consuming more fruits and vegetables and going to bed early; I’ve given out compliments and practiced mindful breathing. I have tried to fix myself. “I think maybe I should go to the GP and—” “No. We don’t rely on the GP for things like that,” Mum says. “They’ll just give you drugs; they work on some kind of commission with it.” “I highly doubt that’s true.” “I know more than you do about how the world is working, Maddie,” she says. “They’ll give you drugs for ailments that do not exist and then you will get sicker. It’s not necessary.


enough money to pay our taxes—something Jeff Dill Pickle Bezos is not asked to do, by the way—we . . .” “Fucked up?” “A good assessment.” I let my forehead slide to the table. It’s cold, and sticky with something that might not be Hedgie’s urine. “What if Austin tells his mother that I’m some kind of con woman who tricks her clients into . . . into . . .” “Into not fucking her? Did he look like he might want to talk to Monica?” “I . . .” Once Jack was done with him, he just looked scared. Shitless, one might add. But also angry, and angry people do angry, stupid things. Like climbing on top of a toilet in the men’s restroom with Jack Smith-Turner’s hands pressed into their waist. Or forgetting to monitor their glucose levels. God, what a shit show of an interview. At least the most disgraceful moments happened behind the scenes—yay for semiprivate humiliation. “I don’t know.” “Either way, as a mother myself,” Cece says with a meaningful glance at Hedgie, “if my douchebag kid came to me whining that the rising star of theoretical physics denied him an eighty—” “Seventy.” “—seventy-dollar hand job—the audacity of that bitch—I’d exclusively be angry at my douchebag kid.” I straighten and sigh again. The gouda’s predictably gone, so I pick up the carrot and take a small bite, avoiding Hedgie’s corner. Though, why, really? How bad could toxoplasmosis be? Not nearly as painful as the way Jack stared at me after everything. Like he could break me down into the smallest diatomic molecules with a look and a handful of words. Better take my chances with the salmonella. “I need to talk to Jack. Explain what Austin said.” Cece scoffs. “You don’t owe him anything.” “He helped me, though. Without him I—” “He stood up for you when some shit-faced manboy verbally harassed you—Elsie, it’s the bare minimum. The bar’s so low, you could pick it up and beat him with it.” Okay. So maybe I don’t need to talk to Jack. I want to, though. I want to explain to him that . . . That what? Really, what? He must have put together that what I’m doing with Greg is similar to what I did with Austin. And if he hasn’t . . . didn’t I decide two days ago that I don’t care what he thinks of me? That he’s a lost cause anyway? If I don’t get the MIT job, I’m never going to meet Jack again. And if I do . . . we’ll be cordial, distant enemies. He’s still the nutsack who turned seventeen and decided to declare war on an entire discipline—my discipline. So he’s the one guy I can’t read, the one person who can’t be APE’d. All the more reason to never voluntarily interact with him again. I just don’t know why it’s scorched into my stupid brain, that last glance he gave me as I stepped out of Monica’s home. And the earlier one, when he grabbed my


