shoulder. Her movement woke Lalhar, who twitched her nose and climbed on to the daybed to curl up with Siyu. Tunuva left them both to sleep. Lukiri yawned in her arms, smelling of roses and milk. Tunuva gave her scalp a gentle kiss as she descended. The pang came, as it always did, but it was softer than she had feared. She knew exactly how Saghul would want to remove the difficulty of Anyso. Siyu was supposed to have killed him. He had known too much as soon as he saw a girl in the depths of the Lasian Basin. If there was another way, Tunuva had failed to think of it. ‘Explain to me how this happened, Alanu. Explain it as if I am one of the children.’ Imsurin was holding a grey cloak, glaring at one of the older boys. ‘Brother, we were low on clothing soap,’ Alanu was saying, his tone earnest, ‘so I thought I would try—’ ‘You must forgive my ignorance, Alanu. I was under the foolish impression that you had something to do with maintaining our supplies. Are we usually graced by a soap divinity?’ ‘I hate to interrupt,’ Tunuva said. They both turned. ‘This child will need changing soon.’ ‘Alanu will be pleased to oblige,’ Imsurin said curtly. Alanu dipped his head to Tunuva, leaving with a sigh. ‘Is she fed, Tuva?’ ‘A full belly.’ Tunuva handed the baby to him. ‘Siyu has named her Lukiri.’ ‘Lukiri is a fine name.’ Imsurin turned his grandchild towards him with practised ease. ‘Denag says Siyu is well in body and mind.’ ‘I think she is. She may wish to use longhorn milk.’ ‘I will prepare some,’ he said. Lukiri hiccupped. ‘Do you know if the Prioress is any better?’ ‘There has been no change, as far as I know. Esbar will keep you abreast of her condition.’ Imsurin nodded, his brow knitting into deeper lines. ‘I wish you well on your travels, Tunuva,’ he said. ‘May the Mother watch over you.’ ‘And you, Imin.’ Tunuva made her way back up the stairs. In the scullery, the older men were hard at work cooking the midday meal, filling the corridors with the smells of milk-rubbed bread and lamb stew. ‘Hello, Tunuva.’ She stopped at the sound of that full-toned voice. Canthe stood at the end of the corridor. Tunuva almost turned away. Canthe had been so kind when she wept, embracing her without question or judgement. Showing such vulnerability to a stranger had left her feeling naked and shaken. ‘Canthe. Are you all right?’ Tunuva said, with reserve. ‘This floor is for the men and children.’ ‘A mark of my predicament. I’m afraid I keep getting lost,’ Canthe admitted. ‘There are so many rooms.’ Tunuva softened. ‘No one has shown you the Priory?’ ‘No.’ That would not do. ‘Then I will,’ Tunuva said. ‘Come. We can share a loaf of hot bread.’ **** They visited almost every room. Tunuva took Canthe into the War Hall, the armoury – the walls glinted with hundreds of weapons – and the


We had come to a point where a narrow grassy path struck off from the road and wound away across the moor. A steep, boulder-sprinkled hill lay upon the right which had in bygone days been cut into a granite quarry. The face which was turned towards us formed a dark cliff, with ferns and brambles growing in its niches. From over a distant rise there floated a gray plume of smoke. "A moderate walk along this moor-path brings us to Merripit House," said he. "Perhaps you will spare an hour that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to my sister." My first thought was that I should be by Sir Henry's side. But then I remembered the pile of papers and bills with which his study table was littered. It was certain that I could not help with those. And Holmes had expressly said that I should study the neighbours upon the moor. I accepted Stapleton's invitation, and we turned together down the path. "It is a wonderful place, the moor," said he, looking round over the undulating downs, long green rollers, with crests of jagged granite foaming up into fantastic surges. "You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious." "You know it well, then?" "I have only been here two years. The residents would call me a newcomer. We came shortly after Sir Charles settled. But my tastes led me to explore every part of the country round, and I should think that there are few men who know it better than I do." "Is it hard to know?" "Very hard. You see, for example, this great plain to the north here with the queer hills breaking out of it. Do you observe anything remarkable about that?" "It would be a rare place for a gallop." "You would naturally think so and the thought has cost several their lives before now. You notice those bright green spots scattered thickly over it?" "Yes, they seem more fertile than the rest." Stapleton laughed. "That is the great Grimpen Mire," said he. "A false step yonder means death to man or beast. Only yesterday I saw one of the moor ponies wander into it. He never came out. I saw his head for quite a long time craning out of the bog-hole, but it sucked him down at last. Even in dry seasons it is a danger to cross it, but after these autumn rains it is an awful place. And yet I can find my way to the very heart of it and return alive. By George, there is another of those miserable ponies!" Something brown was rolling and tossing among the green sedges. Then a long, agonized, writhing neck shot upward and a dreadful cry echoed over the moor. It turned me cold with horror, but my companion's nerves seemed to be stronger than mme. "It's gone!" said he. "The mire has him. Two in two days, and many more, perhaps, for


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

too, because you feel that the host, too, may be the body and blood of the son of God and not a wafer of bread? And because you fear that it may be? --Yes, Stephen said quietly, I feel that and I also fear it. --I see, Cranly said. Stephen, struck by his tone of closure, reopened the discussion at once by saying: --I fear many things: dogs, horses, fire-arms, the sea, thunder-storms, machinery, the country roads at night. --But why do you fear a bit of bread? --I imagine, Stephen said, that there is a malevolent reality behind those things I say I fear. --Do you fear then, Cranly asked, that the God of the Roman catholics would strike you dead and damn you if you made a sacrilegious communion? --The God of the Roman catholics could do that now, Stephen said. I fear more than that the chemical action which would be set up in my soul by a false homage to a symbol behind which are massed twenty centuries of authority and veneration. --Would you, Cranly asked, in extreme danger, commit that particular sacrilege? For instance, if you lived in the penal days? --I cannot answer for the past, Stephen replied. Possibly not. --Then, said Cranly, you do not intend to become a protestant? --I said that I had lost the faith, Stephen answered, but not that I had lost self-respect. What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent? They had walked on towards the township of Pembroke and now, as they went on slowly along the avenues, the trees and the scattered lights in the villas soothed their minds. The air of wealth and repose diffused about them seemed to comfort their neediness. Behind a hedge of laurel a light glimmered in the window of a kitchen and the voice of a servant was heard singing as she sharpened knives. She sang, in short broken bars: Rosie O'Grady. Cranly stopped to listen, saying: --MULIER CANTAT. The soft beauty of the Latin word touched with an enchanting touch the dark of the evening, with a touch fainter and more persuading than the touch of music or of a woman's hand. The strife of their minds was quelled. The figure of a woman as she appears in the liturgy of the church passed silently through the darkness: a white-robed figure, small and slender as a boy, and with a falling girdle. Her voice, frail and high as a boy's, was heard intoning from a distant choir the first words of a woman which pierce the gloom and clamour of the first chanting of the passion: --ET TU CUM JESU GALILAEO ERAS. And all hearts were touched and turned to her voice, shining like a young star, shining clearer as the voice intoned the proparoxytone and more faintly as the cadence died. The singing ceased. They went on together, Cranly repeating in strongly stressed rhythm the end of the refrain: And when we are


a red zone despite plenty of legal parking across the street. Before Langdon could ask what was going on, she was out of the car. She hurried to the window of the taxi in front of them and began speaking to the driver. As Langdon got out of the SmartCar, he saw Sophie hand the taxi driver a big wad of cash. The taxi driver nodded and then, to Langdon's bewilderment, sped off without them. "What happened?" Langdon demanded, joining Sophie on the curb as the taxi disappeared. Sophie was already heading for the train station entrance. "Come on. We're buying two tickets on the next train out of Paris." Langdon hurried along beside her. What had begun as a one-mile dash to the U.S. Embassy had now become a full-fledged evacuation from Paris. Langdon was liking this idea less and less. 101 CHAPTER 34 The driver who collected Bishop Aringarosa from Leonardo da Vinci International Airport pulled up in a small, unimpressive black Fiat sedan. Aringarosa recalled a day when all Vatican transports were big luxury cars that sported grille-plate medallions and flags emblazoned with the seal of the Holy See. Those days are gone. Vatican cars were now less ostentatious and almost always unmarked. The Vatican claimed this was to cut costs to better serve their dioceses, but Aringarosa suspected it was more of a security measure. The world had gone mad, and in many parts of Europe, advertising your love of Jesus Christ was like painting a bull's-eye on the roof of your car. Bundling his black cassock around himself, Aringarosa climbed into the back seat and settled in for the long drive to Castel Gandolfo. It would be the same ride he had taken five months ago. Last year's trip to Rome, he sighed. The longest night of my life. Five months ago, the Vatican had phoned to request Aringarosa's immediate presence in Rome. They offered no explanation. Your tickets are at the airport. The Holy See worked hard to retain a veil of mystery, even for its highest clergy. The mysterious summons, Aringarosa suspected, was probably a photo opportunity for the Pope and other Vatican officials to piggyback on Opus Dei's recent public success-the completion of their World Headquarters in New York City. Architectural Digest had called Opus Dei's building "a shining beacon of Catholicism sublimely integrated with the modern landscape," and lately the Vatican seemed to be drawn to anything and everything that included the word "modern." Aringarosa had no choice but to accept the invitation, albeit reluctantly. Not a fan of the current papal administration, Aringarosa, like most conservative clergy, had watched with grave concern as the new Pope settled into his first year in office. An unprecedented liberal, His Holiness had secured the papacy through one of the most controversial and unusual conclaves in Vatican history. Now, rather than being humbled by his unexpected rise to power, the Holy Father had wasted no time flexing all the muscle associated with the highest office in Christendom. Drawing on an unsettling tide of liberal support within


