go public, to write about it all. How about Annie Mintz? Do you still have a job? Do you still have a family? It’s hard to tell online. 39 In April, I flew back east to see Geoff. We spent a week together in New York—we lay around in bed, I worked on the book, we ordered food—and we made plans for him to come out to LA that summer. I was very happy about it. I’m still happy about it. I lied to Fran that I was in New York for research. I was holding out for the right moment to tell her, the right moment to hear her shriek “I’ve been waiting for this for thirty years!” From New York, I took the Amtrak up to Manchester, where Fran picked me up and brought me to Granby; I’d stay with her for two nights. We had something important to do, something I don’t want to tell you about quite yet. The next day, we’d go to the matinee of the student musical, the one the Shirley Jackson fanatic wanted me to see. Late that first afternoon, as Fran and I walked her golden retriever around the lacrosse field, my phone buzzed with three messages in a row, from Britt, Yahav, and Alder: Bad news and Motion for retrial denied and Fucckckck, respectively. My breath stopped with disbelief more than shock. Wasn’t it too soon? It had barely been a month. This was surely a mistake, some minor legal hiccup I didn’t understand. But it was real. Yahav wrote again: He can appeal, altho that’s an even longer shot. I’m so sorry, Bodie. I hope I didn’t give you false optimism. I tried not to. These things never come through. They’re designed that way. I showed my phone to Fran, my hand shaking. Boris tried to jump up to sniff it, this thing we were both so interested in. Fran asked if I wanted to be alone. I didn’t answer, just numbly followed her home. I wondered how long it would take for Omar to get the news. He might not know yet. I wished him one last night of hope. In Fran’s guest room, in the dark, I watched the video Dane Rubra had just put up. I’d become strangely fond of him. If nothing else, I could let him feel all the emotions for me. Dane said, “Ultimately, no, it’s not a shock. This was not actually exculpatory evidence for Omar. You can believe Robbie Serenho beat the tar out of Thalia every day and showed up late to the woods and still believe Omar was the one who did it. You’d be wrong, but there you go.” He said, “You know what to do, all of you in this incredible community we’ve built. Brand-new evidence could still be a game changer, and we know there’s more to be found. The state is bound to dig their heels in. They’ll never admit they were wrong. My strong guess, they’re consulting with Thalia’s family. And the Keiths have been dead


said the convert. And he went. Mr. Kiaga stood firm, and it was his firmness that saved the young church. The wavering converts drew inspiration and confidence from his unshakable faith. He ordered the outcasts to shave off their long, tangled hair. At first they were afraid they might die. "Unless you shave off the mark of your heathen belief I will not admit you into the church," said Mr. Kiaga. "You fear that you will die. Why should that be? How are you different from other men who shave their hair? The same God created you and them. But they have cast you out like lepers. It is against the will of God, who has promised everlasting life to all who believe in His holy name. The heathen say you will die if you do this or that, and you are afraid. They also said I would die if I built my church on this ground. Am I dead? They said I would die if I took care of twins. I am still alive. The heathen speak nothing but falsehood. Only the word of our God is true." The two outcasts shaved off their hair, and soon they were the strongest adherents of the new faith. And what was more, nearly all the osu in Mbanta followed their example. It was in fact one of them who in his zeal brought the church into serious conflict with the clan a year later by killing the sacred python, the emanation of the god of water. The royal python was the most revered animal in Mbanta and all the surrounding clans. It was addressed as "Our Father," and was allowed to go wherever it chose, even into people's beds. It ate rats in the house and sometimes swallowed hens' eggs. If a clansman killed a royal python accidentally, he made sacrifices of atonement and performed an expensive burial ceremony such as was done for a great man. No punishment was prescribed for a man who killed the python knowingly. Nobody thought that such a thing could ever happen. Perhaps it never did happen. That was the way the clan at first looked at it. No one had actually