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

working order.” “But we won’t know until I try.” A heartbeat. “Correct, Your Majesty,” Bellegarde said. Then silence, but for the sound of boots on plush-carpeted stairs. When the tread was gone, Lore counted to fifty. Then, moving as quietly as possible, she stood and crept back down the stairs. The hall was empty. Lore didn’t waste the moment. She ran straight to the tapestry where Bellegarde had stood, the one right before the stairs. It didn’t look any different than the others lining the sumptuous corridor. White thread picked out a rearing unicorn, hooves slashing at the air, surrounded by silver-helmed knights and blobby wildflowers in spring pastels. Lore frowned at it, tracing the thread pattern with her eyes until they went blurry. He’d been looking for something in the tapestries. Lore was familiar with how people acted when they didn’t want to seem suspicious; the overly casual stride, the rapid movement of eyes. Severin Bellegarde had ticked all the boxes. And there’d been that paper in his hand. A paper that had disappeared when he left with August, either disposed of or slipped into a pocket. Maybe he’d been looking for a hiding place, somewhere to put it? With a quick glance up and down the hall to make sure she was still alone, Lore shoved her hand behind the tapestry, between the fabric and the wall. Nothing but smooth wood, at first, but as she ran her fingers along the thread-nubbed back, they caught on something sharp. A pin, holding in place a tiny slip of paper. She’d bet money it was the same one that had been in Bellegarde’s hand. Lore only stuck herself once as she carefully pulled the paper off the sharp end of the pin, leaving her thumb in its place so she could put it back exactly where she’d found it. Keeping her hand beneath the heavy fabric required crouching strangely next to the wall, so she unfolded the note and read it as quickly as she could. But the note didn’t have words. Just a number. 75. She frowned at it a moment before hurriedly thrusting the note back behind the tapestry, pricking her finger again and hissing a curse. She was already hopelessly late, and there were seemingly endless stairs between her and Bastian’s apartments. After making sure the note showed no sign of meddling, Lore went back to the stairs, doing her best not to run. A blister was forming on the arch of her foot, helped along by her thin slippers, and it gave her a counterpoint of discomfort to concentrate on as she thought over what she’d found. 75. Seventy-five what? Maybe it wasn’t for anything important after all. Maybe Bellegarde was cataloging the tapestries—she didn’t know how many were in the corridor, but seventy-five didn’t seem outside the realm of possibility. Maybe he wanted to make sure the turret he lived in during the season had more tapestries than any of the others. It seemed like something a Citadel courtier would do. She couldn’t quite buy that, though.


Over dinner one night at Highgrove, Pa and I spoke at some length about

what I’d been suffering. I gave him the particulars, told him story after story.

Towards the end of the meal he looked down at his plate and said softly: /

suppose it’s my fault. I should’ve got you the help you needed years ago.

I assured him that it wasn’t his fault. But I appreciated the apology.

As autumn neared my anxiety was heightened, I think, by my impending

birthday, the last of my twenties. Dregs of my youth, I thought. I was beset

by all the traditional doubts and fears, asked myself all the basic questions

people ask when they get older. Who am I? Where am I going? Normal, I

told myself, except that the press was abnormally echoing my self-

questioning.

Prince Harry...Why Won t He Marry?

246

https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.me/Afghansalarlibrary

They dredged up every relationship I’d ever had, every girl I’d ever been

seen with, put it all into a blender, hired “experts,” a.k.a. quacks, to try to

make sense of it. Books about me dived into my love life, homed in on each

romantic failure and near miss. I seem to recall one detailing my flirtation

with Cameron Diaz. Harry just couldn’t see himself with her, the author

reported. Indeed I couldn’t, since we’d never met. I was never within fifty

meters of Ms. Diaz, further proof that if you like reading pure bollocks then

royal biographies are just your thing.

Behind all this hand-wringing about me was something more substantive

than “tittle-tattle.” It went to the whole underpinning of the monarchy,

which was based on marriage. The great controversies about kings and

queens, going back centuries, generally centered on whom they married, and

whom they didn’t, and the children who issued from those unions. You

weren’t a fully vested member of the Royal Family, indeed a true human

being, until you were wed. No coincidence that Granny, head of state in

sixteen countries, started every speech: “My husband and I...” When Willy

and Kate married they became The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but

more important


had peppered her with. Tristán reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette, toying with it before pressing the tip against the lighter’s flame and giving her a weary look. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” “When I was in Abel’s room there was a silence.” “You mean a noise?” “No, a silence. Or rather, it was a presence that seemed to muffle the room. It was unnatural; I have never experienced anything like it. I don’t think Abel lied when he said there are such a thing as curses and spells. We need to get back into Abel’s apartment. I can pick the lock, it won’t be a problem.” “It would be a big problem if someone saw us doing that.” That, plus the fact that they would be breaking into the place where someone had recently died. It felt to Tristán almost like desecrating a tomb. “We’ll go late tonight.” “His death is not our fault.” “No, but we need to know who was behind it. Can’t you feel it? This is not over.” Insects began to fly around the lampposts, attracted by the lamps’ glow. He opened his mouth, letting smoke curl up to the heavens, and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t know that,” he said and started walking. “Did Abel’s death make the news today? I checked the headlines, but there was nothing. Did it get any play on the radio or TV?” “No.” “Don’t you think that’s strange? It’s the kind of story that should be in the tabloids.” “Maybe it’ll make tomorrow’s edition.” “I spent forty-eight hours being bullied by cops. They would have tipped off the reporters if there was anything juicy cooking. If they didn’t, it’s because someone didn’t want his death to be a big deal. Reporters writing nota roja don’t suddenly grow shy.” “You’re getting into conspiracy theory territory. Maybe the stories Cornelia peddles at Enigma are rubbing off on you.” “Someone murdered Abel, and it was connected to the film he shot decades ago. That’s no conspiracy theory.” The businesses on the street they were walking down had grown sparser, and now they were going past houses and the occasional apartment building. The windows of an apartment turned red when someone switched on a string of Christmas lights. “If someone did, then we should leave it alone.” “I don’t think we can.” “Why not?” “Because of that silence I heard in the room. Because something has gone terribly wrong. I don’t think the worst we’re going to encounter are apparitions of dead girlfriends and invisible presences.” The stretch of sidewalk where they stood was bathed crimson by the Christmas lights. Tristán eyed Montserrat wearily. “We don’t know that. Let’s get you back home. You can shower, change your clothes, and it’ll be fine in the morning.” “I need to find out the truth more than I need a shower.” “God damn it,” Tristán replied, slapping a hand against his thigh while he hurriedly took another puff of his cigarette. “Alma Montero, Clarimonde Bauer, and José López,” Montserrat said, holding three fingers


stand apart, and eye this former self with scornful pitying, but half-envious curiosity. That self was gone. Another man had returned out of the forest--a wiser one--with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that! While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of the study, and the minister said, "Come in!"--not wholly devoid of an idea that he might behold an evil spirit. And so he did! It was old Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood white and speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, and the other spread upon his breast.% "Welcome home, reverend sir," said the physician "And how found you that godly man, the Apostle Eliot? But methinks, dear sir, you look pale, as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for you. Will not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength to preach your Election Sermon?" "Nay, I think not so," rejoined the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. "My journey, and the sight of the holy Apostle yonder, and the free air which I have breathed have done me good, after so long confinement in my study. I think to need no more of your drugs, my kind physician, good though they be, and administered by a friendly hand." All this time Roger Chillingworth was looking at the minister with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient. But, in spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old man's knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician knew then that in the minister's regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy. So much being known, it would appear natural that a part of it should he expressed. It is singular, however, how long a time often passes before words embody things; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it. Thus the minister felt no apprehension that Roger Chillingworth would touch, in express words, upon the real position which they Thesaurus breathed: (adj) unvoiced, inaudible, disembody. inessential, luxury. breathing, aphonic. knew: (adj) known; (v) recognize, wist. scornful: (adj) disdainful, haughty, devoid: (adj) empty, vacant, absent, preach: (v) lecture, exhort, moralize, arrogant, sarcastic, disparaging, wanting, vacuous, destitute, clear, advocate, sermonize, urge, hold derisive, mocking, abusive, scathing, deficient, bereft, inane; (v) quit. forth, admonish, evangelize, opprobrious, insulting. ANTONYMS: ANTONYMS: (adj) filled, supplied, prophesy, moralise. (adj) approving, complimentary, replete, full. requisite: (n) need, necessity, humble, sympathetic, admiring. embody: (v) comprehend, comprise, requirement, must; (adj, n) necessary, speechless: (adj) silent, mute, dumb, personify, body, represent, prerequisite; (adj) required, dumbfounded, voiceless, quiet, exemplify, typify, encompass, mandatory, needful, compulsory, tongueless, tacit, noiseless, mum, incorporate, materialize, integrate. obligatory. ANTONYMS: (adj) wordless. ANTONYMS: (adj) ANTONYMS: (v) divide, exclude, voluntary, optional, dispensable; (n) loquacious, eloquent, talkative. 216 The Scarlet Letter sustained towards one another. Yet did the


