care these days, I don’t see her much. “Glad I got you before church,” Shu says. “I’m about to view another place.” “Oh, yeah.” I use a finger to block my other ear as I walk down Tottenham Court Road. “How’s the flat hunt going?” Shu moved out of her parents’ place as soon as she turned eighteen, literally. Shu was born at 3:57 P.M. and at that exact time on July twenty-fifth, she stood up in her room, grabbed her bags, said, “Fuck this place” and walked out. Shu can be a little dramatic, but she left for good reason. When she came out to her parents, they said they loved and accepted her, but things weren’t the same between them again. That’s as much as Shu would tell me. Now her tenancy’s coming up at her flat in Hornsey and she doesn’t want to renew. She can afford a place on her own but she’d rather save for a mortgage deposit and last I checked, Lydia wasn’t ready to take the co-resident plunge. “I’ve got two more tonight.” “What about the Camden flat you liked?” I ask. “I had to turn it down. The girl I’d be sharing with was too pretty.” A man with a worryingly lifelike parrot on his shoulder edges past me, but it’s central London on the weekend, so I don’t bat an eyelid. “You’ll have to walk me through that reasoning, Shu.” “She won’t admit it, but Lydia’s got a … what’s the British way to say it? My gran would say ‘sticky eye.’” “Wandering eye?” “Yeah, maybe. Anyway, I don’t want to feel insecure in my own home when my girlfriend’s round,” she says. “If only you were ready to move out, then we could find a nice two-bed place and have a good time from the start. You know to take your shoes off when you come in and I already know why your hair’s a hundred times shorter after you wash it.” I stop in the street. “Are you saying I’m not threateningly pretty?” “When you make an effort, yeah, but I got nothing to worry about ’cos you’re so innocent. When Lyd was looking at your chest, you told her where you got your jumper from.” “I thought she liked the button design.” “She did not.” “Maybe she did.” Shu sighs, which means she’s rolling her eyes. “Are you ready to move out or what?” I pause outside the church building. A warm, jealous pang hits my chest as I briefly think about what it would be like being responsible for only myself, for spending my time however I want. I immediately feel guilty and shake my head; it’s not Dad’s fault he needs me. “I like being at home. I don’t think that’ll change any time soon,” I say. Shu knows Dad has Parkinson’s, but she’s unaware of how serious it is. She regularly asks how Dad is and I always respond “Fine” and she hears the silent “… you know, considering,” but she doesn’t ask for specifics. Not because


very bright,” I said without thinking. “Oh—yes. Your eyes?” I blinked. “No, no—I mean, the sunshine is beautiful,” I said quickly. “It’s the perfect place. I’m thinking, maybe, like, fifteen more locations like this?” “Fifteen! Wow! Yes, if you have the capital, I am always happy to have more.” I shrugged, trying hard to keep looking at his shadow and not at my feet. “I’m thinking we’d sell Bliss-Minis, train people in Synthesis, distribute Orson’s teachings, employ a bunch of people to do all that. And we’ll probably outsource the manufacturing of the Bliss-Mini to Urmau.” “Wonderful, Ezra, it’s wonderful!” “But is your father going to dislike this?” Genial’s shadow shook its head. “No, no. This is one thing he doesn’t care so much about, foreign industry coming here, failing, succeeding, more often failing. He lets me worry about this. When he finds out about NuLife, what will he do, because it will already be so successful, right? He will not care.” I nodded. “Whatever works,” I said. “As long as we can all turn a profit.” “The light and the life to Urmau!” Genial said, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “This is part of our national anthem. Luce do vita suo Urmau!” “The light and the life,” I echoed. I hadn’t seen Emily’s and Orson’s shadows approaching us. Emily grabbed me by the arm, breathless. “Come on, Ez,” she said. “Let me take you into town and buy you a banta. It’s a banana cheese sandwich.” “You have to try it.” Genial said. “It is one of our traditional foods. Let her get you one.” “They’re delicious,” Orson said. Genial smiled at Orson and jerked his head toward the ocean’s southerly swell. “Yes, Orson—let me walk with you up this beach. There is a rock up there in the shape of a big thumb; we can climb it.” In town, I regathered my senses of color and detail. The spray of freckles across Emily’s nose was visible, as was her hair’s intermittent sun-blond. Her stride was long, and it was difficult to keep up with her—not that I wanted to, but I felt I had no choice. She pulled me toward a ramshackle storefront whose awning read “Banta Tienta.” “This is going to be good,” she said. “More authentic than in the city.” We stood at the counter, Emily trying to parse an inscrutable chalkboard full of variations on the banta and me imagining Orson climbing a huge rock face, plummeting to the beach, shattering his spine. “Two regular banta, please,” Emily said to the bored clerk, who shook his head at her English. She held up two fingers and said, too loudly: “Banta.” The clerk rolled his eyes and disappeared behind the counter. “It’s great, isn’t it?” she cooed. “Like a tropical vacation.” “It’s not a vacation if it’s for business,” I said. “Technically yes, it’s business, but I’m still having fun.” “You’re not here on business.” “You’re right,” she conceded, and kicked the floor’s chipped white tile with her sandal. “There’s actually no reason you’re here.” I couldn’t


if she invited him, but I haven’t told her Huff and I are back in touch. I’m not sure how Lanier will feel about it, and it doesn’t seem fair to tell Mary Stuart and not Lanier. I pick up my phone. Then I put it back down. Then I pick it back up. I’m being dumb. So I text: Going to MS’s wedding tomorrow? He must have his phone in his hand because three bubbles appear immediately and a few seconds later he replies: Why? Hoping my killer dance moves might rub off on you? I laugh. Huff is a truly terrible dancer. I think you meant to ask, “Am I afraid your dance moves might kill me?” No bubbles. Was I too mean? But then a ridiculous dancing dog GIF appears followed by Unfortunately, I’m on call tomorrow night. So I’ll have to give you dance lessons some other time. Huff is a surgeon, so of course his work comes first. But my heart is simultaneously falling that he won’t be there and pounding at the idea of “some other time.” Finn walks back into my office. “Hey,” he says, “Smoking-hot baby daddy is on line one.” I smile at the embarrassment of quality men today and roll my eyes at Finn. Finn can’t quite understand why I can’t make things work with Henry’s dad, Steven, and takes every opportunity to remind me how hot he is. As if I didn’t know. Five years ago, I decided to take surf lessons to celebrate two years of sobriety. Steven was the charming, hilarious instructor I randomly chose on Google. By the second lesson, he had taken me to dinner, by the fourth we were practically inseparable, and then, well, Henry happened. Steven was only twenty-three when I got pregnant, two years younger than I was, and we weren’t at a place to consider marriage or a real, true future. But I considered the pregnancy a huge—albeit slightly scary—gift. While I wouldn’t say I’d been worried about my sobriety sticking before that, every now and then I missed relaxing with a glass (okay, bottle) of rosé or the focus (and sleep!) the pills I abused had given me. Henry washed all those urges away. I would read years later that all trauma is a result of separation and that healing is sometimes found in connection. I know that doesn’t help everyone, my own mother included. But I credit my son, my ultimate attachment, with truly healing me. As a bonus, Steven, whom I had expected absolutely nothing from, turned out to be a fabulous co-parent. He spent his weekends with Henry at my house in Cape Carolina so I wouldn’t have to miss my son, and he, a free spirit who had never held a baby, wouldn’t be fully responsible on his own. It was a great system. Growing up with a totally absent father—even the almost three years I lived with him I barely saw the man—I think I just expected Steven to want an out. He decidedly did not. Sometimes


I." "You misapprehend me, father; you often do," said Angel with a little impatience. "Politically I am sceptical as to the virtue of their being old. Some of the wise even among themselves 'exclaim against their own succession,' as Hamlet puts it; but lyrically, dramatically, and even historically, I am tenderly attached to them." This distinction, though by no means a subtle one, was yet too subtle for Mr Clare the elder, and he went on with the story he had been about to relate; which was that after the death of the senior so-called d'Urberville the young man developed the most culpable passions, though he had a blind mother, whose condition should have made him know better. A knowledge of his career having come to the ears of Mr Clare, when he was in that part of the country preaching missionary sermons, he boldly took occasion to speak to the delinquent on his spiritual state. Though he was a stranger, occupying another's pulpit, he had felt this to be his duty, and took for his text the words from St Luke: "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee!" The young man much resented this directness of attack, and in the war of words which followed when they met he did not scruple publicly to insult Mr Clare, without respect for his gray hairs. Angel flushed with distress. "Dear father," he said sadly, "I wish you would not expose yourself to such gratuitous pain from scoundrels!" "Pain?" said his father, his rugged face shining in the ardour of self-abnegation. "The only pain to me was pain on his account, poor, foolish young man. Do you suppose his incensed words could give me any pain, or even his blows? 'Being reviled we bless; being persecuted we suffer it; being defamed we entreat; we are made as the filth of the world, and as the offscouring of all things unto this day.' Those ancient and noble words to the Corinthians are strictly true at this present hour." "Not blows, father? He did not proceed to blows?" "No, he did not. Though I have borne blows from men in a mad state of intoxication." "No!" "A dozen times, my boy. What then? I have saved them from the guilt of murdering their own flesh and blood thereby; and they have lived to thank me, and praise God." "May this young man do the same!" said Angel fervently. "But I fear otherwise, from what you say." "We'll hope, nevertheless," said Mr Clare. "And I continue to pray for him, though on this side of the grave we shall probably never meet again. But, after all, one of those poor words of mine may spring up in his heart as a good seed some day." Now, as always, Clare's father was sanguine as a child; and though the younger could not accept his parent's narrow dogma he revered his practice, and recognized the hero under the pietist. Perhaps he revered his father's practice even more now than ever, seeing that, in the question