seen the man do it. The story had arisen among the Christians themselves. But, all the same, the rulers and elders of Mbanta assembled to decide on their action. Many of them spoke at great length and in fury. The spirit of wars was upon them. Okonkwo, who had begun to play a part in the affairs of his motherland, said that until the abominable gang was chased out of the village with whips there would be no peace. But there were many others who saw the situation differently, and it was their counsel that prevailed in the end. "It is not our custom to fight for our gods," said one of them. "Let us not presume to do so now. If a man kills the sacred python in the secrecy of his hut, the matter lies between him and the god. We did not


turned to head toward the door, but Vic stopped him by grabbing his arm. He looked down at Vic’s hand, then up at his face, asking a question without speaking. Vic let his arm go, reaching up and pulling his hood back over his head. “One of us.” Hap looked like he was about to argue but shook his head instead. Then he adjusted Vic’s helmet until it was no longer crooked. “There are w-worse th-things I c-can be.” Vic grinned at him. It felt odd to be smiling at such a time, but he couldn’t stop it if he’d tried. And wonder of all wonders, Hap smiled back. It was small, the edges twitching, but there. “Oh boy,” Nurse Ratched said. “If I had known all it would take would be to lock the two of you in a small enclosed space, I would have done it ages ago.” Vic stepped back, shaking his head. “Come on. It’s time to go to Heaven.” They stopped in front of a door at what Nurse Ratched said was the front of the warehouse. Vic reached for the door handle, but Hap stopped him, motioning him to step to the side. “We d-don’t know what’s on the other sside. Let me g-go first.” Irritated, Vic said, “I can do it.” “You are sweating,” Nurse Ratched said. “Your heart rate is elevated.” He glanced back at her. “And?” “Machines do not sweat,” she said. “Get yourself together, Victor. Let Hap go through first just to make sure it is safe.” He wiped his brow. Sure enough, his hand came away wet. “It’s warm. I can’t just stop sweating. The disguise is heavy.” Hap squinted at him. “You c-can’t turn off your l-leaking?” “I—that’s not—no, I can’t just turn it off.” “Wh-why not?” “That’s not how it— Would you just go through the damn door?” “It’s okay to be nervous and scared,” Rambo said, bumping against his leg. “Do you want me to leak with you? Give me a second. Wait for it. Wait for it. And … there.” A little dribble of oil spilled out onto the ground. “See? I’m just like you!” “That is not sanitary,” Nurse Ratched said. “Victor, deep breaths. Rambo, stop being weird.” “I don’t know how not to be weird,” Rambo said. “That’s like asking the birds to stop flying.” Hap cracked open the door. Vic stumbled back at the wave of sound that bowled over them. It was cacophonous, grating and harsh. Metal against metal. The shriek of sirens in the distance. Insistent beeping. Voices, though not speaking in words that Vic could understand. Light filled the open crack in the door, causing Vic to blink rapidly. Hap stuck his head out, hand still gripping the doorknob. Vic felt a hum vibrating up his legs to the rest of his body, causing his disguise to rattle against his frame. It was as if he was electrified. Hap leaned back in. “We m-move quick. K-keep your head down. Nurse R-ratched, where do we g-go first?” “Right,” she said promptly. “Three


for my actions again.” “So what stopped you?” “The same thing that stopped me from opening your letters. I thought you hated me,” I said. “But if I didn’t see you, if you didn’t tell me, then I’d never know for sure.” “Lanier, do you know what those letters said?” I shook my head. “They said I loved you, that I forgave you, that I would wait for you forever.” Rich was so close now that I could feel his breath, his steady inhale and exhale. “They said I would always protect you, always keep you safe, and if getting a stupid drinking ticket was a way I could prove that, then I would do it a million times over.” I didn’t even mean to open my mouth, but somehow, it happened and out it slipped. “I loved you, too, Rich. More than I’ve ever loved anyone.” It felt like I’d just said, More than I’ve ever loved Bryce. It was so wrong. I needed to walk out. But then, my heart beating fast, he stepped closer to me. With the rain thudding on the roof and the wind whipping outside, our eyes locked. “You’re engaged,” Rich said, stepping even closer. “We’re not in a good place,” I said honestly. “It isn’t working between