pleasing? Maybe, but baby steps. I check in with Cam before responding. Maddie Hi Emma, We’d be happy to! X * * * Cam and I spend the whole of Saturday together, driving around town in her car, picking up balloons, snacks, barbecue food, cups, and decorations from various shops. We stopped for lunch and both ordered soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. I give her a very brief synopsis about my return to work, Love Stories, and Ben, but not Alex. I tell her I’ll be moving out soon to live with Nia. She tells me all about teaching summer school classes and her students, who are hilarious but aren’t learning as quickly as they should (she blames the rise of social media) and how she’s been thinking a lot about renting out her room and going traveling. On Sunday, my job is to set up with Cam whilst Emma is out with Jo. We move the big fold-out table into the garden and put on some music as her friends trickle in. We set up snacks and drinks in the kitchen and Olivia, the first of Jo’s friends to arrive, gets started with the barbecue. Cam and I play host until we hear Jo scream at the door. She must have seen the numbers 2 and 8 balloons we tied to the front door’s knocker. When she comes in, we yell “Surprise!” let off party poppers, and someone pops open champagne, which spills on the carpet. We all choose to ignore the growing dark stain. More of Jo’s friends arrive and an hour later, I’m sat in the corner of the garden with Emma, who’s finishing her master’s, Olivia who works at a literary agency, Kenny who’s a junior casting agent, Tinka a dancer, Cam, Jo and … Sam. “Look, I know you loved it, but it’s overrated,” Kenny says. “Yes, it is!” I’m quickly learning that Kenny is very opinionated. He’s Black, wearing a fedora hat and a brightly patterned shirt. How he pulls them both off is a mystery that I highly suspect has something to do with his attention-drawing personality. “That doesn’t mean it was bad,” he says, “but people have shone this ridiculous light on it to blind others into thinking it’s groundbreaking stuff when really? It was just okay. There, I said it.” “You’re absolute garbage, Ken,” Emma says. “Something I have in common with that book.” We laugh and Jo throws crisps at him. “It wasn’t garbage,” he says. “I retract that declaration. Look, I enjoyed it, it was good, but I didn’t love it and I have difficulty believing those of a high literary standard did.” “But didn’t you love how it was written?” I ask, gesturing enthusiastically toward him. A pickle falls out of my burger in the process. “It was so different from all the other bestsellers we’ve been reading recently. It was beautiful and raw and written so…” Kenny smiles. “Sparsely.” “It’s called economical language.” “Aha! And who coined that phrase, dear Madeleine?” Kenny asks. “A group of actual readers or


scream, but they were so good together, I wished they could’ve figured it out. I haven’t dated a writer, but I have a lot of close writer friends, and the only way to survive the menacing voice in your head that’s whispering “Her book is better than your book; her book is better than your book” on a loop is to just pretend she doesn’t have one. I do it all the time! I buy my friends’ books, but I don’t always read them, because I don’t like having my deficits spread before me as I am forced to examine them. Maybe this is the self-loathing, mentally unstable personal essayist in me, but I get Berger, and he and Carrie could’ve been the dream couple. Also, I just hate Big so much, I can’t help it. It should be a felony for a man to waste that much of a woman’s time. But I love Berger and Carrie’s collective wit and charm and incredible chemistry. If only he’d just taken his ass off his shoulders for five minutes and not been such a huge baby. If Berger and I were text friends, I would gently remind him that people who publish novels and people who publish printed-out blogs are technically in the same category, but not really the same kind of writers, so he shouldn’t worry that his girlfriend got a bigger advance than he did. She’s never gonna be reviewed in the New Yorker or be taken seriously by anyone who earnestly uses the word “literature.” And he will, just because he’s a man who wrote an Important Fictional Book. Comparison is the thief of joy, and instead of moping over Carrie’s big paycheck, he should’ve gone with her to a nice dinner while counting his lucky stars that he doesn’t do the kind of writing that prompts people who have never landed a punch line in their lives to come up to him and demand his agent’s contact information, because even though they aren’t a writer, they “have a killer book idea that’s just like mine, but way better.” * * * — An aside: THE TOP EIGHT CARRIE OUTFITS AS VIEWED THROUGH THE LENS OF A NON-FASHION PERSON WHO KNOWS LITTLE TO NOTHING ABOUT CLOTHES AND CAN’T REMEMBER SHIT 1. THE MIXED-PRINT CROP TOP SITUATION SHE WORE TO TAKE THAT UNNECESSARY PLANT TO AIDAN’S BAR She knew what she was doing exposing that lil slice o’ midriff in the middle of the day! She was irresistible! Carrie was wearing a black-and-white-patterned skirt with a crop top and this long white jacket that had a minimalist pink-and-blue floral print on it, and she decides to go to her ex-boyfriend’s new bar before it opens to drop off a congratulatory plant (WHAT?!). I cried laughing because “Remember me? Here’s a present” is a trick I’ve unsuccessfully played, too, and also because would Aidan even notice this carefully crafted pattern clashing that she’d constructed for his benefit? 2. THE BIG BOW SHIRT WITH SLACKS SHE WAS WEARING WHILE MAKING A CALL ON


my eyes. ‘This is Ernest Hemingway!’ She grinned like the proverbial cat, but did not meet my eyes. I read the caption underneath: ‘Sylvia Beach, proprietor of Shakespeare and Company, shop assistant Opaline Carlisle’. There she was; a young woman with dark cropped hair, halfway up a ladder with a book in her hand, Hemingway by her feet. ‘Carlisle? Oh my God, this is huge.’ ‘You’re welcome.’ ‘Oh gosh yes, of course, thank you.’ I moved to hug her but she jumped away from my clumsy attempt and I immediately felt her reproof. ‘I’m sorry, I just, you’ve no idea how much this means.’ ‘I think I do,’ she said, then grabbed her phone back and picked up her bag. ‘Anyway, I better go.’ Chapter Ten OPALINE Paris, 1921 The weeks swiftly became months and, quite without realising it, I began to feel at home in Paris. I had become a part of Sylvia’s little patchwork family and my position at Shakespeare and Company became permanent, or at least I hadn’t been told otherwise. I rented a demi-pension, a room with half board that was close to the shop. On the weekends, having eventually permitted myself to succumb to his charms, I met Armand. He took me to the hidden corners of the city, like the flea markets in Saint-Ouen where rag and bone men who scoured through the garbage of Paris at night sold their wares. He called them les pêcheurs de lune, moon fishermen, which made me smile because I knew that I was caught in Armand’s net and the more I fought it, the tighter his hold on my heart became. Jane, in her letters to me, had encouraged the romance: ‘What was the point in flitting off to France if not to take a lover!’ One bright morning at the end of the summer, when the city was quieter as the locals retreated to the countryside, I was working diligently in the shop, shelving the latest books to arrive. Sylvia was in the back having tea with an American writer, Ernest Hemingway, discussing a literary evening they were planning. He was unbelievably handsome and everyone was enthralled by his intense magnetism, but there was something malevolent about him. He adored Sylvia, of course, whose respect was worth more than that of any critic. Still, I couldn’t explain it, but I didn’t like being in a room alone with him. Once, when I was on the ladder putting books on to a high shelf, I found him staring at me. ‘Yes?’ I asked, giving him a direct look that I hoped would shame him into looking elsewhere. It did not work. ‘You ought to be careful, Missy.’ Missy. Honestly. ‘And why is that?’ ‘All writers are cannibalistic by nature.’ I wasn’t sure what he was driving at, but it didn’t sound very appetising to my ears. ‘Meaning?’ ‘Keep waving that ass around here, you might find yourself a character in one of my books,’ he grinned, openly enjoying my vexation. Honestly, writers could be such egoists! As I slowly


all. Nobody but old Redruth would have dared so much full speed to Bristol. as even to grumble. John Trelawney The next morning he and I set out on foot for the Admi- Postscript—I did not tell you that Blandly, who, by the ral Benbow, and there I found my mother in good health and way, is to send a consort after us if we don’t turn up by the spirits. The captain, who had so long been a cause of so much end of August, had found an admirable fellow for sailing discomfort, was gone where the wicked cease from troubling. Contents master—a stiff man, which I regret, but in all other respects a The squire had had everything repaired, and the public rooms treasure. Long John Silver unearthed a very competent man and the sign repainted, and had added some furniture—above Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island. 60 61 all a beautiful armchair for mother in the bar. He had found stage, for when I was awakened at last it was by a punch in her a boy as an apprentice also so that she should not want the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing help while I was gone. still before a large building in a city street and that the day It was on seeing that boy that I understood, for the first had already broken a long time. time, my situation. I had thought up to that moment of the “Where are we?” I asked. adventures before me, not at all of the home that I was leav- “Bristol,” said Tom. “Get down.” ing; and now, at sight of this clumsy stranger, who was to stay Mr. Trelawney had taken up his residence at an inn far here in my place beside my mother, I had my first attack of down the docks to superintend the work upon the schooner. tears. I am afraid I led that boy a dog’s life, for as he was new Thither we had now to walk, and our way, to my great de- to the work, I had a hundred opportunities of setting him light, lay along the quays and beside the great multitude of right and putting him down, and I was not slow to profit by ships of all sizes and rigs and nations. In one, sailors were them. singing at their work, in another there were men aloft, high The night passed, and the next day, after dinner, Redruth over my head, hanging to threads that seemed no thicker than and I were afoot again and on the road. I said good-bye to a spider’s. Though I had lived by the shore all my life, I Mother and the cove where I had lived since I was born, and seemed never to have been near the sea till then. The smell of the dear old Admiral Benbow—since he was repainted, no tar and salt was something new. I saw the most wonderful longer quite so dear. One of my last thoughts was of


