along. She was right. I liked her, but I didn’t love her, and by then I didn’t even like her that much. I wanted her to go off and find someone else so I wouldn’t have to be the one doing the breaking up. I hate that. It’s always messy, and I knew it would get even messier with Karina; she was dramatic, which I enjoyed and hated. I figured we’d have a shitty night and she would dump me.” He stood up and glanced at the photo in Montserrat’s hand. “Look at that picture, look at that girl. She’s twenty-four there. She’s a kid stumbling around, making dumb choices, but still a kid. She deserved to grow old, to grow up. To have a whole life.” “You didn’t kill her.” “No,” Tristán said, scoffing. “I didn’t start the ignition, I didn’t turn that wheel and crash that car, but I knew her. I knew she was fragile; I knew she needed me to calm her down or to at least ask someone to watch over her for a bit. I knew she was hurt.” He touched his eyebrow, slid his fingertips against the corner of his eye and smirked, feeling the scar there and beneath it the titanium mesh holding his eye in place. “When I woke up, you know what the first thing I asked was? Not if Karina was fine, not if anyone else had been harmed…I asked if my face looked okay. “I’ve never visited her grave,” Tristán continued. “I always thought it was silly to bury people. She should have been cremated. She wanted her ashes spread near the ocean. But her father wouldn’t hear of it. Just like he wouldn’t hear that she wanted to kill herself that night.” “Her and you.” “Yeah. I hated her for it, right after the accident, when they said…the eye, you know. The other injuries, the surgeries…I thought she should have had the decency to swallow pills or slash her wrists in the bathroom, like a normal person. You’re not supposed to enact the libretto of Madame Butterfly in a moving vehicle.” He let out a low, brittle half-laugh as he took the photograph from Montserrat’s open palm. “You’re correct, Momo. I’m a selfish bastard. I’ve let everyone I’ve ever known down. And I’m always running away.” “López says the living hold on to ghosts. You made a haunted house out of your own flesh and bones.” “How poetic,” he muttered, sitting down again. “It’s true. There’s no exorcism that has ever worked for you. But right now, you could do something for all of us.” “I don’t want to talk to Abel any more than I want to talk to Karina.” “You have to,” she said, moving closer to him, until she was right in front of him. “López says it needs to be you. He has a picture of Abel somewhere that can be used for the summoning. He’d tell you what to say and do. But the most important part is that you need to be willing


combo of kicks and punches. She clips her husband and loses her balance, drops and rolls out. I lean down to talk to him. “I’m moving my hand now, Mac, because I don’t want you to die. If you get up, though, I’m going to take that very seriously. Okay?” He doesn’t answer, but I pull my hand out anyway. He falls over and chokes on the mat. I watch him for a second to make sure his breathing starts properly. It’s ragged, but good enough. Mini has her back to the cage wall and she’s weaving her hands in front of her, juking and skipping. Like I say, it’s creditable. Every fifth step or so she’s rubbing her eyes, pushing more lipstick into them while trying to get it gone. “Tap out,” I tell her again. “Mac’s down. You’re blind. Come on, let’s call it.” She runs at me, arms wide. If she hits the far side of the cage like that she could be seriously hurt. If she catches me she could actually pull this off. I let her fingertips tag me as she goes by and she spins, grasping, but I’ve stepped on around with her, I’m behind her. I put her in a sleeper hold and drop her next to Mac. And that’s that. Silence. Vic says: “CAAAAAAAALLLLLL SOUUUNDEEEERRRRR!” Thunderous applause. * * * — In the soundproofed back office behind the bar, Sam passes me a cold cloth for my bruised face. “That’s your definition of ‘quiet,’ is it?” “I did what Vic asked, I didn’t seriously injure anyone, and you didn’t have to get out of your chair. Don’t be a baby.” “They will still be talking about that in a month,” Sam growls. “In a year,” Vic says. “Hell, darling, in ten. That was epic! Brutal. Elegant. Chilling. They thought they were getting blood and grunting before the first course, and instead they got something altogether more frightening: competence. You fight like an accountant, Cal. Passionless. Forensic. Absolute. Which of course triggers all the opposites: passion, dreams and disinhibition. My diners are already ordering the expensive stuff, and if table eleven aren’t naked and moaning by dessert I’ll eat my hat. Fucking stupendous. You should stop by more often.” “Not really my scene.” “Oh, but it is, darling. You hate it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not yours. It wants to rub itself all over you. And you never quite have the good sense to tell it no and move on, do you? This world has its hooks in you, Cal. Maybe you should just admit it and have some fun. I’ll put you down for a gold membership. No charge.” “I’ll take my twenty minutes with Susan Green.” “Diamant, please. And yes, just as soon as she’s finished. You warmed up the crowd perfectly. Oh, that reminds me: the Dentons—that’s Mac and Mini, to you—sent their business cards and would really love to see you again. They promise, no sex.” “Sure. I’m known for my poetry recitals.” “They want to socialise, Cal. They’re tremendously


"If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening the door, "if you please, sir, here's Dickon an' his creatures." Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide smile. The new- born lamb was in his arms and the little red fox trotted by his side. Nut sat on his left shoulder and Soot on his right and Shell's head and paws peeped out of his coat pocket. Colin slowly sat up and stared and stared--as he had stared when he first saw Mary; but this was a stare of wonder and delight. The truth was that in spite of all he had heard he had not in the least understood what this boy would be like and that his fox and his crow and his squirrels and his lamb were so near to him and his friendliness that they seemed almost to be part of himself. Colin had never talked to a boy in his life and he was so overwhelmed by his own pleasure and curiosity that he did not even think of speaking. But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward. He had not felt embarrassed because the crow had not known his language and had only stared and had not spoken to him the first time they met. Creatures were always like that until they found out about you. He walked over to Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side. Of course no boy could have helped speaking then. "What is it doing?" cried Colin. "What does it want?" "It wants its mother," said Dickon, smiling more and more. "I brought it to thee a bit hungry because I knowed tha'd like to see it feed." He knelt down by the sofa and took a feeding-bottle from his pocket. "Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the small woolly white head with a gentle brown hand. "This is what tha's after. Tha'll get more out o' this than tha' will out o' silk velvet coats. There now," and he pushed the rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth and the lamb began to suck it with ravenous ecstasy. After that there was no wondering what to say. By the time the lamb fell asleep questions poured forth and Dickon answered them all. He told them how he had found the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago. He had been standing on the moor listening to a skylark and watching him swing higher and higher into the sky until he was only a speck in the heights of blue. "I'd almost lost him but for his song an' I was wonderin' how a chap could hear it when it seemed as if he'd get out o' th' world in a minute--an' just then I heard somethin' else far off among th' gorse bushes. It was a weak bleatin' an'


find it and then you would go: ‘Huh, this guy was unconscious when he shot himself, I wonder if that’s legit?’ And then you would go ‘what the fuck am I saying, of course that’s not legit, it’s fucking ridiculous.’ But also: why not just overdose him on ketamine? He’ll be just as dead.” “So you would go with—?” “If I wanted to make it personal—which I assume is the point of the whole drug-and-shoot thing—maybe with the right person and the right information you can use a hostage.” “Nasty.” “And unreliable.” “What else?” “If it was a proper covert operation I’d go with carbon dioxide. You leave him breathe a while after, there’s not much left to find in the body. Then he’s unconscious, you pull the trigger. Fine line, but it’s conceivable no one would ever know.” “And physical force?” He shrugs. “Maybe, Cal. I mean seriously maybe, not anything like a certainty. Someone like me. I could maybe do it.” “That’s why I’m asking how.” “Well, you know this, maybe not consciously but you’ve scrapped with a couple of first-dosers in your time. It’s not even that different from your match the other night, just more extreme. Titans have big muscles and big bones, but the nervous system isn’t any different. You hit it right, you still get a knockout. Multiple inputs in short succession. Rotation, disorientation, shock, and…Blammo. Out he goes and down. Figure if you got it just right, you wouldn’t even leave bruises, or they’d be real faint. Covered up by pooling. Maybe figure them for perimortem.” “Look at you with the lingo.” “I watch TV.” “Could I do it?” “You mean could I show you how?” I think of Mini Denton. “Yeah. Could you tell me and give me a reasonable shot at pulling it off?” He shrugs. “I guess. But at the same time…it’d be pretty amazing if you did it perfectly first time out of the box. You’re not subtle.” “Imagine I was.” “I’m sorry, Cal, there’s a limit to what I can imagine.” “Shit, Sam.” “You brought it up.” “Give her flowers.” “What now?” “The chef. Give her flowers.” “I’m not an idiot, Sounder, I know to give her flowers.” “Have you done it yet?” “No, but—” “Give her flowers. And think about coming to work with me.” “Go away now, Cal. You’re a ball ache.” “I’m just saying we’d be great together.” He eyes me without enthusiasm. “But you didn’t think to bring me flowers.” * * * — I go back to my office. The tricker kids in the condemned lot opposite have found a new route over the rubble, running up a section of concrete pipe and flipping back over it, then turning and going on up into the open structure. They’re having tea in a green kitchen halfway up, all lined up along a table like something between a dance party and a magistrate’s bench. I wave to them, but they don’t wave back and the putty lattice tugs in my side, so I leave them to it.