us.” “Even still, we shouldn’t,” Rich murmured, inching so close the water from his hair dripped on my shoulders. For a second, it seemed like time had stopped. “Screw it.” I took that final step and threw my arms around Rich’s neck, our mouths melting together like they had never been apart. I pulled Rich’s soaking-wet shirt off his body, and we both laughed as he hoisted me up onto the counter, his lips never leaving mine. His skin was so warm, I felt like I might dissolve into him as he pulled me even closer. I was so lost in the feeling of him that I couldn’t imagine ever being apart again. Our hearts beat in time, our bodies were a melody, our breath the lyrics. And I knew that nothing had changed. Just like we had carved all those years ago: RICH + LANIER = LOVE. Daphne CHAOS AND DESTRUCTION LIGHTING A FIRE IS STILL one of my favorite things to do. There’s such power in the feeling of adding light and heat to the world. It must have been a marvelous—and truly terrifying—experience for whoever first rubbed two sticks or rocks together and made a flame. The storm had passed, leaving a lovely crispness in the air, and I decided to build a fire in the cobblestone campfire circle by the river for my friends and anyone else who wanted to come. As I set it up, I feel the paper in my pocket rustle and smile. There is something terribly romantic about being somewhere with horrible cell service and having the man you can’t get enough of send you love notes instead of texts. Sure, I had some concerns yesterday about my future with Huff. But I woke up this morning realizing that Huff


behind this conversation didn’t bode well. “Sometimes new Rockettes have a hard time adjusting to the role. The restrictions of this style of dance can feel stifling for some. You’re a terrific dancer, don’t get me wrong, but there are times you stand out from the crowd. I think you know what I’m talking about.” “I know I’m getting more notes than any of the other dancers. I’m sorry for letting you down. I want to be better, I do.” If she lost this job, she’d have to completely start over: find an agent who would send her out on auditions, try to please producers and casting directors. She’d seen enough of her fellow residents at the Rehearsal Club go through the cycle of audition and rejection to know that it took serious resilience to tread the boards of Broadway. There was no way she’d be up to it right now. Or, of course, she could take the easy way out and move home, agree to marry Nathaniel. But the image of Lucille’s stash of boxes in the attic was never far from Marion’s thoughts: Lucille, who’d been so eager to have a career in the theater and then had to give it all up. Marion was forging ahead as a way of carrying on Lucille’s legacy, and most of the time that made all the heartache worthwhile. “I’m sorry, Russell. I hate to disappoint you, and I promise I’ll pull it together. I have a week off, so that will give me more than enough time to refocus and tighten up my dancing. Please, give me another chance.” Russell smiled. “Of course, my dear. Go home and rest, and I’ll see you in a week. I want to make sure we’re not pushing you too fast, that’s all.” “I truly appreciate it. And I won’t disappoint you.” The theater was practically empty by the time she made it to the stage door; the security guard gave her a nod as she passed by. Outside, the air was cold and a few flurries skittered under the streetlights. “Marion.” She turned to see Peter leaning against the building a few feet away. He wore a navy peacoat and a woolen cap over his head, and some of his curls peeked out from the sides. His eyes were blue and bright; he looked like some handsome sailor who’d just arrived in town. Something about him was different, and it took her a moment to realize it was because he was smiling. Usually, he was such a serious man. “What are you doing here?” “I got a call today. Somers wants to see me again, first thing tomorrow.” “Why? What’s happened?” She shivered and pulled her scarf closer around her neck. “It’s cold out here. What do you say we grab a bite? I haven’t had a chance to eat all day and I’m starved.” They crossed the street to Moriarty’s and took a seat in one of the booths. The place was empty this late, and quiet. He ordered a hamburger and she did


