was a little frightened and quite sorry for her. She went to the bed and bent over her. "Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged. "You mustn't for sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about anythin'--just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'." There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary. She gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved. "It's time for thee to get up now," she said. "Mrs. Medlock said I was to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner into th' room next to this. It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha' cannot button them up tha'self." When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the wardrobe were not the ones she had worn when she arrived the night before with Mrs. Medlock. "Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black." She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with cool approval: "Those are nicer than mine." "These are th' ones tha' must put on," Martha answered. "Mr. Craven ordered Mrs. Medlock to get 'em in London. He said `I won't have a child dressed in black wanderin' about like a lost soul,' he said. `It'd make the place sadder than it is. Put color on her.' Mother she said she knew what he meant. Mother always knows what a body means. She doesn't hold with black hersel'." "I hate black things," said Mary. The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha had "buttoned up" her little sisters and brothers but she had never seen a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own. "Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly held out her foot. "My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom." She said that very often--"It was the custom." The native servants were always saying it. If one told them to do a thing their ancestors had not done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not the custom" and one knew that was the end of the matter. It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but stand and allow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite Manor would end by teaching her a number of things quite new to her--things such as putting on her own shoes and stockings, and picking up things she let fall. If Martha had been a well-trained fine young lady's maid she would have been more subservient and respectful and would have known that it was


came up as a minor note in a few articles, but nothing relevant—work for corporations and small companies, mostly. Nothing that stank of “violent personal vendetta.” “Why would this guy attack you?” Ethan asked. “It doesn’t exactly sound like normal PI work.” I frowned. Ethan was right. At a glance, Jessup Consulting didn’t seem like thugs for hire. And why attack me? He hadn’t killed me, and he could have. So rough me up? Why? Except that he hadn’t attacked me, had he? Not exactly. He’d lunged for me. Or he’d lunged for the door. I’d surprised him in my room, and he’d tried to get out. And I’d gone completely psycho, trying to brain him with an iPhone. I rubbed my forehead with the tips of my fingers. “I went after him. He was just trying to stop me,” I realized, and almost laughed. He hadn’t been trying to kill me at all. “He still broke into your room,” Ethan pointed out. “If he wasn’t after you, what was he after?” “All he got was my phone, as far as I know. And there’s nothing incriminating on that,” I said. You couldn’t be friends with Liv and not have a little of her paranoia rub off on you. Sensitive stuff did not belong on the cloud. “Is there anything else they could have taken?” he asked. “I checked all my gear. It’s still here,” I said. Unless. I walked painfully over to my roller bag and unzipped it. My cameras were there—but I popped one open and sure enough, the data card was gone. “Fuck. Oh, fuck.” “Was there something important on the drives?” Ethan asked. “Yeah, an entire wedding,” I said. “Shit. I hadn’t uploaded everything yet! Goddammit. I always upload everything right away, but I was starving and then he was in the room.” “You’re missing wedding photos,” Ethan repeated, carefully neutral. “They’re important,” I insisted. “Of course. But they aren’t going to get you killed or arrested, so I’m going to call this a win,” Ethan said. “Jessup Consulting will have them. We can get them back. Especially if they don’t want to get reported to the police for having an employee assault you.” “Okay.” I took a breath, released it. Calm. I could do calm. “Sit. Eat. Relax. I’ll see if I can turn up anything more,” he said. He eyed the tabs in the browser skeptically. “Do you ever close tabs?” “I might need them later.” “One of them is playing ‘Old Town Road.’” “I usually just mute the computer when that happens,” I said. “Easier than finding it.” He sighed and sat down to work. After I’d eaten, with Ethan still rooting unsuccessfully around the internet for signs of my assailant, I went on a pilgrimage to the ice machine. When I stepped back out of the alcove, bucket of ice in hand, I found Chief Bishop waiting for me. “Jesus Christ,” she said as soon as she saw me. “Who the hell did that to you?” “There was a scuffle over the bouquet, and


bringing her back to the present. “I’ve done things that I can barely live with. And I know you may want to leave me. I can see it in your eyes; you want to find Kitt and your other friends. But I need you. I’m asking you to stay here with me, where it’s safe.” She nodded, even though her heart was sinking. “I won’t leave you, Forest.” He closed his eyes, relieved. He looked like he had aged an entire decade. She caught a fleeting glimpse of him as an old man, worn and weathered and somber. “Get some sleep, brother,” she said. “We can talk more tomorrow.” She rose and left Forest on the sofa. The very place he had once slept before the war, when he was a horologist’s apprentice with bright eyes and a quick laugh and bear hugs that always made Iris feel better after a hard day. She took a candle and retreated to her bedroom, leaning against the door for a moment. She had to drop these fears about Roman, captured. Roman, dead. Roman, suffering. She had to have faith, and she needed to sleep. She needed her mind sharp and her body rested so she could forge a new plan to find her way to him. She soaked in the forlorn truth that she was back where she started. She was “home,” and yet she felt like a stranger here. She felt like an entirely different person. Iris shut her eyes, listening to the rain tap on the window. Slowly, she took in her old room. The blankets on her bed were wrinkled. Books were strewn over her desk, which was draped with gossamer. Her wardrobe door was open, revealing a glimpse of the clothes she had left behind. And there, on the floor, was a piece of paper. Iris froze, staring at it. She had left it there, untouched. She had chosen not to read it months ago, fearing Carver would alter the course she was determined to take. She walked to the folded paper. She bent down and picked it up from the floor, carrying it to her bed. She set the candle aside, the light flickering around her. Iris stared at the paper, nearly holding it over the flame to burn. She didn’t know if she was strong enough to open it. She worried it would break the last of her, to read his words now. In the end, she couldn’t resist. The paper unfolded like wings in her hands. His words met her like a blade. She bowed over them. Iris! Iris, it’s me, Kitt. Epilogue DACRE Dacre waited for his eithrals to retreat for the second time before he began his approach to Avalon Bluff. His pets returned to their resting place underground, and he walked across the lush valley, full of hope. The gas rose, limning the town in green. Green like the mountains, like the emeralds he wore on his fingers. Green like Enva’s eyes, which he still saw some nights when he slept below. The mortals


her in a lovely anxious group, brown heads and golden bent above the scores, and pale muslins and flower-wreathed hats mingled in a tender rainbow. All were young and pretty, and bathed in summer bloom; but not one had the nymph- like ease of his wife, when, with tense muscles and happy frown, she bent her soul upon some feat of strength. "Gad," Archer heard Lawrence Lefferts say, "not one of the lot holds the bow as she does"; and Beaufort retorted: "Yes; but that's the only kind of target she'll ever hit." Archer felt irrationally angry. His host's contemptuous tribute to May's "niceness" was just what a husband should have wished to hear said of his wife. The fact that a coarseminded man found her lacking in attraction was simply another proof of her quality; yet the words sent a faint shiver through his heart. What if "niceness" carried to that supreme degree were only a negation, the curtain dropped before an emptiness? As he looked at May, returning flushed and calm from her final bull's-eye, he had the feeling that he had never yet lifted that curtain. She took the congratulations of her rivals and of the rest of the company with the simplicity that was her crowning grace. No one could ever be jealous of her triumphs because she managed to give the feeling that she would have been just as serene if she had missed them. But when her eyes met her husband's her face glowed with the pleasure she saw in his. Mrs. Welland's basket-work pony-carriage was waiting for them, and they drove off among the dispersing carriages, May handling the reins and Archer sitting at her side. The afternoon sunlight still lingered upon the bright lawns and shrubberies, and up and down Bellevue Avenue rolled a double line of victorias, dog-carts, landaus and "vis-a-vis," carrying well-dressed ladies and gentlemen away from the Beaufort garden-party, or homeward from their daily afternoon turn along the Ocean Drive. "Shall we go to see Granny?" May suddenly proposed. "I should like to tell her myself that I've won the prize. There's lots of time before dinner." Archer acquiesced, and she turned the ponies down Narragansett Avenue, crossed Spring Street and drove out toward the rocky moorland beyond. In this unfashionable region Catherine the Great, always indifferent to precedent and thrifty of purse, had built herself in her youth a many-peaked and cross-beamed cottage- orne on a bit of cheap land overlooking the bay. Here, in a thicket of stunted oaks, her verandahs spread themselves above the island-dotted waters. A winding drive led up between iron stags and blue glass balls embedded in mounds of geraniums to a front door of highly-varnished walnut under a striped verandah-roof; and behind it ran a narrow hall with a black and yellow star-patterned parquet floor, upon which opened four small square rooms with heavy flock-papers under ceilings on which an Italian house-painter had lavished all the divinities of Olympus. One of these rooms had been turned into a bedroom by Mrs. Mingott when the


as a bear". The word `limes' was like fire to powder, his yellow face flushed, and he rapped on his desk with an energy which made Jenny skip to her seat with unusual rapidity. "Young ladies, attention, if you please!" At the stern order the buzz ceased, and fifty pairs of blue, black, gray, and brown eyes were obediently fixed upon his awful countenance. "Miss March, come to the desk." Amy rose to comply with outward composure, but a secret fear oppressed her, for the limes weighed upon her conscience. "Bring with you the limes you have in your desk," was the unexpected command which arrested her before she got out of her seat. "Don't take all." whispered her neighbor, a young lady of great presence of mind. Amy hastily shook out half a dozen and laid the rest down before Mr. Davis, feeling that any man possessing a human heart would relent when that delicious perfume met his nose. Unfortunately, Mr. Davis particularly detested the odor of the fashionable pickle, and disgust added to his wrath. "Is that all?" "Not quite," stammered Amy. "Bring the rest immediately." With a despairing glance at her set, she obeyed. "You are sure there are no more?' "I never lie, sir." "So I see. Now take these disgusting things two by two, and throw them out of the window." There was a simultaneous sigh, which created quite a little gust, as the last hope fled, and the treat was ravished from their longing lips. Scarlet with shame and anger, Amy went to and fro six dreadful times, and as each doomed couple, looking oh, so plump and juicy, fell from her reluctant hands, a shout from the street completed the anguish of the girls, for it told them that their feast was being exulted over by the little Irish children, who were their sworn foes. This -- mdash; this was too much. All flashed indignant or appealing glances at the inexorable Davis, and one passionate lime lover burst into tears. As Amy returned from her last trip, Mr. Davis gave a portentous "Hem!" and said, in his most impressive manner . . . "Young ladies, you remember what I said to you a week ago. I am sorry this has happened, but I never allow my rules to be infringed, and I never break my word. Miss March, hold out your hand." Amy started, and put both hands behind her, turning on him an imploring look which pleaded for her better than the words she could not utter. She was rather a favorite with `old Davis', as, of course, he was called, and it's my private belief that he would have broken his word if the indignation of one irrepressible young lady had not found vent in a hiss. That hiss, faint as it was, irritated the irascible gentleman, and sealed the culprit's fate. "Your hand, Miss March!" was the only answer her mute appeal received, and too proud to cry or beseech, Amy set her teeth, threw back her head defiantly, and bore without