to think ill of Wickham himself? Does he know his real character?'' ``I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad affair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt; but I hope this may be false.'' ``Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, this could not have happened!'' ``Perhaps it would have been better,'' replied her sister. ``But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions.'' ``Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his wife?'' ``He brought it with him for us to see.'' Jane then took it from her pocket-book, and gave it to Elizabeth. These were the contents: ``MY DEAR HARRIET, You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater when I write to them and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt, for not keeping my engagement and dancing with him to night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are packed up. Good bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey. Your affectionate friend, LYDIA BENNET.'' ``Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!'' cried Elizabeth when she had finished it. ``What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment. But at least it shews that _she_ was serious in the object of her journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a _scheme_ of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!'' ``I never saw any one so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in such confusion!'' ``Oh! Jane!'' cried Elizabeth, ``was there a servant belonging to it, who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?'' ``I do not know. -- I hope there was. -- But to be


last time the mountain had spilled fire, it had also birthed the Nameless One. ‘Your Highness.’ A messenger had appeared. ‘Queen Sabran requests your presence.’ With a fresh sense of foreboding, Glorian splashed the sweat from her face and tidied her hair. Her mother had a habit of always summoning her when she was dishevelled. Queen Sabran was in her withdrawing room, where Liuma was lacing her gown. The Mistress of the Robes smiled when Glorian came in. Liuma had always been sterner than Florell, but the years had softened her a little. ‘Glorian,’ Queen Sabran said. ‘I trust you have had a productive day with your tutors.’ ‘Yes, Mother. I undertook religious studies and learned more complex phrasing in Yscali.’ ‘Good. Your pronunciation needs refinement,’ her mother stated. ‘Janasta ruz zunga, fáurasta ruz herza.’ To know many tongues is to rule many hearts. Glorian mustered her confidence. ‘Atha meisto áuda,’ she said, making sure to articulate each word with precision, ‘sa háuzas tu andugi gala háurasta.’ ‘A perfect sentence.’ Liuma nodded her approval. ‘Very good, Your Highness.’ ‘Yes. Come,’ Queen Sabran said. ‘I have news for you.’ Glorian sat opposite her mother at a table, and Liuma set two exquisite goblets before them, blown from ruby glass and caged in ironwork. ‘How beautiful,’ Glorian said, wondering. ‘Gifts from the Carmenti. They have been scrupulously cleansed.’ It took a moment to understand. Poison had never even crossed her mind. Liuma poured them both a dark cherry wine before retreating. Glorian sat up straight, the better to mirror Queen Sabran. After sixteen years, it was still a strange thing, to look at her mother and see her own features. Lips as red as roses, as sacred blood on snow, the rhyme went. Eyes as green as willow leaves, and hair black as a crow. ‘First, I have news I imagine will please you,’ Queen Sabran said. ‘We have decided to annul your betrothal to Lord Magnaust Vatten. Instead, he will wed Idrega Vetalda, Princess of Yscalin.’ Glorian was careful not to smile, even as a sunbeam of relief shone through her. ‘As you decree, Mother,’ she said. ‘I wish them every happiness.’ Arching an eyebrow, Queen Sabran lifted her goblet to her lips. The wine deepened their redness. ‘The eruption of the Dreadmount threatens the stability of Virtudom,’ she said. ‘We could no longer wait until you are seventeen to strengthen our ties to the Vatten. Fortunately, Idrega is willing and of age. She will marry Lord Magnaust on the Feast of High Winter.’ ‘In such a dark time?’ ‘It is wise to give the people joy when the world offers them gloom and lack. As the Knight of Fellowship reminds us, it is in the darkest times that companionship is needed most. What else does the Feast of High Winter represent?’ ‘A new year.’ ‘Yes. A fair time for a new alliance.’ Glorian had a distant memory of Idrega, courteous and sweet. A strange fit with the scornful Magnaust. ‘Your father and I will attend the ceremony, which will take place in


in his mind. Some clicked neatly into place, others he had to force, but he knew he was on the right track. Soon they’d nail Father John, the fake priest. Once he’d parked his Jeep in the station’s lot, he and Montoya headed inside. It might be a long night ahead of them, but Bentz didn’t care. The long hunt was coming to an end. Finally. The station was still buzzing with cops coming and going, talking and laughing, passing through the metal detectors, swapping stories, most in full uniform, boots loud on the floor. Stripping off his jacket as he walked past the draped plastic curtains of the area of the station that was being renovated, he saw workmen putting lids on paint cans and folding ladders to be stacked in the corners, Bentz said, “I’m telling you we’re dealing with that same fuckin’ maniac.” Once inside their shared office, Bentz eyed the map of the bayou he’d mounted on the wall. Taking a pen from his desk and uncapping it in his teeth, he surveyed the area and marked the spot where they’d found the remains of Maizie and Willard Ledoux. Though the bodies still needed to be formally identified, Bentz believed the two fishermen. “Maybe.” Montoya wasn’t completely on board. “No ‘maybes’ about it,” Bentz said, tapping the map of the bayou with his finger. “Father John is back.” The location of Maizie and Willard Ledoux’s bodies and home only added to his conviction that somehow Father John had survived all these years. “And dollars to donuts he killed the Ledoux couple. Don’t know how or why or if he knew them, but he did it. We need to find out how long they’ve been dead—Jesus, has Father John been here all these years?” He traced his finger around the bayou. “My guess is that he’s here—somewhere in the swamp. It’s where he feels most comfortable, but now that we’ve got a victim who survived and the spot where she was attacked, he might move.” He sat in his chair and leaned back, tenting his hands and thinking. “But my guess is he won’t go far.” “What about Dr. Sam?” Montoya asked as he fired up his laptop. “I still think she’s in jeopardy. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had Stacy Parker call in to her show before he took her out to the swamp.” “Uh-oh.” Montoya was reading the screen on his computer. “What?” “Records was able to locate all the info on the Rosary Killer in the archives.” He was frowning, the screen reflecting in his eyes. “And—?” “And his medical records indicate his blood type was O positive.” He met Bentz’s concerned gaze. “The blood that was found at the scene where Kristi was attacked and McKnight was killed—found on the cathedral walls—was B neg.” Bentz thought about it. “Father John is our guy. We know that.” “You know that. He could be a damned good copycat.” “Don’t think so.” Montoya met his gaze. “Then we’ve got ourselves two killers now, don’t we? The one killing prostitutes


So I don’t have to go alone?” It was a long shot, of course. But she didn’t budge. “I find our work goes better in here,” she said, “when we don’t see each other out there.” * * * BY THE SATURDAY of the art show, it had been a full four days, fourteen hours, and twenty minutes since I’d had any contact from Joe. It seemed pretty clear at this point that he’d moved on. Though I continued to hold out hope for Sue’s Sicilian grandmother scenario. Or maybe an unexpected car accident, like in An Affair to Remember. Or maybe some kind of head injury-induced amnesia? There were still a few possible explanations that were forgivable. Sort of. Oh, well. He was out of my life now, which was probably a good thing, I kept telling myself. But I missed him anyway, is what I’m saying. Against my better judgment. I confess: I had moments when I felt tempted to call in sick to the art show. I mean, how could you go to an art show that you were guaranteed to lose without any hope at all? But on the other hand, how could I not go? It’s one thing for dreams to shift slowly—for you to evolve and long for different things. It’s another thing to abandon your dream out of spite. I thought about my mom. My courageous, kindhearted mom. She would have given anything to go to this exact show fourteen years ago. She would give anything to be here right now, fully alive, facing whatever life threw at her, and just cherishing it all. Maybe the best way to hold on to her wasn’t to obsess over her paintings or wear her skates or listen to her music or copy her style or worry over what would happen when I finally lost Peanut. Maybe the best way to keep her with me was to embrace her spirit. To emulate her courage. To bring the warmth and love to the world that she always—fearlessly—had. She had loved us without reservation. She adored us wildly. And laughed. And danced. And soaked it all up—every atom of her life—every moment of her time She felt it all. She lived it all. That’s what I loved about her. Not just that she was a great mom or a great wife or a great dog rescuer. She was a great person. She knew some divine secret about how to open up to being alive that the rest of us kept stubbornly missing. She’d wanted me to know it, too. She’d wanted me to say yes to everything. She’d wanted me to go all in. But when she died, I went the other way. I’m not judging myself. I was a kid. I didn’t know how to cope with losing her—or any of the hardships that followed. But I guess that’s the great thing about life—it gives you chance after chance to rethink it all. Who you want to be. How you want to live. What really matters. I did want