n) service; distorted, incorrect, wry, wrong; zip; (adj) any (n) good, assistance, utility; (v) do. (adv) skew; (v) irregular. auspicious: (adj) lucky, favorable, ANTONYMS: (v) useless, hurt, ANTONYMS: (adj) straight, right, propitious, happy, prosperous, hinder, harm; (n) inappropriateness aligned, even providential, successful, opportune; avenge: (v) revenge, punish, retaliate, babble: (n, v) drivel, gossip, chat, (adj, n) fortunate, helpful; (adj, v) wreak, vindicate, repay, get even, burble, prattle; (v) ripple, gab, talk, auspicial. ANTONYMS: (adj) penalize, requite, vengeance, venge. blab, smatter, bubble. ANTONYMS: unfortunate, inopportune, ANTONYMS: (v) excuse, overlook, (n, v) stillness, quietness; (n) sense unfavorable, untimely, ominous, tolerate, pardon babbling: (adj) loquacious, telltale, unlucky, insignificant avenger: (n) vindicator, revenger, voluble, blatant, blathering, austerity: (adj, n) acerbity, stringency; wreaker, venger, Eumenides, blithering, gabbling, garrulous, (n) asceticism, strictness, sternness, aggressor, assailant, attacker, jabbering; (n) stultiloquy, gravity, severity, hardship, retaliator stultiloquence harshness, plainness, simplicity. avowal: (n) declaration, assertion, babe: (n) infant, baby, chick, sweetie, ANTONYMS: (n) permissiveness, affirmation, admission, statement, suckling, nursling, child, newborn, leniency, lenience, exuberance, recognition, acknowledgement, chit, girl, darling. ANTONYMS: (n) abandonment, gentleness, announcement, confession, grownup, adult, adolescent indulgence, joy, warmth, affluence, testimony; (n, v) profession babes: (n) babies, babe cheerfulness avowed: (adj) acknowledged, babyhood: (n) childhood, authentic: (adj) genuine, actual, attested, ostensible, sworn, stated, immaturity, babehood, girlhood, straight, right, real, accurate, valid, confirmed, declared, pretended, youthhood, immatureness, believable, bona fide, true; (adj, v) known, authenticated, apparent boyhood, early days, early Nathaniel Hawthorne 261 childhood, cradle; (adj) puerility. dunker, ana, Tunker; (v) baptize; stages, early period, first phase ANTONYMS: (n) parenthood, (adj) Baptistic beheld: (adj) visual adolescence barbed: (adj) mordant, thorny, sharp, behest: (n) command, dictate, order, backward: (adj, adv) late, pungent, caustic, spiny, cutting, bidding, dictum, ordinance, hest, behindhand; (adj) tardy, retarded, acrid, spiteful, acid; (v) barded. fiat, charge, mandate, injunction reluctant, coy, slow, laggard, ANTONYM: (adj) smooth behold: (v) see, view, contemplate, dilatory; (adv) behind, backwardly. bard: (n) minstrel, muse; (v) beautify, regard, perceive, observe, look, ANTONYMS: (adj, adv) ahead; decorate, embellish; (adj) lyrist, consider, discern, descry, watch. (adv) onward; (adj) quick, scald, skald, troubadour, trouvere, ANTONYMS: (v) Miss, disregard, developing, advanced, confident, barred ignore, overlook brilliant, bold bareheaded: (adj) hatless, bare, bald, beholder: (n) witness, looker, backwardness: (n) reserve, unclothed, alone; (v) cap in hand, observer, onlooker, viewer, abnormality, amentia, stupidity, obsequious, respectful, reverential, eyewitness, bystander, auditor, arrearage, diffidence, bashfulness, decorous, ceremonious audile, passer by, watcher shyness, lag, mongoloid, bark: (n, v) skin, yelp, snarl, cry, rind, beholding: (n) fusion, seeing, visual subnormality shout; (v) growl, roar; (n) bay, peel, perception, look bade: (v) bid, command, bad crust. ANTONYMS: (n, v) whisper behoof: (n) advantage, behalf, badge: (n) sign, emblem, insignia, barren: (adj, n) sterile; (adj) infertile, service, behoove medal, token, plaque, symbol, logo, deserted, arid, void, dry, stark, bellow: (n, v) shout, growl, yell, cry, indication, identification, meagre, fruitless, abortive; (n) snarl, scream, howl, call, holler; (v) characteristic waste. ANTONYMS: (adj) bawl; (n) bay. ANTONYMS: (v) baffling: (adj) knotty, productive, lush, fruitful, murmur, mutter incomprehensible, puzzling, developing, growing, profitable, beloved: (adj, n) dear, darling, inexplicable, unaccountable, rewarding, rich, sheltered, humid, favorite, pet; (adj) precious, loved, unfathomable, baffle, bewildering,


my own concubinage. Yet . . . I was more than concubine. "Mother." Paul stopped in front of her. Chani stood at his elbow. "Mother, do you know what they're doing back there?" Jessica looked at the dark patch of his eyes staring out from the hood. "I think so." "Chani showed me . . . because I'm supposed to see it and give my . . . permission for the weighing of the water." Jessica looked at Chani. "They're recovering Jamis' water," Chani said, and her thin voice came out nasal past the nose plugs. "It's the rule. The flesh belongs to the person, but his water belongs to the tribe . . . except in the combat." "They say the water's mine," Paul said. Jessica wondered why this should make her