right time.” “That makes no sense,” Aubrey grumbled. “Maybe not to you, newbie,” Doogan said, not smiling at all. “Quiet, Doogan,” Captain Church said. “Orders, General?” “Stay here,” said Resnick. “I need them thinking you are just as trapped as they are, and to help them until they don’t need help anymore.” “Will we see you again?” Lieutenant Chan asked. “If things go as expected, we will come back after the next mission,” Resnick said. “Pristy, Derrota, Aubrey, with me.” Pristy followed Resnick into the passageway, the others trailing behind them. She stepped up beside the general and asked, “Do you really believe this will work?” “Check your historical timeline stability score,” Resnick said. Pristy looked at her ChronoLink. “53.4 percent.” “So we’re doing something right,” Resnick said. “Now we just have to keep doing it right, and fast. Because in an hour and a half, Stratham Hold is going to be overrun. And then we’ll all have much bigger problems to deal with.” Chapter 26 Liquilid Empire Star System USS Adams Sonya Winters Running, walking, then running some more—did she know she was being impetuous? Of course she did. At the ripe old age of sixteen, almost seventeen, she figured if one couldn’t be impulsive, impassioned, hell, unbridled—whatever adjective you wanted to throw at it—as a teenager, then when? Only now, as she hurried down a rarely used Adams maintenance passageway, did she start to have second thoughts concerning her most recent actions. Her arm, more accurately, her shoulder, blazed with pain with each jarring step. Having hacked the nurse station’s work schedule, she’d timed her escape from HealthBay during the shift change. Did she feel bad, having to pilfer Nurse Donna’s locker, the only nurse equally petite and having a similar shape? Not really. Donna was bitchy, and beyond lazy. When wasn’t the woman on bathroom break? So no, screw her. But she had to hand it to her—Donna had nice civvies. Now, wearing a smart-looking black sweatshirt, stylish navy-blue leggings, and a pair of high-top running shoes that must have cost the dawdling nurse a pretty penny, Sonya was somewhat adequately dressed for the mission at hand. “Stop with the scolding, Tina … What are you, my mother?” she said, scowling up at the circling glimmer of gold near the deckhead. “I’ll return all her shit later. Maybe …” She could barely hear the fairy’s high-pitched reply above the echoes of her footfalls within the narrow passageway. “I’m Iris! Iris Iris Iris Iris Iris! Not Tina!” “Okay, okay, got it; you’re also beyond annoying!” Cringing as she hurried down what seemed an endless stairwell from hell, she stabilized her left arm, still in a sling, with her opposite hand. She thumb-tapped her Jadoo ring, bringing up the projected 3D menu, which subsequently showed the countdown timer she’d set prior to leaving HealthBay. She’d miscalculated; this was taking much longer than anticipated. Flight Bay was still two flights down and she was quickly losing steam—her injuries far from healed. Winding her way down the corkscrew of a staircase, one more


I just feel like—it’s such a can of worms.” I couldn’t figure out if he was arguing against looking into the case. Surely not. But he sounded pained. “It’s only a student project,” I said, feebly. “So was Facebook.” He agreed, in the end, to talk to Britt and Alder about his memories of Thalia, at least; he’d see how he felt about whatever else came up. I’d taken off my coat, enjoying the stuffy heat of the small bathroom, scooting around on the radiator to warm different parts of my legs. I said, “Lola says you found me scary in high school.” “Oh. I mean—you were a little prickly, maybe. Or maybe you just didn’t want to deal with me. I was passing as a dude-bro. I’m sure I was terrible.” “You were nice to me.” “Well, sure. That’s what you do when you’re afraid of someone.” He was laughing, though, and there was something flattering about the idea that he’d looked at me with anything other than pity or scorn. “I could never figure you out. This goth kid who rowed crew and did musicals.” That was two more things than I’d have guessed he remembered about me, even if I hadn’t quite done musicals. I couldn’t parse the nostalgia, or maybe even tenderness, in his voice. He had to go; he’d be in touch after he talked to the students. “You have my number,” I said, and wondered if my tone was more like someone in a business meeting or in a romantic comedy. Ridiculously, I wondered if Yahav would have been jealous if he’d heard me. I was hanging up when my phone buzzed with a text from Carlotta, and for a moment it was 1995, me debriefing with her after I talked to a cute boy. You okay? the message read. Plz lmk if there’s ANYTHING I can do, seriously. I put on my coat, toasted dry from the radiator. I’d love it if this were about my students’ podcast, but I knew that even though Carlotta wasn’t on Twitter, it was about Jerome and about my own downfall, information making its way through the private messages of people who knew me. I got hotter and hotter as I stood there, and when I stepped out into the ridiculous cold, it came as a relief. 53 Things constantly on my mind: The next time I’d hear from Lance. Whether I should check Twitter. Whether I should check my inbox. Whether it was time to switch careers or change my name. Whether Jerome was sleeping and eating enough that he could safely drive the kids around. Whether quitting the podcast would mean I was financially dependent on Jerome again. Whether Jerome still had an income for me to depend on. Omar’s mother, in front of her piano. Thalia’s parents, at their kitchen table. How quickly I could get to Boston and grab Yahav and convince him to spend just one afternoon in a motel so I could drink in enough of him to last me a few months.


marry him because of that?” That’s when I definitely knew Daphne was keeping something from me. And it was big enough that my best friend thought I shouldn’t marry my fiancé. “I just want you to be happy. I don’t want you to have any misgivings going into your marriage. And, well, I’ve worried that I pushed Bryce on you, that you were still pining for Rich and—” “You didn’t just say that.” I was furious now. “You could just apologize, you know,” Mary Stuart said. “Rich would forgive you. I know he would.” “What is wrong with you two? Rich? I wasn’t even twenty-one! That was ages ago!” “Not ages, Lanier,” Daphne said. “No matter how long it has been, I want the best for you. Sue me.” Mary Stuart laughed, and I glared at her. “I’m sorry. It was a funny lawyer joke. I couldn’t help it.” “So I suppose you’re on her team, too?” I asked. “I plead the Fifth,” Mary Stuart said. Mary Stuart and Daphne were in stitches, but I was still fuming. This was why it was hard to be three best friends. Someone was always a little left out. “Turn the boat around,” I huffed. “I want to go back to the dock. Right now.” Suddenly, with no warning, the boat came to almost a complete stop. “Daphne, this isn’t funny.” “Lanier, I’m flattered, but even I can’t control the wind.” I looked around. There really was no wind. So, like a child, I turned my back to both my friends, looking out over the wide river. We were half an hour away from camp. In fact, we were considerably closer to Rock Springs than we were to Holly Springs. I could see the riverbank, but there wasn’t anything on it. We were really, truly in the middle of nowhere. But surely a boat would come along sometime, right? “Daph, are we stuck?” Mary Stuart asked. “Well, until the wind picks back up, I’m afraid to say that we are.” “Oh my God!” Mary Stuart was definitely the panicker of the group, and I could tell that Daphne wasn’t in a soothing mood. So, even though I was mad, I turned back around and said, “Mary Stuart, it’s fine. The wind will pick up soon. This has happened a million times before.” “But those other million times we could radio to base camp, and someone would come tow us!” she said shrilly. “Those other million times the sun wasn’t starting to set!” She wasn’t wrong. But the number one lesson when on the water—one that we had learned the hard way a time or two—was don’t panic. Daphne was totally relaxed. I was mad but not worried. So I decided to distract Mary Stuart the best way I knew how: by talking about my relationship. “I think I just felt like there would be a sign,” I said. “For what?” Mary Stuart asked, cocking her head. “Rich.” Mary Stuart and Daphne shared a knowing grin. “You don’t have to be so smug. I guess I


without putting my back to him. I shut the door behind me and stood there, fingers resting against the cold door. His dirty clothes were heaped in an open suitcase at the end of the bed. Recording equipment was stored more neatly by the desk, and his laptop was open, with sound-editing software up and running. I wondered if he was editing my “interview.” I walked over, trying to decode the tangle of sound waves and icons. “Naomi?” His fingers brushed my elbow. I dragged my eyes back to his face. “What’s going on?” “I don’t want to be alone,” I said. His fingertips were still on my elbow, barely touching me, like he was afraid of what would happen if he made real contact. Or if he let go. “Do you want to talk?” he asked. Did I? I needed to tell someone. I needed to speak the words to ease the aching pressure in my chest, but I had no one to tell. “Tell me what’s happening,” he said. His voice was so painfully gentle, so kind. His touch as tender as he’d been when he lifted Liv from the water. “I can’t,” I said. I stepped toward him. Some people reach for a bottle. I have never been able to silence my thoughts with alcohol. It only ever blunts my defenses, lets loose all the creeping things in the corners of my mind. I’ve found other ways to cope. I stepped into him and he let out a startled breath, eyes widening. I rested a hand on his chest. His heart beat rapidly under my palm, and I thought of the rush of blood, of how easily it escapes the skin. “Naomi,” he said. “Ethan,” I replied. I leaned into him, almost touching, not quite. A gap that was easy to close, if he wanted to. He wanted to. But he didn’t. His hand skimmed up my arm, over my shoulder, until his fingers rested at the back of my neck. “What are you doing?” he asked me. “I told you. I don’t want to be alone.” I didn’t want to be alone, and he was beautiful, and he was alive, and he had been kind to me, and that was more reason than I’d ever needed. “I don’t want to take advantage of you,” he said, voice rough. “I’m not the one being taken advantage of here,” I assured him. My fingers slipped under the hem of his shirt, fingernails nicking skin, and he took a sharp breath. “Tell me to leave, and I will.” “I don’t want you to leave,” he said softly. “Good.” He kissed me, his kiss as hungry as mine, and we tumbled toward oblivion. We lay with the motel sheets tangled under us, breath still quick, pulses settling. Ethan’s hand rested on my thigh. I rolled away, sitting up at the edge of the bed and snatching my clothes from where they’d fallen. “In a hurry to leave?” Ethan asked, and I could hear him trying to figure out if he should be


