comes, and if the audience laughs, don't blame me. Come on, Meg." "Then things went smoothly, for Don Pedro defied the world in a speech of two pages without a single break. Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect. Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and Hugo died in agonies of remorse and arsenic, with a wild,"Ha! Ha!" "It's the best we've had yet," said Meg, as the dead villain sat up and rubbed his elbows. "I don't see how you can write and act such splendid things, Jo. You're a regular Shakespeare!" exclaimed Beth, who firmly believed that her sisters were gifted with wonderful genius in all things. "Not quite," replied Jo modestly. "I do think THE WITCHES CURSE, an Operatic Tragedy is rather a nice thing, but I'd like to try McBETH, if we only had a trapdoor for Banquo. I always wanted to do the killing part. `Is that a dagger that I see before me?" muttered Jo, rolling her eyes and clutching at the air, as she had seen a famous tragedian do. "No, it's the toasting fork, with Mother's shoe on it instead of the bread. Beth's stage-struck!" cried Meg, and the rehearsal ended in a general burst of laughter. "Glad to find you so merry, my girls," said a cheery voice at the door, and actors and audience turned to welcome a tall, motherly lady with a `can I help you' look about her which was truly delightful. She was not elegantly dressed, but a noble-looking woman, and the girls thought the gray cloak and unfashionable bonnet covered the most splendid mother in the world. "Well, dearies, how have you got on today? There was so much to do, getting the boxes ready to go tomorrow, that I didn't come home to dinner. Has anyone called, Beth? How is your cold, Meg? Jo, you look tired to death. Come and kiss me, baby." While making these maternal inquiries Mrs. March got her wet things off, her warm slippers on, and sitting down in the easy chair, drew Amy to her lap, preparing to enjoy the happiest hour of her busy day. The girls flew about, trying to make things comfortable, each in her own way. Meg arranged the tea table, Jo brought wood and set chairs, dropping, over-turning,and clattering everything she touched. Beth trotted to and fro between parlor kitchen, quiet and busy, while Amy gave directions to everyone, as she sat with her hands folded. As they gathered about the table, Mrs. March said, with a particularly happy face, "I've got a treat for you after supper." A quick, bright smile went round like a streak of sunshine. Beth clapped her hands, regardless of the biscuit she held, and Jo tossed up her napkin, crying, "A letter! A letter! Three cheers for Father!" "Yes, a nice long letter. He is well, and thinks he shall get through the cold season better than we feared. He sends all sorts of loving wishes for Christmas, and an especial


went in. The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup. `There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!' Alice said to herself, as well as she could for sneezing. There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. `Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, `why your cat grins like that?' `It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, `and that's why. Pig!' She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:-- `I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know that cats COULD grin.' `They all can,' said the Duchess; `and most of 'em do.' `I don't know of any that do,' Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation. `You don't know much,' said the Duchess; `and that's a fact.' Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby --the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not. `Oh, PLEASE mind what you're doing!' cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror. `Oh, there goes his PRECIOUS nose'; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it off. `If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, `the world would go round a deal faster than it does.' `Which would NOT be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. `Just think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis--' `Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, `chop off her head!' Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant


I think she’s in love.” “I’m not surprised,” my husband says, his words dripping disdain. “She thinks we’re running away together,” Carter says. “That we’re going to have a future.” I feel the weight of my lawyer’s eyes on me, but I don’t meet them. She knows I’m a liar now. A cheater. My gaze is locked onto the shiny surface of the table, tracing the whorls in the wood. “How sweet,” my husband sneers. “Where to?” “South America,” Carter says, showing his lack of geographical knowledge. “She thinks we’re going to take the boat up to Bellingham and get on a plane to start our new life together.” He is imitating me, mocking me. Hate and anger churn my guts. But Benjamin is pleased. “Nice work.” “She wants you to think she committed suicide,” Carter continues, like a schoolboy trying to impress his teacher. “She’s going to leave a note.” “I’ll destroy it,” Benjamin says calmly. “A suicide would reflect badly on me. This needs to look like an accident. Hazel jogs along the cliffside trails. She tripped. Fell in. The current swept her away.” “She’s going to swim out to my boat,” my former lover explains. “That way, she’ll be wet and cold and probably close to hypothermia. I’ll give her tea with the pills in it. We’ll motor north for a bit. And when no one’s around, I’ll toss her in.” Like a bag of garbage. “Good,” Benjamin says. “But do it quickly. Don’t travel too far north. When I get home, I’ll call her acquaintances to ask if they’ve heard from her. And I’ll alert the cops in the morning. Eventually, her body will wash up onshore somewhere. They’ll find her own drugs in her system… if her corpse is still intact.” “And when do I get my money?” Carter asks, because of course that’s what he cares about. “I don’t want to wait for her body to show up.” “When she’s been gone thirty-six hours, I’ll release your next payment. It won’t be safe for us to meet then, but I’ll arrange for a drop-off.” They discuss a locale—a bar off I-90 near Judkins Park. Nate will deliver the final twenty-five thousand. And then my husband says, “Well done, Carter. Or, I guess I should call you Jesse.” And the conversation ends. Rachelle says nothing but she is watching me, judging me. I don’t look up, not yet. My face is burning with shame, humiliation, and fear. I have been caught out. Trapped in a massive lie. Finally, I raise my head and meet her steely gaze. “You need to start being honest with me,” she says. 58 THE WHEELS IN MY HEAD turn frantically. Rachelle had asked me point blank if I had a lover and I’d denied it. But now she knows I was sleeping with Jesse—with Carter. That I thought we were going to run away together. That somehow our plan went awry. But she doesn’t know about our plot to kill Benjamin. Or about Lee. And I must keep it that way. “We


than reason could break---chains forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to loosen. She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in avoiding both complaints and expres- sions of antipathy concerning Heathcliff, and confessed to me her sorrow that she had endeavoured to raise a bad spirit between him and Hareton. Indeed, I don't believe she has ever breathed a syllable, in the latter's hearing, against her oppressor since. When this slight disagreement was over, they were friends again, and as busy as possible in their several occupations of pupil and teacher. I came in to sit with them after I had done my work, and I felt so soothed and comforted to watch them that I did not notice how time got on. You know they both appeared in a meas- nre my children. I had long been proud of one, and now I was sure the other would be a source of equal satisfac- tion. His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off rapidly the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been bred, and Catherine's sincere com- mendations acted as a spur to his industry. His bright- ening mind brightened his features, and added spirit and nobility to their aspect. I could hardly fancy it the same individual I had beheld on the day I discov- ered my little lady at Wuthering Heights, after her ex- pedition to the Crags. While I admired and they laboured, dusk drew on, and with it returned the mas- ter. He came upon us quite unexpectedly, entering by the front way, and had a full view of the whole three ere we could raise our heads to glance at him. Well, I reflected, there was never a pleasanter or more harm- less sight, and it will be a burning shame to scold them. The red firelight glowed on their two bonny heads, and revealed their faces animated with the eager interest of children; for though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel and learn that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober, disenchanted maturity. They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff. Perhaps you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are those of Cath- erine Earnshaw. The present Catherine has no other likeness to her, except a breadth of forehead and a cer- tain arch of the nostril that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will or not. With Hareton the resemblance is carried further. It is singular at all times; then it was particularly striking, because his senses were alert, and his mental faculties wakened to un- wonted activity. I suppose this resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff. He walked to the hearth in evident agitation, but it quickly subsided as he looked at the young man---or, I should say, altered its character, for it was there yet. He took the book from his hand and glanced at the open page, then returned it without any observation, merely signing Catherine away. Her companion lingered very little


it’s you that saves our lives; and do you both get alive out of this wolf-trap, I’ll do my best to save suppose by any chance that we are going to let you lose yours? you, short of perjury.” That would be a poor return, my boy. You found out the Silver’s face was radiant. “You couldn’t say more, I’m sure, Contents plot; you found Ben Gunn—the best deed that ever you did, sir, not if you was my mother,” he cried. or will do, though you live to ninety. Oh, by Jupiter, and “Well, that’s my first concession,” added the doctor. “My Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 256 257 second is a piece of advice: keep the boy close beside you, and when you need help, halloo. I’m off to seek it for you, and that itself will show you if I speak at random. Good-bye, Jim.” And Dr. Livesey shook hands with me through the stock- ade, nodded to Silver, and set off at a brisk pace into the wood. Chapter 31. The Treasure-hunt—Flint’s Pointer. “JIM,” said Silver when we were alone, “if I saved your life, you saved mine; and I’ll not forget it. I seen the doctor wav- ing you to run for it—with the tail of my eye, I did; and I seen you say no, as plain as hearing. Jim, that’s one to you. This is the first glint of hope I had since the attack failed, and I owe it you. And now, Jim, we’re to go in for this here trea- sure-hunting, with sealed orders too, and I don’t like it; and you and me must stick close, back to back like, and we’ll save our necks in spite o’ fate and fortune.” Just then a man hailed us from the fire that breakfast was Contents ready, and we were soon seated here and there about the sand over biscuit and fried junk. They had lit a fire fit to roast an ox, and it was now grown so hot that they could only ap- Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 258 259 proach it from the windward, and even there not without in a line when we go treasure- hunting, for we’ll keep him precaution. In the same wasteful spirit, they had cooked, I like so much gold, in case of accidents, you mark, and in the suppose, three times more than we could eat; and one of them, meantime. Once we got the ship and treasure both and off to with an empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which sea like jolly companions, why then we’ll talk Mr. Hawkins blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel. I never in my over, we will, and we’ll give him his share, to be sure, for all his life saw men so careless of the morrow; hand to mouth is the kindness.” only word that can describe their way of doing; and what It was no wonder the men were in a good humour now. with wasted food and sleeping sentries, though