Caroline subsequent mortification, but it was beyond my ability to explain things as well as Atticus, so I said, "You're shamin' him, Miss Caroline. Walter hasn't got a quarter at home to bring you, and you can't use any stovewood." Miss Caroline stood stock still, then grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back to her desk. "Jean Louise, I've had about enough of you this morning," she said. "You're starting off on the wrong foot in every way, my dear. Hold out your hand." I thought she was going to spit in it, which was the only reason anybody in Maycomb held out his hand: it was a time-honored method of sealing oral contracts. Wondering what bargain we had made, I turned to the class for an answer, but the class looked back at me in puzzlement. Miss Caroline picked up her ruler, gave me half a dozen quick little pats, then told me to stand in the corner. A storm of laughter broke loose when it finally occurred to the class that Miss Caroline had whipped me. When Miss Caroline threatened it with a similar fate the first grade exploded again, becoming cold sober only when the shadow of Miss Blount fell over them. Miss Blount, a native Maycombian as yet uninitiated in the mysteries of the Decimal System, appeared at the door hands on hips and announced: "If I hear another sound from this room I'll burn up everybody in it. Miss Caroline, the sixth grade cannot concentrate on the pyramids for all this racket!" My sojourn in the corner was a short one. Saved by the bell, Miss Caroline watched the class file out for lunch. As I was the last to leave, I saw her sink down into her chair and bury her head in her arms. Had her conduct been more friendly toward me, I would have felt sorry for her. She was a pretty little thing. 3 Catching Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me some pleasure, but when I was rubbing his nose in the dirt Jem came by and told me to stop. "You're bigger'n he is," he said. "He's as old as you, nearly," I said. "He made me start off on the wrong foot." "Let him go, Scout. Why?" "He didn't have any lunch," I said, and explained my involvement in Walter's dietary affairs. Walter had picked himself up and was standing quietly listening to Jem and me. His fists were half cocked, as if expecting an onslaught from both of us. I stomped at him to chase him away, but Jem put out his hand and stopped me. He examined Walter with an air of speculation. "Your daddy Mr. Walter Cunningham from Old Sarum?" he asked, and Walter nodded. Walter looked as if he had been raised on fish food: his eyes, as blue as Dill Harris's, were red-rimmed and watery. There was no color in his face except at the tip of his nose, which was moistly pink. He fingered the straps of his overalls, nervously picking at


food fight Okay, we all know the traditional marriage vows: better and worse, sickness and health, having and holding. When I got married in 2016, standing on the deck of the crumbling farmhouse I had already filled with half my earthly belongings, I was fully prepared to love and cherish my rich or poor wife until death parted us and all the other fine print love forces you to submit yourself to when deciding to legally bind yourself to another person until you both die clutching the deed to a house you couldn’t pay off, suffocated under a pile of overdue credit card bills and scratch-off lottery tickets. Kirsten and I didn’t do premarital counseling because, honestly, I prefer to be emotionally reckless and irresponsible but also? We’re fine. We are a combined 173 years old! We’re both women!! What could truly go wrong? Besides, what do they talk to you about in therapy? Managing joint finances? Setting goals? Whether to buy a human child if the urge to procreate ever arises? Those things, I can navigate. No one ever sits you down to soberly talk to you about sharing your grown-up kitchen with another person! I lived in blissful solitude for a long time. From eighteen to thirty-five, and you learn a lot about yourself and what you require for life when it’s just you that you have to think about. You don’t have to pretend to love soaking nuts and beans or dragging butternut squashes up three flights of stairs at the end of a long workday and then trying to figure out how to turn them into something resembling a delicious dinner. You can buy frozen fish sticks and eat them directly from the cookie sheet you never really scrub all the way clean while sitting six inches from a television tuned to whatever the fuck you want that is turned all the way up. It doesn’t matter if the tartar sauce makes it back to its shelf, because no one else is gonna see it. When my lady and I met, my kitchen was that of a feral teen, stocked equally with things you’re not supposed to buy as a responsible, bill-paying adult and with ingredients I’d purchased to make one specific dish at some point in history but then never found another way to use again. Packs of ramen noodles jostled for real estate against half-flattened tubes of herb paste that I’d used one squeeze of in some long-forgotten recipe, once and never again. My single-person refrigerator was a gleaming beacon of order: one carton of broth, a few bottles of good beer in case someone came over, maybe a jar of fancy mustard, and possibly a lone slice of leftover pizza. I bought things as I needed them. I used the precise amount the recipe called for, then I left the refrigerator mostly empty so that there would always be room for the next thing. I was a busy single person who did most of my food shopping at a place where the cigarettes were next


off-topic and the meeting devolved into partisan bickering. Kelly was the first Trump lieutenant to brief the group, and Democrats in particular were still coming to terms with a whiplash White House. Trump’s preposterous travel ban; his denial of Russian election interference; an obsession with a hulking concrete “border wall”; already frosty relations with Congress; and his apparent disregard for his own cabinet. Republicans jumped in to defend the president, though most barely knew the man. Kelly calmly told the representatives that everything was copacetic. There was an adjustment period in every new administration, and President Trump was taking the advice of his team. The general understood the importance of this assurance. Skeptics of Trump were only comforted by the hope that the businessman would somehow assemble a credible cabinet, a group of grown-ups who would provide stability in the executive branch. Then another topic came up. Days earlier the administration had made a cryptic announcement that carry-on laptops would be banned on certain flights to the United States from several Middle Eastern countries. What was happening? Members of Congress demanded to know, reminding John Kelly that we were sitting in a secure environment and could discuss sensitive issues. For the first time, Kelly looked uncomfortable. He demurred, offering up only the fact that the decision was based on “evaluated intelligence” that he hoped to share at the appropriate time. A buzzer screeched from behind the members of Congress and lights flashed on a wall clock. It was time for votes on the House floor. The meeting was over. As the room cleared, I waited for Kelly. I told him that he had handled the back-and-forth well. “You still on board?” he asked with a grin. “Yes, sir. But you spooked me on the way in,” I joked. “About that…” The secretary’s smile faded. He lowered his voice. “I want you to know something. I swore an oath to protect this country against enemies foreign and domestic. Foreign and domestic, Miles. You’ll be doing the same by joining my team. Take it as seriously as a heart attack, okay?” “Yes, sir, of course,” I affirmed. Kelly waited a beat before his face lit up again. He reminded me that I had one day of freedom left. “Don’t fuck it up.” The secretary disappeared down the hall followed by staff, agents with earpieces, and a military aide carrying a black briefcase, leaving only silence in his wake. I closed up the briefing room by punching in a code, sealing the vault-like door, and spinning the lock. The hallways were empty. The House was a vacuum that hoovered up bodies from around the Capitol when it was time to vote. I headed that direction, returning aboveground through a maze of passageways, staircases, and elevators, thinking about what the general had said. Foreign and domestic. PART II The American system was designed to prevent a tyrant (or, more specifically, a would-be king) from becoming president. With the heavy-handed British monarchy fresh in their minds, the Founders wrapped a protective layer around the U.S. executive branch.


