another, till the but the patience of the singer. I had heard it on the voyage vessel swung only by two. Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever more than once and remembered these words: these last when the strain should be once more lightened by a breath of wind. “But one man of her crew alive, All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from What put to sea with seventy-five.” the cabin, but to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts that I had scarcely given ear. And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appro- Now, however, when I had nothing else to do, I began to pay priate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the more heed. morning. But, indeed, from what I saw, all these buccaneers One I recognized for the coxswain’s, Israel Hands, that were as callous as the sea they sailed on. had been Flint’s gunner in former days. The other was, of At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drew nearer course, my friend of the red night-cap. Both men were plainly in the dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a the worse of drink, and they were still drinking, for even while good, tough effort, cut the last fibres through. I was listening, one of them, with a drunken cry, opened the The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I was stern window and threw out something, which I divined to almost instantly swept against the bows of the be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain HISPANIOLA. At the same time, the schooner began to that they were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end, across the and every now and then there came forth such an explosion current. as I thought was sure to end in blows. But each time the I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment to be quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled lower for a while, swamped; and since I found I could not push the coracle until the next crisis came and in its turn passed away without directly off, I now shoved straight astern. At length I was result. clear of my dangerous neighbour, and just as I gave the last On shore, I could see the glow of the great camp-fire burn- impulsion, my hands came across a light cord that was trail- Contents ing warmly through the shore-side trees. Someone was sing- ing overboard across the stern bulwarks. Instantly I grasped ing, a dull, old, droning sailor’s song, with a droop and a qua- it. Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 188 189 Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was at first mere instinct, but once I had it in my hands and found “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest— it fast, curiosity began to get the


to say something stupid but I couldn’t stop. “I need you to help me shake him up a little.” “Sorry, um—what do you mean?” “We have too many people trying to fuck us,” I said. “It’s getting annoying. We need to, like, send a message that this kind of thing can’t keep happening. We’ve already lost money on the 3.0, we’ve lost Ellhorn, and now we have the risk of this guy going public.” “We lost Ellhorn?” “Yes,” I said, watching his frown deepen. “Don’t take it personally. It’s his fault, not ours.” Delpy nodded obediently. “I need you to just do a little fact-finding, okay? Figure out where in the world Mack Wang-Orsi is right now.” “I can do that. I can definitely do that.” He shifted into a blind spot and I tilted my head to see his expression, which was thoughtful but nervous, the face of someone who was weighing pros and cons. “Don’t think too hard about it,” I said. “Just find out where he is and tell me.” * * * Delpy hired a guy named Jimmy Palugas who worked for a moving company in Queens by day and dealt in something called “locational and loan services” by night. Palugas, who was wide-shouldered and red-haired with an acne-pocked beard, would find people who owed other people money and remind the debtors of their debt. He was very good at his job, and it took him only two days to locate Mack at a Newark Holiday Inn. Mack had been traveling from there to spy on Elaine and Renhauser, both of whom owned homes in New Jersey. Around 2:00 a.m., Palugas posed as a pizza deliveryman and was let up to Mack’s room. Mack screamed like a madman as Palugas led him out the fire exit and into a company SUV. Everyone was too busy dealing with the fire alarm to notice or care. The parking lot was deserted of onlookers. And even if there had been onlookers, who would have rushed to help Mack? He was clearly drunk. Any passersby would have simply assumed he was being led off by a plainclothes policeman. Palugas drove the screaming Mack to a clearing in the Pine Barrens where Delpy and I were waiting in Delpy’s gifted air taxi, helicopter-large but faster, more efficient, and environmentally friendly. When Mack saw me, his eyes went wide. “You fucker,” he breathed, causing the cab to reek of cheap scotch. Palugas shoved him into the air taxi and closed the hatch behind them. I turned from Mack to the shaky Delpy, who was manning the control: a push button and joystick setup designed for the most clueless of pilots. “We need to talk,” I said, sighing. “You’ve been bothering us.” “I’m going to the police!” Mack screamed. Delpy pressed the button, maneuvered the joystick. We broke free from the ground. “The police?” I asked over the buzz of the propellers. “You’re inside a drone.” “You fucked me. You cut me out,” he slurred. “You really are just a bunch of thugs and criminals.


protest, he herds me into the largest bedroom, like he’s a cattle dog and I’m a particularly difficult sheep. The second the door snicks shut, I whirl on him, prepared to attack, only to be hit with the full force of his closeness, the strange intensity of being behind a closed door together. I can feel my heart beating in the back of my throat. We’re close enough that I can see his pupils dilating. His body has decided I’m a threat he needs to analyze as quickly as possible. The feeling is mutual. It was easy to be angry when we were downstairs, surrounded by our friends. Now I feel like I’m standing naked on a spotlighted platform for his inspection. He finds his voice first, a low rasp. “I know this isn’t ideal.” The ludicrousness of the statement jump-starts my brain. “Yes, Wyn. Spending a week locked in a bedroom with my ex-boyfriend is not ideal.” “Ex-fiancé,” he says. I stare at him. He looks away, scratching his forehead. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know what to do.” His eyes come back to mine, too soft now, too familiar. “She called me with a speech. About how this was the end of an era. About how she’d never asked me for anything and she never would again. I tried calling you. It only rang once, but I left a voicemail.” There was a very good reason I hadn’t gotten the message. “I blocked your number,” I say. I got tired of lying awake late into the night with my thumb hovering over his contact number, practically aching from wishing he’d call, tell me the whole thing had been a mistake. I needed to take the possibility away, to free myself from waiting for it. His eyes go stormy. His lips part. He looks toward the balcony, grooves rising between his eyebrows. He just has one of those vaguely tortured faces, I remind myself. He can’t help it, and he certainly doesn’t need my comfort. He’s the one who derailed our life together in a four-minute phone call. His jaw muscles leap as his pale-fog eyes retrain on me. “What should I have done, Harriet?” Found an excuse. Simply told her no. Not have broken my heart like it was a last-minute dinner plan. Not have made me love you in the first place. I shake my head. He steps closer until he’s a question mark, hanging over me. “I’m really asking.” On a sigh, I drop my eyes and massage my temples. “I don’t know. But now there’s nothing we can do. You can’t break up at a wedding. Especially when the guest list is four people.” “Maybe we give them tonight,” he says. “Celebrate everything, tell them tomorrow.” I look up at the ceiling, buying some time. Maybe in the next four seconds the world will end, and I’ll be spared making this decision. “Harriet,” he presses. “Fine,” I bite out. “I’m sure we can stomach each other for one more night.” His gaze narrows, limiting the intake


towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it the shiver which this pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her feet and hands, especially, had never seemed so death-a-cold as now), but there was a moral sensation, mingling itself with the physical chill, and causing her to shake more in spirit than in body. The world's broad, bleak atmosphere was all so comfortless! Such, indeed, is the impression which it makes on every new adventurer, even if he plunge into it while the warmest tide of life is bubbling through his veins. What, then, must it have been to Hepzibah and Clifford,--so time-stricken as they were, yet so like children in their inexperience,--as they left the doorstep, and passed from beneath the wide shelter of the Pyncheon Elm! They were wandering all abroad, on precisely such a pilgrimage as a child often meditates, to the world's end, with perhaps a sixpence and a biscuit in his pocket. In Hepzibah's mind, there was the wretched consciousness of being adrift. She had lost the faculty of self-guidance; but, in view of the difficulties around her, felt it hardly worth an effort to regain it, and was, moreover, incapable of making one. As they proceeded on their strange expedition, she now and then cast a look sidelong at Clifford, and could not but observe that he was possessed and swayed by a powerful excitement. It was this, indeed, that gave him the control which he had at once, and so irresistibly, established over his movements. It not a little resembled the exhilaration of wine. Or, it might more fancifully be compared to a joyous piece of music, played with wild vivacity, but upon a disordered instrument. As the cracked jarring note might always be heard, and as it jarred loudest amidst the loftiest exultation of the melody, so was there a continual quake through Clifford, causing him most to quiver while he wore a triumphant smile, and seemed almost under a necessity to skip in his gait. They met few people abroad, even on passing from the retired neighborhood of the House of the Seven Gables into what was ordinarily the more thronged and busier portion of the town. Glistening sidewalks, with little pools of rain, here and there, along their unequal surface; umbrellas displayed ostentatiously in the shop-windows, as if the life of trade had concentrated itself in that one article; wet leaves of the, horse-chestnut or elm-trees, torn off untimely by the blast and scattered along the public way; an unsightly, accumulation of mud in the middle of the street, which perversely grew the more unclean for its long and laborious washing,--these were the more definable points of a very sombre picture. In the way of movement and human life, there was the hasty rattle of a cab or coach, its driver protected by a waterproof cap over his head and shoulders; the forlorn figure of an old man, who seemed to have crept out of some subterranean sewer, and was stooping along the kennel, and poking the wet rubbish with


