XI "Harriet, poor Harriet!"--Those were the words; in them lay the tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much his behaviour as her own, which made her so angry with him. It was the scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet's account, that gave the deepest hue to his offence.--Poor Harriet! to be a second time the dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken prophetically, when he once said, "Emma, you have been no friend to Harriet Smith."--She was afraid she had done her nothing but disservice.--It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise never have entered Harriet's imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought to have prevented them.--She felt that she had been risking her friend's happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him, and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring for her.--"But, with common sense," she added, "I am afraid I have had little to do." She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.-- As for Jane Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough; she need no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.--Her days of insignificance and evil were over.--She would soon be well, and happy, and prosperous.-- Emma could now imagine why her own attentions had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No doubt it had been from jealousy.--In Jane's eyes she had been a rival; and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack, and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little sympathy to be spared for any body else. Emma was sadly fearful that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first. Considering the very superior claims of


and she and Tea Cake were on hand every night till the others teased them about it. Janie came to know Mrs. Turner now. She had seen her several times during the season, but neither ever spoke. Now they got to be visiting friends. Mrs. Turner was a milky sort of a woman that belonged to child-bed. Her shoulders rounded a little, and she must have been conscious of her pelvis because she kept it stuck 164 Zora Neale Hurston out in front of her so she could always see it. Tea Cake made a lot of fun about Mrs. Turner’s shape behind her back. He claimed that she had been shaped up by a cow kicking her from behind. She was an ironing board with things throwed at it. Then that same cow took and stepped in her mouth when she was a baby and left it wide and flat with her chin and nose almost meeting. But Mrs. Turner’s shape and features were entirely approved by Mrs. Turner. Her nose was slightly pointed and she was proud. Her thin lips were an ever delight to her eyes. Even her buttocks in bas-relief were a source of pride. To her way of thinking all these things set her aside from Negroes. That was why she sought out Janie to friend with. Janie’s coffee-and-cream complexion and her luxurious hair made Mrs. Turner forgive her for wearing overalls like the other women who worked in the fields. She didn’t forgive her for marrying a man as dark as Tea Cake, but she felt that she could remedy that. That was what her brother was born for. She sel- dom stayed long when she found Tea Cake at home, but when she happened to drop in and catch Janie alone, she’d spend hours chatting away. Her disfavorite subject was Negroes. “Mis’ Woods, Ah have often said to mah husband, Ah don’t see how uh lady like Mis’ Woods can stand all them common niggers round her place all de time.” “They don’t worry me atall, Mis’ Turner. Fact about de thing is, they tickles me wid they talk.” “You got mo’ nerve than me. When somebody talked mah husband intuh comin’ down heah tuh open up uh eatin’ place Ah never dreamt so many different kins uh black folks Their Eyes Were Watching God 165 could colleck in one place. Did Ah never woulda come. Ah ain’t useter ’ssociatin’ wid black folks. Mah son claims dey draws lightnin’.” They laughed a little and after many of these talks Mrs. Turner said, “Yo’ husband musta had plenty money when y’all got married.” “Whut make you think dat, Mis’ Turner?” “Tuh git hold of uh woman lak you. You got mo’ nerve than me. Ah jus’ couldn’t see mahself married to no black man. It’s too many black folks already. We oughta lighten up de race.” “Naw, mah husband didn’t had nothin’ but hisself. He’s easy tuh love if you mess round ’im. Ah loves ’im.” “Why you, Mis’ Woods! Ah don’t b’lieve it. You’se jus’


someone he didn’t know. He’d suddenly become superstitious, afraid of people slipping poison into his food or cursing it. It was the reason why he wouldn’t take one of her cigarettes, either. Who knew what could be rolled inside it. “Documentaries must be awfully complicated projects. How long have you been working on this one?” “We only knew Abel a short while.” “It’s a pity, his passing,” Marisa said, but her tone was flat. Polite, but with no warmth. Announcers spoke like that when they read the news. “Well, I wanted to thank you for meeting with me on such short notice. I talked to my aunt earlier today. She wants to know if you have any of Ewers’s things. Your friend, she mentioned that she’d read The House of Infinite Wisdom.” “Abel let Montserrat read a copy of that.” “Does she still have it?” Tristán was a decent actor, and now he was sliding into the part, so he gave Marisa a shrug that looked perfectly innocent. “I don’t think so.” “Perhaps you have something else that belongs to Ewers. Items you might be utilizing for your research. If that’s the case, I’d like to buy them off you.” According to Montserrat, Alma Montero had ordered Abel to give her Ewers’s film and other possessions before he was murdered. But Marisa had denied the two of them had been in touch recently. “Why do you want them?” “It’s my aunt who wants them. She wants to destroy any artifacts connected to that movie they worked on.” “Is that so?” Marisa rested an elbow on the table and leaned forward. “Yesterday I saw one of Ewers’s runes near my home. My aunt believes his cult is more active than ever, and more dangerous.” He might have grimaced, but the waiter arrived at that moment and set a glass of mineral water in front of Tristán. He glanced down, glad for the brief interruption, and looked back at Marisa. “I don’t understand.” “My aunt suspects Abel did something. He cast a spell. And it’s made Ewers’s old acolytes restless.” “But why does she want to destroy Ewers’s things?” “The same reason why she burned his film all those years ago: Ewers was a dangerous man. Perhaps he still is.” The present tense Marisa utilized did not sit well with him. He thought of Montserrat back in the car, all alone, with sorcerers lurking around dark corners. He debated getting up and leaving immediately, but he stayed still. Montserrat would want him to find out as much as he could. “How did Ewers die?” he asked. It was not a question Marisa had been expecting. She raised an eyebrow at him as she took a drag of her cigarette. The silver case lay on the table, next to her martini glass. There was something subtly wrong about this woman, a sour note he could not pinpoint. It unsettled him. “Stabbed. He was robbed,” she said, picking up her drink and nibbling at an olive. “An important sorcerer and he didn’t have any bodyguards? Any


my nose. “I’d really rather you wear a tux.” “Have you actually ever hit a baseball?” I shrugged. “I’m a fast learner.” Not exactly a lie. I was a fast learner. But what I didn’t tell him was that the only thing my father ever did with me was take me to the batting cages. Could I hit a home run? Doubtful. But I was willing to try. Because the thought of seeing Bobby’s face when I showed up at prom with Heartbreak Huff was too good to pass up. “I get three strikes, right?” Huff snorted. “Old pro, I see.” He paused. “Come here. I’ll let you try to hit my practice pitches.” I stood at home plate, choked up on the bat, my butt out, the wind blowing up the back of my jean shorts. When his first “practice pitch” barreled toward me, I screamed and ducked. This was not starting out well. “Want to just call this off now?” Huff asked. I laughed like I was supremely confident. The second ball was much of the same. But by the third something strange happened. Huff barely even threw it. This was not a pitch; it was a toss to a toddler. And I had the most gloriously unexpected feeling that Heartbreak Huff wanted to go to prom with me. I was so startled by the thought that I almost missed. But I didn’t. I swung with all my might. The ball sailed way over Huff’s head and into the outfield. I took off like a shot. I rounded first, then second. I was vaguely aware of the fact that Huff had the ball and was running toward me. I was also vaguely aware of the fact that Huff ran like a cheetah; I ran like a kitten. This likely would not end well for me. As I was about to round third, I felt not a tap but both of Huff’s arms wrap around my waist to lift me off the ground. I was basically still running in the air as Huff tripped over the base and, in slow motion, I landed on my side. Huff, who hadn’t totally lost his balance, landed with his hands on either side of me. I was laughing as I rolled on my back. Huff wasn’t laughing. He was studying me. He popped up and offered me his hand, pulling me up. I brushed myself off and stepped closer to him, wiping an invisible speck of sand from his face. “I didn’t hit a home run,” I said sadly. “And I scraped my hand.” He took the hand that was on his face and turned it over to kiss my palm, which felt like both the sweetest and the most illicit thing anyone had ever done. “Is that better?” I grinned, trying to think of something clever to say, but found myself lost in his eyes, mesmerized by what I knew was about to happen. I rose onto my tiptoes and wrapped my arms around Huff’s neck as his wrapped his around my back.


leaned right into her ear and whispered, “How much? For information on the women?” Bull’s-eye. “Seriously?” She made her voice tremble a little. “How much do you want?” “How much have you got?” “Thirty notes on me, but more at my aunt’s place.” He moved away and gave her a hard, appraising look. “Follow me.” Nico started to move, but Horatio threw a palm out. “Not you, freeloader. You can wait for her right here.” Nico made to argue, but Io pulled him into a flirty embrace and secretly whispered, “Count to twenty, then follow us.” In a masterful performance, Nico leaned away with a naughty look in his eyes and said cheekily, “All right, girl. I can stay alone for a few minutes, I guess.” Horatio led her through the crowd and down the dock. The mist was thicker here—every couple of feet she craned her neck back toward the pit, like an inexperienced out-of-town girl would, but soon the fighting den was swallowed by the milky-white fog. They stopped in front of a small fishing boat. Now that the tide had pulled back, the boats were moored on their side on the muddy beach, like bloated whale carcasses. Horatio hopped on deck and used a hanging ladder to climb down to the mud. Io glanced back at the pit. Gods damn it. Nico wouldn’t know where to find her in the mist. She would have to make as much sound as she could. Hopefully, Nico would hear. The sand was green and sticky, worms writhing here and there. Her boots sank deep, making a sickening splotch sound that made Io’s lip curl up. Fish traps in all shapes and sizes were scattered unceremoniously around the boat, their metal bars rusted and draped with seaweed. One of them, covered with cloth, began to rattle as Io moved past them, trying to locate Horatio in the mist. Where had he gone? Dread built up in her chest—she called forth the Quilt. The beachfront was eerily colorless, devoid of shimmering silver. One hand out to the trap on her right to orient herself, she turned in a circle, scanning across the mud for his life-thread. Another life-thread peeked through the mist, coming around the fishing boat they had climbed down from. Gods, let it be Nico. Io fumbled for her spectacles: it was a singular thread, yes, the lustrous silver of a life-thread, but it was— Severed. Dragging in the mud behind the figure walking on the beach. The sight registered like a punch to the stomach. It was a wraith, a new wraith, coming straight at her. “Sir?” Io called out, voice choked with panic. “Sir, we need to go, right now.” The imprint of his body came from behind her; he shouldn’t be behind her unless he had circled around her precisely to ambush her. She turned, too late. His hand reached for the air over her torso, fingers twirling as if unlocking an invisible door. The motion alone was enough to unnerve Io, but then she felt a terrifying jab