And still, the screaming. The screaming that, somehow, was her fault. But it was hard to hear over the voice in her head. This isn’t something you can escape. Haven’t you figured that out by now? It echoed in every one of her bones, danced on every icy nerve. The voice was alien and familiar at once, and sounded strange, like two throats twined together and speaking as one, harmonizing with itself. One of those voices sounded like Lore’s. Every day, it grows stronger. Growing in you like rot as you come nearer to ascension. The voice felt like oil poured over the grooves of her brain, slipping into every empty surface. It reminded her of the voice that had told her to use her power, that day in the square with Horse, but stronger, more sure. You can’t flee from what you are, daughter of the dark. Death is the one thing that will always find you, and you are its heir. The seed of the apocalypse, end-times walking. You are the wildfire necessary for the forest to grow, the destruction that brings rebirth. Lore felt death clenching at her lungs, her heart, every organ that was ripe and vital turning shriveled and dry. She hadn’t been able to channel any Mortem out, only draw it in. It wasn’t killing her—that’d be too simple—but it was doing something. Changing her. Taking her capacity for power and burrowing into it, making it wider, so it might swallow her up. Hollowing her out to be filled again by something vast, something dark. Her eyes wouldn’t open, as if her lids had been sutured together. Lore bared her teeth, pulling up strength she didn’t know she had. With a roar, she forced the Mortem out of her, through veins that felt like they might burst, through bones that wanted to break against the pressure. The rock beneath her feet was too brittle already, but Lore could feel the life surrounding her the same way she could feel death—the two of them inverted, different streams from the same source. She felt the heaving bodies of the terrified horses, the fear-curdled heartbeats of the other Presque Mort. The placid, unthinking life of the garden, still green and blooming, and beyond that, the farmland. There was too much Mortem to direct it with any kind of finesse. So Lore let it loose into both, funneling death into living roots both close by and far away, the death in her veins guiding her to life. Law of Opposites, she thought distantly. Death and life strengthening each other, death and life entwined. Spiritum fled every bloom and leaf in the garden, replaced not by death, but by stasis, freezing them in time. Mortem wove into the aura of every scrap of life both seen and unseen—cocooning tiny bugs, larvae, the aphids invisible to the naked eye. Then it went deeper, spearing through the cobblestones of the road, turning to rock the tiny shoots of grass that tried to find cracks of sun, the earthworms waiting for rain, the bulbs


bottle is empty. There’s no undoing it. Dad drops his knife and looks at me with an expression so astonished and concerned (concernished, perhaps) you’d think my head had fallen off. “Pardon me?” he asks. Now I feel like a dick. He’s just trying to give me advice, the way he always does, and how do I react? By throwing inconvenient truths at his face. “Nothing,” I say, picking up my garlic. “Sorry.” “Brad, are you—” “I’m fine.” “You know you can tell me anything. If you’re not feeling…If you’re having any—” “I’m in a bad mood.” I force a smile. “You kind of rained on my parade, old man.” His expression softens. “Son. You know I’m not trying to be negative. I just want the best for you.” “I know.” “But I can’t tell you what to do,” he repeats. Parents love to say shit like that, as if their words, their looks, their expectations, aren’t as heavy as a small planet. Usually, my dad’s word is law whether he knows it or not. But not this time. Turns out, when it comes to Celine, Dad’s right: he can’t tell me what to do. No one can. CELINE SUNDAY, 3:12 P.M. Minnie: You did WHAT? Celine: IT WAS AN ACCIDENT Minnie: lol no it wasn’t, you’ve been drooling over him for centuries Minnie: just astonished YOU finally noticed??? I have no idea why I tell Michaela anything. She’s a deeply annoying human being. After hovering in front of the Graeme house for a bit, I’m speed-walking home (very irresponsible while texting, I know, but needs must). Then I hear my literal worst nightmare behind me: it’s Brad. Calling my name. Right after we just kissed. And, God, the way we kissed. It was completely mortifying. Like, I saw fireworks and forgot my own name and momentarily considered putting his hand on my boob, all of which is very dangerous indeed because—because no one is supposed to feel like that. Like everything. Brad can’t be everything. “Celine!” I very slowly turn and, yep: my ears do not deceive me. He is sprinting down the path, a coat thrown over his clothes. Oh my God. I stand frozen like a statue and panic. As soon as he reaches me, breathless, he asks, “You learned to cook?” The tip of his nose is red with cold. His eyes are as dark as midnight—not the cold winter kind, but the warm summer sort where you can’t sleep because the sheets stick to your skin and anyway, there are adventures out there to be had. And his mouth is…soft. I know this firsthand because— Midconversation, Celine. “No,” I reply, hoping he didn’t notice my very minor dazed pause. “Why?” He arches an eyebrow. “Because you just said you had to cook dinner.” Shit. “You shouldn’t be allowed to look at people like that when you’re interrogating them.” He arches another eyebrow and continues being unnervingly handsome. “Like what?” I falter. “Never mind.” He grins like he knows exactly what my problem is. (Considering the enthusiasm with


a punch to the gut, left her shaken and tied up in guilt. He’d been feeding on her. She remembered him standing in Sterling, shaking his head like a beleaguered dad on a television show. Like he was performing being human. “You’re his demon,” Alex said, understanding coming on in a flood. “You hitched a ride when we tried to bring Darlington out of hell the first time. When Dawes and I botched the ritual at Scroll and Key. And you’ve been fucking with us ever since.” He was our son but not our son. “You killed Darlington’s parents.” Anselm rolled his shoulders, his body seeming to shift beneath his skin. “They showed up at Black Elm when I was trying to figure out how to get my lesser half out of that cursed circle.” Whatever I am will be unleashed upon the world. Darlington hadn’t just been using the force of his will to stay inside the circle; he’d called on the remainder of his humanity for restraint. It was that same humanity that had fought to give them clues, even to try to warn her. In the dream, there had been two of him: demon and man. There have to be, he’d said. The boy and the monster. But Anselm hadn’t been able to feed on Darlington in the mortal realm, because he was protected by the circle. So the demon had needed to take on another form. “You killed Michael Anselm too,” she said. That was the husk in the basement. The demon had fed on Anselm, stolen his life. When Alex had lunch with him by the water, she’d even noted how different he seemed— young, at ease, handsome, like he was having a damn fine time. Because he was. He was sated on human misery. She’d shaken his hand. Made a deal for her mother’s life. How he must have laughed at her desperation. On the stairs, Darlington snarled, still besieged by Alex’s serpents, but she had no idea how to call them off. And why was Anselm so much better at fighting her salt spirits than Not Hellie or Not Blake or the other demons? “The murders,” she said, “all of that about the judges and Professor Lambton, they were just distractions.” “A game,” Anselm corrected with a gentle smile. “A puzzle.” To keep them from finding and using the Gauntlet and freeing Darlington’s soul from hell. “Two people died and Andy Lambton is in a psych ward.” “It was a good game.” The night of their disastrous ritual at Scroll and Key, it had been the real Michael Anselm at Il Bastone—fussy, cold, determined to keep Lethe trouble free. The first campus murder had happened later that very night. The demon had fed on Marjorie Stephen, aging her like a terrible poison, but he’d stopped before he’d made her a husk. He didn’t want to assume her form. It was of no use to him. Besides, he’d just been there to construct a little tableau. He’d been more careful when he’d killed Dean Beekman, kept


the hospital had no Ribavirin in stock. No Ribavirin in the hospital for Kingsley, who had stocked the paediatric ward with antibiotics after he lost a patient during the night because there was not one bag of intravenous antibiotics available in the ward. It’s Kingsley’s birthday. All our friends have dispersed, but I’ve waited with Kingsley to collect the images on a flash drive. We’re standing behind the photo studio when I tell him I’m in love with Kúnlé. And though I’ve suspected that he thinks our continued friendship means we will be a couple again someday, I’m still surprised by the stricken look on his face. He looks away, training his gaze on the yellow balustrades along the walkway to the sports complex. When he turns to me again, that pained look is hidden behind a wide smile. I’m so thrilled for you, he says. The group in my corridor has moved further down and I can no longer make out their words. I have a headache. Kúnlé should be here soon but I do not want to talk to him about Kingsley. Not today. Kingsley is standing in the emergency room with vomit all over him from the patient I told him to prioritise. Oh my God. How can he be dead? I always thought we would have more time. part IV Every Day Is for the Thief What if everything that is to happen has already happened, and only the consequences are playing themselves out? —Every Day Is for the Thief by Teju Cole · 21 · Ẹniọlá’s worry about what his mother would say concerning the foodstuff he’d gotten from Honourable’s house had been for nothing. He arrived home long before she did and spent the evening thinking about explanations that could help him evade a truth he suspected would upset his parents. He was not bothered about giving his father any explanations; he only worried about what his mother might think. After all, if the man had done what he should in the last few years, the family would not need the things Honourable had given. His mother, though, she always tried. Even if her efforts did not amount to enough money to pay his fees and Bùsọ́lá’s, she had tried. When his mother returned home, it was late in the night. She nodded weakly and smiled when he showed her the foodstuff. As she counted out seven cups of rice, ten cups of gaàrí and five of beans, he waited for her to insist that she would not eat any of the items until he explained their origin. She did not. Instead, she hugged him until his arms felt numb. The following day, Ẹniọlá got up from the mattress while his parents snored and Bùsọ́lá drooled in her sleep. He sang as he went into the courtyard, feeling lighter than a chick’s feather, sure some weight he’d long carried had melted off him during the night. He hummed and tapped a foot to the tune while he brushed his teeth, not with salt sprinkled on a