suddenly alert and cautious. "Combat water belongs to the winner," Chani said. "It's because you have to fight in the open without stillsuits. The winner has to get his water back that he loses while fighting." "I don't want his water," Paul muttered. He felt that he was a part of many images moving simultaneously in a fragmenting way that was disconcerting to the inner eye. He could not be certain what he would do, but of one thing he was positive: he did not want the water distilled out of Jamis' flesh. "It's . . . water," Chani said. Jessica marveled at the way she said it. "Water." So much meaning in a simple sound. A Bene Gesserit axiom came to Jessica's mind: "Survival is the ability to swim in strange water." And Jessica thought: Paul and I, we must find the currents and patterns in these strange waters . . . if we're to survive. "You will accept the water," Jessica said. She recognized the tone in her voice. She had used that same tone once with Leto, telling her lost Duke that he would accept a large sum offered for his support in a questionable venture--because money maintained power for the Atreides. On Arrakis, water was money. She saw that clearly. Paul remained silent, knowing then that he would do as she ordered--not because she ordered it, but because her tone of voice had forced him to re-evaluate. To refuse the water would be to break with accepted Fremen practice. Presently Paul recalled the words of 467 Kalima in Yueh's O.C. Bible. He said: "From water does all life begin." Jessica stared at him. Where did he learn that quotation? she asked herself. He hasn't studied the mysteries. "Thus it is spoken," Chani said. "Giudichar mantene: It is written in the Shah-Nama that water was the first of all things created." For no reason she could explain (and this bothered her more than the sensation), Jessica suddenly shuddered. She turned away to hide her confusion and was just in time to see the sunset. A violent calamity of color spilled over the sky as the sun dipped beneath the horizon. "It is time!" The voice was Stilgar's ringing in the cavern. "Jamis' weapon has been killed.


looked away, confused and sweating. Piggy whispered. "The fire--rescue." "Who'll join my tribe?" "I will." "Me." "I will." "I'll blow the conch," said Ralph breathlessly, "and call an assembly." "We shan't hear it." Piggy touched Ralph's wrist. "Come away. There's going to be trouble. And we've had our meat." There was a blink of bright light beyond the forest and the thunder exploded again so that a littlun started to whine. Big drops of rain fell among them making individual sounds when they struck. "Going to be a storm," said Ralph, "and you'll have rain like when we dropped here. Who's clever now? Where are your shelters? What are you going to do about that?" The hunters were looking uneasily at the sky, flinching from the stroke of the drops. A wave of restlessness set the boys swaying and moving aimlessly. The flickering light became brighter and the blows of the thunder were only just bearable. The littluns began to run about, screaming. Jack leapt on to the sand. "Do our dance! Come on! Dance!" He ran stumbling through the thick sand to the open space of rock beyond the fire. Between the flashes of lightning the air was dark and terrible; and the boys followed him, clamorously. Roger became the pig, grunting and charging at Jack, who side-stepped. The hunters took their spears, the cooks took spits, and the rest clubs of firewood. A circling movement developed and a chant. While Roger mimed the terror of the pig, the littluns ran and jumped on the outside of the circle. Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable. "_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!_" The movement became regular while the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse. Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily. Some of the littluns started a ring on their own; and the complementary circles went round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There was the throb and stamp of a single organism. The dark sky was shattered by a blue-white scar. An instant later the noise was on them like the blow of a gigantic whip. The chant rose a tone in agony. "_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!_" Now out of the terror rose another desire, thick, urgent, blind. "_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!_" Again the blue-white scar jagged above them and the sulphurous explosion beat down. The littluns screamed and blundered about, fleeing from the edge of the forest, and one of them broke the ring of biguns in his terror. "Him! Him!" The circle became a horseshoe. A thing was crawling out of the forest. It came darkly, uncertainly. The shrill screaming that rose before the beast