watch hits the light as much as the yellow dress’s headpiece does. “It really was, if not too ostentatious. I’m Ben, by the way.” He holds out his hand. Oh fuck. I’ve been keeping my hands locked so I wouldn’t default to wild, nerve-fueled gestures. I unclasp and take his gently. “Maddie,” I say. “Short for Madeleine?” “Yes.” “A beautiful classic.” Oh fuck. Is that … a line? I think it is. Just be cool and say something interesting. “I used to hate it.” “Why?” Yes, Maddie—why indeed? Why did I say that, to this stranger called Ben? Especially since I don’t fully understand why I used to hate my name; something vague about how I don’t quite match it. I am simply not the person you’d expect if you’d only heard the name Madeleine Wright. “I’d look in the mirror and never felt like it fit,” I answer. “I get that,” he says. “I used to hate being called Benjamin, still do. I grew up with friends named Jared, Brick, and Colson. I felt incredibly ordinary.” I smile and say, “Oh, the trials and tribulations of Benjamin…?” “Featherstone.” I raise an eyebrow and he laughs. “Fair enough,” he says. “Do you have a less pretentious surname?” “Wright,” I answer. “Madeleine Wright.” I press my lips together and nod. “Circumspect parents,” I add. The bell rings for the play’s second half. “Oh, I have to get back.” “You’re here for the show? I came last night—that’s a shame.” “It is? Is the second half not very good?” “I meant, with my luck I would have been sitting right beside you and now I’ve missed out.” Marry me? I nod and smile. “Yes, that is a shame.” He considers me. “Or maybe not,” he finally says. “Perhaps I could take your number?” * * * I miss so much of the play’s second act because all I can think about is Ben. He asked for my number and I gave it to him. He said he looked forward to talking to me again. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? I’d google it, but phones out during a theater performance are prohibited. “How do you plead?” an actor onstage asks. “Not guilty!” the witch proclaims. “Burn the truth from her!” a jury member screams. I think he’s in his late twenties. Ben Featherstone. What if he does ask me out on a date? I can’t go. What if it’s my day with Dad? What happens if it’s not and the date goes well? Eventually Ben would want to see where I lived. He’d expect me to live alone or with flatmates, like most people in their twenties. Maybe I shouldn’t have given him my number, but it just slipped out. Did I shout them at him or relay the numbers in a nonchalant fashion? Why am I so bad at this? Lack of practice. My first and last boyfriend (unless you count being married to Jeremiah Stephens for the duration of lunch break in year three, which I don’t, because he promptly divorced me and


different hand. López’s rattan furniture and his wallpaper with a pale green bamboo print in the living room had the whiff of the tiki craze of the early sixties. But Tristán was right: this room was from a previous era, and the doilies on the night table made her think of her grandmother. “Maybe he was a surfer when he was young,” Montserrat suggested. “Or played the ukulele.” “He carved faces into pineapples.” Tristán snickered, then paused, thoughtful. “You think we can trust him?” “He hasn’t tried to kill us.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “That’s a low bar.” “We could leave while he’s taking his nap if you don’t think he’s honest.” “Alma also said she wanted to destroy the film.” “But she pickled herself in magic, so she was lying.” “You’re sure she was passing herself off as her niece? It might be a family resemblance.” “There was something wrong about her. Didn’t you feel it?” “When I met her the second time she looked older. I thought it was the light or the makeup she was wearing, but maybe she is finally aging. It could be the unintended consequences López talked about. Or maybe I’m going nuts.” “No, you might be right.” “I suppose,” Tristán muttered. “I guess Alma’s a dead end. And those dogs might be outside, anyway. I wouldn’t want to see those creatures again.” Montserrat glanced at the window with lace curtains and wondered if that was indeed the case. Were López’s wards as strong as he claimed? She was not entirely sure what he meant by that term. Protective charms somehow tied to a building? He’d tattooed symbols on his arms; maybe he’d also carved them beneath the wallpaper or under the floor. The thought of hidden magic made her frown. “What?” Tristán said. “Spookiness,” she muttered, unwilling to elaborate. The sleepless night and bizarre encounter with Bauer’s minions had drained her, and the pillows were soft. She curled up without another word and closed her eyes. Tristán must have had enough, too, because he was snoring after a few minutes. Montserrat figured that if López decided to walk into the room and murder them, he’d have an easy time accomplishing the deed. 23 Karina used to say Tristán slept like a starfish, limbs extended, attempting to take over the entire bed. It was hard to sleep with him because he tossed and turned. But Tristán must not have been terribly restless because when he woke up, Montserrat was next to him, and she remained fast asleep. It was getting dark and it was Friday. The posadas had started. They ought to have been out, eating tamales, venturing forth to a party. They should have been planning a New Year’s celebration for the two of them, with champagne and streamers and a scary midnight movie. Black Christmas, perhaps, or Gremlins for something lighter. Instead, they were trapped in this odd house and a room that was filling with shadows. He figured the best thing would be to nudge Montserrat and find their host, but


stepping over broken bottles to sit not on the mattresses, which were always wet, but on the logs people had dragged into the clearing. I’d smoke, and Geoff would entertain me. Sometimes Carlotta would ditch her unsupervised studio art time to join us and smoke half a cigarette, and Geoff would watch like that was his actual cock she was putting to her lips. Half an hour sounded right for the walk—that’s what I’d seen quoted online, as people questioned whether someone could have left the party, killed Thalia, and returned—but it took longer in snow and ice, longer in the mud. I can tell you with certainty that we couldn’t have walked to the mattresses and back in one class period. The mattresses were, as we now all know, 1.4 miles from both the theater and the gym. It was a bit farther than that from the darkroom in Quincy, which was where Geoff and I would start our trek. I tuned back in to Britt, preaching to her choir. “Plus,” she was saying, “the only evidence that Omar ever even talked to her was student gossip. She’d told a few friends she was having trouble with some older dude. And her friends look around for someone older and creepy, and they settle on the Black guy.” “That’s not quite how it happened,” I said. There was chatter in the room, but it only swam around me. It was the word creepy, an echo of something just out of reach. And then—I wonder if I actually sat there slack-jawed, or if I managed to keep my face composed—it was as if the hemispheres of my brain jolted out of decades-long disconnection. The time the two of you stayed behind and missed the firefly show. The days I’d waited endlessly outside your door while Thalia’s convocation coaching ran overtime. Low rumbling when you talked, the sound of Thalia projecting her voice across the room, long periods of silence. I’d seen her turn red, junior year, when she talked about you. I’d seen you sitting too close. I’d seen her stay late after Follies practice. We had talked about it, me and Fran and Carlotta and Geoff. We joked that she was obsessed with you, we joked that you were sleeping with her. Wasn’t it a joke? Or, it was something we only believed for fun. The same way we chose to believe in dormitory ghosts. And what if— You didn’t even seem that shaken up after Thalia died, at least not more than other teachers. You asked again and again at our convocation practice if I was okay, talked about how your kids, who’d known her as a babysitter, were so shaken. By then, I must have abandoned any notion that something illicit was going on. Back in ’95, I’d learned first that there were rumors about Omar, then that he’d confessed, then—after we graduated—that he’d been convicted, and only then that part of the evidence against him was Thalia’s alleged statements about some older guy. It had thickened the air in


trees in the backyard, with hiding out among their roots and spinning stories long after Rory decided it was time to return to the real world. “Did you pack my room up yet?” “I’ve just gotten started,” says Mom. “I was going to put most of your things in storage, but why don’t you go see if there’s anything you want? Give me some time to wrap up this porcelain, and then we’ll meet back down here for dinner.” “I—oh, sure, okay.” I pause on the staircase before I go up. I keep waiting for Mom to ask me what’s going on, for her to intuit with her motherly senses that I’m deeply not all right. But she’s already turned back toward those stupid ceramic cats. MY NOTEBOOKS ARE RIGHT WHERE I LEFT THEM: STACKED AT THE TOP of my bookshelves in neat rows of five. They’re each labeled with my name, the year, my phone number, and a ten-dollar reward offer if returned to the owner. No Moleskines here—my notebooks were always those college-ruled, black-and-white-splattered composition notebooks that you buy for ninety-nine cents at Walmart while your parents are doing back-to-school shopping. My dream worlds. I pull them out and set them on the floor. I used to live my entire life out of these notebooks. They’re crammed with doodles I scribbled instead of listening during class; full-scale drawings I sketched out after school; half-finished scenes or story ideas or even fragments of lines of dialogue that came to me throughout the day. Nothing in these dream worlds ever became a fully formed product—I didn’t have the discipline or craft skills then to write a complete novel. They’re more like a smorgasbord of creative churning, half-formed doors to other worlds, worlds in which I lingered for hours when I didn’t want to be in my own. I flip through the pages, smiling. It’s cute to see how derivative my story ideas were of whatever fandoms I was in at the time. Sixth grade: my Twilight phase, and I was clearly infatuated with Alice Cullen because I kept describing a protagonist with the same gravity-defying pixie cut. Ninth grade: my emo phase, and everything was Evanescence and Linkin Park lyrics. By then I’d begun sketching out some gothic, futuristic dystopian cityscape where kids flew around on skateboards and everyone had floppy, skunk-tail bangs and arm warmers. I guess Ayn Rand was an influence at some point in tenth grade, because by then I was writing paragraphs on paragraphs about a male lead named Howard Sharp, who bowed to no one, who had an unassailable sense of pride, who was a “lone believer in truth in a world of lies.” I spend the rest of the afternoon going through those notebooks. I don’t notice the time slipping by until Mom calls upstairs asking if I want takeout for dinner, and it’s only then that I realize the sun has set. I’ve lost myself for hours in those worlds. I call down to Mom that takeout sounds fine. Then I root around for a