but did not answer; and next day he and Upjohn followed the hearse in the one carriage which Philip had ordered. Lawson, unable to come, had sent a wreath; and Philip, so that the coffin should not seem too neglected, had bought a couple. On the way back the coachman whipped up his horses. Philip was dog-tired and presently went to sleep. He was awakened by Upjohn's voice. "It's rather lucky the poems haven't come out yet. I think we'd better hold them back a bit and I'll write a preface. I began thinking of it during the drive to the cemetery. I believe I can do something rather good. Anyhow I'll start with an article in _The Saturday_." Philip did not reply, and there was silence between them. At last Upjohn said: "I daresay I'd be wiser not to whittle away my copy. I think I'll do an article for one of the reviews, and then I can just print it afterwards as a preface." Philip kept his eye on the monthlies, and a few weeks later it appeared. The article made something of a stir, and extracts from it were printed in many of the papers. It was a very good article, vaguely biographical, for no one knew much of Cronshaw's early life, but delicate, tender, and picturesque. Leonard Upjohn in his intricate style drew graceful little pictures of Cronshaw in the Latin Quarter, talking, writing poetry: Cronshaw became a picturesque figure, an English Verlaine; and Leonard Upjohn's coloured phrases took on a tremulous dignity, a more pathetic grandiloquence, as he described the sordid end, the shabby little room in Soho; and, with a reticence which was wholly charming and suggested a much greater generosity than modesty allowed him to state, the efforts he made to transport the Poet to some cottage embowered with honeysuckle amid a flowering orchard. And the lack of sympathy, well-meaning but so tactless, which had taken the poet instead to the vulgar respectability of Kennington! Leonard Upjohn described Kennington with that restrained humour which a strict adherence to the vocabulary of Sir Thomas Browne necessitated. With delicate sarcasm he narrated the last weeks, the patience with which Cronshaw bore the well-meaning clumsiness of the young student who had appointed himself his nurse, and the pitifulness of that divine vagabond in those hopelessly middle-class surroundings. Beauty from ashes, he quoted from Isaiah. It was a triumph of irony for that outcast poet to die amid the trappings of vulgar respectability; it reminded Leonard Upjohn of Christ among the Pharisees, and the analogy gave him opportunity for an exquisite passage. And then he told how a friend--his good taste did not suffer him more than to hint subtly who the friend was with such gracious fancies--had laid a laurel wreath on the dead poet's heart; and the beautiful dead hands had seemed to rest with a voluptuous passion upon Apollo's leaves, fragrant with the fragrance of art, and more green than jade brought by swart mariners from the manifold, inexplicable China. And, an admirable contrast, the article


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

absurd. No visible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: for indubitably he does support himself, and that is the only unanswerable proof that any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. No more then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices; I will move elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if I find him on my new premises I will then proceed against him as a common trespasser. Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: “I find these chambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word, I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall no longer require your services. I tell you this now, in order that you may seek another place.” He made no reply, and nothing more was said. On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my chambers, and having but little furniture, every thing was removed in a few hours. Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the screen, which I directed to be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn; and being folded up like a huge folio, left him the motionless occupant of a naked room. I stood in the entry watching him a moment, while something from within me upbraided me. I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket—and—and my heart in my mouth. “Good-bye, Bartleby; I am going—good-bye, and God some way bless you; and take that,” slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon the floor, and then,—strange to say—I tore myself from him whom I had so longed to be rid of. Established in my new quarters, for a day or two I kept the door locked, and started at every footfall in the passages. When I returned to my rooms after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold for an instant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key. But these fears were needless. Bartleby never came nigh me. I thought all was going well, when a perturbed looking stranger visited me, inquiring whether I was the person who had recently occupied rooms at No.—Wall-street. Full of forebodings, I replied that I was. “Then sir,” said the stranger, who proved a lawyer, “you are responsible for the man you left there. He refuses to do any copying; he refuses to do any thing; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses to quit the premises.” “I am very sorry, sir,” said I, with assumed tranquility, but an inward tremor, “but, really, the man you allude to is nothing to me—he is no relation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me responsible for him.” “In mercy’s name, who is he?” “I certainly cannot inform you. I know nothing about him. Formerly I employed him as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me now for some time past.” “I shall settle him then,—good morning, sir.” Several days passed, and I heard nothing more; and though I often felt a


Iris the chance to respond before she turned on her heel, disappearing down the hallway. “Mari? Marisol!” Iris slipped from Roman’s arms, hurrying after her. “She’s not here.” Keegan pivoted in the foyer. “Where is she?” “At the infirmary. What’s happening? Do we need to evacuate?” “Yes.” Keegan’s gaze flickered beyond her, to where Roman had limped into the hallway, following them. “One of you needs to get the dash-packs ready. The other, come with me.” She stepped back into the brightness of the front yard, and Iris turned to Roman. “Marisol has the dash-packs in the pantry,” she explained. “There should be four of them, one for each of us. If you’ll gather them together, I’ll meet you back here in a few minutes.” “Iris, Iris, wait.” He snagged her sleeve and drew her to him, and she thought he was about to argue until his mouth crashed against hers. She was still breathless from his kiss a full minute later, when she was chasing Keegan through the chaotic streets. There were lorries parked everywhere, and soldiers were spilling out of them, preparing for battle. “Keegan?” Iris called, hurrying to keep pace with Marisol’s wife. “What’s happened?” “Dacre is about to assault Clover Hill,” Keegan replied, stepping around a man who was running home with three goats on a leash and a basket full of produce in his arms. “That’s a small town only a few kilometers from here. I don’t think we’ll be able to hold it for long, so we expect Dacre will strike the Bluff next, within a day or so.” The words went through Iris like bullets. She felt a flash of pain in her chest, but then she went numb with shock. This can’t be happening, she thought, even as she saw how the residents of Avalon Bluff were rushing out of their homes with suitcases and dash-packs, heeding the orders of soldiers who were telling them to load up into the lorries and evacuate. There was one family who had dragged a huge framed portrait out of the house and into their yard. A soldier was shaking his head, saying, “No, only the essentials. Leave everything else behind.” “The residents are being evacuated by lorry?” Iris asked. “Yes,” Keegan replied, her eyes set dead ahead of them as they continued to wind through the crowded street. “They’ll be driven to the next town east of here. But I’m asking for any residents who want to fight and defend the town to stay behind and assist. Hopefully, there’ll be a few who volunteer.” Iris swallowed. Her mouth felt dry, and her pulse was beating hard in her throat. She wanted to stay and help, but she knew in that moment that she and Roman should evacuate. “I never got your name,” Keegan said, glancing at her. “Iris Winnow.” Keegan’s eyes widened. She tripped over a loose cobblestone, but her reaction to Iris’s name was quickly stifled, which made Iris wonder if she had merely imagined it. Although she was haunted by an unspoken question … Has


and on one side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner. We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider- webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale under- side of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest -- FST! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree- tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rum- bling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs -- where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know. "Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread." "Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile." The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same old distance across -- a half a mile -- because the Missouri shore was just a wall of high bluffs. Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and when the


Aubert, whom early experience had taught to understand the nature of Valancourt's present feelings. 'What pity that the wealthy, who can command such sunshine, should ever pass their days in gloom--in the cold shade of selfishness! For you, my young friend, may the sun always shine as brightly as at this moment; may your own conduct always give you the sunshine of benevolence and reason united!' Valancourt, highly flattered by this compliment, could make no reply but by a smile of gratitude. They continued to wind under the woods, between the grassy knolls of the mountain, and, as they reached the shady summit, which he had pointed out, the whole party burst into an exclamation. Behind the spot where they stood, the rock rose perpendicularly in a massy wall to a considerable height, and then branched out into overhanging crags. Their grey tints were well contrasted by the bright hues of the plants and wild flowers, that grew in their fractured sides, and were deepened by the gloom of the pines and cedars, that waved above. The steeps below, over which the eye passed abruptly to the valley, were fringed with thickets of alpine shrubs; and, lower still, appeared the tufted tops of the chesnut woods, that clothed their base, among which peeped forth the shepherd's cottage, just left by the travellers, with its blueish smoke curling high in the air. On every side appeared the majestic summits of the Pyrenees, some exhibiting tremendous crags of marble, whose appearance was changing every instant, as the varying lights fell upon their surface; others, still higher, displaying only snowy points, while their lower steeps were covered almost invariably with forests of pine, larch, and oak, that stretched down to the vale. This was one of the narrow vallies, that open from the Pyrenees into the country of Rousillon, and whose green pastures, and cultivated beauty, form a decided and wonderful contrast to the romantic grandeur that environs it. Through a vista of the mountains appeared the lowlands of Rousillon, tinted with the blue haze of distance, as they united with the waters of the Mediterranean; where, on a promontory, which marked the boundary of the shore, stood a lonely beacon, over which were seen circling flights of sea-fowl. Beyond, appeared, now and then, a stealing sail, white with the sun-beam, and whose progress was perceivable by its approach to the light-house. Sometimes, too, was seen a sail so distant, that it served only to mark the line of separation between the sky and the waves. On the other side of the valley, immediately opposite to the spot where the travellers rested, a rocky pass opened toward Gascony. Here no sign of cultivation appeared. The rocks of granite, that screened the glen, rose abruptly from their base, and stretched their barren points to the clouds, unvaried with woods, and uncheered even by a hunter's cabin. Sometimes, indeed, a gigantic larch threw its long shade over the precipice, and here and there a cliff reared on its brow a monumental cross, to tell the traveller the