scorn. The only poor comfort he had was that she snubbed Charlie Sloane, unmercifully, continually, and undeservedly. Otherwise the winter passed away in a round of pleasant duties and studies. For Anne the days slipped by like golden beads on the necklace of the year. She was happy, eager, interested; there were lessons to be learned and honor to be won; delightful books to read; new pieces to be practiced for the Sunday-school choir; pleasant Saturday afternoons at the manse with Mrs. Allan; and then, almost before Anne realized it, spring had come again to Green Gables and all the world was abloom once more. Studies palled just a wee bit then; the Queen's class, left behind in school while the others scattered to green lanes and leafy wood cuts and meadow byways, looked wistfully out of the windows and discovered that Latin verbs and French exercises had somehow lost the tang and zest they had possessed in the crisp winter months. Even Anne and Gilbert lagged and grew indifferent. Teacher and taught were alike glad when the term was ended and the glad vacation days stretched rosily before them. "But you've done good work this past year," Miss Stacy told them on the last evening, "and you deserve a good, jolly vacation. Have the best time you can in the out-of-door world and lay in a good stock of health and vitality and ambition to carry you through next year. It will be the tug of war, you know-the last year before the Entrance." "Are you going to be back next year, Miss Stacy?" asked Josie Pye. Josie Pye never scrupled to ask questions; in this instance the rest of the class felt grateful to her; none of them would have dared to ask it of Miss Stacy, but all wanted to, for there had been alarming rumors running at large through the school for some time that Miss Stacy was not coming back the next year-that she had been offered a position in the grade school of her own home district and meant to accept. The Queen's class listened in breathless suspense for her answer. "Yes, I think I will," said Miss Stacy. "I thought of taking another school, but I have decided to come back to Avonlea. To tell the truth, I've grown so interested in my pupils here that I found I couldn't leave them. So I'll stay and see you through." "Hurrah!" said Moody Spurgeon. Moody Spurgeon had never been so carried away by his feelings before, and he blushed uncomfortably every time he thought about it for a week. "Oh, I'm so glad," said Anne, with shining eyes. "Dear Stacy, it would be perfectly dreadful if you didn't come I don't believe I could have the heart to go on with my studies at all if another teacher came here." When Anne got home that night she stacked all her textbooks away in an old trunk in the attic, locked it, and threw the key into the blanket box. "I'm not even going to look at


now,” proving only that Mack had mastered voice recognition technology. “Boys!” she greeted us when we walked in. She pulled Orson into a hug, then me. “So wonderful to see you both! And to see you doing such big things.” Orson dipped into a half bow. “None of this would be possible without you, Carol.” “Really, Carol,” I added. “Oh, you both flatter me. You’re the scientists behind this whole operation.” She looked at me smilingly. “You’ve really come out of your shell, Ezra. You absolutely radiate confidence.” Now it was my turn to half bow. “By the grace of God,” I said. Slowly, the venture capitalists filed in. There were six besides Steven and Loren, all white, all male, all dressed in suits and wingtips. They shook hands with Carol and then with us and wandered to the opposite end of the room, where the help had arranged flutes of champagne on an end table. They helped themselves and surveyed the penthouse. They clearly liked what they saw. “Gentlemen,” Orson said, clasping his hands together. “Welcome, welcome, welcome.” Everyone was immediately at attention. “We’d love for you to take a seat,” I said. “If you don’t mind.” They milled to their seats, champagne in hand. Orson and I remained at the front of the room by the screen, Orson holding the Bliss-Mini. “Gentlemen,” he said. “How many of you want to be happy?” Laughter, a few raised hands. “Be honest.” A sea of raised hands. “Good. I do, too. And so does my partner, Ezra Green. But the human brain isn’t wired for happiness. It’s wired to detect threats to our well-being and respond accordingly. As a result, we are fearful, angry, jealous creatures.” Carol was standing at the back. She was too far away for me to see the expression on her face. I squinted and then remembered that I shouldn’t squint and so crossed my arms over my chest in a false demonstration of machismo. “Enter the Bliss-Mini.” Orson gestured to the complex-looking apparatus behind us. “With the advanced technology of transcranial magnetic stimulation, we have created a device that will allow the wearer to effectively ‘reset’ their brain. Using voice-pattern recognition, the device can detect the wearer’s speech and respond with therapy tailored specifically to them.” A young-looking venture capitalist with a slight walleye raised his hand. “What’s the therapy?” “Patterns of stimulation,” Orson said, not missing a beat. “Based on the cadence of the wearer’s voice and skin temperature, the Bliss-Mini stimulates the brain in ways that are beneficial to them and them alone.” The room was silent. I couldn’t tell if this silence was good or bad. Undeterred, Orson motioned for me to sit in the seat in front of the readout screen, where he attached the Bliss-Mini to my head and adhered a few meaningless wires to the skin below my ears, to the base of my neck, and to the top of my forehead. Then he switched on the screen behind me, which began to display an x-axis stretched and compressed into a series


that she was so herself. She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable person she had ever seen, with her common, highly colored face and her common fine bonnet. When the next day they set out on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked through the station to the railway carriage with her head up and trying to keep as far away from her as she could, because she did not want to seem to belong to her. It would have made her angry to think people imagined she was her little girl. But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by her and her thoughts. She was the kind of woman who would "stand no nonsense from young ones." At least, that is what she would have said if she had been asked. She had not wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria's daughter was going to be married, but she had a comfortable, well paid place as housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor and the only way in which she could keep it was to do at once what Mr. Archibald Craven told her to do. She never dared even to ask a question. "Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera," Mr. Craven had said in his short, cold way. "Captain Lennox was my wife's brother and I am their daughter's guardian. The child is to be brought here. You must go to London and bring her yourself." So she packed her small trunk and made the journey. Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and looked plain and fretful. She had nothing to read or to look at, and she had folded her thin little black-gloved hands in her lap. Her black dress made her look yellower than ever, and her limp light hair straggled from under her black crepe hat. "A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life," Mrs. Medlock thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire word and means spoiled and pettish.) She had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; and at last she got tired of watching her and began to talk in a brisk, hard voice. "I suppose I may as well tell you something about where you are going to," she said. "Do you know anything about your uncle?" "No," said Mary. "Never heard your father and mother talk about him?" "No," said Mary frowning. She frowned because she remembered that her father and mother had never talked to her about anything in particular. Certainly they had never told her things. "Humph," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsive little face. She did not say any more for a few moments and then she began again. "I suppose you might as well be told something--to prepare you. You are going to a queer place." Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather discomfited by her apparent indifference, but, after taking a breath, she went on. "Not but that it's a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr. Craven's proud


not give it an aristocratic point. No one minded it but herself, and it was doing its best to grow, but Amy felt deeply the want of a Grecian nose, and drew whole sheets of handsome ones to console herself. "Little Raphael," as her sisters called her, had a decided talent for drawing, and was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art. Her teachers complained that instead of doing her sums she covered her slate with animals, the blank pages of her atlas were used to copy maps on, and caricatures of the most ludicrous description came fluttering out of all her books at unlucky moments. She got through her lessons as well as she could, and managed to escape reprimands by being a model of deportment. She was a great favorite with her mates, being good-tempered and possessing the happy art of pleasing without effort. Her little airs and graces were much admired, so were her accomplishments, for besides her drawing, she could play twelve tunes, crochet, and read French without mispronouncing more than two-thirds of the words. She had a plaintive way of saying, "When Papa was rich we did so-and-so," which was very touching, and her long words were considered `perfectly elegant' by the girls. Amy was in a fair way to be spoiled, for everyone petted her, and her small vanities and selfishnesses were growing nicely. One thing, however, rather quenched the vanities. She had to wear her cousin's clothes. Now Florence's mama hadn't a particle of taste, and Amy suffered deeply at having to wear a red instead of a blue bonnet, unbecoming gowns, and fussy aprons that did not fit. Everything was good, well made, and little worn, but Amy's artistic eyes were much afflicted, especially this winter, when her school dress was a dull purple with yellow dots and no trimming. "My only comfort," she said to Meg, with tears in her eyes, "is that Mother doesn't take tucks in my dresses whenever I'm naughty, as Maria Parks's mother does. My dear, it's really dreadful, for sometimes she is so bad her frock is up to her knees, and she can't come to school. When I think of this deggerredation, I fell that I can bear even my flat nose and purple gown with yellow skyrockets on it." Meg was Amy's confidante and monitor, and by some strange attraction of opposites Jo was gentle Beth's. To Jo alone did the shy child tell her thoughts, and over her big harum-scarum sister Beth unconsciously exercised more influence than anyone in the family. The two older girls were a great deal to one another, but each took one of the younger sisters into her keeping and watched over her in her own way, `playing mother' they called it, and put their sisters in the places of discarded dolls with the maternal instinct of little women. "Has anybody got anything to tell? It's been such a dismal day I'm really dying for some amusement," said Meg, as they