should take a walk. Cool down.” The thought of being any farther away from him than this is torment. I nod. His eyes scrape down me and back up once more, heat washing from my head to my toes, a heavy pulse of need between my thighs. “The bed’s all yours,” he says, and stalks past me. I slide out of the way so he can open the door. “Don’t feel like you need to wait up.” It’s not that I wait up for him. It’s that as soon as I climb under the sheets, it’s like he hasn’t left at all, only multiplied. Every breeze from the cracked window is his mouth. Every brush of the sheets is his hand, moving across my thigh, over the curve of my stomach. Every creak of the settling house is his voice: Tell me to kiss you. I try to think about anything else. My mind is caught on him. Earlier tonight, as Cleo and I rested our chins atop our folded arms at the pool’s edge, legs sweeping in slow, luxurious kicks through the water, she asked, Any progress on your goal for the week? And my eyes went straight for Wyn. Not yet, I told her. I don’t even know what I need from this week. To make it to the end without coming apart? Or without ruining Sabrina and Parth’s wedding? My life has been on one set of rails since I decided to go into medicine. It’s been easy to make decisions with that as the governing force. Outside of that, I’ve rarely had to. But I don’t want to regret anything at the end of this week. I want to feel like I used this time, even in a small way, how I wanted to. And that’s what I fall asleep thinking over and over again: What do you want, Harriet? I dream he climbs into bed with me. Arms up, baby, he says, and peels away my Virgin Who CAN Drive T-shirt. There’s no one else, he whispers into the curve of my belly, the underside of my arm. Perfect, he says. When I wake before sunrise, I’m still alone. 21 HAPPY PLACE WEST VILLAGE, NEW YORK CITY WYN’S AND MY first place, just the two of us. A hissing radiator. A ghost who never does much, other than open a window when it’s cool out or knock a book off a shelf. Sitting on the floor, eating noodles straight from the take-out boxes because we don’t have a couch yet. Side tables found on curbs and repaired to perfection by Wyn. A shelf installed above our bed, lined with the James Herriot paperbacks Hank used to read Wyn and his sisters when they were small. Plus one particular romance novel, whose origins neither of us even recall. (Wyn says it probably belongs to the ghost.) Our first place together, just the two of us, and it’s bittersweet. Weeks ago, as the end of the lease on the Morningside Heights apartment drew closer, Cleo sat us down in


and a dying fire. When Dunsey, who's been drinking, strolls into the room, his jeering tone lives up to the villagers' opinion of him. Agitated, Godfrey demands that Dunstan return the money he borrowed from Godfrey, which was a tenant's rent payment. Dunstan knows how to manipulate Godfrey, though. He threatens to tell the Squire about Godfrey's marriage to drunken Molly Farren, and Godfrey reacts with fear. Now you know why lately Godfrey's been acting strangely. NOTE: PARALLELS Like Silas, Godfrey is taken advantage of by a thieving brother. (Dane was like a brother to Silas.) Both hope to marry a nice young woman but are prevented by shameful situations--Silas' conviction and Godfrey's marriage. What obvious contrasts, however, can you point to? This is the first scene Eliot dramatizes directly. She doesn't comment much, except to show characters' gestures and expressions. In slangy, lively speech, the brothers refer casually to people they know, whom you haven't met. You've caught them in the midst of life, with upcoming events (the hunt, Mrs. Osgood's party) and ongoing quarrels. Afraid of their father, they blackmail each other. Godfrey declares he may confess his marriage to the Squire to shake off Dunstan's hold on him. But Eliot takes you into his thoughts, to show that this springs from desperation more than courage--Molly's been threatening to reveal herself to his father, anyway. He thinks over the consequences of confession: losing Nancy and being disinherited. Bred to a useless life, he couldn't do anything for a living. Dunstan knows how to handle his brother. He sits back, waiting until Godfrey has cowardly talked himself out of this move. Godfrey realizes that he must sell his horse Wildfire to get the money. Actually, this is Dunstan's suggestion, and Dunstan convinces his flustered brother to let him sell the animal. Compare Dunstan's cool confidence in his own luck to Godfrey's nervous decision to risk getting caught rather than turn himself in. Which brother seems the stronger in this scene? Which brother do you like better? Why? After Dunstan has left, Eliot enters Godfrey's thoughts with sympathetic insight into his problems. Surprisingly, even though Godfrey is from the top rung of rural society, Eliot says he lacks culture. Typically, she tangles herself up in a long, indirect, abstract sentence to express this. ("The subtle and varied pains springing of the higher sensibility... that dreary absence of impersonal enjoyment and consolation... the perpetual urgent companionship of their own griefs and discontents.") In the last chapter, she asked you to pity how Silas' simple mind reacted to his situation. Here, she urges you to feel sorry for Godfrey because even a crude squire's son feels pain when his life turns out badly. Next Eliot explains how Godfrey got into this jam--Dunstan urged him on in his brief passion for Molly. But Godfrey doesn't feel like a victim, as Silas did. He knows his own foolish bad habits are to blame, though it's agonizing knowledge. In contrast to this, his love for Nancy summons the better side of his nature, the side that's muffled


a decommissioned canoe has fallen out of its rack and is resting directly on top of the hatch. Javier lets the air hiss out from between his teeth. “That explains that,” Javier says. “We were running from a canoe. Nice.” “And the camera?” I ask. “And the lock on the boathouse? I know I locked it.” “You sure?” Kyle asks. “I forgot to lock the front gate. It’s okay if it slipped your mind.” “No,” I say adamantly. “I don’t forget to do stuff like that.” Kyle’s gaze traces down to the floor. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m not tryna make you feel bad. I’m just saying that I know I locked it.” Bezi tries to get Tasha on the phone, but she doesn’t have a signal either. “We gotta go to the office and use the landline,” I say. Javier’s brows push up. “Who is ‘we’? I’m not going anywhere.” “It’s almost six,” I say. “You’re not worried about them?” “Not really,” says Javier. “They’re probably on their way back right now.” Bezi crosses her arms over her chest. “I guess Tasha has a soft spot for insensitive jerks. Her last boyfriend was a lot like you. She dropped his sorry ass.” Javier shrugs. “Good thing I’m not her boyfriend, then, huh?” Bezi and Javier look at each other like they want to fight. “Stop,” I say to both of them. “We’re not going to argue. Not right now. I don’t have a problem going to the office myself, but Tasha has a cell phone. Things might work on my end but they probably won’t work on hers.” There aren’t any other choices, and as I weigh my options, I can see the light fading from the sky. “We gotta go get them.” “Again,” Javier says. “Who is ‘we’?” I make sure my sneakers are knotted and I pull my hair up into a puff on top of my head. “Go. Or stay. I don’t care what you do. I’m going to take a flashlight and go find them.” “I’m coming too,” Bezi says. Kyle sighs. “I guess I’m going too.” Javier glares at us. “You’re just gonna leave me here? Alone?” “Yeah,” I say without hesitation. He grumbles something I can’t make out, then tilts his head and clenches his jaw. “Fine. We’ll all go together.” Suddenly, my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I let out a little squeal as I scramble to pull it out. I breathe a sigh of relief as Tasha’s name flashes across the screen. I hit the green button and press the phone to my ear. “Tasha! Oh my god, where are you? I’ve been tryna call you, but the signal—” Static garbles the line, and Tasha’s voice breaks through in strangled yelps. “Charity! . . . out there! I can’t . . . please!” Bezi grips my arm. “Where is she? What’s happening?” A fear unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my entire three years of working at Camp Mirror Lake, or my lifetime of horror-movie watching, grips my chest like a vise, squeezing


has a taste for taking risks of all kinds, a talent for evading authorities, and no moral compunctions whatsoever. “Hector he takes the bodies out to sea,” Speedo continues, “chops ’em into chum, feeds the sharks.” “Sounds like a plan,” Jason says. “Only thing,” Kuba says, “nobody’s gonna pop no caps, ’cause then we gotta throw away a gun has a bad history and maybe gotta wrap up loose brains and skull pieces. A knife don’t have no history like a gun. And done right, it’s neater.” “It ain’t just a plan,” Hakeem declares, “it’s an episode of The Sopranos.” “Three teams,” Aleem says, “two men to a building, till we searched ’em all. Remember the bitch has herself a piece, a trey eight, and she knows how to use it.” Jason and Speedo each has a flashlight, so Aleem takes one for him and Kuba. They move away from the trees, toward the buildings, one man short of being the Magnificent Seven, like in that old Western Aleem has watched several times. Even though they’re only six, they have an important advantage the seven didn’t possess, which is that they aren’t to any extent whatsoever restrained by a foolish sense of community values, by honor, by pity—or by anything, really. The chance of finding Nina and John in one of these buildings is low, and the likelihood that the plan Aleem cooked up to deal with the four SUVs will work is even lower. However, this world doesn’t reward second-guessers. You can change direction if a fork in the path appears and has promise, but you can’t back up and rethink, because in this business, to both your enemies and your homeys, that looks like retreat. Retreat is seen as weakness, and the weak die young, which they deserve to do. The only thing that Aleem despises is weakness. Once you commit to an operation, you have to drive forward hard, never doubting, never relenting. If the result isn’t what you hoped, even if it’s a disaster, you can learn from it after it’s done. Anyhow, no mistake he can make is so bad that it can’t be erased with enough violence and cash. With a shitload of money, he can buy his way out of most trouble, and when money isn’t enough, he can kill his way out, which is why he has the respect of his homeboys and not just of his homeboys, but also the respect of all those who are gangsters disguised as pillars of their communities, as friends of the working man and woman. You can’t win a war if you don’t drive forward hard and harder even when fighting seems hopeless. And to Aleem Sutter, life is war. THE ONLY WISDOM WE CAN HOPE TO ACQUIRE To Nina’s right, pressed against her, felt but unseen, John sits in two inches of cold water, deep in the rat hole, under the artfully rearranged trash, his back to the wall. He has wrapped his arms around the duffel bag that rests on his lap, less to safeguard