scent of her breath pulling me in. ‘I’m just not sure where I fit in,’ I said, reluctantly breaking away. Stupid thoughts. ‘You’re the only one who has seen the bookshop. That has to mean something.’ It was true. The search for the manuscript had led me here and now I’d found the treasure I never knew I was searching for. She took my hand and led me upstairs. No light was on, but the rooms were lit by an incredibly large moon shining through the windows. ‘What about Madame Bowden?’ I asked, as we rounded the ground floor and headed up to the first landing. ‘I don’t think she’s coming back.’ Any hint of anxiety had left her voice. What was going on? She stopped for a moment and turned to face me. ‘Would you think it strange—’ ‘Martha,’ I said, taking her by the shoulders. ‘I think the strange horse has bolted, don’t you?’ She smiled and physically shook off whatever last doubts were holding her back. ‘Apart from us, there isn’t one other person who has actually met Madame Bowden. I asked my friends from college – none of them saw her that night at my birthday party. Not even my mother.’ ‘Right. Okay. That is strange.’ ‘Apart from Shane,’ she added, her forehead creasing as she became lost in troubling memories of the past. ‘Why was that?’ she whispered almost inaudibly to herself. I began to wish I hadn’t seen her either. Was she a ghost? ‘I don’t think she’s a ghost.’ ‘So you’re just reading my thoughts at will now, is it? I don’t know if I like this!’ Martha smiled and assured me her ‘gift’ wasn’t that refined. ‘I read people’s stories, not every single thought. Although sometimes your thoughts are easily readable,’ she said, stepping closer to me in the darkness. We kissed again because, well, any opportunity. A small door at the end of the hall, which resembled something you might find at the front of a gnome’s house, required both of us to contort ourselves in equally undignified fashion in order to gain entry. Your average attic, where Christmas lay in hiding for eleven months of the year, was illuminated by the milky glow of the moon through half-size windows. Dustsheets covered unknowable shapes, and a cheval mirror at the end of the room reflected another young couple entering the room from a similarly tiny door. I recalled a book I had found at the bottom of a bargain bin in a charity shop near Camden. Something about the memories of buildings and how the walls are infused with them. They never forget, what we, as mere mortals, misplace. I hadn’t thought of it since, until now. ‘There’s a note,’ Martha said, picking up an envelope with her name on it. Martha, I have played many different characters in other people’s stories. Your story was my favourite and this chapter shall be your finest yet. In order for something to exist, you must first believe in it. Invite your heart to see what


wandering toward the Ferris wheel, saucer-eyed. “Dude, Wyn’s about to be beamed up,” Kimmy says, and I have no idea what she’s talking about, but it makes me laugh anyway. Wyn looks over his shoulder and says, “Look at it. It’s beautiful.” Sabrina stares at him for one second, then throws her head back and cackles. But he—and his not-quite-tiny gummy—is right. Everything looks soft around the edges, dreamy. Parth leads us into the Ferris wheel line. I try to pair up with Sabrina, but she sidesteps me in the queue, switching places so she’s with Parth and I’m with Wyn. “Okay, okay,” Parth says. “Raise your hand if you’re high.” “What if we all close our eyes first?” Kimmy says. “Just so no one’s embarrassed.” Wyn’s head droops against my shoulder, his laughter spilling across my skin, dripping down my spine, lighting up my nerve endings as it goes. A mixed metaphor, sure, but when are you supposed to mix your metaphors if not at thirty years old, high as a satellite? “I feel young!” I cry, which makes Sabrina cackle again, throw her arms out to her sides, and spin twice. Parth grabs my shoulders and says urgently, “We are young, Harry. We’ll always be young. It’s a state of mind.” “Now seems like a good time to tell you,” Cleo says, “Kim buys this shit from a neighbor who makes it at home. It’s not regulated. Hope you’re all prepared to go to the fucking moon.” Kimmy’s eyes have essentially disappeared at this point. “Listen,” she says, “you’re gonna have a great time. Moon’s beautiful this time of year.” Normally the idea of unregulated weed gummies might make me a tad anxious. Or, like, have a full-blown panic attack. But the way Kimmy says it and the goofy look on her face make me snort-laugh some more. “Wait,” Wyn says, face stern and serious, “how do you make gummies at home?” “Listen,” Kimmy says. “It’s a mystery.” “Listen,” Sabrina says. “I love it.” The very unimpressed twentysomething Ferris wheel attendant waves us up the metal steps to the loading platform. Sabrina and Parth take the frontmost open bench, and Wyn steadies me as we climb in the next one, my breath still coming in giggly gasps. “These,” he says, “are not my mother’s weed gummies.” I chortle into his shoulder, then pull back quickly. Well, in all honesty, I doubt I’m doing anything quickly, but I do remember to remove my face from his neck region, and that’s not nothing at this point. We lift our arms as the attendant checks our lap bar, then drop them again as he moves to the bench behind us to latch Kimmy and Cleo in. “Remember the maritime museum?” he says. I wipe my laugh-tears away with the back of my hand. “Remember might not be accurate. I have bits and pieces floating around inside my hippocampus like little soap bubbles.” “It was the trip right before your last year of medical school,” he says. “Seriously?” My hand flops onto his on


room I currently reside in at home, and I briefly consider what I’d do with the space if it were given to me. The room comes with a double bed, a large wardrobe, wide windows, and a small desk and chair. The rent is more than I hoped to pay, but this is the best flat—and residents—I’ve found by far. Before Jo, I’d spent an entire day wishing the opportunity to move out had been presented to me earlier. Only a day before my search began, Shu messaged to say Lydia had agreed to them living together and they were now looking for a place for just the two of them. Since then I’d met shared-bathroom-nightmare Carrie, who’d left two used tampons floating in the toilet; four-in-the-house-and-therefore-four-sets-of-crusting-washing-up-left-in-the-sink Jennifer, and who could forget are-you-single-because-this-is-an-open-kind-of-house Tim? I’d of course met some regular people too, but not surprisingly their rooms were snapped up before I’d even caught the train home. Usually I’d stand in the corner whilst I was essentially interviewed by the prospective flatmates, but Jo offers me a cup of tea and a seat on her squashy sofa and when Cam is off the phone we all talk about work, books, and social lives (theirs far more distinct than mine). Jo has wavy dark-blond hair and bright blue eyes that make me think she could cry on cue, whilst Cam is the opposite. She has short brunette hair (which I think used to be longer because she often reaches up to pull it into a ponytail before realizing she can’t), brown eyes, a slim face, very … unobjectionable. Ryan Fellows in secondary school once called me plain-looking. He was surprised by my offended reaction. He said it was a compliment, that there was nothing odd about my face, that I still looked nice without any makeup on. Looking at Cam, I understand what he was getting at. “I’m still new around here,” says Cam, “but it’s a great area. The commute is easy and there’s shops and bars everywhere.” “My two previous flatmates moved out to move in with their partners,” adds Jo. Cam rolls her eyes and says, “Social convention strikes again.” “You wouldn’t move in with a partner?” I ask her. “Oh, I would,” she says, “but I like to indulge in hypocrisy every now and again.” Cam leaves shortly after to meet a friend for dinner and it’s just Jo and me. I suddenly remember what Shu said about threateningly pretty flatmates. As Jo speaks about the decline of our government and whether Eton College is worth all the praise if this is what it keeps churning out, I consider her. She has big, pale blue eyes, round cheeks, and an easy smile, with a needle-thin gap in her front teeth. She has on a giant blue jumper, gray leggings, pink socks, and her feet swing inches from the floor. Am I threatened by her? No. Not because she isn’t pretty—it’s because … well, why should I be threatened when I don’t have a Lydia, a partner to protect? Why


ever a gentleman o’ fortune show his stern to that to lend an ear to this encouragement and were coming a little much dollars for a boozy old seaman with a blue mug—and to themselves, when the same voice broke out again—not this him dead too?” time singing, but in a faint distant hail that echoed yet fainter But there was no sign of reawakening courage in his fol- among the clefts of the Spy-glass. lowers, rather, indeed, of growing terror at the irreverence of “Darby M’Graw,” it wailed—for that is the word that best his words. describes the sound—”Darby M’Graw! Darby M’Graw!” again “Belay there, John!” said Merry. “Don’t you cross a sperrit.” and again and again; and then rising a little higher, and with And the rest were all too terrified to reply. They would an oath that I leave out: “Fetch aft the rum, Darby!” have run away severally had they dared; but fear kept them The buccaneers remained rooted to the ground, their eyes together, and kept them close by John, as if his daring helped Contents starting from their heads. Long after the voice had died away them. He, on his part, had pretty well fought his weakness they still stared in silence, dreadfully, before them. down. Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 270 271 “Sperrit? Well, maybe,” he said. “But there’s one thing and set forth again, Merry walking first with Silver’s compass not clear to me. There was an echo. Now, no man ever seen a to keep them on the right line with Skeleton Island. He had sperrit with a shadow; well then, what’s he doing with an said the truth: dead or alive, nobody minded Ben Gunn. echo to him, I should like to know? That ain’t in natur’, Dick alone still held his Bible, and looked around him as surely?” he went, with fearful glances; but he found no sympathy, and This argument seemed weak enough to me. But you can Silver even joked him on his precautions. never tell what will affect the superstitious, and to my won- “I told you,” said he—”I told you you had sp’iled your der, George Merry was greatly relieved. Bible. If it ain’t no good to swear by, what do you suppose a “Well, that’s so,” he said. “You’ve a head upon your shoul- sperrit would give for it? Not that!” and he snapped his big ders, John, and no mistake. ‘Bout ship, mates! This here crew fingers, halting a moment on his crutch. is on a wrong tack, I do believe. And come to think on it, it But Dick was not to be comforted; indeed, it was soon was like Flint’s voice, I grant you, but not just so clear-away plain to me that the lad was falling sick; hastened by heat, like it, after all. It was liker somebody else’s voice now—it exhaustion, and the shock of his alarm, the fever, predicted by was liker—” Dr. Livesey, was evidently growing swiftly higher. “By the powers, Ben Gunn!” roared Silver. It was fine open