dream just as well in them as in lovely trailing ones, with frills around the neck, that's one consolation." "Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I'll come back in a few minutes for the candle. I daren't trust you to put it out yourself. You'd likely set the place on fire." When Marilla had gone Anne looked around her wistfully. The whitewashed walls were so painfully bare and staring that she thought they must ache over their own bareness. The floor was bare, too, except for a round braided mat in the middle such as Anne had never seen before. In one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one, with four dark, lowturned posts. In the other corner was the aforesaid threecorner table adorned with a fat, red velvet pincushion hard enough to turn the point of the most adventurous pin. Above it hung a little six by eight mirror. Midway between table and bed was the window, with an icy white muslin frill over it, and opposite it was the wash-stand. The whole apartment was of a rigidity not to be described in words, but which sent a shiver to the very marrow of Anne's bones. With a sob she hastily discarded her garments, put on the skimpy nightgown and sprang into bed where she burrowed face downward into the pillow and pulled the clothes over her head. When Marilla came up for the light various skimpy articles of raiment scattered most untidily over the floor and a certain tempestuous appearance of the bed were the only indications of any presence save her own. She deliberately picked up Anne's clothes, placed them neatly on a prim yellow chair, and then, taking up the candle, went over to the bed. "Good night," she said, a little awkwardly, but not unkindly. Anne's white face and big eyes appeared over the bedclothes with a startling suddenness. "How can you call it a GOOD night when you know it must be the very worst night I've ever had?" she said reproachfully. Then she dived down into invisibility again. Marilla went slowly down to the kitchen and proceeded to wash the supper dishes. Matthew was smoking-a sure sign of perturbation of mind. He seldom smoked, for Marilla set her face against it as a filthy habit; but at certain times and seasons he felt driven to it and them Marilla winked at the practice, realizing that a mere man must have some vent for his emotions. "Well, this is a pretty kettle of fish," she said wrathfully. "This is what comes of sending word instead of going ourselves. Robert Spencer's folks have twisted that message somehow. One of us will have to drive over and see Mrs. Spencer tomorrow, that's certain. This girl will have to be sent back to the asylum." "Yes, I suppose so," said Matthew reluctantly. "You SUPPOSE so! Don't you know it?" "Well now, she's a real nice little thing, Marilla. It's kind of a pity to send her back when she's so set on staying


ladder had mounted into the room. The stream abruptly turned, as this intelligence ran from mouth to mouth; and the people at the windows, seeing those upon the bridges pouring back, quitted their stations, and running into the street, joined the concourse that now thronged pell-mell to the spot they had left: each man crushing and striving with his neighbor, and all panting with impatience to get near the door, and look upon the criminal as the officers brought him out. The cries and shrieks of those who were pressed almost to suffocation, or trampled down and trodden under foot in the confusion, were dreadful; the narrow ways were completely blocked up; and at this time, between the rush of some to regain the space in front of the house, and the unavailing struggles of others to extricate themselves from the mass, the immediate attention was distracted from the murderer, although the universal eagerness for his capture was, if possible, increased. The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd, and the impossibility of escape; but seeing this sudden change with no less rapidity than it had occurred, he sprang upon his feet, determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the ditch, and, at the risk of being stifled, endeavouring to creep away in the darkness and confusion. Roused into new strength and energy, and stimulated by the noise within the house which announced that an entrance had really been effected, he set his foot against the stack of chimneys, fastened one end of the rope tightly and firmly round it, and with the other made a strong running noose by the aid of his hands and teeth almost in a second. He could let himself down by the cord to within a less distance of the ground than his own height, and had his knife ready in his hand to cut it then and drop. At the very instant when he brought the loop over his head previous to slipping it beneath his arm-pits, and when the old gentleman before-mentioned (who had clung so tight to the railing of the bridge as to resist the force of the crowd, and retain his position) earnestly warned those about him that the man was about to lower himself down--at that very instant the murderer, looking behind him on the roof, threw his arms above his head, and uttered a yell of terror. 'The eyes again!' he cried in an unearthly screech. Staggering as if struck by lightning, he lost his balance and tumbled over the parapet. The noose was on his neck. It ran up with his weight, tight as a bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds. He fell for five-and-thirty feet. There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand. The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. The murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside the dangling body


you do to pay for your subsistence.” “I pay for my subsistence with my talent,” said Hephzibah. “A rare talent, as well you know!” Winnie’s forbearance reached the end of its limits. She couldn’t help herself. “A rare talent? Hardly. We all know how your sort of actress makes her living. Oldest profession in the book.” The Janes stopped pedaling. The boat slowed, careening toward the bank. Mrs. Bone’s eyebrows shot up. Alice’s glance flashed sideways, and Mrs. King frowned. Hephzibah’s expression cracked open, color racing up her neck, exposed. “Well, now,” said Mrs. Bone. “Fancy that.” The women studied Hephzibah. Winnie felt her skin growing suddenly warm. “I...” she began. As the Janes steered the boat to the riverbank, Mrs. King’s voice cut through the air. “Winnie,” she said. “Get out.” Shame rose within her. “Hephzibah...” “Out,” said Mrs. King again. “You know the rules. If you need to make someone feel small, so that you can feel tall...” Mrs. Bone recited the rest. “Then, my goodness, my dear, you’re no person at all. Quite right. I taught you that myself. You should all listen to that, my girls.” Winnie rose from the boat. It rocked dangerously beneath her. It would have been better if she had fallen in the water. 20 The night before the ball 10:00 p.m. Shepherd had left orders for everyone to get to bed early, in anticipation of the ball. Hurry up, hurry up, Mrs. Bone thought, urging the house to go to sleep. Her first tranche of men were coming in tonight, an advance guard, ready for the main action. They’d be winched up to the roof, fully installed in the attics by dawn, their movements padded by Winnie’s Turkish carpets. She glanced at the ceiling and imagined how it would smell, forty men crouched and waiting: sweaty feet, the air thick with whisky, piss warming gently in buckets. She would have gone up there herself, if only they didn’t lock the doors at night. Mrs. Bone liked to inspect her troops before battle. It gave them a good kick. Sue was at the washbasin, picking dirt out of her nails. She did this in secret, when she assumed Mrs. Bone wasn’t looking, as if a little coal was something of which to be ashamed. “Hurry along, Sue,” Mrs. Bone said for the third time. “It’s hot,” whispered Sue. She was wiping her face with a damp flannel, over and over. “Better than the cold, my girl,” said Mrs. Bone. “Better than your toes falling off. Get into bed.” Sue was taking an age, and the air was curdling like milk. When the knock came, it startled her. A hard thump, fist against wood, not friendly. Sue froze, hands on the basin. “Who’s that, then?” said Mrs. Bone as she hurried to the door, swung it open. That boy was there, that weasel-faced little rat. “Whatchoo doing?” said Mrs. Bone. “Get away with you. Coming up here. These are the ladies’ quarters.” “You’re wanted, Sue,” he said, not looking at Mrs. Bone. And in that


of the--" He paused for a moment and they both pushed their anger away. Then he went on with the safe, changed subject. "You've noticed, haven't you?" Jack put down his spear and squatted. "Noticed what?" "Well. They're frightened." He rolled over and peered into Jack's fierce, dirty face. "I mean the way things are. They dream. You can hear 'em. Have you been awake at night?" Jack shook his head. "They talk and scream. The littluns. Even some of the others. As if--" "As if it wasn't a good island." Astonished at the interruption, they looked up at Simon's serious face. "As if," said Simon, "the beastie, the beastie or the snake-thing, was real. Remember?" The two older boys flinched when they heard the shameful syllable. Snakes were not mentioned now, were not mentionable. "As if this wasn't a good island," said Ralph slowly. "Yes, that's right." Jack sat up and stretched out his legs. "They're batty." "Crackers. Remember when we went exploring?" They grinned at each other, remembering the glamour of the first day. Ralph went on. "So we need shelters as a sort of--" "Home." "That's right." Jack drew up his legs, clasped his knees, and frowned in an effort to attain clarity. "All the same--in the forest. I mean when you're hunting, not when you're getting fruit, of course, but when you're on your own--" He paused for a moment, not sure if Ralph would take him seriously. "Go on." "If you're hunting sometimes you catch yourself feeling as if--" He flushed suddenly. "There's nothing in it of course. Just a feeling. But you can feel as if you're not hunting, but--being hunted, as if something's behind you all the time in the jungle." They were silent again: Simon intent, Ralph incredulous and faintly indignant. He sat up, rubbing one shoulder with a dirty hand. "Well, I don't know." Jack leapt to his feet and spoke very quickly. "That's how you can feel in the forest. Of course there's nothing in it. Only--only--" He took a few rapid steps toward the beach, then came back. "Only I know how they feel. See? That's all." "The best thing we can do is get ourselves rescued." Jack had to think for a moment before he could remember what rescue was. "Rescue? Yes, of course! All the same, I'd like to catch a pig first--" He snatched up his spear and dashed it into the ground. The opaque, mad look came into his eyes again. Ralph looked at him critically through his tangle of fair hair. "So long as your hunters remember the fire--" "You and your fire!" The two boys trotted down the beach, and, turning at the water's edge, looked back at the pink mountain. The trickle of smoke sketched a chalky line up the solid blue of the sky, wavered high up and faded. Ralph frowned. "I wonder how far off you could see that." "Miles." "We don't make enough smoke." The bottom part of the trickle, as though conscious of their gaze, thickened to a creamy blur