by yourself?” “Yes.” Mrs. King stood there for a long time, staring down at the tombstone. The breeze pulled on her skirts and from a distance it made her appear almost small, like a little girl. Alice had to turn away. Afterward they walked together through the graves. “I’m going abroad,” Alice said. “Good,” said Mrs. King. There was a calmness about her. “I might need to do the same.” “I mean, really abroad. To America, if I can manage it. To take in the latest fashions.” “You can manage it.” Mrs. King looked at her seriously. “You can do anything you like.” Alice considered very carefully what she wanted to say. “I wish Mother had been able to see the ocean,” she said. “I wish she’d been able to do anything at all.” The thought carried its own pain: dull, right in the center of the chest, immovable. Mrs. King nodded, lips pressed together. Evidently, she felt it, too. “Shall we write to one another?” Alice said. Mrs. King stopped. Straightened her cuffs. “Would you like that?” Alice laughed, feeling her nerves. “I don’t know. We’re family. I suppose we ought to be in touch.” Mrs. King reached out and touched her on the arm. “Write if you want to,” she said. Alice kissed Mrs. King gently on the cheek. Her sister didn’t feel like marble anymore. She had warm skin, warm as any other human’s, warm as Alice’s own. “You’re marvelous,” she said, solemnly, meaning it. Mrs. King laughed, startled. “Heavens,” she said. “I’m not.” Something shifted in her expression, something dark. “How can I be? Knowing who I come from?” She meant her father. Alice hesitated. The women were skirting around it, avoiding it. This topic felt too enormous, too dangerous, to discuss. They were both waiting for Mrs. King to set it out for them, explain what it meant, tell them what they were supposed to think. And yet she hadn’t done so. She seemed to have turned inward, growing fretful, as if there were something constantly on her mind. Alice was still trying to compose the right reply when Mrs. King pulled away. Her eyes were on the gravestones behind Alice. A small temple had been erected there, a flashy memorial. “What is it?” Alice said. Mrs. King closed her eyes. “I need to see Mr. Shepherd.” 41 Winnie had to tell the conductor to stop at her station. It was hardly a station at all—it was more like a halt. The train would have steamed right through otherwise. It took nearly two hours to get there from London. “I want the slow train,” she told them in the ticket office. She wanted to watch the countryside unfolding at its own pace. She wanted to be sure that she’d picked the right spot. She took a seat in a first-class carriage. Important journeys deserved suitable investment. They also deserved expensive millinery. I can’t make a good hat, she told herself stolidly, but I can buy one. She purchased a slanted-cartwheel hat with magenta tips, a big boxy


experienced a moment's panic as he sailed straight through towards the window, which passed when a second or so later he found he had gone right through the solid glass without apparently touching it. No one in the room remarked on his peculiar arrival, which is hardly surprising as he wasn't there. He began to realize that the whole experience was merely a recorded projection which knocked six-track seventy-millimetre into a cocked hat. The room was much as Slartibartfast had described it. In seven and a half million years it had been well looked after and cleaned regularly every century or so. The ultramahagony desk was worn at the edges, the carpet a little faded now, but the large computer terminal sat in sparkling glory on the desk's leather top, as bright as if it had been constructed yesterday. Two severely dressed men sat respectfully before the terminal and waited. "The time is nearly upon us," said one, and Arthur was surprised to see a word suddenly materialize in thin air just by the man's neck. The word was Loonquawl, and it flashed a couple of times and the disappeared again. Before Arthur was able to assimilate this the other man spoke and the word Phouchg appeared by his neck. "Seventy-five thousand generations ago, our ancestors set this program in motion," the second man said, "and in all that time we will be the first to hear the computer speak." "An awesome prospect, Phouchg," agreed the first man, and Arthur suddenly realized that he was watching a recording with subtitles. "We are the ones who will hear," said Phouchg, "the answer to the great question of Life ...!" "The Universe ...!" said Loonquawl. "And Everything ...!" "Shhh," said Loonquawl with a slight gesture, "I think Deep Thought is preparing to speak!" There was a moment's expectant pause whilst panels slowly came to life on the front of the console. Lights flashed on and off experimentally and settled down into a businesslike pattern. A soft low hum came from the communication channel. "Good morning," said Deep Thought at last. "Er ... Good morning, O Deep Thought," said Loonquawl nervously, "do you have ... er, that is ..." "An answer for you?" interrupted Deep Thought majestically. "Yes. I have." The two men shivered with expectancy. Their waiting had not been in vain. "There really is one?" breathed Phouchg. "There really is one," confirmed Deep Thought. "To Everything? To the great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything?" "Yes." Both of the men had been trained for this moment, their lives had been a preparation for it, they had been selected at birth as those who would witness the answer, but even so they found themselves gasping and squirming like excited children. "And you're ready to give it to us?" urged Loonquawl. "I am." "Now?" "Now," said Deep Thought. They both licked their dry lips. "Though I don't think," added Deep Thought, "that you're going to like it." "Doesn't matter!" said Phouchg. "We must know it! Now!" "Now?" inquired Deep Thought. "Yes! Now ..." "Alright,"


(really?). Georgina Sepulveda, a physics superstar whose work I’ve been stanning for years (I choose to think she collaborated with Jack under duress and donated all proceedings to the local animal shelter). After a minute, I come across the elusive George— George Green. He’s on two low-impact articles—both recent, both with Jack. There’s next to no online trace of him, but he just finished his postdoc at Harvard and posts on physics subreddits under his real name. “Seriously?” This guy’s being interviewed? Whatever strings Jack had to pull, I’m going to cut them one by one with my poultry shears. His mediocre love child doesn’t stand a chance— My phone rings. I jolt and immediately pick up—Greg. Finally. “Hey! I—” “I need your help.” I swallow a groan. “Hi, Mom.” I’ve made a lethal mistake. “The situation is dire. You need to rein in your brothers.” After two and a half decades of APE, I can safely state that the Elsie my mom wants is a droid. She’s powerful, mobile, financially soluble. She successfully quenched her earthly needs and lives in a state of perennial prosperity. Her main purpose is to score prestige points when Aunt Minnie brags about her son who almost finished law school. Her secondary purpose? To intervene when two idiots decide to embark on months-long feuds over stuff that, historically, has included: who gets the front seat in the car who deserves the piece of cake with the frosting bootie at Cousin Jenna’s baby shower who’s taller (they are identical twins) who’s more handsome (see above) whose birth year, according to the Guinness World Records book, has more recorded python attacks (see above!) who gets to pick the dog’s name (we never had pets) This is a noncomprehensive list. Over the years, the feuds have become more rabid, Dad more absent, Mom more reliant on me for cleanups. “You can’t be your family’s janitorial staff,” Cece tells me once a week, but I do my best to make Mom happy, even though of all the Elsies people want, hers is the fakest—and the one with deepest roots. I have, after all, cursed my way into it, tirelessly and painstakingly. “How are you, Mom—” “Overwhelmed. Lucas and Lance are at it again. Almost came to fists after their soccer game.” “Over the result?” “Over Dana.” I rub my temple. “They both agreed to stop dating her.” “They did. But Dana needed a ride somewhere.” “Who did she call?” “Lucas. Lance slashed his tire. The neighbors are starting to talk. You need to stop them.” “I did, Mom. Two weeks ago. A month ago. Three months ago.” I’ve been holding a series of conflict mediation seminars in my parents’ basement. They mostly consist of me reminding my brothers that murder is illegal. “Well, do it again. Come over tomorrow.” I physically cringe. “I’m sorry. It’s not possible.” “Why?” “I—” No. No I statements. Too personal. “This is a stressful, busy time. The semester just started and . . .” Do I tell her? I shouldn’t. But maybe she’ll want to


a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected.'' From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's long letter; but now, having _that_ to communicate which she knew would be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as follows: ``I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done, for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars; but to say the truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed. But _now_ suppose as much as you chuse; give a loose to your fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again and again, for not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it! Your idea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the Park every day. I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas. Your's, &c.'' Mr. Darcy's letter to Lady Catherine was in a different style; and still different from either was what Mr. Bennet sent to Mr. Collins, in reply to his last. ``DEAR SIR, I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon be the wife of Mr. Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can. But, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give. Your's sincerely, &c.'' Miss Bingley's congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere. She wrote even to Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her former professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was affected; and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing her a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved. The joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information, was as sincere as her brother's in sending it. Four sides of paper were insufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of being loved by her sister. Before any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations to Elizabeth from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the Collinses were come themselves to Lucas lodge. The reason of this sudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered


any fear, just because a kid can tell when a grown-up doesn’t like them. The contempt some adults have for children is a frightening thing to be aware of as a kid. But that year, contempt turned to cruelty. Puberty had started to encroach that summer, and I wasn’t about to ask my dad to buy me a training bra, so I wore bulky sweaters and loose T-shirts most of the time. Oscar noticed—not out of desire, but because he had a new stick to jab in my side when he felt bored. “What are you smuggling under there? Apples?” “Looks more like a couple of cherry pits.” “Did a bee sting you?” “Ooh, little Naomi’s a woman now. You bleeding yet?” If Cody was there, he’d jostle Oscar’s shoulder. “Shut up, man. She’s just a kid. Jesus.” Dad told me to laugh it off. Think of something clever to say in return. Cass told me to ignore it, that he didn’t mean anything by it. Anyone else who overheard tended to chuckle—That Oscar, such a rascal, but such a good boy at heart. Cody was the only one who ever acted like it was Oscar who ought to change his behavior. I put my head down and ignored him. Day after day. Until that day. Sweat sticking my shirt to my back under the sweatshirt I wore to try to hide the slight swell of my breasts. I had Persephone’s knucklebone in my pocket like a talisman and Cass’s instructions on my mind. “Today, we must make an offering of a particular sort. Something taken, not given. Something of value. That means it has to cost money, but you can’t pay for it.” Eyes sparking with mischief. “Go forth, Artemis. Fetch the offering for the Queen.” I’d stolen about a hundred Snickers bars from Marsha, but perishables were a no-go. We’d decided that after the initial offerings of bread and milk made the Grotto smell like, as Cass said, “a football player’s ass crack.” So it had to be something else. Something with meaning. Marsha kept a little rack of cheap bracelet charms by the register. I nipped in, paid for the Snickers for once, and pocketed a silver dolphin the size of my pinky nail. Even then I was good at lying. I spent forever counting out coins and shuffled off like I was embarrassed to have to scrounge for the last five cents, and Marsha was so exasperated she never noticed what I’d taken. I came around the side of the building, away from the road—the fastest way back to the trail that would get me close to Persephone—and Oscar was there. He had a cigarette pinched between his fingers, the glowing end ready to kiss his fingertips if he took another drag. He flicked it onto the ground and looked at me with hooded, lazy eyes. “Got milk?” he asked, and laughed at his own shitty joke. I started past him. “Come on, little girl. I didn’t mean anything by it.” “Fuck off, Oscar,” I said. It was