continues to be. At thirty-nine, the only dinner he could make was eggplant parmesan. He would ruin suede sneakers in the washing machine. He’d never registered to vote. I’m wary of the narrative that suggests men mature so slowly that they pair best with younger women; I just mean that Jerome in particular was not terribly grown-up in his thirties. Jerome took an interest in her work, Jasmine said to the next person who sat down, a woman with a squirmy toddler. He asked Jasmine about her own art over dinner, told her it sounded exciting. They began sleeping together, he introduced her to friends in the art world, he was a shitty boyfriend. For instance: He broke up with her on her birthday, begged her forgiveness the next morning. He left used condoms on her floor. He told her he hated wearing condoms at all. He ordered a pizza for them, but it had pepperoni, because he’d forgotten she didn’t eat pork. He told her he couldn’t be monogamous. She didn’t like having sex in the morning, but he did, so she agreed to it but didn’t enjoy it as much, and he knew she didn’t enjoy it as much but he still asked for it, and she obliged. Once, he woke her at four in the morning and they had sex because he asked, but she kept drifting off and so he stopped. I kept waiting for the bombshell, the moment when he would pin her down or hit her or threaten to ruin her career—the thing I wouldn’t recognize as Jerome, that would forever change my sense of him; the thing that would make me divorce him for good and get custody of the kids; the thing that would derail his career and lead to his unanimous public censure. But forty-five minutes in, she was wrapping things up (circling the bench again like a lioness) and it had gotten no worse than undesirable—but consensual—morning sex. She looked at the camera for the first time, and she said, “Have you ever lost something somewhere, a book or a necklace, and you—it feels like you left an arm back there, or an ear? You’re missing a part of yourself, and—I left a part of myself in Denver in 2003. I left parts of myself all over this country. What I left back there, it was—” And here she made a fist in front of her stomach, and I understood it as a pit, a missing pit in her core. “—I can’t ever find it.” Fair enough. Her trauma was real. (This was, incidentally, what so many of the Twitter comments said. I see you, Jasmine, and I see your trauma.) I felt ancient, from some elderly generation that didn’t understand the basics of the twenty-first century. If she’d been my friend back then, I would have coached her to break up with him. I’d have recited a list of his wrongs. I’d have told her she was better than that. But good God. I tried to assess if my rage—because it


so tired of the spice in everything." The Guild Bank representative looked across at Kynes. "I understand, Doctor Kynes, that another factory crawler has been lost to a worm." "News' travels fast," the Duke said. "Then it's true?" the banker asked, shifting his attention to Leto. "Of course, it's true!" the Duke snapped. "The blasted carry-all disappeared. It shouldn't be possible for anything that big to disappear!" "When the worm came, there was nothing to recover the crawler," Kynes said. "It should not be possible!" the Duke repeated. "No one saw the carryall leave?" the banker asked. "Spotters customarily keep their eyes on the sand," Kynes said. "They're primarily interested in wormsign. A carryall's complement usually is four men--two pilots and two journeymen attachers. If one--or even two of this crew were in the pay of the Duke's foes--" "Ah-h-h, I see," the banker said. "And you, as Judge of the Change, do you challenge this?" "I shall have to consider my position carefully," Kynes said, "and I certainly will not discuss it at table." And he thought: That pale skeleton of a man! He knows this is the kind of infraction I was instructed to ignore. The banker smiled, returned his attention to his food. Jessica sat remembering a lecture from her Bene Gesserit school days. The subject had been espionage and counter-espionage. A plump, happy-faced Reverend Mother had been the lecturer, her jolly voice contrasting weirdly with the subject matter. A thing to note about any espionage and/or counter-espionage school is the similar basic reaction pattern of all its graduates. Any enclosed discipline sets its stamp, its pattern, upon its students. That pattern is susceptible to analysis and prediction. "Now, motivational patterns are going to be similar among all espionage agents. That is to say: there will be certain types of motivation that are similar despite differing schools or opposed aims. You will study first how to separate this element for your analysis--in the beginning, through interrogation patterns that betray the inner orientation of the interrogators; secondly, by close observation of language-thought orientation of those under analysis. You will find it fairly simple to determine the root languages of your subjects, of course, both through voice inflection and speech pattern." Now, sitting at table with her son and her Duke and their guests, hearing that Guild Bank representative, Jessica felt a chill of realization: the man was a Harkonnen agent. He had the Giedi Prime speech pattern--subtly masked, but exposed to her trained awareness as though he had announced himself. Does this mean the Guild itself has taken sides against House Atreides? she asked herself. The thought shocked her, and she masked her emotion by calling for a new dish, all the while listening for the man to betray his purpose. He will shift the conversation next to something seemingly innocent, but with ominous overtones, she told herself. It's his pattern. The banker swallowed, took a sip of wine, smiled at something said to him by the woman on his right. He seemed to listen for a moment to a


wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home?" Clifford's countenance glowed, as he divulged this theory; a youthful character shone out from within, converting the wrinkles and pallid duskiness of age into an almost transparent mask. The merry girls let their ball drop upon the floor, and gazed at him. They said to themselves, perhaps, that, before his hair was gray and the crow's-feet tracked his temples, this now decaying man must have stamped the impress of his features on many a woman's heart. But, alas! no woman's eye had seen his face while it was beautiful. "I should scarcely call it an improved state of things," observed Clifford's new acquaintance, "to live everywhere and nowhere!" "Would you not?" exclaimed Clifford, with singular energy. "It is as clear to me as sunshine,--were there any in the sky,--that the greatest possible stumbling-blocks in the path of human happiness and improvement are these heaps of bricks and stones, consolidated with mortar, or hewn timber, fastened together with spike-nails, which men painfully contrive for their own torment, and call them house and home! The soul needs air; a wide sweep and frequent change of it. Morbid influences, in a thousand-fold variety, gather about hearths, and pollute the life of households. There is no such unwholesome atmosphere as that of an old home, rendered poisonous by one's defunct forefathers and relatives. I speak of what I know. There is a certain house within my familiar recollection,--one of those peaked-gable (there are seven of them), projecting-storied edifices, such as you occasionally see in our older towns,--a rusty, crazy, creaky, dry-rotted, dingy, dark, and miserable old dungeon, with an arched window over the porch, and a little shop-door on one side, and a great, melancholy elm before it! Now, sir, whenever my thoughts recur to this seven-gabled mansion (the fact is so very curious that I must needs mention it), immediately I have a vision or image of an elderly man, of remarkably stern countenance, sitting in an oaken elbow-chair, dead, stone-dead, with an ugly flow of blood upon his shirt-bosom! Dead, but with open eyes! He taints the whole house, as I remember it. I could never flourish there, nor be happy, nor do nor enjoy what God meant me to do and enjoy." His face darkened, and seemed to contract, and shrivel itself up, and wither into age. "Never, sir" he repeated. "I could never draw cheerful breath there!" "I should think not," said the old gentleman, eyeing Clifford earnestly, and rather apprehensively. "I should conceive not, sir, with that notion in your head!" "Surely not," continued Clifford; "and it were a relief to me if that house could be torn down, or burnt up, and so the earth be rid of it, and grass be sown abundantly over its foundation. Not that I should ever visit its site again! for, sir, the farther I get away from it, the more does the joy, the lightsome freshness, the heart-leap, the intellectual dance, the youth, in short,--yes, my youth, my youth!--the more does it come


coach, and he had kept to his side. That was something. Near the start of their journey, she had asked him why he was so determined to marry her. She was a governess with no money to her name, and her beauty was nothing compared to anyone he could find in London. With his thriving merchant business, he could have married into the aristocracy if he found someone in need of his fortune to rescue a failing estate. So why had he chosen her? “I have loved you from the moment I saw you,” he’d said, as if that justified everything. The sentiment was sweet, she supposed, but Lucy wished he would ignore his strange infatuation and choose better for himself. She wished she had never learned about the kitchen girl Dottie, because maybe then she could have seen a glimpse of a good man. As it was, she saw nothing but misery for the rest of her life. He had fallen asleep two hours ago, and she was grateful for the reprieve. He had waxed long about their future together and the half-dozen children they would have, telling her how eager he was to present her to his brother’s family again, only this time as his bride. Now that he snored lightly on his side of the coach, Lucy could stop pretending to be strong and let the tears fall. She hadn’t wanted him to think she had given in. She’d wanted to seem ready to fight him as soon as she had an opening, even if she knew she had no chance. Yesterday, she had been accepted and loved by a mother, a sister, and a friend, and even William had been good to her. Yesterday, she had had Simon. “Enough,” she chided under her breath. She had lied to all of them, Simon more than anyone, and she deserved to feel their loss. She needed to be reminded how far beneath that family she was. Their world was not her world. Mr. Granger would give her a roof over her head. She knew that much. Whether he could make her even a little bit happy was doubtful. “Your happiness is not dependent on anyone else,” she told herself, and her voice sounded incredibly loud in the silent coach. She hoped Mr. Granger would soften in his manners. Perhaps, in his love, he would be kind to her. If nothing else, being married to a decently wealthy merchant might give her an opportunity to make friends in London, a luxury she hadn’t had before. She might even find herself in the same circles as Olivia when the girl made her debut. The thought of seeing Olivia again was both a comfort and a sting. The girl had told Lucy she forgave her for the lies, but would that last? Would Simon even let them be friends? And what of Nick? He would be in London as well, but eventually he would find himself a wife and would be far too busy with her to consider time spent with someone like


