it’s no surprise—but exhilarating—when one of the hatchet man’s rounds ricochets back on him, wounding him in the shoulder and staggering him, so that the hero is able to draw his knife and go in for— The phone pings. “Damn it all, Buck,” Yancy mutters, but he sets aside the book again and checks the text message. Y r u telling me 2 take a dump? U off coffee, on booze? Frowning, Yancy glances at the four video-display views of the west entrance to Protean. Then he looks at the guardhouse window in front of him. The big motorized gate is twenty feet away. For an instant, he has the impression that it’s moving, that it just rolled shut along the last few inches of its track, but that can’t be the case because only he can operate it. NOTHING AT ALL AROUND ME BUT THE BEAST Much of the land lies undeveloped, either publicly held or preserved in ranches, undulating so gracefully that the poetry of nature is evident even to those who care not for poetry and are indifferent to nature. Live oaks, California peppers, olive trees, and plentiful eucalyptuses stand testament to the tireless efforts of wind, sun, rain, seismic pressures, and humanity. In swift and shrieking pursuit of a rabbit, excited by the scent of warm flesh and their knowledge of the blood therein, the coyotes abruptly give up the chase and scatter at the sight of the two moon-bright forms that lope in wolflike fashion through the wild grass. Hissing bobcats abandon the ground for trees. The interlopers pass under the limbs on which the big cats perch, and they sprint away like predators on the trail of prey, though they exude only a lifeless odor of their own. Gog and Magog are guided by GPS and internal maps, by night vision and by the address Michael inserted in them. They don’t need his continuous guidance. For a moment, however, as he stands in the living room of the Chandra house, he is transfixed by the land as seen through the robots’ eyes. The Mil-Spec Generation 4 night-vision apparatus gathers available light, even infrared that isn’t visible to the human eye, and amplifies it eighty thousand times. The 120-degree field of view is presented in eerie green hues, the wavelength of light nearest 550 nanometers on the spectrum, which allows clarity at a lower power draw, conserving the batteries. The scene presented is so strange that it stirs in Michael a disquieting sense of looking through the apparent world at another and yet more ominous existence that lies beyond it. Even as that thought occurs to him, an extraordinary thing happens. A quarter of a mile earlier, leaving Protean Cybernetics, Gog and Magog crossed the nearest highway; they are a mile and a half from the next two-lane back road, between towns and in rough terrain. They top a rise, and at the bottom of the hill stands an SUV, recently arrived and warm enough to project a strong heat signature. As the dog-form robots pass the


thing you’d been dreaming of for so long, and all these new friends, and—and I was greedy for your time, and I hated myself for not being happy for you. I hated myself for not being good enough or smart enough or driven enough for you.” “Fuck that.” I try to push back from him. He holds me fast, doesn’t let me go, and it makes me so angry, how he’s holding on now, when it’s too late. “Listen,” he murmurs, “please let me say this.” I lift my gaze to his. I think of the first time I ever saw his face up close, how his features had struck me as contradictory, a rare mix of magnetism and standoffishness: I want you close, but don’t look at me. Now he’s pure quicksand. No stoniness. Wide open. “I was lost,” he says. “As much as I loved my parents—as much as I always knew they loved me—I grew up thinking I was a letdown. I had these two incredible sisters, who came out of fucking left field and were nothing like my parents or anyone else in our town, and as early as I can remember, everyone knew they were going to do something amazing. I mean, when I was twelve and Lou was nine, people were already talking about how she’d win a Pulitzer someday. No one was giving me imaginary awards.” “Wyn.” We’d been down this path too many times. “I’m not saying anyone thought I was stupid,” he says. “But that’s how it felt. Like I was the one who didn’t have anything going for him except that I’m nice.” “Nice?” I can’t help but scoff. Generous, thoughtful, endlessly curious, painfully empathetic, funny, vast. Not nice. Nice was the mask Wyn Connor led with. “I wanted to be special, Harriet,” he says. “And since I wasn’t, I settled for trying to make everyone love me. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but it’s true. I spent my whole life chasing things and people who could make me feel like I mattered.” That stings, somewhere deep beneath my breastbone. I try again, feebly, to draw back. Wyn’s hand moves to the back of my neck, light, careful. “And then I met you, and I didn’t feel so lost or aimless. Because even if there was nothing else for me, it felt like loving you was what I was made for. And it didn’t matter what anyone thought of me. It didn’t matter if I didn’t have any other big plans for myself, as long as I got to love you.” “So that’s it?” I say raggedly. “I took up all the oxygen, and you didn’t tell me until I’d suffocated you. Until you didn’t love me anymore, and there was nothing I could do.” “I will always love you,” he says fiercely. “That’s the point, Harriet. It’s the only thing that’s ever come naturally to me. The thing I don’t have to work at. I loved you all the way across the fucking country, and at my darkest, on my


the impact of the whole Earth having gone, it was too big. He prodded his feelings by thinking that his parents and his sister had gone. No reaction. He thought of all the people he had been close to. No reaction. Then he thought of a complete stranger he had been standing behind in the queue at the supermarket before and felt a sudden stab - the supermarket was gone, everything in it was gone. Nelson's Column had gone! Nelson's Column had gone and there would be no outcry, because there was no one left to make an outcry. From now on Nelson's Column only existed in his mind. England only existed in his mind - his mind, stuck here in this dank smelly steel-lined spaceship. A wave of claustrophobia closed in on him. England no longer existed. He'd got that - somehow he'd got it. He tried again. America, he thought, has gone. He couldn't grasp it. He decided to start smaller again. New York has gone. No reaction. He'd never seriously believed it existed anyway. The dollar, he thought, had sunk for ever. Slight tremor there. Every Bogart movie has been wiped, he said to himself, and that gave him a nasty knock. McDonalds, he thought. There is no longer any such thing as a McDonald's hamburger. He passed out. When he came round a second later he found he was sobbing for his mother. He jerked himself violently to his feet. "Ford!" Ford looked up from where he was sitting in a corner humming to himself. He always found the actual travelling-through-space part of space travel rather trying. "Yeah?" he said. "If you're a researcher on this book thing and you were on Earth, you must have been gathering material on it." "Well, I was able to extend the original entry a bit, yes." "Let me see what it says in this edition then, I've got to see it." "Yeah OK." He passed it over again. Arthur grabbed hold of it and tried to stop his hands shaking. He pressed the entry for the relevant page. The screen flashed and swirled and resolved into a page of print. Arthur stared at it. "It doesn't have an entry!" he burst out. Ford looked over his shoulder. "Yes it does," he said, "down there, see at the bottom of the screen, just under Eccentrica Gallumbits, the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6." Arthur followed Ford's finger, and saw where it was pointing. For a moment it still didn't register, then his mind nearly blew up. "What? Harmless? Is that all it's got to say? Harmless! One word!" Ford shrugged. "Well, there are a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy, and only a limited amount of space in the book's microprocessors," he said, "and no one knew much about the Earth of course." "Well for God's sake I hope you managed to rectify that a bit." "Oh yes, well I managed to transmit a new entry off to the editor. He had to trim it a bit, but it's still an improvement." "And


pound and a half of moist sugar that the niggers didn't work at all at, afore they got it up to sitch a pitch of goodness,--oh no! Two half-quartern brans; pound of best fresh; piece of double Glo'ster; and, to wind up all, some of the richest sort you ever lushed!' Uttering this last panegyrie, Master Bates produced, from one of his extensive pockets, a full-sized wine-bottle, carefully corked; while Mr. Dawkins, at the same instant, poured out a wine-glassful of raw spirits from the bottle he carried: which the invalid tossed down his throat without a moment's hesitation. 'Ah!' said Fagin, rubbing his hands with great satisfaction. 'You'll do, Bill; you'll do now.' 'Do!' exclaimed Mr. Sikes; 'I might have been done for, twenty times over, afore you'd have done anything to help me. What do you mean by leaving a man in this state, three weeks and more, you false-hearted wagabond?' 'Only hear him, boys!' said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. 'And us come to bring him all these beau-ti-ful things.' 'The things is well enough in their way,' observed Mr. Sikes: a little soothed as he glanced over the table; 'but what have you got to say for yourself, why you should leave me here, down in the mouth, health, blunt, and everything else; and take no more notice of me, all this mortal time, than if I was that 'ere dog.--Drive him down, Charley!' 'I never see such a jolly dog as that,' cried Master Bates, doing as he was desired. 'Smelling the grub like a old lady a going to market! He'd make his fortun' on the stage that dog would, and rewive the drayma besides.' 'Hold your din,' cried Sikes, as the dog retreated under the bed: still growling angrily. 'What have you got to say for yourself, you withered old fence, eh?' 'I was away from London, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,' replied the Jew. 'And what about the other fortnight?' demanded Sikes. 'What about the other fortnight that you've left me lying here, like a sick rat in his hole?' 'I couldn't help it, Bill. I can't go into a long explanation before company; but I couldn't help it, upon my honour.' 'Upon your what?' growled Sikes, with excessive disgust. 'Here! Cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it'll choke me dead.' 'Don't be out of temper, my dear,' urged Fagin, submissively. 'I have never forgot you, Bill; never once.' 'No! I'll pound it that you han't,' replied Sikes, with a bitter grin. 'You've been scheming and plotting away, every hour that I have laid shivering and burning here; and Bill was to do this; and Bill was to do that; and Bill was to do it all, dirt cheap, as soon as he got well: and was quite poor enough for your work. If it hadn't been for the girl, I might have died.' 'There now, Bill,' remonstrated Fagin, eagerly catching at the word.