window that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking of my spine; in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when she did she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The post-chaise stopped, the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman alighted, attired in a traveling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.     "How provoking!" exclaimed Miss Ingram; "you tiresome monkey!" (apostrophizing Adle) "who perched you up in the window, to give false intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.     Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present.     "It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam;" said he, "when my friend Mr. Rochester is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to install myself here till he returns."     His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual not precisely foreign, but still not altogether English; his age might be about Mr. Rochester's between thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow; otherwise he was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination you detected something in his face that displeased; or rather, that failed to please. His features were regular, but too relaxed; his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant life at least so I thought.     The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till after dinner that I saw him again; he then seemed quite at his ease. But I liked his physiognomy even less than before; it struck me as being at the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering; this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly; there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape; no firmness in that aquiline nose, and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank brown eye.     As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the girandoles on the mantel-piece beaming full over him for he occupied an arm-chair, drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the rough-coated, keen-eyed dog, its guardian.     He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as


was on him or on me. Fran said, “You know I love how you never give up on people, but it’s kind of hilarious that your way of breaking up involves him still living in your house.” “Well, next door.” “So the upshot is,” she said, “you’re single?” “Essentially. Married but single.” “It’s funny that my marriage is more traditional than yours.” I hadn’t told her about Yahav, maybe because I didn’t want to jinx it. Yahav was skittish and unpredictable, a handsome Israeli bunny rabbit, equally likely to drive straight here as to vanish into the woods forever. I’d texted him from the airport that afternoon: As warned, I’ve invaded New England. He texted back only an exclamation point. I had not yet been sleeping with Yahav when I split from Jerome, but his friendship then had been a helpful reminder that not everyone was tired of me, not everyone blamed me for the weather. Yahav had enormous, warm hands. He had dark stubble so thick it consumed his chin and neck, more darkness than light, more night sky than stars. Anne returned and we poured new drinks and the evening turned to a sort of retroactive gossip session. (Wait, remember Dani Michalek? Remember how she tried to pierce her own nose and it got so infected? Yeah, and she had to go home for a month. We were paired for lab and I didn’t do a thing. She hated me. Me too. Whatever happened to her? Didn’t I tell you? She’s a Lutheran minister!) Anne’s encouraging laughter, her bewildered questions, egged us on. If she hadn’t been there, we might’ve said “Remember the Kurt shrine?” and left it at that. But with Anne present, we wound up describing for her sake (and really each other’s) the elaborate shrine we’d built to Kurt Cobain in the woods junior year, and tended from the time he overdosed and was hospitalized (early March, when we wore thick gloves to tack cutout magazine photos to the frozen tree) to the time he died by suicide in April. By then other people knew about the shrine, and the day after his body was discovered, Fran and I found messages and more magazine photos and a Mylar heart balloon and what looked like a leftover Spring Dance corsage stuck to the tree as well. “We were so in love with him,” I said, and then it occurred to me that Fran probably hadn’t been, actually. “Or I was.” “Oh, I loved him,” Fran said. She was drunker than me. “But I was in love with Courtney. Kurt was my beard.” Dessert was caramelized bananas with vanilla ice cream—Anne still sober enough to manage things at the stove, to ignore our demands that she light the bananas on fire—and the more into arcane details we got, and the more lost but patient Anne was, the more hilarious everything became. I was always my funniest self around Fran, or at least she found me funny. We met in world history our freshman year, and didn’t talk at first,


walking exercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly found power at intervals. Each day he grew stronger and could walk more steadily and cover more ground. And each day his belief in the Magic grew stronger--as well it might. He tried one experiment after another as he felt himself gaining strength and it was Dickon who showed him the best things of all. "Yesterday," he said one morning after an absence, "I went to Thwaite for mother an' near th' Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth. He's the strongest chap on th' moor. He's the champion wrestler an' he can jump higher than any other chap an' throw th' hammer farther. He's gone all th' way to Scotland for th' sports some years. He's knowed me ever since I was a little 'un an' he's a friendly sort an' I axed him some questions. Th' gentry calls him a athlete and I thought o' thee, Mester Colin, and I says, `How did tha' make tha' muscles stick out that way, Bob? Did tha' do anythin' extra to make thysel' so strong?' An' he says 'Well, yes, lad, I did. A strong man in a show that came to Thwaite once showed me how to exercise my arms an' legs an' every muscle in my body. An' I says, `Could a delicate chap make himself stronger with 'em, Bob?' an' he laughed an' says, 'Art tha' th' delicate chap?' an' I says, `No, but I knows a young gentleman that's gettin' well of a long illness an' I wish I knowed some o' them tricks to tell him about.' I didn't say no names an, he didn't ask none. He's friendly same as I said an' he stood up an' showed me good-natured like, an' I imitated what he did till I knowed it by heart." Colin had been listening excitedly. "Can you show me?" he cried. "Will you?" "Aye, to be sure," Dickon answered, getting up. "But he says tha' mun do 'em gentle at first an' be careful not to tire thysel'. Rest in between times an' take deep breaths an' don't overdo." "I'll be careful," said Colin. "Show me! Show me! Dickon, you are the most Magic boy in the world!" Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went through a carefully practical but simple series of muscle exercises. Colin watched them with widening eyes. He could do a few while he was sitting down. Presently he did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied feet. Mary began to do them also. Soot, who was watching the performance, became much disturbed and left his branch and hopped about restlessly because he could not do them too. From that time the exercises were part of the day's duties as much as the Magic was. It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results that but for the basket Dickon put down behind the bush each morning when he arrived they


this time?" "Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gather up whatever pickins we've overlooked in the state- rooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better 'n killin' of him. I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git aroun' it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?" "Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she DON'T break up and wash off?" "Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we?" "All right, then; come along." So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "Jim !" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says: "Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their boat we can put ALL of 'em in a bad fix -- for the sheriff 'll get 'em. Quick -- hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and --" "Oh, my lordy, lordy! RAF'? Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke loose en gone I -- en here we is!" CHAPTER XIII. WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd GOT to find that boat now -- had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too -- seemed a week be- fore we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he could go any further -- so scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a


people. We're on an uninhabited island with no other people on it." Jack broke in. "All the same you need an army--for hunting. Hunting pigs--" "Yes. There are pigs on the island." All three of them tried to convey the sense of the pink live thing struggling in the creepers. "We saw--" "Squealing--" "It broke away--" "Before I could kill it--but--next time!" Jack slammed his knife into a trunk and looked round challengingly. The meeting settled down again. "So you see," said Ralph, "We need hunters to get us meat. And another thing." He lifted the shell on his knees and looked round the sun-slashed faces. "There aren't any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves." The meeting hummed and was silent. "And another thing. We can't have everybody talking at once. We'll have to have 'Hands up' like at school." He held the conch before his face and glanced round the mouth. "Then I'll give him the conch." "Conch?" "That's what this shell's called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he's speaking." "But--" "Look--" "And he won't be interrupted: Except by me." Jack was on his feet. "We'll have rules!" he cried excitedly. "Lots of rules! Then when anyone breaks 'em--" "Whee--oh!" "Wacco!" "Bong!" "Doink!" Ralph felt the conch lifted from his lap. Then Piggy was standing cradling the great cream shell and the shouting died down. Jack, left on his feet, looked uncertainly at Ralph who smiled and patted the log. Jack sat down. Piggy took off his glasses and blinked at the assembly while he wiped them on his shirt. "You're hindering Ralph. You're not letting him get to the most important thing." He paused effectively. "Who knows we're here? Eh?" "They knew at the airport." "The man with a trumpet-thing--" "My dad." Piggy put on his glasses. "Nobody knows where we are," said Piggy. He was paler than before and breathless. "Perhaps they knew where we was going to; and perhaps not. But they don't know where we are 'cos we never got there." He gaped at them for a moment, then swayed and sat down. Ralph took the conch from his hands. "That's what I was going to say," he went on, "when you all, all. . . ." He gazed at their intent faces. "The plane was shot down in flames. Nobody knows where we are. We may be here a long time." The silence was so complete that they could hear the unevenness of Piggy's breathing. The sun slanted in and lay golden over half the platform. The breezes that on the lagoon had chased their tails like kittens were finding their way across the platform and into the forest. Ralph pushed back the tangle of fair hair that hung on his forehead. "So we may be here a long time." Nobody said anything. He grinned suddenly. "But this is a good island. We--Jack, Simon and me-- we climbed the mountain. It's wizard. There's food and drink, and--" "Rocks--" "Blue flowers--" Piggy, partly recovered, pointed