into her hand at the door and which lured her within their reach." "Very good, Lestrade," said Holmes, laughing. "You really are very fine indeed. Let me see it." He took up the paper in a listless way, but his attention instantly became riveted, and he gave a little cry of satisfaction. "This is indeed important," said he. "Ha! you find it so?" "Extremely so. I congratulate you warmly." Lestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to look. "Why," he shrieked, "you're looking at the wrong side!" "On the contrary, this is the right side." "The right side? You're mad! Here is the note written in pencil over here." "And over here is what appears to be the fragment of a hotel bill, which interests me deeply." "There's nothing in it. I looked at it before," said Lestrade. "'Oct. 4th, rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s., lunch 2s. 6d., glass sherry, 8d.' I see nothing in that." "Very likely not. It is most important, all the same. As to the note, it is important also, or at least the initials are, so I congratulate you again." "I've wasted time enough," said Lestrade, rising. "I believe in hard work and not in sitting by the fire spinning fine theories. Good-day, Mr. Holmes, and we shall see which gets to the bottom of the matter first." He gathered up the garments, thrust them into the bag, and made for the door. "Just one hint to you, Lestrade," drawled Holmes before his rival vanished; "I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lady St. Simon is a myth. There is not, and there never has been, any such person." Lestrade looked sadly at my companion. Then he turned to me, tapped his forehead three times, shook his head solemnly, and hurried away. He had hardly shut the door behind him when Holmes rose to put on his overcoat. "There is something in what the fellow says about outdoor work," he remarked, "so I think, Watson, that I must leave you to your papers for a little." It was after five o'clock when Sherlock Holmes left me, but I had no time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a confectioner's man with a very large flat box. This he unpacked with the help of a youth whom he had brought with him, and presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean little cold supper began to be laid out upon our humble lodging-house mahogany. There were a couple of brace of cold woodcock, a pheasant, a pate de foie gras pie with a group of ancient and cobwebby bottles. Having laid out all these luxuries, my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian Nights, with no explanation save that the things had been paid for and were ordered to this address. Just before nine o'clock Sherlock Holmes stepped briskly into the room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his eye which made me think that he had not been


the sleeves. “About how you cheated on me. I don’t want to make things worse for Ella. But she needs to know that we were separated that summer. You can tell her, or I will. Even better, we should tell her together.” Peter looked incredulous. “You shagged your perverse boyfriend right in front of her. You lied to me about him for two years.” “Yes,” she said, standing up with him. “I did. And I’m sorry. But I want Ella to know that I wasn’t cheating on you.” She cleared her throat, and then added, “And Gabriel wasn’t perverse. He was naive.” She believed this now. She believed it fully. She understood why he’d opened the cottage door to Ella and why he’d let her come back when she knocked again. Three times, not every afternoon. He’d wanted to tell her, and told Ella he would. She hadn’t been wrong about him. Peter stared at Maud for a moment before picking up his briefcase. “I want a divorce,” he said. 21 For the next few days, Maud reeled in the ivy that had grown through the open door of the garden at Tennessee Hollow, uncoiling it from around the staked beans and the wispy cornstalks. She trimmed the mat of yerba buena, which seasoned the air with its minty smell. Moving her body helped to keep her mind from whirring with the fear that Ella would never forgive her. “My head’s a mess,” she told Annette. “And the future is a black hole.” They were walking through Annette’s neighborhood as the sunset painted the city in watercolor hues. “Remember how I was the summer after,” Annette said. And Maud did remember: Annette hollow in her bed, sapped by grief, weeping with the curtains shut as Maud cleaned tissues off the floor, cracked open the window, murmured to her, I love you. You are going to be okay. This life her sister had made on the other side of that wall of misery wasn’t perfect. But it was a life, and it was hers, and, Maud reminded herself, as she’d told Annette back then, sometimes living was simply about getting out of bed. On Friday, Louise spent the night. On Saturday, Maud helped her with her homework at Annette’s kitchen table. On Sunday, the three of them went to Golden Gate Park to take out a paddleboat on Stowe Lake. Knees moving up and down, tossing popcorn to the ducks, Maud eyed Louise’s face for signs of distress. The next session with Rita at the end of the following week was less revealing than the first. This time Ella said little. Mostly they sat in excruciating silence. “I love you,” Maud said. No answer. “I miss you so much.” No answer. Then, as Maud had negotiated via text, Peter joined them from the waiting room. “Your dad and I were separated that summer,” Maud told Ella. “I know that doesn’t change what you saw or how it made you feel. But I wasn’t being unfaithful.” She saw Ella take in the information and


cut the thread that ties them to their love of drinking or gambling.” She dropped his gaze. She knew it was wrong. But what was she to do when she kept seeing the same people fall into the same bad habits? When they dropped to their knees asking for help? She made a living breaking other people’s hearts—she simply couldn’t refuse when they begged her to put it back together. “It’s not like you think,” she added, the words rushing out of her mouth. “Cutting someone’s thread, I mean. I only ever cut threads of addiction and only if the addicts agree. Sometimes the cutting helps, takes off the fog and helps them focus again, keeps them from relapsing. Sometimes, the thread grows back. I’m not—” She stopped. She was starting to sound apologetic, which she hated. Somewhere in the course of this conversation, she had tricked herself into feeling guilty, into fearing what Edei might think of her. But these were her choices, her threads she sacrificed to cut theirs, her consciousness stained. She had weighed it in her mind’s scales and found helping them worthy of the cost. She refused to feel judged for that. A finger tapped on her arm; she caught Edei’s hand retreating to his pocket. The tenderness of the movement was enough to lull her into raising her eyes to his. “Listen,” he said, “if it’s any worth, I understand. There is violence in kindness, and kindness in violence.” Io took his soft words and cradled them against her chest. Violence in kindness, and kindness in violence. They felt intimate in more ways than she could count; her past was riddled with moments that proved their truth. The words didn’t lessen the sense of wrongdoing, but she felt seen. Known. She replied with a small nod. She veered toward the bank, saying, “Come on, then. Let’s go be empty-headed.” Edei exhaled a laugh and followed, and they began zigzagging between shoppers. When they snuck into the nearest dark alley, Edei dragged down a flood-escape ladder. They climbed silently, one eye on the residents moving inside the buildings. They walked across ducts and overpasses until they stood on the roof of the bank, directly across from the police station. Below, the final tide bells started ringing. The night tide had reached the Hill, seawater crawling up cobblestone streets like a horde of iridescent insects. The bells sounded less threatening in this part of town: the City Plaza was built on an elevated platform, and the surrounding wall kept most of the water out. Stores had automated shutters and sump pumps, and cafés and restaurants had already moved their tables onto balconies and rooftops. If you didn’t glance down at the murky liquid harboring vicious chimerini, this scenery was close to idyllic. Swirly neon signs, strings of candle-lit lanterns, lush greenery spilling over rails, clean-shaven men in floral suits, and fur-clad women with large jade earrings dangling from their ears, sipping wine under the moonlight. Io’s lip curled with contempt, but if she was honest with herself, there


his vegetarianism. No dark secrets, but I wasn’t expecting them yet—it’s only our first real talk about the book. Even though I should be in my element, I can’t get over the fact that just a week ago, he was kissing me in front of a bookstore. “That wouldn’t be too much?” he’s asking, after I mention that I should probably watch as much of his work as possible, including the entirety of The Nocturnals. “I don’t want to work you too hard.” I quietly burst into flames. It’s criminal that he’s not seeing the innuendo. And that’s when I realize I cannot keep reacting to him like this. Because even if Finn is acting perfectly professional, the history between us is a swath of cotton in my throat, a fist wrapped tight around my lungs. Every time his eyes meet mine, an electric current rushes up my spine and I remember how he pressed me against the door. How his frantic fingers searched and searched and searched. Despite all the faux pas, he knows me, intimately, in a way only a few other people do. And now he’s right in front of me, pretending he doesn’t. If I can’t get past this anxiety, I’m not going to be able to write the book. “Everything okay?” he asks. “You look a little queasy.” I blink myself back to reality. “I feel like . . . we might need to talk about the thing we said we weren’t going to talk about?” I hate the way my voice tilts upward at the end, but I push forward. “I know we said we were going to forget about it, but I just want to make sure it’s not going to be an issue. That both of us are on the same page.” A nervous laugh slips out. “Literally, I guess.” I’m not prepared for the full force of his gaze, hazel eyes intently focused as he studies me. Cheekbones sharper than any of the swords I saw at the con today. I assume Finn wears contacts, but no wonder they had him wear glasses on The Nocturnals—otherwise, Caleb Rhodes, the werewolf protagonist played by former teen heartthrob Ethan Underwood, might have had some competition for leading man status. If my face is growing warm, it’s only because Friday night is now playing on repeat in my head. The way he took in my body. The weight of him on top of me. All that lube and oooh, there it is. “I don’t see why it has to affect our working relationship,” he finally says. “What’s one night of mind-blowing sex between coworkers?” A kalamata olive lodges itself in my windpipe as I lose myself to a coughing fit. In my rush to reach for my glass of water, I knock it over, sending ice cubes skidding across the table. Cold water floods Finn’s plate, turning his falafel into a sad, soggy mess. If this is how Finn and I are going to deal with our past, we’re going to be banned from every restaurant