was you; your head must be as hard as iron. Well, George, “We’ve quite a surprise for you too, sir,” he continued. how goes it? You’re a pretty colour, certainly; why, your liver, “We’ve a little stranger here—he! he! A noo boarder and man, is upside down. Did you take that medicine? Did he lodger, sir, and looking fit and taut as a fiddle; slep’ like a take that medicine, men?” supercargo, he did, right alongside of John—stem to stem we “Aye, aye, sir, he took it, sure enough,” returned Morgan. was, all night.” “Because, you see, since I am mutineers’ doctor, or prison Dr. Livesey was by this time across the stockade and pretty doctor as I prefer to call it,” says Doctor Livesey in his near the cook, and I could hear the alteration in his voice as he pleasantest way, “I make it a point of honour not to lose a said, “Not Jim?” man for King George (God bless him!) and the gallows.” “The very same Jim as ever was,” says Silver. The rogues looked at each other but swallowed the home- The doctor stopped outright, although he did not speak, thrust in silence. and it was some seconds before he seemed able to move on. “Dick don’t feel well, sir,” said one. “Well, well,” he said at last, “duty first and pleasure after- “Don’t he?” replied the doctor. “Well, step up here, Dick, wards, as you might have said yourself, Silver. Let us overhaul and let me see your tongue. No, I should be surprised if he Contents these patients of yours.” did! The man’s tongue is fit to frighten the French. Another A moment afterwards he had entered the block house and fever.” Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 250 251 “Ah, there,” said Morgan, “that comed of sp’iling Bibles.” grog. And I take it I’ve found a way as’ll suit all. Hawkins, “That comes—as you call it—of being arrant asses,” re- will you give me your word of honour as a young gentle- torted the doctor, “and not having sense enough to know hon- man—for a young gentleman you are, although poor born— est air from poison, and the dry land from a vile, pestiferous your word of honour not to slip your cable?” slough. I think it most probable— though of course it’s only I readily gave the pledge required. an opinion—that you’ll all have the deuce to pay before you “Then, doctor,” said Silver, “you just step outside o’ that get that malaria out of your systems. Camp in a bog, would stockade, and once you’re there I’ll bring the boy down on you? Silver, I’m surprised at you. You’re less of a fool than the inside, and I reckon you can yarn through the spars. Good many, take you all round; but you don’t appear to me to have day to you, sir, and all our dooties to the squire and Cap’n the rudiments of a notion of the rules of health. Smollett.” “Well,” he added after he had dosed them round and


uncommunicative by nature, said nothing. He offered no opinion on the beast nor told Ralph why he had chosen to come on this mad expedition. He simply sat and rocked the trunk gently. Ralph noticed a rapid and infuriating tapping noise and realized that Roger was banging his silly wooden stick against something. So they sat, the rocking, tapping, impervious Roger and Ralph, fuming; round them the close sky was loaded with stars, save where the mountain punched up a hole of blackness. There was a slithering noise high above them, the sound of someone taking giant and dangerous strides on rock or ash. Then Jack found them, and was shivering and croaking in a voice they could just recognize as his. "I saw a thing on top." They heard him blunder against the trunk which rocked violently. He lay silent for a moment, then muttered. "Keep a good lookout. It may be following." A shower of ash pattered round them. Jack sat up. "I saw a thing bulge on the mountain." "You only imagined it," said Ralph shakily, "because nothing would bulge. Not any sort of creature." Roger spoke; they jumped, for they had forgotten him. "A frog." Jack giggled and shuddered. "Some frog. There was a noise too. A kind of 'plop' noise. Then the thing bulged." Ralph surprised himself, not so much by the quality of his voice, which was even, but by the bravado of its intention. "We'll go and look." For the first time since he had first known Jack, Ralph could feel him hesitate. "Now--?" His voice spoke for him. "Of course." He got off the trunk and led the way across the clinking cinders up into the dark, and the others followed. Now that his physical voice was silent the inner voice of reason, and other voices too, made themselves heard. Piggy was calling him a kid. Another voice told him not to be a fool; and the darkness and desperate enterprise gave the night a kind of dentist's chair unreality. As they came to the last slope, Jack and Roger drew near, changed from the ink-stains to distinguishable figures. By common consent they stopped and crouched together. Behind them, on the horizon, was a patch of lighter sky where in a moment the moon would rise. The wind roared once in the forest and pushed their rags against them. Ralph stirred. "Come on." They crept forward, Roger lagging a little. Jack and Ralph turned the shoulder of the mountain together. The glittering lengths of the lagoon lay below them and beyond that a long white smudge that was the reef. Roger joined them. Jack whispered. "Let's creep forward on hands and knees. Maybe it's asleep." Roger and Ralph moved on, this time leaving Jack in the rear, for all his brave words. They came to the flat top where the rock was hard to hands and knees. A creature that bulged. Ralph put his hand in the cold, soft ashes of the fire and smothered a cry. His hand and shoulder were twitching from


of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was today produced at the inquest. And a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a transcript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my statement must be taken cum grano, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short. LOG OF THE "DEMETER" Varna to Whitby Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land. On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands. . .two mates, cook, and myself, (captain). On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m. On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago. On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out. On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong. They only told him there was SOMETHING, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet. On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of the crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night, was relieved by Amramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than there was SOMETHING aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them. Feared some trouble ahead. On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deckhouse, as there was a rain storm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companionway, and go along the deck forward and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall today search the entire ship carefully from stem to stern. Later in the


`Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself. `How can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no room at all for any lesson-books!' And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen. `Mary Ann! Mary Ann!' said the voice. `Fetch me my gloves this moment!' Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no reason to be afraid of it. Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself `Then I'll go round and get in at the window.' `THAT you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of the sort. Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--`Pat! Pat! Where are you?' And then a voice she had never heard before, `Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, yer honour!' `Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily. `Here! Come and help me out of THIS!' (Sounds of more broken glass.) `Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?' `Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!' (He pronounced it `arrum.') `An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole window!' `Sure, it does, yer honour: but it's an arm for all that.' `Well, it's got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!' There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now and then; such as, `Sure, I don't like it, yer honour, at all, at all!' `Do as I tell you, you coward!' and at last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in the air. This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. `What a number of cucumber-frames there must be!' thought Alice. `I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of the window, I only wish they COULD! I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any longer!' She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voice all talking together: she made out the words: `Where's the other ladder?--Why, I hadn't to bring but one; Bill's got the


now there’s a sense of detachment that accompanies a book release. As a celebrity ghostwriter, I’m not hired to be anyone’s coauthor—I’m supposed to write from their point of view. To become them. My first author, a Bachelor contestant who infamously dumped the guy on national TV after he proposed, was an utter delight, and she still emails asking how I’m doing. But I quickly learned that wasn’t the norm. Because then there was Maddy, and the book I just finished for a TikTok-famous personal trainer with his own line of protein shakes that really stretches the definition of literature. Maybe there’s some satisfaction in clutching these several hundred pages I churned out at record speed, a tangible conclusion to all those late nights and canceled plans. And yet I can also completely divorce myself from this book in a way that’s either great or terrible for my mental health. Maybe both. “It’s not my book,” I say simply, taking another sip from my Maddy DeMarco–branded water bottle. It’s like, weirdly good water, and I’m not sure I want to know why. The signing line crawls forward, people asking Maddy to pose for photos before they head off to pay at the register. I can’t fault any of them for loving her the way they do. They want to believe that changing their lifestyle can change their life—after all, it worked for her. “Thanks for waiting with me,” I say, and Noemie’s eyes soften behind her tortoiseshell glasses, her cynical exterior cracking for a moment. “I know this isn’t your ideal Friday night.” “Considering I spent last Friday explaining to a client why we couldn’t guarantee them a cover story in Time, this is a definite upgrade.” She’s still dressed in her PR professional best: tapered slacks, daisy-patterned peplum top, a blazer draped over her arm. Long dark hair straightened and frizz-free, because she’s not Noemie if she has even a single flyaway. Meanwhile, in my cords, faded Sleater-Kinney tee, and a black denim jacket that’s too warm for early September, I must look like I haven’t seen the sun since 1996. No vitamin D for me, thanks. “Can’t argue with you there.” I pick at a speck of silver nail polish, a tell my cousin will be able to see right through. “And hey, the longer we’re here, the longer I can pretend everyone else isn’t at Wyatt’s housewarming.” Noemie grimaces in this familiar way I’m never sure whether I learned from her or the other way around. Noemie Cohen-Laurent is both my only first cousin and my closest friend. We grew up on the same street, attended the same schools, and now even live in the same house, though she owns it and I’m paying a deeply discounted monthly rent. We both studied journalism, starry-eyed about how we were going to change the world, tell the stories no one else was telling. The economy pushed us in different directions, and before we graduated, Noemie had already been hired full-time at the PR firm where she’d interned during her senior year.