hear and to communicate. ``_You_ began the evening well, Charlotte,'' said Mrs. Bennet with civil self-command to Miss Lucas. ``You were Mr. Bingley's first choice.'' ``Yes; -- but he seemed to like his second better.'' ``Oh! -- you mean Jane, I suppose -- because he danced with her twice. To be sure that _did_ seem as if he admired her -- indeed I rather believe he _did_ -- I heard something about it -- but I hardly know what -- something about Mr. Robinson.'' ``Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson; did not I mention it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him how he liked our Meryton assemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many pretty women in the room, and _which_ he thought the prettiest? and his answering immediately to the last question -- "Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet beyond a doubt, there cannot be two opinions on that point."'' ``Upon my word! -- Well, that was very decided indeed -- that does seem as if -- but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know.'' ``_My_ overhearings were more to the purpose than _yours_, Eliza,'' said Charlotte. ``Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he? -- Poor Eliza! -- to be only just _tolerable_.'' ``I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his ill-treatment; for he is such a disagreeable man that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he sat close to her for half an hour without once opening his lips.'' ``Are you quite sure, Ma'am? -- is not there a little mistake?'' said Jane. -- ``I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her.'' ``Aye -- because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he could not help answering her; -- but she said he seemed very angry at being spoke to.'' ``Miss Bingley told me,'' said Jane, ``that he never speaks much unless among his intimate acquaintance. With _them_ he is remarkably agreeable.'' ``I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was; every body says that he is ate up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise.'' ``I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long,'' said Miss Lucas, ``but I wish he had danced with Eliza.'' ``Another time, Lizzy,'' said her mother, ``I would not dance with _him_, if I were you.'' ``I believe, Ma'am, I may safely promise you _never_ to dance with him.'' ``His pride,'' said Miss Lucas, ``does not offend _me_ so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, every thing in his favour, should think


that.” “Yes, you are. Your lines are always straight.” Annette’s bathroom was an arsenal of anti-aging devices meant to relax wrinkles, promote elasticity, and restore youthful glow. A plastic mask loomed next to the mirror like a prop from a horror movie. Plucking the patches from under her eyes, Annette sat on the toilet lid. The skin between her brows was now perfectly smooth from the injections she got every few months, her forehead and cheeks burnished by lasers. She’d erased the furrows of her grief, but they were still there, under the surface, carved into her cells. Maud drew liner on Annette’s eyelids. Despite all the men she dated, her sister was still married. And to a ghost. Lanky and gap-toothed, Dale had been a delivery room nurse with a passion for baseball and guitar and, more than anything, Annette. When they were growing up, he had always been at their house in Burlingame, the brother Maud wished their real brother, Kevin, would have been: gentle and supportive and kind. His laughter was a train leaving the station, slow at first, then so loud and forceful that it picked you up and made you laugh too. Ten years ago, when Dale and Annette had finally visited England, Maud stayed up late with them in the Monk’s House orchard, talking and laughing, the girls curled up in sleeping bags on the grass. Annette casually mentioned on that trip that Dale had a weird-looking mole on his foot but that he wouldn’t listen to her about going to the doctor. A year later, he was a skeleton draped in parchment skin. On their Christmas visit to California, Ella said, “Is Uncle Dale going to die?” when Maud tucked her into bed. In April, he did. Maud had grieved through her grandparents’ deaths, but Dale’s death was a horror. He’d been so young and alive. Even now she could see his jaundiced, hollowed-out face in that hospital bed, and the devastation in her sister’s eyes. “Look up,” Maud said now, teasing a mascara wand along Annette’s lashes as Ella came into the room. “Perfect,” Annette said once she’d examined the results in a hand mirror. She hopped off the toilet. “Help me decide what to wear tonight,” she told Ella. In the bedroom, three red dresses lay on the bed, necklaces lying on invisible necks, earrings lined up to invisible ears, matching shoes in invisible feet on the floor. “The red one,” Ella said. Annette air-smacked her. “Very funny. Long, short, or fitted? Pumps, heels, silver, or gold?” “Short, heels, gold,” Ella said. “You could have asked me,” Maud told Annette. “No offense, but look what you’re wearing.” “It’s Marin boho,” Ella said. “What’s that?” Maud said. “Did you make that up?” “It’s what all the moms wear,” Ella said. “You’re the only one who actually does something besides Pilates in those clothes.” Maud was glad that Ella had become lighthearted enough to mock her. And maybe that had almost been a compliment? After dinner in Peter’s study, she debriefed him on the session


in the room, and _which_ he thought the prettiest? and his answering immediately to the last question -- "Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet beyond a doubt, there cannot be two opinions on that point."'' ``Upon my word! -- Well, that was very decided indeed -- that does seem as if -- but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know.'' ``_My_ overhearings were more to the purpose than _yours_, Eliza,'' said Charlotte. ``Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he? -- Poor Eliza! -- to be only just _tolerable_.'' ``I beg you would not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his ill-treatment; for he is such a disagreeable man that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he sat close to her for half an hour without once opening his lips.'' ``Are you quite sure, Ma'am? -- is not there a little mistake?'' said Jane. -- ``I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her.'' ``Aye -- because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he could not help answering her; -- but she said he seemed very angry at being spoke to.'' ``Miss Bingley told me,'' said Jane, ``that he never speaks much unless among his intimate acquaintance. With _them_ he is remarkably agreeable.'' ``I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was; every body says that he is ate up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise.'' ``I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long,'' said Miss Lucas, ``but I wish he had danced with Eliza.'' ``Another time, Lizzy,'' said her mother, ``I would not dance with _him_, if I were you.'' ``I believe, Ma'am, I may safely promise you _never_ to dance with him.'' ``His pride,'' said Miss Lucas, ``does not offend _me_ so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, every thing in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a _right_ to be proud.'' ``That is very true,'' replied Elizabeth, ``and I could easily forgive _his_ pride, if he had not mortified _mine_.'' ``Pride,'' observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, ``is a very common failing I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonimously. A person may be proud without being


it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star. ADVENTURE VI. THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man. One night--it was in June, '89--there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment. "A patient!" said she. "You'll have to go out." I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day. We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-colored stuff, with a black veil, entered the room. "You will excuse my calling so late," she began, and then, suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife's neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. "Oh, I'm in such trouble!" she cried; "I do so want a little help." "Why," said my wife, pulling up her veil, "it is Kate Whitney. How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when you came in." "I didn't know what to do, so l came straight to you." That was always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house. "It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?" "Oh, no, no! I want the doctor's advice and help, too. It's about Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about him!" It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband's trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion. We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it possible that we could bring him back to her? It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late


^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 14 Although Molly's death is hardly noticed by the world at large, Eliot says, it seems to have a purpose, setting off a chain of events that will affect many people. One of the first changes is in Silas. His decision to keep the child makes the villagers more sympathetic to him than ever. As before, Dolly Winthrop personifies the best of Raveloe behavior, bringing a pile of baby clothes and helping give the baby a bath. Silas' and Dolly's religions seem more in tune with each other now. Dolly believes heavenly spirits brought the child to Silas. Silas believes the child came from an unknown place, the same one where his gold disappeared--he links the two events in a pattern. Dolly agrees, with her almost pagan belief in the rhythms of nature and the great mysterious workings of fate. Dolly offers to help care for the baby. Silas, still a miser, is determined to do everything, to keep the baby's love for himself. But he is willing to let Dolly, an experienced mother, teach him the "mysteries" of child care. ("Mystery" here means "sacred rites" as well as "unknown questions.") One piece of advice she gives him troubles him, though. She insists he bring the child into the church. Dolly believes in christening the same way she believes in giving children their shots ("noculation")--to protect them from every possible harm. Silas is baffled because he doesn't know the word "christening" (in Lantern-Yard it was called "baptism"). As he speaks of his own religion in a low voice, he still seems bitter. But he agrees to do whatever is good for the child. As he thus moves beyond his own interests, his memory is reawakened. He decides to name the baby Hepzibah, after his mother and sister--though Dolly suggests he shorten it to Eppie. She wishes Silas good luck--which she says comes to anyone who does the right deeds. Since no one knows whether Eppie's been baptized, the rector has to decide which is riskier--possibly baptizing her twice, or possibly not baptizing her at all. (Remember Mr. Macey's concern over the Lammeter's wedding ceremony?) He decides to baptize her, and Silas goes to church for the ceremony. With the spirit of faith dead inside him, he can't interpret what's going on, but he goes for Eppie's sake. NOTE: GOLD Eliot compares Eppie to the gold that she has replaced in Silas' life. The gold is hidden and cold, but Eppie is associated with nature, sunlight, growing things, and bird songs. While the gold carried his thoughts inward, Eppie forces them outward. While the gold isolated him, Eppie demands ties to other people. The gold made him blind and deaf, but Eppie awakens his senses. To carry this beyond metaphor, Eliot shows Silas and Eppie actually going out into the sunshiny day, picking flowers in a meadow, listening to birds. Eliot suggests that Silas is like an insect--an old fly, sluggish after a long winter, who now basks in the spring sunshine. Out in the meadow with Eppie, Silas


