“Let me put some ointment on you,” I said. “I’m really okay.” “That roof,” I said, giving him a trust me look, “is super filthy. Birds poop on it all the time. Not to mention acid rain, nuclear waste—” “Nuclear waste?” “The point is, you don’t want an infection.” Joe considered that, and then nodded and sat backward on one of the kitchen chairs. I pulled up a chair behind him and used a Q-tip to dab him with ointment. The scratches weren’t deep, but they covered a lot of territory. With any luck, we’d be here a while. He had a bright pink scar on his shoulder that looked like he’d gotten stitches. “Where’d you get the scar?” I asked. “It looks pretty recent.” “I crashed into a lamppost,” Joe said, not seeming too interested. He crashed into a lamppost? Was that the drinking-and-carousing lifestyle he lived? So many red flags with this guy. But I must have been much more lonesome than I realized. Here was a man who I didn’t even like—but the nearness of his naked torso was putting me into some kind of a trance. What was going on with me? I was dabbing at the scrapes, but I kept losing my concentration and dabbing the wrong spots. My eyes kept wandering away from the task, traveling up his spine, out along his shoulder, down his arms. His skin was kind of buttery-tan, and he had freckles on his shoulders, like he’d worked outside a lot with that shirt off. I pictured him raking leaves shirtless. And washing the car shirtless. Maybe tending to a vegetable garden shirtless? Then harvesting the vegetables and bringing them inside to make a shirtless meal from scratch? Hey! I could suddenly hear my own voice saying inside my head. Pull it together! Stop fantasizing about the Weasel! But the acoustics in my head weren’t great. The voice sounded tinny and echoey like I was at the bottom of a well. Whereas Joe’s voice—and everything else about him—was coming in loud and clear. Honestly, Dr. Nicole would be very proud of me right now. “You know what I love about this moment?” Joe asked then, sounding sleepy as he rested his head on his arms. I leaned forward to take a guess. “The fact that I feel genuinely sorry about doing this to you, even though it was entirely your fault?” “I definitely like that. But I’m talking about something I love.” By accident, right then, I caught the way his plump bottom lip pressed against his teeth when he made the V in the word love. “What do you love?” I asked, now suddenly aware of my own lip doing the same thing. He glanced back with a vibe that felt positively affectionate. Then he said, “You’ve still got your roller skates on.” Thirteen THE NEXT NIGHT was Friday. The night of my synchronized caffeination event with Dr. Addison. Also known as my first date with my future husband. He wasn’t calling it a date. And neither was I—out loud. But


trees, all connected by rope bridges—a laboratory and a sunroom, the ceiling made of foggy and scratched glass, the floor of shining oak panels, and no walls. Later this sunroom would become something different. The forest was vast and wild. He doubted they’d ever be able to find him there. On sunny days, a herd of deer would graze on the grass below him, and the birds would sing above him. He hummed along with their song. Giovanni was at peace. At peace until the day his chest began to hurt. “Oh my,” he said. “What an interesting sensation. It burns.” In his lab he ran calculations. He typed on his keyboard, the clack, clack, clack echoing flatly around him. “I see,” he said on the fifty-second day after he’d first felt the ache in his chest. He stared at the screen, checking his numbers. It was loneliness, pure and simple. Numbers never lied. Three more years went by. Three years of the ache in his chest only growing stronger. Three years of quiet, of longing to hear a voice aside from his own. He would look out the window of his laboratory to see that it was snowing, when just yesterday the forest had been caught in the throes of summer. On a day that began no differently than all the ones that had come before, two people burst from the trees, their eyes wide in fright, their skin slick with sweat. A man and a woman. The woman clutched a bundle of rags against her chest. Giovanni startled. “Help us!” the woman cried. “Please, you must take him. Take him and hide him away. It’s not safe.” And then she held out the bundle of rags. Except it wasn’t just rags. Swaddled tightly inside was a child. A boy who blinked slowly up at Giovanni before he scrunched up his face and cried. “What has happened?” Giovanni asked, looking back up at the woman in alarm. “Come, come. I will keep you safe. All of you.” But the woman shook her head. “They will find us.” Tears trickled down her cheeks as she stepped forward, kissing the baby on the forehead. “I love you. I’ll return when I’m able.” The man said, “Hurry. They’re coming.” The woman laughed bitterly. “I know. I know. They always do, in the end.” The man grabbed her by the hand and pulled her away, away, away. “Wait!” Giovanni called after them. “His name!” But they were gone. He never saw anyone else. No one ever came looking for the man and the woman. Or the child. And he never saw the man and woman again. Later, much later when the boy was grown, Giovanni would tell the boy that the woman—his mother—hadn’t wanted to leave him. “She will come back,” Giovanni would tell him. “One day, when all is well, she will return.” Until then, he had desired a child, and now here one was. Oh, how fortuitous! How wonderful! Giovanni took his time in deciding a designation for the baby. It was when


over the school, as if this additional form of locomotion made them a superior species. I hadn’t understood how thin my socks were, how inadequate my hand-me-down coats. I passed Couchman, which I remembered as the grimmest, grungiest dorm, but it must have gotten a recent face-lift. The stones looked shockingly clean in the floodlights, the fire escape new and sleek. Early freshman year, I used to sit on the lip of the old rusty one to get afternoon sun and study in peace. Maybe it was odd to perch on an appendage of a boys’ dorm, but it seemed logical at the time. This was where, late that fall, Dorian Culler shouted down from his window, asked if I was there to stalk him. He thought it was so funny that it became the theme of all our interactions, the next three and a half years. In front of his friends he’d say things like “Bodie, I got your letter, but it was weird. Guys, she wrote me this ten-page letter about how she wants my man meat. Her phrase, not mine. Bodie, you need to get it together.” Needless to say, I’d never done anything to Dorian other than get involuntarily paired with him a few times in French class. Or he’d say, “Bodie, it was not cool of you to follow my family to London. I’m in my hotel bed and I hear this moaning from underneath, and everything smells like tuna fish, and I look under the bed and there’s Bodie pleasuring herself.” It was the kind of joke that left no room for response. I could never figure out if he thought he was flirting, or if I was so far below him on the social scale that this was pure mockery. I tried to play along once—said, feebly, “Yes, I did crawl in your window; it was to ask you to Spring Dance, and I’ll die if you don’t say yes”—but he only laughed bigger and said to his friends, “See? I should report her! Jesus, Bodie, this is textbook sexual harassment.” I was halfway across South Bridge when I slipped, found myself plunging forward, knew how hard my chin would hit the ice—but then it was my elbows and forearms that hit instead, and I lay facedown for a second, my brain jostled, my bones shaken. I felt, oddly, humiliated, even though no one had seen. Only all the specters of my youth. It jarred me for another reason, too, a stupid one: I was supposed to have come back to Granby invulnerable. Fifteen-year-old Bodie might have fallen on the ice, might have been breakable or broken, might have drunk herself to sleep one night by the Kurt shrine and woken up half-frozen, terrified she could have killed herself, wondering if this had actually been her intention. But forty-year-old Bodie had her act together, had long been in control of her body and mind. And here was the hard, cold ground, rising up to remind me how easy it was to slip. I was more


Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 60 61 all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar. He had found stage, for when I was awakened at last it was by a punch in her a boy as an apprentice also so that she should not want the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing help while I was gone. still before a large building in a city street and that the day It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first had already broken a long time. time, my situation. I had thought up to that moment of the “Where are we?” I asked. adventures before me, not at all of the home that I was leav- “Bristol,” said Tom. “Get down.” ing; and now, at sight of this clumsy stranger, who was to stay Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far here in my place beside my mother, I had my first attack of down the docks to superintend the work upon the schooner. tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog’s life, for as he was new Thither we had now to walk, and our way, to my great de- to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting him light, lay along the quays and beside the great multitude of right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by ships of all sizes and rigs and nations. In one, sailors were them. singing at their work, in another there were men aloft, high The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth over my head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than and I were afoot again and on the road. I said good-bye to a spider’s. Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I Mother and the cove where I had lived since I was born, and seemed never to have been near the sea till then. The smell of the dear old Admiral Benbow—since he was repainted, no tar and salt was something new. I saw the most wonderful longer quite so dear. One of my last thoughts was of the figureheads, that had all been far over the ocean. I saw, be- captain, who had so often strode along the beach with his sides, many old sailors, with rings in their ears, and whiskers cocked hat, his sabre-cut cheek, and his old brass telescope. curled in ringlets, and tarry pigtails, and their swaggering, Next moment we had turned the corner and my home was clumsy sea- walk; and if I had seen as many kings or arch- out of sight. bishops I could not have been more delighted. The mail picked us up about dusk at the Royal George on And I was going to sea myself, to sea in a schooner, with a the heath. I was wedged in between Redruth and a stout old piping boatswain and pig-tailed singing seamen, to sea, bound gentleman, and in spite of the swift