as she could. The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more. `You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice, `and why it is you hate--C and D,' she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again. `Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. `It IS a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; `but why do you call it sad?' And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:-- `Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, "Let us both go to law: I will prosecute YOU. --Come, I'll take no denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I've nothing to do." Said the mouse to the cur, "Such a trial, dear Sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath." "I'll be judge, I'll be jury," Said cunning old Fury: "I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death."' `You are not attending!' said the Mouse to Alice severely. `What are you thinking of?' `I beg your pardon,' said Alice very humbly: `you had got to the fifth bend, I think?' `I had NOT!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily. `A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. `Oh, do let me help to undo it!' `I shall do nothing of the sort,' said the Mouse, getting up and walking away. `You insult me by talking such nonsense!' `I didn't mean it!' pleaded poor Alice. `But you're so easily offended, you know!' The Mouse only growled in reply. `Please come back and finish your story!' Alice called after it; and the others all joined in chorus, `Yes, please do!' but the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little quicker. `What a pity it wouldn't stay!' sighed the Lory, as soon as it was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her daughter `Ah, my dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose YOUR temper!' `Hold your tongue, Ma!' said the young Crab, a little snappishly. `You're enough to try the patience of an oyster!' `I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!' said Alice aloud, addressing nobody in particular. `She'd soon fetch it back!' `And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?' said the Lory. Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet: `Dinah's our cat. And she's such a capital one for catching mice you can't think! And oh,


very polite, for a boy, and altogether jolly. Wonder how old he is?" It was on the tip of Jo's tongue to ask, but she checked herself in time and, with unusual tact, tried to find out in a round-about way. "I suppose you are going to college soon? I see you pegging away at your books, no, I mean studying hard." And Jo blushed at the dreadful `pegging' which had escaped her. Laurie smiled but didn't seem shocked, and answered with a shrug. "Not for a year or two. I won't go before seventeen, anyway." "Aren't you but fifteen?" asked Jo, looking at the tall lad, whom she had imagined seventeen already. "Sixteen, next month." "How I wish I was going to college! You don't look as if you liked it." "I hate it! Nothing but grinding or skylarking. And I don't like the way fellows do either, in this country." "What do you like?" "To live in Italy, and to enjoy myself in my own way." Jo wanted very much to ask what his own way was, but his black brows looked rather threatening as he knit them, so she changed the subject by saying, as her foot kept time, "That's a splendid polka! Why don't you go and try it?" "If you will come too," he answered, with a gallant little bow. "I can't, for I told meg I wouldn't, because . . ." There Jo stopped, and looked undecided whether to tell or to laugh. "Because, what?" "You won't tell?" "Never!" "Well, I have a bad trick of standing before the fire, and so I burn my frocks, and I scorched this one, and though it's nicely mended, it shows, and Meg told me to keep still so no one would see it. You may laugh, if you want to. It is funny, I know." But Laurie didn't laugh. He only looked dawn a minute, and the expression of his face puzzled Jo when he said very gently, "Never mind that. I'll tell you how we can manage. There's a long hall out there, and we can dance grandly, and no one will see us. Please come." Jo thanked him and gladly went, wishing she had two neat gloves when she saw the nice, pearl-colored ones her partner wore. The hall was empty, and they had a grand polka, for Laurie danced well, and taught her the German step, which delighted Jo,being full of swing and spring> When the music stopped, they sat down on the stairs to get their breath, and Laurie was in the midst of an account of a students' festival at Heidelberg when Meg appeared in search of her sister. She beckoned, and Jo reluctantly followed her into a side room, where she found her on a sofa, holding her foot, and looking pale. "I've sprained my ankle. That stupid high heel turned and gave me a sad wrench. It aches so, I can hardly stand, and I don't know how I'm ever going to get home," she said, rocking to and fro in


then run, without fear. Will had once spotted her from a window ledge in the men’s quarters. He’d raised an eyebrow, tipped a finger, a gesture that said, Nice work. He was new then, and the same age she was: twenty-one, with his whole life ahead of him. From the other side of the door, she heard him mutter below his breath. “For God’s sake.” And then she heard the scraping of the bolt. She passed out of the world and into the garden. “Hullo, you,” she said with a smile, and she kicked the door closed behind her. The air changed as she crossed the threshold. Thickened. She saw the rush of paving stones, their jagged lines, the ferns. William stood there, tall and dark, watching her. Flies made low, lazy loops around his head, and he dashed them away with his hand. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Just visiting.” He was incredulous. “Visiting?” “Thought I’d say hello to you.” She saw the flicker of something in his eyes. Hurt, hurt, hurt, she thought, and not even nearly ready to forgive. She put a hand out, touched him on the arm. He was burning underneath his jacket. She could feel it even through that thick navy cotton. Hot flesh and sinew, tightly wound. His arm jerked. “You should clear off,” he said. “You don’t want to be seen down here.” “No harm if I am.” “I don’t want to be seen with you. I’ve enough work already just trying to get my reputation back.” He looked weary. He wasn’t much of a sleeper. That’s how things began, between them. He’d said one evening, “Fancy a stroll?” It had been a damp and cloudy night. “Yes,” she’d said, and they’d scaled the wall as if it were a normal thing to do. They’d walked for miles. Deserted roads, church spires white and ghostly in the mist. A city entirely their own. And when they’d come back, Park Lane seemed even smaller than before. “Look,” said Mrs. King, “I’ve come to make amends.” She perched on the low stone bench, beside the pool. The trellis managed to obscure her from the house, but only just. “Amends?” He stared at her. “What were you doing, Dinah?” She kept her face expressionless. “I told you. I just needed to look for something in the men’s quarters. I didn’t know anybody would be keeping watch for me.” “Look for what?” She didn’t do what she’d have done with Winnie, or Mrs. Bone, or the others. She didn’t wag her finger, give him a teasing smile. She said, serious, “I can’t tell you. So don’t ask.” He let out an angry breath. “I don’t believe this.” “It’s a fine life on the other side, Will. You should think about getting out. Reassess your prospects. It might be time to try something new.” “Oh, really?” he said, in a withering tone. “Really. You could learn to drive a motor. Become a chauffeur. It pays well. Easy hours. You could get a room in a hayloft for


More and more people wanted to learn how to become Superior Synthesizers. NuLife spread like a virus through the facility, and for a few months I forgot about Orson—possibly because I was Orson. I was woken up a little before 6:00 one morning by a CO’s flashlight, which was as bright as stadium lighting and caused my cellmate, a man who’d murdered his cousin, to call me a little bitch. The CO threw open the cell door and dragged me out without letting me put on a shirt. “You’re going to isolation,” he told me. “Why?” Anxiety swelled in my chest. “Warden figured out your con, 31151. You’re dealing in a lot of contraband.” “What are you talking about?” The CO tightened his grip on the collar of my jumpsuit. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Just like I know you didn’t knock over a fucking 7-Eleven.” I said nothing, hobbling silently next to him. “You need a little time to think about what you’ve done.” “How long?” He laughed. “He didn’t say. Left it up to us. Which is good, because I don’t like your lying ass.” I didn’t say a word about Tyrell. I prayed to the same non-god that they hadn’t gotten him, too. In the isolation block, the guard opened the cell door and snatched my glasses from my face. I heard them crunch under his boot. “Oh shit,” he said. “So sorry about that.” Then he shoved me in and locked the door. Isolation was the only place I’d ever feared for my sanity. The room was bright and barren, too small and therefore too easy to memorize: the rock-hard bed, the little steel toilet, the blank wall opposing both. I became acutely aware of my blindness because there was nothing else to do, no one else to distract me, no noise except the COs’ clicking boots and the leftovers from the chow hall that arrived three times a day. I had to think or else I wouldn’t be able to tell whether I was dead or alive. I thought of Orson. I imagined kissing him. I lay on the bed and then on the ground. I stopped being able to feel time passing, which meant I stopped being able to sleep. I thought of how the world had once been incredibly big and had since narrowed to a pinhead’s width. I thought of swinging on the swing as a kid. I lied and told the COs that I was suicidal, and once every night a bored and aggressive prisoner would come to “listen” to my problems. Sometimes I’d get offered a cigarette but most often I’d be instructed to stay quiet so the listener could sleep. This happened for three nights in a row until Tyrell came on the fourth. I nearly cried with gratitude. “Man, they was talking about how you was down here, talking about killing yourself,” he said. “I got them to get me on rotation minute I found out about that.” “Who’d you have to bribe?” I asked. He waved his


and again that gentleman limped away with extraordinary readiness. But not again did he return with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women, who shook and tottered as they walked. 'You shut the door the night old Sally died,' said the foremost one, raising her shrivelled hand, 'but you couldn't shut out the sound, nor stop the chinks.' 'No, no,' said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless jaws. 'No, no, no.' 'We heard her try to tell you what she'd done, and saw you take a paper from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker's shop,' said the first. 'Yes,' added the second, 'and it was a "locket and gold ring." We found out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.' 'And we know more than that,' resumed the first, 'for she told us often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.' 'Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?' asked Mr. Grimwig with a motion towards the door. 'No,' replied the woman; 'if he--she pointed to Monks--'has been coward enough to confess, as I see he had, and you have sounded all these hags till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say. I DID sell them, and they're where you'll never get them. What then?' 'Nothing,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'except that it remains for us to take care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again. You may leave the room.' 'I hope,' said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as Mr. Grimwig disappeared with the two old women: 'I hope that this unfortunate little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial office?' 'Indeed it will,' replied Mr. Brownlow. 'You may make up your mind to that, and think yourself well off besides.' 'It was all Mrs. Bumble. She WOULD do it,' urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room. 'That is no excuse,' replied Mr. Brownlow. 'You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.' 'If the law supposes that,' said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, 'the law is a ass--a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience--by experience.' Laying great stress on the repetition of these two words, Mr. Bumble fixed his hat on very tight, and putting his hands in his pockets, followed his helpmate downstairs. 'Young lady,' said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Rose, 'give me your hand. Do not