could not leave till a day or two afterwards. He pictured himself looking out for Miss Wilkinson, the embarrassment of going up to her and asking if it were she (and he might so easily address the wrong person and be snubbed), and then the difficulty of knowing whether in the train he ought to talk to her or whether he could ignore her and read his book. At last he left Heidelberg. For three months he had been thinking of nothing but the future; and he went without regret. He never knew that he had been happy there. Fraulein Anna gave him a copy of _Der Trompeter von Sackingen_ and in return he presented her with a volume of William Morris. Very wisely neither of them ever read the other's present. CHAPTER XXXII PHILIP was surprised when he saw his uncle and aunt. He had never noticed before that they were quite old people. The Vicar received him with his usual, not unamiable indifference. He was a little stouter, a little balder, a little grayer. Philip saw how insignificant he was. His face was weak and self-indulgent. Aunt Louisa took him in her arms and kissed him; and tears of happiness flowed down her cheeks. Philip was touched and embarrassed; he had not known with what a hungry love she cared for him. "Oh, the time has seemed long since you've been away, Philip," she cried. She stroked his hands and looked into his face with glad eyes. "You've grown. You're quite a man now." There was a very small moustache on his upper lip. He had bought a razor and now and then with infinite care shaved the down off his smooth chin. "We've been so lonely without you." And then shyly, with a little break in her voice, she asked: "You are glad to come back to your home, aren't you?" "Yes, rather." She was so thin that she seemed almost transparent, the arms she put round his neck were frail bones that reminded you of chicken bones, and her faded face was oh! so wrinkled. The gray curls which she still wore in the fashion of her youth gave her a queer, pathetic look; and her little withered body was like an autumn leaf, you felt it might be blown away by the first sharp wind. Philip realised that they had done with life, these two quiet little people: they belonged to a past generation, and they were waiting there patiently, rather stupidly, for death; and he, in his vigour and his youth, thirsting for excitement and adventure, was appalled at the waste. They had done nothing, and when they went it would be just as if they had never been. He felt a great pity for Aunt Louisa, and he loved her suddenly because she loved him. Then Miss Wilkinson, who had kept discreetly out of the way till the Careys had had a chance of welcoming their nephew, came into the room. "This is Miss Wilkinson, Philip," said Mrs. Carey. "The prodigal has returned," she said,


with yellow eyes, teenagers laughing, arms linked, a mother pushing a stroller over the uneven sidewalk pass me by, and one of them could ID me. I have to be cool. Walk as to not attract attention. Blend in. Breathe. I tell myself I don’t look that out of place. This is New Orleans, after all, practically anything goes. People carry satchels and bags and briefcases all the time. No one knows what has been in mine. Yet. But they will. Oh, they will. And very soon. CHAPTER 19 Cruz Montoya glanced up and down the street, saw nothing out of the ordinary, no cop cars in the nearby convenience store lot, no obvious stakeout with plainclothes officers of the law watching the motel. He thought, for the moment, he was safe, so he quickly jaywalked across the two lanes of sparse traffic, then jogged across the pockmarked parking lot of the cheap motel he’d chosen on the edge of the city. Three battered pickups, an old Volvo station wagon straight out of the seventies, and two dirty sedans, one with several dents and missing a taillight, were parked in the lot of the dive of a motel, the place he had called home for the last twenty-four hours. The nondescript L-shaped building had been built sometime in the previous century when cinder blocks, cement porches, and flat roofs had been all the rage. Once painted aqua, the facade was faded and dirty, home to drifters, himself included. He’d already checked the exterior and discovered where the two security cameras had been mounted, though he doubted either was in working order. Cruz had already witnessed a drug deal going down behind the building and, he was certain, a couple of prostitutes with clients in the end unit. A young blonde and an older, weary-looking redhead, both of whom had approached him, the blonde more shyly, the redhead all business. He’d declined in each case. The fewer people who saw him, the better and, he figured, as he surveyed the place, all the other residents felt the same. Though each unit had a large plate-glass window, not one curtain was open. No, those who took temporary refuge at the All-Day-All-Night Inn were of the same opinion, curtains drawn, doors locked, the only illumination coming from the corner office where a neon vacancy sign shone red and the interior was awash in an unworldly fluorescent glow. Cruz unlocked the door to his room, stepped inside around his Harley to flop onto the bed. He’d pulled his bike into the room just to make certain no one caught a glimpse of it from the street. Though the idea of anyone looking for him here was remote, it wasn’t impossible, and until he could figure out his next move, Cruz figured it was better to be safe than sorry. That thought soured in his gut. There was enough sorrow, enough regret already. His thoughts strayed to Lucia. He’d found her irresistible, not to mention, beautiful, happy-go-lucky, fervently religious but a bit naughty. As he thought about


And pick your love a posy, All o' the sweetest flowers That in the garden grow. The turtle doves and sma' birds In every bough a-building, So early in the May-time At the break o' the day! It would have melted the heart of a stone to hear her singing these ditties, whenever she worked apart from the rest of the girls in this cold dry time; the tears running down her cheeks all the while at the thought that perhaps he would not, after all, come to hear her, and the simple silly words of the songs resounding in painful mockery of the aching heart of the singer. Tess was so wrapt up in this fanciful dream that she seemed not to know how the season was advancing; that the days had lengthened, that Lady-Day was at hand, and would soon be followed by Old Lady-Day, the end of her term here. But before the quarter-day had quite come something happened which made Tess think of far different matters. She was at her lodging as usual one evening, sitting in the downstairs room with the rest of the family, when somebody knocked at the door and inquired for Tess. Through the doorway she saw against the declining light a figure with the height of a woman and the breadth of a child, a tall, thin, girlish creature whom she did not recognize in the twilight till the girl said "Tess!" "What--is it 'Liza-Lu?" asked Tess, in startled accents. Her sister, whom a little over a year ago she had left at home as a child, had sprung up by a sudden shoot to a form of this presentation, of which as yet Lu seemed herself scarce able to understand the meaning. Her thin legs, visible below her once long frock now short by her growing, and her uncomfortable hands and arms, revealed her youth and inexperience. "Yes, I have been traipsing about all day, Tess," said Lu, with unemotional gravity, "a-trying to find 'ee; and I'm very tired." "What is the matter at home?" "Mother is took very bad, and the doctor says she's dying, and as father is not very well neither, and says 'tis wrong for a man of such a high family as his to slave and drave at common labouring work, we don't know what to do." Tess stood in reverie a long time before she thought of asking 'Liza-Lu to come in and sit down. When she had done so, and 'Liza-Lu was having some tea, she came to a decision. It was imperative that she should go home. Her agreement did not end till Old Lady-Day, the sixth of April, but as the interval thereto was not a long one she resolved to run the risk of starting at once. To go that night would be a gain of twelve-hours; but her sister was too tired to undertake such a distance till the morrow. Tess ran down to where Marian and Izz lived, informed them of what had happened, and begged them to make the


own. God bless gym shorts. We alternate control; sometimes he guides me and sometimes I take the lead, grinding against his hard-on until he clutches me tighter and tighter, one hand at the nape of my neck and the other on the small of my back. Everything I’m wearing is damp, sweaty, but neither of us cares. “See?” I pant out. “Look how much fun we can have without taking any of our clothes off.” From the half-lidded contentedness on his face, hair askew and cheeks flushed, it’s obvious he’s enjoying this, too. “The way you cried out when I was inside you,” he says, mouth on my collarbone. “Back in Seattle. I can’t wait to make you do that for real.” An ache settles low in my stomach. I’m about to tell him that maybe we won’t need that dirty-talk lesson at all, and I can’t help wondering what might have happened if he’d done these things that first night we were together. Except this isn’t a rewrite. This is practice. “That’s probably good for today,” I say, the suddenness of that realization shocking me back to reality. Because it’s not me that Finn’s here with—I’m just a stand-in for a future mystery woman. Waiting for someone real to take over the role. Finn stops right away as I move off him. “Yeah?” he says. “I think you’ve got this down. Top marks. Eleven out of ten.” His gaze lingers on me, but I focus instead on the rise and fall of his chest, and when even that makes my skin heat, I drag my eyes to the plain white duvet. I blink away the stars at the edges of my vision, trying not to think about how another minute of rubbing against him, and I probably would have come apart. “Thank you,” he says. “If that isn’t weird to say?” “I think all of this is weird,” I manage. “But—you’re welcome.” A few more strained seconds of silence. “I might go for a run,” he finally says. “I think it’s cooled off enough.” After he leaves, I lie there for moments, minutes, waiting for my breathing to return to normal. Distantly, I hear the AC kick back on, but my body refuses to cool down. Lesson one was far more thrilling than I thought it would be. There’s no doubt I’m attracted to him, given I went back to his hotel that first night. Maybe we should have kept going, finished everything in one day so we could focus on the real reason we’re stuck in this Airbnb outside of Phoenix, Arizona. But we’re here to work. So I open my laptop, pull up The Nocturnals, and hit play on episode two. THE NOCTURNALS REUNION SET FOR DECEMBER Entertainment Weekly The werewolves are back. After ten years, The Nocturnals, the fan-favorite TBA Studios show, will return for a two-hour reunion special filmed in front of a studio audience. All principal cast members have been confirmed: Ethan Underwood, Juliana Guo, Finn Walsh, Hallie Hendricks, Bree Espinoza, and Cooper Jones. For a