on the table. He never misses a 119/551 beat as he takes me, again and again, moving strong and hard inside me, my in- sides tightening and quivering. “Oh fuck,” I moan. This is going to rip me apart. “Yes, baby,” he hisses. “Please,” I beg him and I don’t know what for—to stop, to never stop, to twist the plug again. My insides are tightening around him and the plug. “That’s right,” he breathes, and he slaps me hard on my right buttock, and I come—again and again, falling, falling, spinning, pulsing around and around—and Christian gently pulls the plug out. “Fuck! ” I scream and Christian grabs my hips and climaxes loudly, holding me still. The woman is still singing. Christian always puts songs on repeat in here. Strange. I am curled in his arms on his lap our legs tangled together, with my head resting against his chest. We’re on the floor of the playroom by the table. “Welcome back,” he says, peeling the blindfold off me. I blink as my eyes adjust to the muted light. Tipping my chin back, he plants a soft kiss on my lips, his eyes focused on and anxiously searching mine. I reach up to caress his face. He smiles. “Well, did I fulfill the brief?” he asks, amused. I frown. “Brief?” “You wanted rough,” he says gently. I grin, because I just can’t help it. “Yes. I think you did . . .” He raises his eyebrows and grins back at me. “I’m very glad to hear it Mrs. Grey. You look thoroughly well fucked and beautiful at this moment.” He caresses my face, his long fingers stroking my cheek. “I feel it,” I purr. He reaches down and kisses me tenderly, his lips soft and warm and giving against mine. “You never disappoint.” He leans back to gaze down at me. “How do you feel?” His voice is soft with concern. “Good,” I murmur, feeling a flush creep across my face. “Thoroughly well fucked.” I smile shyly. 120/551 “Why, Mrs. Grey, you have a dirty, dirty mouth.” Christian feigns an offen- ded expression, but I can hear his amusement. “That’s because I’m married to a dirty, dirty boy, Mr. Grey.” He grins a ridiculously stupid grin and it’s infectious. “I’m glad you’re mar- ried to him.” He gently takes hold of my braid, lifts it to his lips, and kisses the end with reverence, his eyes glowing with love. Oh my . . . did I ever have a chance of resisting this man? I reach for his left hand and plant a kiss on his wedding ring, a plain platinum band matching my own. “Mine,” I whisper. “Yours,” he responds. He curls his arms around me and presses his nose into my hair. “Shall I run you a bath?” “Hmm. Only if you join me in it.” “Okay,” he says. He sets me onto my feet and stands up beside me. He’s still wearing his jeans. “Will you wear your . . . er . . . other jeans?” He


would be the barons of Trader Joe’s cheese aisle. But my peacoat always finds itself in the same spot—between a lightweight black jacket and the lanyard with Jack’s MIT Physics Institute badge. The budding domesticity makes reaching for possessive pronouns that much easier. “Want a hot chocolate?” he asks. He ventures deep inside the apartment, turning on just one light. His face is full of shadows, and I’m a little lost in them. “No.” “Anything else?” I shake my head and stifle a yawn. It’s past two and all I want is a pillow, but I think we’re about to have sex. That’s what spending the night means, right? I should check Urban Dictionary. “Let’s go upstairs, then.” In his room, he hands me an extra-large hoodie and herds me toward the bathroom. I change into it because I’m too tired to wonder why, because it’s kind of comfy, and because maybe it fits into a kink of his. He did like lingerie. Sportswear might be the next logical step. Or tentacle dildos. I use his mouthwash, scrub my face clean, then pad back into his room, hair up in a messy knot, the thick cotton hitting my thighs almost to my knees. I brush past Jack and his amused look and throw myself on my side of the bed—more unwarranted possessive pronouns—and sneak in a twentysecond micronap. Or maybe it’s more like ten minutes, because when I next wake up, Jack blocks the night-light seeping in from the hallway. He smells like shower and toothpaste. And he’s wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a Toy Story T-shirt. “Cute,” I say, closing my eyes again. “Did you notice Woody and Buzz’s homoerotic undertones?” “I thought they were very overt.” “Validating. Thank you. We’re about to have”—I yawn—“sex, right?” The mattress dips. “Sure.” Under the down blanket, strong hands pull me closer, long legs tangle with mine, and we’ve done this before. It’s comforting. Familiar. The word mine pops into my sleepy head again, and I let it float about longer than I should. “Okay, good.” I can’t stop yawning, but I force my lids open. “I’m on the Depo shot. I get it from Planned Parenthood, otherwise I couldn’t afford it.” “Planned Parenthood’s good people.” “Yeah.” I shift closer. He’s hard against my stomach, but nothing about him broadcasts impatience. “We don’t have to, like, use a condom. Unless you have pubic lice.” His cheek curves against mine. “I doubt condoms protect from pubic lice, sweetheart.” I doze off into a pillow that smells like shampoo and a hint of sweat and Jack’s MIT office, thinking about the logistics of little critters jumping from one crotch to another, only to jolt awake mid-fading. “Don’t let me fall asleep,” I yawn into his neck. “We’re supposed to be doing it.” “We are. We’re going at it like animals. Just close your eyes.” I do. It’s easier. “Is this another rule of yours? Are you into BDSM?” “I do have a thing for consent. And my partners being awake.” I picture legions of beautiful, intelligent,


their coarse faces and brutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage. They sit silently and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to do. She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them, and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self." "Oh, I hope not!" murmured Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his opera-glass. "Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said Hallward. "I understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Any one you love must be marvellous, and any girl that has the effect you describe must be fine and noble. To spiritualize one's age,--that is something worth doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world. This marriage is quite right. I did not think so at first, but I admit it now. God made Sibyl Vane for you. Without her you would have been incomplete." "Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. "I [37] knew that you would understand me. Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me. But here is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for about five minutes. Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything that is good in me." A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly lovely to look at,--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought, that he had ever seen. There was something of the fawn in her shy grace and startled eyes. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded, enthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces, and her lips seemed to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud. Dorian Gray sat motionless, gazing on her, like a man in a dream. Lord Henry peered through his opera-glass, murmuring, "Charming! charming!" The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's dress had entered with Mercutio and his friends. The band, such as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. Through the crowd of ungainly, shabbily-dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a creature from a finer world. Her body swayed, as she danced, as a plant sways in the water. The curves of her throat were like the curves of a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory. Yet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy


Her hands shone with greasepaint. Now, she thought. Now. The Janes nodded. Winnie pulled air into her lungs, opened one of the doors, and let loose a cry. “Fire!” she shouted. Her voice came out as a croak. “Fire, fire!” Figures appeared at the foot of the stairs and she hauled the doors open fully. Smoke billowed out around her. Blueish, stinking, sweet—far more than she could have hoped for. She covered her mouth and ran down the stairs, arms aloft. “Fire!” she cried. * * * The Janes followed Winnie downstairs. They observed the pleasing majesty of it all. Footmen running. Noses turning upward. Disbelief. The orchestra falling silent, waltz frozen midspin. “Fire, fire!” yelled a voice. And then it was real, the fear. It unfurled itself like a ribbon. The guests were like starlings in flight, a drunken, frightened rush of powdered hair and crooked crowns and ermine trains. Jane-two tested her voice. “Fire!” she bellowed. “Everybody out!” “Oh, give over,” muttered Jane-one, pressing a hand to her ear. Together they worked the crowd: pushing, shoving, scaring, very nearly ramming people down the stairs. Mrs. Bone’s men, the ones dressed as guests, helped. “Out, out, out,” they chanted, and it was remarkable to see the world obey them, growing increasingly frightened. “I’m choking!” cried one. “Smoke! It’s in my lungs!” By the time they reached the front porch, they could hear Lord Ashley. Clearly, he was the worst sort of person in a crisis, bellowing orders for horses, buckets, hoses, causing even more confusion than before. Jane-one observed the chaos on the pavement, countesses calling for their husbands, ministers calling for each other, and a hundred motors jammed at every junction. “They need to call for the fire brigade!” exclaimed Lord Ashley. “Now!” “They have,” replied Mr. Lockwood. “I’m sure of it.” “That bloody pyramid,” said Ashley. “It’s blocking the bloody road.” Jane-one spotted the lamp-boy lurking by the railings. He had a weaselly, toothy look about him. “You, boy,” said Lockwood, reaching for him. “Run to the fire station.” “Sir, there’s people inside. Upstairs. I can see ’em moving around...” Lockwood shook him. “Aren’t you listening? Get them to send the engines.” A window opened, and one of Mrs. Bone’s men looked out, waving his arms, scaring back the crowd. “Who’s that?” said Ashley. “Who’s inside?” “Get back, get away from the house!” the man was shouting. A cry went up, and people began backing away, into the street, making for the park. “We’ll get the drapes down!” Lord Ashley shouted up at them. “Quick, men, that’s it! Get those curtains off their rails!” Jane-one heard Mr. Lockwood say slowly, “Where is Miss de Vries?” * * * Winnie came into the hall. “Ready?” murmured one of the men, peering upward. A pulley above them was wheeling madly, taking the long chain with it. The pulleys had been looped onto the iron braces underneath the glass dome. They held a platform, operating like a gigantic version of the electric lift, wide enough to shift half a dozen big crates