the past it didn’t matter. I walked into the house, where a few people were milling around, and spotted Bryce whispering into his phone in a corner on a leather bench by the door. It seemed like every time I looked for Bryce lately, I found him on his phone. I watched him for a moment, noticing how he seemed agitated—a little red, even. When he looked up and saw me, he ended the call quickly and rushed toward me. I crossed my arms. “Bryce. What is going on?” He shook his head. “It’s just a work thing, babe.” “On a Saturday night? I’m sorry, but no one on your crew is working on a Saturday night.” I thought for a second, then gasped. “Are you having an affair?” He rolled his eyes with a smile. “Yes, Lanier. The secret’s out. I’m having an affair with my mom’s seventy-nine-year-old secretary.” He held up the phone so I could see JENNY OWENS on the screen. I did a gut check. I didn’t actually think he was having an affair, but something had seemed off the last couple of weeks. All the champagne I’d had finally made me feel brave enough to say, “It’s just that every time I turn around, you’re on the phone, hiding somewhere.” He took a deep breath and smoothed his tuxedo jacket. “Honey, I’m sorry. I promise I’m dealing with something work-related. I also promise I’m not having an affair. Why would I mess this up when I have the greatest girl in the world?” He leaned over, and I accepted his kiss halfheartedly. I furrowed my brow. He was a contractor, not a CIA agent. He didn’t need to be so secretive. I knew Bryce—and everyone in his industry really—was having a hard time keeping up with demand, that workers were almost as scarce as materials, and everything was costing way more than quoted. But he could open up to me about this stuff. He just never did. Bryce took my hand and twirled me around, putting his party face back on. “All I know is that it’s Saturday night, it’s gorgeous out, I have the most beautiful date here, and I want to show her off on that dance floor. Would you do me the honor?” There he was. My Bryce was back. As he wrapped his arm around me, holding me close as we walked slowly back out to the pool, I wished I could help him fix whatever was going on at work. As we stood at the top of the steps, bathed in moonlight, watching the dancers crowding the floor, he said, “Babe, the stress of my job lately has me thinking.” “Thinking?” “Yeah. I mean, instead of arguing with subs and apologizing to homeowners for supply chain issues I have no control over, I want to spend more time with you, help plan the wedding.” Bryce had stayed as far away from wedding planning as humanly possible, so this felt out of left field. He cleared his throat. “What would you think about


"Is there any ill news?" I demanded. "Has anything happened?"     "No. How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his cloak and hanging it up against the door, toward which he again coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his boots.     "I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must excuse me for once." Then he approached the fire. "I have had hard work to get here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame. "One drift took me up to the waist; but happily the snow is quite soft yet."     "But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying. "Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask it, I answer, simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel."     He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his was a very cool and collected insanity. I had never seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead, and let the fire-light shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart; I was moved to say, "I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you. It is too bad that you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own health."     "Not at all," said he;" I care for myself when necessary. I am well now. What do you see amiss in me?"     This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was silenced.     He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate. Thinking it urgent to say something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which was behind him.     "No, no," he responded, shortly and somewhat testily.     "Well," I reflected, "if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll let you alone now and return to my book."