in at a glance the wrinkled black clothing, the square block of a head with purple lips and drooping mustache, the diamond tattoo of Imperial Conditioning on his forehead, the long black hair caught in the Suk School's silver ring at the left shoulder. "You'll be happy to hear we haven't time for regular lessons today," Yueh said. "Your father will be along presently." Paul sat up. "However, I've arranged for you to have a filmbook viewer and several lessons during the crossing to Arrakis." "Oh." Paul began pulling on his clothes. He felt excitement that his father would be coming. They had spent so little time together since the Emperor's command to take over the fief of Arrakis. Yueh crossed to the ell table, thinking: How the boy has filled out these past few months. Such a waste! Oh, such a sad waste. And he reminded himself: I must not falter. What I do is done to be certain my Wanna no longer can be hurt by the Harkonnen beasts. Paul joined him at the table, buttoning his jacket. "What'll I be studying on the way across?" "Ah-h-h-h, the terranic life forms of Arrakis. The planet seems to have opened its arms to certain terranic life forms. It's not clear how. I must seek out the planetary ecologist when we arrive -- a Dr. Kynes -- and offer my help in the investigation." And Yueh thought: What am I saying? I play the hypocrite even with myself. "Will there be something on the Fremen?" Paul asked. "The Fremen?" Yueh drummed his fingers on the table, caught Paul staring at the nervous motion, withdrew his hand. "Maybe you have something on the whole Arrakeen population," Paul said. "Yes, to be sure," Yueh said. "There are two general separations of the people -- Fremen, they are one group, and the others are the people of the graben, the sink, and the pan. There's some intermarriage, I'm told. The women of pan and sink villages prefer Fremen husbands; their men prefer Fremen wives. They have a saying: 'Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.' " "Do you have pictures of them?" "I'll see what I can get you. The most interesting feature, of course, is their eyes -- totally blue, no whites in them." "Mutation?" "No; it's linked to saturation of the blood with melange." "The Fremen must be brave to live at the edge of that desert." "By all accounts," Yueh said. "They compose poems to their knives. Their women are as fierce as the men. Even Fremen children are violent and dangerous. You'll not be permitted to mingle with them, I daresay." Paul stared at Yueh, finding in these few glimpses of the Fremen a power of words that caught his entire attention. What a people to win as allies! "And the worms?" Paul asked. "What?" "I'd like to study more about the sandworms." "Ah-h-h-h, to be sure. I've a filmbook on a small specimen, only one hundred and ten meters long and twenty-two meters in diameter. It was taken


qualities which might make the happiness of the rudest handicraftsman as well as that of the ideal craftsman of the spirit? Because, probably, at his highest elevation, the poet needs no human intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger. There was something very beautiful in the relation that grew up between this pair, so closely and constantly linked together, yet with such a waste of gloomy and mysterious years from his birthday to hers. On Clifford's part it was the feeling of a man naturally endowed with the liveliest sensibility to feminine influence, but who had never quaffed the cup of passionate love, and knew that it was now too late. He knew it, with the instinctive delicacy that had survived his intellectual decay. Thus, his sentiment for Phoebe, without being paternal, was not less chaste than if she had been his daughter. He was a man, it is true, and recognized her as a woman. She was his only representative of womankind. He took unfailing note of every charm that appertained to her sex, and saw the ripeness of her lips, and the virginal development of her bosom. All her little womanly ways, budding out of her like blossoms on a young fruit-tree, had their effect on him, and sometimes caused his very heart to tingle with the keenest thrills of pleasure. At such moments,--for the effect was seldom more than momentary,--the half-torpid man would be full of harmonious life, just as a long-silent harp is full of sound, when the musician's fingers sweep across it. But, after all, it seemed rather a perception, or a sympathy, than a sentiment belonging to himself as an individual. He read Phoebe as he would a sweet and simple story; he listened to her as if she were a verse of household poetry, which God, in requital of his bleak and dismal lot, had permitted some angel, that most pitied him, to warble through the house. She was not an actual fact for him, but the interpretation of all that he lacked on earth brought warmly home to his conception; so that this mere symbol, or life-like picture, had almost the comfort of reality. But we strive in vain to put the idea into words. No adequate expression of the beauty and profound pathos with which it impresses us is attainable. This being, made only for happiness, and heretofore so miserably failing to be happy,--his tendencies so hideously thwarted, that, some unknown time ago, the delicate springs of his character, never morally or intellectually strong, had given way, and he was now imbecile,--this poor, forlorn voyager from the Islands of the Blest, in a frail bark, on a tempestuous sea, had been flung, by the last mountain-wave of his shipwreck, into a quiet harbor. There, as he lay more than half lifeless on the strand, the fragrance of an earthly rose-bud had come to his nostrils, and, as odors will, had summoned up reminiscences or visions of all the living and breathing beauty amid which he should have had


different. It felt insidious. I agreed to do a CNN interview to explain my decision. The network ran a countdown clock in the corner of the screen, ticking off the minutes until my remote appearance with anchor Chris Cuomo. The hotel room dimmed as the sun went down, and the backdrop was an exposed brick wall and a bed. Unfortunately, the setup reinforced the image of a man who’d been in hiding. When we went on air, Cuomo was firm but fair. He grilled me on why I’d misled Anderson Cooper. I explained my reasoning. “We have seen over the course of four years that Donald Trump’s preference is to use personal attacks and distractions to pull people away from criticisms of his record,” I explained. “I wrote anonymously to deprive him of that opportunity and to force him to answer the questions on their merits.” The president’s reaction to my revelation was proof. He wasn’t engaging me in a debate about the charges I’d made against him. Instead he resorted to petty slurs and wanted his followers to do the same. The TV connection almost failed because the phone I was using to patch into the studio was overwhelmed with calls. MAGA supporters had found my number. With people around America tuned in, I tried to finish the discussion as the signal went in and out. Cuomo gave me the chance—in the waning days before the election—to explain what made Trump’s re-election so dangerous. When I got off the air, my phone was filled with text messages and emails. My voicemail inbox was maxed out, and I made the mistake of listening to several of them before bed. “Miles, we are going to dox you,” a guy with a Boston-like accent said, gloating. “You’re not going to be able to walk down the street! You’re an anti-American. Leave the country. You’re not welcome here anymore.” “What you are doing to President Trump is disgusting. You are disgusting people. You’re evil, and you’re going to go down,” a female caller threatened. “Hi, Miles. I’m calling from South Texas. Just calling to see if you’re a loyal person.… If you’re working for the Communists, you’re in big trouble.” “Your name’s going to go viral because you are treasonous ilk to our country.” “Miles Taylor, what the fuck are you thinking going against Trump? You, my friend, are a piece of shit. You are a traitor.” “We will fight for President Trump until the very end because he loves us and he loves the country.… You’re probably getting paid off somehow, some way.” “God help you, because you will deserve the wrath of hell.… I am disgusted by you all. And I think you will get what’s coming to you. God willing.” “You duuuumb motherfucker,” a man drawled in a lengthy, curse-filled diatribe that ended with “You know what? We will squash you like a fucking peanut, bitch.… You’re done. You’re done.… So eat a dick and die.” The texts were more concise: “Keep your head on a swivel, bitch.” Top Gun actor Miles


many other windows. If it all works out, of course. I could fail terribly.” “I doubt that very much.” “I’m grateful for having been a Rockette. It was a crash course in handling the grind of performing in show after show. Of how hard that is on the body. You can’t do it forever, and then what?” She sounded like her father. “Well,” said Peter, “you can always become a professional baseball player, with your ability to leap and catch.” The newspapers had gone wild over the news of Marion’s heroism, but she’d ignored any entreaties to tell her story. It would all die down soon enough, she hoped. “You think the Yankees would have me?” “They’d be crazy not to.” He held her gaze. “I learned something else,” said Marion. “The director of the show I’ve been hired for is the same one who hired my mother all those years ago.” She ran through her conversation with Mr. Noble and how it had completely changed her opinion of her mother, not to mention that of her father. “It’s such a relief to know she was planning on coming back to us. It changes everything.” “You’re still the same person. A courageous, bright, and generous woman who lights up any room she’s in. That doesn’t change, no matter who your parents are. But I’m glad you know the truth.” Impulsively, Marion leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. He pulled back, looking surprised, and ran a hand through his hair so that his curls stood on end. The sound of the waiter clearing his throat brought her to her senses. She blushed as the dinner was served, embarrassed at her rash act. “Any news from the police on the case?” she asked, collecting herself enough to eat. She hadn’t had a bite all day and was starving. The roast duck was superb. “The first step is for them to determine Martinek’s fitness to stand trial. That will take some time.” “Do you think he should stand trial?” “I think he’s mentally ill. But I guess the question is, was he unfit when all this began, sixteen years ago? It’s a fascinating case, really.” “As long as he’s off the streets, I don’t care if he’s in a prison or an asylum.” She paused. “Oh my gosh, what if he ends up at Creedmoor? And you’re his doctor? Now, that would be a strange twist.” Peter stiffened slightly. “Right, in fact, there’s been a development there.” “What kind?” “Like you, I was offered a new job today.” “Really?” She could easily picture him working with the police, advising them on cases. In an exhilarating rush, she imagined them taking the city by storm together, meeting up over dinner in his loft at the end of the day to exchange stories. She remembered the way he’d gently stroked her hair when she was lying in his bed, and a shiver of desire ran through her. “It’s with the FBI,” Peter said. “They want me to start up a new department