evidently." "A dabbler in science, Mr. Holmes, a picker up of shells on the shores of the great unknown ocean. I presume that it is Mr. Sherlock Holmes whom I am addressing and not --" "No, this is my friend Dr. Watson." "Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull." Sherlock Holmes waved our strange visitor into a chair. "You are an enthusiast in your line of thought, I perceive, sir, as I am in mine," said he. "I observe from your forefinger that you make your own cigarettes. Have no hesitation in lighting one." The man drew out paper and tobacco and twirled the one up in the other with surprising dexterity. He had long, quivering fin- gers as agile and restless as the antennae of an insect. Holmes was silent, but his little darting glances showed me the interest which he took in our curious companion. "I presume, sir," said he at last, "that it was not merely for the purpose of examining my skull that you have done me the honour to call here last night and again to-day?" "No, sir, no; though I am happy to have had the opportunity of doing that as well. I came to you, Mr. Holmes, because I recognized that I am myself an unpractical man and because I am suddenly confronted with a most serious and extraordinary prob- lem. Recognizing, as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe --" "Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honour to be the first?" asked Holmes with some asperity. "To the man of precisely scientific mind the work of Mon- sieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly." "Then had you not better consult him?" "I said, sir, to the precisely scientific mind. But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone. I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently --" "Just a little," said Holmes. "I think, Dr. Mortimer, you would do wisely if without more ado you would kindly tell me plainly what the exact nature of the problem is in which you demand my assistance." Chapter 2 The Curse of the Baskervilles "I have in my pocket a manuscript," said Dr. James Mortimer. "I observed it as you entered the room," said Holmes. "It is an old manuscript." "Early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery." "How can you say that, sir?" "You have presented an inch or two of it to my examination all the time that you have been talking. It would be a poor expert who could not give the date of


share this object with her, she raised the tip to her eye, observing its unique texture and form. She hadn’t seen anything like it before – it was altered-ice, reformed at a molecular level, harder than diamond, yet as malleable as clay. She wondered how he’d created this new substance, how such a transfiguration of frozen water was even possible. As she pondered these questions, she felt him enter her thoughts. Let me show you the world we can build together. Not a refugee encampment with buckets for toilets and vats of kelp soup. She saw Antarctica pristine again, no bases or buildings, no flags or footprints, as it had been before human discovery, the brief two-hundred-year history of people erased from the continent. A new society emerged, not limited to the warmer fringes but concentrated in the coldest centre, a civilization rising from the south pole plateau consisting of buildings unlike any she’d seen before. There were no bricks or girders; these were structures rendered whole, as though they’d been pressed out of a baking mould, crystal domes and spiral towers. Surrounding this new citadel was Antarctic vegetation, crops capable of living in the cold, fields of icicles, and beyond them was a forest, trees with stalactite roots and snowflake leaves. Above this city, not in the stars, but among the clouds, was a synthetic cold blue sun, the powerplant of this species, with a swirling blue-fire surface not as a source of heat but as life-giving light. At a castle in the very centre, standing on a terrace overlooking this kingdom, stood Echo and Eitan. MCMURDO CITY HISTORIC BASE DISTRICT THE ARCHIVE SAME DAY LIZA COULD ONLY WATCH, HELPLESS on the sidelines, as her daughter fell under the spell of this creature. Echo was somewhere else, no longer by her side, her thoughts far away, someplace unseen. Liza was certain, as only a mother could be, that he didn’t have her daughter’s interests at heart. He was a specimen composed entirely of strengths, his flawless armoured torso brazenly naked in the cold, contemptuous of conditions which would kill an ordinary person in seconds. He was vain, she thought, and she recoiled from his beauty which to her eye was a marvel of biological engineering and a manifestation of his innate sense of superiority, an absolute certainty that he’d been born to rule, which he intended to do with the ruthlessness of someone who considers their cruelty to be rational rather than despicable. He might be evolutionarily advanced, but he was a regressive figure – inherently transactional. He wanted Echo to fight on his side. Silent until now, Yotam broke rank, leaving the group and walking towards the species he’d devoted his life in Antarctica to. He wondered whether the allegations against him were true, that Song Fu had always known he’d fall for her creation, that it hadn’t been his intelligence or tenacity which won her over, but his naivety. Infatuation hadn’t been an accident: it had been her intention from their first meeting at the South Pole Station. Masterminding


as I push out the door into the biting air of October in Maine, I think of another reason I was given this assignment. One more chilling than the weather. Mr. Gurlain chose me because Lenora Hope is the one patient nobody—not even the police—will mind if I kill. TWO It takes me less than an hour to gather my belongings. I learned early on that a caregiver should pack light. A medical bag, a suitcase, and a box. There’s no need for more than that. The medical bag is filled with the tools of my trade. Thermometer, blood pressure cuff, stethoscope. My parents gave me the black leather tote when I was first hired by Mr. Gurlain. Twelve years later, I’m still using it, even though the zipper sticks and the leather is cracked at the corners. The suitcase is filled with a toiletry bag and my clothes. Bland, inoffensive slacks and cardigans ten years out of date. I’ve long ago given up trying to be stylish. Comfort and thrift matter more. The box is filled with books. Paperbacks, mostly. They once belonged to my mother and bear the loving wear and tear of a voracious reader. “You’re never alone when there’s a book nearby,” she used to say. “Never ever.” While I appreciate the sentiment, I also know it’s a lie. For six months, I’ve been surrounded by books, and I’ve never felt more alone. All packed, I peek into the hallway to make sure there’s a clear path to the back door off the kitchen. My father came home for lunch, which he sometimes does when a job site is nearby. He’s now in the living room, watching TV and eating a sandwich while sunk deep into his La-Z-Boy. In the past six months, the two of us have become experts at avoidance. Full weeks went by in which we never saw each other. I’ve mostly kept to my room, venturing to the kitchen only when I was certain my father was at work, asleep, or out with the girlfriend I’m not supposed to know about. We haven’t been introduced. I’m only aware of her existence because I heard them talking in the living room last week, surprised by the sound of another woman’s voice in the house. The next night, my father snuck out like a schoolboy, either too afraid to admit he’s started dating again or too ashamed to risk my bumping into his new lady friend. Now it’s me sneaking out, moving on tiptoes as I make two trips to my car, one for the suitcase and medical bag, one for the box of books. On the second trip, I find Kenny leaning against my Ford Escort. Clearly, he saw me with the suitcase and came out of the house next door to investigate. Staring at the box in my hands, he says, “You moving out?” “For now, yeah,” I say. “Maybe for good. I got a new assignment.” “I thought you were fired.” “Suspended. It just ended.” “Oh.” Kenny frowns. Rare for him. Normally he


the same, her peace equally wounded. A day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to Elizabeth; but at last on Mrs. Bennet's leaving them together, after a longer irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could not help saying, ``Oh! that my dear mother had more command over herself; she can have no idea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before.'' Elizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said nothing. ``You doubt me,'' cried Jane, slightly colouring; ``indeed you have no reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear, and nothing to reproach him with. Thank God! I have not _that_ pain. A little time therefore. -- I shall certainly try to get the better.'' With a stronger voice she soon added, ``I have this comfort immediately, that it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it has done no harm to any one but myself.'' ``My dear Jane!'' exclaimed Elizabeth, ``you are too good. Your sweetness and disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say to you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you deserve.'' Miss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back the praise on her sister's warm affection. ``Nay,'' said Elizabeth, ``this is not fair. _You_ wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of any body. _I_ only want to think _you_ perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good will. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense. I have met with two instances lately; one I will not mention; the other is Charlotte's marriage. It is unaccountable! in every view it is unaccountable!'' ``My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and Charlotte's prudent, steady character. Remember that she is one of a large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be ready to believe, for every body's sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin.'' ``To oblige you, I would try to believe almost any thing, but no one else could be benefited by such


man was reposing at full length, smoking a long clay pipe. He was dressed in a smartly-cut snuff-coloured coat, with large brass buttons; an orange neckerchief; a coarse, staring, shawl-pattern waistcoat; and drab breeches. Mr. Crackit (for he it was) had no very great quantity of hair, either upon his head or face; but what he had, was of a reddish dye, and tortured into long corkscrew curls, through which he occasionally thrust some very dirty fingers, ornamented with large common rings. He was a trifle above the middle size, and apparently rather weak in the legs; but this circumstance by no means detracted from his own admiration of his top-boots, which he contemplated, in their elevated situation, with lively satisfaction. 'Bill, my boy!' said this figure, turning his head towards the door, 'I'm glad to see you. I was almost afraid you'd given it up: in which case I should have made a personal wentur. Hallo!' Uttering this exclamation in a tone of great surprise, as his eyes rested on Oliver, Mr. Toby Crackit brought himself into a sitting posture, and demanded who that was. 'The boy. Only the boy!' replied Sikes, drawing a chair towards the fire. 'Wud of Bister Fagid's lads,' exclaimed Barney, with a grin. 'Fagin's, eh!' exclaimed Toby, looking at Oliver. 'Wot an inwalable boy that'll make, for the old ladies' pockets in chapels! His mug is a fortin' to him.' 'There--there's enough of that,' interposed Sikes, impatiently; and stooping over his recumbant friend, he whispered a few words in his ear: at which Mr. Crackit laughed immensely, and honoured Oliver with a long stare of astonishment. 'Now,' said Sikes, as he resumed his seat, 'if you'll give us something to eat and drink while we're waiting, you'll put some heart in us; or in me, at all events. Sit down by the fire, younker, and rest yourself; for you'll have to go out with us again to-night, though not very far off.' Oliver looked at Sikes, in mute and timid wonder; and drawing a stool to the fire, sat with his aching head upon his hands, scarecely knowing where he was, or what was passing around him. 'Here,' said Toby, as the young Jew placed some fragments of food, and a bottle upon the table, 'Success to the crack!' He rose to honour the toast; and, carefully depositing his empty pipe in a corner, advanced to the table, filled a glass with spirits, and drank off its contents. Mr. Sikes did the same. 'A drain for the boy,' said Toby, half-filling a wine-glass. 'Down with it, innocence.' 'Indeed,' said Oliver, looking piteously up into the man's face; 'indeed, I--' 'Down with it!' echoed Toby. 'Do you think I don't know what's good for you? Tell him to drink it, Bill.' 'He had better!' said Sikes clapping his hand upon his pocket. 'Burn my body, if he isn't more trouble than a whole family of Dodgers. Drink it, you perwerse imp; drink it!' Frightened by the menacing gestures of the two men, Oliver hastily swallowed the contents