to school? She had a proper ding-dong with him. Da said all I needed was to learn to shoot a gun and kill a rabbit. She told him I’d need to add up any money I earned and to spell the word rabbit. He listened to her, my da did, and after that he sent me to school. Well, I think it was probably Ma who told him straight that I had to go. I took Miss Hamilton a pheasant by way of a thank you.’ ‘I remember it well,’ Josie said with a smile. Lin’s shrieks had filled the classroom before she burst into tears. Lin had always been sentimental and kind-hearted. Her relationship with Neil had probably started then with the packet of Love Hearts, the sweet that proclaimed: Be Mine. They walked along the riverside for an hour or two, Fergal telling stories of Ros, their courtship, and the larks they’d had with their boys when they were younger. Josie smiled fondly at the memories. They made their way to the village green where the activities were just beginning. A huge crowd of people were watching the Morris dancers who were dressed in bright yellows, greens and reds, clacking sticks and skipping around each other. Josie recognised a few of the dancers. Jack Lovejoy and Bobby Ledbury were among them, twirling and leaping energetically. Fergal pointed to Devlin and Finn, who were helping Dickie at the drinks stall, wearing floral hats. He pressed her arm. ‘Can I get you something to wet your whistle? There’s fruit punch.’ ‘That would be lovely,’ Josie answered. Fergal shuffled towards the stall while Josie gazed around. The Morris dancers were jigging to the accordion, pipe and tabor. Gerald Harris was standing, hands in his pockets, face glum, watching. Penny Ledbury was selling jams and chutneys; there were craft stalls and face painting. A hog was roasting on a spit; there was a cake stall, pies. Josie felt a gentle pressure on her arm and found Lin next to her with Neil. ‘It’s a nice day for it, Josie,’ Lin said cheerily. ‘The whole village has turned out. Oh, hi…’ She waved to Florence, who had arrived with Dangerous Dave. ‘I think Cecily’s coming too.’ Neil grinned. ‘Lin told me about the Shakespeare and the picnic. You must have had a great time.’ Josie nodded. ‘It’s a shame Minnie couldn’t have stayed on. She was May Queen once…’ ‘We all were,’ Lin recalled. ‘I was Miss Middleton Ferris 1964.’ ‘I remember.’ Neil pecked her cheek. ‘You’re still as lovely.’ Lin flushed with pleasure. Fergal arrived with two glasses of fruit punch for Lin and Josie. ‘Here you are, ladies.’ He turned to Neil. ‘I’m getting myself a cider – do you want one, Neil?’ ‘Oh, I’m not staying.’ Josie frowned. ‘Not staying to watch the fun?’ ‘Neil’s doing a lot of walking at the moment – his cholesterol is a bit high,’ Lin explained uncomfortably. ‘The weather is perfect for a walk,’ Neil added. He pecked Lin’s cheek. ‘I’ll see you this evening, love.


each hugging her little warm turnover, and each trying to be cheerful in spite of wintry weather, hard work, and the unsatisfied desires of pleasure-loving youth. When Mr. March lost his property in trying to help an unfortunate friend,the two oldest girls begged to be allowed to do something toward their own support, at least. Believing that they could not begin too early to cultivate energy, industry, and independence, their parents consented, and both fell to work with the hearty good will which in spite of all obstacles is sure to succeed at last. Margaret found a place as nursery governess and felt rich with her small salary. As she said, she was `fond of luxury', and her chief trouble was poverty. She found it harder to bear than the others because she could remember a time when home was beautiful,life full of ease and pleasure, and want of any kind unknown. She tried not to be envious or discontented, but it was very natural that the young girl should long for pretty things, gay friends, accomplishments, and a happy life. At the Kings' she daily saw all she wanted, for the children's older sisters were just out, and Meg caught frequent glimpses of dainty ball dresses and bouquets, heard lively gossip about theaters, concerts, sleighing parties, and merrymakings of all kinds, and saw money lavished on trifles which would have been so precious to her. Poor Meg seldom complained,but a sense of injustice made her feel bitter toward everyone sometimes,for she had not yet learned to know how rich she was in the blessings which alone can make life happy. Jo happened to suit Aunt March, who was lame and needed an active person to wait upon her. The childless old lady had offered to adopt one of the girls when the troubles came, and was much offended because her offer was declined. Other friends told the Marches that they had lost all chance of being remembered in the rich old lady's will, but the unworldly Marches only said . . . "We can't give up our girls for a dozen fortunes. Rich or poor, we will keep together and be happy in one another." The old lady wouldn't speak to them for a time, but happening to meet Jo at at a friend's, something in her comical face and blunt manners struck the old lady's fancy, and she proposed to take her for a companion. This did not suit Jo at all, but she accepted the place since nothing better appeared and, to every one's surprise, got on remarkably well with her irascible relative. There was an occasional tempest, and once Jo marched home, declaring she couldn't bear it longer, but Aunt March always cleared up quickly, and sent for her to come back again with such urgency that she could not refuse, for in her heart she rather liked the peppery old lady. I suspect that the real attraction was a large library of fine books, which was left to dust and spiders since Uncle March died. Jo remembered