bag holding the papier-mâché masks her mom had made during her mask phase. Without even looking hard she spotted a stack of unframed canvases and realized they were the oil portraits her mom had painted of the entire family that everyone had deemed too hideous to hang inside the house. Mark’s was the only one that didn’t make him look like a prematurely aged gnome baring its teeth and snarling. Louise looked behind the portraits and saw another white bag of her mom’s needlepoint throw pillows and five cardboard boxes labeled Christmas, which she knew was only one stockpile of handmade ornaments. Normally, a job like this would prompt Louise to start a list, but today she had to fight her urge to organize. Today she’d be inefficient. Today she felt grateful for the enormous amount of stuff filling every corner of their house. Step one: do a walk-through and count the art. Don’t touch it. Just count it. She stood on the steps to the kitchen door and braced herself, then walked inside for the first time since the day she arrived, walked past the hammer on the counter and made herself go into the living room. The easy chair sat empty. The TV was still off. She ignored the rows and rows of silent dolls and focused on the art: the crewelwork Tree of Life over the sofa, the nine framed cross-stitches on the far wall (four of flowers, three Charleston scenes, one elephant balancing on its front legs, one juggling clown), the three more framed cross-stitches beside the doll cabinet, the yarn art Mount Fuji next to the bay window. The screen door squealed, a key crunched into the front-door lock, and it swung open to reveal Mark, framed by the sun. They looked at each other, both of them back in the house where they grew up for the first time in years. “So Brody agreed?” Louise asked. Mark didn’t answer, which meant yes. “I don’t like coming in here anyways,” he said. “It’s got bad vibes.” He rammed his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, then relaxed them. “Good,” Louise said. “Good,” Mark said. He started to turn like he was going to walk away, then stopped. “What’s your point?” he asked. The point was that he crushed all of her oil pastels into her bedroom carpet. The point was that he’d kicked a hole in her parents’ bedroom wall and they hadn’t made him pay to get it fixed. The point was that her mom had a whole tough-love thing for Louise and let Mark do whatever he wanted and never face any consequences. The point was that she was supposed to look after him and give him everything and never complain, but no one was looking after her. That was the point. She furrowed her forehead. “I just want to respect Mom’s wishes,” she said. “You hated Mom.” That took her by surprise. “I didn’t hate Mom,” she said, voice getting high-pitched with genuine irritation. How dare he say that? It wasn’t even close


before the carriage stopped at Longbourn House. __ CHAPTER XVII (17) ELIZABETH related to Jane the next day, what had passed between Mr. Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; -- she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley's regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. -- The possibility of his having really endured such unkindness, was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing therefore remained to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake, whatever could not be otherwise explained. ``They have both,'' said she, ``been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side.'' ``Very true, indeed; -- and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say in behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the business? -- Do clear _them_ too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of somebody.'' ``Laugh as much as you chuse, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light it places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father's favourite in such a manner, -- one, whom his father had promised to provide for. -- It is impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his character, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so excessively deceived in him? oh! no.'' ``I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me last night; names, facts, every thing mentioned without ceremony. -- If it be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his looks.'' ``It is difficult indeed -- it is distressing. -- One does not know what to think.'' ``I beg your pardon; -- one knows exactly what to think.'' But Jane could think with certainty on only one point, -- that Mr. Bingley, if he _had_ _been_ imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair became public. The two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery where this conversation passed, by the arrival of some of the very persons of whom they had been speaking; Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal invitation for the long expected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed for the following Tuesday. The two ladies were delighted to see their dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly asked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To the rest of the family


beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. That was the night ... --O, Mr Bloom, how do you do? --O, how do you do, Mrs Breen? --No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for ages. --In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know. --Go away! Isn't that grand for her? --Yes. In a photographer's there. Getting on like a house on fire. How are all your charges? --All on the baker's list, Mrs Breen said. How many has she? No other in sight. --You're in black, I see. You have no ... --No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral. Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who's dead, when and what did he die of? Turn up like a bad penny. --O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn't any near relation. May as well get her sympathy. --Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly, poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning. YOUR FUNERAL'S TOMORROW WHILE YOU'RE COMING THROUGH THE RYE. DIDDLEDIDDLE DUMDUM DIDDLEDIDDLE ... --Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily. Now that's quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband. --And your lord and master? Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn't lost them anyhow. --O, don't be talking! she said. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He's in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me heartscalded. Wait till I show you. Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out from Harrison's. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom's gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, or they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork chained to the table. Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on those things. Stick it in a chap's eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. Husband barging. Where's the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are you feeding your little brother's family? Soiled handkerchief: medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she? ... --There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then. Do you know what he did last night? Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in alarm, yet smiling. --What? Mr Bloom asked. Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me. --Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare. Indiges. --Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs. --The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said. She took a folded postcard from her handbag. --Read that, she said. He got it this morning. --What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the


have thought that up for themselves: had our classmates been left to their own devices, Jem and I would have had several swift, satisfying fist-fights apiece and ended the matter for good. As it was, we were compelled to hold our heads high and be, respectively, a gentleman and a lady. In a way, it was like the era of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose, without all her yelling. There was one odd thing, though, that I never understood: in spite of Atticus's shortcomings as a parent, people were content to re-elect him to the state legislature that year, as usual, without opposition. I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar, I withdrew from them, and never thought about them until I was forced to. I was forced to one day in school. Once a week, we had a Current Events period. Each child was supposed to clip an item from a newspaper, absorb its contents, and reveal them to the class. This practice allegedly overcame a variety of evils: standing in front of his fellows encouraged good posture and gave a child poise; delivering a short talk made him word-conscious; learning his current event strengthened his memory; being singled out made him more than ever anxious to return to the Group. The idea was profound, but as usual, in Maycomb it didn't work very well. In the first place, few rural children had access to newspapers, so the burden of Current Events was borne by the town children, convincing the bus children more deeply that the town children got all the attention anyway. The rural children who could, usually brought clippings from what they called The Grit Paper, a publication spurious in the eyes of Miss Gates, our teacher. Why she frowned when a child recited from The Grit Paper I never knew, but in some way it was associated with liking fiddling, eating syrupy biscuits for lunch, being a holy-roller, singing Sweetly Sings the Donkey and pronouncing it dunkey, all of which the state paid teachers to discourage. Even so, not many of the children knew what a Current Event was. Little Chuck Little, a hundred years old in his knowledge of cows and their habits, was halfway through an Uncle Natchell story when Miss Gates stopped him: "Charles, that is not a current event. That is an advertisement." Cecil Jacobs knew what one was, though. When his turn came, he went to the front of the room and began, "Old Hitler-" "Adolf Hitler, Cecil," said Miss Gates. "One never begins with Old anybody." "Yes ma'am," he said. "Old Adolf Hitler has been prosecutin' the-" "Persecuting Cecil...." "Nome, Miss Gates, it says here- well anyway, old Adolf Hitler has been after the Jews and he's puttin' 'em in prisons and he's taking away all their property and he won't let any of 'em out of the country and he's washin' all the feeble-minded and-" "Washing the feeble-minded?" "Yes ma'am, Miss Gates, I reckon they don't have sense enough to wash themselves, I don't reckon an idiot could keep hisself


Pyncheon, the Judge's only surviving child, who has been spending the last two years in foreign travel. If still in life, how comes his shadow hither? If dead, what a misfortune! The old Pyncheon property, together with the great estate acquired by the young man's father, would devolve on whom? On poor, foolish Clifford, gaunt Hepzibah, and rustic little Phoebe! But another and a greater marvel greets us! Can we believe our eyes? A stout, elderly gentleman has made his appearance; he has an aspect of eminent respectability, wears a black coat and pantaloons, of roomy width, and might be pronounced scrupulously neat in his attire, but for a broad crimson stain across his snowy neckcloth and down his shirt-bosom. Is it the Judge, or no? How can it be Judge Pyncheon? We discern his figure, as plainly as the flickering moonbeams can show us anything, still seated in the oaken chair! Be the apparition whose it may, it advances to the picture, seems to seize the frame, tries to peep behind it, and turns away, with a frown as black as the ancestral one. The fantastic scene just hinted at must by no means be considered as forming an actual portion of our story. We were betrayed into this brief extravagance by the quiver of the moonbeams; they dance hand-in-hand with shadows, and are reflected in the looking-glass, which, you are aware, is always a kind of window or doorway into the spiritual world. We needed relief, moreover, from our too long and exclusive contemplation of that figure in the chair. This wild wind, too, has tossed our thoughts into strange confusion, but without tearing them away from their one determined centre. Yonder leaden Judge sits immovably upon our soul. Will he never stir again? We shall go mad unless he stirs! You may the better estimate his quietude by the fearlessness of a little mouse, which sits on its hind legs, in a streak of moonlight, close by Judge Pyncheon's foot, and seems to meditate a journey of exploration over this great black bulk. Ha! what has startled the nimble little mouse? It is the visage of grimalkin, outside of the window, where he appears to have posted himself for a deliberate watch. This grimalkin has a very ugly look. Is it a cat watching for a mouse, or the devil for a human soul? Would we could scare him from the window! Thank Heaven, the night is well-nigh past! The moonbeams have no longer so silvery a gleam, nor contrast so strongly with the blackness of the shadows among which they fall. They are paler now; the shadows look gray, not black. The boisterous wind is hushed. What is the hour? Ah! the watch has at last ceased to tick; for the Judge's forgetful fingers neglected to wind it up, as usual, at ten o'clock, being half an hour or so before his ordinary bedtime,--and it has run down, for the first time in five years. But the great world-clock of Time still keeps its beat. The dreary night--for,