A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

right kidney. I'm talking to you as a friend, Stephen. I don't believe a son should be afraid of his father. No, I treat you as your grandfather treated me when I was a young chap. We were more like brothers than father and son. I'll never forget the first day he caught me smoking. I was standing at the end of the South Terrace one day with some maneens like myself and sure we thought we were grand fellows because we had pipes stuck in the corners of our mouths. Suddenly the governor passed. He didn't say a word, or stop even. But the next day, Sunday, we were out for a walk together and when we were coming home he took out his cigar case and said:--By the by, Simon, I didn't know you smoked, or something like that.--Of course I tried to carry it off as best I could.--If you want a good smoke, he said, try one of these cigars. An American captain made me a present of them last night in Queenstown. Stephen heard his father's voice break into a laugh which was almost a sob. --He was the handsomest man in Cork at that time, by God he was! The women used to stand to look after him in the street. He heard the sob passing loudly down his father's throat and opened his eyes with a nervous impulse. The sunlight breaking suddenly on his sight turned the sky and clouds into a fantastic world of sombre masses with lakelike spaces of dark rosy light. His very brain was sick and powerless. He could scarcely interpret the letters of the signboards of the shops. By his monstrous way of life he seemed to have put himself beyond the limits of reality. Nothing moved him or spoke to him from the real world unless he heard in it an echo of the infuriated cries within him. He could respond to no earthly or human appeal, dumb and insensible to the call of summer and gladness and companionship, wearied and dejected by his father's voice. He could scarcely recognize as his own thoughts, and repeated slowly to himself: --I am Stephen Dedalus. I am walking beside my father whose name is Simon Dedalus. We are in Cork, in Ireland. Cork is a city. Our room is in the Victoria Hotel. Victoria and Stephen and Simon. Simon and Stephen and Victoria. Names. The memory of his childhood suddenly grew dim. He tried to call forth some of its vivid moments but could not. He recalled only names. Dante, Parnell, Clane, Clongowes. A little boy had been taught geography by an old woman who kept two brushes in her wardrobe. Then he had been sent away from home to a college, he had made his first communion and eaten slim jim out of his cricket cap and watched the firelight leaping and dancing on the wall of a little bedroom in the infirmary and dreamed of being dead, of mass being said for him by the rector in a black


mediary between worlds.” She was quoting the Bridegroom, words he’d spoken to her as they stood up to their waists in a river, in the borderlands. Mercy was singing to herself. “And if I die today I’ll be a happy phantom…” Good choice. The whole song was death words. Alex could hear the metronome ticking steadily away behind Mercy’s tune. “Where do we start?” asked Turner. His expression was stony, as if in the wake of all that misery there was nothing to do but lock down. He had his answer now, about what Alex had done in Los Angeles. And she had her answers to questions she’d never thought to ask Turner. The Eagle Scout. The killer. Alex squinted out at the flat gray day. Could it even be day if there was no sun visible? The bruised sky stretched on and on, and wherever they were … No pits of fire. No obsidian walls. It felt like a suburb, a new one, for a city that didn’t exist. The streets were spotless, the buildings nearly identical. They had the shape of the strip malls that lived on every corner of the valley, full of nail salons and dry cleaners and head shops. But there were no signs over the doors here and no customers. The storefronts were empty. Alex turned in a slow circle, trying to stifle the wave of dizziness that overtook her. Everything was the same sandy, washed-out beige, not just the buildings but the grass and the sidewalks as well. She felt an unpleasant shiver move over her. “I know where we are.” Dawes was nodding slowly. She’d put it together too. They were standing in front of Sterling. Except Sterling was the orchard now, the basin full of water was the Women’s Table in their world. And that meant that all the rest … “We’re in New Haven,” said Tripp. “We’re at Yale.” Or something like it. Yale stripped of all its grandeur and beauty. “Good,” she said with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Then we at least know the layout. Let’s go.” “Where exactly?” asked Turner. Alex met Dawes’s gaze. “Where else?” she said. “Black Elm.” It should have taken them an hour on foot to reach Black Elm from campus. But time felt slippery here. There was no weather, no movement of the sun overhead. They crossed through a concrete courtyard and then down to what she thought was Elm Street, but it was lined with big apartment buildings. When Alex looked behind, it was as if the street had shifted. There was an intersection where there hadn’t been one before, a right turn where there’d been a left. “I don’t like this,” said Tripp. He was shaking. Alex remembered the slide of the wet rope, the sea heaving beneath her. “We’re okay,” she said. “Let’s keep moving.” “We should … leave bread crumbs or something.” He sounded almost angry, and Alex supposed he had good reason. This wasn’t an adventure. It was a nightmare. “In case we get lost.” “Ariadne’s thread,” Dawes said,


crime, more recently known to me as Mr. Cocktail. All the new ghosts of the city, the things I laugh about. At least one is true. My dreams, in the hospital, are full of them. “Welcome to St. Helen’s,” the nurse says, his hands cold on my forehead as I come back. “Again.” “Again?” “We had this conversation earlier. You remember?” “No.” “Then welcome to St. Helen’s. That’s a nice clean gunshot wound you have there. I’m impressed.” “Thank you.” “Somehow I don’t think you can take credit.” “I piss off very clean gunmen.” He chuckles. “Okay, tough guy, you’re with us. Well done. Now shut up, get some sleep, and when you wake up I’ll bring you some food.” “Hospital food.” “Yeah, sorry about that. You want Le Chat Noir, you need to duck faster.” “All the nurses in the city, I get the funny one.” He smiles, and there’s not the slightest hint of compromise in it. Just kindness. “Go to sleep, Mr. Sounder. When you wake up, you’ll feel like hell. That’s how you know you’re getting better.” On that basis it sounds like a terrible idea, but the sneaky bastard has put something woo in my saline, so off I go. 3 “You’re a fucking optimist.” “Chew your food.” “It’s pudding.” “Chew it anyway. How’s your back?” “Feels fine.” “Because it looks like someone threw you into the side of a metal cage.” “I’m a professional wrestler. Steel chairs, backflips. But it’s really kind of wholesome, we pray together too.” “I’m going to ask the doctor to anaesthetise your mouth.” “Is there still a hole in my side? Then I’m allowed to be an asshole.” “About that hole—” “Wild Bill fired a prop gun and it turned out to be loaded. Mr. Fantastic duplexed him and next week I’m gonna get the girl.” “Suplexed.” “Excuse me?” “You said duplex. It’s suplex.” “See? You sneer, but you still drunk-watch the show.” “Someone called Detective Felton rang and asked after you. Wants to know how you’re getting on.” “Did you tell him I died?” “I did.” “Did he buy it?” “He said he’d send flowers. Although he also said to tell you you’re an asshole.” “He didn’t buy it.” “That’s what I thought too, and I was super-convincing. Chew your food.” “I literally do not know how. When can I leave?” “You see this?” Middle finger. “I do.” “While you were sleeping I filled your bullet hole with flesh putty and lattice. When it’s set so that I can’t put this”—middle finger—“right up it, you can go.” “How long will that take?” He pokes the hole. It feels like I have a burning golf ball in my stomach. I hiss at him. “Looks like you’re about done. Maybe an hour. Then we’re gonna keep you in overnight so we can be sure you don’t haemorrhage or go into putty shock.” “What the fuck is putty shock?” “New therapies, new problems. What does it sound like?” “Just cauterise it and let me go home.” “No, because cauterisation smells like pork and