mistake, George," she said. "Here's your bread and cheese. I've brought it for you. I promise I'll never forget not to mention Tim again." George sat up. "I've a good mind not to take you to see the wreck," she said. "Stupid baby!" Anne's heart sank. This was what she had feared. "Well," she said, "you needn't take me, of course. But you might take the boys, George. After all, they didn't do anything silly. And anyway, you gave me an awful kick. Look at the bruise." George looked at it. Then she looked at Anne. "But wouldn't you be miserable if I took Julian and Dick without you?" she asked. "Of course," said Anne. "But I don't want to make them miss a treat, even if I have to." Then George did a surprising thing for her. She gave Anne a hug! Then she immediately looked most ashamed of herself, for she felt sure that no boy would have done that! And she always tried to act like a boy. "It's all right," she said, gruffly, taking the bread and cheese. "You were nearly very silly- and I gave you a kick- so it's all square. Of course you can come this afternoon." Anne sped back to tell the boys that everything was all right- and in fifteen minutes' time four children ran down to the beach. By a boat was a brown-faced fisher-boy, about fourteen years old. He had Timothy with him. "Boat's all ready, Master George," he said with a grin. "And Tim's ready, too." "Thanks," said George, and told the others to get in. Timothy jumped in, too, his big tail wagging nineteen to the dozen. George pushed the boat off into the surf and then jumped in herself. She took the oars. She rowed splendidly, and the boat shot along over the blue bay. It was a wonderful afternoon, and the children loved the movement of the boat over the water. Timothy stood at the prow and barked whenever a wave reared its head. "He's funny on a wild day," said George, pulling hard. "He barks madly at the big waves, and gets so angry if they splash him. He's an awfully good swimmer." "Isn't it nice to have a dog with us?" said Anne, anxious to make up for her mistake. "I do so like him." "Woof," said Timothy, in his deep voice and turned round to lick Anne's ear. "I'm sure he knew what I said," said Anne in delight. "Of course he did," said George. "He understands every single word." "I say- we're getting near to your island now," said Julian, in excitement. "It's bigger than I thought. And isn't the castle exciting?" They drew near to the island, and the children saw that there were sharp rocks all round about it. Unless anyone knew exactly the way to take, no boat or ship could possibly land on the shore of the rocky little island. In the very middle of it, on a low hill, rose the ruined castle. It had been built of


coast. Gia’s plans are complete and approved, and Elliot’s team starts building next week. I chuckle as I recall Gia’s shocked expression when I told her that I’d seen her in Aspen. Turns out it was nothing but co-incidence. She’d camped out at her holiday place to work solely on our plans. For one awful moment I’d thought she’d had a hand in choosing the ring, but apparently not. But I still don’t trust Gia. I want to hear the same story from Elliot. At least she kept her distance from Christian this time. I look out at the night sky. I will miss this view. This panoramic vista . . . Seattle at our feet, so full of possibilities, yet so far removed. Maybe that’s Chris- tian’s problem—he’s been too isolated from real life for too long, thanks to his self-imposed exile. Yet with his family around him, he is less controlling, less anxious—freer, happier. I wonder what Flynn would make of all that. Holy crap! Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe he needs his own family. I shake my head in denial—we’re too young, too new to all this. Christian strides into the room, look- ing his usual gorgeous but pensive self. “Everything okay?” I askHe nods distractedly as he climbs into bed. “I’m not looking forward to going back to reality,” I murmur. “No?” I shake my head and caress his lovely face. “I had a wonderful weekend. Thank you.” He smiles softly. “You’re my reality, Ana,” he murmurs and kisses me. “Do you miss it?” “Miss what?” he asks, perplexed. “You know. The caning . . . and stuff,” I whisper, embarrassed. He stares at me, his gaze impassive. Then doubt crosses his face, his where- is-she-going-with-this look. 309/551 “No Anastasia, I don’t.” His voice is steady and quiet. He caresses my cheek. “Dr. Flynn said something to me when you left, something that’s stayed with me. He said I couldn’t be that way if you weren’t so inclined. It was a revelation.” He stops, and frowns. “I didn’t know any other way, Ana. Now I do. It’s been educational.” “Me, educate you?” I scoff. His eyes soften. “Do you miss it?” he asks. Oh! “I don’t want you to hurt me, but I like to play, Christian. You know that. If you wanted to do something . . .” I shrug, gazing at him. “Something?” “You know, with a flogger or your crop—” I stop, blushing. He raises his brow, surprised. “Well . . . we’ll see. Right now, I’d like some good old-fashioned vanilla.” His thumb skirts my bottom lip, and he kisses me once more. From: Anastasia Grey Subject: Good Morning Date: August 29, 2011 09:14 To: Christian Grey Mr. Grey I just wanted to tell you that I love you. That is all. Yours Always A x 310/551 Anastasia Grey Commissioning Editor, SIP From: Christian Grey Subject: Banishing Monday Blues Date: August 29, 2011 09:18 To: Anastasia Grey Mrs. Grey What gratifying words to hear from one’s wife (errant or not) on a Monday morn-


remembering Mrs. Dean's anecdote of his first attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared, I observed,--- "But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a com- mencement, and each stumbled and tottered on the threshold. Had our teachers scorned instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet." "Oh!" she replied, "I don't wish to limit his acquire- ments. Still, he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations. Those books, both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations, and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth. Be- sides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice." Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute. He la- boured under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress. I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood. He followed my example, and left the room, but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into Cath- erine's lap, exclaiming,--- "Take them! I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!" "I won't have them now," she answered. "I shall connect them with you, and hate them." She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a be- ginner, then laughed and threw it from her. "And lis- ten," she continued provokingly, commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion. But his self-love would endure no further torment. I heard, and not altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue. The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin's sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had of balancing the account and repaying its effects on the inflictor. He afterwards gath- ered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his countenance what anguish it was to offer that sac- rifice to spleen. I fancied that as they consumed he re- called the pleasure they had already imparted and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had an- ticipated from them, and I fancied I guessed the in- citement to his secret studies also. He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and, instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise him- self had produced just the contrary result. "Yes, that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!" cried Catherine, sucking her dam- aged lip, and watching the conflagration with indig- nant eyes. "You'd better hold your tongue now," he answered fiercely. And his agitation


education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young lady like yourself.'' And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr. Darcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose astonishment at being so addressed was very evident. Her cousin prefaced his speech with a solemn bow, and though she could not hear a word of it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the words ``apology,'' ``Hunsford,'' and ``Lady Catherine de Bourgh.'' -- It vexed her to see him expose himself to such a man. Mr. Darcy was eyeing him with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time to speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however, was not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy's contempt seemed abundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the end of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way. Mr. Collins then returned to Elizabeth. ``I have no reason, I assure you,'' said he, ``to be dissatisfied with my reception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine's discernment as to be certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very handsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him.'' As Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley, and the train of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to, made her perhaps almost as happy as Jane. She saw her, in idea, settled in that very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection could bestow; and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of endeavouring even to like Bingley's two sisters. Her mother's thoughts she plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to venture near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to supper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which placed them within one of each other; and deeply was she vexed to find that her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely, openly, and of nothing else but of her expectation that Jane would be soon married to Mr. Bingley. -- It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet seemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the match. His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but three miles from them, were the first points of self-gratulation; and then it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of Jane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as she could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger daughters, as Jane's marrying so greatly must throw them in the way


bakery bread. “What else?” Prim asked me. “What other food can we find?” “All kinds of things,” I promised her. “I just have to remem- ber them.” My mother had a book she’d brought with her from the apothecary shop. The pages were made of old parchment and covered in ink drawings of plants. Neat handwritten blocks told their names, where to gather them, when they came in bloom, their medical uses. But my father added other entries to the book. Plants for eating, not healing. Dandelions, poke- weed, wild onions, pines. Prim and I spent the rest of the night poring over those pages. The next day, we were off school. For a while I hung around the edges of the Meadow, but finally I worked up the courage to go under the fence. It was the first time I’d been there alone, without my father’s weapons to protect me. But I re- trieved the small bow and arrows he’d made me from a hol- low tree. I probably didn’t go more than twenty yards into the woods that day. Most of the time, I perched up in the branches 50 of an old oak, hoping for game to come by. After several hours, I had the good luck to kill a rabbit. I’d shot a few rabbits before, with my father’s guidance. But this I’d done on my own. We hadn’t had meat in months. The sight of the rabbit seemed to stir something in my mother. She roused herself, skinned the carcass, and made a stew with the meat and some more greens Prim had gathered. Then she acted confused and went back to bed, but when the stew was done, we made her eat a bowl. The woods became our savior, and each day I went a bit farther into its arms. It was slow-going at first, but I was de- termined to feed us. I stole eggs from nests, caught fish in nets, sometimes managed to shoot a squirrel or rabbit for stew, and gathered the various plants that sprung up beneath my feet. Plants are tricky. Many are edible, but one false mouthful and you’re dead. I checked and double-checked the plants I har- vested with my father’s pictures. I kept us alive. Any sign of danger, a distant howl, the inexplicable break of a branch, sent me flying back to the fence at first. Then I began to risk climbing trees to escape the wild dogs that quickly got bored and moved on. Bears and cats lived deeper in, perhaps disliking the sooty reek of our district. On May 8th, I went to the Justice Building, signed up for my tesserae, and pulled home my first batch of grain and oil in Prim’s toy wagon. On the eighth of every month, I was entitled to do the same. I couldn’t stop hunting and gathering, of course. The grain was not enough to live on, and there were 51 other things to buy, soap and milk and thread. What we didn’t absolutely have to eat, I