into the kitchen. Joseph was bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it, and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by. The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl. I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, "I'll make the porridge!" I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and riding-habit. "Mr. Earnshaw," I continued, "directs me to wait on myself. I will. I'm not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve." "Gooid Lord!" he muttered, sitting down and strok- ing his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle. "If there's to be fresh ortherings, just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev a mistress set o'er my heead, it's like time to be flitting. I niver did think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld place, but I doubt it's nigh at hand!" This lamentation drew no notice from me. I went briskly to work, sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun, but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance. It racked me to recall past happiness and the greater peril there was of con- juring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with grow- ing indignation. "Thear!" he ejaculated. "Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge to-neeght; they'il be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean! I'd fling in bowl un all, if I wer ye! There, pale t' guilp off, un then ye'll hae done wi't. Bang, bang. It's a mercy t' bothom isn't deaved out!" It was rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins. Four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug, affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety, assuring me repeatedly that "the barn was every bit as good" as I, "and every bit as wollsome," and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile the infant ruffian continued sucking, and glowered up at me defy- ingly as he slavered into the jug. "I shall have my supper in another room," I said. "Have you no place you call a parlour?" "Parlour!" he echoed sneeringly--"parlour! Nay, we've noa parlours. If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's; un if yah dunnut loike maister, there's us." "Then I shall go upstairs," I answered. "Show me a chamber." I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk. With great


the skills elite employers desire.” The new slide tells us these skills are: Resilience Commitment Creative thinking Relationship building Leadership I smirk and glance over at Celine. Maybe she predicted my reaction, because our eyes meet, and she scowls. “Relationship building?” I whisper. “Shut up,” she mouths. “Tell me the last relationship you built. Quickly.” “I could build one right now, between my foot and your arse.” “Shh,” I tut. “Don’t talk over Katharine. I’m trying to listen.” Very, very quietly, Celine screams. It’s drowned out by Katharine’s microphone boom. “Can you commit to the rules needed to survive out in the wild, and think of creative ways to apply them?” she asks. The next slide shows a woodland with the words SHERWOOD FOREST: THE EDUCATION EXPEDITION written over the top. She keeps going. “And do you have the determination and teamwork skills to combine all you’ve learned and complete a miles-long trek independently, hunting down Golden Compasses along the way? You’ll have the opportunity to prove it here….” Click. A new slide appears with a picture of a forest. GLEN FINGLAS: THE FINAL EXPEDITION. “During both expeditions,” she says, “trained supervisors will be scoring you from zero to five against each matrix indicator, then averaging your score for the week. After your education expedition in Sherwood Forest, you will meet personally with me to receive advice on how to improve ahead of the final expedition in Glen Finglas.” I think Celine’s head just exploded and rainbow confetti flew out. “In the end, your scores from both expeditions will be used to calculate your final marks. For context,” Katharine goes on, “the highest score ever achieved through our matrix is 4.88.” Um. No one’s ever gotten a five? What the hell kind of competition doesn’t allow a perfect score? I slide a glance at Celine and find her just as outraged as I am, which is unnerving, to say the least. We really shouldn’t agree on anything, ever. “But first—only those of you whose applications are unique and compelling enough will make it into the BEP at all. We’ll begin with a twenty-person cohort.” Twenty people? There’s at least ten times that in this room. The general hum of excitement turns into a low buzz of apprehension, of competition, as everyone eyes their neighbors. For some reason, I find myself eyeing Celine. Not that we’re in competition for this. It’s just habit. She glares back. “What are you looking at?” “Not my competition,” I say, “that’s for sure.” Her mouth forms a perfect little O. “Bradley! Have you finally accepted that I’m fundamentally superior to you in every way? Bravo. I knew this day would come.” “Oh, Celine,” I say, flashing the sweetest smile in my arsenal. “Some might say it’s cruel to let you live in this fantasy world you’ve created. But if it keeps you from sinking into the depths of despair, I’ll let you dream.” She scowls. I bet she’d scowl even harder if I got into her precious BEP and won the whole thing (surely someone gets to


Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

hated exercise -- unless of course it involved punching somebody. Dudley's favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn't often catch him. Harry didn't look it, but he was very fast. Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose. The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it. "In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions." Don't ask questions -- that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys. Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon. "Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting. About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way -- all over the place. Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel -- Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig. Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell. "Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year." "Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy." "All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face. Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over. Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?" Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty...thirty..." "Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia. "Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and


Hap snapped. “S-stop talking. No one say a w-w-word. I’ll find a way out of h-here. Victor, can you hear me? Victor.” But Vic couldn’t answer. He stared up at the sky as the house loomed before them. The last thing he saw before they were swallowed by the house was a blackbird circling overhead, singing its winter song. “Sorry about this!” the Coachman cried. “It might sting a little! Just need to make you a bit more compliant. It’ll be over before you know it.” “Oh no,” Nurse Ratched said as an electric snarl filled the air. The wire mesh around them crackled to life, and electricity coursed through them, causing them all to shake and seize. And then all Vic knew was darkness. Dad smiled. “My wonderful boy. My weary traveler.” Vic reached for him. But Dad was gone. His vision blurred. He blinked again and again. “Finally,” Nurse Ratched said. “I was almost worried. Victor, are you all right?” Vic turned his head. He lay on his back in a cage. The bars were black and thick. He sat up, groaning as he did so. His body felt stiff, his muscles aching. He stretched his arms over his head, popping his back. His helmet sat at an odd angle. He righted it, adjusting the strap under his chin. “Ah!” a cheerful voice said. “Good! You’re awake. I was worried for a moment. I thought I’d used too much juice.” Vic looked out between the bars of the cage, the floor humming quietly underneath him. In front of the cage—and well out of arm’s reach—sat the Coachman in a high-backed chair, Vic’s pack in his lap. The cages themselves were in a row, Hap to Vic’s left, Nurse Ratched and Rambo in their own cages to Vic’s right. When Hap saw Vic rising to his feet, he stopped pacing. “Are you all r-rright?” Vic winced, rubbing the back of his neck. “I think so.” “I’ll k-kill you,” Hap snarled at the Coachman. “The m-moment I g-get out of here, I am g-going to tear you apart.” “Ooh,” the Coachman said. “I believe that. Yes, good. Use it. Harness that anger. Be as fearsome as you like!” He laughed as he clapped. “It’ll only make things that much more interesting for my paying customers.” “What do you want?” Rambo moaned. “Are you going to eat us?” “Of course not,” the Coachman said. “What a terrible thought. I would never do such a thing, my little friend. You are a vacuum. You are very important to me.” “I am?” Rambo asked. “Why?” The Coachman waved his hand around the room. What filled the space around them wasn’t unlike what Dad had gathered in the ground house, though on a much larger scale. It was a strange assortment, bits and bobs of humanity under a vaulted ceiling with exposed beams. The shelves on the walls were lined with all manner of things: darkened computer screens, small televisions, spoons and forks, lamps with gaudy glass shades, stuffed toys (bears and horses with horns on


sister never touched me when she was sober. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I had to do it. I had to have a life of my own. Just for a little bit.” Since then, it’s been a game of pretend. That I’m Lenora. That she’s Mrs. Baker. That we’re not sisters but just an incapacitated boss and her devoted servant. And it’s how things will remain until one of us Hope girls dies. I know she thinks it’s me who will go first. Now my only goal in a life that had once been filled with many dreams and desires is to make sure that doesn’t happen. THIRTY-EIGHT You must think me a terrible person,” Lenora says after detailing her life away from Hope’s End. Spending two years in France. Drinking in music halls. Mingling with artists. Kissing strangers on the streets of Paris. She met an American serviceman, fell in love, got engaged, was crushed when he died. All those photographs I found in her bedroom were snapshots of that other life. The one Virginia had dreamed about. And the one Lenora stole from her. “Yes.” Even if I lie, she’ll know from the look of repulsion I’m certain is on my face. “You are.” Terrible. And selfish. And heartless. Because Lenora didn’t just take the life her sister longed for. She took away the chance for Virginia to have any kind of life at all. “How could you?” I say. “She was your sister. I know you didn’t like each other. But she was the only family you had left.” “What else could I have done?” “Told the truth.” Lenora slams the glass down, sloshing wine. It spatters the counter like blood. “I tried! No one believed me! In everyone’s mind, Lenora Hope had slaughtered her family. I couldn’t continue to be her. I would have been as much a captive in this house as my sister. And what good would that have done? Virginia couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk, couldn’t do anything. By pushing my identity onto her—” “Against her will,” I interject. “Yes, against her will. But by doing that, at least one of us got to enjoy a little freedom. At least one of us got to have a life outside of Hope’s End.” “Why did you come back?” “Europe was changing,” Lenora says as she blots at the spilled wine with the cuff of her sleeve, the black fabric sucking up the red liquid. “The storm was gathering, and everyone knew it was only a matter of time before it swept across the continent. I got out and came back here, pretending to be Miss Baker, the prodigal tutor returning to an estate in dire need of her assistance. My sister was Lenora Hope, unfortunate victim of polio and multiple strokes. Because we kept a low profile, no one knew it was all a lie. No one but Archie, who understood the benefit of keeping silent.” “Why didn’t you leave again after the war?” “I no longer had the desire,” Lenora says with a shrug. “Or, frankly, the