readers regard Nancy as too good to be true. You enter Nancy's thoughts as she approaches the house and sees Godfrey. She's embarrassed and confused by the way he's been acting lately. More than that, she disapproves of his reputation. Her pride tells her she deserves a good man like her father. Nevertheless, when Godfrey lifts her off the horse, her emotions go into a tailspin. Clearly, she cares more for him than she'd like to admit. NOTE: SOCIAL HISTORY This scene depicts in detail the customs of the gentry. The great houses were far apart, so guests had to ride long distances over bad roads. Parties therefore lasted a good while, to make it worth the trip. Ladies sent their party dresses ahead and changed out of muddy riding clothes when they arrived. Women's styles of the era were high-waisted dresses with long straight skirts, cut low to reveal the neck and shoulders. Men wore long-tailed dinner jackets and short, tight trousers. You've heard various characters mention the Kimbles and the Osgoods; now you meet them. The Lammeters are greeted by Mrs. Kimble, the Squire's sister and wife of the Raveloe doctor. Upstairs, Nancy meets her other aunt, dignified Mrs. Osgood. Her son Gilbert is the cousin whom Nancy refused to marry. Mrs. Osgood has brought to the party the two Miss Gunns. Being from a large provincial town, they think they're superior to country folk. But they're impressed with Nancy's grace, beauty, and extraordinary neatness--an outsider's opinion that confirms what Eliot has already told you. The only flaw they see is her rough hands. Nancy isn't ashamed of her hands, though--work is important to her. NOTE: DIALECT The Raveloe gentry have a country accent. Eliot doesn't write their speeches in dialect because Victorian readers expected major characters to use standard English. This accent, however, distinguishes Nancy from the Miss Gunns. Ironically, they too have an accent--but they think theirs is the right one. (How is this trivial prejudice related to the religious prejudices in the previous chapter?) Although the Miss Gunns dwell on this difference, Eliot remarks that Nancy is more of a lady than they are, despite her lack of education. Next you see Nancy beside another Raveloe lady, her sister Priscilla. By comparison, Nancy's special qualities shine out. Priscilla definitely talks like a country girl. The same dress that makes Nancy look lovely makes Priscilla look sallow and dumpy. Nancy, however, insists that as sisters they should dress alike. (What does this tell you about Nancy?) Priscilla does have common sense. Compare her realistic attitude toward staying home and keeping house for their father (as George Eliot did) to Nancy's high-minded reluctance about Godfrey. Downstairs at tea, Nancy reflects that marrying Godfrey would make her mistress of this house. She admits to herself that she loves him but her morals won't let her unbend. Eliot speaks of this as Nancy's "inward drama." Do you think she approves or disapproves of Nancy's attitude? While Godfrey and Nancy sit silently, highly conscious of each other, the rest of the party


breaking?" The hot tears came to his eyes. His [39] lips trembled, and, rushing to the back of the box, he leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. "Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry, with a strange tenderness in his voice; and the two young men passed out together. A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up, and the curtain rose on the third act. Dorian Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale, and proud, and indifferent. The play dragged on, and seemed interminable. Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots, and laughing. The whole thing was a fiasco. The last act was played to almost empty benches. As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the greenroom. The girl was standing alone there, with a look of triumph on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. There was a radiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of their own. When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy came over her. "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried. "Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement,--"horribly! It was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was. You have no idea what I suffered." The girl smiled. "Dorian," she answered, lingering over his name with long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to the red petals of her lips,--"Dorian, you should have understood. But you understand now, don't you?" "Understand what?" he asked, angrily. "Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall never act well again." He shrugged his shoulders. "You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill you shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were bored. I was bored." She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. An ecstasy of happiness dominated her. "Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night, and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came,--oh, my beautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness, of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To- night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words,


making her stiffen. ‘Highness,’ Dame Erda said, ‘King Bardholt’s party has passed Worhurst. They should be here before long.’ ‘Thank you.’ The knight left, and Glorian was alone again. Alone was the safest choice. **** It was past midday when her father arrived at Drouthwick. As the procession of riders passed beneath her window, Glorian saw Wulf among them. He glanced up, and their gazes met. In that glimpse of him, she saw the shadows under his dark eyes. He saluted her, dipping his head, and rode on. King Bardholt liked to bathe when he arrived at court. While Glorian waited for him, she played cards with her ladies, but her mind was elsewhere, and they let her win at least twice. By the time her father summoned her, her candle clock was halfway burned. He awaited her in the Witting Room, where documents and manuscripts were stored. King Bardholt hated reading, but he liked the quiet and coolness of that part of the castle. Two of his retainers flanked the door. One was stern and pale, with a scar across his cheekbone – Karlsten, that was his name – while the other had tousled black hair, a trim beard, and dark olive skin. He offered her a smile. ‘Good day,’ Glorian said in Hróthi. ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’ ‘Thrit of Isborg, Highness. An honour.’ He raised a fist to his heart. ‘Joy for your hall.’ ‘Fire for your hearth.’ Inside, her father was sitting with his elbows on his knees, stroking his beard, as he always did when he was deep in thought. He rose when she entered the room. ‘Glorian.’ ‘Papa,’ she whispered. The sight of him made her eyes well. Even without his mail and furs, her father was a solid wall no blade could ever pass. As soon as the doors closed behind her, she rushed to him, and he scooped her into his arms. ‘Dróterning,’ he murmured. ‘Are you all right?’ She tried to speak, and instead began to cry. ‘Come, my warrior. All is well.’ He drew her on to his knee, as if she were still a child. ‘Weep all you need. It’s good for the heart. I cried the first time someone tried to kill me.’ ‘Truly?’ ‘And the second. And the third.’ Glorian huddled against his chest, tears flowing down her face. Her father sang in his deep, slow voice, holding her tight. Whenever she had asked him not to leave Inys without her, he had calmed her with this old lullaby, which would have chilled the Saint himself. ‘Papa,’ she said, drying her eyes, ‘why did you not come to visit in the summer?’ ‘There were matters that needed attention in Hróth. But I am here now.’ King Bardholt looked her in the face. ‘The miner is dead. He cannot hurt you now, Glorian.’ ‘But there must be others like him, who hate us,’ Glorian stammered. ‘I know how to fight – you made sure I knew – but I was so scared, Papa. I couldn’t even move.’ ‘That has happened


and no ties to the scorched kingdom. Though I have known Adel for years, the truth of his nature remained hidden to Mahair. To me. The savagery of his death… upset me. I only wanted to pay him a kindness by performing the death rites of his people.” “Is it common to learn Jasadi death rites in your village?” He sounded curious. Conversational. “No.” I pretended to hesitate. “I learned them in Ganub il Kul, before the war. My tutors placed a high premium on speaking the old languages and understanding the practices of every kingdom.” A year or two before the siege, Nizahl had tried to foster a comradery between the kingdoms by creating a camp in the middle of Essam called Ganub il Kul. The camp would heal divisions between the kingdoms by unifying hundreds of their children in a shared education. No one in the royal families sent their children, of course. My grandparents had scoffed at the idea and discarded Supreme Rawain’s flowery invitation. My favorite attendant, Soraya, had not been so dismissive. “Be wary of evil men’s kindnesses, Essiya. They always grow from poisonous roots.” The second week of the war, every child still in Ganub il Kul was slaughtered. The murders were brutal, inhuman. And Supreme Rawain blamed it on Jasad. Any kingdom hesitant to point its sword at Jasad changed its tune quickly after Ganub il Kul. “Your accent is perfect. Your tutors must have been proud.” I studied the Heir. I could not puzzle out whether he believed me or was merely playing along. His features remained smooth and perfectly polite. I could have been describing the best scrubbing technique to remove a stain from cotton, for all he had reacted. “Truthfully, I caused them great distress. As you can see, I rarely put my skills to good use.” “Ah,” the Heir said, with a slight quirk of his lips. “Your first piece of honesty.” I struggled to control my breathing. He didn’t believe me. Four Nizahl soldiers broke through the bracket of trees. Two were astride mounts, and the others pulled theirs along. They glanced at me, promptly disregarding my presence. “Sire,” panted the first to arrive, bowing. “We’ve been searching for Your Highness.” “You’ve found me,” he said. “Do you bring news?” “No, my liege. It was as the blacksmith said. The boy has been released.” Sire. Your Highness. My liege. How many more? Jasad had one or two honorifics for its royalty at most. The Commander’s expression didn’t change. “Excellent. Hand me my reins, Jeru. We will accompany the lady to Mahair.” I had succeeded in retreating several steps. The Commander’s announcement halted me in my tracks. “I can assure you that’s not necessary.” The soldiers were irritated with my response. “Accept His Highness’s kindness, girl,” the brawny one snapped. The curly-haired one—Jeru—handed the Heir the reins to a black horse. The Heir studied me with his unsettling eyes. I wanted to stab them out of his head. Bowing stiffly, I pasted on a gracious smile. There was only one right