this picture?” Carter nods. He’s sobered up in the past few minutes, likely from a combination of coffee and confession. Although what he’s confessing is far from what I expected. “I started working here because I needed to know.” “Know what?” “If I’m Lenora Hope’s grandson.” “I still don’t understand,” I say. “On Christmas morning in 1929, a baby was left at the front door of the Episcopal church in town,” Carter says. “The baby was freezing, barely alive. Because it was Christmas, the priest who found him got to the church earlier than normal. If he’d arrived even a few minutes later, the baby would have died. That’s why the church called it a Christmas miracle.” “That baby,” I say. “He was—” Carter, like me, can’t stop looking at the picture of Lenora. “My father, yeah. He was adopted by a young couple at the church who couldn’t have children. My grandparents. My father never tried to find out who his birth parents were, mostly because he had no idea where to start looking. Besides, he was literally abandoned. Why bother trying to find someone who didn’t want you? So my birth grandparents remained a mystery. Until Tony found this photo.” “Why did he think your grandmother is Lenora?” “Because of the date,” Carter says, tapping the photo. “How many months pregnant does she look to you?” I peer again at the picture. “Six?” “That’s what I thought, too. Which means her ninth month would have been—” “Around Christmas,” I say. “Exactly.” Carter doesn’t elaborate, nor does he need to. Since there’s no child of Lenora’s living at Hope’s End—nor even a mention of one—I assume the baby either died during childbirth or was given up for adoption. “And you think Ricardo Mayhew’s the father,” I say. “That’s what Mary thought,” Carter says, confirming what I already knew—that Lenora told Mary everything. And that Mary shared at least some of it with Carter. He tips back his coffee cup and empties it. “It makes sense, too. In fact, it’s the only reason I could see for Ricardo killing the rest of Lenora’s family. He was a married man caught in an affair with Winston Hope’s older daughter. Either they didn’t approve and he killed them out of spite, or they demanded he make an honest woman out of Lenora and he killed them to get away.” “And it’s why he spared Lenora,” I add. “She was pregnant with his child.” And, I suspect, it’s why Lenora’s been covering for him all this time. “Anyway, that’s why I started working here,” Carter says. “It’s stupid, but I thought that if I saw Lenora—if we came face-to-face—I’d know.” “That’s not stupid at all,” I say, thinking about my mad urge to stare into Lenora’s eyes, hoping that doing so would give me some small insight into my own life. “I guess it didn’t help once you did see her.” “Not really. There’s no resemblance that I saw. But it also doesn’t mean we’re not related.” I finally take a seat at the other


Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for some one. But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something else. She did not know what it was, because at first she could scarcely distinguish it from the wind itself. It was a curious sound--it seemed almost as if a child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the wind sounded rather like a child crying, but presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away, but it was inside. She turned round and looked at Martha. "Do you hear any one crying?" she said. Martha suddenly looked confused. "No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes it sounds like as if some one was lost on th' moor an' wailin'. It's got all sorts o' sounds." "But listen," said Mary. "It's in the house--down one of those long corridors." And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere downstairs; for a great rushing draft blew along the passage and the door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash, and as they both jumped to their feet the light was blown out and the crying sound was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly than ever. "There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some one crying--and it isn't a grown-up person." Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it they both heard the sound of a door in some far passage shutting with a bang, and then everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased "wutherin'" for a few moments. "It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly. "An' if it wasn't, it was little Betty Butterworth, th' scullery-maid. She's had th' toothache all day." But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary stare very hard at her. She did not believe she was speaking the truth. CHAPTER VI "THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING--THERE WAS!" The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and cloud. There could be no going out today. "What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked Martha. "Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered. "Eh! there does seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered woman but she gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out in th' cow-shed and plays there. Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet. He goes out just th' same as if th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't show when it's fair weather. He once found


are a funny one," chuckled the inspector. "Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable figure." "Well, I don't know why not," said the inspector. "He doesn't look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?" He slipped his key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The sleeper half turned, and then settled down once more into a deep slumber. Holmes stooped to the waterjug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the prisoner's face. "Let me introduce you," he shouted, "to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of Lee, in the county of Kent." Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man's face peeled off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. Then suddenly realizing the exposure, he broke into a scream and threw himself down with his face to the pillow. "Great heavens!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the missing man. I know him from the photograph." The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons himself to his destiny. "Be it so," said he. "And pray what am I charged with?" "With making away with Mr. Neville St.-- Oh, come, you can't be charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of it," said the inspector with a grin. "Well, I have been twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake." "If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally detained." "No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said Holmes. "You would have done better to have trusted you wife." "It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner. "God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My God! What an exposure! What can I do?" Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him kindly on the shoulder. "If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up," said he, "of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the papers. Inspector Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The case would then never go into court at all." "God bless you!" cried the prisoner


windshield wipers keep up their steady rhythm and wonder if it’s not too late to turn back, have the driver pull off at the next exit. Piper sits primly next to me, hands in her lap. When we hit traffic going through Riverdale, she apologizes. “It’s not your fault,” I say. “I’m just so glad you’re coming. It’s going to be a terrific evening. Did you come back for any of the other anniversaries?” “No. I’ve been too busy.” “Of course. I’ve been following your career since I started dancing. Your very first job was as a Rockette, right?” I realize the best way to evade further questions is to ask them myself. I learn that Piper started dancing when she was five, somewhere in Florida, and she prefers ballet to tap, and modern above both. “Did you ever audition for the Rockettes?” I ask. She looks down, cowed. “I went to the open call for auditions the first year I came to New York, in the hopes that I could sneak in. But I’m too short. They measured me as soon as I walked in the door; I didn’t even get a chance to dance.” “Did you end up dancing anywhere else?” She shakes her head. “I was so embarrassed after being told to leave that I pretty much gave up trying.” “How old are you?” “Twenty-one.” “You’re still young. Audition for something else. Anything. A commercial, a national tour. If you want to dance, you can’t let anyone stop you. I know that from experience.” “I’m fine working behind the scenes these days. Not long after my audition, I saw this job in the newspaper, as an assistant to the events coordinator, and it’s been a lot of fun. The offices are right in Radio City, so I feel like I’m part of it all.” The words come out thin. She’s miserable in this job, too sensitive. If she’s this hesitant with me, I can only imagine what it’s like when she’s tasked with handling a demanding celebrity. I feel the need to cheer her up. “Have you seen Roxy’s ghost around the theater yet?” “Yes!” She claps her hands together. “Well, I didn’t see him exactly. I was up in the viewing room giving some VIPs a tour just a couple of months ago. You know where that is, right?” I squint, as if that will help me remember. But then I do. “Next door to the projector room, at the very back of the theater?” “Yes. I was telling them all about Roxy, how he was this larger-than-life impresario who convinced Russell Markert to bring his dance troupe first to his Roxy Theatre and later to Radio City Music Hall, and suddenly all the lights in the room went out. I’m sure it was him, and I tell you, it was spooky. Did you ever encounter him?” “I didn’t, but my friend Bunny said one time she saw a man escorting a beautiful woman down one of the hallways. When she turned the corner, they’d completely disappeared.” I