white room at Green Gables. It was still worse on the platform of the big concert hall of the hotel, where she presently found herself. The electric lights dazzled her eyes, the perfume and hum bewildered her. She wished she were sitting down in the audience with Diana and Jane, who seemed to be having a splendid time away at the back. She was wedged in between a stout lady in pink silk and a tall, scornful-looking girl in a white-lace dress. The stout lady occasionally turned her head squarely around and surveyed Anne through her eyeglasses until Anne, acutely sensitive of being so scrutinized, felt that she must scream aloud; and the white-lace girl kept talking audibly to her next neighbor about the "country bumpkins" and "rustic belles" in the audience, languidly anticipating "such fun', from the displays of local talent on the program. Anne believed that she would hate that white-lace girl to the end of life. Unfortunately for Anne, a professional elocutionist was staying at the hotel and had consented to recite. She was a lithe, dark-eyed woman in a wonderful gown of shimmering gray stuff like woven moonbeams, with gems on her neck and in her dark hair. She had a marvelously flexible voice and wonderful power of expression; the audience went wild over her selection. Anne, forgetting all about herself and her troubles for the time, listened with rapt and shining eyes; but when the recitation ended she suddenly put her hands over her face. She could never get up and recite after that-never. Had she ever thought she could recite? Oh, if she were only back at Green Gables! At this unpropitious moment her name was called. Somehow Anne-who did not notice the rather guilty little start of surprise the white-lace girl gave, and would not have understood the subtle compliment implied therein if she had-got on her feet, and moved dizzily out to the front. She was so pale that Diana and Jane, down in the audience, clasped each other's hands in nervous sympathy. Anne was the victim of an overwhelming attack of stage fright. Often as she had recited in public, she had never before faced such an audience as this, and the sight of it paralyzed her energies completely. Everything was so strange, so brilliant, so bewildering-the rows of ladies in evening dress, the critical faces, the whole atmosphere of wealth and culture about her. Very different this from the plain benches at the Debating Club, filled with the homely, sympathetic faces of friends and neighbors. These people, she thought, would be merciless critics. Perhaps, like the white-lace girl, they anticipated amusement from her "rustic" efforts. She felt hopelessly, helplessly ashamed and miserable. Her knees trembled, her heart fluttered, a horrible faintness came over her; not a word could she utter, and the next moment she would have fled from the platform despite the humiliation which, she felt, must ever after be her portion if she did so. But suddenly, as her dilated, frightened eyes gazed out over the audience, she saw Gilbert


of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved I alone can appreciate. I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneak- ing wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl. "You'd better let the dog alone," growled Mr. Heath- cliff, in unison, checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot. "She's not accustomed to be spoiled ---not kept for a pet." Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again, "Joseph!" Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me vis-a-vis the ruf- fianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements. Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but, imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated madam that she sud- denly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees. I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us. This proceeding roused the whole hive. Half a dozen four-footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, is- sued from hidden dens to the common centre. I felt my heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault; and par- rying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in re-establish- ing peace. Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm. I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an ab- solute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more dispatch. A lusty dame, with tucked-up gown, bare arms, and fire-flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a fry- ing-pan, and used that weapon and her tongue to such purpose that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene. "What the devil is the matter?" he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure after this inhospita- ble treatment. "What the devil, indeed!" I muttered. "The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!" "They won't meddle with persons who touch noth- ing," he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. "The dogs do right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine." "No, thank you." "Not bitten, are you?" "If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter." Heathcliff's countenance relaxed into a grin.


because I am a cat. They’re clutching each other, now they’re rocking back and forth, and maybe this is why the video was tagged “mommy.” It’s giving very much “I skinned my knee, please make it better,” and also like…………is Sick Nun okay? She really is leaning on Mean Nun like she’s about to die of consumption. Have I accidentally stumbled across a movie from 1883? Finally Mean Nun’s scowl cracks, and she starts smiling! Then laughing! Sick Nun kissed her meanness away, and now she’s happy enough to have sex!!!!!!! Sick Nun pulls her nightgown over her head and goes in for another gentle embrace, and now I’m wondering how wet her fitted sheet is because this is an awful lot of foreplay with very little digital insertion. Sick Nun commands Mean Nun to stand, and she yanks her black nun dress down and: OH SHIT, this is the first time I have ever seen my preferred style of underpants in a porn??? Mean Nun is wearing high-waisted white full briefs, and I have never felt more recognized by a piece of cinema. Well, okay, now the video is kind of glitching. I’ve had to reload the browser a couple of times when the video refused to play and the sidebar ads keep popping up all over the screen. I tried to skip ahead to see if that would fix it, to the part at 17:10 when it starts to get good, when Sick Nun finally slips her moisturized hand into Mean Nun’s Hanes Cool Comfort breathable cotton briefs and starts fiddling around, but all I’m getting is the spinning wheel of death that means I either gotta log off before my laptop explodes or someone in the matrix has zeroed in on my location and Agent Smith is about to kick down one of these windows. Anyway, it takes these ladies approximately 22:01 to realistically orgasm together while moaning to their husband, God, about how good their sinning feels, and I guess now I’m a convert. qvc, ilysm Isaac Mizrahi Live! Essentials Pima Cotton Mock Neck Top #A462479 EXTREMELY PERSUASIVE AND IRRESISTIBLE PRODUCT COPY: It’s the kind of top you need in every color. You’ll love the fit and feel of this mock neck done in Isaac’s signature (so soft!) pima cotton. WHAT DID THE LADY IN THE VIDEO SAY? Jayne is in studio standing next to a rack of colorful mock-neck tops wearing the red version. Even though red is my favorite color to look at, I don’t wear red very often. When I was a teenager, I worked with this dude who called me “Benny the Bull” every time I showed up at the bakery in a red shirt, which is a hilarious roast but has obviously caused me permanent brain damage. Jayne looks stunning, though. She says this is a good shirt if you’re looking for something in cotton (I mean, how could you not be?) and want a top that will shine on its own but would also be great to layer under a jacket or