sat on the edge of the property, two barns in the near distance. One he’d been using for poorly attended tastings, the other for production and barrel storage. Spread out on all sides were rows of fragrant grapes stretching up toward the sun. He could still remember the feeling of stepping onto the property for the first time, hearing Sam whisper in his ear that it was perfect. And it was. A vibrant slice of heaven that he never would have been able to imagine during those countless days in the desert. But he wasn’t cut out for the process it took to make the vineyard run correctly. The woman waiting to be let into his house knew it better than anyone. He slid his key into the lock and their gazes met, held, the weight of a tire iron dropping low in his belly. This was what it would have been like, taking her home. Getting his hands on her. They would have shook this fucking town. “I’m just here for medical intervention,” she said, a suspicious scratch in her voice. “I’m well aware that’s all you want from me.” “Good.” “But you’re looking at my mouth pretty closely for someone who just needs a Band-Aid.” He pushed open the door. “No harm in pointing it out.” Chapter Four Natalie expected a mess. Pizza boxes and dirty gym clothes and beer bottles. Maybe a couple of suspicious tissues. But she could have eaten off the floor of August’s little house. It was that clean. Spices were lined up on the kitchen counter in front of a cutting board. The kitchen and living area were connected and the space was small, so a king-sized easy chair was his only piece of furniture, angled toward the television. He’d managed to make the scene inviting with a rug and a basket holding a blanket. It was . . . nice. Actually, it beat her wineglass graveyard of a guest room by a million miles. “Disappointed that I don’t have centerfolds taped to my wall?” “I’m sure they’re hidden in the closets, along with the rats,” she said breezily, watching the cat prance off with an air of superiority toward the rear of the house. August circled around to look at her face and let out a booming laugh. “Look at you. You’re shocked. You really expected me to live in a frat house, didn’t you?” He entered the bathroom, which was behind the sole door in the short hallway leading to the bedrooms, she guessed. Flipping on the light, he gestured for her to follow him into the tiny room. She started in that direction but paused on the threshold, unsure about being crowded into such a small amount of square footage with a man that large. A man she couldn’t seem to stop being attracted to, despite the fact that he was judgmental and rude and seemed to see the absolute worst in her. “Did you really give yourself stitches in a dust storm twice?” August paused in the act of rooting through


sat on the bed. He cleared his throat, hoping his father would turn away from the wall he was focused on and speak to him. “I didn’t wait for the principal to get to my class before I left,” Ẹniọlá said. Ẹniọlá hoped this would provoke some reaction, even an “okay” would have been enough, but all his father did was grunt. The sound hit Ẹniọlá like a slap in the face, and he felt as though he might explode with rage. Here he was, home long before noon, and his father had not said a single word. No apology for the fact that the school fees remained unpaid. No question about how many lessons he’d been able to sit in on before leaving school. No reaction to his decision to leave before being sent away. If she were home, his mother would have spent the last few minutes talking to him about how things would get better soon. Ẹniọlá wanted his father to sit by him and promise that everything was going to be fine, the fees would be paid, and he would be back in school soon. Bùsọ́lá was going to hide in the bushes for most of the morning. His mother was probably somewhere doing everything she could to get some more money for his school fees. Meanwhile, his father stayed in bed while everyone around him suffered and floundered. Ẹniọlá pressed a clenched fist into the mattress and thought of Mr. Ọlábọ̀dé, hanging from that ceiling, dressed up as though he was leaving for work, belt and shoes matching his brown tie. After a few minutes, he felt his anger sink beneath the fear of losing his father. “I’m going out sir,” Ẹniọlá said. Another sigh followed by something that sounded like “all right.” Ẹniọlá took off his school shirt and two of the T-shirts he’d worn underneath it to cushion Mr. Bísádé’s strokes. His mother would have asked about where he was going. She would never let him leave home without a clear sense of his destination. Ẹniọlá did not bother with saying goodbye as he left the room, but he did slam the door shut. On his way to Time Wait for No 1, he practiced and discarded responses to questions about his encounter with Yèyé, but none of the lies he came up with sounded right when he whispered them to himself. Aunty Caro was showing Ṣèyí how to sew a pleated skirt when Ẹniọlá stepped into the shop. Maria sat bent over another sewing machine, pedalling away. “Ehen, you, I’ve been waiting for you,” Aunty Caro said when she looked up and saw Ẹniọlá. “Good afternoon ma,” Ẹniọlá said. Aunty Caro nodded. “You remember this madam that comes here, Yèyé?” Ẹniọlá walked past Maria’s sewing machine to a table laden with finished clothes that needed to be ironed. Aunty Caro stuck a pin in the check fabric. “She said that she saw you yesterday.” Ẹniọlá gripped the table with both hands. He looked straight at Aunty Caro and shook his head from side to


about things of that kind. [33] Your portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal appearance of other people. It has had that excellent effect, among others. We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his appointment." "But do you approve of it, Harry?" asked Hallward, walking up and down the room, and biting his lip. "You can't approve of it, really. It is some silly infatuation." "I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever the personality chooses to do is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray falls in love with a beautiful girl who acts Shakespeare, and proposes to marry her. Why not? If he wedded Messalina he would be none the less interesting. You know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colorless. They lack individuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that marriage makes more complex. They retain their egotism, and add to it many other egos. They are forced to have more than one life. They become more highly organized. Besides, every experience is of value, and, whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an experience. I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife, passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become fascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study." "You don't mean all that, Harry; you know you don't. If Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than yourself. You are much better than you pretend to be." Lord Henry laughed. "The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets. I mean everything that I have said. I have the greatest contempt for optimism. And as for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have merely to reform it. But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than I can." "My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!" said the boy, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings, and shaking each of his friends by the hand in turn. "I have never been so happy. Of course it is sudden: all really delightful things are. And yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my life." He


been used to mark the edges of the three motorized hydraulic elevators that rose into place as they danced, forming three separate levels. If she missed her mark, she’d fall off the elevated section of the stage and, as Russell said, land on her face. “I’m sorry. The elevators, yes. I won’t make that mistake again.” “I should hope not,” Mr. Leonidoff said, glaring at Marion. “May I remind you that you’ll only get the opportunity to rehearse onstage the morning before the first performance? That’s this Thursday, three days away. It’s crucial that every dancer—particularly the new ones—stay focused so that by the time you’re onstage you have the routine down cold and can handle the shock of dancing before the audience at Radio City. And it will be a shock, I assure you.” It occurred to Marion that if she messed this up, she’d have no one to call home to, unlike the girl on the phone this morning. She hit her marks perfectly the rest of the rehearsal. * * * “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to dance when my eyes are only half open.” Bunny grabbed a Danish and a coffee from the cafeteria in the basement of Radio City, and Marion did the same, having arrived at six thirty, when the city was still draped in darkness, for the final rehearsal for the cowboy number onstage. The movie premiering at Radio City that day, The Wings of Eagles, rolled out at ten. Two hours later, the Rockettes would perform Westward Ho!, the boot-stepping, gunslinging number they’d been working on all week. The show featured not only the Rockettes, but also the corps de ballet and the choral ensemble, who would be singing cowboy songs. Marion reminded herself that their dance number was only a small part of the show, albeit the closing one, and that she was simply a cog in a wheel. If she performed the steps in the right order and hit her marks, all would be fine. If she made a mistake, though, everyone would notice—one of the downsides of being a cog. All night, she’d had terrible nightmares that she was running late and missed the curtain, or that she dropped her gun and tripped over the lip of the stage, falling face-first into the orchestra. Even worse, that she’d “kicked out.” Whenever any of the veteran dancers mentioned “kicking out,” they did so in a whisper, as if saying the words out loud might cause it to actually happen. Bunny had explained to Marion that it was every Rockette’s nightmare: when the choreography called for a certain number of kicks, say, eight, but a dancer miscounted and did nine. Besides falling, it was the one move that was sure to catch every audience member’s attention and pull them out of the illusion that they were watching a magical entity that had one mind, one body. By the time Marion had woken up, she was tired and shaky and slightly panicked. She and Bunny slugged back their coffee on their way to