eat and drink, and show me where to sleep; and many a woman, Mas'r Davy, as has had a daughter of about Em'ly's age, I've found a-waiting fur me, at Our Saviour's Cross outside the village, fur to do me sim'lar kindnesses. Some has had daughters as was dead. And God only knows how good them mothers was to me!' It was Martha at the door. I saw her haggard, listening face distinctly. My dread was lest he should turn his head, and see her too. 'They would often put their children - particular their little girls,' said Mr. Peggotty, 'upon my knee; and many a time you might have seen me sitting at their doors, when night was coming in, a'most as if they'd been my Darling's children. Oh, my Darling!' Overpowered by sudden grief, he sobbed aloud. I laid my trembling hand upon the hand he put before his face. 'Thankee, sir,' he said, 'doen't take no notice.' In a very little while he took his hand away and put it on his breast, and went on with his story. 'They often walked with me,' he said, 'in the morning, maybe a mile or two upon my road; and when we parted, and I said, "I'm very thankful to you! God bless you!" they always seemed to understand, and answered pleasant. At last I come to the sea. It warn't hard, you may suppose, for a seafaring man like me to work his way over to Italy. When I got theer, I wandered on as I had done afore. The people was just as good to me, and I should have gone from town to town, maybe the country through, but that I got news of her being seen among them Swiss mountains yonder. One as know'd his servant see 'em there, all three, and told me how they travelled, and where they was. I made fur them mountains, Mas'r Davy, day and night. Ever so fur as I went, ever so fur the mountains seemed to shift away from me. But I come up with 'em, and I crossed 'em. When I got nigh the place as I had been told of, I began to think within my own self, "What shall I do when I see her?"' The listening face, insensible to the inclement night, still drooped at the door, and the hands begged me - prayed me - not to cast it forth. 'I never doubted her,' said Mr. Peggotty. 'No! Not a bit! On'y let her see my face - on'y let her beer my voice - on'y let my stanning still afore her bring to her thoughts the home she had fled away from, and the child she had been - and if she had growed to be a royal lady, she'd have fell down at my feet! I know'd it well! Many a time in my sleep had I heerd her cry out, "Uncle!" and seen her fall like death afore me. Many a time in my sleep had I raised her up, and


of a heartbeat. The flux generator was a complex and massive device that employed advanced principles of physics to create a powerful field capable of disrupting the spacetime fabric in its vicinity. It was a technology pilfered from a now long-destroyed neighboring alien society. Lu-puk was certain the tech was beyond the current level of human understanding. From a visual standpoint, the flux generator was an imposing sight, held within a massive subterranean compartment. Entering the space he was instantly assaulted by fluctuating waves of heat. Rising five stories overhead, the glowing superstructure, even after seeing it many times, took Lu-puk’s breath away. It consisted of a central core surrounded by a series of concentric rings. The rings were made up of a complex array of materials that allowed the generator to harness and manipulate energy from the surrounding environment. The central core housed a series of advanced control systems that regulated the flow of energy and maintained the stability of the generator. The principle behind the generator was the concept of flux, which is the flow of energy or matter through a surface. In this case, the generator created a flux field that altered the local spacetime curvature. This allowed the generator to manipulate the properties of the space around it, including gravity and electromagnetism. Powerful electromagnetic fields surrounded the central core, and one should be wary of getting too close. By altering the intensity and direction of the flux fields, the generator could control the properties of surrounding space and matter—namely, in this case, interloper warships. He stared at the massive, slowly rotating and pulsing device. It was this miraculous contraption that enabled his species to rule Liquilid space. First of all, the quantum flux generator would make it impossible for enemy ships to generate wormholes, initiate quantum jumps, or even utilize quantum transport systems. Second, it was capable of sending tendrils of flux energy deep into the galaxy. Thin lines of quantum energy that, when encountering a wormhole, could divert its intended destination, bringing ships to this remote, deep space system. Here, the Liquilids could absorb potential new technologies and, if worthwhile, enslave a crew species. And if, by chance, their flesh was tasty … all the better. For a thousand years the process had worked successfully. And for the last two hundred years, their sensor capacities had been able to read every technology of every ship they had captured. So why can’t I read Portent’s auxiliary propulsion system? “Officer on deck!” The alert bellowed into neural implants throughout the compartment. Most crew didn’t stop what they were doing. Their jobs required concentrated attention to their posts, thus giving them an excuse not to respond with the same obligatory reactions as other base personnel. A nearby apprentice of some sort, on the other hand, was already sliding along on his belly to greet him. Off in the distance, a pair of female engineers had stopped what they were doing and were slowly meandering across the deck with little enthusiasm. Lu-puk ignored the apprentice, but as the first of the


sun, and trotted off with a merry laugh, mocking my cau- tious counsel to avoid galloping and come back early. The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea. One traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned; but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in any direction. I dispatched emissaries down this path and that path, and at last went wandering in search of her myself. There was a labourer working at a fence round a plan- tation, on the borders of the grounds. I inquired of him if he had seen our young lady. "I saw her at morn," he replied. "She would have me to cut her a hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder, where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight." You may guess how I felt at hearing this news. It struck me directly she must have started for Peniston Crags. "What will become of her?" I ejaculated, push- ing through a gap which the man was repairing, and making straight to the highroad. I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no Catherine could I detect far or near. The Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr. Heathcliff's place, and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear night would fall ere I could reach them. "And what if she should have slipped in clambering among them," I reflected, "and been killed or broken some of her bones?" My suspense was truly painful; and at first it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled head and bleeding ear. I opened the wicket and ran to the door, knocking vehemently for admittance. A woman whom I knew, and who formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered. She had been servant there since the death of Mr. Earnshaw. "Ah," said she, "you are come a-seeking your little mistress! Don't be frightened. She's here safe; but I'm glad it isn't the master." "He is not at home, then, is he?" I panted, quite breathless with quick walking and alarm. "No, no," she replied; "both he and Joseph are off, and I think they won't return this hour or more. Step in and rest you a bit." I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself in a little chair that had been her mother's when a child. Her hat was hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home, laughing and chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Hare- ton---now a great, strong lad of eighteen---who stared at her with considerable curiosity and astonishment, comprehending precious little of the fluent succession of remarks and questions which her tongue never ceased pouring forth. "Very well, miss!" I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry countenance. "This is your last ride till papa comes back. I'll


were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own delicately-scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little ill-famed tavern near the Docks, which, under an assumed name, and in disguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he had brought upon his soul, with a pity that was all the more poignant because it was purely selfish. But moments such as these were rare. That curiosity about life that, many years before, Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as they sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase with gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them. Yet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to society. Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each Wednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the world his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the day to charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His little dinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were noted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited, as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with its subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver. Indeed, there were many, especially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw, in Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often dreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of the real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and perfect manner of a citizen of the world. To them he seemed to belong to those whom Dante describes as having sought to "make themselves perfect by the worship of beauty." Like Gautier, he was one for whom "the visible world existed." And, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the arts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation. Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment universal, and Dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert the absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for him. His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that he affected from time to time, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of the Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in everything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of his graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies. For, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost immediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a subtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the London of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of


wore a square black cap with a silver badge on it. Their bodies, from throat to ankle, were hidden by black cloaks which bore a long silver cross on the left breast and each neck was finished off with a hambone frill. The heat of the tropics, the descent, the search for food, and now this sweaty march along the blazing beach had given them the complexions of newly washed plums. The boy who controlled them was dressed in the same way though his cap badge was golden. When his party was about ten yards from the platform he shouted an order and they halted, gasping, sweating, swaying in the fierce light. The boy himself came forward, vaulted on to the platform with his cloak flying, and peered into what to him was almost complete darkness. "Where's the man with the trumpet?" Ralph, sensing his sun-blindness, answered him. "There's no man with a trumpet. Only me." The boy came close and peered down at Ralph, screwing up his face as he did so. What he saw of the fair-haired boy with the creamy shell on his knees did not seem to satisfy him. He turned quickly, his black cloak circling. "Isn't there a ship, then?" Inside the floating cloak he was tall, thin, and bony; and his hair was red beneath the black cap. His face was crumpled and freckled, and ugly without silliness. Out of this face stared two light blue eyes, frustrated now, and turning, or ready to turn, to anger. "Isn't there a man here?" Ralph spoke to his back. "No. We're having a meeting. Come and join in." The group of cloaked boys began to scatter from close line. The tall boy shouted at them. "Choir! Stand still!" Wearily obedient, the choir huddled into line and stood there swaying in the sun. None the less, some began to protest faintly. "But, Merridew. Please, Merridew . . . can't we?" Then one of the boys flopped on his face in the sand and the line broke up. They heaved the fallen boy to the platform and let him lie. Merridew, his eyes staring, made the best of a bad job. "All right then. Sit down. Let him alone." "But Merridew." "He's always throwing a faint," said Merridew. "He did in Gib.; and Addis; and at matins over the precentor." This last piece of shop brought sniggers from the choir, who perched like black birds on the criss-cross trunks and examined Ralph with interest. Piggy asked no names. He was intimidated by this uniformed superiority and the offhand authority in Merridew's voice. He shrank to the other side of Ralph and busied himself with his glasses. Merridew turned to Ralph. "Aren't there any grownups?" "No." Merridew sat down on a trunk and looked round the circle. "Then we'll have to look after ourselves." Secure on the other side of Ralph, Piggy spoke timidly. "That's why Ralph made a meeting. So as we can decide what to do. We've heard names. That's Johnny. Those two--they're twins, Sam 'n Eric. Which is