our town de metropolis uh de state. So maybe Ah better tell yuh in case you don’t know dat if we expect tuh move on, us got tuh incorpo- rate lak every other town. Us got tuh incorporate, and us got tuh have uh mayor, if things is tuh be done and done right. Ah welcome you all on behalf uh me and mah wife tuh dis store and tuh de other things tuh come. Amen.” Tony led the loud hand-clapping and was out in the cen- ter of the floor when it stopped. “Brothers and sisters, since us can’t never expect tuh bet- Their Eyes Were Watching God 51 ter our choice, Ah move dat we make Brother Starks our Mayor until we kin see further.” “Second dat motion!!!” It was everybody talking at once, so it was no need of putting it to a vote. “And now we’ll listen tuh uh few words uh encourage- ment from Mrs. Mayor Starks.” The burst of applause was cut short by Joe taking the floor himself. “Thank yuh fuh yo’ compliments, but mah wife don’t know nothin’ ’bout no speech-makin’. Ah never married her for nothin’ lak dat. She’s uh woman and her place is in de home.” Janie made her face laugh after a short pause, but it wasn’t too easy. She had never thought of making a speech, and did- n’t know if she cared to make one at all. It must have been the way Joe spoke out without giving her a chance to say any- thing one way or another that took the bloom off of things. But anyway, she went down the road behind him that night feeling cold. He strode along invested with his new dignity, thought and planned out loud, unconscious of her thoughts. “De mayor of uh town lak dis can’t lay round home too much. De place needs buildin’ up. Janie, Ah’ll git hold uh somebody tuh help out in de store and you kin look after things whilst Ah drum up things otherwise.” “Oh Jody, Ah can’t do nothin’ wid no store lessen youse there. Ah could maybe come in and help you when things git rushed, but—” “I god, Ah don’t see how come yuh can’t. ’Tain’t nothin’ atall tuh hinder yuh if yuh got uh thimble full uh sense. You 52 Zora Neale Hurston got tuh. Ah got too much else on mah hands as Mayor. Dis town needs some light right now.” “Unh hunh, it is uh little dark right long heah.” “’Course it is. ’Tain’t no use in scufflin’ over all dese stumps and roots in de dark. Ah’ll call uh meetin’ bout de dark and de roots right away. Ah’ll sit on dis case first thing.” The very next day with money out of his own pocket he sent off to Sears, Roebuck and Company for the street lamp and told the town to meet the following Thursday night to vote on it. Nobody had ever thought of street lamps and some of them said it was a


were in truth a Man of mortal race, for his words were the words of the Lord of Waters that came to him in that hour. And he gave warning to Turgon that the Curse of Mandos now hastened to its fulfilment, when all the works of the Noldor should perish; and he bade him depart, and abandon the fair and mighty city that he had built, and go down Sirion to the sea. Then Turgon pondered long the counsel of Ulmo, and there came into his mind the words that were spoken to him in Vinyamar: 'Love not too well the work of thy hands and the devices of thy heart; and remember that the true hope of the Noldor lieth in the West, and cometh from the Sea.' But Turgon was become proud, and Gondolin as beautiful as a memory of Elven Tirion, and he trusted still in its secret and impregnable strength, though even a Vala should gainsay it; and after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad the people of that city desired never again to mingle in the woes of Elves and Men without, nor to return through dread and danger into the West. Shut behind their pathless and enchanted hills they suffered none to enter, though he fled from Morgoth hate-pursued; and tidings of the lands beyond came to them faint and far, and they heeded them little. The spies of Angband sought for them in vain; and their dwelling was as a rumour, and a secret that none could find. Maeglin spoke ever against Tuor in the councils of the King, and his words seemed the more weighty in that they went with Turgon's heart; and at the last he rejected the bidding of Ulmo and refused his counsel. But in the warning of the Vala he heard again the words that were spoken before the departing Noldor on the coast of Araman long ago; and the fear of treason was wakened in Turgon's heart. Therefore in that time the very entrance to the hidden door in the Encircling Mountains was caused to be blocked up; and thereafter none went ever forth from Gondolin on any errand of peace or war, while that city stood. Tidings were brought by Thorondor Lord of Eagles of the fall of Nargothrond, and after of the slaying of Thingol and of Dior his heir, and of the ruin of Doriath; but Turgon shut his ear to word of the woes without, and vowed to march never at the side of any son of Fanor; and his people he forbade ever to pass the leaguer of the hills. And Tuor remained in Gondolin, for its bliss and its beauty and the wisdom of its people held mm enthralled; and he became mighty in stature and in mind, and learned deeply of the lore of the exiled Elves. Then the heart of Idril was turned to him, and his to her; and Maeglin's secret hatred grew ever greater, for he desired above all things to possess her, the only heir of the King of Gondolin.


to herself, pleased with the idea. “And how to make a peach look as though it’s freshly picked.” I smile. Fu, the word for bat, sounds like good fortune. But a bat is not just a symbol of happiness and good luck, it also embodies the male principle, especially when paired with a peach, which represents the female principle. Spinster Aunt is encouraging me to begin looking forward to my next child. An hour later, we’re still working quietly together, with Yuelan napping against my thigh, when my mother-in-law enters. She stands at the entrance to my marriage bed and holds up a hand. “You don’t need to stand,” she says. After I bow my head in thanks, she goes on. “The young midwife told me you are nearly recovered. I’m glad to see her assessment is correct.” “My heart lifts to hear that you’ve been speaking to Shi Meiling. I hope she’s proven herself to you,” I say. “She has, and her mother too.” Then she makes a brusque announcement. “At Doctor Wong’s suggestion, we will begin to use them to care for the pregnant and laboring women in the Garden of Fragrant Delights.” Which means Meiling and her mother will become regular visitors. I brighten at the news. “However, the fact remains that a friendship between the two of you cannot be allowed.” Lady Kuo turns her gaze to Spinster Aunt. “Since Yunxian is doing so well and you have so much experience, you can finish seeing her through doing the month.” Before I can object, Lady Kuo addresses me directly. “There will be no arguments. I gave you this temporary gift, and you should be grateful. Now you will turn your gratitude to Spinster Aunt. She is fully capable of tending to you now that your bleeding has ended.” Later, Spinster Aunt shows yet another side of herself when she comforts me as I cry. Meiling and I haven’t even been given a chance to say goodbye to each other. * * * Three days later, on Yuelan’s sixteenth day of breathing the air of this world, I’m awakened by her birdlike cries. Poppy brings her to me, and I open my gown so my baby can nurse. When she latches on and my milk lets down, I suddenly start to shiver. By the time she’s finished with my first breast, my temperature has shifted and I’m sweating. I have a moment of panic, thinking I might be developing infant-cord rigidity, but my back is fine, my jaw remains loose, and I haven’t been attacked by convulsions. When the baby’s done nursing, I have a desire to get up and walk with her as I burp her. It’s my first time out of my marriage bed since my labor began. I feel surprisingly weak. Again, heat rises in me, and I begin to sweat so fast and so much that the room swims around me. I quickly give Yuelan to Poppy and stumble back to the bed. “You’re supposed to stay in bed when you do the month,” Poppy


speck on the water away off yonder. I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and matches and other things -- everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched out the gun, and now I was done. I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up at that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you stood four or five foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you wouldn't never notice it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely anybody would go fooling around there. It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie farms. I shot this fel- low and took him into camp. I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground -- hard packed, and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it -- all I could drag -- and I started it from the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such


concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!" You know the song, perhaps?' `I've heard something like it,' said Alice. `It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, `in this way:-- "Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle--"' Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep `Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop. `Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter, `when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the time! Off with his head!"' `How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice. `And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, `he won't do a thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.' A bright idea came into Alice's head. `Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?' she asked. `Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: `it's always tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.' `Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice. `Exactly so,' said the Hatter: `as the things get used up.' `But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured to ask. `Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning. `I'm getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.' `I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal. `Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried. `Wake up, Dormouse!' And they pinched it on both sides at once. The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. `I wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: `I heard every word you fellows were saying.' `Tell us a story!' said the March Hare. `Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice. `And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, `or you'll be asleep again before it's done.' `Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--' `What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. `They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two. `They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; `they'd have been ill.' `So they were,' said the Dormouse; `VERY ill.' Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: `But why did they live at the bottom of a well?' `Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. `I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.' `You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter: `it's very easy to take MORE than nothing.' `Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said Alice. `Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked triumphantly.


blend in with a crowd. We check the Roxy Theater, ask the ticket agent (today in a porkpie hat) whether he’s seen her, and when he refuses to answer with anything other than a shrug, we each buy a ticket and split up inside to check both theaters. Not there either. We check Murder, She Read; the wharf; and the Lobster Hut, as well as the Lobster Hut’s heavily graffitied bathrooms. We even check the tattoo shop on the very off chance that she’s enacting some small rebellion and getting her own wicked pissah tattoo. She’s nowhere to be found, and our next call goes straight to voicemail. “She must’ve let her phone die,” Cleo says. “That’s not like her,” I say. “You think she was lying about hotels being booked up?” Cleo says. “Could she have checked in somewhere?” I pull up a search for available rooms in the area. Nary a hotel, motel, bed- and-breakfast, or hostel available in sight. The group text chimes with a text, and we both jump. It’s only Wyn, whose number I’d unblocked again. Any luck? he writes. None. You? I ask. Parth’s really worried, Wyn replies. He’s going to call hospitals. Just to be sure. My stomach flips. Keep us posted. You too, he says. Cleo’s nose wrinkles as she scans our list. “That’s all the usual spots. She wouldn’t . . . be reckless enough to sail off by herself, would she?” The blood rushes out of my stomach. “She’s a pretty confident sailor,” I say. “And I think sailing is sort of her happy place. It makes her think of her mom and when . . .” “Harry?” Cleo says. “What is it?” “Her mom,” I say. “What about her?” Cleo asks. “It might be nothing,” I say. “But I’ve got one more place for us to check.” • • • “STOP THE CAR!” I shriek, with such conviction that Cleo instantly obeys, right in the middle of the road. Although road is a fairly aspirational title for the wooded lane the GPS has directed us onto. One has to assume that there’s a parking lot somewhere ahead, but parking no longer matters because (1) the little open-air chapel is visible through the trees on our right, and (2) a cherry-red Jaguar sits parked on the dirt shoulder. Cleo hits the gas again and pulls over. We check the car first—empty— then scramble over the short stone retaining wall to hike up the hillside toward the chapel. The damp green woods give way to a manicured garden. In its center, a pavilion of gray stone stands, ivy crawling up its left side. Butterflies move in dizzy spirals through the flowering bushes hugging the steps, the distant crash of waves the only sound. No wonder Sabrina’s parents’ wedding made such an impression on her. This place is beautiful. It feels like nothing could go wrong here, nothing bad could happen. When I start forward, Cleo hangs back. Her mouth opens and closes a couple of times. “What if she wants to be alone?”


