The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

in approaching. He wondered what his antagonist was doing. He started. There was a smash from below. He hesitated and went downstairs again. Suddenly the house resounded with heavy blows and the splintering of wood. He heard a smash and the destructive clang of the iron fastenings of the shutters. He turned the key and opened the kitchen door. As he did so, the shutters, split and splintering, came flying inward. He stood aghast. The window frame, save for one cross bar, was still intact, but only little teeth of glass remained in the frame. The shutters had been driven in with an axe, and now the axe was descending in sweeping blows upon the window frame and the iron bars defending it. Then suddenly it leapt aside and vanished. He saw the revolver lying on the path outside, and then the little weapon sprang into the air. He dodged back. The revolver cracked just too late, and a splinter from the edge of the closing door flashed over his head. He slammed and locked the door, and as he stood outside he heard Griffin shouting and laughing. Then the blows of the axe, with their splitting and smashing accompaniments, were resumed. Kemp stood in the passage trying to think. In a moment the Invisible Man would be in the kitchen. This door would not keep him a moment, and then-- A ringing came at the front door again. It would be the policemen. He ran into the hall, put up the chain, and drew the bolts. He made the girl speak before he dropped the chain, and the three people blundered into the house in a heap, and Kemp slammed the door again. "The Invisible Man!" said Kemp. "He has a revolver, with two shots--left. He's killed Adye. Shot him anyhow. Didn't you see him on the lawn? He's lying there." "Who?" said one of the policemen. "Adye," said Kemp. "We came round the back way," said the girl. "What's that smashing?" asked one of the policemen. "He's in the kitchen--or will be. He has found an axe--" Suddenly the house was full of the Invisible Man's resounding blows on the kitchen door. The girl stared towards the kitchen, shuddered, and retreated into the dining-room. Kemp tried to explain in broken sentences. They heard the kitchen door give. "This way," cried Kemp, starting into activity, and bundled the policemen into the dining-room doorway. "Poker," said Kemp, and rushed to the fender. He handed a poker to each policeman. He suddenly flung himself backward. "Whup!" said one policeman, ducked, and caught the axe on his poker. The pistol snapped its penultimate shot and ripped a valuable Sidney Cooper. The second policeman brought his poker down on the little weapon, as one might knock down a wasp, and sent it rattling to the floor. At the first clash the girl screamed, stood screaming for a moment by the fireplace, and then ran to open the shutters--possibly with an idea of escaping by the shattered window. The axe receded into the passage, and fell


Jem. "Mis'sippi turns 'em loose a day later." As we came to the live oaks at the Radley Place I raised my finger to point for the hundredth time to the knot-hole where I had found the chewing gum, trying to make Jem believe I had found it there, and found myself pointing at another piece of tinfoil. "I see it, Scout! I see it-" Jem looked around, reached up, and gingerly pocketed a tiny shiny package. We ran home, and on the front porch we looked at a small box patchworked with bits of tinfoil collected from chewing-gum wrappers. It was the kind of box wedding rings came in, purple velvet with a minute catch. Jem flicked open the tiny catch. Inside were two scrubbed and polished pennies, one on top of the other. Jem examined them. "Indian-heads," he said. "Nineteen-six and Scout, one of em's nineteen-hundred. These are real old." "Nineteen-hundred," I echoed. "Say-" "Hush a minute, I'm thinkin'." "Jem, you reckon that's somebody's hidin' place?" "Naw, don't anybody much but us pass by there, unless it's some grown person's-" "Grown folks don't have hidin' places. You reckon we ought to keep 'em, Jem?" "I don't know what we could do, Scout. Who'd we give 'em back to? I know for a fact don't anybody go by there- Cecil goes by the back street an' all the way around by town to get home." Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and old Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose lived two doors up the street from us; neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived. Jem wouldn't go by her place without Atticus beside him. "What you reckon we oughta do, Jem?" Finders were keepers unless title was proven. Plucking an occasional camellia, getting a squirt of hot milk from Miss Maudie Atkinson's cow on a summer day, helping ourselves to someone's scuppernongs was part of our ethical culture, but money was different. "Tell you what," said Jem. "We'll keep 'em till school starts, then go around and ask everybody if they're theirs. They're some bus child's, maybe- he was too taken up with gettin' outa school today an' forgot 'em. These are somebody's, I know that. See how they've been slicked up? They've been saved." "Yeah, but why should somebody wanta put away chewing gum like that? You know it doesn't last." "I don't know, Scout. But these are important to somebody...." "How's that, Jem...?" "Well, Indian-heads- well, they come from the Indians. They're real strong magic, they make you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it, but things like long life 'n' good health, 'n' passin' six-weeks tests... these are real valuable to somebody. I'm gonna put em in my trunk." Before Jem went to his room, he looked for a long time at the Radley Place. He seemed to be


start-up capital from his clutches. As for you? Marrying and employing a Vos will help you secure a small business loan.” She threw an absent gesture in the general direction of his vineyard. “You could continue making wine. Maybe even wine people can stand to swallow, with my help. Don’t you want the winery to be a success?” “I did.” Her brows drew together over the gruff note in his voice. “I did. But I resigned myself to the fact that this is the one thing I’m terrible at.” “You’re forgetting basic human hygiene.” “I must not smell that bad,” he said against the side of her neck, his lips brushing that sensitive patch beneath her ear, warm breath coasting down the collar of her shirt—and that arm. It flexed where it banded across her belly, making hidden parts of her tense, too, in the process. “You know. Since you’re melting on me like an M&M on the dashboard of a hot car.” Natalie twisted out of his hold like a shot, ordering her skin to cool down as she turned. It wouldn’t. Was his chest rising and falling faster than before? “Look, if you want to leave St. Helena, I’m not going to stop you.” A line snapped in his cheek. “That was the plan.” “Plans can change.” A sound left him. “You must really want that trust fund.” “I want a new start.” Momentarily, she let herself be vulnerable. Maybe because she was already halfway there after making the proposal to August. Or maybe she’d already been sawed open after humbling herself this morning to Corinne. Whatever the reason, she spoke without censure. “I need a new start. I can’t just stay here, living in the shadow of my family. My brother. I might as well still be that seventeen-year-old screwup that everyone just . . . tolerates. I’m better elsewhere. I’m something. I’m someone when I’m not here.” The sound of his hard swallow reached her through the cool night air. Damn. Too much. She’d given him the motherload of ammunition—and since he was obviously not into the idea, she needed to get out of there before he could use it. “Good luck, August,” she said, backing away and eventually turning, picking up her pace. “It would have been fun making your life hell.” “Natalie.” She didn’t stop. Didn’t want this man, of all people, to let her down gently. Her pride was all but dismantled, but she could hold on to a scrap. Speed walking down the pathway back to the guest house, however, she wondered how much longer she could maintain her grip. Chapter Five August adjusted his tie in the rearview mirror of his truck, grimacing at the sound of a marching band butchering “America the Beautiful.” Across the street, the parking lot of the train station had been transformed by two high-ceilinged tents, royal blue carpet laid down over the asphalt. Waiters in tuxedos carried around trays holding glasses of red wine, others ferried hors d’oeuvres among guests dressed to the nines. Unbelievable. All of


more interesting thing, and all I was left with was the grief and the sadness and the scars. Paige, in her obsession with slasher films, had always talked to me about the rules. She was the one who seemed to know how that night, exactly one year ago, would go. It was her voice that drove Charity and me to make the decisions we did. It’s her voice I hear now as I sit at the edge of Mirror Lake in the dark. “The final act is never really the end,” she said to me and Charity once as we watched the original Friday the 13th under a pile of blankets on a chilly Halloween night when we were about thirteen. “There’s always a twist, but it only works if you don’t see it coming.” I watched the whole movie through my fingers, and when Jason Voorhees’s mother had her head removed by that movie’s final girl, I breathed a sigh of relief. Paige smiled at me and told me to keep my eyes on the screen. I almost choked on a piece of pizza when Jason’s decomposing corpse reappeared from the depths of Crystal Lake. As I sit here now, I think of Paige’s words again. She was always right. I stick my hand in my coat pocket and pull out the folded letter that arrived in my mailbox three weeks ago. It came on a Saturday morning, and there was no postmark or return address on the letter at all. That told me that whoever delivered it had brought it to my house and put it in the mailbox themselves. When I first read it, I thought it was a joke. An awful prank that somebody who had seen all the press about the murders at Camp Mirror Lake was playing on me. But as I read and reread the letter, my gut feeling was that it was real, and that was more terrifying than anything. I take out the letter as I sit very near the spot where Charity died—where a part of me also died. A part that, as hard as I tried, I could not bring back to life. I unfold the letter and read it for the thousandth time. I’m sorry, Bezi. I don’t know if you believe me or if you even care, but I have to say it. I should never have helped them. I didn’t have a choice. I got what I wanted. I’m free from them, but I think about what I had to do to have this. I’m sorry. But I have something I can share with you. I think you know what it is. Maybe it can make up for what I did. You can have money, strength, power, whatever you want. If you want, meet me at the place where it happened on the day it happened. If you’re not there, I’ll assume you never will be. It was from Kyle. There is no one else it could have come from, and he put it in my mailbox with


longer’n grief.” 10 One day Hezekiah asked off from work to go off with the ball team. Janie told him not to hurry back. She could close up the store herself this once. He cautioned her about the catches on the windows and doors and swaggered off to Winter Park. Business was dull all day, because numbers of people had gone to the game. She decided to close early, because it was hardly worth the trouble of keeping open on an afternoon like this. She had set six o’clock as her limit. At five-thirty a tall man came into the place. Janie was leaning on the counter making aimless pencil marks on a piece of wrapping paper. She knew she didn’t know his name, but he looked familiar. “Good evenin’, Mis’ Starks,” he said with a sly grin as if they had a good joke together. She was in favor of the story that was making him laugh before she even heard it. “Good evenin’,” she answered pleasantly. “You got all de advantage ’cause Ah don’t know yo’ name.” “People wouldn’t know me lak dey would you.” Their Eyes Were Watching God 113 “Ah guess standin’ in uh store do make uh person git tuh be known in de vicinity. Look lak Ah seen you somewhere.” “Oh, Ah don’t live no further than Orlandah. Ah’m easy tuh see on Church Street most any day or night. You got any smokin’ tobacco?” She opened the glass case. “What kind?” “Camels.” She handed over the cigarettes and took the money. He broke the pack and thrust one between his full, purple lips. “You got a lil piece uh fire over dere, lady?” They both laughed and she handed him two kitchen matches out of a box for that purpose. It was time for him to go but he didn’t. He leaned on the counter with one elbow and cold-cocked her a look. “Why ain’t you at de ball game, too? Everybody else is dere.” “Well, Ah see somebody else besides me ain’t dere. Ah just sold some cigarettes.” They laughed again. “Dat’s ’cause Ah’m dumb. Ah got de thing all mixed up. Ah thought de game was gointuh be out at Hungerford. So Ah got uh ride tuh where dis road turns off from de Dixie High- way and walked over here and then Ah find out de game is in Winter Park.” That was funny to both of them too. “So what you gointuh do now? All de cars in Eatonville is gone.” “How about playin’ you some checkers? You looks hard tuh beat.” “Ah is, ’cause Ah can’t play uh lick.” 114 Zora Neale Hurston “You don’t cherish de game, then?” “Yes, Ah do, and then agin Ah don’t know whether Ah do or not, ’cause nobody ain’t never showed me how.” “Dis is de last day for dat excuse. You got uh board round heah?” “Yes indeed. De men folks treasures de game round heah. Ah just ain’t never learnt how.” He set it up and began to show her and