table and my pens, ink, and paper, had applied herself to the considerable effort of a letter to her sweetheart. There was an effort in the way that, while her arms rested on the table, her hands with evident weariness supported her head; but at the moment I took this in I had already become aware that, in spite of my entrance, her attitude strangely persisted. Then it was--with the very act of its announcing itself-- that her identity flared up in a change of posture. She rose, not as if she had heard me, but with an indescribable grand melancholy of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood there as my vile predecessor. Dishonored and tragic, she was all before me; but even as I fixed and, for memory, secured it, the awful image passed away. Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers. While these instants lasted, indeed, I had the extraordinary chill of feeling that it was I who was the intruder. It was as a wild protest against it that, actually addressing her--"You terrible, miserable woman!"--I heard myself break into a sound that, by the open door, rang through the long passage and the empty house. She looked at me as if she heard me, but I had recovered myself and cleared the air. There was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine and a sense that I must stay. XVI I had so perfectly expected that the return of my pupils would be marked by a demonstration that I was freshly upset at having to take into account that they were dumb about my absence. Instead of gaily denouncing and caressing me, they made no allusion to my having failed them, and I was left, for the time, on perceiving that she too said nothing, to study Mrs. Grose's odd face. I did this to such purpose that I made sure they had in some way bribed her to silence; a silence that, however, I would engage to break down on the first private opportunity. This opportunity came before tea: I secured five minutes with her in the housekeeper's room, where, in the twilight, amid a smell of lately baked bread, but with the place all swept and garnished, I found her sitting in pained placidity before the fire. So I see her still, so I see her best: facing the flame from her straight chair in the dusky, shining room, a large clean image of the "put away"-- of drawers closed and locked and rest without a remedy. "Oh, yes, they asked me to say nothing; and to please them-- so long as they were there--of course I promised. But what had happened to you?" "I only went with you for the walk," I said. "I had then to come back to meet a friend."


in person, having traded her long Meg Lawson hair for a choppy bob that perfectly frames her face. She wears thin-rimmed oval glasses over striking blue eyes, and a patterned jumpsuit and satin Chanel bag. That Boise Med money must be pretty great, because everything about her gleams, from her hair to the buckles on her heeled booties. “I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times,” I tell her, “but I’ve been watching The Nocturnals for—well, for the first time, and I really love it. You’re actually my favorite character.” I’m certain Hallie will wave this off, a compliment on something she did ten years ago. “Thank you. Meg’s always been my favorite, too. No matter how many scripts I read, I can never fully get her out of my head.” “I can imagine,” I say, liking her instantly. “It’s like how they say the music we listen to when we’re teens continues to resonate with us the most, even as adults, because we heard it when our brains were still developing, or whatever.” “Ah, is that why I still get emotional over Avril Lavigne?” I grin back at her. “No judgment.” Finn seems pleased that we’re getting along. I can’t help imagining the two of them together, the relationship that ended six years ago. Six years, and nothing serious since. I thought the panels might feel repetitive, but Finn is completely in his element here with the rest of the cast, and it’s impossible not to admire the way he interacts with the fans, all of them sharing this pure love for a show I’m starting to fall for, too. I can understand now why he hasn’t given all of this up, why his first instinct was to soldier through it even when he was sick. Each fan, he treats like they’re the first person asking that question or paying him that compliment. He makes each person feel special, and it’s an incredible talent. He makes you believe he cares about each of them—because I truly think he does. Somewhere between Tennessee and Ohio, I started seeing the appeal of Finnegan Walsh, too. * * * After a joint photo op with Hallie and before we meet up with the rest of the cast for dinner, Finn takes a detour through some back streets. “Where are we going?” “You’ll see,” he calls back, leading me through a maze of shops and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. When he finally stops in front of a luggage store, I give him a quizzical look. “I’ve asked around,” he says, “and it turns out, it’s customary to get your ghostwriter a gift when you finish working together. In fact, it’s pretty nonnegotiable. Written into our contract in tiny print.” I lift my eyebrows at him, biting back a smile. “I know we’re not done yet, and I would have loved to surprise you, but I think it’s really important you pick this out for yourself.” He opens the door, gestures to all the stacks and stacks of bags and suitcases inside. “You’ve already traveled more over the


had hurriedly ransacked them before her flight. Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small sliding shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a photograph and a letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to "Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called for." My friend tore it open and we all three read it together. It was dated at midnight of the preceding night and ran in this way: MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,--You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me. Yet, with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to watch you, ran up stairs, got into my walking-clothes, as I call them, and came down just as you departed. Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good-night, and started for the Temple to see my husband. We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you call to-morrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to possess; and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, Very truly yours, IRENE NORTON, nee ADLER. "What a woman--oh, what a woman!" cried the King of Bohemia, when we had all three read this epistle. "Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?" "From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your Majesty," said Holmes coldly. "I am sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty's business to a more successful conclusion." "On the contrary, my dear sir," cried the King; "nothing could be more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The photograph is now as safe


little matter of business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?" "Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those terms. "When do you think of going down?" "I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was putting fish into the post-office, "that renders me rather uncertain of my time. At once, I think." "If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once," said Wemmick to Mr. Jaggers, "he needn't write an answer, you know." Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me. "So, Pip! Our friend the Spider," said Mr. Jaggers, "has played his cards. He has won the pool." It was as much as I could do to assent. "Hah! He is a promising fellow - in his way - but he may not have it all his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her--" "Surely," I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, "you do not seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?" "I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such circumstances, because it's a toss-up between two results." "May I ask what they are?" "A fellow like our friend the Spider," answered Mr. Jaggers, "either beats, or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl; but he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion." "Either beats or cringes," said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself to me. "So, here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle," said Mr. Jaggers, taking a decanter of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for each of us and for himself, "and may the question of supremacy be settled to the lady's satisfaction! To the satisfaction of the lady and the gentleman, it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are to-day!" She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two, nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers as she spoke arrested my attention. "What's the matter?" said Mr. Jaggers. "Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of," said I, "was rather painful to me." The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood looking at her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or whether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she


Niphran used to call them. We stood nose to nose; a fact I found unduly vexatious, having grown accustomed to being the tallest woman in a room. “My palace boasts much more than this tapestry. Let me show you.” She dropped her hold on my shoulder, a dazzling smile belying the hardness of her gaze. “I insist.” She started walking without waiting for an answer. I toyed with the temptation to ignore her and jog directly to my room. I was not her subject, and she had no rights over me. Arin’s caution stalled my step. Do not challenge her or distinguish yourself in any way. Vaida had already rounded the bend. Swearing under my breath, I hurried to follow. Lukub’s Sultana strode to the east wing of the Ivory Palace. A row of Ruby Hounds’ heads pushed out from the wall to our right. In place of their teeth were flickering candles, casting long shadows over the hall. Vaida’s jewel-encrusted cerise gown cast patterns in its wake, its lace sleeves trailing behind her. She turned right, and I nearly tripped over my feet. Dozens of guards lined each side of the corridor. They did not react to my appearance, their attention fixed straight ahead. I stopped at the head of the hall. “The Heir’s guards will worry at my absence.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Do they fault the security of my palace? The efficacy of my guards?” “Of course not, but—” “Then they should have no reason to worry.” Without turning around, she curled her fingers, beckoning me after her. By Sirauk’s doomed depths, was I about to allow this woman to kill me out of a sense of decorum? She might have information. Hanim’s presence startled me. She hates Nizahl. It might be useful. I grimaced. Why couldn’t I have just asked Ren for a sleeping draught? As soon as I crossed the threshold into the Sultana’s private chambers, the doors closed with a mournful groan. Where Arin’s chambers were an exercise in austerity, Vaida crowded hers with every color in the kingdoms. One wall was a vibrant indigo, another a demure emerald. Lanterns in every shape and size hung from the peaked ceiling, casting the massive room in a warm glow. Her bed stretched wider than Rory’s shop, and quilts of various design and thickness were piled high at the foot. The bizarre blend of chaos and style I’d come to associate with Lukub’s Sultana. “Why am I here?” I asked, foregoing propriety. The vivacity of Vaida’s chambers was unsettling, more so than if I had entered a room with bloodred drapes and rusted weapons. “When I heard Arin had chosen an Omalian orphan from a lower village, I did not share in everyone’s surprise,” Vaida said. She picked up a glass doll, adjusting its limbs before setting it back on her bedside table. She tapped its nose with a polished nail. “Arin… he sees through people. Calculates potential and risk the way an architect evaluates promising land. He sees worth where others might see waste. Successfully, too—the