be a part of this. Inside, away from the cameras, Orson asked Jeremy if he was feeling ready to spend twenty-four hours on the Farm. Jeremy looked Orson up and down, clearly taking in his jean jacket and work pants—an “approachable” wardrobe I’d picked out for him that morning—and snorted. “Yeah, I’m ready for your New Age bullshit,” he said. Chuck smacked Jeremy on the back of the head, which was horrifying, so I quickly turned away to meet Priscilla’s pleading gaze. “Jeremy can’t help it,” she squeaked. “We try so hard, but he can’t help it.” “I’m sure you do,” I said, and then turned to Jeremy. “It’s going to help you,” I said softly. “I promise.” Jeremy made a noise that sounded like he was about to hock a wad of spit, but he hocked nothing, just crossed his arms and looked at Orson, who hadn’t stopped smiling. “Let’s get started,” Orson said. We ate a banquet lunch with the Enners, the kitchen staff serving meat for the first time in the brief history of the Farm. Jeremy and his father loved ribeye, and both devoured theirs with quiet precision. Jeremy clearly possessed all of Orson’s metabolic gifts without any of his tendency to scarf. But Orson didn’t scarf: he barely ate. The Enners listened as he explained Synthesis and the Bliss-Mini and the Bliss-Mini 2 (currently in development), clearly distracted by the beauty of the farmhouse, which I’d had redecorated in reds and golds specifically for their visit (red and gold being Jeremy’s favorite colors). When Jeremy was finished with his ribeye, he slouched in his seat and began somewhat vigorously kicking Chuck’s shins under the table. “Don’t kick your father,” Priscilla said. “Fuck you,” Jeremy said. Chuck stood, rounded the table, and once again smacked Jeremy on the back of the head. I jumped. Jeremy didn’t move, just stayed staring into the middle distance with his arms crossed. Priscilla began to cry. “It’s like this every day,” she said. “These two just fight all the time. Jeremy won’t let up.” Jeremy smiled wickedly at Orson. Chuck’s face was stony. He, too, could have benefited from some behavior modification therapy. “Can I borrow Jeremy for a minute?” Orson asked. “Go ahead,” said Chuck. “Borrow him for a fucking decade.” Orson brought Jeremy out onto the patio, leaving the rest of us to finish lunch. Chuck ate his steak sternly while Priscilla glanced from her plate of asparagus to the patio. “You have a kid and you dream of, you know, meeting his first girlfriend, sending him off to college, visiting his first house,” Chuck said, declining to look up from the neat row of cubes he’d made of his steak. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think any of this was going to happen.” “He’s our only child,” Priscilla added, and began crying again. “Frankly? I’ve given up. I’ve tried everything with him. He responds to nothing. Not doctors, not shrinks, not us. Nothing.” “What’s he doing?” Priscilla asked. Orson and Jeremy were sitting across from each other


swoop it put into her middle, the feeling of vertigo that the thought of running away brought her. Leaving would be as futile as trying to catch the ocean in your hands. Not just physically, but spiritually, like something anchored her here. “We can’t,” she murmured. “As much as I don’t want to trust him, Anton is our only—” “You don’t understand, Lore.” There was something desperate in Bastian’s tone, something that told her he felt the same pull to this night as she did and was desperately fighting against it. “It happened again. Another village.” Only Bastian’s hand on her waist kept her from tripping over her hem. Lore’s fingers went cold. “When?” “Last night.” He kept her close, spoke in her ear—to anyone watching, they’d look two minutes away from sneaking off to a secluded corner, but their faces were twin masks of fear. “A few of the Presque Mort went to collect the bodies—Anton put Malcolm in charge.” Another village. She thought of her uncomfortable sleep, dark dreams she could only recall fragments of. Lore shook her head, banishing the half-formed speculations. “Where is Anton, then?” “I don’t know.” Bastian led her through a spin. “Preparing to stop August, I guess. It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to let my uncle be the only thing that stands between you and death. I can get you money. Food. Get you on a ship —” “I can’t leave Dellaire. Mortem won’t let me.” “Damn this.” He hissed it through his teeth, his grip on her waist so tight it almost hurt. “Damn this. Fine. I can find a place for you in the city—” “Bastian.” She shook her head again, her nose grazing his neck. They didn’t have to stand this close, but it was a comfort, and neither of them moved away. “They’d just find me. You know that.” Her road ended here, in the Citadel. Either dead from August’s ritual, or kept in a gilded cage, a tool to aid in controlling a mad and dying King. Lore knew it. Gabe knew it. Bastian did, too. Of the three of them, he was the most likely to try to change the unchangeable, the one most predisposed to thinking he could shift the world to suit him. But even Bastian had to realize it was pointless this time. Lore was caught. But just because she was caught didn’t have to mean all of them were. “I can’t leave,” Lore repeated, a murmur against his ear. “But you can.” For the first time, Bastian stuttered in their dance; other courtiers swirled around them as if she and the Sun Prince were rocks in a stream, but he and Lore just stood still, her hands on his shoulders, his on her waist, his eyes boring down into hers. “And leave you.” Gruff, not quite angry, but more than halfway there. “Leave you here.” “Anton said he’d stop the ritual.” A thin defense, but it was all she had. “Say he does. Then what?” People were starting to stare; Bastian swept her up


-- maybe Monday. He tried to get Becky to talk, but her sorrows were too oppressive, all her hopes were gone. Tom said that they must have been missed long ago, and no doubt the search was going on. He would shout and maybe some one would come. He tried it; but in the darkness the distant echoes sounded so hideously that he tried it no more. The hours wasted away, and hunger came to torment the captives again. A portion of Tom's half of the cake was left; they divided and ate it. But they seemed hungrier than before. The poor morsel of food only whetted desire. By-and-by Tom said: " Sh! Did you hear that?" Both held their breath and listened. There was a sound like the faintest, far-off shout. Instantly Tom answered it, and leading Becky by the hand, started groping down the corridor in its direction. Presently he listened again; again the sound was heard, and apparently a little nearer. "It's them!" said Tom; "they're coming! Come along, Becky -- we're all right now!" The joy of the prisoners was almost overwhelming. Their speed was slow, however, because pitfalls were somewhat common, and had to be guarded --------------------------------------------------------- -293- against. They shortly came to one and had to stop. It might be three feet deep, it might be a hundred -- there was no passing it at any rate. Tom got down on his breast and reached as far down as he could. No bottom. They must stay there and wait until the searchers came. They listened; evidently the distant shoutings were growing more distant! a moment or two more and they had gone altogether. The heart-sinking misery of it! Tom whooped until he was hoarse, but it was of no use. He talked hopefully to Becky; but an age of anxious waiting passed and no sounds came again. The children groped their way back to the spring. The weary time dragged on; they slept again, and awoke famished and woe-stricken. Tom believed it must be Tuesday by this time. Now an idea struck him. There were some side passages near at hand. It would be better to explore some of these than bear the weight of the heavy time in idleness. He took a kite-line from his pocket, tied it to a projection, and he and Becky started, Tom in the lead, unwinding the line as he groped along. At the end of twenty steps the corridor ended in a "jumping-off place." Tom got down on his knees and felt below, and then as far around the corner as he could reach with his hands conveniently; he made an effort to stretch yet a little farther to the right, and at that moment, not twenty yards away, a human hand, holding a candle, appeared from behind a rock! Tom lifted up a --------------------------------------------------------- -294- glorious shout, and instantly that hand was followed by the body it belonged to -- Injun Joe's! Tom was paralyzed; he could not move. He was vastly gratified the next moment, to see


closed off, bricked up, and he doesn’t know whether to be grateful or sad. That time is gone, that version of himself is gone, and there’s nowhere to go but forward. He walks back to the subway stop and gets on the train to Manhattan. * * * At the top of the stairs, there’s a light under his door and the smell of garlic wafting out into the hall. Nick’s heart starts to pound, but he tells himself not to get his hopes up: it’s probably Linda heating up takeout next door, and the light he’s seeing is just a bulb he forgot to check earlier that day. But when he turns the key in the lock, he’s holding his breath, and when he sees Andy at the stove, he feels something ease up inside of him, even if Andy anywhere within three feet of a gas burner is a pretty terrifying sight. Nick goes over to the stove and puts his arms around Andy, hooking his chin over Andy’s shoulder. “Hey,” Nick says. “I’d turn around and kiss you, but I don’t want to mess this up.” Andy’s stirring what looks like— “Is that minestrone soup?” “That’s what it’s supposed to be. Only time will tell what it actually is.” “It smells good.” Nick presses his face into Andy’s neck. “You smell good, too.” “I thought you might need soup,” Andy says. In all the weeks Andy’s been living here, rarely has Nick come home to find Andy already there. Andy has a thing about being alone, and Nick usually tries to avoid making it an issue. But today Andy let himself in and cooked. Nick tightens his arms around Andy. “I do. Thank you.” “Are you going to let go of me so I can finish cooking?” “No.” Anyway, the soup’s done, as far as Nick can see. He kisses beneath Andy’s ear, right where a strand of hair curls when he’s due for a trip to the barber. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he says. He doesn’t know if he’s ever said as much out loud, which probably makes him a jerk, but he hopes that this isn’t news to Andy. He can feel Andy smiling, can feel the thump his heart just gave. “Me too.” Eventually Nick pries himself off and they eat soup and crackers at the table. “This tastes like how my mother makes it,” Nick says, trying not to sound too surprised. Andy still can’t scramble eggs without nearly ruining a pan, and what’s more, he’s always leery of trying something new and then failing. “It should,” says Andy, not looking at Nick. “I used your mom’s recipe.” “My mom has a recipe?” He can’t imagine his mother using a recipe. And then the rest of his brain catches up. “How? How did you get it?” “I called her. I hope that’s okay.” Andy stirs his spoon in the last inch of soup, where he’s left all his rejected bits of carrot. “This afternoon? You called her today?” “Yes. Is that— Did I cross