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

his porch. “Sorry, I had my phone on silent.” “It’s okay.” I can’t catch my breath. Bending, I put my hands on my knees, sucking in air. “Sorry, I think I’m just nervous.” I straighten, finally getting my bearings. I’ve written this scene a thousand times but, wow, it is way scarier to live it. “I have two things I want to say,” I tell him. “Okay.” He swallows, lifting his chin. “Let’s go sit.” An excellent plan: apologies first, confessions second, sex third. I lead us into the living room and sit in the middle of the couch, patting the space beside me. He eyes it for a beat before sitting, but it’s hard to miss the way it feels like he’s trying to keep as much distance between us as he can. “I’m sorry about the way I left,” I say immediately. I’m even more desperate to get this out of the way now given his strained body language. Connor is tall and muscular, of course, but always carries himself like someone in a much smaller frame. I’ve never been more aware of his size before. Well, now and when he was actually lying on top of me with his giant— Focus, Fizzy. “I freaked out,” I say, regrouping. “You saw it, you called it. Infidelity is a hard limit for me.” There’s only one lamp on, behind him, and it leaves his expression in shadow. “I know.” “But I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed and taken a minute to figure out what I want to say, and it’s this: I feel awful for Natalia. But also for the anonymous woman who didn’t realize she was part of a young guy’s kamikaze mission. Who probably thought she was just having the luckiest night of her life.” “I think about her a lot.” My heart melts a little. “That woman was me once, and not only did it break part of my heart, but I had to reckon with being another woman’s heartbreak, too.” He could tell me, For what it’s worth, she didn’t know I was married, but he doesn’t. And even if it’s true, I appreciate that he isn’t trying to defend himself. He just listens, absorbing this. “I’m sorry I reacted that way,” I say. Connor nods. “I’m really not that guy anymore. I’m nearly a decade older, Fizzy. Infidelity is a hard limit for both of us.” “I know. I wish I hadn’t run off like that. I’m sorry I left after what we’d just done. After what we’d just said.” I take another deep breath. “I spent a lot of time by myself downstairs, thinking.” Connor hums, an unspoken Go on, then. “At first I was panicking,” I say, my anxiety ratcheting higher with his silence. In any other situation, even patient, measured Connor would say something to lighten the mood, to make this easier for me, but he’s being so still, like he’s bracing himself for something. “But then I let myself process what you’d said, and I realized something. About my feelings


enthusiasm, 'or is that little Oliver? Oh O-li-ver, if you know'd how I've been a-grieving for you--' 'Hold your tongue, fool,' murmured Mrs. Bumble. 'Isn't natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?' remonstrated the workhouse master. 'Can't I be supposed to feel--_I_ as brought him up porochially--when I see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest description! I always loved that boy as if he'd been my--my--my own grandfather,' said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison. 'Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the white waistcoat? Ah! he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with plated handles, Oliver.' 'Come, sir,' said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; 'suppress your feelings.' 'I will do my endeavours, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble. 'How do you do, sir? I hope you are very well.' This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped up to within a short distance of the respectable couple. He inquired, as he pointed to Monks, 'Do you know that person?' 'No,' replied Mrs. Bumble flatly. 'Perhaps YOU don't?' said Mr. Brownlow, addressing her spouse. 'I never saw him in all my life,' said Mr. Bumble. 'Nor sold him anything, perhaps?' 'No,' replied Mrs. Bumble. 'You never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?' said Mr. Brownlow. 'Certainly not,' replied the matron. 'Why are we brought here to answer to such nonsense as this?' Again Mr. Brownlow nodded to Mr. Grimwig; and again that gentleman limped away with extraordinary readiness. But not again did he return with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women, who shook and tottered as they walked. 'You shut the door the night old Sally died,' said the foremost one, raising her shrivelled hand, 'but you couldn't shut out the sound, nor stop the chinks.' 'No, no,' said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless jaws. 'No, no, no.' 'We heard her try to tell you what she'd done, and saw you take a paper from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker's shop,' said the first. 'Yes,' added the second, 'and it was a "locket and gold ring." We found out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.' 'And we know more than that,' resumed the first, 'for she told us often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.' 'Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?' asked Mr. Grimwig with a motion towards the door. 'No,' replied the woman; 'if he--she pointed to Monks--'has been coward enough to confess, as I see he had, and you have sounded all these hags till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say. I DID sell them, and they're where you'll never get them. What then?' 'Nothing,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'except that it remains for


above, telling them you've found the gold and they are to come down and look for it," said the other man. "Then we shall lock up all of you in this dungeon, with the ingots to play with, leaving you food and drink till we come back. Now then- here is a pencil. Write a note to Dick and Anne, whoever they are, and send your dog up with it. Come on." "I won't," said George, her face furious. "I won't. You can't make me do a thing like that. I won't get poor Dick and Anne down here to be made prisoners. And I won't let you have my gold, just when I've discovered it." "We shall shoot your dog if you don't do as you're told," said the first man, suddenly. George's heart sank down and she felt cold and terrified. "No, no," she said, in a low, desperate voice. "Well, write the note then," said the man, offering her a pencil and paper. "Go on. I'll tell you what to say." "I can't!" sobbed George. "I don't want to get Dick and Anne down here to be made prisoners." "All right- I'll shoot the dog then," said the man, in a cold voice and he levelled his revolver at poor Tim. George threw her arms round her dog and gave a scream. "No, no! I'll write the note. Don't shoot Tim, don't shoot him!" The girl took the paper and pencil in a shaking hand and looked at the man. "Write this," he ordered. " "Dear Dick and Anne. We've found the gold. Come on down at once and see it." Then sign your name, whatever it is." George wrote what the man had said. Then she signed her name. But instead of writing 'George' she put 'Georgina.' She knew that the others would feel certain she would never sign herself that- and she hoped it would warn them that something queer was up. The man took the note and fastened it to Tim's collar. The dog growled all the time, but George kept telling him not to bite. "Now tell him to go and find your friends," said the man. "Find Dick and Anne," commanded George. "Go on, Tim. Find Dick and Anne. Give them the note." Tim did not want to leave George, but there was something very urgent in her voice. He took one last look at his mistress, gave her hand a lick and sped off down the passage. He knew the way now. Up the rocky steps he bounded and into the open air. He stopped in the old yard, sniffing. Where were Dick and Anne? He smelt their footsteps and ran off, his nose to the ground. He soon found the two children out on the rocks. Dick was feeling better now and was sitting up. His cheek had almost stopped bleeding. "Hallo," he said in surprise, when he saw Tim. "Here's Timothy! Why, Tim, old chap, why have you come to see us? Did you get tired of being underground in the


He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his bed all the time I remained with him. I am weary tonight and low in spirits. I cannot but think of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I don't sleep at once, chloral, the modern Morpheus! I must be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none tonight! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need by, tonight shall be sleepless. Later.--Glad I made the resolution, gladder that I kept to it. I had lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the night watchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once. My patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through the observation trap in the door. His attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me. He was only in his night gear, and cannot be far off. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldn't get through the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and as we were only a few feet above ground landed unhurt. The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our grounds from those of the deserted house. I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield's figure just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old iron-bound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, les t I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note


rapid pacing athwart the room. Fearing "something was the matter," she went to the door and listened, not caring to knock. "I can't go on," he was raving. "I can't go on. Three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand! The huge multitude! Cheated! All my life it may take me! Patience! Patience indeed! Fool and liar!" There was a noise of hobnails on the bricks in the bar, and Mrs. Hall very reluctantly had to leave the rest of his soliloquy. When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle. It was all over. The stranger had resumed work. When she took in his tea she saw broken glass in the corner of the room under the concave mirror, and a golden stain that had been carelessly wiped. She called attention to it. "Put it down in the bill," snapped her visitor. "For God's sake don't worry me. If there's damage done, put it down in the bill"; and he went on ticking a list in the exercise book before him. "I'll tell you something," said Fearenside mysteriously. It was late in the afternoon, and they were in the little beer-shop of Iping Hanger. "Well?" said Teddy Henfrey. "This chap you're speaking of, what my dog bit. Well--he's black. Leastways, his legs are. I seed through the tear of his glove. You'd have expected a sort of pinky to show, wouldn't you? Well--there wasn't none. Just blackness. I tell you, he's as black as my hat." "My sakes!" said Henfrey. "It's a rummy case altogether. Why, his nose is as pink as paint!" "That's true," said Fearenside. "I knows that. And I tell 'ee what I'm thinking. That marn's a piebald, Teddy. Black here and white there--in patches. And he's ashamed of it. He's a kind of half-breed, and the colour's come off patchy instead of mixing. I've heard of such things before. And it's the common way with horses, as anyone can see." Chapter 4 Mr. Cuss Interviews the Stranger I have told the circumstances of the stranger's arrival in Iping with a certain fulness of detail, in order that the curious impression he created may be understood by the reader. But excepting two odd incidents, the circumstances of his stay until the extraordinary day of the Club Festival may be passed over very cursorily. There were a number of skirmishes with Mrs. Hall on matters of domestic discipline, but in every case until late in April, when the first signs of penury began, he over-rode her by the easy expedient of an extra payment. Hall did not like him, and whenever he dared he talked of the advisability of getting rid of him; but he showed his dislike chiefly by concealing it ostentatiously, and avoiding his visitor as much as possible. "Wait till the summer," said Mrs. Hall, sagely, "when the artisks are beginning to come. Then we'll see. He may be a bit overbearing, but bills settled punctual is bills settled punctual, whatever you like to