Hanim said. It’s the forest’s magic. “I am not the forest’s magic. I’m yours,” she griped. “Hurry. You have moments left.” “Essiya,” I breathed. “Essiya,” she returned. “Or Sylvia, I suppose, which is not the name I would have chosen. You named us after Soraya’s mother. Little odd, isn’t it?” The girl spun around on the rope. “Why are you keeping me trapped? We are going to die.” “I’m not keeping you—” I coughed, clenching my knees around the rope to keep from sliding farther down. “There are cuffs blocking my magic.” Essiya snorted. She twisted, hanging upside down. “Would you use me without the cuffs? You never do in your dreams. We just watch our mother and everyone burn.” “Of course I would.” “I think,” Essiya barreled on, and Rovial’s tainted tomb, had I really been such a nuisance as a child? “I think even if your magic was free, and you had every advantage to reclaim our kingdom, you still wouldn’t save Jasad. You are content to live on the outskirts of other people’s land, a vagrant in all but name. You blame Hanim for hardening your heart, but she is dead. Your heart belongs to you again, and you refuse to give it over to Jasad. That is why Soraya wants us dead.” I noticed belatedly my cuffs were vises around my wrists. My magic spread over my skin, numbing the worst of the poison’s effects. I resumed my climb. “You are bold for a hallucination,” I snapped. “There are others capable of leading Jasad better than I could. What do I have other than a royal name?” Essiya kept pace, climbing as I did. My hands were little more than raw meat, but the tingle of my magic prevented the agony from stalling my ascent. “What else do you need?” Essiya countered. “The Mufsids and Urabi combined do not have a tenth of the power you have. Yet they fight. The Jasadis hiding in Lukub, Orban, Omal, even Nizahl—they fight. Power is a choice, Sylvia. When you choose who you are willing to fight for, you choose who you are.” “Even if I do not win? Even if I am an insignificant wave in an ocean of resistance? There is every chance I can live a peaceful, mundane life as Sylvia. Nothing is guaranteed for Essiya. Not a good life, not victory, nothing.” The jutting lip of the cliff’s peak came into view. I grunted, tightening my stomach as I swung toward the cliffside. I kicked the hard surface, sending rocks tumbling below. “I should give up certainty, give up Sylvia, for a legion of faceless Jasadis?” I reached for the edge of the cliff, missing by inches. One more swing, one more pull. A light touch at my wrist startled me from my destination. Essiya materialized in front of me, and we clung to the same rope. Kitmer-black eyes bored into mine. “All your choices require sacrifice. The question is, what are you willing to lose?” Essiya released the rope, falling into the gloom. My magic slowed


If one of us didn’t sit with her for every lesson, she’d be unable to manage the multiple online platforms or access her schoolwork at all. There are always dozens of tabs open on my phone: flights home, a smaller number every day; articles about virus transmissibility; articles analyzing (guessing at) the risks of flying; tables showing infection rates where I live, and in the cities I might have to fly through, and in my mother’s county. One morning, while struggling to pay attention to my daughter’s reading-group Zoom lesson, I think about how responsibly attempting a solo trip at this moment would mean two weeks of quarantine at either end, in addition to however long I spent with my mom. I have never left Dan and the kids for that long, not even for my book tour, and it doesn’t feel like an option now. Our home life, our jobs, our routines—none of this is set up for one of us to parent alone, for weeks or months, while working remotely and dealing with anxious, homebound children. And what if I somehow gave the virus to my mother? What if I came back and gave it to my family? What if I passed it to someone far more vulnerable, whose name I would never know, whose illness or death I would never be aware of causing? I can’t afford to wallow or be idle while juggling work and virtual school, and yet a part of me remains ever still and watchful, as if I were holding my breath, waiting for something it feels too risky to name. Surely, I think, in quiet moments, we’re bound to get a reprieve soon. We will remember our responsibilities to one another. Those who are able to stay home will stay home, everyone will start wearing masks in public spaces, caseloads will drop, and it will feel safe—safer—to go see my mom. Instead, as the weeks go by, mask wearing is politicized, public health experts are frequently ignored, and people who look like me are scapegoated and attacked, accused of causing the pandemic. Hospitals fill as the virus keeps raging. * * * My grandmother’s memory-care facility has been locked down for weeks. Grandma went from seeing family several times a week to seeing no one at all, and she is struggling. She stops eating, stops getting out of bed, stops responding to questions. She’s put on hospice care in early April and is allowed visitors then, but in her fragile health my mother can’t go, nor can she don the full protective gear required. Though they are separated by only a few miles, she will lose her mother sight unseen. When Grandma dies on April 7, two months shy of ninety-six, we think of her as another casualty of the pandemic. She didn’t die of COVID, but she was unable to face the isolation of the nursing home that had locked down early for patients’ safety. I remember how she would greet me when I came home—is this really our Nicole?—and that she never


behavior in general. “It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there,” she explains to her friend. “Two things every- body’s got tuh do fuh theyselves . . . They got tuh go tuh God and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.” Along with the classic conflict between an individual’s wishes and a community’s censure, there are many contem- porary motifs in this novel, events that could have been easily plucked out of early-twenty-first-century headlines: loveless marriages; verbal and physical abuse; mercy killing, or a killing in self-defense, depending on how you interpret it; forbidden love; a public and passionate affair between a younger man and an older woman from different stations in life. Many of the minor characters in the novel are vibrantly multicultural, from African Americans to Native Americans xx Foreword to the Caribbeans who live and work in the Everglades. (To this day, migrant labor and hurricanes remain very concrete elements of life in Florida.) The influence of Zora’s work, particularly Their Eyes Were Watching God, will continue to be felt for years in the works of many generations of writers. For example, Janie Crawford shares a literary kinship with Celie of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, whose eyes not only watch God, but whose words and letters, whose voice, speak directly to God. Part of the reason Janie’s grandmother Nanny pushes her into a loveless marriage to Logan Killicks, her first hus- band, is that Nanny was born in slavery and had little choice over her own destiny. Nanny has craved small comforts, like sitting idly on a porch, and wants her granddaughter to have them, along with money and status, no matter what the emotional cost. What Nanny may not have considered is that Janie would have her own ideas of freedom. However, Nanny is also pained by a deferred dream of her own. Nanny confesses to young Janie, “Ah wanted to preach a great sermon about colored women sittin’ on high, but they wasn’t no pulpit for me.” In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Beloved’s grandmother Baby Suggs preaches the sermon Nanny never got to preach. Baby Suggs “became an unchurched preacher, one who vis- ited pulpits.” However, her most-used pulpit was one that Baby Suggs created for herself, outdoors, in a clearing: “After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head and prayed silently. . . . Finally she called Foreword xxi the women to her. ‘Cry,’ she told them. ‘For the living and for the dead. Just cry.’ And without covering their eyes the women let loose.” What a difference it might have made to young Janie to have heard her grandmother preach that sermon, to have heard her Nanny say, as Baby Suggs did, “More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts . . . love your heart. For this is the prize.” IV In the circular narration of Their Eyes Were Watching God, at the end of the book, a whole new life lies ahead, uncharted for a still relatively young


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

yards off ran a huge navvy, cursing in fragments and slashing viciously with a spade, and hard behind him came the tram conductor with his fists clenched. Up the street others followed these two, striking and shouting. Down towards the town, men and women were running, and he noticed clearly one man coming out of a shop-door with a stick in his hand. "Spread out! Spread out!" cried some one. Kemp suddenly grasped the altered condition of the chase. He stopped and looked round, panting. "He's close here!" he cried. "Form a line across--" "Aha!" shouted a voice. He was hit hard under the ear, and went reeling, trying to face round towards his unseen antagonist. He just managed to keep his feet, and he struck a vain counter in the air. Then he was hit again under the jaw, and sprawled headlong on the ground. In another moment a knee compressed his diaphragm, and a couple of eager hands gripped his throat, but the grip of one was weaker than the other; he grasped the wrists, heard a cry of pain from his assailant, and then the spade of the navvy came whirling through the air above him, and struck something with a dull thud. He felt a drop of moisture on his face. The grip at his throat suddenly relaxed, and with a convulsive effort Kemp loosed himself, grasped a limp shoulder, and rolled uppermost. He gripped the unseen elbows near the ground. "I've got him!" screamed Kemp. "Help! Help! hold! He's down! Hold his feet!" In another second there was a simultaneous rush upon the struggle, and a stranger coming into the road suddenly might have thought an exceptionally savage game of Rugby football was in progress. And there was no shouting after Kemp's cry--only a sound of blows and feet and a heavy breathing. Then came a mighty effort, and the Invisible Man threw off a couple of his antagonists and rose to his knees. Kemp clung to him in front like a hound to a stag, and a dozen hands gripped, clutched, and tore at the Unseen. The tram conductor suddenly got the neck and shoulders and lugged him back. Down went the heap of struggling men again and rolled over. There was, I am afraid, some savage kicking. Then suddenly a wild scream of "Mercy! Mercy!" that died down swiftly to a sound like choking. "Get back, you fools!" cried the muffled voice of Kemp, and there was a vigorous shoving back of stalwart forms. "He's hurt, I tell you. Stand back!" There was a brief struggle to clear a space, and then the circle of eager eyes saw the doctor kneeling, as it seemed, fifteen inches in the air, and holding invisible arms to the ground. Behind him a constable gripped invisible ankles. "Don't you leave go of en," cried the big navvy, holding a bloodstained spade; "he's shamming." "He's not shamming," said the doctor, cautiously raising his knee; "and I'll hold him." His face was bruised and already going red; he spoke thickly because