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

on Snape's tail," when the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open and Hermione came in. "I'm sorry, Harry!" she wailed. "Snape came out and asked me what I was doing, so I said I was waiting for Flitwick, and Snape went to get him, and I've only just got away, I don't know where Snape went." "Well, that's it then, isn't it?" Harry said. The other two stared at him. He was pale and his eyes were glittering. "I'm going out of here tonight and I'm going to try and get to the Stone first." "You're mad!" said Ron. "You can't!" said Hermione. "After what McGonagall and Snape have said? You'll be expelled!" "SO WHAT?" Harry shouted. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the house cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there, it's only dying a bit later than I would have, because I'm never going over to the Dark Side! I'm going through that trapdoor tonight and nothing you two say is going to stop me! Voldemort killed my parents, remember?" He glared at them. "You're right Harry," said Hermione in a small voice. "I'll use the invisibility cloak," said Harry. "It's just lucky I got it back." "But will it cover all three of us?" said Ron. "All -- all three of us?" "Oh, come off it, you don't think we'd let you go alone?" "Of course not," said Hermione briskly. "How do you think you'd get to the Stone without us? I'd better go and look through my books, there might be something useful..." "But if we get caught, you two will be expelled, too." "Not if I can help it," said Hermione grimly. "Flitwick told me in secret that I got a hundred and twelve percent on his exam. They're not throwing me out after that." *** After dinner the three of them sat nervously apart in the common room. Nobody bothered them; none of the Gryffindors had anything to say to Harry any more, after all. This was the first night he hadn't been upset by it. Hermione was skimming through all her notes, hoping to come across one of the enchantments they were about to try to break. Harry and Ron didn't talk much. Both of them were thinking about what they were about to do. Slowly, the room emptied as people drifted off to bed. "Better get the cloak," Ron muttered, as Lee Jordan finally left, stretching and yawning. Harry ran upstairs to their dark dormitory. He pulled out the cloak and then his eyes fell on the flute


shot back. “Because he wouldn’t do as I said. You’re better off taking your chances with me than with Clarimonde, and I doubt José is any use to you. If I was able to track you, it means his power is waning.” “So is yours.” Those words must have angered Alma because a rope of lightning stretched suddenly taut in front of them with such strength and speed that Montserrat felt the sting of it. It was like pressing your tongue against a nine-volt battery and tasting its charge. It didn’t hurt Montserrat, but then again it hadn’t really touched her. The rope of light hung inches before her, yet she could still perceive its power. Should she come in contact with it, it would seriously harm her. More ropes of light spread in front of them, creating another spidery web. Tristán pulled Montserrat back. They began retreating. Montserrat rested a hand against the jamb of a door but immediately let it go with a loud yelp as the metal seemed to sear her flesh: it was electrified. She fell to her knees, and Tristán bent down to help her. “Momo,” he said, urging her up. The hallway, which had been plunged into darkness moments before, now was blazing with light. Ahead of them, standing close to the web of electricity, she could see Alma staring at them. She began walking. The web seemed to move with Alma, sliding forward. Behind them were more tendrils of lightning. They would soon be sandwiched between these webs of electricity, burned to a crisp. The strain of this magic seemed to be taking a toll on Alma: her hands were shaking and her eyes were wild. But she still had reserves of power and strength that neither Montserrat nor Tristán could counter. “The film,” Alma demanded. Montserrat swallowed. From the corner of her eye Montserrat noticed a flutter of movement, a burst of light. She turned her head a fraction and saw the wall-to-ceiling mirror decorating the hallway had a small crack, and when she looked more carefully, she saw a shape—rough, more a blur than anything else—and for one second a slender finger traced that tiny fracture. She stopped and looked again, staring at the mirror, seeing herself and Tristán and the blinding arcs of light above their heads. Nothing else. Except, for one flickering moment—there, like the flash frame in a film—Wilhelm Ewers in his beige trench coat, his hands pressed against the glass, staring back at her with an expression that almost seemed amused. Push, he said. Wordless, though. She simply knew what he meant, his eyes narrowing and glancing in Alma’s direction. The carpet down the hallway was becoming singed from the electricity licking its edges, its threads blackening and unleashing a disgusting smell. If they didn’t die from being electrocuted perhaps they would perish from inhaling noxious fumes. “Here!” Montserrat yelled and held up the can of film. “You can have it!” Alma began walking forward, stepping through the taut web of electricity blocking the path ahead of them, sliding


for a second. And then he’s gone, and I’m still frozen where he left me. I do not relax. 6 REAL LIFE Monday THE “BIG BEDROOM” is a disaster. A beautiful, amazing, nightmarish disaster. The kids’ room is at the front of the hallway and thus is part of the original house. This is at the back, in the behemoth extension. There are no wonky doors that get stuck, or windows you have to prop open with books, or floorboards that snap and groan when no one’s even touching them. This room is pure luxury. The king-sized bed has four-zillion-thread-count sheets. A set of double doors opens onto a balcony that overlooks both the saltwater pool and the bluffs beyond it, and there’s both a massive stone tub and a two-person shower made of dark slate and glass. However, if I could make one minor interior design suggestion, it would be to put one or both of the aforementioned amenities behind a door. As it stands, they’re out in the open. Sure, the toilet gets to hide in a shameful little cabinet, but if I plan on changing my clothes at any point during this week, my options are (1) accept that I’ll be doing so with an audience of one, namely my ex-fiancé; (2) stuff myself into the shit-closet and pray for good balance; or (3) find a discreet way to sneak down to the infamous outdoor shower stall over by the guesthouse. All this to say, I spend my fifteen minutes of “relaxation” taking a private shower while I can. Then I pull on a pair of jeans and a clean white T-shirt. One of Wyn’s and my few areas of overlap is our complete absence of personal style. His work has always required him to dress practically, and most of his clothes quickly get beaten up, so there’s no point in having anything too nice to begin with. For me, though, the overreliance on tight Levi’s and T-shirts has more to do with the fact that I hate making decisions. It took me years to figure out what kind of clothes I like on my body, and now I’m sticking with it. Another solar flare–bright memory: Wyn and me lying in bed, lamplight spilling over us, his hair a mess, that one obstinate lock on his forehead. His mouth presses to the curve of my belly, then the crease of my hip. He whispers against all my softest parts, Perfect. A shiver crawls down my spine. Quite enough of that. I knot my hair atop my head and trudge back downstairs. Everyone’s moved out to the wooden table on the back patio. Four feet worth of charcuterie runs down its center, and because Sabrina is Sabrina, there are place cards, ensuring that Cleo and Kimmy are seated in front of the vegan offerings, while I’ll be face-to-face with a Brie wheel so big it could be fixed to a wheelbarrow in a pinch. Wyn looks up from his phone as I step onto the patio. I can’t tell if


of my time in the nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one corner of the building. "For two days after my arrival at the Copper Beeches my life was very quiet; on the third, Mrs. Rucastle came down just after breakfast and whispered something to her husband. "'Oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much obliged to you, Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut your hair. I assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest iota from your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue dress will become you. You will find it laid out upon the bed in your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should both be extremely obliged.' "The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade of blue. It was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it bore unmistakable signs of having been worn before. It could not have been a better fit if I had been measured for it. Both Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which seemed quite exaggerated in its vehemence. They were waiting for me in the drawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching along the entire front of the house, with three long windows reaching down to the floor. A chair had been placed close to the central window, with its back turned towards it. In this I was asked to sit, and then Mr. Rucastle, walking up and down on the other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest stories that I have ever listened to. You cannot imagine how comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary. Mrs. Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of humour, never so much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap, and a sad, anxious look upon her face. After an hour or so, Mr. Rucastle suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of the day, and that I might change my dress and go to little Edward in the nursery. "Two days later this same performance was gone through under exactly similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I sat in the window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny stories of which my employer had an immense repertoire, and which he told inimitably. Then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and moving my chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not fall upon the page, he begged me to read aloud to him. I read for about ten minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and to change my dress. "You can easily imagine, Mr. Holmes, how curious I became as to what the meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly be. They were always very careful, I