to wait and bide my time. That I would most likely have to wait until things got bad, when Dacre tried to take the town. And so that’s what I did. I lived on the outskirts, but I kept watch over you. I saw you that afternoon, in the garden with Kitt.” Iris flushed. Her brother had seen her on Roman’s lap, kissing him. She had no idea what she thought about it. “I know he means a great deal to you, Iris,” Forest whispered. “And I’m sorry, Little Flower. I’m sorry I couldn’t save him as I saved you. But I need you to understand that it took every fiber within me to desert, to defy Dacre’s command. It took everything within me to run to safety with you.” He met her gaze. Iris glanced away, unable to withstand the pain in his eyes. “It wasn’t your choice to fight for Dacre?” she asked. “No.” “I … I still don’t understand, Forest. I received news that you had been wounded, but evacuated in time. That you were fighting with another company of Enva’s.” “Part of that is true,” Forest replied. “I was wounded at Lucia River, so badly that I was supposed to die in the Meriah infirmary. I held on for days, but was too weak to be evacuated, and when Dacre came to take Meriah … he healed me before I died. He held me by the debt of my life, and I had no choice but to fight for him.” The words chilled her. They suddenly spun strange thoughts in her mind. Images of Roman, wounded. Struggling to breathe in the cloud of gas that had swarmed him in the field. Would she rather him dead or taken by the enemy? “I’ve done things, Iris,” Forest continued, bringing her back to the present. “I’ve done things that I can barely live with. And I know you may want to leave me. I can see it in your eyes; you want to find Kitt and your other friends. But I need you. I’m asking you to stay here with me, where it’s safe.” She nodded, even though her heart was sinking. “I won’t leave you, Forest.” He closed his eyes, relieved. He looked like he had aged an entire decade. She caught a fleeting glimpse of him as an old man, worn and weathered and somber. “Get some sleep, brother,” she said. “We can talk more tomorrow.” She rose and left Forest on the sofa. The very place he had once slept before the war, when he was a horologist’s apprentice with bright eyes and a quick laugh and bear hugs that always made Iris feel better after a hard day. She took a candle and retreated to her bedroom, leaning against the door for a moment. She had to drop these fears about Roman, captured. Roman, dead. Roman, suffering. She had to have faith, and she needed to sleep. She needed her mind sharp and her body rested so she could forge a new plan to find her


and he shook his head. “We were finishing the picture when I accepted the second truth about Wilhelm Ewers: that he had no limits.” The cat had wandered back toward the rattan couch and now jumped on it, giving Tristán an irritated look. López petted the animal absentmindedly. “The spell for the movie had complicated components. There were six runes that were to appear in the credits at the beginning of the film and then at the end. There was the silver nitrate and the dubbing that would have to happen in post-production. Ewers also mentioned blood, to cement the runes, as a sort of binding agent. We killed a chicken every two weeks we were shooting, one for each rune. Then there was the last rune that would flash on screen. I was the one who had obtained the chickens for the other ceremonies we had, so I asked Ewers if I should go to the market, get the chickens. He told me there was no need for it: for the final rune we’d use the blood of a man.” “Like your leeches?” Tristán asked. “No. He said there were many homeless people in the city and no one would miss one from a corner. I thought he might be joking. Ewers exaggerated and lied to suit his purposes. But then he looked me straight in the eye and said: ‘You knew it would come to this.’ ” López took a deep breath. “He was right, I did know.” Tristán, who had been standing up until this moment, sat down and gripped the arms of his chair. “He was going to murder someone?” “I believe he’d killed before and he’d kill again.” “He did, in Europe,” Montserrat said, remembering Ewers’s dead associate, from whom he’d purloined documents and a fresh identity. “It was in his letter. He thought it gave him power.” Before that, there had been Ewers’s father, who had been left behind to perish. Ewers didn’t write of other deaths in his letter, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t killed more people. He thought himself better than everyone else, an Übermensch surrounded by untermenschen. Across the ages she had read something cold and calculating in his gaze: only I matter, that was what Ewers’s photos said. “You didn’t mention a murder,” Tristán told her. “You carry his book in your purse, you pin his photos to your wall—” “I need to understand,” Montserrat said angrily. “What? That he was a murderous, mean little man who thought the Holocaust was cool?” No, the spell. She wanted to understand how the pieces of Ewers’s magic fit together, the same as she might want to know how you transferred data between sequencers or how you record a FSK sync tone. There was an awkward silence. Tristán sat there, smoldering, while López simply looked tired. “How could you be sure Alma would kill him?” Montserrat asked instead of replying to Tristán. “We planned it. The whole of it,” López said. “He was sick and tired at that point, and he depended on me


seared his sister’s neck with an iron because she broke a china set. “Rashidi, stop, let’s walk, jàre. My rent money must be complete this year.” Rashidi slapped the back of Sàámú’s head. “I will take care of you, and you too, Ẹniọlá. I will pay for everybody.” Ẹniọlá expected him to pay the fare for three of the six people who would board the taxi. Four in the back and two in front, shoulders, arms or sleeves hanging out of all the windows. Instead Rashidi insisted that they wait until an empty one came by, and they could all sit comfortably, in the way the vehicles had been designed. Rashidi beside the driver, Ẹniọlá and Sàámú in the back. When the driver tried to pick up another passenger, Rashidi slipped him enough money to cover the fare for six people. The taxi rattled as it went along. It had to be restarted several times during the trip. There was no key or ignition, just two wires that the driver rubbed together until the engine hiccupped and the car lurched ahead. They managed to arrive at the stop closest to the market just in time. Ojúde Ọwá was right opposite the stop, part of a complex that included the city hall and bordered Ọwá’s Palace and the market. By the time they got out of the taxi, Ẹniọlá’s heart was going so fast, he was surprised he could not hear it slamming against his rib cage. He was not afraid. What he felt was excitement. Trembling with anticipation as they walked towards Ojúde Ọwá, he slipped his hand in his pocket and gripped the knife. In only a few days, he had gone from walking sideways to feeling calmed when he rubbed the knife’s leather sheath. A platform had been set up in Ojúde Ọwá, next to the wall that bordered the market. Speakers blared Salawa Abeni. A lorry was parked by the small gate that led to the market. Holy Michael stood by the lorry, yelling at the driver who was trying to open it up. When he spotted the boys, he glared at them. “Is it now that you are supposed to arrive?” Holy Michael yelled. “Did you crawl here on your bare buttocks?” “No sir,” Ẹniọlá said. “We took a taxi.” A jab in his rib from Rashidi or Sàámú, he couldn’t tell which, told Ẹniọlá he had made a mistake. “You took a taxi, àbí? A taxi? Answer me, you with the big mouth, are you deaf?” “Y-Yes sir.” Although he did not dare look away from the man who was advancing on him, he could sense that Rashidi and Sàámú were no longer standing by him. “So why are you just getting here? Why?” “We’re not late sir, we are here on time—” He moved his head just in time as Holy Michael’s fist lunged towards his face, and he felt nothing of the intended blow except the man’s knuckle grazing his ear. He ducked as another punch flew towards his face, jumped so a kick grazed


always laden with finished outfits that needed to be ironed. There were two benches in the corridor for customers, but if a customer was particularly rich or valuable, Aunty Caro took her across the hall into her own living room. Sometimes she let Ẹniọlá sit in there, snug in one of the fat armchairs, his notebook on his lap as he finished his homework. Now and then she would come in and look over his shoulder, squinting at his pen as it moved across the page, hands on her hips even though they both knew she could not read what he was writing. During the first month of Ẹniọlá’s apprenticeship, Aunty Caro taught him how to measure and cut. She assigned him to a sewing machine next to her and showed him how to make stitches. But when the last day of that month arrived and his parents did not pay his apprenticeship fee, she called him aside and explained that she could not continue training him. She understood that his father didn’t have a job, but nobody was giving her threads and needles for free either. Did he see what she was saying, ehn? He could keep coming to Time Wait for No 1 after school to learn a thing or two, but she was not going to teach him anything that involved a sewing machine unless his parents paid her. Aunty Caro had three apprentices who had actually paid their apprenticeship fee. Fúnkẹ́, the oldest and most senior, had been under Aunty Caro’s tutelage for two years now and had a year to go before she got her freedom. Accredited by Aunty Caro to be a bona fide tailor, she would be able to join the Union of Tailors and open her own tailoring shop. Maria and Ṣèyí had started their training just a few months before Ẹniọlá, but because they had actually paid for it, they knew much more than he did. They could now sew skirts, ìró, bùbá and the occasional boubou from start to finish without asking Aunty Caro to help with anything. This meant that they got to send him on errands, since whatever he was helping out with could be delayed, whereas they were making something that a client would wear. Sometimes he pretended not to hear them when they asked him to go buy cold drinks and chips. Unlike Aunty Caro and Fúnkẹ́, they never left some of their Coke or Fanta in the bottle for him to enjoy. Ṣèyí and Maria would drink every single drop, then ask him to return their empty bottles and bring back the change that was being held until the bottles were returned. They did this even when they were not actually sewing anything, as if he was their servant. Ṣèyí was not even older than him. She had been his classmate until JSS3 when she became pregnant and was expelled from school because, as Mr. Bísádé told the assembly, her presence would corrupt the school’s moral fibre. And though Mr. Bísádé did not mention it, everyone knew