his eyes, but he is exhausted, and when suddenly roused to any exertion, he speedily sinks again into apparent lifelessness. I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny. This morning, as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friend-- his eyes half closed and his limbs hanging listlessly--I was roused by half a dozen of the sailors, who demanded admission into the cabin. They entered, and their leader addressed me. He told me that he and his companions had been chosen by the other sailors to come in deputation to me to make me a requisition which, in justice, I could not refuse. We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my course southwards. This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived the idea of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice, or even in possibility, refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered, when Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and indeed appeared hardly to have force enough to attend, now roused himself; his eyes sparkled, and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning towards the men, he said, "What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a glorious expedition? "And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, they were chilly and returned to their warm - firesides. Why, that requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say


well,” she’d said. “I’ll do my best.” Now Winnie felt a hand on her arm. “Madam!” It was an usher, barring the way. “Have you got a ticket?” Winnie felt his eyes assessing her shabby coat, and marched back to the lobby. She spent all the cash Mrs. King had given her on a box. Necessary expense, she told herself, trying not to look at the price. They gave her a program for free, which was something. It was printed on silk, the color of peaches and cream. She ran her finger down the acts, searching for one name: Hephzibah Grandcourt. Couldn’t find it. She frowned, looking out over the balcony. There were an awful lot of shopkeepers and cutlery salesmen here. The men wore tartan jackets, luridly patterned, and left their umbrellas in the aisle. Stop being a snob, she reminded herself. She looked odder than they did, a lump of coal in a jewelry box, pins falling out of her hat. Another usher peered in. “Something from the menu?” “Brandy,” she said, summoning her courage. She might as well have asked for a tankard of stout. The usher gave her a wink. Winnie didn’t know if this made her feel better or worse. Her legs were shaking, she noticed. Guilt. Then she heard the door. The creak and rustle of silk. “Well, they’re in a wonderful flap downstairs,” said a voice over her shoulder. “Some charlady’s gone and pinched the best seats in the house.” Winnie steeled herself, and turned around. Her first impression was not of the person standing before her. It was of the person hidden within that person. It was just about possible, if you concentrated, to see the girl who’d once worked in the kitchen at Park Lane twenty years ago. A common house sparrow concealed inside a splendid bird of paradise. Her teeth were bared in a smile, pearls choking her neck, hair gleaming and soaring into the air. But the eyes were the same. Cornflower blue, and wide open. “Hullo, Hephzibah,” said Winnie. She took care to use the new name. It seemed the least she could do. Hephzibah Grandcourt’s eyes didn’t move. She was an actress, after all. She had the most extraordinary control of her face. She’d possessed that skill even when she worked at Park Lane, back in the days when her hands were yellow from the laundry soap and she always smelled of ammonia. She’d had presence then, and she had presence now, and her expression radiated anger. “Who told you I was working down here?” she asked. Winnie straightened. “Nobody. I guessed.” Hephzibah gave off a powerful scent of sugared fruits and almonds, sickly sweet. “I spotted you from behind the stage, of course.” She flexed her fingers. “I simply couldn’t. Believe. My. Eyes.” She skewered Winnie with her gaze. “Did you come for my autograph?” Winnie reminded herself to tread carefully. She had known Hephzibah half her life. And when Hephzibah left Park Lane, eighteen years before, Winnie had stayed in touch, with dogged persistence—sending humdrum letters; buying


that’s the direction he’s heading. When he thinks about what he likes about his job, what he’s best at, it isn’t reporting hard news, but telling stories, and he’s kind of pissed that Mark Bailey was the one to put the idea into his head. “Can’t wait to read it,” Andy says, his mouth tipping up in a smile. * * * It takes Nick two hours to catch the cat. That little fucker wanders into Nick’s apartment every few days, but the one time Nick actually wants him he’s nowhere to be found. He isn’t outside the fish store or the coffee shop or even in the dumpster behind the deli. Nick finds about fourteen other cats and a lot of animals he doesn’t want to think about, but not the one he wants. “Have you seen that orange cat?” he asks a group of kids playing stickball in the lot next to St. Veronica’s. “The stupid one?” asks a girl in braids. “The one who gets stuck on fire escapes?” asks another. “The one who sleeps in dumpsters?” asks a third. “Yeah, yeah,” Nick says. “That one.” The kids all point in different directions. Useless. Nick eventually finds him curled up next to the laundry, enjoying the hot steam seeping out from the cellar door despite the fact that it’s got to be seventy-five degrees today. He gives a halfhearted hiss when Nick picks him up. “Swear to God, if you give me fleas,” Nick mutters. The cat manages to look bewildered and offended the entire trip back to the apartment and up the stairs, as if he hasn’t been in this stairwell dozens of times. Andy’s having dinner with his father and an advertiser, so Nick still has time to get this thing presentable. He drops the cat into the sink and immediately fills it with warm water, keeping a hand on the back of the cat’s neck just in case. He’s never given a cat a bath before and doesn’t think this is going to be a good experience for either of them. On his way home that afternoon he went to Woolworth and bought a litter box and some cat food, then got a flea dip at the drugstore. He already has the flea dip waiting in the kitchen, next to a bottle of his own shampoo and a big fluffy towel. “The goal here,” Nick says, carefully soaping the animal’s back with shampoo, “is not to get this in your eyes.” The cat lifts a paw and very deliberately scratches him. “Ow,” he says. And then he hisses when soap hits the broken skin. “Jesus, does that make us even?” The water is filthy, so Nick drains the sink and starts the process over again. The cat seems patient, if infuriated, but lets Nick have his way. “It’s just that we both know Andy’s going to let you all over the furniture, and I won’t have the heart to stop him, so we at least need to get the street filth and some of the fleas


crinkled with apology, “But I do need you to take off your shirt.” Joe shrugged. “Fine.” No wonder Mr. Kim called him Helpful. I couldn’t get a no out of this guy. All to say: Ready or not, we were doing this. I led him toward my easel, where I’d placed a stool for him right up close. Everything had to be within arm’s reach—the stool, the canvas, the paints. By the time I had us set up, his knees were on either side of my thigh—close enough that we kept brushing and bumping against each other, over and over … In a way that I worked very hard to experience as nonsensual. Joe waited for instructions. But I suddenly felt shy to give them. “So now … if you wouldn’t mind … I need you to take off your jacket … and your shirt, if that’s okay. Because … I don’t know if you know this about yourself, but your torso is really … compelling. And I just feel like it would be a tragic missed opportunity to leave it out.” “You think my torso is compelling?” Joe asked, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over my sofa. I could feel him smiling. “Yes,” I said, trying to clarify through tone of voice that my intentions were so honorable they were almost scientific. “Artistically. Visually. Mathematically, even. It’s compelling. To look at. By all objective standards. And so if I can capture that in the portrait, then the portrait will be compelling, too.” Joe peeled off his T-shirt, and my eyes took in the sight without asking permission. “You sure you’re good with this?” I asked. “You’re much more nervous than I am.” “I just want to make sure I have your consent.” “I am one hundred percent consent.” I’d painted many models over the years, and it was never nerve-racking like this. But this was different. Usually the models were across the room, not right up next to me. And I never touched them—just looked. And they were not people I had kissed. Or yelled at. Or eaten linguine with. Or ridden Vespas with. Or told about my mother. Or cried in front of. They were always strangers. That’s when I realized that Joe wasn’t a stranger. I didn’t know exactly what he was to me, but he wasn’t a stranger. All the touching I was about to do to him … it couldn’t be just an art project. It couldn’t be just about shapes and textures and tones. There were emotions involved. I didn’t know how to get rid of them. And I didn’t want to get rid of them. And I suspected, honestly, that they’d make the painting better. If I could keep it together. I lifted my hands up for Joe to see. “So,” I said, trying to make it all sound rational, “I’m going to touch everything that’s going to be in the portrait with these.” I shook my hands at him. Joe nodded, like Cool. “First I’m going to just kind of map


few shifts. He got in trouble with the union, was thrown off the build, and kept coming night after night after night. The guard dogs got fat, he fed them so much steak. After three months, they’d dug up every single square metre of that place, and found nothing, and Roddy drifted on with the jacket packed away in his suitcase. The scanned images of handwritten notes are jagged, stained with tears. Not here, underlined again and again. I was so sure. I picture him sitting in roadside motels and rooming houses, alone at night, just him holding the jacket on his knees, looking down at the collar and listening to the sound of the rain. I follow Roddy through his maze, his winding amateur investigation, watching him miss obvious avenues and chase off after rabbits he’ll never catch. He drives me crazy with his bullshit, his pride, his need. His stupidity. For a smart guy, he’s appallingly dumb. I want to grab him and yell at him: there’s nothing here. But that’s because Roddy doesn’t put things in their proper order. He’s not building a case, he has no thought of prosecution. He wants to know, first. He thinks detection is the business of finding the one right clue that reveals everything, and that it ends in a living room, where you put your hands in your waistcoat pocket and explain why you’ve called everyone here this evening. There are no prosecutors and no penal codes in Roddy’s movie of his life; there’s no budget ceiling, no awareness of Stefan’s defence team, the fog of reasonable doubt they would summon over anything touched by Roddy after this mad quest. There’s no real world, only justice. Justice for what? For this, this one file, separate from all the others, which I almost miss because it’s so small and so long ago. Roddy did not need this file, because he knew it. It was burned in him. The root of his mania and the banner he raised high. It is a medical history for Lillian Jana Antonin, and it is cold, hard reading. The preamble is three years of cosmetic surgeries. Lillian changed her appearance incrementally. She added an inch of height first. They broke her shinbones and vised them as they healed, ran electric current into her to stimulate bone growth. Old-fashioned and painful, only for the very determined. In a world used to Titans, she must have looked elfin, slender to the point of fragile. Vulnerable. Standing next to Stefan, she would have looked like air and glass. After that she worked her way up her body: ass, belly, ribs, breasts, shoulders and face. The first consultant in the history noted that she was good-looking and physically fit. He did not feel comfortable performing these surgeries. He advised a period of reflection and counselling. He was replaced. Lillian Antonin was fitting herself to a template, to her lover’s ethereal, impractical dream. Was he paying? Was he demanding? The history has nothing to say. When it was done, there was a gap