have resumed your former pleasures and seem to be returning to yourself. And yet you are still unhappy and still avoid our society. For some time I was lost in conjecture as to the cause of this, but yesterday an idea struck me, and if it is well founded, I conjure you to avow it. Reserve on such a point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all." I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued-- "I confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the stay of my declining years. You were attached to each other from your earliest infancy; you studied together, and appeared, in dispositions and tastes, entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the experience of man that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my plan may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard her as your sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you may have met with another whom you may love; and considering yourself as bound in honour to Elizabeth, this struggle may occasion the poignant misery which you appear to feel." "My dear father, reassure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and sincerely. I never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my warmest admiration and affection. My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union." "The expression of your sentiments of this subject, my dear Victor, gives me more pleasure than I have for some time experienced. If you feel thus, we shall assuredly be happy, however present events may cast a gloom over us. But it is this gloom which appears to have taken so strong a hold of your mind that I wish to dissipate. Tell me, therefore, whether you object to an immediate solemnization of the marriage. We have been unfortunate, and recent events have drawn us from that everyday tranquillity refitting my years and infirmities. You are younger; yet l do not suppose, possessed as you are of a competent fortune, that an early marriage would at all interfere with any future plans of honour and utility that you may have formed. Do not suppose, however, that I wish to dictate happiness to you or that a delay on your part would cause me any serious uneasiness. Interpret my words with candour and answer me, I conjure you, with confidence and sincerity." I listened to my father in silence and remained for some time incapable of offering any reply. I revolved rapidly in my mind a multitude of thoughts and endeavoured to arrive at some conclusion. Alas! To me the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay. I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! Could I enter


Or is this Lanier’s surprise? She organized a fundraiser? “You are the best friend in the world to me,” she says, bringing my attention back to her, “and the fact that you didn’t even tell Huff you were breaking his heart because of me was pretty big. You could have blamed me. I would have understood.” I shrug. “Well, I think it would have hurt him less. But I felt like pitting the two of you against each other would have hurt you both in the long run.” Lanier nods. “I know.” She takes my hand, and I let her. I’m not sure I want to, but I am so filled with relief knowing that Huff and I are at least breathing the same air again that anything and everything feels okay. “But what I want to say to you,” Lanier continues, “is that I am sorry. I am so, so sorry. I never, ever should have said what I did, and I didn’t mean it.” “Yes, you did,” I say. “You did mean it.” She pauses. “Well, maybe in the heat of the moment I did. But I was wrong. You are nothing like your mother. I have lived so much of your sobriety with you, and I’m so proud of you. And I know better than anyone on the planet that, when you love someone, when you decide to pledge your loyalty to something, you give it everything you have. No one has been a recipient of that unconditional love more than I have. I don’t deserve you, Daph.” She pauses. “But Huff does.” I smile then, feeling all teary again. I look over my shoulder, but Huff is gone. Lanier stands up, still holding my hand, and says, “Could you come with me for a second?” I don’t want to. I want to go wherever Huff has gone. But I don’t see him, and that feels a little immature to say. So I follow Lanier to the softball field. The last thing I want to do is go to a softball game, but I smile remembering that my first kiss with Huff was in the middle of this field. “I never expected you to break up with Huff because of me, Daph.” She grimaces. “Well, I mean, not this time.” She looks down at her hands. “I’m sorry about that, by the way. Huff told me you found out about my little white lie. All those years ago, I was just trying to help you both. Instead, I was… well, I was being like my mom. Being overprotective. I should have learned my lesson a long time ago.” I can’t help but laugh. “I never wanted you to feel like you had to leave Huff,” she says, “and I’m sorry for the pain I caused.” I stop walking and look at her. “I was having a bad moment and hearing you say my worst fears out loud panicked me.” Lanier flinches. “Seven years.” “Seven years,” I echo. She shakes her head. “I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me until


all the options, silence was the least

desirable, the least defensible. We couldn’t just let the press continue to do

this to Meg.

Even after I'd convinced him that we needed to do something, say

something, anything, the Palace said no. Courtiers blocked us hard.

Nothing can be done, they said. And therefore nothing wil/ be done.

I accepted this as final. Until I read an essay in the Huffington Post. The

essayist said the mild reaction of Britons to this explosion of racism was to

be expected, since they were the heirs of racist colonialists. But what was

truly “unforgivable,” she added, was my silence.

Mine.

I showed the essay to Jason, said we needed a course correction

immediately. No more debate, no more discussion. We needed a statement

out there.

Within a day we had a draft. Strong, precise, angry, honest. I didn’t

think it would be the end, but maybe the beginning of the end.

I read it one last time and asked Jason to let it fly.

20.

320

https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.:me/Afghansalarlibrary

UST HOURS BEFORE THAT statement went out, Meg was on her way to see m

She drove to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, paps chasing her,

and made her way carefully through the crowds of travelers, feeling

jittery, exposed. The lounge was full, so an Air Canada representative took

pity on her and hid her in a side room. Even brought her a plate of food.

By the time she landed at Heathrow my statement was everywhere. And

changing nothing. The onslaught continued.

In fact, my statement generated a whole new onslaught—from my

family. Pa and Willy were furious. They gave me an earful. My statement

made them look bad, they both said.

Why in hell?

Because they’d never put out a statement for their girlfriends or wives

when they were being harassed.

So this visit wasn’t like previous ones. It was


the Night Sisters realized what I could do— she stayed distant. I don’t remember her ever touching me with any kind of affection.” The razored lump in her throat that Alie’s embrace had risen tried to return. She swallowed, again, rubbed at her neck like she could physically force it away. “By that point, she was totally devoted to the Sisters. To their mission, to keeping the Buried Goddess from ever rising again.” Go, she’d said, pushing Lore out into stabbing daylight while her palm still ached from her branding, a bird shoving a fledgling from a nest. Maybe not totally devoted, then. But enough. “Something about me…” Here, Lore’s voice broke, and she paused until it mended itself. “Something about me was wrong. Something about me went against everything she’d dedicated her life to.” She didn’t realize she was staring at her moon-scarred hand until it was covered by Bastian’s. He’d crossed to her, shadow-silent, and closed his fingers around hers. She could feel the lines of his scar against her own, the now-healed runnels of half a sun. “I get it,” Lore murmured, staring at their hands. “People are different, and just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you’re good for each other. But she was all I had, and she looked at me like I was a monster.” Lore closed her eyes, briefly, took a breath. Looked up at him. “But even she didn’t want me dead. She saved me. Took me to the mouth of the catacombs when the rest of the Sisters wanted to send me into the Buried Goddess’s tomb.” The corner of his mouth lifted, a shaky smile. “That’s something.” They stood in the atrium for a handful of heartbeats, hands entwined, her scar against his. In the corner of Lore’s eye, something like fog twisted around them, a dance of darkness and gold, glitter blown into smoke. But maybe it was just lurking tears she wouldn’t let fall; when she tried to focus on the strange shimmering, it disappeared. “Well,” Bastian said finally. “We aren’t dead yet.” He dropped her hand and started forward, toward the door of the atrium. Wordlessly, Lore followed. Past the atrium, Bastian led her down a flight of narrow stairs, and after that, the corridors slowly became more familiar. They’d wound their way to the main floor, headed toward the front of the Citadel rather than the back. Lore heard courtiers, giggles and soft voices and lovers’ moans, but they didn’t see anyone. Not until the bloodcoat appeared at the end of the hallway. Bastian was quick; he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a recessed alcove framing a window. There wasn’t a curtain to draw over it, nor were there any on the other alcoves close by. “Shit,” Lore hissed. “Shit shit shit.” “Hold your smuggler’s tongue.” Bastian’s back pressed against the alcove’s arch; he looked around, measuring the distance between them and the guard. His eyes swung back to her, dark and serious. “We will get by him, but you have to follow my lead.”


path from the gate, by a low, oblong, tablelike tomb. "Yes, if you didn't--?" He looked, while I waited, at the graves. "Well, you know what!" But he didn't move, and he presently produced something that made me drop straight down on the stone slab, as if suddenly to rest. "Does my uncle think what YOU think?" I markedly rested. "How do you know what I think?" "Ah, well, of course I don't; for it strikes me you never tell me. But I mean does HE know?" "Know what, Miles?" "Why, the way I'm going on." I perceived quickly enough that I could make, to this inquiry, no answer that would not involve something of a sacrifice of my employer. Yet it appeared to me that we were all, at Bly, sufficiently sacrificed to make that venial. "I don't think your uncle much cares." Miles, on this, stood looking at me. "Then don't you think he can be made to?" "In what way?" "Why, by his coming down." "But who'll get him to come down?" "_I_ will!" the boy said with extraordinary brightness and emphasis. He gave me another look charged with that expression and then marched off alone into church. XV The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed him. It was a pitiful surrender to agitation, but my being aware of this had somehow no power to restore me. I only sat there on my tomb and read into what my little friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning; by the time I had grasped the whole of which I had also embraced, for absence, the pretext that I was ashamed to offer my pupils and the rest of the congregation such an example of delay. What I said to myself above all was that Miles had got something out of me and that the proof of it, for him, would be just this awkward collapse. He had got out of me that there was something I was much afraid of and that he should probably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, more freedom. My fear was of having to deal with the intolerable question of the grounds of his dismissal from school, for that was really but the question of the horrors gathered behind. That his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these things was a solution that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth. The boy, to my deep discomposure, was immensely in the right, was in a position to say to me: "Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you a life that's so unnatural for a boy." What was so unnatural for the particular boy I was concerned with was this sudden revelation of a consciousness