Obierika said together. "He died this morning," said Ofoedu. "That is not strange. He was the oldest man in Ire," said Obierika. "You are right," Ofoedu agreed. "But you ought to ask why the drum has not beaten to tell Umuofia of his death." "Why?" asked Obierika and Okonkwo together. "That is the strange part of it. You know his first wife who walks with a stick?" "Yes. She is called Ozoemena." "That is so," said Ofoedu. "Ozoemena was, as you know, too old to attend Ndulue during his illness. His younger wives did that. When he died this morning, one of these women went to Ozoemena's hut and told her. She rose from her mat, took her stick and walked over to the obi. She knelt on her knees and hands at the threshold and called her husband, who was laid on a mat. 'Ogbuefi Ndulue,' she called, three times, and went back to her hut. When the youngest wife went to call her again to be present at the washing of the body, she found her lying on the mat, dead." "That is very strange, indeed," said Okonkwo. "They will put off Ndulue's funeral until his wife has been buried." "That is why the drum has not been beaten to tell Umuofia." "It was always said that Ndulue and Ozoemena had one mind," said Obierika. "I remember when I was a young boy there was a song about them. He could not do anything without telling her." "I did not know that," said Okonkwo. "I thought he was a strong man in his youth." "He was indeed," said Ofoedu. Okonkwo shook his head doubtfully. "He led Umuofia to war in those days," said Obierika. Okonkwo was beginning to feel like his old self again. All that he required was something to occupy his mind. If he had killed Ikemefuna during the busy planting season or harvesting it would not have been so bad, his mind would have been centred on his work. Okonkwo was not a man of thought but of action. But in absence of work, talking was the next best. Soon after Ofoedu left, Okonkwo took up his goatskin bag to go. "I must go home to tap my palm trees for the afternoon," he said. "Who taps your tall trees for you?" asked Obierika. "Umezulike," replied Okonkwo. "Sometimes I wish I had not taken the ozo title," said Obierika. "It wounds my heart to see these young men killing palm trees in the name of tapping." "It is so indeed," Okonkwo agreed. "But the law of the land must be obeyed." "I don't know how we got that law," said Obierika. "In many other clans a man of title is not forbidden to climb the palm tree. Here we say he cannot climb the tall tree but he can tap the short ones standing on the ground. It is like Dimaragana, who would not lend his knife for cutting up dogmeat because the dog was taboo to him, but offered to use his teeth." "I think it


The dressers, often inexperienced or nervous, found her a tower of strength. She had seen thousands of them, and they made no impression upon her: she always called them Mr. Brown; and when they expostulated and told her their real names, she merely nodded and went on calling them Mr. Brown. It interested Philip to sit with her in the bare room, with its two horse-hair couches and the flaring gas, and listen to her. She had long ceased to look upon the people who came in as human beings; they were drunks, or broken arms, or cut throats. She took the vice and misery and cruelty of the world as a matter of course; she found nothing to praise or blame in human actions: she accepted. She had a certain grim humour. "I remember one suicide," she said to Philip, "who threw himself into the Thames. They fished him out and brought him here, and ten days later he developed typhoid fever from swallowing Thames water." "Did he die?" "Yes, he did all right. I could never make up my mind if it was suicide or not.... They're a funny lot, suicides. I remember one man who couldn't get any work to do and his wife died, so he pawed his clothes and bought a revolver; but he made a mess of it, he only shot out an eye and he got all right. And then, if you please, with an eye gone and a piece of his face blow away, he came to the conclusion that the world wasn't such a bad place after all, and he lived happily ever afterwards. Thing I've always noticed, people don't commit suicide for love, as you'd expect, that's just a fancy of novelists; they commit suicide because they haven't got any money. I wonder why that is." "I suppose money's more important than love," suggested Philip. Money was in any case occupying Philip's thoughts a good deal just then. He discovered the little truth there was in the airy saying which himself had repeated, that two could live as cheaply as one, and his expenses were beginning to worry him. Mildred was not a good manager, and it cost them as much to live as if they had eaten in restaurants; the child needed clothes, and Mildred boots, an umbrella, and other small things which it was impossible for her to do without. When they returned from Brighton she had announced her intention of getting a job, but she took no definite steps, and presently a bad cold laid her up for a fortnight. When she was well she answered one or two advertisements, but nothing came of it: either she arrived too late and the vacant place was filled, or the work was more than she felt strong enough to do. Once she got an offer, but the wages were only fourteen shillings a week, and she thought she was worth more than that. "It's no good letting oneself be put upon," she remarked. "People don't respect you if you let yourself


folk dwelt in Mithrim about the shores of the great lake; to Fingon was assigned Dor-lmin, that lay to the west of the Mountains of Mithrim. But their chief fortress was at Eithel Sirion in the east of Ered Wethrin, whence they kept watch upon Ard-galen; and their cavalry rode upon that plain even to the shadow of Thangorodrim, for from few their horses had increased swiftly, and the grass of Ard-galen was rich and green. Of those horses many of the sires came from Valinor, and they were given to Fingolfin by Maedhros in atonement of his losses, for they had been carried by ship to Losgar. West of Dor-lmin, beyond the Echoing Mountains, which south of the Firth of Drengist marched inland, lay Nevrast, that signifies the Hither Shore in the Sindarin tongue. That name was given at first to all the coast-lands south of the Firth, but afterwards only to the land whose shores lay between Drengist and Mount Taras. There for many years was the realm of Turgon the wise, son of Fingolfin, bounded by the sea, and by Ered Lmin, and by the hills which continued the walls of Ered Wethrin westward, from Ivrin to Mount Taras, which stood upon a promontory. By some Nevrast was held to belong rather to Beleriand than to Hithlum, for it was a milder land, watered by the wet winds from the sea and sheltered from the cold north winds that blew over Hithlum. It was a hollow land, surrounded by mountains and great coast-cliffs higher than the plains behind, and no river flowed thence; and there was a great mere in the midst of Nevrast, with no certain shores, being encircled by wide marshes. Linaewen was the name of that mere, because of the multitude of birds that dwelt there, of such as love tall reeds and shallow pools. At the coming of the Noldor many of the Grey-elves lived in Nevrast near to the coasts, and especially about Mount Taras in the south-west; for to that place Ulmo and Oss had been wont to come in days of old. All that people took Turgon for their lord, and the mingling of the Noldor and the Sindar came to pass soonest there; and Turgon dwelt long in those halls that he named Vinyamar, under Mount Taras beside the sea. South of Ard-galen the great highland named Dorthonion stretched for sixty leagues from west to east; great pine forests it bore, especially on its northern and western sides. By gentle slopes from the 'plain it rose to a bleak and lofty land, where lay many tarns at the feet of bare tors whose heads were higher than the peaks of Ered Wethrin; but southward where it looked towards Doriath it fell suddenly in dreadful precipices. From the northern slopes of Dorthonion Angrod and Aegnor, sons of Finarfin, looked out over the fields of Ard-galen, and were the vassals of their brother Finrod, lord of Nargothrond; their people were few, for the land was barren, and the great highlands behind were deemed


his favorite people. Still, I keep my mouth shut because she’s spooked, and I know feelings aren’t her thing. We just had a moment and now she needs space. (God, I’m so mature. Someone should make a note of this.) We reach the kitchen in adult silence and find Dad chopping spring onions at the island while staring at us with raised eyebrows (which is very poor kitchen safety; eyes on the knife, Dad). “Hi,” I say. His eyebrows somehow get higher. “Obviously,” I announce, “Mason is a liar.” Mason, who is eating a rice cake over the sink, says, “Mo am mot.” Crumbs spray across the front of his red Notts Forest shirt. I eye him in disgust. “How are we related?” He flips black curls out of his narrowed eyes. “You’re afopded.” Dad sighs heavily. “Mason, don’t talk with your mouth full, stop tormenting your brother, and go upstairs.” Mason snorts and heads for the door. “By the way,” Dad calls after him, “you’re not going to no party tonight.” Mason whirls around. “What?” “Remember our discussion,” Dad reminds him, “about what good men do and do not say about ladies?” Aha! Yes! I remember this! He is so screwed. “I wasn’t talking about Celine!” Mason wails. “I was talking about Brad!” “But you were talking about Celine,” I say solemnly. “You were violating her bodily autonomy with misogynistic lies for your own ends, Mason. You were treating her as collateral damage in a war between brothers. Mum is going to be so disappointed in you when she gets home.” Mason sputters. Celine looks very much like she is biting her tongue bloody, trying not to laugh. Dad seems amused, but he rolls his eyes and says, “That’s enough, thank you, Bradley. Mason, go upstairs.” Mason huffs and stomps away. “Now,” Dad says seriously, doing that I Am Being Parental thing he does with his face. “You two. What’s going on?” He’s asking a direct question and meeting my eyes. I try to mentally solder my jaw together, but I can already feel myself cracking under the fatherly pressure. “On? What do you mean? Nothing is…going.” What is this sentence missing? Oh yeah. “…On,” I add. Celine eyes me like I’ve been abducted and replaced with a Brad-shaped scarecrow. Then she says, “I should head home. I told Giselle I’d make dinner tonight. Bye, Trev.” She flicks an almost shy glance at me. “Um. Bye, Brad.” Then she scurries off. I follow her into the hallway so I can lock the door. “Cel—” “Sorry,” she whispers, “but I really don’t know how to talk to dads.” Then she vanishes in a puff of smoke, leaving me like a traitor to face the music alone. Which is fine, because Dad’s obviously gonna tell Mum about this and Mum will definitely tell Neneh. When I get back to the kitchen, Dad’s finished the onions and started on the scotch bonnet. I hop onto one of the stools at the marble island and watch his hands move, waiting for the conversation to start.