fire, blinking at the light. "He sent the girl away?" "He did better than that," Tyrion said. "First he made my brother tell me the truth. The girl was a whore, you see. Jaime arranged the whole affair, the road, the outlaws, all of it. He thought it was time I had a woman. He paid double for a maiden, knowing it would be my first time. "After Jaime had made his confession, to drive home the lesson, Lord Tywin brought my wife in and gave her to his guards. They paid her fair enough. A silver for each man, how many whores command that high a price? He sat me down in the corner of the barracks and bade me watch, and at the end she had so many silvers the coins were slipping through her fingers and rolling on the floor, she . . ." The smoke was stinging his eyes. Tyrion cleared his throat and turned away from the fire, to gaze out into darkness. "Lord Tywin had me go last," 404 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN he said in a quiet voice. "And he gave me a gold coin to pay her, because I was a Lannister, and worth more." After a time he heard the noise again, the rasp of steel on stone as Bronn sharpened his sword. "Thirteen or thirty or three, I would have killed the man who did that to me." Tyrion swung around to face him. "You may get that chance one day. Remember what I told you. A Lannister always pays his debts." He yawned. "I think I will try and sleep. Wake me if we're about to die." He rolled himself up in the shadowskin and shut his eyes. The ground was stony and cold, but after a time Tyrion Lannister did sleep. He dreamt of the sky cell. This time he was the gaoler, not the prisoner, big, with a strap in his hand, and he was hitting his father, driving him back, toward the abyss . . . "Tyrion. " Bronn's warning was low and urgent. Tyrion was awake in the blink of an eye. The fire had burned down to embers, and the shadows were creeping in all around them. Bronn had raised himself to one knee, his sword in one hand and his dirk in the other. Tyrion held up a hand: stay still, it said. "Come share our fire, the night is cold," he called out to the creeping shadows. "I fear we've no wine to offer you, but you're welcome to some of our goat." All movement stopped. Tyrion saw the glint of moonlight on metal. "Our mountain," a voice called out from the trees, deep and hard and unfriendly. "Our goat." "Your goat," Tyrion agreed. "Who are you?" "When you meet your gods," a different voice replied, "say it was Gunthor son of Gurn of the Stone Crows who sent you to them." A branch cracked underfoot as he stepped into the light; a thin man in a horned helmet, armed with a long knife. "And


hasn’t really said anything too pointed. The fact is that Nick is kind of moping around and Bailey isn’t the first person to notice. Everyone in the newsroom is giving him a wide berth, and Nick would be embarrassed if his brain weren’t busy with about half a dozen other emotions. “Am not,” Nick mutters weakly, then crams his mouth full of chicken salad so he doesn’t have to say anything else. “There you are,” says a woman’s voice. Lilian Corcoran bends to kiss Bailey on the cheek then hitches up her trousers and sits beside Nick. It doesn’t escape him that the only two queer people he knows at the Chronicle have suddenly decided to have lunch with him. “What is this, a club?” Nick asks. “If it were, we’d hardly even have a quorum,” says Lilian. “Only three of us? Please.” Nick lets the ramifications of this sink in. Lilian knows of others? He doesn’t know whether he’s curious or panicked at the idea that there might be a secret network of gay reporters who have all found out about him. “I haven’t seen you in a dog’s age,” Lilian goes on. “You’ve turned down two consecutive dinner invitations and I’m starting to think you’re mad at me. Maureen’s feelings are hurt.” “I have Andy staying with me.” “What, he doesn’t eat?” “I couldn’t bring him to dinner at your place,” Nick says. This is blindingly obvious to him: he couldn’t bring Andy to the one-bedroom apartment Lilian shares with another woman. Lilian regards him for long enough that Nick has to look away. “I see that it’s an advanced case,” she finally says, either to Bailey or to nobody in particular. Nick refuses to ask what she means. Bailey takes a bite of his apple. “If someone can’t have dinner with Lilian and Maureen, they probably aren’t a very good friend for you,” Bailey observes mildly, apparently paying more attention to his apple than he is to Nick. Nick bristles. “It’s not that. I don’t share other people’s secrets.” “Who asked you to? We could have had a perfectly sane conversation. I ask you to dinner, you say, Well, actually, Lilian, I have your future boss staying with me, and either I stay the hell away or I bring him along.” When she puts it like that, it sounds so easy, but what was even easier was refusing to think about it. He’s always known that Lilian probably guessed that he’s queer, but she never actually said so, just like she’s never come right out and said that she’s queer, either. He hasn’t wanted to have that conversation. Even asking whether it was all right to invite Andy would bring the topic of their shared queerness uncomfortably close to the surface. He doesn’t want to be queer at work, which sounds asinine, but there it is. Everything is so much safer if he draws a line between those parts of his life. He honestly isn’t even sure he would have told Andy if he hadn’t found out himself. But


say: “It’s an amazing school. Coming here on scholarship changed my life.” Note my careful wording, the way I worked in that of all the privileges I’ve had in life, wealth wasn’t one. The scholarship was a lie, but only technically. “I was a fish out of water,” I said, “but it got me out of a tiny town in Indiana and into a place with students from all over. People sometimes think boarding school is all white kids named Trip, but it’s not.” I’d polished that speech to a gloss. I could even deliver it drunk. “I mean,” he said, “they were literally from Puerto Rico. What does a Puerto Rican kid get from Spanish 2? That’s as far as we went, Level 2. Like, Yo tengo que comer manzanas. Level 2.” 5 I lay a long time in bed the next morning—hard mattress, soft pillows—trying to think where I was, what hotel. It clicked when I saw, on the wall opposite, a black-and-white photo of Old Chapel—and a moment later heard the distant bell from that same chapel chime eight. Only two hours before class, and one hour before the journalism teacher overseeing my visit would scoop me up and take me to HR to sign some last things. I sat up and was flooded with hangover bile. Appropriate: I’d had my first hangovers at Granby. I once left physics to vomit in the hallway trash can, and Miss Vogel walked me to the infirmary, where I feigned food poisoning for a nurse who surely was onto me. I texted Jerome and asked how the kids were, something I hadn’t managed yesterday. They were so used to my traveling that we’d long ago abandoned the Here safely! text. I checked that I hadn’t drunkenly texted Yahav last night; I hadn’t, and he hadn’t written anything else. I wrote: Get together this week? Wednesday? As I let the shower steam the small bathroom and brushed my teeth, my hangover started to clear; and underneath was just nerves. I was nervous not only about teaching but—it took a minute to put my finger on it. It was the feeling I still got when I walked into a suburban shopping mall, despite it being decades since groups of teenagers roved the food courts looking for people to ridicule. I was scared like a dog is scared of the spot where a walnut once fell on his head. Irrationally, viscerally, in a way tied more to memory than possibility. I put on the newest clothes I’d brought: crisp dark jeans, a red sweater, and a gold bangle an online stylist had picked for me that fall. The fall of senior year at Granby, I’d been thrilled to inherit a long, crinkly J.Crew skirt from one of Fran’s sisters. The J.Crew label inside was as good, in my mind, as Armani. I wore it with Birkenstocks and a white T-shirt and hemp jewelry. I had already lost some weight—I’d lose far too much that year—and my hair was newly longer, and I felt, for the


Stahl. About coming together to mark the occasion. If I’d known—” “We should hear her out,” I said. “This isn’t the time for this,” she said. “Come on, now? When everyone’s already talking about Stahl? And that podcast guy in town—” “What podcast guy?” I asked, mystified. She looked surprised. “He hasn’t called you? I figured you’d be at the top of the list. He’s doing one of those serious true-crime things. It’s about Stahl—or one of the episodes is about Stahl, or something like that. I didn’t really listen because I didn’t give him the time of day. He’s talking to all sorts of people, though.” “You’ll write a whole book about it, but you won’t give an interview?” I asked dryly. Just when it looked like interest was fading, the Book had come along. Purportedly the first-person account of the attack constructed through extensive interviews with the three brave girls at the center of the case. Of the three of us, the author had actually only talked to Cass, but that fact didn’t end up on the book jacket. “You know that was my parents’ idea, not mine,” she said. “It’s not like it was exactly pleasant for me to relive it all, either.” She picked at a dried fleck of something on the countertop, not meeting my eyes. I looked down at my hands. Sometimes I was glad that I was the one who had been attacked. People understood my trauma. It left its marks clearly visible on my skin. But Liv and Cass having to watch, forcing themselves to stay silent and hidden—that was worse, in some ways. The doorbell rang. Cass jumped. “I’ll get it,” I offered, already sliding off the stool. I padded back down the hallway, time receding through the photographs as Amanda got younger, disappeared. I could see Liv’s blurred outline through the frosted glass by the door. She was looking out at the street, shifting her weight nervously. I opened the door, and she whirled around as if shocked that anyone had answered. Her dark brown eyes were wide and startled. She had her father’s strong jaw and her mother’s black hair, which tended toward frizz. She broke into a smile. “You came,” she said. “I told you I would,” I reminded her, gently chiding. I hesitated, unsure if she would welcome my touch. She stepped in, and I put my arms around her gingerly, finding myself taking inventory—thin, but not quite gaunt. Restless, but with a steady, clear gaze when she pulled back. Her nails weren’t ragged and she hadn’t been picking at her lips, which was rare for her. The tension I’d been carrying around in my shoulders eased just a bit. “You look good,” I told her, and meant it. She grimaced. “You mean I don’t look crazy.” “No, I mean you look like you’re taking care of yourself. And you don’t always, so you don’t get to be annoyed when I notice.” “As opposed to how you always take perfect care of yourself?” she asked, giving me a skeptical