and sweet;" serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this period of my life my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection; and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful existence after a day passed in honorable exertion among my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone I used to rush into strange dreams at night dreams many-colored, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy dreams where, amid unusual scenes charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was and how situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next morning I was punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day.     Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be imagined; and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children. She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the visitress pierce the young pastor's heart. A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it; and when he was looking away from the door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably; and in their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervor, stronger than working muscle or darting glance could indicate.     Of course she knew her power; indeed, he did not, because he could not, conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went up and addressed him, and smiled gayly, encouragingly, even fondly in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, "I love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps me dumb. If I offered my heart, I


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

considered,” I said, removing my measuring tape from my bag, “that I might be more capable than you think? I have written dozens of papers, read hundreds of analyses. I’ve also had numerous firsthand dealings with the Folk, from hobs to bogles to an extremely self-entitled aristocrat.” “I don’t doubt that most of your success to date is the result of cleverness. But have you ever considered how much you owe to luck?” My hand clenched. I finished the measurements without replying—base and canopy. Then I withdrew my field book and began taking notes. I scraped at the snow and found, trapped beneath it, a thin carpet of leaves. As I worked, Bambleby’s grumbling and stomping reached a volume one normally associates with teams of horses. “If you would only tell me what you’re so worried about,” I said calmly. If I am being honest, I was rather enjoying myself. “I can’t,” he said through his teeth. “Can’t or won’t?” “I literally and physically cannot tell you.” “Stop being dramatic.” “I am not,” he said, with the most dramatic groan I have heard him utter. Shadow seemed to take inspiration from his histrionics and whined louder. I turned back to the tree. I could almost hear him stewing. Well, let him. I fetched a pair of metal tweezers from my pack and carefully plucked a leaf from the frost. It was lovely, segmented like a maple and white as the trunk and boughs, though it also had a coating of short white hairs, like some sort of beast. I placed the leaf within a small metal box I habitually use to collect such samples, many of which have found their place in the Museum of Dryadology and Ethnofolklore at Cambridge. Unfortunately, the wind chose that moment to stir the leaves I had uncovered. I leapt aside as quickly as I was able, but one of them brushed my bare fingertips. I felt a shock of cold, as if I had plunged my hand into ice melt. “Dammit,” I muttered. I pressed the coin to my hand immediately, and the pain lessened. “What?” Bambleby said. His hearing is inconveniently sharp. “Nothing. I thought you’d gone, but then I saw that you hadn’t.” “That’s it,” he said. “Shadow, go and collect your suicidal mistress.” I laughed. “Shadow only responds to me. You think—” Shadow burst from the trees and leapt upon me. I fell into a snowbank, and before I even knew what was happening, he had grabbed my cloak in his teeth and was dragging me. “Shadow!” The dog seemed not to hear my shrieks. I slid over snow and roots, and my backside barked painfully against a rock. The land sloped a little towards the river, and with one final tug, Shadow slid me the rest of the way like an ungainly sledge to land in a heap at Bambleby’s feet. I gathered myself, panting. “Shadow!” I snapped, full of fury and betrayal, and he hung his head low, that terrible doggish guilt in every line of his body. But he did