have ever done and ever shall. Let the Orcs have the realm that is theirs, and we will have ours. There is room in the world, if the Eldar will let us be!' Then those that listened sat for a while astounded, and a shadow of fear fell on their hearts; and they resolved to depart far from the lands of the Eldar. But afterwards Amlach returned among them, and denied that he had been present at their debate or had spoken such words as they reported; and there was doubt and bewilderment among Men. Then the Elf-friends said: 'You will now believe this at least: there is indeed a Dark Lord, and his spies and emissaries are among us; for he fears us, and the strength that we may give to his foes.' But some still answered: 'He hates us, rather, and ever the more the longer we dwell here, meddling in his quarrel with the Kings of the Eldar, to no gain of ours.' Many therefore of those that yet remained in Estolad made ready to depart; and Bereg led a thousand of the people of Bor away southwards, and they passed out of the songs of those days. But Amlach repented, saying: 'I have now a quarrel of my own with this Master of Lies, which will last to my life's end'; and he went away north and entered the service of Maedhros. But those of his people who were of like mind with Bereg chose a new leader, and they went back over the mountains into Eriador, and are forgotten. During this time the Haladin remained in Thargelion and were content. But Morgoth, seeing that by lies and deceits he could not yet wholly estrange Elves and Men, was filled with wrath, and endeavoured to do Men what hurt he could. Therefore he sent out an Orc-raid, and passing east it escaped the leaguer, and came in stealth back over Ered Lindon by the passes of the Dwarf-road, and fell upon the Haladin in the southern woods of the land of Caranthir. Now the Haladin did not live under the rule of lords or many together, but each homestead was set apart and governed its own affairs, and they were slow to unite. But there was among them a man named Haldad, who was masterful and fearless; and he gathered all the brave men that he could find, and retreated to the angle of land between Ascar and Gelion, and in the utmost comer he built a stockade across from water to water; and behind it they led all the women and children that they could save. There they were besieged, until their food was gone. Haldad had twin children: Haleth his daughter, and Haldar his son; and both were valiant in the defence, for Haleth was a woman of great heart and strength. But at last Haldad was slain in a sortie against the Orcs; and Haldar, who rushed out to save his father's body from their butchery, was hewn down beside him. Then Haleth held the


straight out of a South Carolina cotillion. I pulled my own Granby planner off my desk and showed her the subtle red dot I’d make in the corner of a calendar square. (My own mother hadn’t had the wherewithal to teach me herself, but she’d done this on our kitchen wall calendar my whole childhood.) I flipped back to mid-August, when Brian Wynn and I had fumbled around in his basement. I showed her the purple X I’d made there after I got the planner the first week of school, counting back the days. I said, “You do this whenever you have sex. Then you can keep track of when you can take a test, too. Because they don’t work for sure till two weeks in.” I was really pleased with myself, let me tell you, that I had this to display. If Thalia had seen Brian Wynn, his scrawny legs, his peach fuzz mustache, she never would have taken worldly advice from me. But all she saw was the purple X. “Nice,” she said. “Who’s the guy?” “A total loser.” I loved how it sounded more like dismissive exaggeration than the truth. “Anyway,” she said, “I’m never sleeping with Robbie Fucking Serenho again, so it’s beside the point.” But by Tuesday afternoon, they were entwined on the bench outside Mr. Dar’s classroom, Robbie sucking on her neck. 35 Dane Rubra lived in Milwaukee, but had traveled to Granby five times—first on his own dime, then thanks to crowdfunding from his tens of thousands of YouTube subscribers. In one video, he’s out back of the gym by the pool’s emergency exit, talking about the faint smears of blood found on the doorframe and on the wall just outside. Those smears were terribly popular on Reddit. “Maybe it’s from Security holding the door open for the paramedics and the stretcher,” he says, “and maybe not. The State Police come in later and find this stuff, but you know where they don’t find any blood is in Omar Evans’s office. They luminoled that whole place, and nothing. Which is why they come up with this story about some imaginary poster on his wall that apparently absorbed all the blood. Well, listen: The only way that works is if he hit her head once, just once, and there was very little blood. Because he does that a second time? There’s blood everywhere. They need to believe Omar killed Thalia inside the building, so they need to believe the blood outside the building is unimportant.” We’d all known about the luminol, because it was a whole production. It doesn’t work like on TV, where CSI teams squirt the stuff as casually as Windex. It has to be mixed with hydrogen peroxide and sodium hydroxide, which means protective gear, fumigation. It requires the complete absence of light, too; they taped over all the gym’s and pool’s high windows with black garbage bags. They set up cameras on tripods. We’d previously been allowed back in the building, if not the pool—but then for a few days it was


be easier this way,” I tell him. “I’ll have more time to adjust to the residency, and then we can figure everything else out.” Months go by, and his grief doesn’t abate. Mine hovers close too, always waiting to trip me up. Everything still makes me think of Hank, of what Gloria must be feeling, what Wyn must be keeping inside. Something as innocent as a car commercial can split me open. I start taking long showers so I can let it all out without piling my pain onto his. Wyn starts taking long runs to burn it all off. We don’t paint the apartment. One weekend he offers, but between his two jobs, it’s his one day off, and he looks so tired. “We’ll get to it eventually,” I say. “I’m sorry,” he croaks, grabbing me by the hips, pulling me toward where he sits on the couch, burrowing his face into my stomach. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” I promise. “I want to be better for you,” he says. “Stop,” I whisper. “I don’t need that. I don’t need anything from you. I’m okay.” I’m not. I live in a state of terror that he won’t ever come back to himself. That I’ve taken him from his friends and a job he liked and his family, and now I can’t even give him the time he needs. And then there’s the loss of Hank, the dad of my dreams, and the guilt I feel for thinking that, after everything my own father gave up to give me this life. The sacrifices he’s made, the jobs he’s hated and worked anyway, every bit of proof of his love. But he’s never been a soft man. He’s only accessible to a point. The last time we visited the Connors before Hank’s death, Wyn’s father cried from happiness when we got there. As we were getting ready for bed that night, he gave me a tight hug and said, Sleep well, love you so much, kiddo, and afterward I’d shut myself in the bathroom and run the water while I cried for reasons I didn’t entirely understand. More homesickness, I guess. That lights-on-in-an-unfamiliar-kitchen pang. Love you so much, kiddo had been such a constant refrain of Wyn’s childhood that he and his sisters had all gotten it tattooed in Hank’s handwriting when we went to Montana for the funeral. They said I could too, but it didn’t seem fair. Hank didn’t belong to me. Now he never will. The tracks of our lives split little by little, but the moments we’re together, my love still feels so big and violent it could consume me. Every once in a while, Wyn asks if I want to look at venues or go sample cakes. He tries to be happy. I try to be enough in this small, small life I’ve pulled him into. “There’s no rush,” I promise. “I’m so busy at the hospital anyway.” I don’t want to make him celebrate. I don’t want him to feel like he has to be


junior year. Puja’s family invited everyone. There were other guys going, Dorian and Kellan and all them. But we had to pay for the flights, and Robbie wasn’t going to be able to pay. So he took Thalia’s retainer and told her if she went, he was keeping it the whole time. She’d come back two weeks later with her teeth all fucked up. And she was scared of what her orthodontist would say.” “So she stayed back?” “Yeah, I think she went home instead. It’s not even like she was with him, she just wasn’t with us.” “I’d forgotten,” I said, “but I remember you all talking about Anguilla. I’d never heard of it, and I thought you were saying Aunt Willa. Like, you were going to Puja’s Aunt Willa’s place.” “That’s so funny,” she said without laughing. “You’re from the Midwest, right?” I thought, pointlessly, that Indiana was closer to Anguilla than New Hampshire was, but I knew what she meant. She said, “This other time, senior year, he threw out all her photo collages. Those ones she had up of her friends back home, he was jealous of some guy in the pictures. She came back to her room one day and they were gone. She knew it was him. She even went through the trash in his dorm hall, nothing.” I remembered the collages—she’d had them junior year, too. And I wondered, suddenly, if she might have circled various campus dumpsters, searching for them. If she might not have run out in her pajamas, looking dazed, even drugged, in her disbelief. I asked, “Did he ever hit her?” “Imagine if I’d said all this up there on the stand. The hearing would go on forever. They’d be dragging Robbie up. I’d be testifying for days.” “Well, you wouldn’t just randomly be saying it, you’d have gone to the defense team and they’d have a chance to figure out how to frame it all and they’d disclose it to the prosecution and so on.” “Which is all a moot point, because I’m done.” “Listen, it could seriously help Omar’s case. It would be tricky because they’d have to get the judge’s permission to recall you. There’s a ton of red tape, but it’s so important. Don’t you think?” The waiter arrived, not only to give us our wine but to ask where we were from, if we were enjoying our stay, if we were disappointed there wasn’t fresh powder out there. “I’ve never skied in my life,” I said, impatiently enough that he left us alone. When I looked back at Beth she’d closed her eyes, was holding the stem of her glass meditatively between her thumb and middle finger. She said, “He went around to us all, after they found Thalia. He made sure we remembered him being there, at the mattresses. I was like, of course I remember, you popped out and we screamed. I might’ve been a little drunk, but I remembered that. It made sense that he was afraid of being blamed. And I’ve never


and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For example, --after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases. Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in A. D. . But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People's Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they. I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it. But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the .. <p 394 > admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to expound it. First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all controllable by the occupant or occupants, -- a mast, an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognised symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their intention so to do. These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks --the Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and honorable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But others are by no means so scrupulous. Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very


voice, quietly. Bond heard slow steps approaching behind his chair. 'Dhrop it,' said the voice. Bond saw Le Chiffre's hand open obediently and the knife fall with a clatter to the floor. He tried desperately to read into Le Chiffre's face what was happening behind him, but all he saw was blind incomprehension and terror. Le Chiffre's mouth worked, but only a high-pitched 'eek' came from it. His heavy cheeks trembled as he tried to collect enough saliva in his mouth to say something, ask something. His hands fluttered vaguely in his lap. One of them made a slight movement towards his pocket, but instantly fell back. His round staring eyes had lowered for a split second and Bond guessed there was a gun trained on him. There was a moment's silence. 'SMERSH.' The word came almost with a sigh. It came with a downward cadence as if nothing else had to be said. It was the final explanation. The last word of all. 'No,' said Le Chiffre. 'No. I . . .' His voice tailed off. Perhaps he was going to explain, to apologize, but what he must have seen in the other's face made it all useless. 'Your two men. Both dead. You are a fool and a thief and a traitor. I have been sent from the Soviet Union to eliminate you. You are fortunate that I have only time to shoot you. If it was possible, I was instructed that you should die most painfully. We cannot see the end of the trouble you have caused.' The thick voice stopped. There was silence in the room save for the rasping breath of Le Chiffre. Somewhere outside a bird began to sing and there were other small noises from the awakening countryside. The bands of sunlight were stronger and the sweat on Le Chiffre's face glistened brightly. 'Do you plead guilty?' Bond wrestled with his consciousness. He screwed up his eyes and tried to shake his head to clear it, but his whole nervous system was numbed and no message was transmitted to his muscles. He could just keep his focus on the great pale face in front of him and on its bulging eyes. A thin string of saliva crept from the open mouth and hung down from the chin. 'Yes,' said the mouth. There was a sharp 'phut', no louder than a bubble of air escaping from a tube of toothpaste. No other noise at all, and suddenly Le Chiffre had grown another eye, a third eye on a level with the other two, right where the thick nose started to jut out below the forehead. It was a small black eye, without eyelashes or eyebrows. For a second the three eyes looked out across the room and then the whole face seemed to slip and go down on one knee. The two outer eyes turned trembling up towards the ceiling. Then the heavy head fell sideways and the right shoulder and finally the whole upper part of the body lurched over the arm of the chair


be pulled through the streets on a horse-drawn

carriage by the King’s Troop while Willy and I followed on foot. It seemed a

lot to ask of two young boys. Several adults were aghast. Mummy’s brother,

Uncle Charles, raised hell. You cant make these boys walk behind their

mother 8 coffin! It’s barbaric.