woman pressed a hand against her lips and stared at the cabin, with its welcoming lights. But that oasis of warmth was distant. A twig snapped, and the woman looked behind her in terror. She began to run. The noises of the night were now mixed with the patter of her feet. She flew forward, and her hands desperately pulled at the front door—there was a thump, so loud it sounded like a cannon—until she finally managed to burst into the cabin. She immediately shut the door, bolted it, and stepped back, waiting. Her eyes were wide. The crash of an axe against the wood made the woman jump. Splinters flew. The woman screamed, pressing back farther into the room as a man hacked his way through the door. The scream was an annoying squeal that made the levels jump into the red. The man lingered at the threshold, clutching the axe. He began advancing; his breath was heavy, punctuated with an annoying pop. “Demon possession again?” Montserrat asked. Her eyes were on the VU meter; on her knee she balanced a notepad. “Ghosts,” Paco said. She scribbled in the notepad. “I thought you were into ninjas.” “We’re still doing the ninjas. Just not now.” “A ninja moratorium.” The woman screamed again. Montserrat pressed a button. The image froze on the screen. She spun her chair around. The padded room smelled faintly of the pine-scented air freshener that the other sound editors liked to spray around to cover up the fact that they were smoking inside. The whole place was a bit of a mess. The editors regularly left pizza boxes and empty bottles of Pepsi around the mixing room, along with the scent of cigarettes. “No food or smoking in the editing room” said a sign half hidden behind the random stickers the editors had pasted on it over the years. In theory, this admonition made sense, especially when you were dealing with film. You didn’t want to smear a workprint with grease. In practice, though, all editors were supposed to eat in front of the monitors. You were constantly working your ass off in post-production, trying to make up for missed deadlines. Montserrat had never been in a facility that was perfectly neat and organized. Editing rooms all looked like war zones unless a client was poking their head around. Still, she might have tidied up if Paco hadn’t ambushed her. Unfortunately for him, this particular mixing room was small and, unlike the bigger rooms, didn’t have a client area with a couch. Paco was sitting uncomfortably on a chair, by the door, next to a pile of tapes and vinyl records, and from the look of his position he was probably getting a cramp. “So, what do you think?” Paco asked. “I think this is the kind of shit you shouldn’t have to be fixing in post-production. Did you shoot these scenes inside a washing machine? The sound is terrible. Those levels are way too hot.” “I know, I know. But what can you expect with these budgets?” “It’s


soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard and the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and that was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what an injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me. Early in the morning, I was to go. Early in the morning, I was out, and looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun of the life in store for him were shining on it. "Good-bye, dear Joe! - No, don't wipe it off - for God's sake, give me your blackened hand! - I shall be down soon, and often." "Never too soon, sir," said Joe, "and never too often, Pip!" Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and a crust of bread. "Biddy," said I, when I gave her my hand at parting, "I am not angry, but I am hurt." "No, don't be hurt," she pleaded quite pathetically; "let only me be hurt, if I have been ungenerous." Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy was quite right, all I can say is - they were quite right too. Chapter 36 Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing; and I came of age - in fulfilment of Herbert's prediction, that I should do so before I knew where I was. Herbert himself had come of age, eight months before me. As he had nothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a profound sensation in Barnard's Inn. But we had looked forward to my one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly help saying something definite on that occasion. I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain, when my birthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call upon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced us that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual flutter when I repaired to my guardian's office, a model of punctuality. In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of tissuepaper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting it, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian's room. It was November, and my guardian was standing before


suspended in time, as if the universe itself holds its breath, whispering that this very instant is an irrevocable turning point. It is the fork in the road, where the path we choose will shape our destiny and alter the course of everything that follows. This was one of those moments. I said, “It’s late … You must be exhausted.” “I am.” I nodded, not knowing what to say. She clearly had something on her mind. I waited. “You got the message … the comms relay—” I nodded. “I am the captain of this ship. Things like that typically don’t get past me.” “Of course not. Silly of me.” I didn’t know if she was being sarcastic. “At this point we’re receiving previously sent messages; most are days, weeks, old. Anything we transmit back will take just as long to reach home. With that said, I’ve sent a priority message to Fleet, to Admiral Block.” “That’s good. First bit of good news any of us have had in some time.” She took several steps forward. I could now see her eyes were red-rimmed. The tip of her nose was pink. I gestured to her casual outfit. “You look ready to hit the sidewalks of small-town America … Leave all this mayhem behind you.” She attempted a smile. “I received a new message from Griffin. He must have sent it a while ago …” “Oh?” Viv mentioning Griffin again was not a good sign. Sure, she’d told me about their whirlwind romance in med school, that he had a small practice in some midwestern town I couldn’t remember. That she’d come close to marrying the man but had chosen a different path. It was no great leap to realize that over these last few months, she’d realized she regretted that earlier decision. “If you’ve come here to see if I can hasten our exit from this godforsaken star system, you’ll have to stand in line. I’m working on it. I know you’re more than ready to start your new life; you’ve made that perfectly clear, Viv.” “Galvin …” She’s using my first name. That’s never a good sign. The hatch door slid open. Akari’s silhouetted shape partially filled the threshold. “Um… sorry to disturb, Cap. Helm is ready.” I stood and looked to Viv. “The general announcement is forthcoming. We’re heading deeper into that asteroid field. Once close enough, we’ll get Adams cozied up close to Lincoln, where we’ll be transferring the entirety of the crew over.” “What!” Viv and I stood facing each other. Our romantic relationship, once filled with hope and passion, had reached an impasse. She clenched her fists, her body tensing with frustration. “Abandoning ship? Are you out of your mind, Galvin?” Her voice seethed with barely restrained fury. I knew Viv would not take this news lightly. Her eyes still blazed with anger. I raised my hands in a placating gesture, trying to maintain composure. “Viv, we don’t have a choice. Lincoln is our only option for escape. We can’t stay here.” She scoffed, a bitter smile twisting


tidy up after. “They shouldn’t get to do rituals,” she said. “They shouldn’t get to pick up right where they left off.” The anger in her voice was real. Anselm sighed. “Maybe not. But that table is a priceless artifact and we’re lucky the crucible can piece it back together. I appreciate your … sense of fairness, but Dawes, at least, should know better.” “Dawes was just along for the ride. I told her I needed a second person for the ritual, but not what I had planned.” “She is not a stupid woman. I don’t believe that for a second.” Anselm studied her. “What spell did you use?” He was testing her, and as usual, she hadn’t done the reading. “I put it together myself.” Anselm winced. Good. He already thought she was incompetent. That could work for her. “I used an old stink bomb casting I found in one of the Lethe Days Diaries. Some guy used it as a prank.” “That was the blow you struck for justice? A stink bomb?” “It got out of hand.” Anselm shook his head and downed the rest of his scotch. “The level of stupid we all got up to here. I’m amazed anyone survived.” “So I’m in keeping with a grand tradition.” Anselm did not look amused. He wasn’t like Darlington or even Sandow. Lethe and its mysteries were just something that had happened to him. “You’re lucky no one was killed.” He set down his glass and met her eyes. Alex did her best to look innocent, but she hadn’t had much practice. “I’m going to put forward a theory. You weren’t trying to wreck the table tonight. You were trying to open a portal to hell and somehow reach Daniel Arlington.” Why couldn’t he be one of the dim ones? “Interesting theory,” said Alex. “But not what happened.” “Just like your theory that Darlington is in hell? Pure speculation?” “You a lawyer?” “I am.” “You talk like one.” “I don’t consider that an insult.” “It’s not an insult. If I wanted to insult you, I’d call you two pounds of shit in a one-pound bag. For example.” Alex knew she should rein in her anger, but she was tired and frustrated. The board had made it clear they didn’t believe Alex’s theory on Darlington’s whereabouts and that there would be no heroic attempts to set him free. But if Anselm was bothered, he didn’t show it. He just looked worn out. “We owe Darlington a little effort. If it weren’t for Dean Sandow, he wouldn’t be down there.” If it weren’t for me. “Down there,” Anselm repeated, bemused. “Do you really think hell is a big pit somewhere under the sewer lines? That if you just dig deep enough, you’ll get there?” “That’s not what I meant.” Though that had been exactly what she’d been picturing. She hadn’t worried too much about the logistics, about what opening a portal or walking the Gauntlet might entail. That was Dawes’s job. Alex’s job was to be the cannonball once Dawes figured out


singing by the back door, coming in sight of which she perceived Mrs Durbeyfield on the doorstep in the act of wringing a sheet. Having performed this without observing Tess, she went indoors, and her daughter followed her. The washing-tub stood in the same old place on the same old quarter-hogshead, and her mother, having thrown the sheet aside, was about to plunge her arms in anew. "Why--Tess!--my chil'--I thought you was married!--married really and truly this time--we sent the cider----" "Yes, mother; so I am." "Going to be?" "No--I am married." "Married! Then where's thy husband?" "Oh, he's gone away for a time." "Gone away! When was you married, then? The day you said?" "Yes, Tuesday, mother." "And now 'tis on'y Saturday, and he gone away?" "Yes, he's gone." "What's the meaning o' that? 'Nation seize such husbands as you seem to get, say I!" "Mother!" Tess went across to Joan Durbeyfield, laid her face upon the matron's bosom, and burst into sobs. "I don't know how to tell 'ee, mother! You said to me, and wrote to me, that I was not to tell him. But I did tell him--I couldn't help it--and he went away!" "O you little fool--you little fool!" burst out Mrs Durbeyfield, splashing Tess and herself in her agitation. "My good God! that ever I should ha' lived to say it, but I say it again, you little fool!" Tess was convulsed with weeping, the tension of so many days having relaxed at last. "I know it--I know--I know!" she gasped through her sobs. "But, O my mother, I could not help it! He was so good--and I felt the wickedness of trying to blind him as to what had happened! If--if--it were to be done again--I should do the same. I could not--I dared not--so sin--against him!" "But you sinned enough to marry him first!" "Yes, yes; that's where my misery do lie! But I thought he could get rid o' me by law if he were determined not to overlook it. And O, if you knew--if you could only half know how I loved him--how anxious I was to have him--and how wrung I was between caring so much for him and my wish to be fair to him!" Tess was so shaken that she could get no further, and sank a helpless thing into a chair. "Well, well; what's done can't be undone! I'm sure I don't know why children o' my bringing forth should all be bigger simpletons than other people's--not to know better than to blab such a thing as that, when he couldn't ha' found it out till too late!" Here Mrs Durbeyfield began shedding tears on her own account as a mother to be pitied. "What your father will say I don't know," she continued; "for he's been talking about the wedding up at Rolliver's and The Pure Drop every day since, and about his family getting back to their rightful position through you--poor silly man!--and now you've made this mess of it! The Lord-a-Lord!" As if to bring