his eyebrows dipping low over his dark eyes. “Where’d she go?” he asked. Io jerked her chin out the window. He turned and left, taking her thread with him. Io had never seen him before, but she knew who he was all the same. Her fate-thread. The boy she was destined to love. CHAPTER II A WRAITH SOFT SNIFFLING SOUNDS were coming from the apartment bathroom. Io leaned her forehead against the door, trying to cast out any thoughts about her fate-thread and the boy on the other end of it—now was not the time. She knocked once, softly. “You can come out now,” she said against the wood. “She’s gone.” The lock screeched, the door inching open. The assistant’s eyes were two wide circles of fear in the shadows of the room, framed by thin eyebrows and hair so blond it was almost white. Nina Panagou, Io remembered from her research, aged twenty-seven, Mr. Magnussen’s assistant for the past eight years. Nina was slumped against the tiled wall, her cheeks streaked with makeup, the long shard of a mirror in her fist. Clever of her; she had smashed the sink mirror to create a makeshift weapon. Io sat on her haunches at the doorframe, eye level with the woman. “Are you all right?” “Is Jarl—” Nina’s gaze flicked left, where the living room lay. Io’s jaw tightened. Certified deliverer of bad news, professional breaker of hearts. “I’m so sorry.” The woman’s eyes watered, her voice growing high and nasal. “She just burst in, out of nowhere. Jarl told me to hide, and I . . .” She trailed off. “Did you recognize her?” Io asked quietly. “Is she someone you or Jarl might know?” Nina was shaking her head. “I didn’t, but she kept talking like she knew Jarl. She kept saying that she could see crimes on him. That crimes demand punishment. What does that even mean?” “I’m not sure,” Io whispered. “Did she say the same thing to you?” “No. She saw me, where I was hiding behind the armchair, but she said only, I cannot punish you, child. Your crimes are not truly yours. Then her attention turned on Jarl. Gods, Jarl.” The woman’s shoulders rattled with sobs, head dropping into her palms. “She was standing across the room, but she was choking him. I’m not sure how—” Guilt shot through Io’s mind. She had little to offer the woman in terms of explanations. A secret rendezvous that had transformed into her beloved’s death at the hands of a terrifying old woman. But Nina hadn’t been a target—she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Io’s own body was still electrified with terror. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what this woman must be going through right now. “The police will be here soon,” she told the woman. “Are you going to be all right with them? I can get you out before they arrive.” In the eyes of the police, there were few innocents in the Silts. All of them had taken up


ballet—their dressing rooms and entrance are on the other side of the building, so we rarely cross paths. They even have their own rehearsal hall. But they’re all quite lovely and nice when we do run into each other. There’s also a choral ensemble, a glee club, sometimes they add in a magician or a comedian. It’s a team effort, and each show goes by really fast, once you know the number.” “All that, and then there’s a movie?” “Crazy, right? But folks eat it right up.” “I don’t think Russell liked my dancing much.” “You stand out, no question.” “I’m not trying to.” “You’ll get it, I promise. It’s only been one day.” “He scares me a little,” she confessed. The girl on the other side of Bunny leaned over. “I remember feeling like that. Russell’s tough in the rehearsal hall but a sweetie outside it. Last year, when I was living in a terrible apartment with a horrible roommate, he found me a new one.” “Apartment or roommate?” asked Bunny. “Both.” The girl who sat on the other side of Marion piped up. “When Dolores’s father died last year, right before she got married, Russell stepped in and walked her down the aisle. He’s there for you, no matter what. Better than my own dad, to be honest.” They all laughed. “Speaking of, how did your father take it?” asked Bunny. Marion didn’t want to talk about it in front of the other girls. “He’s fine,” she lied. “He’s happy for me.” She promised Bunny that she’d meet her in the cafeteria in the basement after the show and then made her way around the building to the front entrance of the theater on Sixth Avenue. She showed the ticket taker the Radio City employee pass that had been handed out at the end of rehearsal to all the new dancers and was ushered inside. The last time she’d been here she’d been a little kid, yet even as an adult the scale of the grand foyer overwhelmed her. She could only imagine what it had been like in 1932 when it first opened. Most theaters in New York were like hoop-skirted maidens from the last century, overly ornamented and full of froth, with flamboyant chandeliers and rococo plasterwork. In contrast, Radio City resembled a Jazz Age siren wearing a silk slip, sleek and elegant. The gold-leafed ceiling rose a good sixty feet up, with two chic cylindrical lighting fixtures that blended in nicely. Six oversized mirrors reflected the airiness of the space, but Marion’s eye was drawn to the huge mural that covered the northern wall where a staircase rose to the mezzanine level. The mural depicted a man on a mountaintop looking up into the sky as cloud-like visions from his life floated by. But the foyer was only the warm-up act. Inside the theater, a deep-red curtain hung from the half circle formed by the stage proscenium, like a burning sun, and from there the walls and ceiling swept out into a series of arches, illuminated in