- Zaphod Beeblebrox? President? Not the Zaphod Beeblebrox? Not the President? Many had seen it as a clinching proof that the whole of known creation had finally gone bananas. Zaphod grinned and gave the boat an extra kick of speed. Zaphod Beeblebrox, adventurer, ex-hippy, good timer, (crook? quite possibly), manic self-publicist, terribly bad at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch. President? No one had gone bananas, not in that way at least. Only six people in the entire Galaxy understood the principle on which the Galaxy was governed, and they knew that once Zaphod Beeblebrox had announced his intention to run as President it was more or less a fait accompli: he was the ideal Presidency fodder*. What they completely failed to understand was why Zaphod was doing it. He banked sharply, shooting a wild wall of water at the sun. Today was the day; today was the day when they would realize what Zaphod had been up to. Today was what Zaphod Beeblebrox's Presidency was all about. Today was also his two hundredth birthday, but that was just another meaningless coincidence. As he skipped his boat across the seas of Damogran he smiled quietly to himself about what a wonderful exciting day it was going to be. He relaxed and spread his two arms lazily across the seat back. He steered with an extra arm he'd recently fitted just beneath his right one to help improve his ski-boxing. "Hey," he cooed to himself, "you're a real cool boy you." But his nerves sang a song shriller than a dog whistle. The island of France was about twenty miles long, five miles across the middle, sandy and crescent shaped. In fact it seemed to exist not so much as an island in its own right as simply a means of defining the sweep and curve of a huge bay. This impression was heightened by the fact that the inner coastline of the crescent consisted almost entirely of steep cliffs. From the top of the cliff the land sloped slowly down five miles to the opposite shore. On top of the cliffs stood a reception committee. It consisted in large part of the engineers and researchers who had built the Heart of Gold - mostly humanoid, but here and there were a few reptiloid atomineers, two or three green slyph-like maximegalacticans, an octopoid physucturalist or two and a Hooloovoo (a Hooloovoo is a super-intelligent shade of the color blue). All except the Hooloovoo were resplendent in their multi- colored ceremonial lab coats; the Hooloovoo had been temporarily refracted into a free standing prism for the occasion. There was a mood of immense excitement thrilling through all of them. Together and between them they had gone to and beyond the furthest limits of physical laws, restructured the fundamental fabric of matter, strained, twisted and broken the laws of possibility and impossibility, but still the greatest excitement of all seemed to be to meet a man with an orange sash round his neck. (An orange sash was what the President of


and the half wall of the kitchen. Orson leaned forward conspiratorially, his eyes bright, and asked me if I wanted to share an apartment with him. “Tell your parents you’re taking a year off to work. You need to save up for college.” This was a dream. I was living in a dream. “I’ll need a job before they’ll let me do that.” He nodded thoughtfully, his gaze straying from me to the sofa behind me. “I can take care of that,” he said. “That’ll be easy.” My parents had prepared a dinner of a brisket and mashed potatoes, my mom’s and dad’s respective specialties, the kind of out-of-budget meal they made for guests they wanted to impress. Orson badgered them into letting him set the table—“You can’t expect me to just sit here without earning my keep”—which he did with panache, folding our cheap paper napkins into mini swans and arranging the silverware as though we were preparing for a five-course meal. “He’s spoiling us,” my mom said to me, still glowing. “Orson, you don’t have to spoil us. This is for you.” “Nonsense!” He looked down his nose at her with the fake gentility of a nobleman, and she exploded with laughter. “I’ll hear none of it, madam!” My mom retreated giggling into the kitchen, and when she emerged it was with the steaming brisket, which we all applauded as though it, and not Orson, were our guest of honor. “You’ll get the first piece,” she said, setting the brisket down in front of Orson. “That hardly seems fair,” he protested. “You made it, after all.” My mom blushed and my dad laughed. This was how things always should have been. Orson would lift them out of their lives of ice burn and scant tips. He would enchant them like he’d enchanted me. “You’re telling me you two have been married eighteen years?” He looked from my dad to my mom. “Danielle, you could be Ezra’s older sister home from college.” “Oh, come on now!” she said, but she was clearly loving it. My dad and I brought the rest of the food to the table and it felt like Thanksgiving: there was a ready-to-feast warmth in the room, a swell of anticipatory joy. “So, Orson, what did you think of Wellspring?” my dad asked, slicing into his brisket. Orson chewed slowly, his features knit in consideration. “Tough but fair,” he said. “It really got me back to where I needed to be. My dad always said I needed to straighten up and fly right.” “You were close to your father?” my mom asked. “Very.” My dad nodded at me. “I think that camp did a number on Ez here. He came back a skeleton.” “Well, it was either that or, you know…” I tried, but didn’t know how to finish the sentence. My mom, always hypersensitive to wrinkles in a conversation, put her hand on mine. “You’re so strong now. Isn’t he so much stronger, Dave?” My dad nodded, chewing, and turned back to Orson. “You look pretty sturdy


gummy sweets. “Sorry I was never there, Mads.” He sniffs and when I look up, he’s crying. “After what you said the other day in the kitchen, I see what we did to you. I don’t even know what to say.” He nods toward Dad. “And there’s nothing I can do for him now, either. I missed all my chances.” I could say something soothing, but I don’t have anything to offer. I’ve run out of lies. Dad’s gone and the chance to help him has gone with him. I could say it’s fine and that it no longer matters, but that won’t negate how much it did matter at the time. I decide not to say anything at all. One day we’ll be orphans; one day I’ll be faced with the question of: who am I without my parents? I know I will never live at home again; that home as I know it may cease to exist. Mum will likely sell the house, and in a few months, she’ll go back to Ghana. James will continue to be reachable only after the second call. Then there will be me. Maddie. Madeleine Baaba Wright, twenty-five. Nothing else about me as definitive as those facts. “What’s your job, Mads?” James asks. “Huh? I’m an editorial assistant.” “And that’s what you want to do, in life, I mean?” “I think so. Why do you ask?” He shrugs. “I didn’t know. I knew it was something to do with books but didn’t know what exactly.” “Oh, I should have specified.” “Nah, I should have asked.” He speaks quietly, squeezing my shoulder. “I never thought I needed to check up on you. I’m sorry we’re not the family you deserve, Mads,” he suddenly says. “Dad’s gone and Mum’s just not very maternal in that way. I know you want her to be, every kid does, but not every mum is that mum. When I was at school, I’d be wishing she’d act like the other mums, pick me up from school, make me dinner, help with homework, and sometimes it looked like she’d changed, but it never lasted ’cos you can’t pretend to be someone you’re not for very long. So don’t waste your time wishing for it, because it’s not anything you’re doing wrong, yeah?” James sighs. “Mum and I really just left you from young and I think about that a lot now. The family and our house would have collapsed years ago if it weren’t for you looking after Dad and paying the bills, and you did all that from the heart, ’cos I know we didn’t act grateful. I could never; I don’t have that in me, man. I’m thankful for you, Mads, and I’m sorry, for … for a lot of things. For everything. But Dad loved you, you know.” “You were barely there,” I say. “How can you be sure?” “It’s like you said—he always smiled at you. When it was just me and him, he was cool, but he’d always ask, ‘Is Maddie home?’ and then not say


at his watch with a frown. “What’s wrong, Kitt?” “We have exactly five minutes to get back to Marisol’s.” “What?” “We’ll have to run the whole way to make it by eight, but it’s mostly downhill.” “Kitt!” He began to jog the route they had come, and Iris had no choice but to chase after him, ankles sore as her boots hit the cobblestones. Oh, she was going to kill him. They were late by seven minutes. {28} A Divine Rival Dear Iris, Last night, I had a dream. I was standing in the middle of Broad Street in Oath, and it was raining. You walked past me; I knew it was you the moment your shoulder brushed mine. But when I tried to call your name, no sound emerged. When I hurried to follow you, you quickened your steps. Soon, the rain fell harder, and you slipped away from me. I never saw your face, but I knew it was you. It was only a dream, but it has unquieted me. Write to me and tell me how you are. Yours, —C. P.S. Yes, hello. I’m able to write again, so expect my letters to flood your floor. Dear Carver, I can’t even begin to describe how happy I was to discover your letter had arrived. I hope everything is well with you in Oath, as well as whatever required your attention the past week. Dare I say I missed you? An odd dream, indeed. But there’s no need to worry. I’m quite well. I think I would like to see you in a dream, although I still try to imagine your appearance by day and often fail. Perhaps you can grant me a few more hints? Oh, I have news to share with you! My rival from a previous employment has shown up as a fellow correspondent, just like a weed. I’m not sure why he’s here, although I think it’s to try and prove that his writing is far superior to mine. All of this to say … his arrival has caused a stir, and I’m not sure what to do with him being next door. Also, I have more letters transcribed for soldiers. I’m sending them to you—there are more than usual, given that we just recently had an influx of wounded brought into the infirmary— and I’m hoping you can drop them in the post. Thank you in advance for doing this for me! In the meantime, tell me how you are. How is your nan? I just realized that I have no inkling what you do for a living, or even for fun. Are you a student at university? Are you working somewhere? Tell me something about you. Love, Iris They had planted the garden but had completely forgotten to water it. Marisol grimaced when she realized this. “I don’t even want to know what Keegan will think of me,” she said, hand on her forehead as she stared at the crooked rows Iris and Attie had made. “My wife is fighting on the front lines


of either in the least degree bred a tender respect in Tess for what she deemed, rightly or wrongly, the self-controlling sense of duty shown by him, a quality which she had never expected to find in one of the opposite sex, and in the absence of which more than one of the simple hearts who were his house-mates might have gone weeping on her pilgrimage. XXIII The hot weather of July had crept upon them unawares, and the atmosphere of the flat vale hung heavy as an opiate over the dairy-folk, the cows, and the trees. Hot steaming rains fell frequently, making the grass where the cows fed yet more rank, and hindering the late haymaking in the other meads. It was Sunday morning; the milking was done; the outdoor milkers had gone home. Tess and the other three were dressing themselves rapidly, the whole bevy having agreed to go together to Mellstock Church, which lay some three or four miles distant from the dairy-house. She had now been two months at Talbothays, and this was her first excursion. All the preceding afternoon and night heavy thunderstorms had hissed down upon the meads, and washed some of the hay into the river; but this morning the sun shone out all the more brilliantly for the deluge, and the air was balmy and clear. The crooked lane leading from their own parrish to Mellstock ran along the lowest levels in a portion of its length, and when the girls reached the most depressed spot they found that the result of the rain had been to flood the lane over-shoe to a distance of some fifty yards. This would have been no serious hindrance on a week-day; they would have clicked through it in their high patterns and boots quite unconcerned; but on this day of vanity, this Sun's-day, when flesh went forth to coquet with flesh while hypocritically affecting business with spiritual things; on this occasion for wearing their white stockings and thin shoes, and their pink, white, and lilac gowns, on which every mud spot would be visible, the pool was an awkward impediment. They could hear the church-bell calling--as yet nearly a mile off. "Who would have expected such a rise in the river in summer-time!" said Marian, from the top of the roadside bank on which they had climbed, and were maintaining a precarious footing in the hope of creeping along its slope till they were past the pool. "We can't get there anyhow, without walking right through it, or else going round the Turnpike way; and that would make us so very late!" said Retty, pausing hopelessly. "And I do colour up so hot, walking into church late, and all the people staring round," said Marian, "that I hardly cool down again till we get into the That-it-may-please-Thees." While they stood clinging to the bank they heard a splashing round the bend of the road, and presently appeared Angel Clare, advancing along the lane towards them through the water. Four hearts gave a big throb simultaneously. His aspect