good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before." "And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?" "Ill, very ill--that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.-- A most deplorable want of complexion." Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax's complexion. "It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of her face." He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had heard many people say the same--but yet he must confess, that to him nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all; and where they were good, the effect was--fortunately he need not attempt to describe what the effect was. "Well," said Emma, "there is no disputing about taste.--At least you admire her except her complexion." He shook his head and laughed.--"I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her complexion." "Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?" At this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed, "Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's. If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must buy something at Ford's. It will be taking out my freedom.-- I dare say they sell gloves." "Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because you were Mr. Weston's son--but lay out half a guinea at Ford's, and your popularity will stand upon your own virtues." They went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of "Men's Beavers" and "York Tan" were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he said--"But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me, you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my amor patriae. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in private life." "I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her party at Weymouth." "And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given


happiness of a thousand other people with as little disturbance or change of mien. XXXVI Clare arose in the light of a dawn that was ashy and furtive, as though associated with crime. The fireplace confronted him with its extinct embers; the spread supper-table, whereon stood the two full glasses of untasted wine, now flat and filmy; her vacated seat and his own; the other articles of furniture, with their eternal look of not being able to help it, their intolerable inquiry what was to be done? From above there was no sound; but in a few minutes there came a knock at the door. He remembered that it would be the neighbouring cottager's wife, who was to minister to their wants while they remained here. The presence of a third person in the house would be extremely awkward just now, and, being already dressed, he opened the window and informed her that they could manage to shift for themselves that morning. She had a milk-can in her hand, which he told her to leave at the door. When the dame had gone away he searched in the back quarters of the house for fuel, and speedily lit a fire. There was plenty of eggs, butter, bread, and so on in the larder, and Clare soon had breakfast laid, his experiences at the dairy having rendered him facile in domestic preparations. The smoke of the kindled wood rose from the chimney without like a lotus-headed column; local people who were passing by saw it, and thought of the newly-married couple, and envied their happiness. Angel cast a final glance round, and then going to the foot of the stairs, called in a conventional voice---- "Breakfast is ready!" He opened the front door, and took a few steps in the morning air. When, after a short space, he came back she was already in the sitting-room mechanically readjusting the breakfast things. As she was fully attired, and the interval since his calling her had been but two or three minutes, she must have been dressed or nearly so before he went to summon her. Her hair was twisted up in a large round mass at the back of her head, and she had put on one of the new frocks-- a pale blue woollen garment with neck-frillings of white. Her hands and face appeared to be cold, and she had possibly been sitting dressed in the bedroom a long time without any fire. The marked civility of Clare's tone in calling her seemed to have inspired her, for the moment, with a new glimmer of hope. But it soon died when she looked at him. The pair were, in truth, but the ashes of their former fires. To the hot sorrow of the previous night had succeeded heaviness; it seemed as if nothing could kindle either of them to fervour of sensation any more. He spoke gently to her, and she replied with a like undemonstrativeness. At last she came up to him, looking in his sharply-defined face as one who had no


gave it, as he spoke, a wrench that made me cry out your left hand. Boy, take his left hand by the wrist and out. bring it near to my right.” “Sir,” said I, “it is for yourself I mean. The captain is not We both obeyed him to the letter, and I saw him pass what he used to be. He sits with a drawn cutlass. Another something from the hollow of the hand that held his stick gentleman—” into the palm of the captain’s, which closed upon it instantly. “Come, now, march,” interrupted he; and I never heard a “And now that’s done,” said the blind man; and at the voice so cruel, and cold, and ugly as that blind man’s. It cowed words he suddenly left hold of me, and with incredible accu- me more than the pain, and I began to obey him at once, racy and nimbleness, skipped out of the parlour and into the walking straight in at the door and towards the parlour, where road, where, as I still stood motionless, I could hear his stick our sick old buccaneer was sitting, dazed with rum. The blind go tap-tap-tapping into the distance. man clung close to me, holding me in one iron fist and lean- It was some time before either I or the captain seemed to ing almost more of his weight on me than I could carry. “Lead gather our senses, but at length, and about at the same mo- me straight up to him, and when I’m in view, cry out, ‘Here’s ment, I released his wrist, which I was still holding, and he a friend for you, Bill.’ If you don’t, I’ll do this,” and with that drew in his hand and looked sharply into the palm. he gave me a twitch that I thought would have made me “Ten o’clock!” he cried. “Six hours. We’ll do them yet,” faint. Between this and that, I was so utterly terrified of the and he sprang to his feet. blind beggar that I forgot my terror of the captain, and as I Even as he did so, he reeled, put his hand to his throat, opened the parlour door, cried out the words he had ordered stood swaying for a moment, and then, with a peculiar sound, Contents in a trembling voice. fell from his whole height face foremost to the floor. The poor captain raised his eyes, and at one look the rum I ran to him at once, calling to my mother. But haste was Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 28 29 all in vain. The captain had been struck dead by thundering apoplexy. It is a curious thing to understand, for I had cer- tainly never liked the man, though of late I had begun to pity him, but as soon as I saw that he was dead, I burst into a flood of tears. It was the second death I had known, and the sorrow of the first was still fresh in my heart. Chapter 4. The Sea-chest. I


to the girl. 'I am alone. Would you both care to join me?' He pulled out a chair and while they sat down he beckoned to a waiter and despite Mathis's expostulations insisted on ordering the drinks - a fine l'eau for Mathis and a bacardi for the girl. Mathis and Bond exchanged cheerful talk about the fine weather and the prospects of a revival in the fortunes of Royale-les-Eaux. The girl sat silent. She accepted one of Bond's cigarettes, examined it and then smoked it appreciatively and without affectation, drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs with a little sigh and then exhaling it casually through her lips and nostrils. Her movements were economical and precise with no trace of self-consciousness. Bond felt her presence strongly. While he and Mathis talked, he turned from time to time towards her, politely including her in the conversation, but adding up the impressions recorded by each glance. Her hair was very black and she wore it cut square and low on the nape of the neck, framing her face to below the clear and beautiful line of her jaw. Although it was heavy and moved with the movements of her head, she did not constantly pat it back into place, but let it alone. Her eyes were wide apart and deep blue and they gazed candidly back at Bond with a touch of ironical disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly. Her skin was lightly sun-tanned and bore no trace of makeup except on her mouth which was wide and sensual. Her bare arms and hands had a quality of repose and the general impression of restraint in her appearance and movements was carried even to her fingernails which were unpainted and cut short. Round her neck she wore a plain gold chain of wide flat links and on the fourth finger of the right hand a broad topaz ring. Her medium-length dress was of grey soie sauvage with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts. The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down from a narrow, but not a thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, handstitched black belt. A handstitched black sabretache rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cart-wheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather. Bond was excited by her beauty and intrigued by her composure. The prospect of working with her stimulated him. At the same time he felt a vague disquiet. On an impulse he touched wood. Mathis had noticed Bond's preoccupation. After a time he rose. 'Forgive me,' he said to the girl, 'while I telephone to the Dubernes. I must arrange my rendezvous for dinner tonight. Are you sure you won't mind being left to your own devices this evening?' She shook her head. Bond took the cue and, as Mathis crossed the room to the telephone booth beside the bar, he said:


another finalist, who wore a little porkpie hat, went by the single pseudonym Lysander, and apparently possessed a nervous digestive system, had to work through some brutal digestive issues in the men’s room, which I could of course hear in detail from my primo spot by the bathroom doors—grunts, splashes, and all. Oh. And there was the time when I took a pee break and overheard some judges who seized that moment to dart over and laugh at my work. Yes, that’s how close my placement was to the bathrooms. I could literally hear these people talking from the stall. “What is happening here?” Judge 1 asked, in a horrified whisper. “I know,” Judge 2 said. “Did the artist … leave?” “Wouldn’t you?” “I never would have shown up at all.” “She must have fled.” “Right? Off to not quit her day job.” “Or to fling herself off a bridge.” They snickered at that. “It’s just so bizarre,” one went on pensively. “The body and background are so exquisite…” “But then you get to the face.” “I keep thinking it’s Carl Sagan.” “I keep seeing Steve Buscemi.” “It looks like a wolf face, in a way.” “Impossible. Animals are against the rules.” “Right? It’s not veterinary portraiture.” “Whatever it is, it’s like the face melted.” “Or got hit with a pie right before the sitting.” “Or landed facedown in mud.” “Or had a botched cosmetic surgery.” “I just don’t understand how this piece is even here.” “Maybe they notified the wrong artist?” “It’s just insulting, more than anything.” “It kind of makes me angry.” “What a waste of a Top Ten spot.” “Too bad we can’t give negative points.” “Isn’t it?” At that, I’d had enough. I pressed the toilet handle with my shoe and held it there. Mercifully, the blast of the industrial flush was loud enough to startle them away. In the silence that followed, I washed my hands, smoothed my hair in the mirror, smiled encouragingly at my unintelligible face, stood up straight like how I imagined a person with some remaining human dignity would, and walked back out to my post. Just two soul-draining hours to go … It was okay. It was fine. What was it Joe had said about sitting for the portrait? “Trigonometry is hard. Climbing El Capitan is hard. Landing on the beaches of Normandy is hard.” All I had to do was stand here—and keep standing here—until my alarm went off. And then I could go home. And brainstorm a new life’s dream. This was the big break I’d been working toward for over a decade. This was the moment I’d been waiting for—dreaming of. This was the life I’d chosen. This was a competition that if the past five weeks hadn’t happened, I’d be crushing right now. This was a showcase moment for the thing I was best at in my entire life … Just not anymore. Could I have used at least one person there with me in that moment? Yes. And would I have even minded if it was Lucinda?