hangars. I started to

run for my Apache but my bodyguards stopped me.

Way too dangerous.

We heard shouting outside. Make ready! MAKE READY!

We all got into body armor and stood in the doorway to await the next

instructions. As I double-checked my vest and helmet one bodyguard kept

up a constant patter: J knew this was going to happen, I just knew it, I told

everyone, but no one would listen. Shut up, they said, but I told them, I told

them, Harry 8s going to get hurt! Fuck off, they said, and now here we are.

He was a Scot, with a thick burr, and often sounded like Sean Connery,

which was charming under normal circumstances, but now he just sounded

22)

https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.: me/Afghansalarlibrary

like Sean Connery having a panic attack. I cut off his long story about being

an unappreciated Cassandra and told him to put a sock in it.

I felt naked. I had my 9-mm, but my SA80A was locked up. I had my

bodyguards, but I needed my Apache. That was the only place I'd feel safe

—and useful. I needed to rain fire down on our attackers, whoever they

were.

More explosions, louder explosions. The windows flickered. Now we

saw flames. American Cobras came thumping overhead and the whole

building shuddered. The Cobras fired. The Apaches fired. An awesome roar

filled the room. We all felt dread, and adrenaline. But we Apache pilots

were especially agitated, itching to get into our cockpits.

Someone reminded me that Bastion was about the size of Reading. How

could we ever navigate our way from here to the helicopters without a map,

while taking fire?

That was when we heard the all-clear.

The sirens stopped. The thump of rotors faded.

Bastion was secure again.

But at a terrible price, we learned. Two American soldiers were killed.

Seventeen British and American soldiers were injured.

Throughout that day and the next we pieced together what happened.<span


I realize the person approaching is an older woman in dingy coveralls and a flannel shirt. Her wispy gray hair is loose and falls over her face like a veil. In her right hand is something long and slender and double-barreled—a shotgun. Every muscle in my body tenses. I want to run, 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,