as I watched him wrap the box in black paper with gold flourishes, I knew I would have robbed a bank (well, metaphorically) to get her this. I arrived at the house just after eight and, like I always did, I took a quick check around the side, just in case. Just in case what, Henry? That the bookshop with the manuscript inside has suddenly reappeared? I threw my eyes heavenward and shook my head. ‘Utter fantasist,’ I muttered to myself as I walked up the steps to the front door. I stopped mid-stride as I saw movement in the window. It was Martha in a sapphire blue evening gown cut low at the back, framing the large tattoo on her skin. Her bright blonde hair was styled in a braid that she wore like a crown around her head. I felt my knees weaken. It was no use. No matter how much I talked myself out of it when I was alone, as soon as I saw her, all of the feelings came flooding back. Then I saw him, the same guy I’d seen with her at Trinity. He was telling some anecdote that had everyone in stitches. He was older and balding, but clearly he had something I didn’t. ‘Reliability?’ a voice said, reading my mind. I looked up to find Madame Bowden standing in the front doorway, walking stick in one hand, cigarette in the other. ‘How long have you been there?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Are you coming inside, Mr Field?’ ‘Actually, I don’t think I can,’ I said. ‘I’ve just realised, um, I have a previous engagement. Perhaps you could give her this?’ I asked, offering the wrapped gift. ‘I beg your pardon? You seem to be mistaking me for some kind of courier! I am the lady of this house and if you were a gentleman, you would come inside and give it to her yourself.’ I exhaled heavily. That woman. The house looked magnificent, twinkling with a terrific amount of fairy lights. I could hear light chatter and the sound of glasses clinking in the drawing room. I waited to let Madame Bowden enter ahead of me, but she’d acted out of character and made herself scarce. Walking through the open double doors, I saw the table was laid with hors d’oeuvres and a large iced cake. It seemed the old dear had really begun to take a shine to Martha, looking at the spread she had laid on. But then, who wouldn’t? I said hello to a few people, then slowly made my way towards the birthday girl, resisting every step that took me closer to her. She looked up and gave me that blue-eyed stare I remembered from the first morning I met her, looking through the basement window. But now, like this, with her beautiful dress, the look was even more disarming. ‘Happy birthday, Martha,’ I said. She stepped away from her group of friends and let her hand rest on my wrist before leaning in to kiss my cheek. ‘Oh, Henry!’ Yes,


different.” Ethan admired her profile in the twilight. “I just kept focused on my end goal. I got my pre-med degree in three years while working a couple of after-hours jobs. The fact that it was hard actually kept me motivated.” She turned to face him. “The sooner I got through it, the sooner I could be a doctor, and start being the person I wanted to be. “Wow. I must sound pretty pathetic to complain about my parents. You’re incredible, you know that?” He looked into her dark eyes. “Being around you is inspiring. You make me want to be better.” Her long hair lifted in the wind behind her head as the ferry approached the Seattle waterfront pier. She smiled before gazing toward the city skyline beyond the water. “It gives you a different perspective being out here. I’m in this city every day, but I never get to view it like this. To take a step back and actually enjoy it.” His eyes were on her when she tilted her face toward him. The city was beautiful from the water, its lights brightening with the setting sun. But for Ethan, it was nothing compared to what it felt like to be standing next to Sloane. Enjoying it with her. “What city?” She laughed. “Ethan Marks, do these lines really work for you?” “I’m serious.” He’d never met anyone so beautiful and so smart. “Do you even have any flaws, doctor? There is something almost…superhuman about you.” She giggled before feigning a pensive expression. “Hmm. Superhuman. Yes, I get that all the time.” “I’m serious.” He moved closer to her. She grinned playfully. “So am I, detective.” “I was drawn to you the first time I saw you. There’s something different about you.” Sloane’s gaze fell to his mouth before returning to his eyes. “I was drawn to you too, detective.” Her smile was replaced with a look of longing. Ethan lowered his mouth to hers as the ferry horn blared from above, cutting though the stillness of the calm night. Ethan glances at his phone atop the down comforter. What is she doing? He wishes he would have taken the time to install the doorbell video app on their front porch that Sloane bought several months ago. If Sloane invites that dating app founder to their home, she’s got another thing coming. A tear slides down his cheek as he nurses the beer he grabbed from the mini bar and tries to focus on Steve McQueen racing the streets of San Francisco in his famous Mustang GT. But as much as he tries not to care, to hate Sloane for what she’s done, he can’t. But there was no disappointment in her eyes tonight. There was something else. Something he didn’t recognize. He’s not sure whether he’s more terrified to lose her or infuriated. The woman who came home and lied to his face is someone he doesn’t know. He checks his phone another time before he throws it across the room. It lands with a thud on the


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

which astonished me. During one of my few waking moments, Wendell explained that I had allowed myself to take part in a powerful enchantment—the making of the sword— and as I had no magic myself, the enchantment had instead absorbed much of my mortal strength, and it would take time for that to recover. This fascinating statement immediately filled me with questions: Is that what Deirdre did, sacrificing her own strength for her faerie husband’s sake, and is that why she died shortly thereafter? By what alchemy does mortal strength contribute to faerie magic, and is it only the courtly fae who have access to this? But I was asleep again before I could ask him. Once we returned to the cottage, I tumbled into bed and slept for another night and a morning, and when I awoke, I felt whole again. “Wendell?” I called. I don’t know why I did so—I was on the edge of sleep still, and for some reason the quietness of the cottage alarmed me. But he came into the room, smiling smugly. “I have been up for hours,” he said, which I did not for a second believe. “Shall I send for breakfast?” “Oh, yes.” He had already eaten, but that did not stop him from helping himself to the food brought by Finn and Krystjan—hearty dark bread, smoked fish, goose eggs, a variety of cheeses, and blueberries that had been canned fresh in syrup, which they had mixed into oatmeal and yogurt and piled with toasted sugar. It was a more elaborate breakfast than any we’d been served before, and even stranger, both Finn and Krystjan delivered it. Bambleby invited them jovially to dine with us, an overture that was immediately accepted. This suited me well, as I was able to eat in peace while Bambleby entertained himself with directing his charms at two willing recipients, both of whom were full of questions regarding our exploits. Lilja and Margret, I learned, had been safely delivered by Wendell to Lilja’s family home, and were both in good cheer; Lilja’s parents were beside themselves with relief and gratitude, while Lilja’s younger siblings were enthralled by the strange but lovely scar upon Margret’s forehead. I was more than content that Bambleby had absorbed the initial onslaught of praise, which no doubt factored into his present high spirits. He answered Finn and Krystjan’s questions elaborately, and somehow a wolf pack and a fearsome ice storm found their way into our journey to the Hidden Ones’ fair, as if the tale was in need of embellishment. The men hung on his every word, which I was used to, but there was something in the way they hesitated in their speech, as if every word directed at Bambleby needed to be carefully selected, and the way Finn cast nervous looks at Krystjan whenever his natural abrasiveness came through—that was entirely new. “They know about you,” I said bluntly after Finn and Krystjan finally departed. “The whole village?” He helped himself to more yogurt. “Lilja and Margret are clever girls, but even


a shaky voice: "Tom, less git out of here!" "What! and leave the treasure?" "Yes -- leave it. Injun Joe's ghost is round about there, certain." "No it ain't, Huck, no it ain't. It would ha'nt the place where he died -- away out at the mouth of the cave -- five mile from here." "No, Tom, it wouldn't. It would hang round the money. I know the ways of ghosts, and so do you." Tom began to fear that Huck was right. Misgivings gathered in his mind. But presently an idea occurred to him -- --------------------------------------------------------- -310- "Lookyhere, Huck, what fools we're making of ourselves! Injun Joe's ghost ain't a going to come around where there's a cross!" The point was well taken. It had its effect. "Tom, I didn't think of that. But that's so. It's luck for us, that cross is. I reckon we'll climb down there and have a hunt for that box." Tom went first, cutting rude steps in the clay hill as he descended. Huck followed. Four avenues opened out of the small cavern which the great rock stood in. The boys examined three of them with no result. They found a small recess in the one nearest the base of the rock, with a pallet of blankets spread down in it; also an old suspender, some bacon rind, and the well-gnawed bones of two or three fowls. But there was no money-box. The lads searched and researched this place, but in vain. Tom said: "He said under the cross. Well, this comes nearest to being under the cross. It can't be under the rock itself, because that sets solid on the ground." They searched everywhere once more, and then sat down discouraged. Huck could suggest nothing. By-and-by Tom said: "Lookyhere, Huck, there's footprints and some candle-grease on the clay about one side of this rock, but not on the other sides. Now, what's that for? I bet you the money is under the rock. I'm going to dig in the clay." --------------------------------------------------------- -311- "That ain't no bad notion, Tom!" said Huck with animation. Tom's "real Barlow" was out at once, and he had not dug four inches before he struck wood. "Hey, Huck! -- you hear that?" Huck began to dig and scratch now. Some boards were soon uncovered and removed. They had concealed a natural chasm which led under the rock. Tom got into this and held his candle as far under the rock as he could, but said he could not see to the end of the rift. He proposed to explore. He stooped and passed under; the narrow way descended gradually. He followed its winding course, first to the right, then to the left, Huck at his heels. Tom turned a short curve, by-and-by, and exclaimed: "My goodness, Huck, lookyhere!" It was the treasure-box, sure enough, occupying a snug little cavern, along with an empty powder-keg, a couple of guns in leather cases, two or three pairs of old moccasins, a leather belt, and some other rubbish well soaked with the water-drip.