go up as she went through the door. "Oh, Mrs. Perkins," she said, "you need some more coffee. Let me get it." "Calpurnia's on an errand for a few minutes, Grace," said Miss Maudie. "Let me pass you some more of those dewberry tarts. 'dyou hear what that cousin of mine did the other day, the one who likes to go fishing?..." And so they went, down the row of laughing women, around the diningroom, refilling coffee cups, dishing out goodies as though their only regret was the temporary domestic disaster of losing Calpurnia. The gentle hum began again. "Yes sir, Mrs. Perkins, that J. Grimes Everett is a martyred saint, he... needed to get married so they ran... to the beauty parlor every Saturday afternoon... soon as the sun goes down. He goes to bed with the... chickens, a crate full of sick chickens, Fred says that's what started it all. Fred says...." Aunt Alexandra looked across the room at me and smiled. She looked at a tray of cookies on the table and nodded at them. I carefully picked up the tray and watched myself walk to Mrs. Merriweather. With my best company manners, I asked her if she would have some. After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I. 25 "Don't do that, Scout. Set him out on the back steps." "Jem, are you crazy?...." "I said set him out on the back steps." Sighing, I scooped up the small creature, placed him on the bottom step and went back to my cot. September had come, but not a trace of cool weather with it, and we were still sleeping on the back screen porch. Lightning bugs were still about, the night crawlers and flying insects that beat against the screen the summer long had not gone wherever they go when autumn comes. A roly-poly had found his way inside the house; I reasoned that the tiny varmint had crawled up the steps and under the door. I was putting my book on the floor beside my cot when I saw him. The creatures are no more than an inch long, and when you touch them they roll themselves into a tight gray ball. I lay on my stomach, reached down and poked him. He rolled up. Then, feeling safe, I suppose, he slowly unrolled. He traveled a few inches on his hundred legs and I touched him again. He rolled up. Feeling sleepy, I decided to end things. My hand was going down on him when Jem spoke. Jem was scowling. It was probably a part of the stage he was going through, and I wished he would hurry up and get through it. He was certainly never cruel to animals, but I had never known his charity to embrace the insect world. "Why couldn't I mash him?" I asked. "Because they don't bother you," Jem answered in the darkness. He had turned out his reading light. "Reckon you're at the stage now where you don't kill flies and mosquitoes


this was the primary mission of DHS—deporting undocumented immigrants, punishing those who made it to the border, and making it harder for any others to follow their path. Everything else was secondary or irrelevant. He conveyed this to DHS leaders in some form or fashion weekly. Kristen Marquardt, who served as a Trump-appointed counterterrorism leader at DHS, compared the president’s obsession with the border to the strong desert winds she experienced as a CIA officer overseas. “You know those ‘shamals’ in the Middle East—those sandstorms that block out the sun? That’s what immigration did to the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration,” she explained. “There was no light, no air, no room for anything else.” Another far-right president would create the same environment, with potentially dire consequences. I raised the possibility with an advisor who was appointed by Trump to manage national security programs. She saw what happened to DHS under her former boss. “If MAGA comes back,” the woman told me, “the department created to stop 9/11 will be willfully closing its eyes to the next big attack, cyber breach, you name it.” First, the White House will make life miserable for undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Stephen Miller once bragged to me that he had a “locked drawer of executive orders” on immigration that were intended for a “shock-and-awe blitz” when Trump got re-elected. The Next Trump will unlock the drawer. “Right off the bat, [they] would completely ignore the thirty-year court decision that it’s a constitutional requirement to supply education, regardless of immigration status,” predicted Josh Venable, Trump’s former Education Department chief of staff. The idea was a “cockroach that wouldn’t die,” he said. In summer 2018, Venable was with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in the Netherlands on a work trip when they got a call from the White House. It was Stephen Miller. The Trump aide demanded that department leaders figure out how to cut off money to states that allowed undocumented immigrants to enroll in public schools. DeVos and her team had already told the White House it wasn’t legal. “Just find a way to do it,” Miller told her. “Are you afraid of getting sued, Betsy?” Miller was apparently fine with breaking the law. “Their plan was ignore it, get sued, and litigate it up to the Supreme Court,” Venable recalled. Like this, there are dozens of levers the White House could pull to make daily life harder for undocumented immigrants. None would be as powerful as the threat of mass deportation. The Next Trump will almost certainly break with long-standing U.S. policy of prioritizing the deportation of criminal aliens by ordering a widespread roundup of innocent immigrants and their families, regardless of whether they’ve committed crimes. Trump realized Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) didn’t have sufficient resources to do this. According to former ICE officials, his successor may use presidential powers to “deputize” other agencies to assist with deportation operations. Many of the anti-immigrant policies eyed by MAGA forces would be difficult to unravel. “It will be rule-making warfare from Day


on," said Dill, "Scout and me's right behind you." "I'm going," said Jem, "don't hurry me." He walked to the corner of the lot, then back again, studying the simple terrain as if deciding how best to effect an entry, frowning and scratching his head. Then I sneered at him. Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful. Dill and I followed on his heels. Safely on our porch, panting and out of breath, we looked back. The old house was the same, droopy and sick, but as we stared down the street we thought we saw an inside shutter move. Flick. A tiny, almost invisible movement, and the house was still. 2 Dill left us early in September, to return to Meridian. We saw him off on the five o'clock bus and I was miserable without him until it occurred to me that I would be starting to school in a week. I never looked forward more to anything in my life. Hours of wintertime had found me in the treehouse, looking over at the schoolyard, spying on multitudes of children through a two-power telescope Jem had given me, learning their games, following Jem's red jacket through wriggling circles of blind man's buff, secretly sharing their misfortunes and minor victories. I longed to join them. Jem condescended to take me to school the first day, a job usually done by one's parents, but Atticus had said Jem would be delighted to show me where my room was. I think some money changed hands in this transaction, for as we trotted around the corner past the Radley Place I heard an unfamiliar jingle in Jem's pockets. When we slowed to a walk at the edge of the schoolyard, Jem was careful to explain that during school hours I was not to bother him, I was not to approach him with requests to enact a chapter of Tarzan and the Ant Men, to embarrass him with references to his private life, or tag along behind him at recess and noon. I was to stick with the first grade and he would stick with the fifth. In short, I was to leave him alone. "You mean we can't play any more?" I asked. "We'll do like we always do at home," he said, "but you'll see- school's different." It certainly was. Before the first morning was over, Miss Caroline Fisher, our teacher, hauled me up to the front of the room and patted the palm of my hand with a ruler, then made me stand in the corner until noon. Miss Caroline was no more than twenty-one. She had bright auburn hair, pink cheeks, and wore crimson fingernail polish. She also wore high-heeled pumps and a red-and-white-striped dress. She looked and smelled like a peppermint drop. She boarded across the street one door down from us in Miss Maudie Atkinson's upstairs front room, and when Miss Maudie introduced us to


assured,” I say. “True, although it is a shame that your father’s wife has not given him children.” “He’s always traveling.” I don’t know why I feel compelled to make excuses for my father, a man I haven’t seen since he triumphed in the imperial exams. “That makes no difference!” Grandmother snaps. “This Respectful Lady sojourns with him.” Yes, this wife’s experience is far different than what I have with my husband. “My father must care for her very deeply to keep her so close.” Grandmother sniffs. As much as I love her, she is a mother-in-law. She’ll never be satisfied with her daughter-in-law. “Tell me more about Yifeng,” I say. “Are his studies progressing?” “He hopes to take the next level of examinations in two years. He will surely do well.” I inquire after Grandfather’s three Jade concubines—all fine—and Miss Zhao, whom my father has kept within the family so as not to cause Yifeng consternation—also fine. Inky brings two bowls of soup noodles and more hot water for tea. After lunch, Grandmother tests me on the properties of herbs and other ingredients. She presents hypothetical cases and asks what course of treatment I would employ. “A woman has a rapid pulse—” “A sign of Heat—” “She’s also experiencing shortness of breath. Her complexion is red, and her body is puffy. She has no desire for food, and her tongue is pale and moist but swollen. Even though she wears a padded jacket, she can’t stop shivering. None of this would suggest Heat.” “In this case, the rapid pulse, which ordinarily would tell of a Heat disorder, is a manifestation of extreme weakness. The patient is suffering from a Cold yin disharmony.” “Good,” Grandmother says. She proceeds to present patients with three different types of coughs. “What does the sound of a furious cough emerging without warning tell you?” “That would be a sign of Excess.” “A rasping cough, calling to mind desert sands?” “Heat. Maybe Dryness.” “And a cough that is feeble and rattles wetly?” “Deficiency.” And on it goes. My mind stretches to find the answers, knowing that in our medicine there are multiple ways to arrive at diagnosis and treatment. Two hours later, the inside of my skull feels as thick and heavy as rice porridge. “Every year your knowledge and understanding grow,” Grandmother compliments me, signaling the end of our session. “But will I ever know enough? Will I ever be as skilled as you?” “Never, and never!” Then she laughs. “I’m still learning! I suspect I’ll still be learning on my deathbed.” This is something I refuse to contemplate. “When was the last time you read Lao Tzu?” she asks. “I don’t remember.” “Read him again before you come next month. Be prepared to talk about his ideas about balance and harmony.” She begins to recite. “Being and non-being produce each other. Difficult and easy complete each other—” “Long and short contrast each other,” I continue. “High and low distinguish each other.” “In life and in medicine, we always return to harmony and disharmony.” Grandmother’s eyes