de Vries tapped it with her nail. Alice went to the table, examined her own design. A gown with a waist strapped and laced, a fanciful and cloud-like train, shoulders that were mere skeins of thread, slipping off the skin. Something that would ripple when it moved. Something entirely unsuitable for a lady in mourning. Alice reached for the paper, to hide it. “I really shouldn’t have, Madam.” Miss de Vries placed her fist on the table, holding the page in place. “Shouldn’t have what? Imagined something nice for me to wear?” Alice shook her head. “They’re just scribbles, Madam. Silly drawings.” “My dress is ghastly. It won’t do at all—I see that now.” Miss de Vries stepped back. Up close, at this angle, it was perfectly possible for Alice to inspect Madam’s skin, the tiny freckles and wisps of hair on the back of her neck. It made her gentler, more human. “I want something like this. Could you do it?” “Me?” said Alice, in disbelief. “They can help you down at Bond Street, I’m sure,” said Miss de Vries. “I suppose it’s simply a matter of stitching it all together.” She nodded at the sketch. “You’ve got your pattern, after all.” Alice’s mind started ticking, assessing this for problems, for risks. Simply a matter of stitching it together? A dress like that would be a mountain of work, bigger than anything she’d undertaken before. She had the urge to go and seek Mrs. King’s advice. “I’m not sure there’s time, Madam,” she said. Miss de Vries looked straight at her. “You’ll be rewarded handsomely for your efforts, of course.” That settled the matter. 7 Twenty-two days to go There was a haze on the waterfront, a tissue-paper mist. The Thames smelled of brine and coal smoke. Mrs. Bone’s favorite factory sat between the sugar refinery and the India-rubber warehouse, on a road swamped with mud. Men struggled through it, getting swilled like pig food. Mrs. King wondered why they couldn’t take the other path. People should consider all their options, she thought dryly. There was a villa attached to the factory, with high walls around the perimeter, and blood-colored glass in the windows. A wraithlike porter bolted the door behind her when she entered. She unpeeled her gloves. Better to meet this lot bare-skinned, knuckles out. Mrs. Bone was standing in a dim-lit parlor, shutters drawn, drapes drawn, hands on her hips. “This is my inventions room,” she said, raising a warning finger. “No memorizing anything. I’ve got patents. Don’t even try.” Old-fashioned lamps gave the room a rum-colored glow. There were flecks of paint and varnish everywhere, and rifles holstered to the walls. Guns, in all shapes and sizes. A striking choice in decoration. Mrs. King understood this impulse entirely. Mrs. Bone was just making a point. The women were punctual: a good start. Hephzibah raced in like an emu, feathered and beaded, wig bobbing, eyes everywhere. “Good to see you, Hephz,” said Mrs. King, going to embrace her. “Is that a pudding trolley?” Hephzibah exclaimed, snapping her fingers.


to see over his father’s shoulder. Hap’s scowl had deepened. “I’m an android. Do you understand that?” Hap sneered at him. “I’m not s-stupid. I know wh-what I am. I j-just don’t know who.” “The plate,” Dad said. “On your chest. Can I see it?” “Wh-why?” “Because it will show me who you are.” Hap didn’t like that. “Don’t touch me.” “I’m not going to. Not without your permission. I promise.” Hap glanced at Vic before looking back at Dad. “I…” “He will not kill you,” Nurse Ratched said. “Only if you try and hurt one of us.” Vic thought Hap would snap again, or worse, try to run. A complicated expression crossed his face, there and gone again before Vic could even begin to make sense of it. Hap’s shoulders slumped as he curled in on himself, wrapping his arms around his middle. “I’m not going to h-hurt anyone.” Hap flinched when Dad took another step, now within arm’s reach. His mouth twisted down, the lines around his eyes deep and pronounced. He stared at the floor when Dad reached out. True to his word, Dad didn’t touch him; instead, he traced the air a few inches above the metal plate. “H,” he said, tracing a fingertip over the letter before moving on to the next. “A.” Then Dad stiffened, finger shaking. Without looking away from Hap, he began to back away slowly. The lines on Hap’s face returned, his hands curling into fists at his sides. In a low voice, Dad said, “Everyone out. Now.” “Uh-oh,” Rambo whispered. “Why?” Vic asked as Dad bumped into him. “What are you— “D-do you kn-know me?” Hap demanded, taking a step toward them, his stutter becoming more pronounced. He gripped the sides of his head and snarled silently. Vic tried to step around his father. He didn’t know what he meant to do. Pull his father back? Step between them? Something. But before he could figure it out, Dad grabbed him by the arm and pulled him toward the door, Nurse Ratched and Rambo rolling after them. Vic tried to pull his arm away. “Dad, stop. You need to stop. Listen to me, please. He’s not going to hurt us.” Dad shoved him through the ruined doorway. “You have no idea what’s he’s capable of. Go now. He’s—” “Jumped out the window,” Rambo said. They whirled around. The lab was empty. The window was open. They rushed to the landing around the edge of the lab. Below them, Hap rose from a crouch, dust and leaves billowing up around him. He raised his head to stare up at them. “I. D-don’t. Hurt.” And then he took off running into the forest. Dad slammed his hand against the railing. “Dammit. Stay here, all of you.” And then he vaulted over the railing. He hit the ground where Hap had just been standing, knees bent to absorb the impact. He rose swiftly and took off after Hap, beard trailing over his shoulder. “Whoa,” Rambo whispered. “I want to try!” Vic barely managed to keep Rambo