in on its prey.” Against every instinct in my body, I look down and this time I can’t hold it in. “Maddie, are you giggling?” “Sorry, I’m sorry! I’m not laughing at you,” I rush to add. “It’s just nervous energy, I swear.” “You’re nervous?” he asks. “Just a little.” “That’s very sweet.” “It’s just … I’m … It’s nothing.” When I press my lips together, he hardens—well, the rest of him does. “Maddie, are you a virgin?” “I believe that’s what the kids are calling it these days. Oh, God, sorry.” I cover my face. “That was meant to be funny, but I’m not sure it even made sense. Yes, I’m a virgin. No sex. No! I don’t mean, like, never. It’s not a chastity-belt thing. I … It’s just never happened.” I lower my hands, and Ben is smiling and rubbing my arms. “How is that possible? Look at you.” I want to ask if he really means that but end up burying my face in my hands again. “Stop that.” He gently encircles my wrists. I still keep my eyes closed and he sighs. “So, I take it tonight’s not the night.” Behind me, bones are crunching and I assume the lion has won. “Granted, not the best setting,” he adds. “Sorry.” “Don’t apologize.” He lifts me off his lap but lies back and pulls me on top of him. I rest my head under his chin, grateful that yesterday was hair wash day. After a while, I say, “Is it bad that I was rooting for the lion?” “Instead of Bambi?” “Lions have to eat.” “What about Bambi’s future plans?” “Bambi had future plans. Not anymore.” Ben pauses. “So you have a dark side?” He finds my bum and squeezes. “Good to know.” Chapter Fifteen OTP is going with my idea, only, no one knows it was my idea. Kris is getting the credit because, according to the minutes of the last Creative meeting, instead of Cooking Combos, she proposed Flavor Pairings. Which is more refined, I suppose, but swapping words for synonyms doesn’t make it her idea! Does it? At our catch-up, I say, “Good news about Flavor Pairings.” “Yes,” Kris says, looking directly at me. “Penny loved the idea, so well done, but we’ve got a lot to do to turn the concept into an actual book. We’ve yet to whittle down which of our food writers we want to approach.” I brighten up. She said “we’ve”—twice. I’m still in. “I’ve got a lot of ideas,” I say, opening my notebook. “Even some ‘pair’ ideas for the cover.” Kris tilts her head at my inverted comma gesture. “I thought it might be funny,” I explain, “to have a pear on the cover with one of its classic flavor combos, like chocolate, a bar of chocolate, I mean. Or chocolate chips, but they might look like droppings, so maybe the bar…” “Ah, well, Design is in charge of covers, but I can certainly mention your idea this afternoon.” “I can take the minutes for the meeting,” I


doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!" 11 pm.--I gave Renfield a strong opiate tonight, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocketbook to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous (life-eating) maniac. What he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results today! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect, the knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind, did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic, I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's brain knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted. A good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally? How well the man reasoned. Lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and today begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives? To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it shall be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours, but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! Work! If I could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there, a good, unselfish cause to make me work, that would be indeed happiness. MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL 26 July.--I am anxious,and it soothes me to express myself here. It is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned, but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking


quince—burst forth with splashes of color in different seasons. Vines creep and cling to balustrades and walls; some hang from branches or eaves and wave gently in the breeze. The walkways are inlaid with stones to massage the bottoms of the feet. If the body replicates the cosmos and the ear is a reflection of the entire body, then the garden is a container for the universe. Rocky grottos evoke mountain ranges. Ponds and streams bring forth the idea of lakes and rivers. Male voices float to my ears from one of the pavilions, and I stay as far away as the paths allow. My father-in-law and other men in the household like to meet there with friends to drink, play cards, sing songs of the mountainfolk, and be entertained by a concubine chosen for her particular skill. That they are still here at this early morning hour tells me that last night’s revelries were particularly enjoyable. I pass the Three-Way Moon-Viewing Pavilion, where I’ve spent precious hours with my husband on the nights of the full moon, observing that silvery orb in the sky, in the reflection of the pond, and in the mirror mounted at an angle above the lounging couch. We’ve tried hard on those nights to make Blood and Essence mingle to create a baby. How could the beauty and romance of this spot continue to fail us so? I reach a whitewashed building called the Hermitage, which rests in the middle of the garden’s largest pond. I cross the zigzag bridge and step onto the terrace that surrounds the structure. Resting my elbows on the carved marble railing, I gaze down at the water lilies and lotuses that float on the pond’s surface. It’s early enough that the koi are still nestled in the mud. The pond is so shallow, I could probably walk across it and get wet only to my knees. This terrace is my place to contemplate, to wonder, to dream. The garden, where every instance of wildness is manicured and controlled, is a reminder that I—like every man and woman on earth—am insignificant in the face of nature. I try to let the melancholy in my head flow down my arms, out my fingertips, and into the rippling water. As I breathe in the scented air, images of my grandparents, my brother, Miss Zhao, and Meiling come to mind. Think of me. Remember me. Love me. Fortified, I retrace my steps, leave the garden, and go to the inner chambers at the back of the compound. The women who live in the Garden of Fragrant Delights—including me—are among the most fortunate in the land. This also means we’re kept the most secluded. A good woman should not take three steps beyond the gate. As a result of this belief, some of the concepts found in the garden can be seen in the main gathering room. A miniature stone from Lake Tai sits on a stand. Incense gives off a woodsy scent. Lacquerware screens present tableaus of women watching an opera and attending a


asks if I’m looking forward to seeing Meiling. “You’ve always been close,” she says. “This will be a way for the two of you to spend time together.” And because she’s known us for so long, I’m able to confide my moment of jealousy about Meiling’s appointment. Miss Zhao’s expression is unreadable when she says, “I’m disappointed in you. You were born into a good family. Your only tragedy was the death of your mother. A hair off your arm is thicker than a man’s waist when compared to someone who started out as poor as Meiling. You should be happy for her success.” Miss Zhao’s words remind me of one of a Snake’s worst attributes: envy. I feel color rising in my face, but she isn’t finished. “A friend without faults will never be found,” she recites. “Many women call themselves friends, but one day the wind blows east and the next day the wind blows west. I never thought you would become a fickle or petty person. Especially not with Meiling.” For a moment I’m taken aback. Who is a concubine to criticize me? But of course I know the answer. Miss Zhao is the closest person I’ve had to a mother in my life. “Thank you, Miss Zhao. You’ve reminded me of an important lesson. Distance tests a horse’s strength; time reveals a person’s heart. You’ve always been loyal and kind to me. Please know I’m grateful.” Her response is yet another lesson. “You’ve placed that aphorism on the wrong person. Perhaps you should think of it in regard to Meiling. When she was sent thousands of li away from home, who did she think of first to share in her good fortune?” * * * When we first began traveling north the changes in the landscape were gradual. Now, three weeks into our journey, each day the weather is colder and wetter. The few villages we pass look small and sad. There is little grass, and no evidence of the five grains planted. Poppy has become so bored with the scenery that she prefers to stay in our room. Not me, even though the rain pours down. I need fresh air. Miss Zhao and I dress as best we can against the weather and join the tiller woman under an oiled canopy, where she steers the boat. I’m surprised when she addresses me directly. “I’ve overheard your bodyguards speak of you as a doctor,” she ventures. It’s a strange turn of phrase. “Speak of me?” I ask. The tiller woman raises a shoulder, conveying that the men were not talking about me with respect. She lets me absorb the wordless message, and then asks, “Would you ever consider treating a woman such as myself?” I worry that the bodyguards might report me to my husband and mother-in-law and decide this would not be a prudent idea, but Miss Zhao says, “Of course she will. Doctor Tan looks at a woman and sees a woman—no matter her status. I speak from experience.” I’m not sure what touches me more—that