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

that at me out of nowhere. “I am only conducting a test.” He sighed. “Of course. I should have guessed you’d want to be bloodless about this.” “I am not trying to be!” “You’ve done nothing but talk at me since I told you I loved you.” “Is that a problem?” For he hadn’t said it as if it were. “Were you expecting me to throw myself at you? Would you have then said a dozen pretty things about my eyes or hair?” “No, it would have been, ‘Get off me, you imposter, and tell me what you did with Emily.’ ” “All right, be quiet.” The bloody fire hissed and crackled away, and a bead of sweat trickled down my neck. Wanting to be through with this quickly, I leaned forward and kissed him. Almost. I lost my nerve halfway there, somewhere around the moment I noticed he had a freckle next to his eye and wondered ridiculously if that was something he would remove if I asked it of him, and instead of a proper kiss, I merely brushed my lips against his. It was a shadow of a kiss, cool and insubstantial, and I almost wish I could be romantic and say it was somehow transformative, but in truth, I barely felt it. But then his eyes came open, and he smiled at me with such innocent happiness that my ridiculous heart gave a leap and would have answered him instantly, if it was the organ in charge of my decision-making. “Choose whenever you wish,” he said. “No doubt you will first need to draw up a list of pros and cons, or perhaps a series of bar plots. If you like, I will help you organize them into categories.” I cleared my throat. “It strikes me that this is all pointless speculation. You cannot marry me. I am not going to be left behind, pining for you, when you return to your kingdom. I have no time for pining.” He gave me an astonished look. “Leave you behind! As if you would consent to that. I would expect to be burnt alive when next I returned to visit. No, Em, you will come with me, and we will rule my kingdom together. You will scheme and strategize until you have all my councillors eating out of your hand as easily as you do Poe, and I will show you everything —everything. We will travel to the darkest parts of my realm and back again, and you will find answers to questions you have never even thought to ask, and enough material to fill every journal and library with your discoveries.” And that is where we left things. I don’t even know why I am including this, for God knows I do not wish to preserve the details of my romantic life for posterity (and a very short footnote that would be), only I find that writing it all out has made me somewhat calmer. Perhaps I will tear up this entry later. I know that if I put


waking with Jack this morning, of his hand between my shoulder blades, of the ink on his arm, of his lips, which look full and soft, and he hasn’t shaved in a while and he smells good and— A click. Behind me. Jack straightens and pulls the passenger door open. That tension inside me is still buzzing. I feel almost dizzy. “Get in,” he orders, low and hoarse and maybe not really to me. I slide into the seat, and it sinks in that this might be real. Happening outside my head. Me, taking a shot at being myself. 16 F U N D A M E N TA L F O R C E S From: Glass.Abigail.2@bostoncollege.edu Subject: Thermo 201 Hiya! I haven’t come to class this semester because I can’t find the room. Where do we meet, again? Could you draw me a map? Thx. “Egregious.” Dr. L. says the word with soft g’s and mysterious vowels, like English is a French language that the Americans are just borrowing. I’d find it amusing, but it’s our first meeting since relaying my job news and I can’t feel anything but anxiety. He asked me to come over, and I really didn’t want to, what with the snow and the crock of shit that’s my schedule. And yet here I am. “Egregious, that they’d choose another candidate,” he repeats. “Perhaps an appeal is in order.” “Knowing who the winning candidate is, I doubt there are grounds.” “Georgina Sepulveda, you said?” I nod. “And who would that be?” I’m taken aback that any living physicist wouldn’t know of her work. But Dr. L. can be narrow minded when it comes to experimentalists. Maybe rightfully so? “She’s behind the Sepulveda model. A brilliant particle physicist. And she was a Burke fellow years ago.” I look down at my knees. Then back up to Dr. L.’s deep scowl. “I’m sorry, Dr. Laurendeau. I know this is disappointing, but —” “I wonder if Smith-Turner influenced the search, after all.” My hand grips the armrest of the green chair. “He . . . I doubt it.” “We cannot put it past him, can we?” I clear my throat. “I’m convinced that he did not—” “Elise, you want Smith-Turner to get his comeuppance just as much as I do, don’t you?” My stomach sinks and I lower my eyes, mortified. Dr. L. spent the last six years counseling me, and here I am. A screwup. Cavorting with the asshole who nearly ruined his career. Not being the Elsie he wants. I need to go back to it. To Elise—hardworking, undeterred, laser focused. “This is a huge setback, but I’m . . . regrouping,” I say, trying to sound optimistic. “In terms of finding a job for next year, I—” “But you have a job. Several, in fact.” “Yes. Absolutely.” I take a deep breath. “But these adjunct gigs are time consuming and leave me little time for research. And I really want to finish developing my—” “There is always time for research. One must want to find it.”


want to sleep a few minutes?" "I'd better run." "Let's check." He took Montag quickly into the bedroom and lifted a picture frame aside, revealing a television screen the size of a postal card. "I always wanted something very small, something I could talk to, something I could blot out with the palm of my hand, if necessary, nothing that could shout me down, nothing monstrous big. So, you see." He snapped it on. "Montag," the TV set said, and lit up. "M-O-N-T-A-G." The name was spelled out by the voice. "Guy Montag. Still running. Police helicopters are up. A new Mechanical Hound has been brought from another district.. ." Montag and Faber looked at each other. ". . . Mechanical Hound never fails. Never since its first use in tracking quarry has this incredible invention made a mistake. Tonight, this network is proud to have the opportunity to follow the Hound by camera helicopter as it starts on its way to the target..." Faber poured two glasses of whisky. "We'll need these." They drank. ". . . nose so sensitive the Mechanical Hound can remember and identify ten thousand odour-indexes on ten thousand men without re-setting! " Faber trembled the least bit and looked about at his house, at the walls, the door, the doorknob, and the chair where Montag now sat. Montag saw the look. They both looked quickly about the house and Montag felt his nostrils dilate and he knew that he was trying to track himself and his nose was suddenly good enough to sense the path he had made in the air of the room and the sweat of his hand hung from the doorknob, invisible, but as numerous as the jewels of a small chandelier, he was everywhere, in and on and about everything, he was a luminous cloud, a ghost that made breathing once more impossible. He saw Faber stop up his own breath for fear of drawing that ghost into his own body, perhaps, being contaminated with the phantom exhalations and odours of a running man. "The Mechanical Hound is now landing by helicopter at the site of the Burning!" And there on the small screen was the burnt house, and the crowd, and something with a sheet over it and out of the sky, fluttering, came the helicopter like a grotesque flower. So they must have their game out, thought Montag. The circus must go on, even with war beginning within the hour.... He watched the scene, fascinated, not wanting to move. It seemed so remote and no part of him; it was a play apart and separate, wondrous to watch, not without its strange pleasure. That's all for me, you thought, that's all taking place just for me, by God. If he wished, he could linger here, in comfort, and follow the entire hunt on through its swift. phases, down alleys across streets, over empty running avenues, crossing lots and playgrounds, with pauses here or there for the necessary commercials, up other alleys to the burning house of Mr. and Mrs. Black,


moment” with Martin means that (steel yourself?! Again?) I lost my virginity to him IN Erin’s pool (!) while other people were sitting in the lounge chairs approximately ten feet away (!!). I guess out of deference to the other people, Martin and I didn’t kiss while semi-publicly boning. In other words, no, you don’t need to worry about my selling you out because, although there’s a smaller audience for my secrets, we’re in a mutually assured destruction situation. Not that I’d sell you out anyway. from: Noah Brewster <NoahRBrewster@gmail.com> to: Sally Milz <Smilz@TNOshow.com> date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:18 AM subject: Actually Phew!!! I have to admit I got kinda spooked by that part about how you never emailed Martin again after the Thanksgiving awkwardness. I don’t want you to ever stop emailing me! I guess my main question about Martin is, was it a good experience for you? I have a bombshell to drop, something that no one in my whole life knows about me except my sister. See? I really do trust you! The bombshell is that my first album came out before I’d ever had sex. Everyone interpreted Making Love in July (a song I know you have great fondness for) as autobiographical, but I’d never “made love” in real life before its release and didn’t until four months later. If you’re trying to do the math, I was nineteen when the song came out and twenty by the time I lost my virginity. The song was a fantasy of sex, not a memory. When I wrote it, I’d kissed a couple girls, but that was it. My all-boys’ high school was affiliated with a girls’ school more or less on the same campus, and junior and senior year, we could take classes at their school and vice versa, so I can’t even use the single-sex school thing as an excuse. I just had no game. Also my black nail polish phase, while brief, may have made girls think I was gay. (Speaking of, gender is absolutely a social construct…didn’t David Bowie and Prince teach us that? At the same time, I’m sure there’s always a place for your thoughts on men and women and sexism and feminism.) A part of my virgin story that for some reason I think you might appreciate is that there are two separate actresses, Angela Shinske and Kathryn Woo, who the media often says Making Love in July is about, and Angela goes along with these claims, even though she and I only ever went on two dates, and by then it was 2004. Kathryn and I dated for longer, and she was my date to the 2002 Grammys, but I’d written the song well before then. So…is your marketing firm currently hiring? from: Sally Milz <Smilz@TNOshow.com> to: Noah Brewster <NoahRBrewster@gmail.com> date: Jul 25, 2020, 10:59 AM subject: Actually Wait, who DID you lose your virginity to? (Yes, I am ending a sentence with a preposition, but that’s how urgently I need to know.) Did you tell the other person she’d deflowered you?