was, he saw an opportunity.” Mr. Lamont shifts the gun from one hand to the other. “My father and the remaining members of the Owl Society made a deal. My daddy would start a camp, bring up vulnerable kids, kids nobody cared about. Kind of like you, Charity.” I’m so taken aback by his abrupt departure from the story that I gasp. “Your mama doesn’t take good care of you, does she?” Mr. Lamont asks. “Don’t really call to check up on you. I think that’s what Rob saw in you—a girl whose own mama doesn’t even care about her. Hell, you could turn up missing and maybe she wouldn’t even notice, isn’t that right, Final Girl? Is that why you didn’t think about calling her first? Because you know she won’t care?” I stare into the fire, and the tears spill down my cheeks. I hate everything he’s saying because it’s true. “So my daddy sets up shop,” Mr. Lamont continues like he’s telling a bedtime story and not like he’s spilling the most heinous details of this entire operation. “He builds the camp and lets the Owl Society pick off campers at will. Each body in the lake is a little bit like a toll you pay to get access to something you want, except this isn’t a fairy tale. There’s no three-wish limit. The only thing keeping them in check was how secretive they were. Too many missing folks would be too obvious.” Mr. Lamont smiles coldly. “They kept the money coming and my father never asked questions. He was happy with cold hard cash, but he should have demanded that they share their secrets with him. He could have done so much more. He could have been so much more.” His eyes are like voids as he continues rambling. “I went to their lodge out there in those woods. I watched them kill campers, hikers, anyone really. But their incantations weren’t anything I recognized. I couldn’t decipher them fully, so I did what I could and when the opportunity presented itself, I spilled enough blood to appease whatever ancient power demanded it, and what did I get? Nothing.” I scoot forward on the couch as Javier’s call with his grandmother echoes in my head, along with the words of Alex and the gray-haired man. Everything suddenly clicks into place. “The killings at the camp in 1971.” Mr. Lamont’s head snaps up, and he slaps his knee, smiling. “You’re so good at your role, Charity. Final girls always figure it out, don’t they?” He laughs. Actually laughs, and I want to throw up. “I was seventeen. I’d known about the Owl Society my whole life and I thought—well—I thought I could show them that I deserved to be among them. I cut down six people at the camp that summer. Six. Spilled their blood on the earth, fed their corpses to the lake, and said the words I could remember out loud.” Kyle sniffs, and only then do I realize he’s crying a river of silent tears. Mr. Lamont


by, day--hour by hour, if so often moved to do it,--might send their heart-throbs from Maine to Florida, with some such words as these `I love you forever!' --`My heart runs over with love!'--`I love you more than I can!' and, again, at the next message 'I have lived an hour longer, and love you twice as much!' Or, when a good man has departed, his distant friend should be conscious of an electric thrill, as from the world of happy spirits, telling him 'Your dear friend is in bliss!' Or, to an absent husband, should come tidings thus `An immortal being, of whom you are the father, has this moment come from God!' and immediately its little voice would seem to have reached so far, and to be echoing in his heart. But for these poor rogues, the bank-robbers,--who, after all, are about as honest as nine people in ten, except that they disregard certain formalities, and prefer to transact business at midnight rather than 'Change-hours, --and for these murderers, as you phrase it, who are often excusable in the motives of their deed, and deserve to be ranked among public benefactors, if we consider only its result,--for unfortunate individuals like these, I really cannot applaud the enlistment of an immaterial and miraculous power in the universal world-hunt at their heels!" "You can't, hey?" cried the old gentleman, with a hard look. "Positively, no!" answered Clifford. "It puts them too miserably at disadvantage. For example, sir, in a dark, low, cross-beamed, panelled room of an old house, let us suppose a dead man, sitting in an arm-chair, with a blood-stain on his shirt-bosom, --and let us add to our hypothesis another man, issuing from the house, which he feels to be over-filled with the dead man's presence,--and let us lastly imagine him fleeing, Heaven knows whither, at the speed of a hurricane, by railroad! Now, sir, if the fugutive alight in some distant town, and find all the people babbling about that self-same dead man, whom he has fled so far to avoid the sight and thought of, will you not allow that his natural rights have been infringed? He has been deprived of his city of refuge, and, in my humble opinion, has suffered infinite wrong!" "You are a strange man; sir" said the old gentleman, bringing his gimlet-eye to a point on Clifford, as if determined to bore right into him. "I can't see through you!" "No, I'll be bound you can't!" cried Clifford, laughing. "And yet, my dear sir, I am as transparent as the water of Maule's well! But come, Hepzibah! We have flown far enough for once. Let us alight, as the birds do, and perch ourselves on the nearest twig, and consult wither we shall fly next!" Just then, as it happened, the train reached a solitary way-station. Taking advantage of the brief pause, Clifford left the car, and drew Hepzibah along with him. A moment afterwards, the train--with all the life of its interior, amid which Clifford had made himself so conspicuous an object--was


feet from the front door. I burst from the car, Carter’s loud and fast footfalls echoing up the street behind me. “Kit, wait!” he calls. I do the opposite, running to the front door, flinging it open, slamming it shut behind me. Carter reaches it just as I turn the deadbolt. He pounds on the door, pleading with me. “Kit, please! You’ve got it all wrong.” I back away from the door, unsure what to do next. I need a phone to call Detective Vick, peroxide and a Band-Aid for my hand, and to find my father, so I can finally reveal the truth about my mother’s death. I head to the living room, expecting to find my father in his La-Z-Boy, waiting up for me like he did when I was a teenager. Only his chair is empty. As is the living room. And, it seems, the whole house. “Dad?” I move down the hall, to the bedroom he once shared with my mother but now sleeps in alone. Peeking through the doorway, I spot a suitcase on the bed. One that doesn’t belong to him. It’s smaller than his battered suitcase, which I remember from so many family vacations. Nicer, too. Quality leather as dark as brandy. Its single flaw is a broken handle, which dangles from the suitcase, held on at only one end. My vision narrows, darkness pushing in from all sides until it looks like I’m staring down a train tunnel. But there’s no light at the end of it. Only confusion as I zero in on the suitcase’s lid. My hand shakes so hard I can barely lift it open. When I do, I see a test tube with blood inside it and a stack of typewritten pages. I scan the first line of the top one. The thing I remember most--the thing I still have nightmares about--is when it was all but over. A sob croaks out of me. I can’t hear it because my pounding heart is loud in my ears. A shock. I’m so heartbroken I’m surprised it can even beat at all. Because I know what my father did to get this suitcase. And I know why. All my life I’d only heard him referred to as Pat. But his real name is Patrick. Patrick McDeere. It didn’t occur to me that the second half of his name could also be turned into a different nickname. Ricky. Ricky sat in one of the leather chairs next to the fireplace. My father stood beside the other one, his back toward the door. Neither one of them noticed me as I crept into the room, the glinting knife in my grip leading the way. They only became aware of my presence once I said, “Where’s my baby?” “It’s gone, Virginia,” my father said with his back still to me, as if I wasn’t even worth the effort of turning around. “Bring him back.” “It’s too late for that, my darling.” “Don’t call me that!” I snapped, my hand tightening around the knife. “Don’t you


suffering quietly, preferring to crawl away from the others and lie huddled in some clump of tall grasses rather than to show his misery before their eyes. Kala, alone, he was glad to have with him, but now that he was better she was gone longer at a time, in search of food; for the devoted animal had scarcely eaten enough to support her own life while Tarzan had been so low, and was in consequence, reduced to a mere shadow of her former self. Chapter 7 The Light of Knowledge After what seemed an eternity to the little sufferer he was able to walk once more, and from then on his recovery was so rapid that in another month he was as strong and active as ever. During his convalescence he had gone over in his mind many times the battle with the gorilla, and his first thought was to recover the wonderful little weapon which had transformed him from a hopelessly outclassed weakling to the superior of the mighty terror of the jungle. Also, he was anxious to return to the cabin and continue his investigations of its wondrous contents. So, early one morning, he set forth alone upon his quest. After a little search he located the clean-picked bones of his late adversary, and close by, partly buried beneath the fallen leaves, he found the knife, now red with rust from its exposure to the dampness of the ground and from the dried blood of the gorilla. He did not like the change in its former bright and gleaming surface; but it was still a formidable weapon, and one which he meant to use to advantage whenever the opportunity presented itself. He had in mind that no more would he run from the wanton attacks of old Tublat. In another moment he was at the cabin, and after a short time had again thrown the latch and entered. His first concern was to learn the mechanism of the lock, and this he did by examining it closely while the door was open, so that he could learn precisely what caused it to hold the door, and by what means it released at his touch. He found that he could close and lock the door from within, and this he did so that there would be no chance of his being molested while at his investigation. Chapter 7 36 He commenced a systematic search of the cabin; but his attention was soon riveted by the books which seemed to exert a strange and powerful influence over him, so that he could scarce attend to aught else for the lure of the wondrous puzzle which their purpose presented to him. Among the other books were a primer, some child's readers, numerous picture books, and a great dictionary. All of these he examined, but the pictures caught his fancy most, though the strange little bugs which covered the pages where there were no pictures excited his wonder and deepest thought. Squatting upon his haunches on the table top in the cabin his