to go for?" --------------------------------------------------------- -229- "Go for all of 'em!" "Why, Tom, it'll take all summer." "Well, what of that? Suppose you find a brass pot with a hundred dollars in it, all rusty and gray, or rotten chest full of di'monds. How's that?" Huck's eyes glowed. "That's bully. Plenty bully enough for me. Just you gimme the hundred dollars and I don't want no di'monds." "All right. But I bet you I ain't going to throw off on di'monds. Some of 'em's worth twenty dollars apiece -- there ain't any, hardly, but's worth six bits or a dollar." "No! Is that so?" "Cert'nly -- anybody'll tell you so. Hain't you ever seen one, Huck?" "Not as I remember." "Oh, kings have slathers of them." "Well, I don' know no kings, Tom." "I reckon you don't. But if you was to go to Europe you'd see a raft of 'em hopping around." "Do they hop?" "Hop? -- your granny! No!" "Well, what did you say they did, for?" "Shucks, I only meant you'd see 'em -- not hopping, of course -- what do they want to hop for? -- but I mean you'd just see 'em -- scattered around, you know, in a kind of a general way. Like that old humpbacked Richard." "Richard? What's his other name?" --------------------------------------------------------- -230- "He didn't have any other name. Kings don't have any but a given name." "No?" "But they don't." "Well, if they like it, Tom, all right; but I don't want to be a king and have only just a given name, like a nigger. But say -- where you going to dig first?" "Well, I don't know. S'pose we tackle that old dead-limb tree on the hill t'other side of Still-House branch?" "I'm agreed." So they got a crippled pick and a shovel, and set out on their three-mile tramp. They arrived hot and panting, and threw themselves down in the shade of a neighboring elm to rest and have a smoke. "I like this," said Tom. "So do I." "Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your share?" "Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to every circus that comes along. I bet I'll have a gay time." "Well, ain't you going to save any of it?" "Save it? What for?" "Why, so as to have something to live on, by and by." "Oh, that ain't any use. Pap would come back to thish-yer town some day and get his claws on it --------------------------------------------------------- -231- if I didn't hurry up, and I tell you he'd clean it out pretty quick. What you going to do with yourn, Tom?" "I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure-'nough sword, and a red necktie and a bull pup, and get married." "Married!" "That's it." "Tom, you -- why, you ain't in your right mind." "Wait -- you'll see." "Well, that's the foolishest thing you could do. Look at pap and my mother. Fight! Why, they used to fight


She was tired and sat down to rest. She lay on her front and scrabbled about in the sand. Suddenly her fingers touched something hard and cold in the sand. She uncovered it- and lo and behold, it was an iron ring! She gave a shout and the others looked up. "There's a stone with an iron ring in it here!" yelled Anne, excitedly. They all rushed over to her. Julian dug about with his spade and uncovered the whole stone. Sure enough, it did have a ring in it- and rings are only let into stones that need to be moved! Surely this stone must be the one that covered the dungeon entrance! All the children took turns at pulling on the iron ring, but the stone did not move. Then Julian tied two or three turns of rope through it and the four children put out their full strength and pulled for all they were worth. The stone moved. The children distinctly felt it stir. "All together again!" cried Julian. And all together they pulled. The stone stirred again and then suddenly gave way. It moved upwards- and the children fell over on top of one another like a row of dominoes suddenly pushed down! Tim darted to the hole and barked madly down it as if all the rabbits of the world lived there! Julian and George shot to their feet and rushed to the opening that the moved stone had disclosed. They stood there, looking downwards, their faces shining with delight. They had found the entrance to the dungeons! A steep flight of steps, cut out of the rock itself, led downwards into deep darkness. "Come on!" cried Julian, snapping on his torch. "We've found what we wanted! Now for the dungeons!" The steps down were slippery. Tim darted down first, lost his foot-hold and rolled down five or six steps, yelping with fright. Julian went after him, then George, then Dick and then Anne. They were all tremendously thrilled. Indeed, they quite expected to see piles of gold and all kinds of treasure everywhere around them! It was dark down the steep flight of steps, and smelt very musty. Anne choked a little. "I hope the air down here is all right," said Julian. "Sometimes it isn't good in these underground places. If anyone feels a bit funny they'd better say so and we'll go up into the open air again." But however funny they might feel nobody would have said so. It was all far too exciting to worry about feeling queer. The steps went down a long way. Then they came to an end. Julian stepped down from the last rock-stair and flashed his torch around. It was a weird sight that met his eyes. The dungeons of Kirrin Castle were made out of the rock itself. Whether there were natural caves there, or whether they had been hollowed out by man the children could not tell. But certainly they were very mysterious, dark and full of echoing sounds. When Julian gave a sigh of


climax and certainly not while we were in the missionary position—for Christ’s sake, it was still light out at that point and I was sober—which may have been why I did. In fact, I did before he did, and as I moaned, with his right shoulder by my mouth and his mouth by my left ear, he said in a low, quiet voice, “Oh, Sally,” and then he pulled out and ejaculated all over my stomach and I thought about how Jessa, the older daughter of my mother’s best friend, had told me when I was thirteen that when you didn’t like a guy, the disgusting things about sex were disgusting, and when you did like a guy, the disgusting things about sex were sexy. I tugged Noah onto me, and he said, “Am I too heavy?” and I said, “You’re perfect,” and we both lay still for a long time, my arms wrapped around him, his full weight on me, his face pressed against my neck, his left hand fiddling with my hair. My mind wasn’t racing; I wasn’t nervous; there was nothing other than this that I wanted. After some number of minutes—eight? Or twenty-five?—he rolled off me, onto his side, and pulled me so I was on my side, too, so we were facing each other and he looked at me from about three inches away with such intensity and affection that I had to avert my gaze; I couldn’t help it. But then I looked back at him and said, “You’re definitely worth driving twenty-six hours for. And definitely not boring, even though you don’t work at TNO.” He laughed. “And you haven’t even tasted my pan-seared salmon yet.” “By the way I have an IUD. In case next time you want to—” I paused and raised my eyebrows, aware again of the strangeness of how the most precise and succinct way of saying something could feel splendidly obscene. I continued, “In case next time you want to come inside me.” “I’d love to come inside you next time.” He grinned. “I hope I didn’t make too much of a mess before.” “It was a good kind of mess,” I said. “And I also have, uh, a clean bill of health. Sexually.” “Good to know and same for me.” He leaned in and kissed my mouth and the sex we had that time was slower and calmer before it reverted to clawing and devouring each other. After the second time, before the third time, when it became apparent there was going to be a third time, he was on his back, and I was straddling him, and I didn’t care about the pooching of my stomach because I’d decided I was beautiful just as I was. Just kidding! Because it was getting dark and also because presumably sex hormones were coursing through me. He wasn’t yet inside me again though I could feel his erection, and I said, “Did you take Viagra?” “Wow,” he said. “Thanks a lot.” “That wasn’t an insult. It was a compliment.” “To which


the farther side of the street corner, had discreetly struck away across Fifth Avenue. It was the kind of masculine solidarity that he himself often practised; now he sickened at their connivance. Did she really imagine that he and she could live like this? And if not, what else did she imagine? "Tomorrow I must see you--somewhere where we can be alone," he said, in a voice that sounded almost angry to his own ears. She wavered, and moved toward the carriage. "But I shall be at Granny's--for the present that is," she added, as if conscious that her change of plans required some explanation. "Somewhere where we can be alone," he insisted. She gave a faint laugh that grated on him. "In New York? But there are no churches . . . no monuments." "There's the Art Museum--in the Park," he explained, as she looked puzzled. "At half-past two. I shall be at the door . . ." She turned away without answering and got quickly into the carriage. As it drove off she leaned forward, and he thought she waved her hand in the obscurity. He stared after her in a turmoil of contradictory feelings. It seemed to him that he had been speaking not to the woman he loved but to another, a woman he was indebted to for pleasures already wearied of: it was hateful to find himself the prisoner of this hackneyed vocabulary. "She'll come!" he said to himself, almost contemptuously. Avoiding the popular "Wolfe collection," whose anecdotic canvases filled one of the main galleries of the queer wilderness of cast-iron and encaustic tiles known as the Metropolitan Museum, they had wandered down a passage to the room where the "Cesnola antiquities" mouldered in unvisited loneliness. They had this melancholy retreat to themselves, and seated on the divan enclosing the central steam-radiator, they were staring silently at the glass cabinets mounted in ebonised wood which contained the recovered fragments of Ilium. "It's odd," Madame Olenska said, "I never came here before." "Ah, well--. Some day, I suppose, it will be a great Museum." "Yes," she assented absently. She stood up and wandered across the room. Archer, remaining seated, watched the light movements of her figure, so girlish even under its heavy furs, the cleverly planted heron wing in her fur cap, and the way a dark curl lay like a flattened vine spiral on each cheek above the ear. His mind, as always when they first met, was wholly absorbed in the delicious details that made her herself and no other. Presently he rose and approached the case before which she stood. Its glass shelves were crowded with small broken objects--hardly recognisable domestic utensils, ornaments and personal trifles--made of glass, of clay, of discoloured bronze and other time- blurred substances. "It seems cruel," she said, "that after a while nothing matters . . . any more than these little things, that used to be necessary and important to forgotten people, and now have to be guessed at under a magnifying glass and labelled: `Use unknown.'" "Yes; but