is dangling a foot off the ground, im- prisoned in Thresh’s arms. I let out a gasp, seeing him like that, towering over me, holding Clove like a rag doll. I remem- ber him as big, but he seems more massive, more powerful than I even recall. If anything, he seems to have gained weight in the arena. He flips Clove around and flings her onto the ground. When he shouts, I jump, never having heard him speak above a mutter. “What’d you do to that little girl? You kill her?” 282 Clove is scrambling backward on all fours, like a frantic in- sect, too shocked to even call for Cato. “No! No, it wasn’t me!” “You said her name. I heard you. You kill her?” Another thought brings a fresh wave of rage to his features. “You cut her up like you were going to cut up this girl here?” “No! No, I —” Clove sees the stone, about the size of a small loaf of bread in Thresh’s hand and loses it. “Cato!” she screeches. “Cato!” “Clove!” I hear Cato’s answer, but he’s too far away, I can tell that much, to do her any good. What was he doing? Trying to get Foxface or Peeta? Or had he been lying in wait for Thresh and just badly misjudged his location? Thresh brings the rock down hard against Clove’s temple. It’s not bleeding, but I can see the dent in her skull and I know that she’s a goner. There’s still life in her now though, in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the low moan escaping her lips. When Thresh whirls around on me, the rock raised, I know it’s no good to run. And my bow is empty, the last loaded ar- row having gone in Clove’s direction. I’m trapped in the glare of his strange golden brown eyes. “What’d she mean? About Rue being your ally?” “I — I — we teamed up. Blew up the supplies. I tried to save her, I did. But he got there first. District One,” I say. May- be if he knows I helped Rue, he won’t choose some slow, sa- distic end for me. “And you killed him?” he demands. “Yes. I killed him. And buried her in flowers,” I say. “And I sang her to sleep.” 283 Tears spring in my eyes. The tension, the fight goes out of me at the memory. And I’m overwhelmed by Rue, and the pain in my head, and my fear of Thresh, and the moaning of the dy- ing girl a few feet away. “To sleep?” Thresh says gruffly. “To death. I sang until she died,” I say. “Your district. . . they sent me bread.” My hand reaches up but not for an arrow that I know I’ll never reach. Just to wipe my nose. “Do it fast, okay, Thresh?” Conflicting emotions cross Thresh’s face. He lowers the rock and points at me, almost accusingly. “Just this one time, I let you go. For the little girl. You and


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

building generally, sitting upon the banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry by night. Every body is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; some fears are entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay.” Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it, and would fain have locked myself in my new quarters. In vain I persisted that Bartleby was nothing to me—no more than to any one else. In vain:—I was the last person known to have any thing to do with him, and they held me to the terrible account. Fearful then of being exposed in the papers (as one person present obscurely threatened) I considered the matter, and at length said, that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interview with the scrivener, in his (the lawyer’s) own room, I would that afternoon strive my best to rid them of the nuisance they complained of. Going up stairs to my old haunt, there was Bartleby silently sitting upon the banister at the landing. “What are you doing here, Bartleby?” said I. “Sitting upon the banister,” he mildly replied. I motioned him into the lawyer’s room, who then left us. “Bartleby,” said I, “are you aware that you are the cause of great tribulation to me, by persisting in occupying the entry after being dismissed from the office?” No answer. “Now one of two things must take place. Either you must do something, or something must be done to you. Now what sort of business would you like to engage in? Would you like to re-engage in copying for some one?” “No; I would prefer not to make any change.” “Would you like a clerkship in a dry-goods store?” “There is too much confinement about that. No, I would not like a clerkship; but I am not particular.” “Too much confinement,” I cried, “why you keep yourself confined all the time!” “I would prefer not to take a clerkship,” he rejoined, as if to settle that little item at once. “How would a bar-tender’s business suit you? There is no trying of the eyesight in that.” “I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am not particular.” His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge. “Well then, would you like to travel through the country collecting bills for the merchants? That would improve your health.” “No, I would prefer to be doing something else.” “How then would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain some young gentleman with your conversation,—how would that suit you?” “Not at all. It does not strike me that there is any thing definite about that. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular.” “Stationary you shall be then,” I cried, now losing all patience, and for the first time in all my exasperating connection with him fairly flying into a passion. “If you do not go away from these premises before night, I shall feel bound—indeed I am bound—to—to—to quit the premises myself!” I rather absurdly


sure everyone was listening. “In 1995, Thalia Keith died on the campus of the Granby School in Granby, New Hampshire.” I did admire the ambition inherent in her framing, the idea that this would reach some national audience in need of orienting. “Her body was found in the campus pool on the afternoon of Saturday, March fourth. Although the cause of death was drowning, Thalia also had open fracture wounds to the back of her skull plus bruising on her neck and damage to her carotid artery and thyroid cartilage, as if she’d been choked. She was a star in musical theater and tennis, a senior who’d been admitted to Amherst College. Suspicion soon settled on Omar Evans, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who worked as head athletic trainer at the prestigious boarding school. He was the only official suspect in the case. Evans falsely confessed under extraordinary pressure after fifteen hours of interrogation, a confession he recanted the next day. He was a victim of an inexperienced and racist small-town police force and a racist school that wanted to close the case quickly. Omar Evans was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to sixty years. He has now been imprisoned nearly twenty-three years for a murder he did not commit. This is the story of two stolen lives: those of Thalia Keith and Omar Evans.” Lola whistled. Alder said, with no apparent irony, “Oh, snap.” Jamila said, “You really just called us prestigious?” I said, “That was well done, Britt. I have a small correction, which is that the case was handed to the State Police. They might’ve been racist, I don’t know, but they weren’t inexperienced. I like how you’ve laid out not just the subject but a thesis statement, too. One danger with that—” I sipped my coffee, buying time. I felt adrenal, wondered what on earth I’d started. “One danger is that if you lay out your theories at the beginning, and then change your mind as you investigate, you’ll be stuck.” “I won’t change my mind,” Britt said. “I’ve already done a ton of research. The case was so flaky.” I assumed she meant flimsy. She asked if I’d seen the Diane Sawyer interview with Omar’s mother. I hadn’t; she told me she’d send it. “When you hear her speak you’ll understand,” she said. I was sure his mother believed with every cell of her body that he was innocent. I was sure that came through on camera. I said, “Maybe there were flaws in the case. But they had his DNA on her swimsuit. One of his hairs was in her mouth. They had him in the building when she died, and they can’t put anyone else there. They had a confession. They had the motive, at least according to her friends. They had that noose he drew in the directory. People get convicted on much less.” I heard myself, a parrot. But Britt was only parroting the Reddit boards. I didn’t want her to swing into obstinacy in either direction. I wanted her to do a


she thinks to herself, “What if the loser is your loved one?” How does this mentality guide Clytemnestra throughout her life? Clytemnestra and the rest of the girls in Sparta are trained to fight as children. How does this warrior mentality guide her throughout the novel? How does this set her apart from other heroines you have read before? The murder of Clytemnestra’s first husband, Tantalus, and her baby is not told from the perspective of Clytemnestra herself. How did you read this change in perspective? What did it add to the narrative? Clytemnestra and Helen’s relationship is tested many times, yet there is always love between them. How might you describe the evolution of their relationship? How does the theme of forgiveness play a role between the two? Describe Clytemnestra’s relationship with her father. How did his betrayal make you feel, and how does it shape Clytemnestra? The story of Clytemnestra and her family is foreshadowed by an inescapable prophecy. Did the priestess’s vision play out the way you though it would? What roles did prophecies and religion have in this world? This story does not have obvious good characters and bad characters; all of them make decisions that are morally questionable. Were there specific moments that made you think differently about any of the characters? Were there some you found unforgiveable? Why do you think Odysseus allowed for Clytemnestra’s daughter to be sacrificed? How did you feel about Clytemnestra’s final act against Agamemnon? In the end, were her actions warranted? Who do you believe is ultimately to blame? Vengeance is a common theme that courses throughout the story. How does vengeance play a role in all the characters’ lives, especially Clytemnestra’s? Clytemnestra has been portrayed by history as an evil queen. How does the author question that role? Do you think Clytemnestra is truly evil? Are you familiar with any of the myths that are presented in this novel? Were they told differently than you remember? A Conversation with the Author Of all the women in Greek mythology, why Clytemnestra? What drew you to her story? I fell in love with this extraordinary character more than ten years ago. In the ancient texts, she is fierce, clever, powerful, and unbending, unlike any other heroine I’d read before. The most fascinating thing about her in the ancient sources is that she is feared and respected for the power she holds in Mycenae. I thought, here is a woman who commands a city as her husband is away, who makes him pay for all the wrong he has done to her, and who doesn’t let the men around her belittle her. I felt the need to explore her story. Her backstory was also incredibly fascinating with all the myths surrounding her. Clytemnestra grows up in Sparta, where women, compared to other Greek cities of the time, were much freer, so she is taught to hunt and fight just like the men around her. And then she is connected to some of the most fascinating characters from the myth: she is sister to