as she called it, and describing, from a wish, probably, of exciting envy, the splendour of the balls, banquets, and processions which had just been given by the court, in honour of the nuptials of the Duke de Joyeuse with Margaretta of Lorrain, the sister of the Queen. She described with equal minuteness the magnificence she had seen, and that from which she had been excluded; while Emily's vivid fancy, as she listened with the ardent curiosity of youth, heightened the scenes she heard of; and Madame St. Aubert, looking on her family, felt, as a tear stole to her eye, that though splendour may grace happiness, virtue only can bestow it. 'It is now twelve years, St. Aubert,' said M. Quesnel, 'since I purchased your family estate.'--'Somewhere thereabout,' replied St. Aubert, suppressing a sigh. 'It is near five years since I have been there,' resumed Quesnel; 'for Paris and its neighbourhood is the only place in the world to live in, and I am so immersed in politics, and have so many affairs of moment on my hands, that I find it difficult to steal away even for a month or two.' St. Aubert remaining silent, M. Quesnel proceeded: 'I have sometimes wondered how you, who have lived in the capital, and have been accustomed to company, can exist elsewhere;--especially in so remote a country as this, where you can neither hear nor see any thing, and can in short be scarcely conscious of life.' 'I live for my family and myself,' said St. Aubert; 'I am now contented to know only happiness;--formerly I knew life.' 'I mean to expend thirty or forty thousand livres on improvements,' said M. Quesnel, without seeming to notice the words of St. Aubert; 'for I design, next summer, to bring here my friends, the Duke de Durefort and the Marquis Ramont, to pass a month or two with me.' To St. Aubert's enquiry, as to these intended improvements, he replied, that he should take down the whole east wing of the chateau, and raise upon the site a set of stables. 'Then I shall build,' said he, 'a SALLE A MANGER, a SALON, a SALLE AU COMMUNE, and a number of rooms for servants; for at present there is not accommodation for a third part of my own people.' 'It accommodated our father's household,' said St. Aubert, grieved that the old mansion was to be thus improved, 'and that was not a small one.' 'Our notions are somewhat enlarged since those days,' said M. Quesnel;--'what was then thought a decent style of living would not now be endured.' Even the calm St. Aubert blushed at these words, but his anger soon yielded to contempt. 'The ground about the chateau is encumbered with trees; I mean to cut some of them down.' 'Cut down the trees too!' said St. Aubert. 'Certainly. Why should I not? they interrupt my prospects. There is a chesnut which spreads its branches before the whole south side of the chateau, and which is so ancient that they tell me the hollow


there beside him on the bed. His fingers were thin, very nearly elegant. But there was something gross about them, encrusted with rings, prominent knuckles, hairs sprouting at odd angles. Hands for touching, prodding, peeling back layers. Fingers that carried disease under the nails. She didn’t touch the book. Someone would bring it down later. Pile it with the others, by her door. “Thank you,” she said—because it seemed like a kindness, because it didn’t cause anyone any harm. “I wrote a letter,” he said, hoarse. “If you want to know the truth.” She felt her body grow very still. “What?” “It’s in the house,” he said. “The letter.” Later she tried to recall the moment, to pinpoint what she had felt. Surprise? Curiosity? It was a wriggle in her gut, certainly, but it was more like—unease. He was being economical with words, and so was she. It took care, and skill, and precision, not to say too much. And looking at him lying there, flat against the pillows, she felt something cold entering her heart. He’s on the edge, she realized. He’s dealing with the final things. “What letter?” she asked, at length. His eyes flickered at that. He still had it: the taste for a game, the nose for a tease. “Find it,” he said, “and you’ll know, won’t you?” She yearned to move toward him, and she wanted to creep away, all at the same time. As if blood spoke to blood, repelling and seeking in equal measure. “Are you comfortable?” she said, at last. She asked because she was curious. She wondered what it felt like to be there, right on the brink. Because surely this was the end? Surely they were very near it now? You only had to measure the shrinking line of his neck, see the way the weight had fallen away from his cheeks. His movements were growing slower and slower, the degradation unstoppable. He let out a shallow breath. His eyes moved toward the blur of the medicine cabinet, the bowls, the pillboxes. “I’m bored,” he whispered. She loathed him in that moment, but she wanted to laugh, too. I would be bored, she thought. Oh, I would be so bored by it, dying. Straightening, she said, “Tell me about this letter.” “It’s about your poor mother,” he replied, barely a whisper. Mrs. King felt her body turn quite still. It was extraordinary, wasn’t it, how easily people could shock you? Even if she counted up all the years she’d been here, all the hours and minutes and seconds—and she could count them, she felt sometimes that she simply held them all in her mind, like little slots marked up with luggage labels—then she still couldn’t think of a time he’d mentioned Mother. In his house, in his world, this world that she had entered, Mother didn’t exist. Lockwood had impressed as much upon her, the first day she arrived. She felt a frisson pass through her skin. “What on earth do you mean?” she said, voice low. There was something building in


some spark of a prevision of the anguish that was to come. So we circled about, with terrors and scruples, like fighters not daring to close. But it was for each other we feared! That kept us a little longer suspended and unbruised. "I'll tell you everything," Miles said--"I mean I'll tell you anything you like. You'll stay on with me, and we shall both be all right, and I WILL tell you--I WILL. But not now." "Why not now?" My insistence turned him from me and kept him once more at his window in a silence during which, between us, you might have heard a pin drop. Then he was before me again with the air of a person for whom, outside, someone who had frankly to be reckoned with was waiting. "I have to see Luke." I had not yet reduced him to quite so vulgar a lie, and I felt proportionately ashamed. But, horrible as it was, his lies made up my truth. I achieved thoughtfully a few loops of my knitting. "Well, then, go to Luke, and I'll wait for what you promise. Only, in return for that, satisfy, before you leave me, one very much smaller request." He looked as if he felt he had succeeded enough to be able still a little to bargain. "Very much smaller--?" "Yes, a mere fraction of the whole. Tell me"--oh, my work preoccupied me, and I was offhand!--"if, yesterday afternoon, from the table in the hall, you took, you know, my letter." XXIV My sense of how he received this suffered for a minute from something that I can describe only as a fierce split of my attention-- a stroke that at first, as I sprang straight up, reduced me to the mere blind movement of getting hold of him, drawing him close, and, while I just fell for support against the nearest piece of furniture, instinctively keeping him with his back to the window. The appearance was full upon us that I had already had to deal with here: Peter Quint had come into view like a sentinel before a prison. The next thing I saw was that, from outside, he had reached the window, and then I knew that, close to the glass and glaring in through it, he offered once more to the room his white face of damnation. It represents but grossly what took place within me at the sight to say that on the second my decision was made; yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed ever in so short a time recovered her grasp of the ACT. It came to me in the very horror of the immediate presence that the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware. The inspiration-- I can call it by no other name--was that I felt how voluntarily, how transcendently, I MIGHT. It was like fighting with a demon for a human soul, and when I had fairly so appraised it I saw how the human soul--held out,


Silver, I should say, was allowed his entire liberty, and in varied that I think I never had more pleasure than in sorting spite of daily rebuffs, seemed to regard himself once more as them. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Georges, and quite a privileged and friendly dependent. Indeed, it was re- Louises, doubloons and double guineas and moidores and markable how well he bore these slights and with what sequins, the pictures of all the kings of Europe for the last unwearying politeness he kept on trying to ingratiate himself hundred years, strange Oriental pieces stamped with what with all. Yet, I think, none treated him better than a dog, looked like wisps of string or bits of spider’s web, round pieces unless it was Ben Gunn, who was still terribly afraid of his and square pieces, and pieces bored through the middle, as if old quartermaster, or myself, who had really something to to wear them round your neck—nearly every variety of money thank him for; although for that matter, I suppose, I had in the world must, I think, have found a place in that collec- reason to think even worse of him than anybody else, for I tion; and for number, I am sure they were like autumn leaves, had seen him meditating a fresh treachery upon the plateau. so that my back ached with stooping and my fingers with Accordingly, it was pretty gruffly that the doctor answered sorting them out. him. Day after day this work went on; by every evening a for- “Drunk or raving,” said he. tune had been stowed aboard, but there was another fortune “Right you were, sir,” replied Silver; “and precious little waiting for the morrow; and all this time we heard nothing of odds which, to you and me.” the three surviving mutineers. “I suppose you would hardly ask me to call you a humane At last—I think it was on the third night—the doctor man,” returned the doctor with a sneer, “and so my feelings and I were strolling on the shoulder of the hill where it over- may surprise you, Master Silver. But if I were sure they were looks the lowlands of the isle, when, from out the thick dark- raving—as I am morally certain one, at least, of them is down Contents ness below, the wind brought us a noise between shrieking with fever—I should leave this camp, and at whatever risk to and singing. It was only a snatch that reached our ears, fol- my own carcass, take them the assistance of my skill.” Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 286 287 “Ask your pardon, sir, you would be very wrong,” quoth The three fellows must have been watching us closer than Silver. “You would lose your precious life, and you may lay to we thought for, as we soon had proved. For coming through that. I’m on your side now, hand and glove; and I shouldn’t the narrows, we had to lie very near the southern point, and wish for to see the party weakened, let