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

afternoon he had to do with my less important papers. Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powers—ambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind together over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions, hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked. Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get this table to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts, bits of pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisite adjustment by final pieces of folded blotting paper. But no invention would answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the table lid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote there like a man using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk:—then he declared that it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he lowered the table to his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then there was a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was, Nippers knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted any thing, it was to be rid of a scrivener’s table altogether. Among the manifestations of his diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits from certain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called his clients. Indeed I was aware that not only was he, at times, considerable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a little business at the Justices’ courts, and was not unknown on the steps of the Tombs. I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the alleged title-deed, a bill. But with all his failings, and the annoyances he caused me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man to me; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient in a gentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed in a gentlemanly sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon my chambers. Whereas with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep him from being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily and smell of eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy in summer. His coats were execrable; his hat not to be handled. But while the hat was a thing of indifference to me, inasmuch as his natural civility and deference,


which Tom had gone pirating in. Then she stopped, with it in her hand, and said to herself: "No, I don't dare. Poor boy, I reckon he's lied about it -- but it's a blessed, blessed lie, there's such a comfort come from it. I hope the Lord -- I know the Lord will forgive him, because it was such --------------------------------------------------------- -194- goodheartedness in him to tell it. But I don't want to find out it's a lie. I won't look." She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. Twice she put out her hand to take the garment again, and twice she refrained. Once more she ventured, and this time she fortified herself with the thought: "It's a good lie -- it's a good lie -- I won't let it grieve me." So she sought the jacket pocket. A moment later she was reading Tom's piece of bark through flowing tears and saying: "I could forgive the boy, now, if he'd committed a million sins!" --------------------------------------------------------- -195- Chapter XX THERE was something about Aunt Polly's manner, when she kissed Tom, that swept away his low spirits and made him light-hearted and happy again. He started to school and had the luck of coming upon Becky Thatcher at the head of Meadow Lane. His mood always determined his manner. Without a moment's hesitation he ran to her and said: "I acted mighty mean to-day, Becky, and I'm so sorry. I won't ever, ever do that way again, as long as ever I live -- please make up, won't you?" The girl stopped and looked him scornfully in the face: "I'll thank you to keep yourself to yourself, Mr. Thomas Sawyer. I'll never speak to you again." She tossed her head and passed on. Tom was so stunned that he had not even presence of mind enough to say "Who cares, Miss Smarty?" until the right time to say it had gone by. So he said nothing. But he was in a fine rage, nevertheless. He moped into the schoolyard wishing she were a boy, and imagining how he would trounce her if she --------------------------------------------------------- -196- were. He presently encountered her and delivered a stinging remark as he passed. She hurled one in return, and the angry breach was complete. It seemed to Becky, in her hot resentment, that she could hardly wait for school to "take in," she was so impatient to see Tom flogged for the injured spelling-book. If she had had any lingering notion of exposing Alfred Temple, Tom's offensive fling had driven it entirely away. Poor girl, she did not know how fast she was nearing trouble herself. The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an unsatisfied ambition. The darling of his desires was, to be a doctor, but poverty had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a village schoolmaster. Every day he took a mysterious book out of his desk and absorbed himself in it at times when no classes were reciting. He kept that book under lock and key. There


the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said, "There is not hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way." We dined at `Jack Straw's Castle' along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o'clock we started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly, but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty, for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us, we found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the daytime, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough, but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns, when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance, when the time-discolored stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life, animal life, was not the only thing which could pass away. Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy's coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew. "What are you going to do?" I asked. "To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced." Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead


Lost Cabin seemed very near. But the path began nowhere and ended nowhere, and it remained mystery, as the man who made it and the reason he made it remained mystery. Another time they chanced upon the time-graven wreckage of a hunting lodge, and amid the shreds of rotted blankets John Thornton found a long-barrelled flint-lock. He knew it for a Hudson Bay Company gun of the young days in the Northwest, when such a gun was worth its height in beaver skins packed flat, And that was all--no hint as to the man who in an early day had reared the lodge and left the gun among the blankets. Spring came on once more, and at the end of all their wandering they found, not the Lost Cabin, but a shallow placer in a broad valley where the gold showed like yellow butter across the bottom of the washing-pan. They sought no farther. Each day they worked earned them thousands of dollars in clean dust and nuggets, and they worked every day. The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge. Like giants they toiled, days flashing on the heels of days like dreams as they heaped the treasure up. There was nothing for the dogs to do, save the hauling in of meat now and again that Thornton killed, and Buck spent long hours musing by the fire. The vision of the short-legged hairy man came to him more frequently, now that there was little work to be done; and often, blinking by the fire, Buck wandered with him in that other world which he remembered. The salient thing of this other world seemed fear. When he watched the hairy man sleeping by the fire, head between his knees and hands clasped above, Buck saw that he slept restlessly, with many starts and awakenings, at which times he would peer fearfully into the darkness and fling more wood upon the fire. Did they walk by the beach of a sea, where the hairy man gathered shell- fish and ate them as he gathered, it was with eyes that roved everywhere for hidden danger and with legs prepared to run like the wind at its first appearance. Through the forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man's heels; and they were alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving and nostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly as Buck. The hairy man could spring up into the trees and travel ahead as fast as on the ground, swinging by the arms from limb to limb, sometimes a dozen feet apart, letting go and catching, never falling, never missing his grip. In fact, he seemed as much at home among the trees as on the ground; and Buck had memories of nights of vigil spent beneath trees wherein the hairy man roosted, holding on tightly as he slept. And closely akin to the visions of the hairy man was the call still


you wanted things to change, Malcolm? I thought you were on our side?” She didn’t mean to sound so wounded. The head librarian took a moment to answer. When he did, it was with a sigh. “Anton will explain,” he said. “Gabe came to him, then they both came to me, and what they told me let me know that we have to work together.” Lore scowled. Next to her, another Presque Mort shackled Bastian, but the Sun Prince stayed silent, staring at the floor. An hour later, and that silence still held. In that hour, she’d observed that they both handled betrayal differently. Lore iced over, letting no emotion cross her face. Bastian, by contrast, cycled between looking like he might attempt to pull the iron ring out of the floor with his bare hands, and looking like he’d just lost a friend. She supposed he had, in a way. The thing between her and Gabe and Bastian wasn’t friendship, not really—it was both deeper and less complicated than that, somehow, a primal knot none of them could untie. Gabe’s betrayal stung, but in a way, it also felt inevitable. “I’m sorry, Lore,” Bastian murmured. Her brows knit. “Sorry for what?” “If Gabe betraying me feels this bad,” he said to his bound hands, “then I can’t imagine how it feels for you, when you care for him the way you do.” “I don’t care for him like… like anything.” It came out breathy, not enough power behind the words to make them a truth or a lie. They just hung there. The door opened. Both of them looked up. Anton and Gabe, as expected, and Malcolm with them. The librarian darted a quick, furtive look at Lore, apprehension coiled in his expression. The Presque Mort parted, revealing another figure behind them. Severin Bellegarde. “Well then,” Bastian said, sitting back in his chair with a clanking of chain. “It seems like everything we theorized is true. But what do you get out of war, Severin? Money? You’ve already got more houses than family members, and your style of dress makes it clear you care nothing for current fashion—” “No one wants a war, Bastian.” Anton had changed out of his robes and into the close, dark clothing he’d worn the day of the leak, matching Gabe and Malcolm. He sat down at the table and crossed his arms, looking suddenly like a much younger man despite the gray shock of his hair. “That is, in fact, precisely what we’re trying to prevent.” We. Apparently meaning him and Bellegarde. Bastian’s eyes slid to Lore’s, the same realization hitting them both—the door to the chamber was closed. No one else was coming. And August wasn’t here. Bellegarde watched the thought spark on their faces, a thin smile creasing his dour face. “The only person trying to start a war is August,” he said. “And we are not in accord.” “My brother believes we are on the same side, but we haven’t been. Not for a long time.” Anton shifted on the table, rested