--and how am I to prevent his knowing these horrors?" the poor lady wailed. "After all, Mamma, he won't have SEEN them," her daughter suggested; and Mrs. Welland sighed: "Ah, no; thank heaven he's safe in bed. And Dr. Bencomb has promised to keep him there till poor Mamma is better, and Regina has been got away somewhere." Archer had seated himself near the window and was gazing out blankly at the deserted thoroughfare. It was evident that he had been summoned rather for the moral support of the stricken ladies than because of any specific aid that he could render. Mr. Lovell Mingott had been telegraphed for, and messages were being despatched by hand to the members of the family living in New York; and meanwhile there was nothing to do but to discuss in hushed tones the consequences of Beaufort's dishonour and of his wife's unjustifiable action. Mrs. Lovell Mingott, who had been in another room writing notes, presently reappeared, and added her voice to the discussion. In THEIR day, the elder ladies agreed, the wife of a man who had done anything disgraceful in business had only one idea: to efface herself, to disappear with him. "There was the case of poor Grandmamma Spicer; your great-grandmother, May. Of course," Mrs. Welland hastened to add, "your great- grandfather's money difficulties were private--losses at cards, or signing a note for somebody--I never quite knew, because Mamma would never speak of it. But she was brought up in the country because her mother had to leave New York after the disgrace, whatever it was: they lived up the Hudson alone, winter and sum- met, till Mamma was sixteen. It would never have occurred to Grandmamma Spicer to ask the family to `countenance' her, as I understand Regina calls it; though a private disgrace is nothing compared to the scandal of ruining hundreds of innocent people." "Yes, it would be more becoming in Regina to hide her own countenance than to talk about other people's," Mrs. Lovell Mingott agreed. "I understand that the emerald necklace she wore at the Opera last Friday had been sent on approval from Ball and Black's in the afternoon. I wonder if they'll ever get it back?" Archer listened unmoved to the relentless chorus. The idea of absolute financial probity as the first law of a gentleman's code was too deeply ingrained in him for sentimental considerations to weaken it. An adventurer like Lemuel Struthers might build up the millions of his Shoe Polish on any number of shady dealings; but unblemished honesty was the noblesse oblige of old financial New York. Nor did Mrs. Beaufort's fate greatly move Archer. He felt, no doubt, more sorry for her than her indignant relatives; but it seemed to him that the tie between husband and wife, even if breakable in prosperity, should be indissoluble in misfortune. As Mr. Letterblair had said, a wife's place was at her husband's side when he was in trouble; but society's place was not at his side, and Mrs. Beaufort's cool assumption that it was


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

garment. "I suppose I must leave you," he said. "It's--incredible. Three things happening like this, overturning all my preconceptions, would make me insane. But it's real! Is there anything more that I can get you?" "Only bid me good-night," said Griffin. "Good-night," said Kemp, and shook an invisible hand. He walked sideways to the door. Suddenly the dressing-gown walked quickly towards him. "Understand me!" said the dressing-gown. "No attempts to hamper me, or capture me! Or--" Kemp's face changed a little. "I thought I gave you my word," he said. Kemp closed the door softly behind him, and the key was turned upon him forthwith. Then, as he stood with an expression of passive amazement on his face, the rapid feet came to the door of the dressing-room and that too was locked. Kemp slapped his brow with his hand. "Am I dreaming? Has the world gone mad--or have I?" He laughed, and put his hand to the locked door. "Barred out of my own bedroom, by a flagrant absurdity!" he said. He walked to the head of the staircase, turned, and stared at the locked doors. "It's fact," he said. He put his fingers to his slightly bruised neck. "Undeniable fact! "But--" He shook his head hopelessly, turned, and went downstairs. He lit the dining-room lamp, got out a cigar, and began pacing the room, ejaculating. Now and then he would argue with himself. "Invisible!" he said. "Is there such a thing as an invisible animal? In the sea, yes. Thousands! millions! All the larvae, all the little nauplii and tornarias, all the microscopic things, the jelly-fish. In the sea there are more things invisible than visible! I never thought of that before. And in the ponds too! All those little pond-life things-- specks of colourless translucent jelly! But in air? No! "It can't be. "But after all--why not? "If a man was made of glass he would still be visible." His meditation became profound. The bulk of three cigars had passed into the invisible or diffused as a white ash over the carpet before he spoke again. Then it was merely an exclamation. He turned aside, walked out of the room, and went into his little consulting- room and lit the gas there. It was a little room, because Dr. Kemp did not live by practice, and in it were the day's newspapers. The morning's paper lay carelessly opened and thrown aside. He caught it up, turned it over, and read the account of a "Strange Story from Iping" that the Mariner at Port Stowe had spelt over so painfully to Mr. Marvel. Kemp read it swiftly. "Wrapped up!" said Kemp. "Disguised! Hiding it! 'No one seems to have been aware of his misfortune.' What the devil is his game?" He dropped the paper, and his eye went seeking. "Ah!" he said, and caught up the St. James' Gazette, lying folded up as it arrived. "Now we shall get at the truth," said Dr. Kemp. He rent the paper open; a couple of columns confronted him. "An Entire Village in


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

I gave Malfoy a black eye, and Neville tried to take on Crabbe and Goyle single-handed! He's still out cold but Madam Pomfrey says he'll be all right -- talk about showing Slytherin! Everyone's waiting for you in the common room, we're having a party, Fred and George stole some cakes and stuff from the kitchens." "Never mind that now," said Harry breathlessly. "Let's find an empty room, you wait 'til you hear this..." He made sure Peeves wasn't inside before shutting the door behind them, then he told them what he'd seen and heard. "So we were right, it is the Sorcerer's Stone, and Snape's trying to force Quirrell to help him get it. He asked if he knew how to get past Fluffy -- and he said something about Quirrell's 'hocus pocus' -- I reckon there are other things guarding the stone apart from Fluffy, loads of enchantments, probably, and Quirrell would have done some anti-Dark Arts spell that Snape needs to break through -- " "So you mean the Stone's only safe as long as Quirrell stands up to Snape?" said Hermione in alarm. "It'll be gone by next Tuesday," said Ron. CHAPTER FOURTEEN -- NORBERT THE NORWEGIAN RIDGEBACK Quirrell, however, must have been braver than they'd thought. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet. Every time they passed the third-floor corridor, Harry, Ron, and Hermione would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside. Snape was sweeping about in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was still safe. Whenever Harry passed Quirrell these days he gave him an encouraging sort of smile, and Ron had started telling people off for laughing at Quirrell's stutter. Hermione, however, had more on her mind than the Sorcerer's Stone. She had started drawing up study schedules and colorcoding all her notes. Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same. "Hermione, the exams are ages away." "Ten weeks," Hermione snapped. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel." "But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded her. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it A." "What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me..." Unfortunately, the teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Hermione. They piled so much homework on them that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones. It was hard to relax with Hermione next to you reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood or practicing wand movements. Moaning and yawning, Harry and Ron spent most of their free time in the library with her, trying to get through all their extra work. "I'll never remember this," Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing


force of the universe? 3. HUMAN AFFECTIONS What kinds of human ties are important in this novel? There are family ties--weak at the Casses' house but strong for the Lammeters. The bonds of parent and child are especially important, whether they are biological (as with Dolly and Aaron Winthrop) or adoptive (as with Eppie and Silas). When Eppie has to choose between her biological father, Godfrey, and her adoptive father, Silas, what factors count most with her? Wholesome human affections can restore a damaged personality like Silas'. Yet stunted affections, like those at Squire Cass' house, can damage a basically good person like Godfrey. Look at the way larger communities are bound together, too: Lantern-Yard, the city Silas came from, Raveloe as a whole, or the upperclass society of Raveloe. 4. CHANGE In Eliot's view, all change is the product of a multitude of tiny factors. The process is so complex that mere humans cannot presume to control it. To examine this theory, Eliot chose for her main setting a community with ingrained old beliefs, a place where change comes slowly. She shows how gradually the collective "mind" of village opinion shifts until it accepts Silas. Many individual characters, too, have fixed habits of thought that are hard to change. Consider, for example, Squire Cass, Nancy Lammeter, old Mr. Macey, Dolly Winthrop, Godfrey's wife Molly, and Silas himself. Choosing a long time span for her story, Eliot shows people changing gradually over the years, as Silas changes before his robbery and then after finding Eppie. She also minutely examines step by step the process of short-term changes--the reasoning that leads Godfrey to keep his secret marriage hidden or that makes Dunstan rob Silas. 5. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PAST Raveloe is a society strongly connected to its past. In contrast, the town Silas comes from seems impersonal and transient--when Silas returns thirty-two years later, Lantern-Yard has been literally wiped off the face of the Earth. Individuals in this book also are connected to their own pasts in different degrees. Godfrey hopes to bury his past. Silas and Eppie cherish their past together. As Silas is redeemed by his love for Eppie, he regains a sense of his past, and memory heals him. Attachment to the past can be stultifying, however, for characters like Squire Cass and Nancy Lammeter. Look at the role played in this novel by local traditions, personal memories, and familiar objects or places. By her own comments, then, Eliot gives this story, set in the past, a meaning for her own modern world. 6. OTHER THEMES In Silas Marner, Eliot also examines the class system of England in microcosm (mark the differences between the upper and lower classes, and judge Eliot's comments on them). Connected to this is her belief in the importance of work. The villagers understand the value of having a craft or skill and the role this gives one in a community. Silas clings to his craft when all else is taken from him. In the upper class, the Lammeter girls understand hard work, but the