the Golden Country, following the foot-track across the old rabbit-cropped pasture. He could feel the short springy turf under his feet and the gentle sunshine on his face. At the edge of the field were the elm trees, faintly stirring, and somewhere beyond that was the stream where the dace lay in the green pools under the willows. Suddenly he started up with a shock of horror. The sweat broke out on his backbone. He had heard himself cry aloud: 'Julia! Julia! Julia, my love! Julia!' For a moment he had had an overwhelming hallucination of her presence. She had seemed to be not merely with him, but inside him. It was as though she had got into the texture of his skin. In that moment he had loved her far more than he had ever done when they were together and free. Also he knew that somewhere or other she was still alive and needed his help. He lay back on the bed and tried to compose himself. What had he done? How many years had he added to his servitude by that moment of weakness? In another moment he would hear the tramp of boots outside. They could not let such an outburst go unpunished. They would know now, if they had not file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt (153 of 170) [1/17/03 5:04:52 AM] file:///F|/rah/George%20Orwell/Orwell%20Nineteen%20Eighty%20Four.txt known before, that he was breaking the agreement he had made with them. He obeyed the Party, but he still hated the Party. In the old days he had hidden a heretical mind beneath an appearance of conformity. Now he had retreated a step further: in the mind he had surrendered, but he had hoped to keep the inner heart inviolate. He knew that he was in the wrong, but he preferred to be in the wrong. They would understand that--O'Brien would understand it. It was all confessed in that single foolish cry. He would have to start all over again. It might take years. He ran a hand over his face, trying to familiarize himself with the new shape. There were deep furrows in the cheeks, the cheekbones felt sharp, the nose flattened. Besides, since last seeing himself in the glass he had been given a complete new set of teeth. It was not easy to preserve inscrutability when you did not know what your face looked like. In any case, mere control of the features was not enough. For the first time he perceived that if you want to keep a secret you must also hide it from yourself. You must know all the while that it is there, but until it is needed you must never let it emerge into your consciousness in any shape that could be given a name. From now onwards he must not only think right; he must feel right, dream right. And all the while he must keep his hatred locked up inside him like a ball of matter which was part of himself and yet unconnected with the rest of him, a kind of cyst. One day they would decide


beneath the water. Something—oh, Jesus. He let out a sharp little scream as the water moved, the spider lilies parting to expose a skull lying faceup just under the surface. “Shit!” He actually jumped back, the boat tipping slightly before righting. But his gaze was fastened on the bones—definitely a skull devoid of flesh, definitely human. Blackened eye sockets and nasal cavity, grotesque smile missing more than a few teeth. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Clive whispered, making a quick sign of the cross over his barrel chest. “Let’s get the fuck outta here.” “No—no. Make the call! To that deputy! Make the fuckin’ call!” Bobby-Dean felt his insides turn to water, but he knew they had to stay here, by the eerie bones. The cops and everyone around would think of them as local heroes for the discovery. And that had to be worth something. * * * Cruz started to turn in to the motel, but spying the cop cars at the end unit, decided to keep his Harley on the street and roared past. He didn’t know what was going down, but didn’t like it. Though he had paid for his room for a week, he never left any of his belongings in the room. He traveled light by necessity, so it was easy enough to stuff two pairs of jeans and a couple of shirts and shaving kit into his saddlebags. Adjusting his sunglasses against the bright October sun, he wondered what his next move should be. Sooner or later he’d have to give himself up, and he figured he’d be best off with his brother, an officer of the law, at his side. Well, except for the fact that he’d fled the scene of a homicide, driven across too many state lines to count, and was now considered a fugitive. That had been his choice rather than face the consequences of his actions in Oregon. But he had a friend working out the details of what really went down, so maybe he’d get lucky. He couldn’t run forever. But maybe, just maybe, for a little while longer. * * * Bentz’s stomach roiled. It was all he could do not to throw up right there on the bayou as he stared at the body submerged in the water. From what he could see, he guessed the skeleton was a woman, small frame and long gray hair, but the sex wouldn’t be determined until the lab analyzed what was left of the bones. From the way they’d been picked clean, he thought they’d been there a while. “This place gives me a case of the willies,” Montoya said, staring at the remains of the woman. They were seated in one of three boats that had been sent to the area where the skull had been first seen by Bobby-Dean Clements and his friend Clive Jones, the very two fishermen who had seen Father John attacking Stacy Parker just the night before. Those two men were still here, in their own boat drifting nearby, watching as divers went into the


love. You weren’t supposed to be here until I fetched you. I just came to check that everything was ready, then I was going to come back and surprise you.’ ‘I don’t understand,’ Lin stammered. ‘You were going to fix the pram…’ ‘I fibbed.’ Neil grinned and the group parted, moving to both sides of the garage to reveal a broad brown tarpaulin covering a sleek shape. Neil shrugged shyly and said, ‘Happy fiftieth anniversary, Lindy.’ He whisked off the cover to reveal a gleaming green Frog-Eyed Sprite sports car. ‘I’m confused.’ Lin shook her head and she heard a champagne bottle pop. Josie was beside her, handing her a flute of fizzing bubbly. Debbie hugged her. ‘It’s been too long, Mum. I’m sorry we’ve been so busy – but we couldn’t miss your special day.’ ‘It’s your fiftieth anniversary car, love.’ Neil took her in his arms and kissed her. He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been hiding it here, working on it for months. It was a bit of a wreck when I bought it, but it’s good as new now. It’s just like the one we used to have when we first got married. We can go away in it together – all over the country. In fact, I’ve booked us a long weekend in a manor house in Dorset, just me and you.’ ‘You renovated a Sprite – in secret – for me?’ Lin felt the tears come. It wasn’t the arthritis or the tablets. It was relief, guilt, happiness, embarrassment. And more than anything, it was love. ‘I bought it from a woman called Carole Frost – she advertised it online,’ Neil admitted. ‘I was really worried when you found her phone number in my pocket. I’m such a terrible liar. I thought you’d really think I was seeing another woman.’ ‘As if…’ Dangerous Dave barked a laugh. Lin kissed her husband again. She met Josie’s eye and noticed the complicit wink. Dave piped up, ‘I knew about it, and Jimmy, and Dickie Senior. No one else had a clue most of the time. It wasn’t easy covering up Neil’s tracks while he was sneaking off here to do the car up.’ ‘A long weekend in a manor house in Dorset,’ Lin said dreamily and sipped a mouthful of champagne. ‘Can I sit in the car?’ ‘Of course you can.’ Neil walked over to the shining Sprite and opened the driver’s door as Lin clambered in. All their friends burst into a spontaneous cheer and raised glasses. ‘I’ve been so stupid.’ Lin was overcome with emotion. ‘I can’t believe it…’ Neil leaped into the passenger seat and threw an arm around her as Debbie took a photo, then he said, ‘Do you want to go home and change into something nice, love? Dickie’s booked The Sun for lunch, the whole pub. Everyone will be there… all our friends.’ He indicated the group, who were refilling champagne flutes. ‘It was meant to be a surprise.’ Lin threw her arms around Neil and kissed him for all she was


and myself called him that, so does that count?” Why tell her all of this? Why risk confusing the slowest secretary in the world? “Okay, that’s fine,” she says. “Bear with me.” The longer she’s gone, the hotter my chest burns and my patience is reaching its limit. I’m picturing the sands of time when she finally returns. “Right, so that’s George Wright,” she says. “Where did he die?” “At home.” “What’s the address?” “Thirty-seven Cornisham Grove.” “One moment.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Is that Cornisham Avenue?” “No, Grove. Grove.” “Dear God,” I say under my breath. “Bear with me,” the lady repeats. Two minutes and a massage of my temples later, she’s back to ask, “He died of a large distal bowel obstruction, is that correct?” “Yes.” “Okay.” “Don’t you have the coroner’s report?” “Mum!” I snap. “Let her finish!” Mum pauses and stares at me, stunned. “Just one minute,” the lady says. “What?” But she’s already gone. “Okay, sorry about that. What was George’s occupation?” “He did many jobs,” Mum says. She eyes me, and I lock my jaw. “Security guard,” she adds quickly. “Just put that.” “At the time of death?” Tick. Tick. Tick. “No, he was retired due to medical reasons.” “Okay, one minute, please.” “Another one?” Tick. “I’m sorry?” she says. “You need another minute?” I clarify. Tick. “We’ve been on this call for twenty minutes and you’ve hardly taken any information. What the fuck is this?” Tick. “You register the death of loved ones—of all things to be inefficient in, this is not the fucking one!” Boom! “Maddie!” I didn’t realize I was yelling or that I’m now on my feet. “I’m sorry,” the woman on the phone says. “I understand this is a difficult time for—” “Oh, my condolences,” I tell her. “Is your dad dead, too?” “Well, no.” “So where the fuck is your understanding coming from?” I ask. “You don’t get to say you understand in a poor attempt to shut me up. What’s taking so long on your side to fucking do this? Is it technical difficulties? Do you want to call us back when you have your shit together?” “Maddie! That’s enough!” I turn back to Mum and blink. I wipe my eyes but they won’t dry. “I can’t do this,” I tell them both. “Get James to help you finish. It’ll be the first thing either of you’ve done for Dad in months. Posthumous—just your style.” Mum’s face falls. I flee the house. As I speed-walk, ignoring the sweat dampening my shirt, I look up the train departure times; mine is due in four minutes and it usually takes me seven to get there. So I start to run. The one after is in half an hour, and I can’t wait around for that long. I need the train to get me away from here now. I run until my lungs sting and my legs cramp, but I make it, jumping into the nearest carriage only a second before the doors slide shut. I let out a breath of relief that