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

Gabe’s knife wavered. “It’s been prophesied, but none wanted to believe it,” Anton rasped. “None except I. Hear me, Apollius! Hear how I warn them of the coming age, of what happens when new gods rise and try to stand against Your will!” Gabe stumbled, trying to keep a grip on the mad old man who’d been a kind of father, the only kind he could keep. His eye darted to Bastian, pleading. The Sun Prince—no, the Sainted King—watched on, implacable. His hands kept flexing, back and forth, working up more golden light. “You’re going to give us another solution, old man,” Bastian murmured. “Don’t make me cut it out of you.” Gabe looked away, but his dagger didn’t waver. “There is one.” Lore stepped forward, shaky; her wound was healed, but still sore. Her hair had fallen down, hung around her face in gold-brown strands made darker by blood. “I learned to guard my mind from Mortem before. Gabe taught me. It can’t be that much different now. I can keep myself from sensing power, from growing stronger. Keep myself…” She trailed off, not sure how to finish. Not sure if she needed to. It was a whole thought on its own. Anton laughed again. “You always were willing to do anything to save your own skin.” “You don’t know me,” Lore said. His one eye narrowed, glittering with the same cutting light as Gabe’s blade. “Are you so sure?” “What do you need to do?” Something had changed in Bastian’s manner, in his carriage. Gone was the languid prince; he’d fully stepped into being the King. It was the other side he’d shown her that night in the alley, the night she told him her history. A King had always been waiting. A brutal one. Lore glanced at Gabe. He was trying so hard to keep his emotions off his face, trying and failing. Pain lived in the furrows of his brow, the fierce curve of his mouth around his bared teeth. But there was hope, sparking to life when their gazes met. Hope that he could yet save the wretched man he held so close, the man who’d only sought to use him. “I can teach her,” Gabe said. “Teach her to guard her mind even more fully. Make sure nothing like the villages happens ever again.” He’d done it once already, she suddenly realized. That night she woke him up, made him sit with her and concentrate, soothing the darkness until sleep could come peacefully, without those strange dreams. There’d been no death that night. But Anton shook his head, mindless of the blade still against his neck. Gabe tried to move it; he didn’t in time, and a thin line of crimson creased the old man’s skin. “It won’t last,” he rasped. “These roles are fixed. To let the girl live is to invite oblivion, for the world, but for yourselves most of all.” “Spare us your religious bullshit,” Bastian hissed. Another braying laugh from the Priest Exalted. “Oh, nephew, that’s the one thing you can’t be


handful of chewed-up green stuff into the wound, pus begins running down the side of his leg. I tell myself this is a good thing and bite the inside of my cheek hard because my breakfast is threatening to make a reappearance. “Katniss?” Peeta says. I meet his eyes, knowing my face must be some shade of green. He mouths the words. “How about that kiss?” I burst out laughing because the whole thing is so revolting I can’t stand it. “Something wrong?” he asks a little too innocently. “I . . . I’m no good at this. I’m not my mother. I’ve no idea what I’m doing and I hate pus,” I say. “Euh!” I allow myself to let out a groan as I rinse away the first round of leaves and apply the second. “Euuuh!” 253 “How do you hunt?” he asks. “Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this,” I say. “Al- though for all I know, I am killing you.” “Can you speed it up a little?” he asks. “No. Shut up and eat your pears,” I say. After three applications and what seems like a bucket of pus, the wound does look better. Now that the swelling has gone down, I can see how deep Cato’s sword cut. Right down to the bone. “What next, Dr. Everdeen?” he asks. “Maybe I’ll put some of the burn ointment on it. I think it helps with infection anyway. And wrap it up?” I say. I do and the whole thing seems a lot more manageable, covered in clean white cotton. Although, against the sterile bandage, the hem of his undershorts looks filthy and teeming with conta- gion. I pull out Rue’s backpack. “Here, cover yourself with this and I’ll wash your shorts.” “Oh, I don’t care if you see me,” says Peeta. “You’re just like the rest of my family,” I say. “I care, all right?” I turn my back and look at the stream until the under- shorts splash into the current. He must be feeling a bit better if he can throw. “You know, you’re kind of squeamish for such a lethal per- son,” says Peeta as I beat the shorts clean between two rocks. “I wish I’d let you give Haymitch a shower after all.” I wrinkle my nose at the memory. “What’s he sent you so far?” 254 “Not a thing,” says Peeta. Then there’s a pause as it hits him. “Why, did you get something?” “Burn medicine,” I say almost sheepishly. “Oh, and some bread.” “I always knew you were his favorite,” says Peeta. “Please, he can’t stand being in the same room with me,” I say. “Because you’re just alike,” mutters Peeta. I ignore it though because this really isn’t the time for me to be insulting Haymitch, which is my first impulse. I let Peeta doze off while his clothes dry out, but by late af- ternoon, I don’t dare wait any longer. I gently shake his shoul- der. “Peeta, we’ve got to go now.” “Go?” He seems confused. “Go where?”


long and very severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for news of the Lone Star of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a shattered stern-post of the boat was seen swinging in the trough of a wave, with the letters "L. S." carved upon it, and that is all which we shall ever know of the fate of the Lone Star. ADVENTURE VI. THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble man. One night--it was in June, '89--there came a ring to my bell, about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the clock. I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment. "A patient!" said she. "You'll have to go out." I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day. We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in some dark-colored stuff, with a black veil, entered the room. "You will excuse my calling so late," she began, and then, suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms about my wife's neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. "Oh, I'm in such trouble!" she cried; "I do so want a little help." "Why," said my wife, pulling up her veil, "it is Kate Whitney. How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when you came in." "I didn't know what to do, so l came straight to you." That was always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a light-house. "It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?" "Oh, no, no! I want the doctor's advice and help, too. It's about Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about him!" It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her


moment, recover, propel himself upward onto the balls of his feet. He crouched there, fury in his eyes. There was a click at the door, a sudden rush of light and noise. A whiff of ferns, of orchids. A low voice cut through the air. “Mrs. King.” Miss de Vries stood framed by the light in the hall. The ball was a bonfire of heat and color and noise behind her. Mr. Lockwood rose, turning crimson. Mrs. King stayed where she was, entirely ready. Now they could really get down to business. “Sit down, Mr. Lockwood,” said Miss de Vries, black crepe rustling. She adjusted her skirts, hiding the rip in the cloudy black concoction that formed her train. “You seem out of sorts.” Miss de Vries looked well, thought Mrs. King. Skin luminescent. Hair burned to the color of sand. There was strength in her gaze: confidence radiating outward, a certain supremacy. Her presence in the room felt like a weight. It made the boards strain beneath her. Mrs. King smiled. “Mr. Lockwood got himself in a temper, I’m afraid.” “I didn’t ask you to speak, Mrs. King,” Miss de Vries said. “I’ll speak when I care to,” said Mrs. King evenly. “And what brings you upstairs? Did someone mention I was here?” “I’ve got eyes in the back of my head,” said Miss de Vries, and she crossed her arms. One of those clerks, then, thought Mrs. King. Good. If they hadn’t summoned the lady of the house, as she had predicted they would, then she would have gone and found Miss de Vries herself. She’d been waiting to have this conversation for weeks. “Well,” Mrs. King said. “It’s good to see you. I never did get to take my leave.” “Miss de Vries,” began Mr. Lockwood, face pale, but she lifted a finger. There was a long pause, a running heartbeat in the air. Miss de Vries stepped close, pressed her fingers to Mrs. King’s copper mask. “Extraordinary,” she said. It was then that Mrs. King saw Miss de Vries’s dress for the first time. It startled her how luxuriant it was, how delicately it had been crafted, how powdery the crepe appeared. She hadn’t realized Alice possessed such skill. Or such dedication. “Walk with me, Mrs. King,” said Miss de Vries. Mrs. King considered her options. She could refuse, try to pin Miss de Vries to her chair, interrogate her. But Miss de Vries was far stronger than Lockwood: she was at least as strong as Mrs. King. Better to play her gently, unspool things little by little. “Very well,” said Mrs. King. Miss de Vries opened the door, and the noise swelled, a sudden blare of horns from the orchestra. The ball roared in delight, beckoning them into its midst. * * * Every room on this floor had great sliding doors, and these had all been thrown open. The ballroom stretched the whole length of the house, and it seemed to Mrs. King that she could see all her people in motion, that she could feel


do anything that seemed odd to you?” “No,” Lore said, shaking her head. “He just got thrashed.” A shadow passed over August’s face. He glanced at his brother, but the Priest Exalted didn’t match the look. He just nodded thoughtfully. Silence fell. “You’re doing well,” Anton said after a length of uncomfortable quiet. “You’ve managed to work your way into Bastian’s circle, which is exactly what we asked you to do.” He slid a glance toward the throne. “We are confident that we will see the necessary results in time.” Next to her, Gabe was still and silent, his face pale, his mouth a flat line. The only sign that the praise discomfited him was a slight tremble in his hand, and he quelled it by pressing his candle-inked palm flat against his leg. Their tableau was interrupted by the throne room doors slamming open. Malcolm rushed in, breathing ragged, dark eyes wide, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “Leak,” he gasped, hands on his knees. “Mortem leak. Southeast Ward. A big one.” CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Mortem is invisible to all but those who can channel it—those who have come close enough to death to harness its power. No one else can see its threat until it is atop them, and that is why we cannot simply pray and hope it goes away. —Phillipe Deschain, Auverrani scientist, presenting notes to the Church, 1 AGF (just before Apollius’s disappearance) I’m coming.” “You’re not.” There’d been a moment of frozen silence after Malcolm ran into the throne room, but it’d been just that. A moment, a heartbeat, a split second of change when the atmosphere turned from familial dispute to clinical action. Anton had strode from the room, moving as fast as he could without running. Malcolm, still gulping lungfuls of air, followed behind. August stood from his throne and yelled for guards, giving instructions on closing down the Citadel, not letting anyone in or out of the walls, locking everything that could be locked. Lore thought about telling him that a locked door meant nothing to raw Mortem—it’d seep through the cracks in the stone, the wood and iron, death wasn’t something you could hide from—but before she could, she saw Gabe turning on his heel to follow Anton and Malcolm, and hurrying after him seemed more important than telling off August. So now she scampered down the halls, his too-long stride forcing her to jog. “I can help.” “Or you could die.” Gabe shook his head once, sharp. “Not odds I’m keen on playing.” “This is the first true Mortem leak in… in… I don’t know, exactly, but a long damn time, and you need me, Gabe.” His teeth ground in his jaw. He said nothing, just kept moving ahead at that punishing pace. Anton and Malcolm were a few feet ahead of them, too focused on making their way to the Church to hear their hissed exchange. Just as well, since Lore couldn’t be sure they’d side with her—her plan was simply to follow along behind the Presque Mort like a