An alternative plan was put forward. Willy would walk alone. He was

fifteen, after all. Leave the younger one out of it. Spare the Spare. This

alternative plan was sent up the chain.

Back came the answer.

It must be both princes. To garner sympathy, presumably.

ae

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

Uncle Charles was furious. But I wasn’t. I didn’t want Willy to undergo

an ordeal like that without me. Had the roles been reversed, he’d never have

wanted me—indeed, allowed me—to go it alone.

So, come morning, bright and early, off we went, all together. Uncle

Charles on my right, Willy to his right, followed by Grandpa. And on my left

was Pa. I noted at the start how serene Grandpa looked, as if this was merely

another royal engagement. I could see his eyes, clearly, because he was

gazing straight ahead. They all were. But I kept mine down on the road. So

did Willy.

I remember feeling numb. I remember clenching my fists. I remember

keeping a fraction of Willy always in the corner of my vision and drawing

loads of strength from that. Most of all I remember the sounds, the clinking

bridles and clopping hooves of the six sweaty brown horses, the squeaking

wheels of the gun carriage they were hauling. (A relic from the First World

War, someone said, which seemed right, since Mummy, much as she loved

peace, often seemed a soldier, whether she was warring against the paps or

Pa.) I believe P’ll remember those few sounds for the rest of my life, because

they were such a sharp contrast to the otherwise all-encompassing silence.

There wasn’t one engine, one lorry, one bird. There wasn’t one human voice,

which was impossible, because two million people lined the roads. The only

hint


with plenty shiny white in them that makes them shine like brand new money and she knows what God gave women eyelashes for, too. Her hair is not what you might call straight. It’s negro hair, but it’s got a kind of white flavor. Like the piece of string out of a ham. It’s not ham at all, but it’s been around ham and got the fla- vor. It was spread down thick and heavy over her shoulders and looked just right under a big white hat. “Lawd, Lawd, Lawd,” that same Charlie Jones exclaims rushing over to Daisy. “It must be uh recess in heben if St. Peter is lettin’ his angels out lak dis. You got three men already layin’ at de point uh death ’bout yuh, and heah’s uhnother fool dat’s willin’ tuh make time on yo’ gang.” All the rest of the single men have crowded around Daisy by this time. She is parading and blushing at the same time. “If you know anybody dat’s ’bout tuh die ’bout me, yuh know more’n Ah do,” Daisy bridled. “Wisht Ah knowed who it is.” “Now, Daisy, you know Jim, and Dave and Lum is ’bout tuh kill one ’nother ’bout you. Don’t stand up here and tell dat big ole got-dat-wrong.” “Dey a mighty hush-mouf about it if dey is. Dey ain’t never told me nothin’.” “Unhunh, you talked too fast. Heah, Jim and Dave is right upon de porch and Lum is inside de store.” A big burst of laughter at Daisy’s discomfiture. The boys had to act out their rivalry too. Only this time, everybody knew they meant some of it. But all the same the porch Their Eyes Were Watching God 81 enjoyed the play and helped out whenever extras were needed. David said, “Jim don’t love Daisy. He don’t love yuh lak Ah do.” Jim bellowed indignantly, “Who don’t love Daisy? Ah know you ain’t talkin’ ’bout me.” Dave: “Well all right, less prove dis thing right now. We’ll prove right now who love dis gal de best. How much time is you willin’ tuh make fuh Daisy?” Jim: “Twenty yeahs!” Dave: “See? Ah told yuh dat nigger didn’t love yuh. Me, Ah’ll beg de Judge tuh hang me, and wouldn’t take nothin’ less than life.” There was a big long laugh from the porch. Then Jim had to demand a test. “Dave, how much would you be willin’ tuh do for Daisy if she was to turn fool enough tuh marry yuh?” “Me and Daisy done talked dat over, but if you just got tuh know, Ah’d buy Daisy uh passenger train and give it tuh her.” “Humph! Is dat all? Ah’d buy her uh steamship and then Ah’d hire some mens tuh run it fur her.” “Daisy, don’t let Jim fool you wid his talk. He don’t aim tuh do nothin’ fuh yuh. Uh lil ole steamship! Daisy, Ah’ll take uh job cleanin’ out de Atlantic Ocean fuh you any time you say you so desire.” There was a great laugh and then


up Lenore and carrying her into the bedroom, Kristi flopped on the bed and reached for the remote to turn on the TV. As the screen came to life, she opened the drawer of her night table, pulled out the claw hammer, and tucked it under her pillow. Just in case. * * * The dog is a problem. As I run through the darkened streets, I realize I should have taken that mutt out when I’d had the chance, but he’d been too fast, gotten away from me, and I had work to do and it had to be done quickly. I thought he might be lost forever as he took off like a shot and I couldn’t risk chasing him down, or being seen. Besides I had work to do in the house. But I’d been wrong. And tonight, that damned cur had caught scent of me hiding in the shadows, had alerted her that I was there. A stupid, stupid mistake. I could have been caught and all the years of planning, the anxious nights, the second-guessing myself, and finally the attack at St. Louis Cathedral would be for naught. I take the time to remove my cassock and stuff it into the case. Slowly I let out my breath. Still I’m sweating, my breath coming in short bursts, but as I cross St. Charles Avenue, I slow, gather my wits, and make the sign of the cross over my frantically beating heart. I can’t afford to mess this up. Too much is at stake. I’ve gone too far. So I’d had to flee, racing through the shadows, certain that the couple entwined in each other’s arms in the parked sedan with its windows fogged had caught a glimpse of me. But maybe not. They’d been so involved, and the eye I’d seen, the woman’s eye peeking around the head of her lover, might not have focused on me. Even if she’d seen me, it would be a blur and she couldn’t identify me. No way. Or so I tell myself as I round a corner and slow as there is more traffic, more cars, more beams from headlights cutting through the darkness, more people on the street. It’s not as if I haven’t been a public figure. Here in New Orleans because of my history, my face is all too recognizable. I must remember that in the future. A man walking another damned dog, a huge beast with yellow eyes, teenagers laughing, arms linked, a mother pushing a stroller over the uneven sidewalk pass me by, and one of them could ID me. I have to be cool. Walk as to not attract attention. Blend in. Breathe. I tell myself I don’t look that out of place. This is New Orleans, after all, practically anything goes. People carry satchels and bags and briefcases all the time. No one knows what has been in mine. Yet. But they will. Oh, they will. And very soon. CHAPTER 19 Cruz Montoya glanced up and down the street, saw nothing out of


hurting her long enough for Detective Vick to show up. As Archie drives away in my car, I push inside Hope’s End, where Virginia’s past and my present are about to collide. Standing in the foyer, I search for signs of my father. He could be anywhere, including still outside. Nevertheless, I can feel his presence. A shadow version of himself, repeating his actions from fifty-four years ago. Standing right where I’m standing. Simmering with humiliation and shame and rage. Plunging the knife into Evangeline Hope. It’s so vivid I can almost hear it, as if the horrible sound has been echoing through the foyer since 1929. What I don’t hear are any noises from the present day. No footsteps or floor creaks. That might be a good thing. It could also mean I’m too late. That thought propels me down the hall to the kitchen and the service stairs. I can’t bear the thought of taking the Grand Stairs, with their bloodstains that my father caused. Not that the service stairs are any better. They groan under my feet as I ascend, sounding like they could collapse at any moment. A distinct possibility. At the top of the stairs, I instantly feel the extreme pitch of the house. In the short time I’ve been away, it’s only gotten worse. I creep down the hallway, leaning into the tilt. As I go, I reach into my pocket and pull out the corkscrew. An act that boggles my mind. This is my father. The man who raised me. I can’t imagine needing to protect myself from him. Yet, under the circumstances, it feels necessary. Rather than head into Virginia’s room, I duck into mine, startled by how different it feels. The floor is noticeably more slanted, forcing me to think twice before each step. On my way to the adjoining door, I notice the mattress bunched at the foot of the bed. A couple of books have fallen from the shelf and the mirror hanging on the wall appears tilted when in reality it’s the rest of the room that’s askew. The door to Virginia’s room is shut. Whether it’s the work of my father or the ever-shifting house remains to be seen. Gripping the corkscrew tight, I crack open the door and peek inside. The room is dim, lit only by moonlight coming through windows leaning precariously closer to the sea. In that muted light, I see Virginia in her bed, awake and alert. I rush to her side and whisper, “My father’s on his way.” She knows I’m talking about Ricky. She’s known since our first meeting, when she barely registered my presence until I told her my full name. That’s when she finally snapped to attention. “I’m going to get you out of here.” I set the corkscrew on Virginia’s nightstand and fetch her wheelchair from the corner. While it would be quicker to lift her out of bed and carry her down the stairs, I know my limitations. Wheeling her down the Grand Stairs the same way I did