my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on your misery. Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict." "Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend beneath words. Leave me; I am inexorable." "It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night." I started forward and exclaimed, "Villain! Before you sign my death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe." I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the housew ith precipitation. In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot across the waters with an arrowy swiftness and was soon lost amidst the waves. All was again silent, but his words rang in my ears. I burned with rage to pursue the murderer of my peace and precipitate him into the ocean. I walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my imagination conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why had I not followed him and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had suffered him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the mainland. I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed to his insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words -- "I WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING-NIGHT." That, then, was the period fixed for the fulfillment of my destiny. In that hour I should die and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move me to fear; yet when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth, of her tears and endless sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously snatched from her, tears, the first I had shed for many months, streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy without a bitter struggle. The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene of the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, which I almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my fellow creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole across me. I desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock, wearily, it is true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery. If I returned, it was to be sacrificed or to see those whom I most loved die under the grasp of a daemon whom I had myself created. I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it loved and miserable in the separation. When it became noon, and the sun rose higher, I lay down


felt less, might.'' ``How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you _would_ have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when you _would_ have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect. _Too_ _much_, I am afraid; for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort springs from a breach of promise? for I ought not to have mentioned the subject. This will never do.'' ``You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour to wait for any opening of your's. My aunt's intelligence had given me hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing.'' ``Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy, for she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed? or had you intended any more serious consequence?'' ``My real purpose was to see _you_, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to myself, was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley, and if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made.'' ``Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to befall her?'' ``I am more likely to want more time than courage, Elizabeth. But it ought to done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper, it shall be done directly.'' ``And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected.'' From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner's long letter; but now, having _that_ to communicate which she knew would be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as follows: ``I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done, for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars; but to say the truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed. But _now_ suppose as much as you chuse; give a loose to your fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise


too,’ I said, as if swerving tonight had never crossed my mind. ‘You look beautiful.’ She put her hand up to touch her hair. ‘Thank you. Madame Bowden insisted that I borrow one of her old dresses. She had it altered by a dressmaker and everything,’ she said, her eyes wide with disbelief. I watched as she swished the silk skirt. This was heartbreaking. I had to get out of there. ‘Listen—’ I began but was interrupted by music that struck up out of nowhere. ‘A birthday dance!’ said one of her friends and all but pushed Martha into my arms. ‘Oh, I’m not sure that’s necessary—’ ‘I don’t even know how!’ We both began to protest in unison, but the crowd had warmed to the idea and formed the dreaded circle around us. ‘It is my song,’ she said a little shyly. I listened to the wonky piano notes and tried to recall what it was. ‘Tom Waits. My mother named me after this song.’ How could I refuse? ‘Well then, if it is your song …’ I put one arm around her waist and held her hand. We didn’t speak, just shuffled slowly to what was possibly the most forlorn song I’d ever heard in my life. Dancing in public was bad enough, but dancing in public with the woman who had just dumped you should have been the most excruciatingly awkward moment of my life. But something happened; it became strangely magical. We looked into each other’s eyes, unable to keep from smiling at the situation. The guests stepped back to give us more floorspace, but in my mind they might as well have disappeared entirely. All I could see was her. She felt so right in my arms. I bizarrely found that I could dance – I don’t know if it was her evening gown or the candlelight, but I became a bit of a Fred Astaire. Or else it just felt that way and if someone had replayed a video I might have looked like Frankenstein’s monster. The song reached its slow, plinking-plonking crescendo … Martha, Martha, I love you, can’t you see? I couldn’t take it any more. I let her go and stepped backward. ‘Sorry, I have to go.’ I tried to walk out of there with as much dignity as I could, which was to say, very little. I reached to pull the handle of the front door, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘For God’s sake …’ I muttered, pulling it with all my might. ‘Henry!’ I turned around to see her standing there, her face full of pity. That was the last thing I needed. I felt completely exposed. The only way out was to pretend. ‘You were right. About us, I mean. It never would’ve worked.’ ‘Oh.’ Her face was unreadable. I had to get out of there. I turned to try the handle again, but it still wouldn’t budge. ‘Leaving so soon?’ Madame Bowden asked. God, that woman was omnipresent! ‘It’s fine,’ Martha said to her. ‘Thank you for coming, I mean


myself to put the relationship out of my mind—in fact, all

relationships. Stay busy, I told myself as I flew away from Botswana. In the

short while left before you ship to Afghanistan, just stay busy.

To that end, I went to Lesotho with Willy. We visited several schools

built by Sentebale. Prince Seeiso was with us; he’d co-founded the charity

with me back in 2006, shortly after losing his own mother. (His mother had

also been a fighter in the war against HIV.) He took us to meet scores of

children, each with a wrenching story. The average life expectancy in

Lesotho at that time was forty-something, while in Britain it was seventy-

nine for men, eighty-two for women. Being a child in Lesotho was like

being middle-aged in Manchester, and while there were various complicated

reasons for this, the main one was HIV.

A quarter of all Lesotho adults were HIV-positive.

After two or three days we set off with Prince Seeiso towards more

remote schools, off the grid. Way off. As a gift Prince Seeiso gave us wild

ponies, to ride part of the way, and tribal blankets for the cold. We wore

them as capes.

Our first stop was a frozen village in the clouds: Semonkong. Some

seven thousand feet above sea level, it lay between snow-tipped mountains.

Plumes of warm air spurted from the horses’ noses as we pushed them up,

up, but when the climb got too steep, we switched to trucks.

Upon arriving we went straight into the school. Shepherd boys would

come here twice a week, have a hot meal, go to a class. We sat in semi-

darkness, beside a paraffin lamp, watching a lesson, and then we sat on the

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https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.:me/Afghansalarlibrary

ground with a dozen boys, some as young as eight. We listened to them

describe their daily trek to our school. It defied belief: after twelve hours of

tending their cattle and sheep, they’d walk for two hours through mountain

passes just to learn maths, reading, writing. Such was their hunger to learn.

They braved sore feet, bitter cold—and far worse. They were so vulnerable<span


“I don’t feel loopy,” I said. “Okay, there’s no specific way you need to feel.” There was a smile in her voice. Now that she’d blinded me, she was kinder than she’d ever been. “We were able to lower the pressure in your eyes considerably. I’m afraid you’ll still have the cloudiness and tunnel vision, but at least things won’t get worse. You really need to get serious about using the eye drops and taking the medication, though. You wouldn’t be in this situation if you had already gotten serious about that.” “He’s going to get serious,” Brianna said. “Right, Ez?” I wanted to rip off the bandages. I wanted to leave the bed. The whole thing was patronizing. Every word out of Brianna’s mouth was terrifying. I didn’t want any of it to be happening. I didn’t want to be myself. I felt Mengetsu’s hand on my foot. “Money and power won’t save your vision,” she said. “You’ve got to stop pretending they will.” * * * I convalesced in the condo, doing what any newly blind person would do: obsessing over my compromised condition as I listened to the footfalls of my caretakers, trying hard to distract myself with the podcasts and music and movies and TV and audiobooks they played for me. Elaine visited with detailed news about the share price and all the things she was doing to outmaneuver the FTC. “I think we can only hold up for so long,” she said. “It’s like rain on a rusted tin roof.” I waved my hand in the direction of her voice. “So let’s sell our shares while we can still make a profit.” “That’s going to be difficult to do when we’re right under the FTC’s nose.” “I’m sure you can do it.” “I mean, I can. But it’s risky.” It seemed like her voice was coming from within a cave, an especially dark place I didn’t have access to. If we won this, we would both remain very rich. If we didn’t, the consequences would be disastrous. “This has always worked before, hasn’t it?” I asked. “We act and then we deal with the consequences?” “Right.” Life was coming back into her voice. “We can pull this off.” “We have before.” “We always do.” “So, then, what are we gonna do when this all works out?” “Celebrate,” she said, sounding relieved. “Get the board together and go out for drinks.” “Bigger than that,” I said. “The Caribbean. Buy an island or something.” “That’s a lot bigger.” She laughed. “I think you’re right.” “Of course I’m right,” I said, but I knew I wasn’t. Elaine switched on a movie about a couple plotting to rob a TGI Fridays and left me alone in the condo with nothing to do. I thought about Mack and Genial underground and Orson and Emily in bed and money and arbitrage and gum stretched too thin. I thought about scrambling versus hoarding. What Orson had neglected to tell me almost a decade ago was that scrambling, if done effectively, can lead to hoarding.


Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

bringing her,” I say. “I’ve never seen her like this.” Fizzy gazes at both the girls fondly. “She’s definitely in her element.” “How did she know everything that was going to happen? The set list, even what they’d be wearing. Where’d she learn all that?” “It’s what fangirls do,” Fizzy says with a shrug. “It’s the same way you know when a new Shimano derailleur is coming out for your fancy mountain bike.” My attention snaps back to her and I grin. “Look at you talking about bike parts.” She reaches for a cookie and breaks it in two, handing half to me. “Some might say I’m an expert at typing things into the Google search.” She studies her cookie. “Even went hunting for pics of you.” “Me?” “You know, on set, mountain biking.” She pauses, shrugging causally. “With girlfriends.” “And?” I lean against the counter at her side, smothering a smile. She is so bloody obvious. “What did you find?” One side of her mouth turns down into a frown and carves a small dimple in her left cheek. “Nothing. Your Instagram name is a bunch of random letters and numbers that I was only able to track down because I know Jess who knows Natalia who happened to tag you in something, like, five years ago. You have four followers and two posts. It was both a relief and disappointing.” “We’re supposed to be focusing on your love life, Fizzy.” “Just feels unfair,” she says, and her smile is easy but her eyes are tight when she looks at me, “now that we’re becoming friends, that we’re only focused on finding someone for me and not you.” I look out to where the show is winding down and Wonderland is saying their final goodbyes. Nothing good can come from this. We both know it and yet we keep ending up here. “Well, I’d be surprised if there are photos of me with women anywhere. I don’t date much these days.” “Have you ever tried DNADuo?” “Me? Definitely not,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s not that I don’t believe it or anything, I just… if I had a match, I’d want to take it seriously, and I just can’t right now.” “Jess was the same way. With Juno,” she says, clarifying. “She wasn’t interested in getting involved with anyone until Juno was in college.” “Sounds familiar.” “I’ll tell you what I told her: that makes for a boring fucking book.” “Well, maybe one day,” I say. “I tried dating a few times when Stevie was younger, but any woman worth pursuing wants more than the occasional weeknight together. Plus, whoever I’m involved with gets me, Stevie, and Nat.” “How long have you been divorced?” “Stevie was two.” “Oh wow. She was so little.” There was a time when a comment like this—no matter how well-meaning—would have sent me down a rabbit hole of guilt. Stevie was young and going through the divorce was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right thing to do,


and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. CHAPTER V Advice from a Caterpillar The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. `Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar. This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.' `What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. `Explain yourself!' `I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because I'm not myself, you see.' `I don't see,' said the Caterpillar. `I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, `for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.' `It isn't,' said the Caterpillar. `Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; `but when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?' `Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar. `Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; `all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.' `You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. `Who are YOU?' Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's making such VERY short remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, `I think, you ought to tell me who YOU are, first.' `Why?' said the Caterpillar. Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a VERY unpleasant state of mind, she turned away. `Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her. `I've something important to say!' This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again. `Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar. `Is that all?' said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could. `No,' said the Caterpillar. Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said, `So you think you're changed, do you?' `I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; `I can't remember things as I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!' `Can't remember WHAT things?' said the Caterpillar. `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice. `Repeat, "YOU ARE


behind you, or stare, or say `Christopher Columbus!' will you?" "Don't worry about me. I'll be as prim ad I can and not get into any scrapes, if I can help it. Now go and answer your note, and let me finish this splendid story." So Meg went away to `accept with thanks', look over her dress, and sing blithely as she did up her one real lace frill, while Jo finished her story, her four apples, and had a game of romps with Scrabble. On New Year's Eve the parlor was deserted, for the two younger girls played dressing maids and the two elder were absorbed in the all-important business of `getting ready for the party'. Simple as the toilets were, there was a great deal of running up and down, laughing and talking, and at one time a strong smell of burned hair pervaded the house. Meg wanted a few curls about her face, and Jo undertook to pinch the papered locks with a pair of hot tongs. "Ought they to smoke like that?" asked Beth from her perch on the bed. "It's the dampness drying," replied Jo. "What a queer smell! It's like burned feathers," observed Amy, smoothing her own pretty curls with a superior air. "There, now I'll take off the papers and you'll see a cloud of little ringlets," said Jo, putting down the tongs. She did take off the papers, but no cloud of ringlets appeared, for the hair came with the papers, and the horrified hairdresser laid a row of little scorched bundles on the bureau before her victim. "Oh, oh, oh! What have you done? I'm spoiled! I can't go! My hair, oh, my hair!" wailed Meg, looking with despair at the uneven frizzle on her forehead. "Just my luck! You shouldn't have asked me to do it. I always spoil everything. I'm so sorry, but the tongs were too hot, and so I've made a mess," groaned poor Jo, regarding the little black pancakes with tears of regret. "It isn't spoiled. Just frizzle it, and tie your ribbon so the ends come on your forehead a bit, and it will look like the last fashion. I've seen many girls do it so," said Amy consolingly. "Serves me right for trying to be fine. I wish I'd let my hair alone," cried Meg petulantly. "So do I, it was so smooth and pretty. But it will soon grow out again," said Beth, coming to kiss and comfort the shorn sheep. After various lesser mishaps, Meg was finished at last, and by the united exertions of the entire family Jo's hair was got up and her dress on. They looked very well in their simple suits, Meg's in silvery drab, with a blue velvet snood, lace frills, and the pearl pin. Jo in maroon, with a stiff, gentlemanly linen collar, and a white chrysanthemum or two for her only ornament. Each put on one nice light glove, and carried one soiled one, and all pronounced the effect "quite easy and fine". Meg's high-heeled slippers were


well," he said,"this is all very pleasant. Hallo- is this the police already?" It was. They came up to the door and had a few words with Uncle Quentin. Then one stayed behind to take down the children's story in his note-book and the others went off to get a boat to the island. The men had gone from there! The boat from the fishing-smack had fetched them away!- and now both ship and boat had disappeared! The motor-boat was still there, quite unusable. The inspector looked at it with a grin. "Fierce young lady, isn't she, that Miss Georgina?" he said. "Done this job pretty well- no one could get away in this boat. We'll have to get it towed into harbour." The police brought back with them some of the ingots of gold to show Uncle Quentin. They had sealed up the door of the dungeon so that no one else could get in until the children's uncle was ready to go and fetch the gold. Everything was being done thoroughly and properly- though far too slowly for the children! They had hoped that the men would have been caught and taken to prison- and that the police would bring back the whole of the gold at once! They were all very tired that night and didn't make any fuss at all when their aunt said that they must go to bed early. They undressed and then the boys went to eat their supper in the girls' bedroom. Tim was there, ready to lick up any fallen crumbs. "Well, I must say we've had a wonderful adventure," said Julian, sleepily. "In a way I'm sorry it's ended -though at times I didn't enjoy it very much- especially when you and I, George, were prisoners in that dungeon. That was awful." George was looking very happy as she nibbled her gingerbread biscuits. She grinned at Julian. "And to think I hated the idea of you all coming here to stay!" she said. "I was going to be such a beast to you! I was going to make you wish you were all home again! And now the only thing that makes me sad is the idea of you going away- which you will do, of course, when the holidays end. And then, after having three friends with me, enjoying adventures like this, I'll be all on my own again. I've never been lonely before- but I know I shall be now." "No, you won't," said Anne, suddenly. "You can do something that will stop you being lonely ever again." "What?" said George in surprise. "You can ask to go to the same boarding-school as I go to," said Anne. "It's such a lovely one- and we are allowed to keep our pets, so Tim could come too!" "Gracious! Could he really?" said George, her eyes shining. "Well, I'll go then. I always said I wouldn't-but I will because I see now how much better and happier it is to be with others than all by myself. And if I can have


Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully. `I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin.' He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice. `Stand up and repeat "'TIS THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD,"' said the Gryphon. `How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!' thought Alice; `I might as well be at school at once.' However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:-- `'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair." As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.' [later editions continued as follows When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.] `That's different from what I used to say when I was a child,' said the Gryphon. `Well, I never heard it before,' said the Mock Turtle; `but it sounds uncommon nonsense.' Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would EVER happen in a natural way again. `I should like to have it explained,' said the Mock Turtle. `She can't explain it,' said the Gryphon hastily. `Go on with the next verse.' `But about his toes?' the Mock Turtle persisted. `How COULD he turn them out with his nose, you know?' `It's the first position in dancing.' Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject. `Go on with the next verse,' the Gryphon repeated impatiently: `it begins "I passed by his garden."' Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:-- `I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye, How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie--' [later editions continued as follows The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat, While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat. When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon, Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon: While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl, And concluded the banquet--] `What IS the use of repeating all that stuff,' the Mock Turtle interrupted, `if you don't explain it as you go on? It's by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!' `Yes, I think you'd better leave off,' said the Gryphon: and Alice was only too glad to do so. `Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?' the Gryphon went on. `Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?' `Oh, a song, please, if the Mock


seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister went up the steps.% It was an obscure night in early May. An unwearied pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark grey of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant audience of to-morrow's Thesaurus catarrh: (n) cold, rheum, redness, defrauding: (n) defraudment, theft. otalgia, neuralgia, earache, inflammation, Qatar, ptyalism, pose, pall: (v) cloy, tire, jade, fatigue; (n) cephalalgia, odontalgia, sciatica. murr, salivation. curtain, coffin, shroud, cloak, somnambulism: (n) noctambulism, clog: (n, v) block, bar, glut; (v) choke, cerement, mantle; (adj, v) disgust. sleepwalking, noctambulation, obstruct, foul, hinder, encumber, redden: (adj, v) flush; (v) color, somnambulation, sleep walking, back up; (n) obstruction, patten. crimson, glow, go red, encrimson, sleeping. ANTONYMS: (v) free, clear, open, rubify, rubricate, rose; (adj) mantle, unwearied: (adj) indefatigable, unblock. color up. ANTONYMS: (v) blench, untiring, tireless, untired, dank: (adj) damp, wet, moist, humid, blanch. indomitable, unflagging, industrious, sticky, soggy, sultry, muggy, juicy, rheumatism: (n) arthritis, atrophic tolerant, persistent, persevering, rheumy, musty. ANTONYMS: (adj) arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid laborious. ANTONYM: (adj) arid, parched, bright. arthritis; (v) lumbago, podagra, impatient. 140 The Scarlet Letter prayer and sermon. No eye could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him in his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced with jeering laughter! He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling it off at once! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance.% And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr.