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

tell you, Kemp, sooner or later, all the complicated processes. We need not go into that now. For the most part, saving certain gaps I chose to remember, they are written in cypher in those books that tramp has hidden. We must hunt him down. We must get those books again. But the essential phase was to place the transparent object whose refractive index was to be lowered between two radiating centres of a sort of ethereal vibration, of which I will tell you more fully later. No, not these Rntgen vibrations--I don't know that these others of mine have been described. Yet they are obvious enough. I needed two little dynamos, and these I worked with a cheap gas engine. My first experiment was with a bit of white wool fabric. I was the strangest thing in the world to see it in the flicker of the flashes soft and white, and then to watch it fade like a wreath of smoke and vanish. "I could scarcely believe I had done it. I put my hand into the emptiness, and there was the thing as solid as ever. I felt it awkwardly, and threw it on the floor. I had a little trouble finding it again. "And then came a curious experience. I heard a miaow behind me, and turning, saw a lean white cat, very dirty, on the cistern cover outside the window. A thought came into my head. 'Everything ready for you,' I said, and went to the window, opened it, and called softly. She came in, purring,--the poor beast was starving,--and I gave her some milk. All my food was in a cupboard in the corner of the room. After that she went smelling round the room,--evidently with the idea of making herself at home. The invisible rag upset her a bit; you should have seen her spit at it! But I made her comfortable on the pillow of my truckle-bed. And I gave her butter to get her to wash." "And you processed her?" "I processed her. But giving drugs to a cat is no joke, Kemp! And the process failed." "Failed!" "In two particulars. These were the claws and the pigment stuff--what is it?--at the back of the eye in a cat. You know?" "Tapetum." "Yes, the tapetum. It didn't go. After I'd given the stuff to bleach the blood and done certain other things to her, I gave the beast opium, and put her and the pillow she was sleeping on, on the apparatus. And after all the rest had faded and vanished, there remained two little ghosts of her eyes." "Odd!" "I can't explain it. She was bandaged and clamped, of course, --so I had her safe; but she woke while she was still misty, and miaowed dismally, and some one came knocking. It was an old woman from downstairs, who suspected me of vivisecting,--a drink-sodden old creature, with only a white cat to care for in all the world. I whipped out some chloroform, and applied it, and answered the door. 'Did I


experience had too sorrowfully corrected. Yet, amidst the changing visions of life, his principles remained unshaken, his benevolence unchilled; and he retired from the multitude 'more in PITY than in anger,' to scenes of simple nature, to the pure delights of literature, and to the exercise of domestic virtues. He was a descendant from the younger branch of an illustrious family, and it was designed, that the deficiency of his patrimonial wealth should be supplied either by a splendid alliance in marriage, or by success in the intrigues of public affairs. But St. Aubert had too nice a sense of honour to fulfil the latter hope, and too small a portion of ambition to sacrifice what he called happiness, to the attainment of wealth. After the death of his father he married a very amiable woman, his equal in birth, and not his superior in fortune. The late Monsieur St. Aubert's liberality, or extravagance, had so much involved his affairs, that his son found it necessary to dispose of a part of the family domain, and, some years after his marriage, he sold it to Monsieur Quesnel, the brother of his wife, and retired to a small estate in Gascony, where conjugal felicity, and parental duties, divided his attention with the treasures of knowledge and the illuminations of genius. To this spot he had been attached from his infancy. He had often made excursions to it when a boy, and the impressions of delight given to his mind by the homely kindness of the grey-headed peasant, to whom it was intrusted, and whose fruit and cream never failed, had not been obliterated by succeeding circumstances. The green pastures along which he had so often bounded in the exultation of health, and youthful freedom--the woods, under whose refreshing shade he had first indulged that pensive melancholy, which afterwards made a strong feature of his character--the wild walks of the mountains, the river, on whose waves he had floated, and the distant plains, which seemed boundless as his early hopes--were never after remembered by St. Aubert but with enthusiasm and regret. At length he disengaged himself from the world, and retired hither, to realize the wishes of many years. The building, as it then stood, was merely a summer cottage, rendered interesting to a stranger by its neat simplicity, or the beauty of the surrounding scene; and considerable additions were necessary to make it a comfortable family residence. St. Aubert felt a kind of affection for every part of the fabric, which he remembered in his youth, and would not suffer a stone of it to be removed, so that the new building, adapted to the style of the old one, formed with it only a simple and elegant residence. The taste of Madame St. Aubert was conspicuous in its internal finishing, where the same chaste simplicity was observable in the furniture, and in the few ornaments of the apartments, that characterized the manners of its inhabitants. The library occupied the west side of the chateau, and was enriched by a collection of the


patience and time was the key, and though patience was far from her strong suit, right now she had all the time in the world. Well, not quite. In six or seven months there would be a new little human in the house. She had yet to be seen by her ob-gyn, but she’d made an appointment. Then, once she heard that the pregnancy was viable and going as it should, she would tell her dad that he would soon be a grandfather. She imagined that he would welcome the news, but his anxiety about her safety and raising a child on her own would only ratchet into the stratosphere. “So deal with it,” she told herself, and Dave thumped his tail, his eyes on hers. “You,” she said to the kitten, “get to hang out in the bedroom while I take this guy”—she hooked her thumb at Dave—“on a walk.” Which quickly became a run. Dave, as excited as he was, couldn’t mosey, and so they jogged through the streets near her house and she decided she now had a running partner. Who needed Bella and Sarah and Jess? She now had, floppy ears flying, pink tongue lolling, indefatigable Dave to gallop happily along beside her as she jogged. For the first time since Jay’s murder, she felt her spirit soar a bit, and when she considered the future, it didn’t seem so bleak. No, she didn’t have her husband and that pain, she suspected, would always exist at some level, but she did have her new dog, and the kitten, and in a little over half a year, a brand-new baby. “Things could be worse,” she confided in the dog, her shoes slapping against the sidewalk, her thighs beginning to burn as she ran. “It could be raining.” It was getting harder to talk and run, so she cut through the park and turned back toward the house and slowed the pace. By the time she let herself in the back door, she was breathing regularly. Dave buried his nose in his water dish and slopped it everywhere. “Some people might say you have a drinking problem,” she teased, ruffling the mutt behind his ears before sopping up the mess with a kitchen towel and tossing it into the laundry room basket. She carried a glass of water into the bathroom, where she showered and then, with a towel wrapped around her, swiped at the bathroom mirror where moisture had collected due to the fact that the fan wasn’t working, a project Jay had said he would take care of on an ever-growing list of household tasks that he’d never gotten around to. She cracked the window and immediately an alarm went off. And the dog started barking like crazy. “Right.” The new security system. “Crap.” She turned off the alarm, slammed the window down, and latched it, and as she did, she noticed movement in her peripheral vision, a shadow flitting against the fence. Every muscle in her body tensed. In a nanosecond the shadow was gone. What the


for a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil and been rode by witches. Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hill- top we looked away down into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says: "Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name in blood." Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with blood and never men- tioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it and be forgot forever. Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had it. Some thought it would be good to kill the FAMILIES of boys that told the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he


mentioning the secret garden. She had liked to hear Martha talk about him. Besides, she longed to talk about him. It would seem to bring him nearer. "He is Martha's brother. He is twelve years old," she explained. "He is not like any one else in the world. He can charm foxes and squirrels and birds just as the natives in India charm snakes. He plays a very soft tune on a pipe and they come and listen." There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one suddenly toward him. "There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this," he exclaimed. "Come and look at it" The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he turned to one of them. "Can he do that?" he asked eagerly. "He played on his pipe and they listened," Mary explained. "But he doesn't call it Magic. He says it's because he lives on the moor so much and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird or a rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robin questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft chirps." Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and the spots on his cheeks burned. "Tell me some more about him," he said. "He knows all about eggs and nests," Mary went on. "And he knows where foxes and badgers and otters live. He keeps them secret so that other boys won't find their holes and frighten them. He knows about everything that grows or lives on the moor." "Does he like the moor?" said Colin. "How can he when it's such a great, bare, dreary place?" "It's the most beautiful place," protested Mary. "Thousands of lovely things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing or squeaking to each other. They are so busy and having such fun under the earth or in the trees or heather. It's their world." "How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at her. "I have never been there once, really," said Mary suddenly remembering. "I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous. Martha told me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it you feel as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in the heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey--and all full of bees and butterflies." "You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly. He looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and wondering what it was. "You can't if you stay in a room, " said Mary. "I couldn't go on the moor" he said in a resentful tone. Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold. "You might--sometime."