anymore. Eyes a little absent too. Jody must have noticed it too. Maybe, he had seen it long before Janie did, and had been fearing for her to see. Because he began to talk about her age all the time, as if he didn’t want her to stay young while he grew old. It was always “You oughta throw somethin’ over yo’ shoulders befo’ you go outside. You ain’t no young pullet no mo’. 92 Zora Neale Hurston You’se uh ole hen now.” One day he called her off the cro- quet grounds. “Dat’s somethin’ for de young folks, Janie, you out dere jumpin’ round and won’t be able tuh git out de bed tuhmorrer.” If he thought to deceive her, he was wrong. For the first time she could see a man’s head naked of its skull. Saw the cunning thoughts race in and out through the caves and promontories of his mind long before they darted out of the tunnel of his mouth. She saw he was hurting inside so she let it pass without talking. She just measured out a little time for him and set it aside to wait. It got to be terrible in the store. The more his back ached and his muscle dissolved into fat and the fat melted off his bones, the more fractious he became with Janie. Especially in the store. The more people in there the more ridicule he poured over her body to point attention away from his own. So one day Steve Mixon wanted some chewing tobacco and Janie cut it wrong. She hated that tobacco knife anyway. It worked very stiff. She fumbled with the thing and cut way away from the mark. Mixon didn’t mind. He held it up for a joke to tease Janie a little. “Looka heah, Brother Mayor, whut yo’ wife done took and done.” It was cut comical, so everybody laughed at it. “Uh woman and uh knife—no kind of uh knife, don’t b’long tuhgether.” There was some more good-natured laughter at the expense of women. Jody didn’t laugh. He hurried across from the post office side and took the plug of tobacco away from Mixon and cut it again. Cut it exactly on the mark and glared at Janie. “I god amighty! A woman stay round uh store till she get Their Eyes Were Watching God 93 old as Methusalem and still can’t cut a little thing like a plug of tobacco! Don’t stand dere rollin’ yo’ pop eyes at me wid yo’ rump hangin’ nearly to yo’ knees!” A big laugh started off in the store but people got to thinking and stopped. It was funny if you looked at it right quick, but it got pitiful if you thought about it awhile. It was like somebody snatched off part of a woman’s clothes while she wasn’t looking and the streets were crowded. Then too, Janie took the middle of the floor to talk right into Jody’s face, and that was something that hadn’t been done before. “Stop mixin’ up mah doings


live. It was that same flame that had burnt in my chest the night I left my father behind and made my escape, and as I clasped the chain from which the pendulum hung, I vowed I would not perish there. There was an itching of my palms and a sharp spark of pain in my head. Then, as if possessed, I uttered coordinates for a nearby building that was abandoned and where L promptly uninterred a box filled with coins. From then on, my gift did not fail me—though I developed a propensity for migraines after calling upon it—and I did not need a pendulum to locate objects, either, although I liked to use it for show whenever L was around. Weapons, food, money, art objects. I retrieved them for my companion like a dog sniffing for truffles. L was rapacious and had no allegiances, two qualities I learned to admire. He lacked my father’s sophistication and intelligence, and I despised his crudeness, but I admired his tenacity. After the war ended, we found ourselves in trouble once more. L’s past, before he became a deserter and a thief, included certain crimes that would earn him the noose, should the authorities catch wind of him. He knew a forger who could provide him with papers that would allow him to change his identity and secure passage to South America. L’s plan was to leave me behind and steal our share of the loot we had amassed, which is how I arrived at the second crucial moment of my life. In a fit of rage, I sliced his neck open. Panicked, I utilized the forged documents L had secured and assumed a false identity, boarding a ship from Italy to Argentina. At first, I thought myself quite clever. For a while, I focused on my runes and filled pages with them, and found my quiet studies as rewarding as they had been in my childhood, but soon a bitter melancholy overwhelmed me. I hated South America and longed for home. I cursed my stupidity, because, I must admit, my departure had been made thoughtlessly. One afternoon, walking through the streets of Bueno Aires, I chanced upon a beggar, sitting on the side of the street and performing a small type of divination magic using pebbles. At first, I paid him little heed, but then I felt a distinctive tug similar to the sensation I had when I used my pendulum; not quite pain in this case, but almost like feeling the snapping of a branch. I stood in disbelief looking at the brown-skinned man and realized I was feeling magic. This man was performing an actual spell. My studies of von List, as well as knowledge acquired from my father and other learned men, had taught me that magic was the divine right of my kind. Here, however, was this leathery little man stirring pebbles and telling fortunes. This marked the third crucial point of change in my life. I began to prod for answers, intent on understanding what I had witnessed.


did everything you could. You walked your path, you stayed faithful in your own way, and that’s all I can ask. And who knows,” she adds, “maybe, after I’m gone, we’ll meet in prayer from time to time. Like the saints did.” I hold her as tight as I dare, both of us now weeping. It is the first time in weeks, months, maybe years, that I have felt more like her child than a parent. “This is your final battle, you know that. You should have gotten so much more time,” I say. “But if you can’t have that, then I want you to be able to feel some peace, and have time to prepare, the way Dad did.” “I told the priest that I’m afraid to die,” she admits to me. “I’m so afraid to meet our Lord. I don’t feel worthy. What have I ever really done?” The answer couldn’t be more obvious to me if it were written in the air before us, but I understand why she asks, because I know the feeling of unworthiness all too well. I have always felt as though I have something to prove: I have to do more, be better, to make other people’s gifts and offerings worthwhile; to earn their care or justify their faith. I spent years trying to live up to the noble sacrifice I believed my birth parents had made, while also trying to be good enough for other people to love. I am still living as if the choices made by others—from my first parents giving me up, to my adoptive parents loving me and then letting me leave—are debts I have to repay, marks in a ledger I can never hope to expunge. Even this trip, and all the essential tasks I’ve assigned myself—have I not approached them as though I have something to atone for? As if there exists some list of things a good daughter does for her dying parent, responsibilities I didn’t fulfill for my father, and now I have to prove my love and loyalty by ensuring that I don’t fail again? But my mother has never thought of my life or our relationship in such a way. Even when she has been upset with me, confused over decisions I’ve made, saddened by the physical distance between us, I have never had to do anything to prove myself to her. I am enough for her, without any action or justification, without proofs, just as I am. That’s what she meant when she told me, as a child, that I could never disappoint her. That’s why she and my father always said it didn’t matter where I went, what I did with my life, what I accomplished—they would always be proud of me. That’s why she believes that there is nothing for her to forgive now. I can choose to accept her at her word or not, keep chastising myself or not, but the truth is that this is what she has long believed: I am her daughter, so I am enough.


departure, resignation gloom, agony, hell, despair (adj) reclusive, secluded, cloistered, quivering: (adj, n) trembling, tremor, rapturously: (adv) ravishingly, withdrawn. ANTONYM: (n) native quaking, trepidation; (n) palpitation, rhapsodically, overjoyedly, raptly, recognising: (v) recognize, recognise quiver, vibration; (adj) flutter, delightedly, enrapturedly, gladly recoil: (n, v) rebound, kick, bounce, quavering, shivering, tremulous. ravenous: (adj) hungry, greedy, avid, shrink; (n) reaction, repercussion, ANTONYM: (adj) steady famished, gluttonous, voracious, backlash; (v) bound, cringe, flinch, rack: (n, v) torment, wrack, Scud; (n) rapacious, insatiable, edacious, quail manger, grid, cage, bracket, stand; covetous, predatory. ANTONYM: recollect: (v) recall, remember, (v) excruciate, afflict, agonize (adj) moderate recognize, call to mind, remind, radiance: (n) gleam, glory, brilliance, rays: (n) light, sunlight, Selachii, mind, think, call up, reminisce, luster, lustre, beam, brightness, dogfishes, elasmobranch, refresh, retrieve. ANTONYM: (v) effulgence, sparkle, light; (adj, n) Elasmobranchii, emission, daylight, forget brilliancy. ANTONYMS: (n) sunshine, selachian, subclass recollection: (n, v) mind; (n) darkness, gloominess Elasmobranchii reminiscence, recall, anamnesis, radiant: (adj, v) bright, glittering, razor: (adj, n) straight razor; (adj) remembrance, recognition, lustrous, beamy, glorious; (adj) knife, cutlery, edge tool, penknife; memento, memorial, beaming, luminous, effulgent, lucid, (n) electric razor, shaver, safety commemoration, memoir, retrospect glowing, beautiful. ANTONYMS: razor, electric shaver, rasour; (v) recollections: (n) memories, (adj) gloomy, dark, pale, unhappy epilate reminiscences, recollection, radically: (adv) essentially, reasoned: (adj) coherent, rational, biography fundamentally, revolutionarily, sound, logical, valid, reasonable, recounted: (adj) narrative basically, completely, drastically, carefully considered, intelligent, recovering: (v) recover, regain, ultraly, exhaustively, extremely, heavy, healthy, good. ANTONYM: restore; (adj) better; (n) originally, primarily. ANTONYMS: (adj) confused rehabilitation, recovery, rescue, (adv) modestly, slightly, reasoning: (n) argumentation, relaxation; (adv) getting better, on insignificantly, superficially deduction, ratiocination, illation, the road to recovery, improving rags: (adj) refuse, rubble, scourings, logic, argument, abstract thought, recreate: (n, v) divert; (v) reconstruct, sweepings, trash, waste; (n) sense, judgment, thought; (adj) play, animate, refresh, renew, clothing, tatter, orts, odds and ends, rational renovate, amuse, enliven, reanimate, dress rebuke: (n, v) reprimand, rebuff, entertain rainy: (adj) moist, pluvial, damp, reproach, chide, blame, reproof, re-creating: (v) re-create pluvious, stormy, juicy, dirty, lecture, check; (v) castigate, berate; recurring: (adj) frequent, intermittent, soppy, raining, drizzly; (adj, v) (n) admonition. ANTONYMS: (n, v) cyclic, periodic, periodical, repeated, showery. ANTONYM: (adj) pleasant praise, compliment; (v) commend, repetitive, customary, accustomed, ramble: (n, v) journey, stroll, saunter, acknowledge, approve; (n) approval memorable, chronic. ANTONYMS: wander, roam, meander, excursion, recalling: (adj) revocatory; (n) (adj) irregular, intermittent, hike, tramp, walk, promenade. recognition spasmodic, unusual, rare, occasional ANTONYM: (v) settle recess: (n) niche, pause, intermission, redden: (adj, v) flush; (v) color, ramparts: (n) rampart, fortification holiday, nook, vacation, hollow, crimson, glow, go red, encrimson, rankle: (v) grate, fret, chafe, irritate, alcove, interval, interruption; (n, v) rubify, rubricate, rose; (adj) mantle, gnaw, bother, annoy, exasperate, break. ANTONYM: (n) continuation color up. ANTONYMS: (v) blench, vex; (adj) putrefy, ferment reciprocated: (adj) joint, mutual, blanch rankling: (adj) rancor, virulence, shared, communal redeem: (v) recover, deliver, atone, galling, venom; (n) anger, reckless: (adj) careless, rash, recoup, expiate, ransom, reclaim, mordacity, hate foolhardy, hasty, incautious, save, free, extricate, refund. ransacked: (adj) plundered, pillaged, extravagant, daring, desperate, ANTONYMS: (v) hock, pawn,