1993 NOTICE PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narra- tive will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance. EXPLANATORY IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a hap- hazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding. THE AUTHOR. HUCKLEBERRY FINN Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago CHAPTER I. YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before. Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece -- all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round -- more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old


mention him again. She said she couldn’t raise one child while mourning another. According to Aunt Honey, it wasn’t until she died that anyone acknowledged Freddie had even existed. Louise would not live that way. “I need to know,” she insisted. “She wants closure,” Mercy said. “Meemaw,” Constance said in a warning voice. “All I know,” Aunt Honey said, outnumbered, “is your mother called me Wednesday night in an uproar and said she had to take your father to the hospital because he had some kind of attack.” “What kind of attack?” Louise asked. “All I could make out was your daddy had an attack and she couldn’t wait for an ambulance. I told her, ‘Nancy, it’s raining cats and dogs, you’ve got no business in an automobile. You dial 911.’ ” “Was it his ankle?” Louise asked. “I think she said it was an attack,” Aunt Honey said, confused for a moment. “I wish I’d argued harder about that EMS.” “Meemaw,” Mercy said, “you can’t argue with someone when they’re upset. Especially Aunt Nancy.” “The next thing you know,” Aunt Honey said, “your brother calls and tells me they’ve been in an accident.” “Did he say anything about what the police said?” “Just that it happened,” Aunt Honey said. “And that’s that.” A silence spread through the living room. “What did your mother want to do about flowers?” Aunt Gail asked. “I don’t know,” Louise said, trying to make herself care about flowers. “They’ll want gladioli,” Aunt Honey pronounced. “Don’t you think so, Gail?” “White lilies,” Aunt Gail said. “I’ll talk to Robert Wheeler. He did the arrangements for Mary Emma Cunningham’s funeral, the ones with the little pineapples in them.” They began to talk about flowers and obituaries and who needed to be called and Louise felt small and safe, sipping her wine, surrounded by these loud women doing everything for her. She marveled at how easy they were with each other, how they got along so unselfconsciously, how different they were from her and Mark. “Are y’all selling the house?” Mercy asked, snapping her out of it. “Mercy!” Aunt Gail said. “It’s what everyone’s going to ask,” Mercy said. “Prices around here are sky-high. Meemaw could sell this pile and get a million, easy.” “Worldly possessions thou shalt not store up,” Aunt Gail said. “I’m not selling this house and neither is Louise,” Aunt Honey said. “It’s her house,” Constance said. “My sister would turn over in her grave,” Aunt Honey said. “I’m only here two weeks,” Louise said, trying to head off conflict. “I’m going to clean it out first and then decide.” “Your mother grew up in that house,” Aunt Honey said. “That land belonged to your grandfather back when Old Mount Pleasant was nothing but farms.” “Do you need any help with it?” Mercy asked, turning to Louise, and Louise couldn’t tell if it was a real offer or a mandatory family gesture. “That’s okay,” Louise said. “It’s not that much stuff. But thank you.” “Well, let me know if I can do anything,” Mercy said.


look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be _Missish_, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?'' ``Oh!'' cried Elizabeth, ``I am excessively diverted. But it is so strange!'' ``Yes -- _that_ is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing; but _his_ perfect indifference, and _your_ pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?'' To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by his repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by what he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference, and she could do nothing but wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that perhaps, instead of his seeing too _little_, she might have fancied too _much_. __ CHAPTER XVI (58) INSTEAD of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking; Mary could never spare time; but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and perhaps he might be doing the same. They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was high, she immediately said, ``Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding your's. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since


it from the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as that. Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into the river. Now I thought of some- thing else. So I went and got the bag of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the place -- pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide and full of rushes -- and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again. It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, they'll follow the track of that sack- ful of rocks to the shore and then drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers that killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to. Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well, and nobody ever


I’ve finished my pseudo-memoir. “I know what you’re getting at.” Geoff shakes his head. “It’s not that, I promise.” “Are you sure?” “Athena’s folks lost touch with most of their relatives when they emigrated. I’m sure you’ve heard her talk about it. Seriously, there is some deeply fucked-up stuff in that family history. People were murdered, executed in firing squads, lost out at sea. And maybe it’s all made-up, in which case that would be supremely fucked up, but I don’t think it is. I’ve talked to Mrs. Liu about it a bit. That pain is real.” “You don’t think . . .” I trail off. “What? That it’s her?” Geoff pauses. He’s also had this suspicion, I can tell. It’s crazy, but I wouldn’t put it past Athena to fake her own death, to put the manuscript right where she knew I would find it. The funeral could have been staged. Her mom could be in on it. Maybe she’s watching from the wings right now, laughing into her trench coat. But Geoff shakes his head. “No. No, she was an odd one, but she wasn’t, like, a crazy person. She’s—she was a writer. Not a performance artist.” He meets my gaze. “And didn’t you—?” Didn’t I see her die? Yes, I did. I saw the panic in her eyes, saw her thrashing and convulsing, trying to free her throat, saw her at last go still and blue in front of me. She couldn’t have faked that. The best actress in the world couldn’t have faked that. “Then who’s doing this to me?” I demand. “What do they want?” “Does it matter?” Geoff shrugs. “Just ignore them. You’ve brushed it off every time before, haven’t you? Where’s your thick skin? Why start getting bothered now?” “Because . . .” I swallow. “It hurts. I just—it hurts.” “Ah.” He leans forward. “So are you going to tell me the truth now?” I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I can’t do it. I’ve held the line for this long; I can’t break it, even if, in some wretched way, it might set me free. “I get it,” says Geoff. “You say it once, you can never take it back.” He knows. I can tell from his face that he knows. I don’t bother trying to convince him otherwise, or to explain the complexities involved—that I did put in the work, that The Last Front is just as much my accomplishment as it is Athena’s, that it could not possibly exist in its current form without me. It doesn’t matter. Geoff’s made up his mind, and that’s fine—there’s nothing more he can do to me than what the internet already has. I blink angrily down at the table, trying to collect my thoughts. I can’t convince him that I’m innocent, but I need to make him understand. “I just don’t get why everyone’s so obsessed with Athena’s legacy,” I say at last. “They all talk about her like she was this saint.” Geoff cocks his head, then settles into his chair, hands


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do with Bartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;—I would put certain calm questions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if he declined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he would prefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and above whatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longer required; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would be happy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place, wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses. Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in want of aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply. The next morning came. “Bartleby,” said I, gently calling to him behind his screen. No reply. “Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going to ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to speak to you.” Upon this he noiselessly slid into view. “Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?” “I would prefer not to.” “Will you tell me any thing about yourself?” “I would prefer not to.” “But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you.” He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head. “What is your answer, Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth. “At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his hermitage. It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasion nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me. Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my offices, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his screen, I sat down and said: “Bartleby, never mind then about revealing your history; but let