cost her at all. Something very bad had happened in Oddman’s house, something she couldn’t explain. She was meant to control the dead, to use them. Not the other way around. She pulled out her phone and saw two texts from Dawes, both exactly fifteen minutes apart and in all caps. URGENT CALL IN. Alex ignored the messages and scrolled down, then typed out a quick It’s done. The reply was immediate: When I have my money She really hoped Oddman got his house in order. She deleted Eitan’s messages, then called Dawes. “Where are you?” Dawes answered breathlessly. Something big must be happening if Dawes was ignoring protocol. Alex could picture her pacing the parlor at Black Elm, her knot of red hair sliding to one side, headphones clamped around her neck. “Sterling. On my way back to the Hutch.” “You’re going to be late to—” “If I stand here talking to you, I will be. What’s up?” “They’ve selected a new Praetor.” “Damn. Already?” The Praetor was the faculty liaison for Lethe, who served as a go-between with the university administration. Only Yale’s president and dean knew about the real activities of the secret societies, and it was Lethe’s job to make sure it stayed that way. The Praetor was a kind of den mother. The responsible adult in the room. At least he was supposed to be. Dean Sandow had turned out to be a murderer. Alex knew a Lethe Praetor had to be a former Lethe deputy and had to be a member of the Yale faculty or at least reside in New Haven. That couldn’t be easy to find. Alex and Dawes had assumed it would take the board at least another semester to find someone to replace the very dead Dean Sandow. They’d counted on it. “Who is he?” Alex asked. “It could be a woman.” “Is it?” “No. But Anselm didn’t give me a name.” “Did you ask?” Alex pushed. A long pause. “Not exactly.” There was no point needling Dawes. Much like Alex, she didn’t like people, but unlike Alex, she avoided confrontation. And really, it wasn’t her job. Oculus kept Lethe running smoothly—fridge and armory stocked, rituals scheduled, properties kept in order. She was the research arm of Lethe, not the harass-board-members arm. Alex sighed. “When are they bringing him in?” “Saturday. Anselm wants to set up a meeting, maybe a tea.” “Nope. No way. I need more than a couple of days to prepare.” Alex turned away from the passing students, staring up at the stone scribes that guarded the Sterling Library doors. Darlington was with her here, picking away at Yale’s mysteries. “Egyptian, Mayan, Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, engravings of cave paintings from Les Combarelles. They covered all their bases.” “What do they mean?” Alex had asked. “Quotes from libraries, holy texts. The Chinese quote is from a dead judge’s mausoleum. The Mayan comes from the Temple of the Cross, but they chose it at random because no one knew how to translate it until twenty years later.” Alex had laughed. “Like


only darkness. Enraged, he realized she had gone above. He rallied his creatures and his servants to fight, but when they emerged through the secret doorways into the world above, Enva and a Skyward host were awaiting them. The battle was bloody and long, and many of the Underlings fled, deep into the earth. Dacre was wounded by Enva’s own arrow; she shot him in the shoulder, and he had no choice but to retreat, down into the bowels of his fortress. He blocked every passageway so no one and nothing from above could trespass below. He descended to the fire of the earth, and there he plotted his revenge. But Dacre was never victorious. He could not best the Skywards, and so he chose to terrorize the mortals above. He never realized that Enva had learned all the passages of his realm while he slept beneath her charm. And when she decided to step into his hall again, two centuries later, she carried her harp with a vow lodged in her heart. To make him and his court sleep for a hundred years. Some say she was successful, because there was a time of peace, and life was pleasant and golden for the mortals above. But others say she was unable to sing that long without diminishing her power, to hold Dacre and his court asleep for such a stretch of time. All of this to say—it is never wise to offend a musician. And choose your lovers wisely. Iris fell pensive with the ending of the myth. She wondered if history was wrong; all this time, she had been taught of her kind’s victory over the five surviving gods—Dacre, Enva, Alva, Mir, and Luz—who had been fooled into drinking a poisonous draught to make them sleep beneath the loam. But perhaps it had been Enva and her harp all along, which meant there had only ever been four gods slumbering, with the fifth still roaming in secret. The more Iris dwelled on it, the more it rang true. Enva had never been buried in an eastern grave; she must have struck a deal with the mortals long ago. She had been the one to sing the other four divines to enchanted sleep in deep, dark graves. It suddenly wasn’t so difficult to fathom why Dacre would wake with such vengeance in his blood. Why he would tear through town after town, hell-bent upon drawing Enva to him. Iris shivered at the thought, and wrote her correspondent back: I’m thrilled by your ability to find this second part and am eternally grateful for how you sacrificed yourself with tea and biscuits and reprimands from your nan, who sounds like someone I’d probably like. I almost hesitate now to ask anything more of you, but there is something else … I went to the infirmary here at Aval where I’m stationed. It gave me the chance to meet with soldiers who have been wounded. Some are recovering well, and yet some of them will die, and I find that truth difficult to


was in no such difficulty, and so I perceived - though dimly enough perhaps - that it was not beneficial to anybody, and, above all, that it was not beneficial to Herbert. My lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace with anxieties and regrets. I was not at all remorseful for having unwittingly set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor arts they practised: because such littlenesses were their natural bent, and would have been evoked by anybody else, if I had left them slumbering. But Herbert's was a very different case, and it often caused me a twinge to think that I had done him evil service in crowding his sparely-furnished chambers with incongruous upholstery work, and placing the canary-breasted Avenger at his disposal. So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began to contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert must begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put ourselves down for election into a club called The Finches of the Grove: the object of which institution I have never divined, if it were not that the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I Know that these gratifying social ends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert and I understood nothing else to be referred to in the first standing toast of the society: which ran "Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feeling ever reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove." The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined at was in Covent-garden), and the first Finch I saw, when I had the honour of joining the Grove, was Bentley Drummle: at that time floundering about town in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage head-foremost over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way - like coals. But here I anticipate a little for I was not a Finch, and could not be, according to the sacred laws of the society, until I came of age. In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken Herbert's expenses on myself; but Herbert was proud, and I could make no such proposal to him. So, he got into difficulties in every direction, and continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into keeping late hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a desponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more hopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when he came into dinner; that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance rather clearly, after dinner; that he all but realized


great room, and Christian is issuing rapid-fire instructions. As one they all turn and gape at me. Christian is still wearing the clothes he slept in last night. He looks disheveled, pale, and heart-stoppingly beautiful. His large gray eyes are wide, and I don’t know if he’s fearful or angry. It’s difficult to tell. “Sawyer, I’ll be ready to leave in about twenty minutes,” I mutter, wrapping the duvet tighter around me for protection. He nods, and all eyes turn to Christian, who is still staring intensely at me. “Would you like some breakfast, Mrs. Grey?” Mrs. Jones asks. I shake my head. “I’m not hungry, thank you.” She purses her lips but says nothing. “Where were you?” Christian asks, his voice low and husky. Suddenly Saw- yer, Taylor, Ryan and Mrs. Jones scatter, scurrying into Taylor’s office, into the foyer, and into the kitchen like terrified rats from a sinking ship. I ignore Christian and march toward our bedroom. “Ana,” he calls after me, “answer me.” I hear his footsteps behind me as I walk into the bedroom and continue into our bathroom. Quickly, I lock the door. “Ana!” Christian pounds on the door. I turn on the shower. The door rattles. “Ana, open the damned door.” “Go away!” “I’m not going anywhere.” “Suit yourself.” “Ana, please.” I climb into the shower, effectively blocking him out. Oh, it’s warm. The healing water cascades over me, cleansing the exhaustion of the night off my skin. Oh my. This feels so good. For a moment, for one short moment, I can pretend all is well. I wash my hair and by the time I’ve finished, I feel better, stronger, ready 413/551 to face the freight train that is Christian Grey. I wrap my hair in a towel, briskly dry myself with another towel, and wrap it around me. I unlock the door and open it and find Christian is leaning against the wall opposite, his hands behind his back. His expression is wary, that of a hunted pred- ator. I stride past him and into our walk-in closet. “Are you ignoring me?” Christian asks in disbelief as he stands on the threshold of the closet. “Perceptive, aren’t you?” I murmur absentmindedly as I search for something to wear. Ah, yes—my plum dress. I slide it off the hanger, choose my high black stiletto boots, and head for the bedroom. I pause for Christian to step out of my way, which he does, eventually—his intrinsic good manners taking over. I sense his eyes boring into me as I walk over to my chest of drawers, and I peek at him in the mirror, standing motionless in the doorway, watching me. In an act worthy of an Oscar winner, I let my towel fall to the floor and pretend that I am oblivious to my naked body. I hear his restrained gasp and ignore it. “Why are you doing this?” he asks. His voice is low. “Why do you think?” My voice is velvet soft as I pull out a pretty pair of black lace


Meg? Jo, you look tired to death. Come and kiss me, baby." While making these maternal inquiries Mrs. March got her wet things off, her warm slippers on, and sitting down in the easy chair, drew Amy to her lap, preparing to enjoy the happiest hour of her busy day. The girls flew about, trying to make things comfortable, each in her own way. Meg arranged the tea table, Jo brought wood and set chairs, dropping, over-turning,and clattering everything she touched. Beth trotted to and fro between parlor kitchen, quiet and busy, while Amy gave directions to everyone, as she sat with her hands folded. As they gathered about the table, Mrs. March said, with a particularly happy face, "I've got a treat for you after supper." A quick, bright smile went round like a streak of sunshine. Beth clapped her hands, regardless of the biscuit she held, and Jo tossed up her napkin, crying, "A letter! A letter! Three cheers for Father!" "Yes, a nice long letter. He is well, and thinks he shall get through the cold season better than we feared. He sends all sorts of loving wishes for Christmas, and an especial message to you girls," said Mrs. March, patting her pocket as if she had got a treasure there. "Hurry and get done! Don't stop to quirk your little finger and simper over your plate, Amy," cried Jo, choking on her tea and dropping her bread, butter side down, on the carpet in her haste to get at the treat. Beth ate no more, but crept away to sit in her shadowy corner and brood over the delight to come, till the others were ready. "I think it was so splendid in Father to go as chaplain when he was too old to be drafted, and not strong enough for a soldier," said Meg warmly. "Don't I wish I could go as a drummer, a vivan -- mdash; what's its name? Or a nurse, so I could be near him and help him," exclaimed Jo, with a groan. "It must be very disagreeable to sleep in a tent, and eat all sorts of bad-tasting things, and drink out of a tin mug," sighed Amy. "When will he come home, Marmee? asked Beth, with a little quiver in her voice. "Not for many months, dear, unless he is sick. He will stay and do his work faithfully as long as he can, and we won't ask for him back a minute sooner than he can be spared. Now come and hear the letter." They all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on the back, where no one would see any sign of emotion if the letter should happen to be touching. Very few letters were written in those hard times that were not touching, especially those which fathers sent home. In this one little was said of the hardships endured, the dangers faced, or the homesickness conquered.