de Mdicis had a mourning-bed made for her of black velvet powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it stood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black velvet upon cloth of silver. Louis XIV. had gold-embroidered caryatides fifteen feet high in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with verses from the Koran. Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully chased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. It had been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of Mohammed had stood under it. And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite specimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought, with gold-threat palmates, and stitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that from their transparency are known in the East as "woven air," and "running water," and "evening dew;" strange figured cloths from Java; elaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair blue silks and wrought with fleurs de lys, birds, and images; veils of lacis worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades, and stiff Spanish velvets; Georgian work with its gilt coins, and Japanese Foukousas with their green-toned golds and their marvellously- plumaged birds. He had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed he had for everything connected with the service of the Church. In the long cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house he had stored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and fine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by the suffering that she seeks for, and wounded by self-inflicted pain. He had a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask, figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the pine- [73] apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided into panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the coronation of the Virgin was figured in colored silks upon the hood. This was Italian work of the fifteenth century. Another cope was of green velvet, embroidered with heart- shaped groups of acanthus-leaves, from which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which were picked out with silver thread and colored crystals. The morse bore a seraph's head in gold- thread raised work. The orphreys were woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with medallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian. He had chasubles, also, of amber-colored silk, and blue silk and gold brocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with representations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ,


George picked up one of the papers. It was made of thick parchment, quite yellow with age. She spread it out on the sand and looked at it. The others glanced at it too, but they couldn't make out what it was at all. It seemed to be a kind of map. "Perhaps it's a map of some place he had to go to," said Julian. But suddenly George's hands began to shake as she held the map, and her eyes gleamed brilliantly as she looked up at the others. She opened her mouth but didn't speak. "What's the matter?" said Julian, curiously. "What's up? Have you lost your tongue?" George shook her head and then began to speak with a rush. "Julian! Do you know what this is? It's a map of my old castle- of Kirrin Castle- when it wasn't a ruin. And it shows the dungeons! And look- just look what's written in this corner of the dungeons!" She put a trembling finger on one part of the map. The others leaned over to see what it was- and, printed in old-fashioned letters was a curious word. INGOTS "Ingots!" said Anne, puzzled. "What does that mean? I've never heard that word before." But the two boys had. "Ingots!" cried Dick. "Why- that must be the bars of gold. They were called ingots." "Most bars of metal are called ingots," said Julian, going red with excitement. "But as we know there is gold missing from that ship, then it really looks as if ingots here meant bars of gold. Oh golly! To think they may still be hidden somewhere under Kirrin Castle. George! George! Isn't it terribly, awfully exciting?" George nodded. She was trembling all over with excitement. "If only we could find it!" she whispered. "If only we could!" "We'll have a jolly good hunt for it," said Julian. "It will be awfully difficult because the castle is in ruins now, and so overgrown. But somehow or other we'll find those ingots. What a lovely word. Ingots! Ingots! Ingots!" It sounded somehow more exciting than the word gold. Nobody spoke about gold any more. They talked about the Ingots. Tim couldn't make out what the excitement was at all. He wagged his tail and tried hard to lick first one and then another of the children, but for once in a way not one of them paid any attention to him! He simply couldn't understand it, and after a while he went and sat down by himself with his back to the children, and his ears down. "Oh, do look at poor Timothy!" said George. "He can't understand our excitement. Tim! Tim, darling, it's all right, you're not in disgrace or anything. Oh, Tim, we've got the most wonderful secret in the whole world." Tim bounded up, his tail wagging, pleased to be taken notice of once more. He put his big paw on the precious map, and the four children shouted at him at once. "Golly! We can't have that torn!" said Julian. Then he looked at the


blare, bedlam, uproar, gloomy, dark, overcast, obscure, chirurgical: (adj) chirurgic vociferation, tumult, hubbub, blurred, foggy, misty, hazy, bleary; choicest: (adj) optimum, best exclamation; (v) utter (v) cymophanous. ANTONYM: (adj) choked: (adj) clogged, smothered, clarion: (n) horn, trombone, clear congested, annoyed, high-strung, ophicleide; (v) trumpet, proclaim, clump: (n, v) cluster, bundle; (n) strained, neurotic, tense, angry, promulgate, pibroch, exclaim, lump, group, clot, knot, tuft, chunk, anxious, insecure slogan; (adj) clear, fair. clod, ball; (v) plod cholera: (n) Asiatic cholera, asphyxia, ANTONYMS: (adj) soft, low, dull, cluster: (n, v) clump, bundle, huddle, epidemic cholera muffled group, crowd; (n) batch, choleric: (adj) angry, irascible, clasp: (n, v) embrace, hug, grip, agglomeration, gang, collection, tuft; passionate, peppery, fiery, grasp, squeeze, clutch, buckle, (v) collect. ANTONYMS: (v) cantankerous, quick-tempered, brooch; (adj, n, v) pin; (v) stick, dissemble, scatter; (n) individual quarrelsome, cross, snappish, cling. ANTONYMS: (v) unbuckle, clustered: (adj) agglomerated, hotheaded loose, unclasp, relax, detach agglomerative, bunched, bunchy, chop: (n, v) chip, slice, cut; (v) mince, clasping: (adj) tendril gregarious, concentrated, slash, whittle, hash, hack, cleave, claw: (n) chela, unguis, nipper, talon, conglomerate, collective hew, chop up hook; (v) clapperclaw, lacerate, tear, clustering: (n) bunch, clusterization, chopped: (adj) shredded, sliced scratch, rip, clutch. ANTONYM: (v) clunk, Pleiades, tussock, tuft, swad; chronicles: (n) archives, history, mend (v) classification, analysis, division, archive, records clench: (n, v) clasp, grip, hold, clinch, digestion churchyard: (n) graveyard, burial grasp, gripe; (v) embrace, grapple, clutch: (n, v) clasp, grip, clench, ground, yard, necropolis, cloisters, tighten, ratify; (n) clamp. grasp, hold, clinch, gripe; (v) grab, kirkyard ANTONYMS: (v) release, flex, relax grapple, embrace; (adj, v) catch. circumference: (n) circuit, border, clergyman: (n) minister, chaplain, ANTONYMS: (n) loose; (v) release, perimeter, boundary, periphery, priest, pastor, churchman, preacher, unfasten outline, brim, compass, circle, edge, parson, rector, dominie, vicar; (adj) clutched: (adj) tense, worried, rim. ANTONYMS: (n) middle, divine. ANTONYMS: (n) layman, anxious, neurotic inside, interior, center layperson clutching: (n) locking circumstance: (n) affair, incident, clergymen: (n) clergyman coarse: (adj) vulgar, boorish, rough, matter, event, occasion, chance, clinging: (adj) adhering, sticky, brutal, crude, gross, common, accident, opportunity, adventure, adherent, devoted, adhering closely, earthy, blunt, bawdy; (adj, v) harsh. casualty, fact affectionate, dependent, tenacious, ANTONYMS: (adj) sophisticated, citadel: (n) castle, bastion, osculant; (n) coherence refined, smooth, polite, soft, civil, fortification, bulwark, Acropolis, cloak: (n, v) veil, mask, camouflage, cultured, delicate, fine, genteel, fort, stronghold, tower, chateau; (n, wrap, masquerade, screen, pall; (n) gentlemanly v) fortress; (v) keep cape; (v) conceal, dissemble, hide. cock: (n) rooster, chicken, spigot, Nathaniel Hawthorne 267 Peter, prick, cockerel, tool, stopcock, imperious, peremptory, bossy, companionship: (n) company, shaft; (n, v) stack; (v) ruffle. imposing, ascendant, compelling, society, fellowship, camaraderie, ANTONYM: (v) uncock magnificent; (adj, n) grand, partnership, friendship, fraternity, coexist: (v) accompany, keep pace impressive; (adv) commandingly. amity, coexistence, brotherhood, with, concur, exist, coexisting, co- ANTONYMS: (adj) inferior, communion. ANTONYMS: (n) exist, coincide, be, attend unassertive, indecisive, animosity, enmity, solitude cogitating: (n) conception; (adj) unimpressive, insignificant, compass: (n) scope, range, room, reflective subservient extent, area, circumference, reach; coke: (n) snow, cocaine, cocain, coal, commenced: (v) began, Gan; (adj) (n, v) round, grasp, circle; (v)