"Had Sir Charles received any other lettefs in the same writting?" "Well, sir, I took no particular notice of his letters. I should not have noticed this one, only it happened to come alone." "And you have no idea who L. L. is?" "No, sir. No more than you have. But I expect if we could lay our hands upon that lady we should know more about Sir Charles's death." "I cannot understand, Barrymore, how you came to conceal this important information." "Well, sir, it was immediately after that our own trouble came to us. And then again, sir, we were both of us very fond of Sir Charles, as we well might be considering all that he has done for us. To rake this up couldn't help our poor master, and it's well to go carefully when there's a lady in the case. Even the best of us --" "You thought it might injure his reputation?" "Well, sir, I thought no good could come of it. But now you have been kind to us, and I feel as if it would be treating you unfairly not to tell you all that I know about the matter." "Very good, Barrymore; you can go." When the butler had left us Sir Henry turned to me. "Well, Watson, what do you think of this new light?" "It seems to leave the darkness rather blacker than before." "So I think. But if we can only trace L. L. it should clear up the whole business. We have gained that much. We know that there is someone who has the facts if we can only find her. What do you think we should do?" "Let Holmes know all about it at once. It will give him the clue for which he has been seeking. I am much mistaken if it does not bring him down." I went at once to my room and drew up my report of the morning's conversation for Holmes. It was evident to me that he had been very busy of late, for the notes which I had from Baker Street were few and short, with no comments upon the informa- tion which I had supplied and hardly any reference to my mis- sion. No doubt his blackmailing case is absorbing all his faculties. And yet this new factor must surely arrest his attention and renew his interest. I wish that he were here. October 17th. All day to-day the rain poured down, rustling on the ivy and dripping from the eaves. I thought of the convict out upon the bleak, cold, shelterless moor. Poor devil! Whatever his crimes, he has suffered something to atone for them. And then I thought of that other one -- the face in the cab, the figure against the moon. Was he also out in that deluged -- the unseen watcher, the man of darkness? In the evening I put on my waterproof and I walked far upon the sodden moor, full of dark imaginings, the rain beating upon my face and the wind whis- tling


shovel. “Not silly at all. Although I cannot even imagine you saying a cross word, Marisol. You’re like a saint.” Marisol laughed. “Oh, trust me. I have a temper.” “I can believe it,” Iris teased, to which Marisol tossed a weed at her in playful reproach. They returned to their work, Iris watching the ground soften and crumble beneath her efforts. She spoke before she could stop herself. “I hope we get to meet Keegan soon.” “As do I, Iris. She will love you both,” Marisol said, but her voice was suddenly tremulous, as if she were swallowing tears. And Iris realized Keegan must have been gone for quite some time now, if the garden had fallen into this much disarray again. Iris, full of nerves, wrote to him that night: Would you ever want to meet me? He replied, swiftly: YES. But you’re also six hundred kilometers away from me. Iris countered: If I had wings, I would fly home for a day. Since I don’t, it’ll have to be whenever I return to Oath. He asked: You’re returning? When? Do you know, or will you wait for the end of the war? P.S. You truly don’t have wings? I’m shocked. She paused, uncertain how to respond. It suddenly felt as if she had a host of butterflies within her, and she typed: I’ll return most likely when the war is over. I want to see you. I want to hear your voice. P.S. I most certainly don’t have wings. She sent that confession over the portal, and her mind added, I want to touch you. It took him a minute to answer, which had her biting her nails and fervently wishing she had kept those things to herself. Until he wrote: I want the same. Perhaps we could go irritate the librarians of Oath with our quest for missing myths, or I could take you to meet my nan over tea and biscuits. I think she would take a shine to you. You could also settle the debate about my chin being too pointy and sharp, and if I look more like a knight errant or a rogue. Or maybe we could even just walk the park together. Anything you would like, I would too. I’ll be here, waiting for whenever you’re ready to see me. She read it twice before hiding her smile in the crease of the paper. Dear Ms. Winnow, We have on record that one private Forest M. Winnow of Oath enlisted for Enva’s cause on the first day of Shiloh, nearly six months prior to your query. He was sorted into Second E Battalion, Fifth Landover Company, under Captain Rena G. Griss. We are unable to provide you with any further information at this time but advise you to write to the E Brigade C.O., stationed in Halethorpe. Please be advised that mail running through Southern Borough has been unreliable, and hence could be the reason why you have not received word from Private Winnow or his C.O. Best, William L. Sorrel Second Asst. to


a war hundreds of kilometers away. I was angry that I could no longer play my violin in the light. That my symphony dreams were dashed. And I know I told you about my stuffy professor claiming my writing was ‘unpublishable,’ but another reason why I signed up to be a correspondent was simply because I wanted to know the truth about the war. In Oath, there’s this undercurrent of fear and half-hearted preparations, but I feel like no one truly knows what’s happening. And I wanted to see it with my own eyes. “So here I am. Freshly returned from the front. And now I understand.” Iris’s heart was beating in her throat. She watched Attie in the starlight, unable to take her gaze from her friend. “What, Attie?” she asked. “What do you understand?” “Why Enva sang to our people. Why she filled their hearts with knowledge of the war. Because that’s what her music did and still does: it shows us the truth. And the truth is the people in the west were being trampled by Dacre’s wrath. They needed us, and they still do. Without soldiers coming from Oath, without us joining in this fight … it would already be over and Dacre would reign.” Attie fell quiet, lifting her binoculars back up to her eyes. To study the stars again. “Do you think we’ll lose?” Iris whispered, wondering what the world would be like if the gods rose again to rule. “I hope not, Iris. But what I do know is we need more people to join this war in order to win. And with music being treated like a sin in Oath, how will people learn the truth?” Iris was pensive. But then she whispered, “You and I, Attie. We’ll have to write it.” Dear Iris, I have good news and slightly not good news. All right, it’s bad news. But I’ve always been an advocate for giving the best first, so here it is: I found a snippet of a myth I think you’ll enjoy. It’s about Enva’s instrument and is as follows: “Enva’s harp, the only one of its kind, was first born in the clouds. Her mother goddess loved to hear Enva sing and decided to fashion an inimitable harp for her. Its frame is made of dragon bone, salvaged from the wasteland beyond sunset. Its strings are made of hair, stolen from one of the fiercest harpies in the skies. Its frame is held together by the very wind itself. They say the harp is heavy to mortals, and it would refuse to let such fingers play it without screeching. Only Enva’s hands can make it truly sing.” Now, onto the news you won’t like: I’m going to be away for a while. I’m uncertain how long at the moment, and I won’t be able to write to you. That’s not to say I won’t be thinking of you often. So please know that, even in the silence that must come between us for a little while. I’ll write to you whenever


completely naked that I start to smooth my skirt over my legs, trying to cover as much of myself as the fabric will allow. “I had a—” My voice breaks, even though I’ve told this story a dozen times to just as many skeptical people. Cops. State workers. Mr. Gurlain. “I had a patient. She was sick. Stomach cancer. By the time she found out, it was far too late. It had spread . . . everywhere. Surgery wasn’t possible. Chemo only went so far. There was nothing to do but keep her comfortable and wait until the end arrived. But the pain, well, it was excruciating.” I continue staring at my lap, at my hands, at the way they keep smoothing over my skirt. My words, though, aren’t as cautious. They get faster, freer—something that never happened in that gray box of an interrogation room at the police station. I chalk it up to being inside Hope’s End. This place is familiar with death. “Her doctor gave her a prescription for fentanyl,” I say. “To be taken only sporadically and only when necessary. One night, it was necessary. I’d never seen someone hurt so much. That kind of pain? It’s not fleeting. It lingers. It consumes. And when I looked into her eyes, I saw sheer agony. So I gave her a single dose of fentanyl and monitored the pain. It seemed to help, so I went to bed.” I pause, just like every time I reach this point in the story. I always need a moment before diving into the details of my failure. “I woke up earlier than normal the next morning,” I say, remembering the dark gray sky outside my window, still streaked with remnants of night. The gloom had felt like a bad omen. One look at it and I knew something was wrong. “I went to check on the patient and found her to be nonresponsive. Immediately, I called 911, which is standard protocol.” I leave out the part about already knowing it was a waste of time. I recognize death when I see it. “I was waiting for the EMTs when I saw the bottle of fentanyl. It was company policy to keep all medications in a locked box beneath our beds. That way only the caregiver has access to them. Maybe I had been tired. Or shaken by how much pain she was in. Whatever the reason, I’d forgotten to take the bottle with me.” I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to picture the bottle lying on its side against the bedside lamp. I do anyway. I see it all. The bottle. The cap sitting a few inches away. The lone pill that remained. A small circle colored a light shade of blue that I always thought was too pretty for something so dangerous. “During the night, she had swallowed all but one of them,” I say. “She died while I was sleeping. She was pronounced dead at the scene and taken away. The coroner later said she died of cardiac arrest brought