the only settlement that hadn’t taken a Darwinian approach to survival, believing that protecting the vulnerable was part of the reason they’d been so successful as a community. Beside the submarines were some of the world’s largest cruise ships and most expensive yachts, home to many thousands of Hope Town refugees, their engines picked clean for components, never to sail again, their hot tubs used for washing clothes. This was Atto’s twentieth year on the ice, an exceptional feat for a civilian with no training in cold survival and who’d completed the Exodus to Antarctica without any government assistance, not part of a national evacuation programme, his name not on any of the lists of high-value citizens worth saving – arriving in Antarctica through guile and grit. Perhaps the struggles of that journey were part of the reason he’d survived the infamous first winter – the deadliest winter in human history. Many of the important people airlifted to the continent had been unprepared for the challenges of life on the ice, too accustomed to their own importance and the luxuries associated with it. In contrast, the Exodus had toughened Atto, readied him for the scale of the challenges ahead, recalibrating his identity. This was a new era. The era of plenty was over. Humankind was a fallen people now. No longer conquerors but a second-tier species, relegated to the coldest continent on Earth, imprisoned within a reservation created by alien occupiers. For those who couldn’t adjust, despair swept through their ranks more lethal than the pandemics that had once swept the world. For those who were willing to adapt, they tried not only to survive but to find a better way of living. Out in the open water, plotting a course through the icebergs, Atto and his crew took a moment to pay their respects to those who’d perished during the Exodus, a ceremony they completed every year on the first day of fishing. His crew, comprising some of the finest fishermen from all over the world, silenced the engines, allowing the boat to drift. Without flowers, they’d carved beautiful floral ice wreaths, which they tossed onto the water. Atto declared: ‘On this first day back on the water, we remember all those who were lost. We mourn our friends and family. We mourn the friends and families we never knew.’ The nets had been cast for barely an hour when the stern of the boat lurched downward with such force as to almost submerge. They’d caught something enormously powerful and, rushing to the side, searching the ocean, Atto marvelled as a magnificent sperm whale surfaced nearby, rolling over and looking at them with its grapefruit-sized eye. He wondered why the image of a grapefruit had come to his mind since it had been over twenty years since he’d seen the fruit. His mother had loved them, and he remembered her eating them in the kitchen at sunrise every morning while smoking a cigarette, one of the few moments in the day she’d had to herself. The memory faded as quickly as


was diligently writing on a slate while some frivolous-looking girls yelled, "Yoo-hoo!" at him. "That's a compliment," explained Jem. "He spends his time doin' things that wouldn't get done if nobody did 'em." "Huh?" In addition to Jem's newly developed characteristics, he had acquired a maddening air of wisdom. "Oh, Scout, it's like reorganizing the tax systems of the counties and things. That kind of thing's pretty dry to most men." "How do you know?" "Oh, go on and leave me alone. I'm readin' the paper." Jem got his wish. I departed for the kitchen. While she was shelling peas, Calpurnia suddenly said, "What am I gonna do about you all's church this Sunday?" "Nothing, I reckon. Atticus left us collection." Calpurnia's eyes narrowed and I could tell what was going through her mind. "Cal," I said, "you know we'll behave. We haven't done anything in church in years." Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Left to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more- Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there. "Besides, Cal, this isn't the first time Atticus has left us," I protested. "Yeah, but he makes certain your teacher's gonna be there. I didn't hear him say this time- reckon he forgot it." Calpurnia scratched her head. Suddenly she smiled. "How'd you and Mister Jem like to come to church with me tomorrow?" "Really?" "How 'bout it?" grinned Calpurnia. If Calpurnia had ever bathed me roughly before, it was nothing compared to her supervision of that Saturday night's routine. She made me soap all over twice, drew fresh water in the tub for each rinse; she stuck my head in the basin and washed it with Octagon soap and castile. She had trusted Jem for years, but that night she invaded his privacy and provoked an outburst: "Can't anybody take a bath in this house without the whole family lookin'?" Next morning she began earlier than usual, to "go over our clothes." When Calpurnia stayed overnight with us she slept on a folding cot in the kitchen; that morning it was covered with our Sunday habiliments. She had put so much starch in my dress it came up like a tent when I sat down. She made me wear a petticoat and she wrapped a pink sash tightly around my waist. She went over my patent-leather shoes with a cold biscuit until she saw her face in them. "It's like we were goin' to Mardi Gras," said Jem. "What's all this for, Cal?" "I don't want anybody sayin' I don't look after my children," she muttered. "Mister Jem, you absolutely can't wear that tie with that suit. It's green."


he came because men had found a yellow metal in the North, and because Manuel was a gardener's helper whose wages did not lap over the needs of his wife and divers small copies of himself. Chapter III The Dominant Primordial Beast The dominant primordial beast was strong in Buck, and under the fierce conditions of trail life it grew and grew. Yet it was a secret growth. His newborn cunning gave him poise and control. He was too busy adjusting himself to the new life to feel at ease, and not only did he not pick fights, but he avoided them whenever possible. A certain deliberateness characterized his attitude. He was not prone to rashness and precipitate action; and in the bitter hatred between him and Spitz he betrayed no impatience, shunned all offensive acts. On the other hand, possibly because he divined in Buck a dangerous rival, Spitz never lost an opportunity of showing his teeth. He even went out of his way to bully Buck, striving constantly to start the fight which could end only in the death of one or the other. Early in the trip this might have taken place had it not been for an unwonted accident. At the end of this day they made a bleak and miserable camp on the shore of Lake Le Barge. Driving snow, a wind that cut like a white-hot knife, and darkness had forced them to grope for a camping place. They could hardly have fared worse. At their backs rose a perpendicular wall of rock, and Perrault and Francois were compelled to make their fire and spread their sleeping robes on the ice of the lake itself. The tent they had discarded at Dyea in order to travel light. A few sticks of driftwood furnished them with a fire that thawed down through the ice and left them to eat supper in the dark. Close in under the sheltering rock Buck made his nest. So snug and warm was it, that he was loath to leave it when Francois distributed the fish which he had first thawed over the fire. But when Buck finished his ration and returned, he found his nest occupied. A warning snarl told him that the trespasser was Spitz. Till now Buck had avoided trouble with his enemy, but this was too much. The beast in him roared. He sprang upon Spitz with a fury which surprised them both, and Spitz particularly, for his whole experience with Buck had gone to teach him that his rival was an unusually timid dog, who managed to hold his own only because of his great weight and size. Francois was surprised, too, when they shot out in a tangle from the disrupted nest and he divined the cause of the trouble. "A-a- ah!" he cried to Buck. "Gif it to heem, by Gar! Gif it to heem, the dirty t'eef!" Spitz was equally willing. He was crying with sheer rage and eagerness as he circled back and forth for a chance to spring in. Buck was no


but the embrace was much appreciated. Edei’s gaze fixed on her as she spoke, still and focused. Self-consciousness took over Io’s thoughts. Was she slouching? Did she have new pimples? Was her hair sticking out? Then she chastised herself. You don’t care, remember? This is just another case, a partner you have to work with. It didn’t matter what she looked like. They reached the roof of the apartment building and started down the stairs. It was strange to see the place again: the taped-off door, the dark stains on the doorframe. The narrow corridor seemed far shorter than last night, when Io had been running for her life. “A corrupt chernobog-born, a dioscuri-born smuggler, and a grace-born con man,” Edei said. “The population of other-born in Alante is one in a hundred. It can’t be a coincidence that the three men targeted were all other-born.” “Or how they were all killed: this unnatural strangulation,” Io said. “The officers last night found similar markings around Jarl Magnussen’s neck. It’s easy to latch on to the wraith’s appearance and disoriented musings and file this case under ‘don’t cross a woman.’ But her last words were: Let them see your weapon, they told me. Let them see what’s coming for them, they said. They said: there is someone behind this, guiding this woman, and we must assume the first one, too. Telling them what to do and say. Perhaps who to kill. It doesn’t feel arbitrary to me. It feels like . . . dogma.” “What does that word mean, ‘dogma’?” Edei asked. His accent was subtle, his Alantian perfect, but this was a word even native speakers might not fully understand. “A belief system. Like the principles of a religion.” “ ‘I am ascended,’ ” he quoted. She’d been thinking of that very line the wraith had said last night. Edei Rhuna went up a notch in her estimate of both him and his investigatory skills. “Exactly!” she said, perhaps a little too cheerily. His lips quirked in a soft smile as he leaned over to examine the lock on the door. It creaked open at the barest touch of his fingers. Inside, a man was standing in the living room, scrawling furiously in a notebook. A heavy camera was slung across his back. Edei’s fingers immediately jumped to his brass knuckles, but Io pushed his forearm down. “Xenophon Atreidis,” she said, ducking under the police tape. “I should have guessed the vultures would be the first ones on the scene.” Xenophon glanced away from his notes just long enough to scan her and Edei up and down. He was a short man but built like a wardrobe: big and sturdy and unbendable. His face was a jump back in time; Io was suddenly sitting at a school desk, exchanging notes with her best friend, Rosa, while Xenophon was trying to get the teacher to notice their illicit activities. They were both older now but wore the same expressions on their faces as they had back then: Xenophon one of contempt, Io one