know of the contents of the envelope if he did, he would probably withdraw the bank and start all over again on the wearisome journey up from the five hundred thousand franc opening bet. The analysis was right. Le Chiffre needed another eight million. At last he nodded. 'Un banco de trente-deux millions.' The croupier's voice rang out. A silence built itself up round the table. 'Un banco de trente-deux millions.' In a louder, prouder voice the chef de partie took up the cry, hoping to draw big money away from the neighbouring chemin-de-fer tables. Besides, this was wonderful publicity. The stake had only once been reached in the history of baccarat - at Deauville in 1950. The rival Casino de la Fort at Le Touquet had never got near it. It was then that Bond leant slightly forward. 'Suivi,' he said quietly. There was an excited buzz round the table. The word ran through the Casino. People crowded in. Thirty-two million! For most of them it was more than they had earned all their lives. It was their savings and the savings of their families. It was, literally, a small fortune. One of the Casino directors consulted with the chef de partie. The chef de partie turned apologetically to Bond. 'Excusez moi, monsieur. La mise?' It was an indication that Bond really must show he had the money to cover the bet. They knew, of course, that he was a very wealthy man, but after all, thirty-two millions! And it sometimes happened that desperate people would bet without a sou in the world and cheerfully go to prison if they lost. 'Mes excuses, Monsieur Bond,' added the chef de partie obsequiously. It was when Bond shovelled the great wad of notes out on to the table and the croupier busied himself with the task of counting the pinned sheaves of ten thousand franc notes, the largest denomination issued in France, that he caught a swift exchange of glances between Le Chiffre and the gunman standing directly behind Bond. Immediately he felt something hard press into the base of his spine, right into the cleft between his two buttocks on the padded chair. At the same time a thick voice speaking southern French said softly, urgently, just behind his right ear: 'This is a gun, monsieur. It is absolutely silent. It can blow the base of your spine off without a sound. You will appear to have fainted. I shall be gone. Withdraw your bet before I count ten. If you call for help I shall fire.' The voice was confident. Bond believed it. These people had shown they would unhesitatingly go the limit. The thick walking-stick was explained. Bond knew the type of gun. The barrel a series of soft rubber baffles which absorbed the detonation, but allowed the passage of the bullet. They had been invented and used in the war for assassinations Bond had tested them himself. 'Un,' said the voice. Bond turned his head. There was the man, leaning forward close behind him, smiling broadly under his black


than trades in the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money. Even at home, where I am less pleasant, I avoid discussing tricky topics. Like the reaping, or food short- ages, or the Hunger Games. Prim might begin to repeat my words and then where would we be? In the woods waits the only person with whom I can be myself. Gale. I can feel the muscles in my face relaxing, my pace quickening as I climb the hills to our place, a rock ledge overlooking a valley. A thicket of berry bushes protects it from unwanted eyes. The sight of him waiting there brings on a smile. Gale says I never smile except in the woods. 7 “Hey, Catnip,” says Gale. My real name is Katniss, but when I first told him, I had barely whispered it. So he thought I’d said Catnip. Then when this crazy lynx started following me around the woods looking for handouts, it became his official nickname for me. I finally had to kill the lynx because he scared off game. I almost regretted it because he wasn’t bad company. But I got a decent price for his pelt. “Look what I shot,” Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an ar- row stuck in it, and I laugh. It’s real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. I take it in my hands, pull out the arrow, and hold the puncture in the crust to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that makes my mouth flood with saliva. Fine bread like this is for special occasions. “Mm, still warm,” I say. He must have been at the bakery at the crack of dawn to trade for it. “What did it cost you?” “Just a squirrel. Think the old man was feeling sentimental this morning,” says Gale. “Even wished me luck.” “Well, we all feel a little closer today, don’t we?” I say, not even bothering to roll my eyes. “Prim left us a cheese.” I pull it out. His expression brightens at the treat. “Thank you, Prim. We’ll have a real feast.” Suddenly he falls into a Capitol accent as he mimics Effie Trinket, the maniacally upbeat woman who arrives once a year to read out the names at the leaping. “I al- most forgot! Happy Hunger Games!” He plucks a few black- berries from the bushes around us. “And may the odds —” He tosses a berry in a high arc toward me. 8 I catch it in my mouth and break the delicate skin with my teeth. The sweet tartness explodes across my tongue. “— be ever in your favor!” I finish with equal verve. We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared out of your wits. Besides, the Capitol accent is so affected, almost anything sounds funny in it. I watch as Gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the


than what my freshman year would cost. All I would have focused on was that our expected family contribution was zero. Although many people identify as middle-of-the-road, middle-class, average Americans, there are differences between a working-class and a middle-class existence, and these differences can be far from subtle. If you grow up as I did and happen to be very fortunate, as I was, your family might sacrifice much so that you can go to college. You’ll feel grateful for every subsequent opportunity you get, for the degrees and open doors and better-paying jobs (if you can find them), even as an unexpected, sometimes painful distance yawns between you and the place you came from—and many will expect you to express that gratitude, using your story or your accomplishments to attack those who weren’t so lucky. But in this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you’d hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship behind, yet are unable to bring anyone else with them. * * * I spent my last few months before college working at the local Gap, a job to which I would occasionally return over holiday and summer breaks. As I had no retail experience, I did my best to project competence at my interview, emphasizing that I was a quick study (true) and a people person (less so). I suspect I got the position in part because the hiring manager saw my Asian face—finally an asset! I remember thinking, amused—as a way to signal the company’s commitment to a kind of diversity that didn’t exist in our town. The job was minimum wage, anywhere from half to full time, and exactly what I’d expected: I’d punch in, affix a little blue square Gap logo pin to my shirt, work the cash register, refold T-shirts, restock the denim wall, chat with customers, chase dust bunnies around the sales floor with a giant broom, and punch out. Everyone I worked with was older, more attractive, and far better at flirting than I was; it was like being a freshman in drama club, I decided, albeit with less drama. I felt deeply, refreshingly normal in a way I’d always craved, as close as I’d ever get to being the girl next door. Best of all, I had no grades or applications to worry about, no questions about where I’d be in the fall—I was in carefree, college-bound limbo, waiting for my new life to begin. I made liberal use of my employee discount and assembled a new wardrobe—three pairs of jeans, two pairs of nice wool-blend dress pants, cotton sweaters and oxford shirts, tank tops and T-shirts in a range of jewel tones, a short floral sundress, denim cutoffs and a cargo skirt, a red raincoat and a black trench and a navy-blue peacoat. After years of wearing whatever I’d found on sale at Fred Meyer or Penney’s, I reveled in the ability to acquire so many nice


the coward and told Simon he wasn’t happy, as if she had any right to tell the man how he felt. Now she was half a corridor away from the whole family collectively learning the truth about her deception and throwing her from the house because she hadn’t admitted to everything herself. Olivia was ahead of them and slipped into the room, leaving Simon and Lucy alone once more. Nick must have remained downstairs to give the family some privacy. Now was her chance, and she would have to take it. “Simon,” she said and pulled him to a stop. He released her arm enough to turn to face her. “Lucy.” Tell him the truth, Lucy told herself. “Things are going to change,” she said instead. It wasn’t another lie, at least. Simon gave her a gentle smile. “I will always value your friendship,” he said. Friendship. If nothing else, Lucy now knew where she stood with this wonderful, beautiful man. Their closeness at William’s had been nothing more than a demonstration of his goodness and desire to protect her, just as it had been at the pond. She was reaching for something, but no matter how far she leaned in to it, she would undoubtedly fall flat on her face because he would not be there to catch her. Not in the way she wanted. “Shall we go see how our invalid fares?” he asked. It took everything in her to keep her tears at bay, but Lucy nodded. There was little point in delaying the inevitable now. Lady Calloway stretched out her hand as soon as they entered, which Lucy took with some measure of hesitation, and pulled her into a tight side hug. “Isn’t this wonderful?” Lady Calloway whispered, looking more alive than she had all week. “We are finally all together as we should be.” Goodness, the truth would cut this woman deep. Lucy swallowed, unable to bring herself to look at the bed just yet. She would savor this feeling of having a family who cared for her and welcomed her. She would lose it all the moment she acknowledged William. Unfortunately, Olivia felt the need to hasten that moment. “Look, William. It’s Lucy!” “Your fiancée,” Simon offered, as if he thought William might need the clarification. He wasn’t wrong. Fighting a grimace, Lucy finally lifted her eyes to the bed. Her gaze was met with one of blue, and for a moment William seemed to panic as they stared at one another. But then recognition set in, and his eyebrows pulled low over an expression of relief. “My fiancée,” he repeated. Lucy offered a smile that she hoped conveyed her deep regret for what had happened without tipping off the rest of the family. “I am so glad to see you well again,” she said softly. His eyes, still dulled from his fever, searched the room. Whatever he was looking for, he brightened a little and attempted to sit up a little higher. “I know you’re all happy to see me, but I was wondering if