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

this as I am.” “Be that as it may, Gabriel’s loyalty is to one person alone. And diverting as you are, Lore, I don’t think you can compete with Apollius. If the opportunity arises for Remaut to use you in service to his god, he’ll take it.” He turned to face her, the flame gilding his dark hair in fiendish light, keeping his eyes in shadow. “In fact, it seems like I’m the only person in the Citadel who knows who you are and what you’re capable of, and isn’t trying to make you a tool.” It wasn’t true, but neither was it comforting. Gabe didn’t know what she was, not really. Not like Bastian did. Bleeding God and Buried Goddess, she hoped that wasn’t a mistake. “Gabe isn’t trying to use me,” she said softly. “Gabe is trying to keep me safe.” The prince turned around with a rueful noise, shaking his head. “Are you so accustomed to being used that you don’t realize when it’s happening, as long as it’s done kindly?” She had no answer for that. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Nature bends toward wickedness—consider the eclipse. The sky grows dark when it should be light, the moon overtaking the sun. Such is a time when dark power rises. But fear not, for even this can be used. —The Book of Holy Law, Tract 7451 The trip through the short tunnel didn’t take long, but Lore was soaked to the waist by the time they splashed up onto the ledge at the other end, and walking through all that water had been taxing enough to make her break a sweat. She desperately wanted to wipe her face, but was afraid of what might be on her hands. “How often do you do this?” she asked, turning to Bastian. “And how in all myriad hells do you hide that much laundry?” “It used to be once a week or so, but I assume I’ll have to cut back now that at least two of the betting enforcers know who I am.” Bastian sloshed up next to her, barely winded. “And I usually just leave all my clothes in the culvert and walk back through the gardens naked. It’s refreshing, and whoever finds my cast-offs certainly needs them more than I do.” “Please tell me you aren’t planning to shuck off your clothes right now.” “I’ll protect your delicate sensibilities, though it is sure to result in agonizing chafing.” Bastian grasped her by the waist and boosted her up, out of the culvert and into the Citadel gardens. Right into Gabriel. The Presque Mort stumbled back, arms closing around Lore to hold her steady. “You’re safe?” he asked, his hands running from her shoulders to her wrists. “He didn’t hurt you?” “Should I be offended?” Bastian climbed out of the culvert, a smile on his face and daggers in his eyes. “I think I’m offended.” “He didn’t hurt me.” Lore didn’t mention the endless moments in the alley when it seemed like he might. She stepped out of Gabe’s arms, peered up at


hell now. “Tell me this isn’t one of the reasons you’re going back to New York,” he growled instead, because he had obviously lost full control of his faculties. The green smoke growing thicker and thicker inside his chest was manning all battle stations. This finance guy was utterly perfect for August’s wife—who he was fucking in love with, by the way—and the whole time they’d been making love, she’d been sad about the asshat marrying someone else. She’d just turned him inside out in that bed and the possibility she’d been on a different page was eating him alive. “I am not required to deny anything to you,” Natalie said, lips barely moving. Uh-oh. Now there was a whole slew of snakes gunning for his balls, fangs out. “Nothing has changed between us. The original agreement still stands. We’re in this for the money and that’s it. Now get out of my room.” His heart climbed up into his mouth and he swallowed it, the whole aching mass of it getting stuck in his throat. “Once I’m out, it’s going to be really hard to convince you to let me back in.” “Oh, you have no idea, shithead.” “I’m jealous, Natalie,” he said hoarsely. “I’m jealous.” “You know what, August? I don’t care. You don’t get to say whatever you want because you’re feeling a particular way. That doesn’t excuse anything. You have to learn to take the information given to you by your brain and stop your mouth from interpreting it first.” “Because it hurts your feelings.” “Yes,” she whispered, then seemed to regret it. “No. Out.” More than anything, he was angry with himself in that moment. Pissed beyond measure. Frustration built higher and higher, any remaining thread of control slipping from his fingers. He couldn’t do anything right. Couldn’t make Natalie happy for longer than a few measly minutes at a time. Couldn’t do justice to Sam’s dream. Couldn’t interpret brain shit, either, apparently. What good was he doing anyone? Giving Natalie breathing room was probably the right thing to do, but he couldn’t seem to make himself leave the room. He simply remained there, an inanimate object with his hand on the knob. No, he couldn’t walk away. That’s what they’d both done at the end of every fight, since the beginning, and it had hurt their relationship every time. He’d lose her unless something changed. Her feelings were hurt because of him, and he wasn’t just going to abandon her. August turned around. “What can I do to make this better, Natalie?” Her chin snapped up. “Besides light yourself on fire?” “Preferably.” “I don’t know, August.” She sighed. “Tell me how you feel right now.” He ventured a cautious step toward the bed. “That seems like a good start.” “Mad.” For a second, he thought she might leave it at that, but she threw up a hand and let it drop. “A little empty.” A hoarse sound left him. And it occurred to him that storming away was definitely easier. This was the hard part. Hearing


that by now I’d have a reasonably remunerated academic position. I did not imagine that at twenty-seven I’d be paying my water bill by helping adult men pretend that they have dating lives. And yet here I am, fake-girlfriending my way through my student loans. Not to kill anyone’s buzz, but I’m starting to suspect that life might not always turn out the way you want. An unavoidable loss of faith: there are only so many times one can be hired to project the idea that a client is a charming, well-adjusted, emotionally available human being capable of holding on to a medium-term relationship with an equally high-functioning adult, in order to . . . Well, it varies. I’ve never asked Greg why Caroline Smith is so obsessed with the idea of her thirty-year-old son having a significant other. Based on snippets of overheard conversations within the Smith Cinematic Universe, I suspect it has to do with the massive estate that will come into play once the matriarch dies, and with the belief that if he provided the first great-grandchild, he’d be more likely to inherit . . . a diamond-studded water hose, I assume? Rich people. They’re just like us. But Greg’s nosy mom is still much better than his brother, who’s bad news for a whole bunch of reasons that do not bear contemplating. Frankly, it’s a relief that she is my target. It means that when the front door of Smith Manor opens, I can focus solely on her: the withholding, PVC-hearted woman who manages to air-kiss us, fuss with Greg’s hair, and push two full glasses of wine into our hands all at once. “How’s life in finance, Gregory?” Caroline asks her son. He downs half of his drink in a single gulp—I suspect because I’ve heard him explain that he does not, in fact, work in finance. At least four times. “And you, Elsie?” she adds without waiting for a reply. “How are things at the library?” Following Faux’s guidelines, I tell my clients nothing about myself—not my full name, not my day job, not my true opinions on cilantro (excellent, if you enjoy eating soap). And that, in a nutshell, is what fake-girlfriending is about. It initially seemed sketchy that people would pay for a fake date in the age of Tinder and Pornhub, and that they’d pay me—unremarkable Elsie Hannaway of the medium everything. Medium height. Medium-brown hair and eyes. Medium nose, butt, feet, legs, breasts. Pretty, yeah, sure, but in a medium, nondescript way. And yet, my medium mediumness is the perfect blank slate to fill. An empty canvas to paint on. A mirror, reflecting only what others care to project. A bolt of fabric that can be custom tailored to— well. I’m sure everyone’s tracking the metaphor. The Elsie that Caroline Smith wants is someone able to fit in with people who use summer as a verb, not flashy enough to attract a better catch than Greg, and with the nurturing instincts to take care of the son she might love but cannot


It’s beyond me, though surely not beyond you. Though you must be . . . discreet. This is between you and me. No third party.” Calaphas furrows his brow and gazes at the floor, as though puzzling through the twists of some Gordian knot. “How do you explain Mace not showing up on your security video?” “Somehow he must have taken control of the system, froze the cameras and walked right past them.” “What does your security company say?” “They said it’s impossible, so they’re gone.” Calaphas looks up from the floor. “Gone?” “How could I trust them? I threw them out and told them to shut down service instanter. Katherine recommended another company.” “Katherine Ormond-Wattley?” “Yes. A company with ties to the ISA, a military contractor with better tech than the firm I used. They’ll install tomorrow.” “You don’t have security now?” “No video, no alarms, but no one can get through our electronic locks.” “Michael Mace did.” “I don’t think Mace is coming back,” Woodbine says. “I wish he would, so we could have a shot at him.” Calaphas doesn’t need to get by the electronic locks. He’s already inside. Looking past the attorney, he considers the opposing-mirrors trick of endless reflections. An infinite Durand Calaphas is a true expression of his destiny, but the truth of Woodbine’s prospects is not what the mirrors appear to predict. “Listen, do we or don’t we?” the attorney asks. “Do we what?” “Have a deal.” “Absolutely. And you won’t be sorry you trusted me. But there’s this thing about Rudy Santana. He felt I was disrespecting you by being late. He did something stupid to impress me.” Woodbine’s expression is wonderfully textured—a mild, doleful chagrin—and could be mistaken for sincere by the most perceptive of jurors. “I need men who can interface between me and the animals on the street who keep the merchandise flowing. Santana and Harris aren’t perfect, but they’re the best I’ve found.” “I understand. But I think you should know Santana mentioned three names to prove how high you are on the ladder.” As Calaphas repeats those names, the lawyer’s eyebrows arch. “For your own good, Mr. Woodbine, you might have a word with Santana about discretion.” “I will,” Woodbine declares. “I’ll speak with him as soon as you’re on your way.” “Meanwhile, that transponder links to your smartphone.” “To one of them. One I reserve strictly for that purpose.” “I’ll need it.” “It’s on the counter in the kitchen,” the attorney says, moving away, past the leopard-patterned chaise, the multiplied reflections of which offer infinite accommodations where one can lie for the focused contemplation of God knows what. The former gym and current meditation room is thronged with replicates of Calaphas and Woodbine moving toward the exit from myriad directions, folding into and out of the room’s corners with great flexibility, seen retreating from the door even as they are approaching it. If these kaleidoscopic images can be disorienting, Calaphas is not confused as he follows Woodbine, for his attention is concentrated on the action he must take.