joking apart; (int) frantic: (adj) desperate, crazy, central, top. ANTONYMS: (adj) last, quotha excited, distraught, frenetic, insignificant, inferior, worst, forthwith: (adv) directly, distracted; (adj, v) frenzied, furious, secondary immediately, at once, now, wild, raging; (n) maniac. forenoon: (n) morning, morn, am, instantly, straight, presently, ANTONYMS: (adj) mellow, period, daybreak, break of the day, straightaway, incontinently; (adj, composed morning time, first light, dayspring, adv) quickly; (adj) immediate frayed: (adj) threadbare, shabby, a, cockcrow fortified: (adj) secure, watched over, ragged, tattered, thin, torn; (adj, v) foreseeing: (n) foresight, anticipation, shielded, securer, secured, carrying dilapidated; (v) secondhand, wilted, 286 The Scarlet Letter shaken, stale. ANTONYMS: (adj) frontage, facia, face, groundwork, seriousness, misery, sadness pristine, new, smart endpapers, pediment, proscenium gaily: (adv, v) happily; (adv) gladly, freak: (n, v) crotchet, caprice; (adj, n) frothy: (adj, v) effervescent; (adj) jovially, joyfully, cheerfully, eccentric; (n) oddity, crank, fanatic, light, flimsy, foaming, frivolous, mirthfully, joyously, gleefully, nut, monster, fit, whim, fad flatulent, spumy, bubbly, sunnily, blithely, lively. freakish: (adj, n) fantastic, fanciful, effervescing, beaten; (v) nappy. ANTONYMS: (adv) sadly, whimsical, crotchety; (adj) eccentric, ANTONYMS: (adj) flat, weighty anxiously, dully, despondently bizarre, outlandish, abnormal, frown: (adj, v) lower; (adj, n) scowl; gaining: (n) acceptance, acquisition, peculiar; (adj, v) changeable, fickle. (n, v) pout, grimace, glower, glare; attainment, capture; (adj) ahead, ANTONYM: (adj) normal (adj) black looks, gloam, glout; (v) fortunate. ANTONYM: (n) loss freakishness: (n) unfamiliarity, sulk, gnash. ANTONYM: (v) gait: (n, v) pace, step, tread, footstep, strangeness, abnormalcy, abnormal approve rate, stride, action; (n) walk, condition, peculiarity, frowning: (adj) dismal, dark, gloomy, carriage, movement, velocity whimsicalness, oddity, eccentricity lowering, scowling, frowny, gale: (n) blast, blow, tempest, storm, freaks: (n) caprices, facetiousness, clouded; (adv) frowningly; (n) squall, hurricane, gust, wind, humor austere, boisterous, coarse thunderstorm, blizzard, fresh gale. freer: (adj) unconfined fulfilled: (adj) complete, finished, ANTONYM: (n) breeze freighted: (adj) fraught, filled, done, satisfied, accomplished, gallant: (adj) fearless, brave, daring, charged; (prep) burdened completed, whole, delighted, courageous, chivalrous, bold, freshly: (adv) recently, lately, saucily, concluded, happy, full of pride. manly, heroic, dashing, courteous, impertinently, lively, modernly, ANTONYMS: (adj) incomplete, fine. ANTONYMS: (adj) boorish, fresh, new, sweetly, greenly, rawly unfulfilled, frustrated, ashamed, rude, selfish freshness: (adj) coolness; (n) dissatisfied galliard: (adj) gaillard impertinence, gall, greenness, fulfilment: (n) achievement, galling: (adj, v) irritating; (v) impudence, insolence, newness, accomplishment, fulfillment, aggravating, provoking; (adj) viridity, originality, crust, crispness. completion, fruition, discharge, exasperating, bitter, vexatious, ANTONYMS: (n) oldness, clutter, consummation, effectuation, vexing, maddening, infuriating, humidity, mustiness satisfaction, pursuance, prosecution bothersome, harassing. ANTONYM: fretted: (adj) latticed, haggard, fulness: (n) fullness, entirety, (adj) pleasing magged, latticelike, reticulated, completeness, totality gallows: (n) gibbet, gallous, gallows- reticular, interlaced. ANTONYM: functionary: (n) officer, official, clerk, bitts, hanging, noose, scaffold, (adj) unfretted employee, agent, Mandarin, halter, tree, rope, gallowstree, bough fretting: (adj) irritable, dissatisfied, incumbent, appointee, bailiff, gaping: (adj, n) agape; (adj) vast, peevish; (n) festering, friction, beadle, bureaucrat yawning, cavernous, discontinuous, exulceration funnel: (n) flue, tunnel, funnel shape, wide, ajar, drowsy, hollow, wide frighten: (v) cow, alarm, daunt, shaft, cone, hopper, trachea, open; (adj, v) oscitant. ANTONYMS: terrify, appall, scare, affright, weasand; (v) channel, move, pipe (adj) cramped, narrow intimidate,


years ago, when it was easy to get at them, but Jon was as bad as you. More fool 1, 1 listened to him." "Jon Arryn was a wise man and a good Hand." Robert snorted. The anger was leaving him as suddenly as it had come. "This Khal Drogo is said to have a hundred thousand men in his horde. What would Jon say to that?" "He would say that even a million Dothraki are no threat to the realm, so long as they remain on the other side of the narrow sea," A GAME OF THRONES 101 Ned replied calmly. "The barbarians have no ships. They hate and fear the open sea." The king shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. "Perhaps. There are ships to be had in the Free Cities, though. I tell you, Ned, I do not like this marriage. There are still those in the Seven Kingdoms who call me Usurper. Do you forget how many houses fought for Targaryen in the war? They bide their time for now, but give them half a chance, they will murder me in my bed, and my sons with me. If the beggar king crosses with a Dothraki horde at his back, the traitors will join him." "He will not cross," Ned promised. "And if by some mischance he does, we will throw him back into the sea. Once you choose a new Warden of the East-" The king groaned. "For the last time, I will not name the Arryn boy Warden. I know the boy is your nephew, but with Targaryens climbing in bed with Dothraki, I would be mad to rest one quarter of the realm on the shoulders of a sickly child." Ned was ready for that. "Yet we still must have a Warden of the East. If Robert Arryn will not do, name one of your brothers. Stannis proved himself at the siege of Storm's End, surely." He let the name hang there for a moment. The king frowned and said nothing. He looked uncomfortable. "That is," Ned finished quietly, watching, "unless you have already promised the honor to another." For a moment Robert had the grace to look startled. Just as quickly, the look became annoyance. "What if I have?" "It's Jaime Lannister, is it not?" Robert kicked his horse back into motion and started down the ridge toward the barrows. Ned kept pace with him. The king rode on, eyes straight ahead. "Yes," he said at last. A single hard word to end the matter. "Kingslayer," Ned said. The rumors were true, then. He rode on dangerous ground now, he knew. "An able and courageous man, no doubt," he said carefully, "but his father is Warden of the West, Robert. In time Ser Jaime will succeed to that honor. No one man should hold both East and West." He left unsaid his real concern; that the appointment would put half the armies of the realm into the hands of Lannisters. "I will fight that battle when the enemy appears on the field," the king said


athleisure pants stood on the other side of the fence holding out his arm. From it, one of her mom’s ruined puppets dangled. Louise recognized Meow Meow. “I don’t mean to be rude,” he said rudely, “but your trash is all over my yard.” Louise vaguely recognized him as one of the new people living in the Mitchells’ old house. They were a finance family from Westchester, or a tech family from the Bay Area, or some career family from someplace like that. She gave him a smile through her tear-streaked face. “I’m dealing with it right now,” she said. Louise pulled out her phone, found the number in her call list, and tapped it once. “Mr. Agutter,” she said. “This is Louise Joyner from that . . . yes . . . yes, it is early . . . I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot before. We definitely want you to come back as soon as possible . . . That’d be great. And one other thing? Do you do yards?” — As the hospital cleared Poppy to go home, Louise went down to the car and brought back a duffel bag. She sat on the edge of Poppy’s bed, holding it in her lap. “How do you feel?” she asked. Poppy coughed and nodded at the same time. Louise put one hand on Poppy’s forehead because that’s what her mom had always done for her whenever she’d been sick. The doctors said Poppy’s lungs were clear and there was a course of oral antibiotics, and Louise had no idea what Poppy remembered, but going home was the first step. “Are you excited?” she asked. “Back to San Francisco?” Poppy asked. “Back to San Francisco,” Louise said. Then she unzipped the duffel bag and reached in and pulled out Hedgie Hoggie and set him on the bed facing Poppy. Then she pulled out Red Rabbit and Buffalo Jones and Dumbo and lined them all up, too. “These are some friends I had when I was your age,” she said. Poppy’s eyes locked onto them. “What are their names?” she asked without looking up. Louise introduced Poppy to her childhood friends. She’d found them in the house, hiding in her bedroom, huddled underneath her bed. She didn’t remember seeing them that night in the house, and she didn’t think they ever could have done anything to hurt her, and they looked so frightened and alone. She’d gotten them cleaned—spiritually by Barb, who said there was nothing to worry about, physically by Sea Island Suds. “They’re your friends now,” Louise said, and Poppy cautiously reached out and pulled Red Rabbit over to her by one ear and tucked him against her stomach, then she reached for Buffalo Jones. “But you’ll have to take care of them. They’ve never been to a city as big as San Francisco before.” When Louise was little, her mom had loved her without reservation, without hesitation, but Louise wasn’t born knowing how to do that for someone else. These stuffed animals were how she had


and again, the air hissing between his teeth. “Ah! Stop,” he says, and he pulls out of me, leaving me wanting more. He grasps my shoulders and pulls me to my feet. Grabbing my braid, he kisses me hard, his persistent tongue greedy and giving at once. Suddenly he releases me, and before I know it, he’s lifted me into his arms and moved over to the four- poster. Gently, he lays me down so that my behind is just on the edge of the bed. “Wrap your legs around my waist,” he orders. I do and pull him toward me. He leans down, hands either side of my head, and still standing, very slowly eases himself into me. Oh, that feels so good. I close my eyes and revel in his slow possession. “Okay?” he asks, his concern evident in his tone. “Oh, God, Christian. Yes. Yes. Please.” I tighten my legs around him and push against him. He groans. I clasp his arms, and he flexes his hips slowly at first, in, out. “Christian, please. Harder—I won’t break.” 510/551 He groans and starts to move, really move, pounding into me again and again. Oh, it’s heavenly. “Yes,” I gasp, tightening my hold on him as I start to build . . . He moans, grinding into me with renewed determination . . . and I’m close. Oh, please. Don’t stop. “Come on, Ana,” he groans through gritted teeth, and I explode around him, my orgasm going on and on and on. I call out his name and Christian stills, groan- ing loudly, as he climaxes inside me. “Ana,” he cries. Christian lies beside me, his hand caressing my belly, his long fingers splayed out wide. “How’s my daughter?” “She’s dancing.” I laugh. “Dancing? Oh yes! Wow. I can feel her.” He grins as Blip Two somersaults inside me. “I think she likes sex already.” Christian frowns. “Really?” he says dryly. He moves so his lips are against my bump. “There’ll be none of that until you’re thirty, young lady.” I giggle. “Oh, Christian, you are such a hypocrite.” “No, I’m an anxious father.” He gazes up at me, his brow furrowed, betraying his anxiety. “You’re a wonderful father, as I knew you would be.” I caress his lovely face, and he gives me his shy smile. “I like this,” he murmurs, stroking then kissing my belly. “There’s more of you.” I pout. “I don’t like more of me.” “It’s great when you come.” “Christian!” “And I’m looking forward to the taste of breast milk again.” “Christian! You are such a kinky—” 511/551 He swoops on me suddenly, kissing me hard, throwing his leg over mine, and grabbing my hands so they are above my head. “You love the kinky fuckery,” he whispers, and he runs his nose down mine. I grin, caught in his infectious, wicked smile. “Yes, I love the kinky fuckery. And I love you. Very much.” I jerk awake, woken by a high-pitched squeal of delight from my son, and even though I can’t see him or