is dead because of it—a horrible truth temporarily forgotten in a night filled with them. “I can’t stop thinking about Mary,” I say. “How she was killed for no reason whatsoever.” Carter looks away from the window long enough to say, “You still think she was pushed?” “Don’t you?” “I don’t know anymore.” He sighs again. “I’m not Lenora’s—sorry, Virginia’s—grandson. So there’d be no reason for someone to kill her because of that.” “But she knew all the other secrets about that place,” I say. “Lenora’s true identity. Virginia’s guilt. The fact that both have been lying about it for decades. Someone felt the need to stop her before she could reveal it all.” “So that leaves either Archie or Lenora.” “Maybe,” I say. “But I don’t think so.” Both Lenora and Archie laid bare all their secrets tonight. Yes, I’d forced Lenora’s hand when I told her I knew she wasn’t really Mrs. Baker. But both were forthcoming after that. They did what Virginia had promised to do my first night at Hope’s End—tell me everything. What they didn’t do was swear me to secrecy or threaten me in any way. If one of them was so concerned about Mary knowing the truth that they felt the need to murder her, then why am I still alive? Because I’m not a threat to them. I doubt Mary was, either. But she was to someone. My left hand slips off the steering wheel, leaving a smear of blood, sticky and hot. Using my right hand to steer, I glance at the wound. It’s still bleeding and probably infected, but I’ll survive. That gate, however, should be melted into scrap metal. I wipe my hand on the skirt of my uniform, not caring about the stain it will leave. I’ll never be wearing it again. In fact, I won’t even be a caregiver again once Mr. Gurlain finds out I quit, fleeing Hope’s End without even closing the damn gate behind me. Another thought occurs to me, about another time the gate was left open. “Hey, Carter,” I say. “When did you say you found the gate open?” “The day Mary died.” “I meant the day. What day of the week?” “Monday.” “And what time?” “Midmorning. Why?” Because Carter said he assumed it was left open after the groceries were delivered. But Archie told me those arrive on Tuesdays. A fact confirmed by all those receipts I found under Lenora’s bed. That means the gate had been opened for a different reason. Not to let someone enter and leave, but to let someone leave and come back undetected. I did it myself earlier tonight. Opening the gate when I left for Ocean View Retirement Home and leaving it like that so I wouldn’t need to call the main house to be let back in. Since the gate was open Monday morning, it’s possible it had been like that since the night before. “The lab already had your blood sample, right?” I say. “Yeah. I got it drawn the week before. All they needed


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

jump in the rusty claw-foot tub to wash off the itchy feeling of being near the catacombs, and decide which of her lies she was going to use to break whatever they’d built between them. She gave Val a decisive nod. “I’ll head that way, then.” The old poison runner watched her for a moment, expression unreadable. Then she pulled her forward again, a crushing hug that made Lore nearly yelp in surprise. “We love you like our own daughter,” she murmured into Lore’s hair. “Mari and I do. You know that, right?” Bewildered, Lore nodded, though she couldn’t move her head much. “Of course I do.” “And whatever we do, we do it because we have to.” Val stepped back, keeping her hands on Lore’s shoulders, her green eyes uncharacteristically soft. “I’m sorry to make you leave him, mouse.” Lore jerked another nod, swallowing past the curious tightness in her throat. One more squeeze of her shoulders, then Val let her go. “Now get on with you,” she said. “Don’t want to be late.” She turned and started walking back the way she’d come. Lore closed her eyes. Sighed, the sound of it shaking only slightly. Then she turned and headed in the opposite direction, toward the dock roads. The dock roads were a mistake. Lore had barely gone a mile before she caught a glimpse of gilt on the horizon, and at a mile and a half, it became clear that preparations for the Sun Prince’s Consecration had overtaken nearly all of the street space between here and the Northwest Ward. Colorful stalls lined the usually deserted paths, hawking figurines of the Bleeding God and greenish-copper replicas of the Sainted King’s sun-rayed crown. Bloodcoats in their crimson jackets milled around the growing crowd with shining bayonets, and Lore even saw one or two Presque Mort, clothed head-to-toe in oppressive black. “Stupid,” she hissed beneath her breath. “Gods-damned stupid to do a drop right before a Consecration.” She could probably weave through the crowd, but it’d take time to work around the traffic, and that would leave the contraband sitting unattended. With a string of curses, Lore turned around and started jogging back toward the building where she’d met Val. If she couldn’t go overland, the only way to get to the drop site on time was to go through the catacombs. Shit. The dagger at her hip was a comforting weight as Lore ducked cautiously beneath the sagging door’s lintel, keeping an eye out for revenants. Revenants weren’t really a threat, made slow by the physical effects of too much poison and too-long lives, but Lore still wasn’t keen on meeting one. They tended to congregate around entrances to the catacombs, and her inconvenient talent only told her if someone was actually inside the tunnels. There was always the risk of encountering leaking Mortem around catacomb entrances, too, which made going near them at best unpleasant, at worst dangerous. Unchanneled Mortem could eat straight through a body, and at the rate it leaked from the Buried Goddess’s corpse beneath the


on duty rushed to pick him up. With sharp orders that Io didn’t fully hear, they carried him through a doorway to the right. Their footsteps and voices disappeared as soon as the door closed behind them. Io stayed on the floor. The blood on her hands had dried in ugly patches of brown. My fault. She tried to dislodge the thought with flimsy excuses—it had happened too fast, she had been too shocked, they had been too slow—but it wouldn’t budge. The truth of it was that if she had been careful, it wouldn’t have happened. And now Edei was shot. Edei was bleeding. Io gritted her teeth. Oh, don’t wallow, Thais would chastise during Io’s moody preteen years. Go find what you don’t like and change it. You know you can change it, right, little idiot? Be better, make this world better. Be better. Fine. She wiped the blood on her pants and stood. The door opened to an employee-only staircase. Voices were coming from the floor below. This was a part of the club she’d never been in before, no doubt a private quarter for the gang’s members. She took the stairs down and spotted an open door leading into a brightly lit room. The two Fortuna members Io had seen in Bianca’s office last night held Edei’s body on its side on a long table, while an older man examined the gun wound on his shoulder. “Fetch Samiya,” said the ginger, Nico. The older man hurried out of the room, slipping past Io with barely a glance. Nico spotted her at the doorframe but said nothing, which Io took to mean she could stay. The windowless room was dressed in the same suffocating black wood as the rest of the Fortuna. It shimmered silver as Io pulled up the Quilt. They were all too damn close, threads tangled and bright—she couldn’t make out a thing. She circled around to Edei’s head. His eyes were closed, his lips pressed tight, but the vein on his throat pulsed steadily. Io focused on the threads shooting out of his chest. Carefully, she disentangled them: two led to people in this very room—Nico, the redhead, and Chimdi, the Anoch girl with the dark skin and shaved head who was pressing a towel on Edei’s bullet wound. In between the jumble, Io found what she was looking for: his life-thread. With delicate fingers, she followed it up, where it disappeared through the ceiling to the sky beyond. “Well?” snapped Chimdi. “It’s not frayed,” Io replied quietly. “He’ll be okay.” A voice boomed down the corridor. “Where are they?” The door groaned on its hinges to reveal Bianca, her mauve satin shirt buttoned haphazardly on her midriff. Io flushed when she noticed the sharp juts of Bianca’s collarbones and the amount of bare skin exposed below them. Her lips were tinted with blue, which was peculiar: either she had been drinking an exotic cocktail or had recently taken a sleeping potion. “Did you call Samiya? Good. Tell her to get that bullet out of


them, and I want ye to remember that when I'm gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don't altogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it, and that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a bit, only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect. And I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at once. The chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, my deary!"-- for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this very night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin', and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' and wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin' with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! Look!" he cried suddenly. "There's something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the air. I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful, when my call comes!" He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said goodbye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much. I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spyglass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship. "I can't make her out," he said. "She's a Russian, by the look of her. But she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind a bit. She seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel, changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before this time tomorrow." CHAPTER 7 CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH," 8 AUGUST (PASTED IN MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL) From a correspondent. Whitby. One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but