troubled by something. "Best you remain here the rest of the night, Son," the Duke said. "It'll be dawn soon, anyway. I'll inform your mother." He got to his feet, slowly, stiffly. "Why don't you pull a few of these chairs together and stretch out on them for some rest." "I'm not very tired, sir." "As you will." The Duke folded his hands behind him, began pacing up and down the length of the table. Like a caged animal, Paul thought. "Are you going to discuss the traitor possibility with Hawat?" Paul asked. The Duke stopped across from his son, spoke to the dark windows. "We've discussed the possibility many times." "The old woman seemed so sure of herself," Paul said. "And the message Mother--" "Precautions have been taken," the Duke said. He looked around the room, and Paul marked the hunted wildness in his father's eyes. "Remain here. There are some things about the command posts I want to discuss with Thufir." He turned, strode out of the room, nodding shortly to the door guards. Paul stared at the place where his father had stood. The space had been empty even before the Duke left the room. And he recalled the old woman's warning: " . . . for the father, nothing." =========================== On that first day when Muad'Dib rode through the streets of Arrakeen with his family, some of the people along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy and they ventured to shout: "Mahdi!" But their shout was more a question than a statement, for as yet they could only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan al-Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention was focused, too, on the mother, because they had heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious to them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib. -from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan The Duke found Thufir Hawat alone in the corner room to which a guard directed him. There was the sound of men setting up communications equipment in an adjoining room, but this place was fairly quiet. The Duke glanced around as Hawat arose from a paper-cluttered table. It was a green-walled enclosure with, in addition to the table, three suspensor chairs from which the Harkonnen "H" had been hastily removed, leaving an imperfect color patch. "The chairs are liberated but quite safe," Hawat said. "Where is Paul, Sire?" "I left him in the conference room. I'm hoping he'll get some rest without me there to distract him." Hawat nodded, crossed to the door to the adjoining room, closed it, shutting off the noise of static and electronic sparking. "Thufir," Leto said, "the Imperial and Harkonnen stockpiles of spice attract my attention." "M'Lord?" The Duke pursed his lips. "Storehouses are susceptible to destruction." He raised a hand as Hawat started to speak. "Ignore the Emperor's hoard. He'd secretly enjoy it if the Harkonnens were embarrassed. And can the Baron object if something is destroyed which he cannot openly admit that he has?" Hawat shook


alarmed him. “What are you saying?” “Your father has a friend in United, one of his former colleagues. He went there to speak to her this morning, and they say you can start next week.” Ẹniọlá moved closer to his father. “Start what? Where?” “The school now, United Grammar School,” his mother said. “Stop speaking for him. Let him talk, let him open his mouth and say something. He lost his job, not his tongue.” “Please, take it easy with your father.” “Which father? Is this one a father?” Ẹniọlá felt his mother’s grip on his shoulder, but he did not turn towards her. He pushed his face into his father’s and yelled as loud as he could, “Speak now, speak!” “You won’t even need to write an entrance exam,” his father said. Ẹniọlá grabbed his father by the collar. A throbbing began in his forefinger, right where he’d pressed it against Aunty Caro’s iron. At first, he felt only pain, as though he’d just touched the iron again. As though the disappointment from all the promises his father had broken—about the Unity school and Glorious Destiny—was pushing against the skin of that one finger before radiating through his body. Then he felt anger, pulsing beneath his skin, pounding in his head. United was the closest public school to them, the word an abbreviation of a longer name he did not care to remember. His father did not appear shocked by the hand gripping his collar; his lips were slightly down, but he seemed almost relieved. Had he been expecting this day to come? “Ẹniọlá, please stop, let him go,” Bùsọ́lá said. Ẹniọlá summoned the image of Mr. Ọlábọ̀dé’s suicide but felt no rush of pity for his father, no fear that he might return tomorrow to find his body hanging from a ceiling. There were no fans in this wretched room. If his father wanted to leave this world, he would have to use poison or something else. And wouldn’t that be better for everyone? His mother would be free of one mouth she had to feed all by herself. Maybe she would even marry another man. A better man. Someone who did not stay home while his family had to beg on the street to survive. “Ẹniọlá, please, please,” Bùsọ́lá screamed. “Mọ̀ọmi, say something now.” He let go, terrified by how quickly the thoughts unspooled in his mind. He punched a fist into his palm and turned away from his father. His mother was standing in his way, still holding out the plate of rice. He took it from her and flung it across the room, spraying rice on everything and everyone. The plate clattered against a wall and landed beside Bùsọ́lá, who was sitting on the mattress, head in hands, sobbing. His mother stepped out of his way, and he felt a burst of fear that disappeared as he looked down on her. What could she do, really? He was taller and stronger than her and had been for years. Why had he even let her continue telling him


“All I’m saying for now is Dennis Bloch might know something significant about this case, something he should have revealed twenty-seven years ago. This is a guy who’s stayed in education, he’s gone on and worked with other kids. Some of them out there, they might know something. And look—” He leaned closer to the camera, shook his head slightly, clenched his jaw, gathered himself, continued. “He might be having relationships with young girls, he might’ve been doing this unchecked for decades. Here’s what we want: employment records, any complaints filed against him, current contact information. In particular, we want anything any Granby student knows. Not rumors, okay, not hearsay, but did you witness something, did you see something, do you know something.” I realized I’d been standing numb, just inside the coffee shop door, without approaching the counter. I joined the short line, kept staring at my phone as Dane cautioned his followers not to approach you themselves, not to take matters into their own hands, to stay within the bounds of the law, to keep records. “It’s for your safety,” he said, “as well as the integrity of the investigation.” Behind him, jumbled heaps of clothes on the hotel bed. The alarm clock blinked 12:00. 16 Fran picked up both me and Geoff that night to ferry us to campus for the party. Geoff cracked himself up playing “Radio Ga Ga” on his phone; it was the song we used to put on repeat in Fran’s mom’s car when Fran would sneak us off campus midday to Frogurt Bar. Over the past four years, it would hit me hard as I headed to a dinner, stepped out for a run, boarded an airplane, that I was doing these things and Omar was locked in a cell. During lockdown, friends complained about having nothing but their jigsaw puzzles and sourdough starters, and I would bite my tongue—or not. But riding to a party so close to the happenings at court felt particularly egregious, even if the Omar I had known would’ve hoped it was a rager. When the song ended Geoff said, “I’m not allowed to tell Bodie what happened in court.” He was talking over his shoulder, to where I sat in the back. “But I need to tell you that it was disturbing to see Omar. He—for one thing, he’s cuffed. Wrists and ankles, and his wrists are attached to this chain around his middle. So there’s no way he can move normally. But you remember how he was always springing around, he was always—he was an athlete. He’s so stiff now. He looks like he’s in pain. He had to turn to the attorney and he turned his whole body, like he couldn’t turn just his head.” I’d thought a lot about the hard beds, the physical violence, the cold. But it occurred to me only now that the last thing they’d let you see a doctor for in prison was chronic pain, some chiropractic concern. A small thing, but a huge thing. Geoff said, “Holy shit, we’re


up his end of it. But he had never expected to enjoy the society of a little girl. Women were bad enough in all conscience, but little girls were worse. He detested the way they had of sidling past him timidly, with sideways glances, as if they expected him to gobble them up at a mouthful if they ventured to say a word. This was the Avonlea type of well-bred little girl. But this freckled witch was very different, and although he found it rather difficult for his slower intelligence to keep up with her brisk mental processes he thought that he "kind of liked her chatter." So he said as shyly as usual: "Oh, you can talk as much as you like. I don't mind." "Oh, I'm so glad. I know you and I are going to get along together fine. It's such a relief to talk when one wants to and not be told that children should be seen and not heard. I've had that said to me a million times if I have once. And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?" "Well now, that seems reasonable," said Matthew. "Mrs. Spencer said that my tongue must be hung in the middle. But it isn't-it's firmly fastened at one end. Mrs. Spencer said your place was named Green Gables. I asked her all about it. And she said there were trees all around it. I was gladder than ever. I just love trees. And there weren't any at all about the asylum, only a few poor weeny-teeny things out in front with little whitewashed cagey things about them. They just looked like orphans themselves, those trees did. It used to make me want to cry to look at them. I used to say to them, `Oh, you POOR little things! If you were out in a great big woods with other trees all around you and little mosses and Junebells growing over your roots and a brook not far away and birds singing in you branches, you could grow, couldn't you? But you can't where you are. I know just exactly how you feel, little trees.' I felt sorry to leave them behind this morning. You do get so attached to things like that, don't you? Is there a brook anywhere near Green Gables? I forgot to ask Mrs. Spencer that." "Well now, yes, there's one right below the house." "Fancy. It's always been one of my dreams to live near a brook. I never expected I would, though. Dreams don't often come true, do they? Wouldn't it be nice if they did? But just now I fell pretty nearly perfectly happy. I can't feel exactly perfectly happy because-well, what color would you call this?" She twitched one of her long glossy braids over her thin shoulder and held it up before Matthew's eyes. Matthew was not used to deciding on the tints of ladies' tresses, but in this case there