What do you feel for Godfrey at this moment? for Nancy? Eppie, however, drops her polite manner. They've passed beyond class roles and face each other as human beings. Clutching Silas' hand, she refuses again in colder tones. She says she simply can't stand to desert Silas, knowing how much he loves her. Silas questions her, making sure she won't regret losing a rich social position. Then Nancy questions her, reminding her of her family duty. But Eppie firmly replies to both that she couldn't live any other life but what she's been brought up to. Godfrey, agitated, leaves. Nancy tries to cover for his rudeness, then hurries after him. ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 20 At the beginning of the previous chapter, maybe you felt sorry for Silas. At the beginning of this one, however, you might just as easily feel sorry for Godfrey and Nancy. Godfrey has been rebuffed by his only child. Nancy has no hope now of ending her childlessness. The silence between them as they arrive home seems brooding, ominous. But then they exchange a long, steady gaze that expresses more than words could ever do. What does this tell you about their marriage? Godfrey takes Nancy's hand and faces the truth decisively. Notice the imagery he uses. He rejects his own father's images, where human relations are like property--"There's debts we can't pay like money debts." Instead, he uses images of nature to talk of affection--"the trees have been growing." NOTE: TRAGIC CLIMAX In a letter about Silas Marner, Eliot remarked that "the nemesis is mild." Nemesis in Greek tragedy is the hero's punishment for his tragic mistake. Often this is severe--in Oedipus, for example, the hero is blinded and exiled. Godfrey's punishment is not severe, but, as he describes it, it's ironic: "I wanted to pass for childless once... I shall pass for childless now against my wish." Godfrey doesn't turn his back on Eppie. Considerately, he decides not to make her parentage public, because it wouldn't do anyone any good. Nevertheless, he intends to go on helping her, playing the role he's always played in her life. Nancy urges him not to tell anyone, even her father and sister, about his secret. Some readers think she's being practical here; others think she's trying to save her own reputation. Godfrey, however, says he'll put the truth in his will--he's given up hiding his secrets. Like any old married couple, Godfrey and Nancy rehash between them the recent events. Godfrey remarks that Eppie dislikes him, but he accepts this as his fitting punishment. What's more important, he realizes that he still has Nancy--and that's enough. He seems purified of his restless, regretful feelings, ready to be content with his wife and home as they are. All in all, do you think this is a tragic ending to this plot? Why? ^^^^^^^^^^ SILAS MARNER: CHAPTER 21 Now that the climax of the story has been passed, Eliot resolves the one cloud still hanging over Silas--his early experience in Lantern-Yard. Silas decides to take Eppie to visit his old


what that meant. Did it mean he hadn’t killed Liv? Or was it just because I’d caught him by surprise? Ethan was right. We didn’t know how to find answers about my mystery man, not yet. The questions we knew how to ask were about Jessi. Although I did have one lead. Oscar. But talking to Oscar would mean Ethan finding out about the worst decision I’d ever made. It would change things. The disgust I felt at myself—he’d feel that, too. “You should get yourself cleaned up,” Ethan was saying. “You look—” I held up a warning finger. “If you ever want me to ill-advisedly hop into bed with you again, you will stop talking,” I said. “Stunning. Truly stunning,” he course-corrected. I rolled my eyes. “Very convincing.” I commandeered the laptop long enough to email my engagement-shoot clients, letting them know I’d had a family emergency and had to reschedule. Then I showered, cleaning tenderly around my various injuries. I was moving like a geriatric patient, shuffling and hunching, and the hot water did little to ease my tightly wound muscles, but I at least looked less like an accident victim by the time I emerged from the shower. As I dried off, Ethan’s muffled voice filtered in. He was talking to someone. “… longer than I expected. No, nothing’s wrong. I’m just doing some research.” Who was he talking to? “No, you don’t want to know, because it always upsets you. No. No. Yes. Mom—” I relaxed a bit and then scolded myself. Who did I think he would be talking to? My initial reaction had been suspicion, but that didn’t make any sense. If he was talking to someone nefarious he wouldn’t take the call while I was a cheap hollow-core door away. I stepped out, drying my hair, and he gave me an apologetic look as he continued talking. “It’s my job. I like it. I know you don’t get it, but I really don’t want to have this conversation with you right now. I promise you I am fine. I’ll come visit soon. Okay. Give my love to George and the girls. Love you, Mom. Bye.” He hung up and sagged. “Let me guess. Your mother is horrified by the fact that you spend all your time researching gruesome murders?” “Pretty much,” Ethan said. “Her husband doesn’t help. He thinks it’s a sign of fundamental amorality or something. A small price to pay for her having a decent guy in her life.” “Being worried about you means she cares, at least,” I said. I finger-combed my damp hair into a semblance of proper order. “Do you ever talk to your mom?” “Once a year on her birthday,” I replied. “She swooped in to play Good Mother for a few weeks after the attack, but it didn’t last long. We get along better at a distance anyway. She just was never meant to be a parent. What about your dad? You close with him?” “He died,” Ethan said plainly. “I’m sorry,” I said, blanching. “Don’t be. It


refreshing to the spirits of the invalid. In these regions it was particularly so, where an abundance of wild flowers and aromatic herbs breathed forth their essence on the air. The dawn, which softened the scenery with its peculiar grey tint, now dispersed, and Emily watched the progress of the day, first trembling on the tops of the highest cliffs, then touching them with splendid light, while their sides and the vale below were still wrapt in dewy mist. Meanwhile, the sullen grey of the eastern clouds began to blush, then to redden, and then to glow with a thousand colours, till the golden light darted over all the air, touched the lower points of the mountain's brow, and glanced in long sloping beams upon the valley and its stream. All nature seemed to have awakened from death into life; the spirit of St. Aubert was renovated. His heart was full; he wept, and his thoughts ascended to the Great Creator. Emily wished to trip along the turf, so green and bright with dew, and to taste the full delight of that liberty, which the izard seemed to enjoy as he bounded along the brow of the cliffs; while Valancourt often stopped to speak with the travellers, and with social feeling to point out to them the peculiar objects of his admiration. St. Aubert was pleased with him: 'Here is the real ingenuousness and ardour of youth,' said he to himself; 'this young man has never been at Paris.' He was sorry when they came to the spot where the roads parted, and his heart took a more affectionate leave of him than is usual after so short an acquaintance. Valancourt talked long by the side of the carriage; seemed more than once to be going, but still lingered, and appeared to search anxiously for topics of conversation to account for his delay. At length he took leave. As he went, St. Aubert observed him look with an earnest and pensive eye at Emily, who bowed to him with a countenance full of timid sweetness, while the carriage drove on. St. Aubert, for whatever reason, soon after looked from the window, and saw Valancourt standing upon the bank of the road, resting on his pike with folded arms, and following the carriage with his eyes. He waved his hand, and Valancourt, seeming to awake from his reverie, returned the salute, and started away. The aspect of the country now began to change, and the travellers soon found themselves among mountains covered from their base nearly to their summits with forests of gloomy pine, except where a rock of granite shot up from the vale, and lost its snowy top in the clouds. The rivulet, which had hitherto accompanied them, now expanded into a river; and, flowing deeply and silently along, reflected, as in a mirror, the blackness of the impending shades. Sometimes a cliff was seen lifting its bold head above the woods and the vapours, that floated mid-way down the mountains; and sometimes a face of perpendicular marble rose from the


why I was so focused on something that would make the whole thing shorter.” He readjusts on the bed, and it’s only then that I realize our knees have been touching. “She should come first, then,” he says. “Before we even have sex.” “Obviously, I’m on board with that. But I have a feeling when you say ‘sex,’ what you really mean is penetration.” I wave a hand around the room. “Everything we do in here—all of it is sex, at least to me. There shouldn’t be just one definition of it, and penetration shouldn’t always be the endgame.” “No, you’re right. That makes sense,” he says. “So you don’t enjoy it at all? Uh . . . penetration?” He runs a sheepish hand down his face. “Just going to put it out there, that’s the most times I’ve heard that word in the course of a single conversation.” I bite back a smile. “I do, but it’s not really the main event for me, the way it might be for you. Or the way I’m guessing it’s been in the past.” He gives me a guilty look. “It’s not like how it is in porn, although there’s some great feminist porn I’d be happy to show you. Or honestly, even in movies and TV. You can’t just mindlessly thrust until both people come, and yet nearly everything you watch is trying its damnedest to convince you otherwise. There’s more finesse to it.” “Not that I take all my sexual cues from porn, I just . . . well, you see it at a ripe-enough age, and some of it sticks with you. That’s probably where my dirty talk came from, too.” Then he looks at me with a new vulnerability. “What if I do all of this, and I still can’t get her there?” “That could very well happen.” “I thought you’d say something like, ‘Absolutely not, Finn, you’ll be a sexual virtuoso in no time.’ ” I toss a pillow at him. “Fine, on the off chance that you’re not—it doesn’t mean your relationship is doomed. You just have to try other things. Toys can be great, and sex doesn’t have to be the destination every time, let alone . . . penetration.” This time I stumble over the word, laughing. There’s no reason it can’t be funny. My knee has fallen back against his, but neither of us moves apart. “There are plenty of fantastic stops along the way—there’s no need to rush it. Or maybe those aren’t stops—maybe those are the main event. It completely depends on the relationship. But the key is communication. That’s the only way to know whether something is working for someone. If one person is unhappy, the other needs to know.” He takes this all in with a focused gaze. “I like that,” he says, his voice dropping into a lower register. Now his hand falls to my knee, thumb rubbing a slow circle. “In fact, I like all of this. I think this was more informative than any health class I had