I open my mouth, then close it. “Ah, ah! No thinking. Do you want to be an overachieving corporate lawyer who goes camping with Katharine Breakspeare on the weekends? Yes or no? Answer quickly.” “I mean…I want some of those things.” “You’re talking about the Katharine Breakspeare part,” he says, “aren’t you?” I roll my eyes. “Shut up.” I think I’ve had enough public self-reflection for one day. I feel uncertain, now—in my decisions, in myself. And if I can’t be sure of me, what exactly do I have to hold on to? But I can’t dump all that on Brad. I can’t dump it on anyone. “Do you want to be an overachieving hotshot lawyer who goes camping with Katharine Breakspeare?” I ask, trying for a smile, trying to tease. “No,” Brad says instantly, thoughtlessly. Then his throat flushes brick-red. I blink. “You mean no to the camping part.” He shifts awkwardly. “Yeah?” Is he lying to me? He is. He definitely is. But that means…“You…don’t want to be a lawyer?” He doesn’t reply. I see a muscle move in his jaw, clenching it shut. “Brad?” He winces. “I don’t not want to be a lawyer.” What would Minnie do in a moment like this? Be sensitive. “But you don’t not not want to be a lawyer?” “No,” he says, “I do. I do. It’ll be fun.” But I recognize the hopeful tone in his voice, like he’s negotiating with himself—I recognize it because sometimes I use it, too. “It’ll be fun,” I repeat carefully. “But not as fun as…?” He huffs out a breath like a frustrated horse. “Come on. I showed you mine; now show me yours.” “God, Celine,” he laughs, and flops back onto the bed, then sits up again. Takes his glasses off, then puts them on again. Rubs his jaw, then mutters, “Sometimes I think I’d like to write a book or two?” A little chain reaction goes off in my brain and a memory unlocks. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah! You wanted to be an author.” He groans and squeezes his eyes shut. “When I was ten!” “But not anymore?” “It’s…not that easy.” “Why not?” Brad bites his lip. I really wish he’d stop doing that; it’s deeply inconsiderate to me, a person who can see him and is tragically vulnerable to the sight of an excellent mouth. “Because,” he says, and stands up abruptly. “Just…look at this.” He fetches his laptop from the desk and sits beside me again, cracking it open. His screensaver is John Boyega being criminally hot in Star Wars. Then he opens a series of folders and I’m faced with a page full of Word files. The labels start small: Draft 1. Draft 4. Draft 9. Before long, letters are introduced. Roman numerals. Bradley has written a lot of drafts. “I can’t finish anything,” he announces, then slaps the laptop shut and puts it on his bedside table. I blink. “Oh my God.” “I know!” He is disgusted with himself. “I keep trying, but—” “No, Brad, that’s what I’m saying. How


chuckleheads have managed to put two and two together. Plus you kept saying ‘Cody Benham shot me’ over and over again.” “That part I don’t remember,” I confessed. “Yeah, you were pretty loopy,” Dad said. He leaned forward and patted my good hand. “Anyway. Glad you’re not dead. You, ah. Should really stop getting hurt.” “Wasn’t planning on it,” I said. My eyelids were getting heavy. “Naomi, I—” I drifted. I dreamed of a gleaming snake slithering down my throat and a black-eyed woman biting down on my fingers, dull teeth grinding their way through my flesh. I woke alone. * * * I had plenty of visitors. Bishop, Sawant, other cops. Dad. Even Marcus and Kimiko. Ethan never came. I wasn’t sure if that was a disappointment or a relief. There were loose ends to wrap up. I told my story countless times, and after the hundredth repetition or so I finally got some information in return. Marcus Barnes, as it turned out, had indeed been worried about my mental state when I left the house. Worried enough that he called around trying to find out where I was and make sure I wasn’t going to hurt myself. Bishop and Ethan were already on their way to the woods when I made the call—and a good thing, since Cody probably would have found me first, otherwise. Cass hadn’t been lying about Cody threatening her, as it turned out. After years of her blackmail, he’d started recording their phone conversations. Including the one the day that Liv died, when she told him that he needed to come back to Chester and “deal with the situation.” Maybe she’d convinced herself there was another way it could end; maybe she’d known exactly what she was setting in motion. Either way, the result was the same. My two best friends were dead. As news spread, other stories emerged. People she’d blackmailed came forward—or were forced to, as her life was turned inside out and evidence uncovered. Others, presumably, kept their silence and hoped their sins wouldn’t be unearthed along with hers. The Greens got a lawyer and didn’t speak to anyone. They had a small, private funeral for Cass. As strange as it was, I wished I could be there. I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye—to Cass, or to the person I’d thought she was. I couldn’t stop thinking about Amanda. She was living with her grandparents now. I’d taken her mother from her. But then I remembered the timid way she watched the world and wondered what it had been like, to have a mother like Cassidy Green. The day before I left the hospital, Bishop came by one more time to speak to me. They’d released Jessi Walker’s remains to her sister. Persephone had made it out of the forest at last. * * * I was in the hospital for three weeks before I was well enough to be discharged, and by that time the life I’d had was gone for good. Between the hospital bills and the fact that I couldn’t


that way, but yes, Da Vinci was a homosexual." "Is that why he was into that whole feminine thing?" "Actually, Da Vinci was in tune with the balance between male and female. He believed that a human soul could not be enlightened unless it had both male and female elements." "You mean like chicks with dicks?" someone called. This elicited a hearty round of laughs. Langdon considered offering an etymological sidebar about the word hermaphrodite and its ties to Hermes and Aphrodite, but something told him it would be lost on this crowd. "Hey, Mr. Langford," a muscle-bound man said. "Is it true that the Mona Lisa is a picture of Da Vinci in drag? I heard that was true." "It's quite possible," Langdon said. "Da Vinci was a prankster, and computerized analysis of the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci's self-portraits confirm some startling points of congruency in their faces. Whatever Da Vinci was up to," Langdon said, "his Mona Lisa is neither male nor female. It carries a subtle message of androgyny. It is a fusing of both." "You sure that's not just some Harvard bullshit way of saying Mona Lisa is one ugly chick." Now Langdon laughed. "You may be right. But actually Da Vinci left a big clue that the painting was supposed to be androgynous. Has anyone here ever heard of an Egyptian god named Amon?" "Hell yes!" the big guy said. "God of masculine fertility!" Langdon was stunned. "It says so on every box of Amon condoms." The muscular man gave a wide grin. "It's got a guy with a ram's head on the front and says he's the Egyptian god of fertility." Langdon was not familiar with the brand name, but he was glad to hear the prophylactic manufacturers had gotten their hieroglyphs right. "Well done. Amon is indeed represented as a man with a ram's head, and his promiscuity and curved horns are related to our modern sexual slang 'horny.' "No shit!" "No shit," Langdon said. "And do you know who Amon's counterpart was? The Egyptian goddess of fertility?" The question met with several seconds of silence. "It was Isis," Langdon told them, grabbing a grease pen. "So we have the male god, Amon." He wrote it down. "And the female goddess, Isis, whose ancient pictogram was once called L'ISA." Langdon finished writing and stepped back from the projector. 82 AMON L'ISA "Ring any bells?" he asked. "Mona Lisa... holy crap," somebody gasped. Langdon nodded. "Gentlemen, not only does the face of Mona Lisa look androgynous, but her name is an anagram of the divine union of male and female. And that, my friends, is Da Vinci's little secret, and the reason for Mona Lisa's knowing smile." "My grandfather was here," Sophie said, dropping suddenly to her knees, now only ten feet from the Mona Lisa. She pointed the black light tentatively to a spot on the parquet floor. At first Langdon saw nothing. Then, as he knelt beside her, he saw a tiny droplet of dried liquid that was luminescing. Ink? Suddenly he recalled


was covered with a pretty matting, and the curtains that softened the high window and fluttered in the vagrant breezes were of pale-green art muslin. The walls, hung not with gold and silver brocade tapestry, but with a dainty apple-blossom paper, were adorned with a few good pictures given Anne by Mrs. Allan. Miss Stacy's photograph occupied the place of honor, and Anne made a sentimental point of keeping fresh flowers on the bracket under it. Tonight a spike of white lilies faintly perfumed the room like the dream of a fragrance. There was no "mahogany furniture," but there was a white-painted bookcase filled with books, a cushioned wicker rocker, a toilet table befrilled with white muslin, a quaint, gilt-framed mirror with chubby pink Cupids and purple grapes painted over its arched top, that used to hang in the spare room, and a low white bed. Anne was dressing for a concert at the White Sands Hotel. The guests had got it up in aid of the Charlottetown hospital, and had hunted out all the available amateur talent in the surrounding districts to help it along. Bertha Sampson and Pearl Clay of the White Sands Baptist choir had been asked to sing a duet; Milton Clark of Newbridge was to give a violin solo; Winnie Adella Blair of Carmody was to sing a Scotch ballad; and Laura Spencer of Spencervale and Anne Shirley of Avonlea were to recite. As Anne would have said at one time, it was "an epoch in her life," and she was deliciously athrill with the excitement of it. Matthew was in the seventh heaven of gratified pride over the honor conferred on his Anne and Marilla was not far behind, although she would have died rather than admit it, and said she didn't think it was very proper for a lot of young folks to be gadding over to the hotel without any responsible person with them. Anne and Diana were to drive over with Jane Andrews and her brother Billy in their double-seated buggy; and several other Avonlea girls and boys were going too. There was a party of visitors expected out from town, and after the concert a supper was to be given to the performers. "Do you really think the organdy will be best?" queried Anne anxiously. "I don't think it's as pretty as my blueflowered muslin-and it certainly isn't so fashionable." "But it suits you ever so much better," said Diana. "It's so soft and frilly and clinging. The muslin is stiff, and makes you look too dressed up. But the organdy seems as if it grew on you." Anne sighed and yielded. Diana was beginning to have a reputation for notable taste in dressing, and her advice on such subjects was much sought after. She was looking very pretty herself on this particular night in a dress of the lovely wild-rose pink, from which Anne was forever debarred; but she was not to take any part in the concert, so her appearance was of minor importance. All her pains were bestowed upon