for ten years," she said in a whisper. "Perhaps it is the key to the garden!" CHAPTER VIII THE ROBIN WHO SHOWED THE WAY She looked at the key quite a long time. She turned it over and over, and thought about it. As I have said before, she was not a child who had been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things. All she thought about the key was that if it was the key to the closed garden, and she could find out where the door was, she could perhaps open it and see what was inside the walls, and what had happened to the old rose-trees. It was because it had been shut up so long that she wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must be different from other places and that something strange must have happened to it during ten years. Besides that, if she liked it she could go into it every day and shut the door behind her, and she could make up some play of her own and play it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she was, but would think the door was still locked and the key buried in the earth. The thought of that pleased her very much. Living as it were, all by herself in a house with a hundred mysteriously closed rooms and having nothing whatever to do to amuse herself, had set her inactive brain to working and was actually awakening her imagination. There is no doubt that the fresh, strong, pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it. Just as it had given her an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirred her blood, so the same things had stirred her mind. In India she had always been too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything, but in this place she was beginning to care and to want to do new things. Already she felt less "contrary," though she did not know why. She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk. No one but herself ever seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly and look at the wall, or, rather, at the ivy growing on it. The ivy was the baffling thing. Howsoever carefully she looked she could see nothing but thickly growing, glossy, dark green leaves. She was very much disappointed. Something of her contrariness came back to her as she paced the walk and looked over it at the tree-tops inside. It seemed so silly, she said to herself, to be near it and not be able to get in. She took the key in her pocket when she went back to the house, and she made up her mind that she would always carry it with her when she went out, so that if she ever should find the hidden door she would be ready. Mrs. Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage, but she was


and I try to slide into the circle without notice, but the bearded man stops whatever he was saying and pins piercing blue eyes on us. The wind whips his sparse hair upright on his head, and his upper lip wiggles like he’s scenting the air. “Ah,” he says in a tone so pointed it’s basically a health hazard. “These are our latecomers, are they?” Every eye in this circle is burning into my forehead. “You must be Bradley Graeme,” he says, scanning a raggedy-looking bit of paper in his hand (no tablet for our friendly local forest hermit, apparently), “and Celine…Celine Bang…?” Bradley beats me to it. “Bangura,” he says, sounding annoyed. Which, yeah. It’s literally phonetic. “Well.” Beard Guy sniffs. “I’m glad we are all present and accounted for. As I said before, my name is Victor—” Oh, good. Now I have an actual name to use when I mentally rant about how much I dislike him. “—and I’ll be guiding you through this training course. You will be expected to work hard and be punctual.” Another pointed glare from good old Victor. Clearly he is a person of great subtlety. “You will also be expected to do for yourselves; nothing will be spoon-fed. Our first activity, therefore, will be an ice-breaking exercise in two teams of ten.” He counts quickly, reaches a midpoint in the circle, and waves a hand to indicate the group should split in half. We do. It’s all very organized. “Within this sector of the forest are hiding spots that contain training booklets. These booklets will act as your guide to understanding the forest flora and fauna later this week, but first, you have to find them. Your supervisors have maps and compasses to give you. Using these tools only, each team must find their cache. The first to complete their mission wins a welcome party tonight!” There is an audible hum of excitement. Apparently, we are all the competitive type. “The losers,” Victor continues, “will be on washing-up duty for the rest of the week, starting tomorrow. And I’ll warn you; we’ve only the one Brillo pad left in the cupboard.” He guffaws as if this is the funniest statement ever made. I have no idea if anyone else laughs along; I’m too busy panicking about my crappy sense of direction and what happened that one time I tried orienteering in a year-eight PE class (I fell down a hill). I knew this whole thing was going to be hands-on, but this is, er, quite hands-on. Also, teams of ten are huge. How are we supposed to collaborate effectively? Do I establish myself as a leader early on, or is that bossy? Do I hold back and try to be a good teammate, or is that too meek? And, Christ, why am I standing next to Bradley? Now he’s on my team! As if things couldn’t get any worse, the gray sky does as it’s been threatening all morning and releases a gentle but miserable shower of rain. I hope these booklets are laminated.


paper with great show of pomp and circumstance. It so happened, however: as it will happen very often, when men fall into company under such circumstances: that Mr. Bumble felt, every now and then, a powerful inducement, which he could not resist, to steal a look at the stranger: and that whenever he did so, he withdrew his eyes, in some confusion, to find that the stranger was at that moment stealing a look at him. Mr. Bumble's awkwardness was enhanced by the very remarkable expression of the stranger's eye, which was keen and bright, but shadowed by a scowl of distrust and suspicion, unlike anything he had ever observed before, and repulsive to behold. When they had encountered each other's glance several times in this way, the stranger, in a harsh, deep voice, broke silence. 'Were you looking for me,' he said, 'when you peered in at the window?' 'Not that I am aware of, unless you're Mr. --' Here Mr. Bumble stopped short; for he was curious to know the stranger's name, and thought in his impatience, he might supply the blank. 'I see you were not,' said the stranger; and expression of quiet sarcasm playing about his mouth; 'or you have known my name. You don't know it. I would recommend you not to ask for it.' 'I meant no harm, young man,' observed Mr. Bumble, majestically. 'And have done none,' said the stranger. Another silence succeeded this short dialogue: which was again broken by the stranger. 'I have seen you before, I think?' said he. 'You were differently dressed at that time, and I only passed you in the street, but I should know you again. You were beadle here, once; were you not?' 'I was,' said Mr. Bumble, in some surprise; 'porochial beadle.' 'Just so,' rejoined the other, nodding his head. 'It was in that character I saw you. What are you now?' 'Master of the workhouse,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, slowly and impressively, to check any undue familiarity the stranger might otherwise assume. 'Master of the workhouse, young man!' 'You have the same eye to your own interest, that you always had, I doubt not?' resumed the stranger, looking keenly into Mr. Bumble's eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question. 'Don't scruple to answer freely, man. I know you pretty well, you see.' 'I suppose, a married man,' replied Mr. Bumble, shading his eyes with his hand, and surveying the stranger, from head to foot, in evident perplexity, 'is not more averse to turning an honest penny when he can, than a single one. Porochial officers are not so well paid that they can afford to refuse any little extra fee, when it comes to them in a civil and proper manner.' The stranger smiled, and nodded his head again: as much to say, he had not mistaken his man; then rang the bell. 'Fill this glass again,' he said, handing Mr. Bumble's empty tumbler to the landlord. 'Let it be strong and hot. You like it so, I suppose?' 'Not too strong,' replied


my mind. "Nothing." "And to his uncle?" I was incisive. "Nothing." "And to the boy himself?" I was wonderful. "Nothing." She gave with her apron a great wipe to her mouth. "Then I'll stand by you. We'll see it out." "We'll see it out!" I ardently echoed, giving her my hand to make it a vow. She held me there a moment, then whisked up her apron again with her detached hand. "Would you mind, miss, if I used the freedom--" "To kiss me? No!" I took the good creature in my arms and, after we had embraced like sisters, felt still more fortified and indignant. This, at all events, was for the time: a time so full that, as I recall the way it went, it reminds me of all the art I now need to make it a little distinct. What I look back at with amazement is the situation I accepted. I had undertaken, with my companion, to see it out, and I was under a charm, apparently, that could smooth away the extent and the far and difficult connections of such an effort. I was lifted aloft on a great wave of infatuation and pity. I found it simple, in my ignorance, my confusion, and perhaps my conceit, to assume that I could deal with a boy whose education for the world was all on the point of beginning. I am unable even to remember at this day what proposal I framed for the end of his holidays and the resumption of his studies. Lessons with me, indeed, that charming summer, we all had a theory that he was to have; but I now feel that, for weeks, the lessons must have been rather my own. I learned something-- at first, certainly--that had not been one of the teachings of my small, smothered life; learned to be amused, and even amusing, and not to think for the morrow. It was the first time, in a manner, that I had known space and air and freedom, all the music of summer and all the mystery of nature. And then there was consideration--and consideration was sweet. Oh, it was a trap--not designed, but deep--to my imagination, to my delicacy, perhaps to my vanity; to whatever, in me, was most excitable. The best way to picture it all is to say that I was off my guard. They gave me so little trouble-- they were of a gentleness so extraordinary. I used to speculate-- but even this with a dim disconnectedness--as to how the rough future (for all futures are rough!) would handle them and might bruise them. They had the bloom of health and happiness; and yet, as if I had been in charge of a pair of little grandees, of princes of the blood, for whom everything, to be right, would have to be enclosed and protected, the only form that, in my fancy, the afteryears could take for them was that of a romantic, a really royal extension of the garden and the park. It may be, of


As she had not expected a playful side to Lord Calloway, Lucy wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. Mr. Granger had often spoken of the loftiness of the upper class and how they saw anyone beneath them as worthless. “They don’t bother with the working class like us,” he had said more than once, though Lucy had never considered herself on the same level as him. He was a merchant like his brother and quite wealthy, but he had no land to grant him the status of gentleman and therefore disliked anyone who held that title or beyond. Lord Calloway didn’t seem to fit that prejudicial mold, though Lucy wondered if he would treat her the same way as Mr. Granger claimed if he knew she was merely a governess. Even without all her lies, was he a good enough man that he would help someone so far beneath him when she needed him most? That question terrified her, and she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to put it to the test. Not yet. For now, she wanted to play along with his teasing. Her father had always teased her, and she knew it was love that had fueled his jests. It had made their home a happy one, even if it was small, and she had been missing that in her life. “Well, Lord Nothing-at-All,” Lucy said, and she grinned when Lord Calloway scowled at the ridiculous moniker. “I would imagine Olivia is quite fast, though she has the benefit of a quick horse, so she says. Without knowing firsthand how either of you rides, it is simply impossible to make a comparison.” “Then, I suppose I will have to take you riding to allow you adequate information to pass judgment.” Lucy knew that would be a terrible idea; spending time alone with any of the family would inevitably lead to her spilling her secret too soon if put under pressure. With the whole family around, she could hide behind their conversations and hope to only skim the surface of their chats. She couldn’t fathom why he would want to ride with her in the first place, and she knew it would be best to avoid as much interaction as she could. She needed him to like her, and she doubted he would appreciate her true, lying self. But though she told herself to skirt around the invitation—for it surely was an invitation, if his smile were to be believed—the words that came from her mouth were, “I suppose you are right.” “Of course I am,” he replied. “I am always right.” Goodness, that smile of his brightened the whole room. And despite his outward display of confidence, Lucy was positive it was a charade. Simon Calloway didn’t seem arrogant in the least, and she very much liked that about him. “Well,” Lord Calloway said, pushing himself slowly to his feet, “shall we?” Lucy frowned. “Shall we what?” They couldn’t very well go riding now when that was what Olivia was planning to do. Lifting a dark eyebrow, Lord Calloway