him like that before. He started coughing.” A dark flash in her eyes. “Did he?” said Mrs. King. “Yes. He couldn’t speak. I thought the nurse would come; he was making such a racket. But you know how it is upstairs. You can’t hear a thing when the doors are closed.” The guests were helping themselves to cold cuts, to pieces of ham, to slices of tongue. They gave Miss de Vries sidelong looks, trying to identify Mrs. King. Lockwood smiled at them, his face glassy and pale, moving to obstruct their view. His mind was working furiously: Mrs. King knew the signs. He had the faintest sheen on the surface of his skin, looking around for his clerks, debating whether he needed witnesses. Mrs. King turned to her sister. Miss de Vries was that, after all. Formed of the same materials. An equal, when all was said and done. “He didn’t say anything else to you?” she asked. Miss de Vries smiled. “Not another word.” She folded her hands. So neat, so tidy. The scrag ends of the matter chopped off and swept out of sight. Too clean, Mrs. King thought. Then Miss de Vries added, voice low, “I should have got rid of you years ago. I should have taken better care.” Mrs. King shrugged. She did it to hide her anger. “Perhaps I should have got rid of you.” She saw Miss de Vries react. Pleasure, a vicious bite. The urge to fight. “Me?” “We could have done it. The girls and I.” Miss de Vries paused. A tiny frown appeared on her forehead. She didn’t understand. “The girls?” she repeated. “Any number of girls, from the sound of things,” said Mrs. King, voice low. She felt Mr. Lockwood grow still beside them. And she saw Miss de Vries grow even stiller, her face shuttering up. “Do you know about that, Madam?” Something strange happened in that careful, watchful gaze. “Don’t,” she said, voice taut. Her eyes went sideways, a single rapid glance, to Mr. Lockwood—and then away again. But Mrs. King understood at once. It was fear. Miss de Vries had buried her father, and she wanted everything about him to stay hidden deep, deep in the ground. Mr. Lockwood raised his hand to his mouth, touched his bruised lip. “I would take care, Mrs. King,” he said. It made Mrs. King laugh in anger. “Of what?” she said, turning to look fully at him. His mouth worked a little, choosing insults, jettisoning them. “Everything,” he said, voice heavy. Miss de Vries took a tiny step backward, away from this. The crowd circling the supper tables had thickened, spiraling, growing closer. Lockwood didn’t seem calm. He was calculating everything, fingers fluttering, eyes going to the ballroom, signaling to his clerks. Mrs. King wondered something, in that moment. Perhaps Madam wasn’t the enemy here? Her fortune might be the greatest adversary of all. It was bigger than both of them, a hurricane all its own. It had been drawn in vast and sweeping lines, great mercantile interests spinning outward,


us. It wasn’t just that I’d trusted him. I’d thought … But it didn’t matter, did it? Whatever I felt, it was for a man who didn’t exist. “I’ll let you two talk in private,” Big Jim said. As he passed, he clapped me on the shoulder once. It was the only time I could recall him ever touching me, and it took all I had not to slide out from under his hand, my skin crawling. I didn’t want anyone touching me. Not ever again. The door closed behind Jim. Cass rubbed my arm in a way I’m sure was meant to be comforting. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish that it wasn’t true. I wish that I didn’t have to tell you.” “Why was your dad looking into him at all?” I asked. I felt like I was going to vomit, but I forced myself to focus on Cass’s face. She always knew what to do. She was always the one in control, and I needed that now. “I asked him to. I wanted to look out for you,” Cass said. “He lied. The whole time, he— God, Cass, I told him things.” “You told him about Persephone—Jessi Walker, right?” Cass asked. I nodded. “I really wish you hadn’t done that. What else did you tell him?” “Everything,” I said. I was an idiot. I’d known he had to be hiding something. He’d all but told me not to trust him. “I told him I lied at the trial.” She looked at me aghast. “You told a serial killer’s son that you lied to put his father in prison.” “I’m not sure he was a serial killer,” I said, which didn’t make it better. Ethan had been sure, though. Unless that was another lie. “He must have come to talk to me—but I wasn’t even here. No, he came to talk to you. And Liv. She said she’d talk to him.” “I didn’t know that,” Cass said, head tilted, frowning. “Do you know what she told him?” “Nothing, I think,” I said. “But what if he confronted her? She wasn’t going to tell him anything until we all agreed, but if he pushed, if he got angry…” I couldn’t imagine Ethan with a gun in his hands, rage on his face. I couldn’t imagine him lying to me like this, either. I had no idea who he really was. What he was really capable of. Cass’s face was pale. “Do you really think he might have killed Olivia?” she asked, voice hushed. “I don’t know. I need to go. I need to— I can’t—” “You should stay. Wait until you’re feeling steadier,” Cass said. “No, I have to—all my stuff is at the motel room. I have to go get it. I have to…” Shit. I couldn’t think past the motel room door. He’d be there. Waiting. What was I going to do? What was I going to say? “Here.” Cass pressed a key into my hand. I frowned at it, uncomprehending. “You’re staying with me. As long as you


weather turned ugly. Edei must have had the same thought, looking from the darkening sky to her. Even with the Quilt casting the silver light of dozens of threads across her vision, Io recognized the tension in his face. “Where to?” he asked. Io glanced at the thread. “East, to Newtown.” Newtown District was reconstructed a few years ago, its streets smoothed to accommodate automobiles. The frail constructions rack-rack-racketed on the uneven asphalt, honking at each other and pedestrians. They were mostly trucks carrying products, but there was also the odd private vehicle, its windows tinted, its drivers in shiny caps and elegant button-downs. Io’s father had been in a private automobile once, an occasion he had narrated as though it had been the most marvelous fairy tale, complete with a beautiful princess and a fairy godmother. He had been crossing the street on Cardamom Avenue, not far from here, and the driver hadn’t seen him. Nearly took his kneecap off. The owner of the car, a young lady clad in chimerini furs—the detail always made Io’s mother roll her eyes—had been so distressed she insisted they drive him to the nearest hospital. Traffic was bad, and the ride took so long his knee had stopped hurting by the time they arrived. But as Baba watched the car take off, he vowed that one day, he’d get an automobile himself and take his girls on road trips in the countryside, and wouldn’t that be lovely? And one day, Mama had always replied, I will get you girls chimerini furs, and we can all sit like princesses in the back while your baba drives us around. The memory brought a smile to Io’s lips. Ava could make fun of her all she wanted, but the entire Ora family was obsessed with one day, with the adulation of more. Ava liked to appear as the grounded one, the come-what-may sister, but she hadn’t escaped the Ora legacy, either: her aspiration wasn’t just to be better off, like Thais or Io—she wanted to be the best. To sing the loveliest songs at the best clubs for the most adoring audiences. To dance surrounded by the most famous clubbers. To date the prettiest girl. Io’s attention was called back to the present. Nico sidled close to her, his threads spilling silver in her eyesight. She drew to a halt with a surprised “Careful!” “Oops,” said Nico. “Did I step on you?” Edei came around on Io’s other side, casually hooking her free hand into his elbow. To Nico, he said, “She’s in the Quilt. It makes it hard to see the real world or discern your threads from the one in her hand. I suggest you tell your story from where you are now.” His tone was good-natured, his palm cupping Io’s hand softly. Io remembered her admission—she liked him—and let the fuzzy warmth of his body seep into her, like a traveler coming in from the cold. If he wanted to help her, she’d let him. If he wanted to be sweet, she’d enjoy it.


now too. She told him I was with Steven? The tiniest part of me has hoped she would approve of this relationship now, if there ever was one. But Lanier apparently still doesn’t trust me. “Daph, forget Lanier. Let’s do this. Finally.” I consider his offer briefly because, well, it’s what I want to do. But I shake my head. “If we get together right now, Lanier will know it’s because we met up at the wedding and she’ll blame me. She’ll be furious.” Huff sighs and rolls his eyes. “Damn, Daph. Why do you care so much? What happened back then was a long time ago. She has to realize that.” He is partially right. But our big breakup, when we were twenty-three and twenty-five, had less to do with her and more with what I’d thought was the right thing. But it was easier to blame her than to blame myself. Seven years ago, I still had my mother’s voice in my head—and her addictive nature in my body. I was afraid then that love would drown me, just like it had my mother. Lanier pleaded with me not to take Huff down with me. I loved him too much to do that. The irony that I later found myself sober, pregnant, and starting a family with a man I didn’t love as much wasn’t lost on me. But instead of saying that, I say, “Huff, you have this big, magical, amazing family. I have Lanier. So losing her would be like losing everything and everyone.” He wraps me in a hug. “You have me, Daphne,” he whispers. “You always have.” He pulls back and kisses me. “You are all I care about. I’m not going to lose you again.” I look up into his sad eyes, and I start to feel that same thing I have always felt for him. And I realize: As much as I’m trying to deny it, I’ve already made my decision. “We’ll wait to tell Lanier?” I whisper. He nods. “As long as you want.” He kisses me, and despite how things ended last time, I know—have always known—that we belong to each other. Like sand and the ocean. Like flowers and the soil. Like songbirds and the sky. * * * Huff and I stagger our times leaving the bathroom. After he leaves, I fix my hair in the mirror, reapply gloss to my swollen lips. All the while, I’m smiling. I can’t wipe the huge, Huff-imposed grin off my face. When I pass Bryce walking through the front hallway, I can’t even be ruffled because I am so filled with this wonderful feeling. I glide outside to the patio to stand next to June. Do I look different? Can everyone see how finding where I’m supposed to be—and who I’m supposed to be with—has changed me? The beautiful, and, well, a little sweaty bride throws her arms around June and me. I can tell she is tipsy. As we watch people start to clear out, she focuses her attention on Bryce, who