your belt, those are ours too. You have nothing to give us but your lives. How would you like to die, Tyrion son of Tywin?" "In my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a maiden's mouth around my cock, at the age of eighty," he replied. The huge one, Shagga, laughed first and loudest. The others seemed less amused. "Conn, take their horses," Gunthor commanded. "Kill the other and seize the halfinan. He can milk the goats and make the mothers laugh." Bronn sprang to his feet. "Who dies first?" "No!" Tyrion said sharply. "Gunthor son of Gurn, hear me. My House is rich and powerful. If the Stone Crows will see us safely through these mountains, my lord father will shower you with gold." "The gold of a lowland lord is as worthless as a halfman's promises," Gunthor said. "Half a man I may be," Tyrion said, "yet I have the courage to face my enemies. What do the Stone Crows do, but hide behind rocks and shiver with fear as the knights of the Vale ride by?" Shagga gave a roar of anger and clashed club against axe. Jaggot poked at Tyrion's face with the fire-hardened point of a long wooden spear. He did his best not to flinch. "Are these the best weapons you could steal?" he said. "Good enough for killing sheep, perhaps . . . if the sheep do not fight back. My father's smiths shit better steel." "Little boyman," Shagga roared, "will you mock my axe after I chop off your manhood and feed it to the goats?" But Gunthor raised a hand. "No. I would hear his words. The mothers go hungry, and steel fills more mouths than gold. What would you give us for your lives, Tyrion son of Tywin? Swords? Lances? Mail?" "All that, and more, Gunthor son of Gurn," Tyrion Lannister replied, smiling. "I will give you the Vale of Arryn." EDDARD Through the high narrow windows of the Red Keep's cavernous throne room, the light of sunset spilled across the floor, laying dark red stripes upon the walls where the heads of dragons had once hung. Now the stone was covered with hunting tapestries, vivid with greens and browns and blues, and yet still it seemed to Ned Stark that the only color in the hall was the red of blood. He sat high upon the immense ancient seat of Aegon the Conqueror, an ironwork monstrosity of spikes and jagged edges and grotesquely twisted metal. It was, as Robert had warned him, a hellishly uncomfortable chair, and never more so than now, with his shattered leg throbbing more sharply every minute. The metal beneath him had grown harder by the hour, and the fanged steel behind made it impossible to lean back. A king should never sit easy, Aegon the Conqueror had said, when he commanded his armorers to forge a great seat from the swords laid down by his enemies. Damn Aegon for his arrogance, Ned thought sullenly, and damn Robert and his hunting as well. "You


friends, whether or not they’d ever spoken to her. She laughed like someone who’d known them for years. An “Oh, Marco, that’s how you’ve always been” laugh, when—did she even know that was Marco Washington running up to stroke her hair? You might not remember Marco. He wasn’t exactly signing up for your opera seminar. Do you remember Peewee Walcott and Dorian Culler and Mike Stiles? Don’t worry about it. They were the foundational souls of my adolescence, but to you they were faces passing through. You’ve had a new crop every year since. Thalia meant enough to you that I’m sure you remember the kids right around her—Robbie Serenho, Rachel, Beth—the ones who orbited her like moons. On-screen, a house fell around Buster Keaton, and he stood there unharmed—bewildered, blessed. The rumors, in case you never heard them: That she’d been engaged to a boy back home and her parents sent her here to separate them. That she’d had an abortion and everyone at her old school found out. That she was anorexic, and her parents traveled too much to supervise her, so they sent her here where she was subjected to daily weigh-ins with the nurse. That she’d had a nose job, wanted to start over where no one knew her old face. It isn’t hard to guess how the rumors started—girls angry that their boyfriends and crushes trailed Thalia that first week, drooling after her curls in the August heat. She played tennis, and suddenly tennis practice had spectators. We weren’t roommates at first. My ninth and tenth grade roommate, a quiet girl named Diamond, dropped out just before the start of the year. My new assigned roommate, Ji-Hyun, spent preseason curled in bed with menstrual cramps that turned out to be appendicitis. She went from infirmary to hospital, and a week after her surgery I returned from class to find her things packed; she was flying home to Seoul. Thalia and her first roommate, a dour Ukrainian girl, never got along. One day in late September, after wondering for days what had happened to her purple bra, Thalia saw a purple strap peeking out at Khristina’s shoulder. Word got around in hours, and we all assumed Khristina would be expelled (a bra thief!), but the student discipline council forgave her. After all, maybe they didn’t have great underwear in Odesa. Thalia requested a room change, though, and after three weeks solo, I had a roommate. I was under no illusion that Thalia and I would become friends—she had already ascended into the social stratosphere—but I was secretly thrilled to see the other side of the room occupied again, despite my brief and unprecedented luck at having scored a single as a junior. The half-empty room had felt aseptic and haunted. Thalia brought actual decorations—a string of tiny white lights, an aloe plant, a fuzzy green bean bag chair—and she was friendly enough, joking with me as she dumped onto her bed the clothes and books she carried down the hall one armload at a time. When she found


followed. I thought I was being stalked at first, but it was more likely I was being an alarmist. Then a friend in the Secret Service told me to get a protective detail—immediately. Based on the online chatter, he didn’t think I was safe and suggested changing locations. I followed his advice, packed up my bags, and headed for Charlotte, booking a hotel there under a different name. On the drive, a lawyer I knew connected me with a well-known Silicon Valley billionaire. The man offered to supply a bodyguard for however long it was needed. I refused at first, but his team insisted on helping however they could. I was on the phone with a security firm before I got to my next stop. “Hang tight, my friend,” an executive protection coordinator said. “We’ll have you covered soon.” Running out of money, I made sure my accommodations were cheap. The hotel room smelled like a spilled milkshake dried out on concrete. Settling in for the night, I picked up the rubber doorstop holding the bathroom entrance open and jammed it under the front door. Then I wedged an angled chair under the handle to be safe. I loaded my gun and placed it under the pillow next to me. There’s a difference between being “pursued” and being “hunted.” For months I’d dealt with pursuers. People looked me up to send mocking messages or smears, and I got used to it. Hunting is different. That’s when someone wants you dead. And in the eyes of some rabid supporters, Donald Trump had turned me into a hunting trophy. Still, I thought a bodyguard sounded like overkill. As I lay in the hotel, I was confident I could defend myself and that the threats would subside eventually, although the words were still on a loop in my head. Bad things are going to happen to him.… It turned out that Trump was right. Bad things were about to happen. PART II In the early days of the pandemic, the President of the United States tweeted, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Trump was responding to the controversy over stay-at-home orders. He was at odds with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who enforced strict policies while health officials scrambled to develop a vaccine. Eerily, he tied his rallying cry to gun rights. “Save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” he added in a series of messages urging voters to “liberate” other states, too. His supporters listened. In the weeks and months that followed, a dozen men in the Midwest started talking about a kinetic plan of action. They chatted on encrypted messaging apps and gathered in discreet locations in rural Michigan and Wisconsin throughout 2020 to develop their plot, including organizing several live-fire exercises. Meeting on the edge of a lush green farm one day, the men suited up in the summer sun. They strapped on bulletproof vests and combat boots, adding extra loaded magazines of ammunition to their tactical belts. The mock attack commenced. Bobbing and weaving between obstacles, they fired dark gray assault weapons at homemade


of patrols have been cut back especially from ten o’clock at night until six in the morning. Neither Juan nor Walter is either deputized or armed with anything more than pepper spray, but their efforts are appreciated by the beleaguered local authorities. They cruise, looking for suspicious activity. When they see it, they alert the sheriff’s dispatcher by phone, and he sends a deputy to investigate. So far, they have helped prevent three burglaries, two carjackings, and an attempted arson. On this occasion, when Walter spots something unusual moving through the grass and scrub, Juan switches on the two motorized spotlights fixed to the vehicle’s roof rack, and he directs one toward the bogey. “You see this?” Juan asks. “Alien robots,” Walter says. Juan says, “Might be Earthmade.” “You see them sold at Costco?” “So then . . . do what?” Walter says, “Burglars are burglars.” “This planet’s our home, not theirs,” Juan agrees. The robots veer away from the road. “Hold on,” Juan says, and he wheels off the pavement in pursuit of the invaders. EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE Through the cameras of Gog and Magog, Michael Mace sees the license-plate number of the Ford F-150. He knows where to find what he requires, and he is so familiar with the California DMV system that he doesn’t need to imagine himself in a Bentley, driving the infinitely layered highways of the internet until he arrives at his destination. He slips into the DMV data pool and, in seven seconds, has the names of the owners of the pickup truck—Juan and Angela Gainza. He expects that the manufacturer’s records—where he has been before and to which he now returns—will yield the signifying number of the transponder in the pickup. But the vehicle doesn’t have a navigation system, a feature that the buyer didn’t want. Consequently, Michael can’t slide down a microwave signal that doesn’t exist, can’t enter the F-150 and affect its operation. Bennies. Bennies from Heaven. His heart is racing, his muscles taut with power, such power, reflexes quick and quicker, a rampant beast that will not be denied. Excited, eager, enraged, leading with the rifle. The clatter that attracts him lasts only a few seconds, but Calaphas surges up the stairs, across vaguely defined green treads and black risers, into the second-floor hallway, just as the noise ends. Even here aboveground, every room is a cold-holding room or an embalming chamber. The not-yet dead are the soon-to-be dead. His prey are armed, but also blind. He blinded them. Three blind mice. The windows up here admit murky moonlight, a considerable assistance to Calaphas as his night-vision gear greatly amplifies every lumen, but the moon is of no help to the mice, the soon-to-be dead. They can shoot toward whatever noise he makes, but he will see them before they can accurately fix the location of the sound, and he’ll cut the legs out from under them with an extended burst of fire. When they’re down, screaming, their flesh torn and bones shattered, in too much pain to hold fast