looks smug, and I internally remind her she’s meant to be on my side. I am on the side of truth! I look at Alex again and smile hard. “I’m fine, just a little clumsy.” * * * But my thoughts follow me through the park and up to his flat. It’s halfway through the film when Alex kisses me. I know where he wants things to go and for one brief, inexcusable moment, I tell myself sex will make up for my lies. It has to because I need him. I need a pause from my life and the emotional turmoil determined to come with it. I get that respite when I’m not being me. I get that respite with Alex. My cardigan comes off and goose bumps cover my skin. It’s okay. I like Alex. I like him a lot. He’s kind and thoughtful and easy. That’s why you’re having sex with him. That is the only reason why. But I can’t connect his lips to my skin. I stare at his living room ceiling and think maybe I’m not a fan of foreplay. “Is this okay?” he asks, positioning himself above me. I nod and he doesn’t read my mind. When he enters me, it’s less painful than it was with Ben, but it isn’t comfortable; I shift under him because I feel like he’s in the wrong place, even though he can’t be. I accept what it is, but no matter how closely I hold him, if I shut my eyes it feels like we’re miles apart. The inability to connect, the stifling, undeniable dissociation with first my mind and body, and then my body and his, somehow feels worse than the acute physical pain I experienced with Ben. That I at least managed to place; it was temporary, and promised the gift of relief if I gave it a few hours. With Alex, the sofa’s cushion rubs and pulls at my back. I feel my body is being used, but I can’t understand why when this is something I told myself I wanted. * * * There’s silence between us after. I ignore it, but it follows us to the kitchen. I watch Alex as he watches the kettle. I don’t want to speak into the silence because I’m scared of what it will give back. Alex taps the counter; I feel him gearing up. He pours hot water into a mug with a green tea bag at the bottom and places it in front of me. Then he takes a seat at the dining table. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” he says quietly. I want to hold it in, to lie again. I’m just so good at it. For something so universally condemned, lying truly appeals to me; it often seems like the only way to maintain peace and comfortable continuity. But another part of me is tired—tired of pretending and keeping track, tired of being worn out after sex, like I’ve spent the entire time running away from my own shadow. “I don’t particularly


had fed on Marjorie Stephen, aging her like a terrible poison, but he’d stopped before he’d made her a husk. He didn’t want to assume her form. It was of no use to him. Besides, he’d just been there to construct a little tableau. He’d been more careful when he’d killed Dean Beekman, kept his demon hungers in check, used Andy Lambton to do the dirty work. “I needed to sever Darlington’s tie to the mortal world before you bumblers got his soul free and united it with his body,” Anselm admitted. “But while he was in the circle, he was protected. And yet the lure was right in front of me all along. I just had to put his damsel in distress. Of course he came running.” Anselm raised his hand. “And now the task is simple.” A blazing orange arc of fire burst forward. Alex felt it sizzle past her shoulder singing the flesh. It struck Darlington dead-on. “No!” she cried. She rushed at Anselm, letting the strength of the Grays flood her. She slammed him against the wall and heard his neck snap. The Grays shrieked in her head. Because Anselm was a demon. Because he was their killer. Because she was a killer too. Harper and Daniel Arlington shoved their way out of her body, leaving her weak and breathless. Anselm’s head lolled on his broken neck, but he only grinned and raised his hand again, fire leaping forward. Alex dug in her pockets and hurled a cloud of salt at him, savoring his yowl as his flesh bubbled. At least he was susceptible to that. She unloaded the rest of her salt store on him, but she knew there was no way for her to actually destroy Anselm. Not without a stake or a salt sword—and maybe even that wouldn’t do the trick. This demon was not like the others. Alex’s serpents leapt forward and piled onto the quivering, bubbling mass of Anselm’s body. “Hold him!” she begged, though she had no idea if they understood. She ran toward Darlington. He lay naked on the stairs, the glow from his markings dimming, the jeweled yoke bright against his neck. The burn was black and cut across his chest. Her snakes lay in charred, wriggling heaps, scorched by Anselm’s fire. Alex slid to her knees on the stairs. “Darlington?” His skin was hot to the touch, but she could feel it cooling beneath her fingertips. “Come on, Danny. Stay with me. Tell me how to fix this mess.” Darlington’s golden eyes opened. Their glow was fading, turning milky. “Stern…” His voice sounded distant, a bare echo. “The box…” For a second Alex didn’t know what he was talking about, but then she nodded. The Arlington Rubber Boots box was in her coat pocket. She kept it with her always. “I’ll hold on as long as I can. Get to hell. Bring my soul back.” “The Gauntlet—” “Listen, Wheelwalker. The circle is a doorway.” “But—” “You are a doorway.” Hellie had described Alex the same way, the night of


was uncreased and his eyes were a twinkling, babyish blue that made him look forever like a child on the verge of disclosing a secret. During a guest appearance on Crazy Money, he revealed to the host that his hair had gone white when he was twenty-two, and the host had remarked that it contrasted well with his “very dark” eyebrows. He wore Armani suits and loafers and was never seen in anything more casual than a suit jacket and a button-down that most people would have to take out a second mortgage to afford. He called himself an “activist investor.” He managed a hedge fund worth $3.4 billion, and he considered it his responsibility to raise the share price of corporations he thought were doing good things and destroy the share price of corporations he thought were doing bad things. His champions described him as the unsung hero of Wall Street. His enemies called him a market manipulator. He had identified NuLife as a corporation that was doing bad things and had shorted us to the tune of $1 billion. The stock price was finicky after that, plummeting and then rising and then plummeting again. “You look good on camera, people like you, you’re affable,” the Crazy Money host said, and Rothenberg crossed his legs so his ankle rested on his knee. “Do you see yourself as someone who can make major waves in the market on the basis of personality alone?” Rothenberg chuckled. “No, I see myself as someone who uses facts to determine who’s doing the right thing. I’m trying to act in the most honorable way possible.” Brianna and I stood in my office watching the Crazy Money broadcast, watching Rothenberg smile self-effacingly into the camera. “He’s really smug,” Brianna said. “The way he sits. Who crosses their legs on TV?” A picture of Orson appeared in the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. “So now you’re taking on Orson Ortman, the boy genius whose company NuLife is becoming an international phenomenon,” the host said. Rothenberg sat forward thoughtfully. “Yes, I am, Jim. And I’m doing that because I think Ortman’s a fraud and his entire operation is a pyramid scheme. He develops this ‘technology’ that’s supposed to ‘synthesize’ you, whatever that means—we can’t tell if the technology even works. Meanwhile, Ortman’s making these outlandish promises that he has yet to deliver on—and then he goes upstate and starts this cult that’s this recruit-your-friends kind of thing where all the money’s ultimately flowing toward him.” “What about his team? He’s got some of the brightest minds in innovation on board.” “You mean Dexter Ellhorn? I thought he was making rockets for the president to shoot into space?” The host laughed. “Yes, Ellhorn. But what about Ortman’s right-hand man?” A picture of me appeared where Orson’s had vanished. “Ezra Green is either the Dick Cheney behind this whole thing or the world’s most useful idiot.” “Do you want me to turn this off?” Brianna asked. “No, I’m fine,” I said. “Turn it up, actually.” She grabbed the remote. “Could this


more amazing. Wash the thong panty by hand in cold water, do not iron. Who is out here ironing their crotchless beaded thong?! The paddle, pasties, and stockings are not included but the leather-look stretch-mesh fabric stretches four ways, for your comfort! OH OKAY, THEN, AS LONG AS IT’S FOR MY COMFORT. A verified purchaser with the username BusyOnTheBeaver gave it five out of five stars and added, and I quote, “very complimentary to the female form, i love my wife.” Good for Mr. Busy! I’m so embarrassed by everything all the time, humiliated even by the need to breathe air where other people can see me. There is just no universe in which I could stand at the foot of a hastily unmade bed, laced up tight like a kindergartner’s gym shoe, and not sweat through my “crotchless beaded lovers thong” while fully melting down about hyperpigmented butt folds and coarse, unruly pubic hair. I am on so many pills, so many dusty-pink and white tablets crowding my end table, the foot soldiers in my losing war against premature death that grind my libido to a spluttering dribble, it feels like a tall ask to expect another person to remain patient through twenty minutes of dry chafing to see if something happens. Much easier to instead wait to feel something down there (“Is this overactive bladder or sexual arousal?”) then slink off, pretending I have to take a shit, so I can deal with it on my own. * * * — There are a few (extremely specific) genres of porn I prefer to masturbate to, chief among them: “middle-aged man jerking off while being gently pegged” lovemaking with kissing public (Hear me out: Have you ever seen people fucking on a bus?) big ass compilation “fat lady being worshipped” videos where you just watch a dude’s boner grow cuckold massage (maybe what I actually need is a nap) “dudes who fuck like Xavier Thicc” BBW hand job mature lady riding to orgasm KISSING But “Two Old Nuns Having Amzing [sic] Lesbian Sex” is my favorite pornographic piece of cinema. I don’t even remember how I found it years ago now. I’m sure I searched “senior citizen real orgasm” or something like that, because I like to see an orgasm, but also I can’t watch a person engaged in any sort of sexual activity unless I am absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that person is of legal car-renting age. Imagine me going to jail because I clicked on a video called “Hot Teen Squirts on a Banana” or some shit, and said hot teen turns out to be an actual child, and it just so happens to be the day the FBI agent assigned to monitoring my phone activity is awake and paying attention. That shit is terrifying to me. I won’t even watch an obvious thirty-seven-year-old with crow’s-feet and low bone density if she’s in pigtails and fucking braces! Maybe that lady in a plaid school uniform with her pussy waxed down to the bone is old