down a long way. Then they came to an end. Julian stepped down from the last rock-stair and flashed his torch around. It was a weird sight that met his eyes. The dungeons of Kirrin Castle were made out of the rock itself. Whether there were natural caves there, or whether they had been hollowed out by man the children could not tell. But certainly they were very mysterious, dark and full of echoing sounds. When Julian gave a sigh of excitement it fled into the rocky hollows and swelled out and echoed around as if it were a live thing. It gave all the children a very queer feeling. "Isn't it strange?" said George, in a low voice. At once the echoes took up her words, and multiplied them and made them louder- and all the dungeon caves gave back the girl's words over and over again. "Isn't it strange, ISN'T IT STRANGE, ISN'T IT STRANGE." Anne slipped her hand into Dick's. She felt scared. She didn't like the echoes at all. She knew they were only echoes- but they did sound exactly like the voices of scores of people hidden in the caves! "Where do you suppose the ingots are?" said Dick. And at once the caves threw him back his words. "INGOTS! Ingots are! INGOTS ARE! ARE! ARE!" Julian laughed- and his laugh was split up into dozens of different laughs that came out of the dungeons and spun round the listening children. It really was the queerest thing. "Come on," said Julian. "Maybe the echoes won't be so bad a little farther in." "FARTHER IN," said the echoes at once. "FARTHER IN!" They moved away from the end of the rocky steps and explored the nearby dungeons. They were really only rocky cellars stretching under the castle. Maybe wretched prisoners had been kept there many, many years before, but mostly they had been used for storing things. "I wonder which dungeon was used for storing the ingots," said Julian. He stopped and took the map out of his pocket. He flashed his torch on to it. But although it showed him quite plainly the dungeon where INGOTS were marked, he had no idea at all of the right direction. "I say- look- there's a door here, shutting off the next dungeon!" suddenly cried Dick. "I bet this is the dungeon we're looking for! I bet there are ingots in here!" Chapter Thirteen DOWN IN THE DUNGEONS Contents- Prev/Next FOUR torches were flashed on to the wooden door. It was big and stout, studded with great iron nails. Julian gave a whoop of delight and rushed to it. He felt certain that behind it was the dungeon used for storing things. But the door was fast shut. No amount of pushing or pulling would open it. It had a great key-hole- but no key there! The four children stared in exasperation at the door. Bother it! Just as they really thought they were near the ingots, this door wouldn't open! "We'll fetch the axe," said Julian, suddenly. "We may


now deeply affected. The delicate iridescence of the London air gave the softness of a pastel to the gray stone of the buildings; and in the wharfs and storehouses there was the severity of grace of a Japanese print. They went further down; and the splendid channel, a symbol of the great empire, broadened, and it was crowded with traffic; Philip thought of the painters and the poets who had made all these things so beautiful, and his heart was filled with gratitude. They came to the Pool of London, and who can describe its majesty? The imagination thrills, and Heaven knows what figures people still its broad stream, Doctor Johnson with Boswell by his side, an old Pepys going on board a man-o'-war: the pageant of English history, and romance, and high adventure. Philip turned to Hayward with shining eyes. "Dear Charles Dickens," he murmured, smiling a little at his own emotion. "Aren't you rather sorry you chucked painting?" asked Hayward. "No." "I suppose you like doctoring?" "No, I hate it, but there was nothing else to do. The drudgery of the first two years is awful, and unfortunately I haven't got the scientific temperament." "Well, you can't go on changing professions." "Oh, no. I'm going to stick to this. I think I shall like it better when I get into the wards. I have an idea that I'm more interested in people than in anything else in the world. And as far as I can see, it's the only profession in which you have your freedom. You carry your knowledge in your head; with a box of instruments and a few drugs you can make your living anywhere." "Aren't you going to take a practice then?" "Not for a good long time at any rate," Philip answered. "As soon as I've got through my hospital appointments I shall get a ship; I want to go to the East--the Malay Archipelago, Siam, China, and all that sort of thing--and then I shall take odd jobs. Something always comes along, cholera duty in India and things like that. I want to go from place to place. I want to see the world. The only way a poor man can do that is by going in for the medical." They came to Greenwich then. The noble building of Inigo Jones faced the river grandly. "I say, look, that must be the place where Poor Jack dived into the mud for pennies," said Philip. They wandered in the park. Ragged children were playing in it, and it was noisy with their cries: here and there old seamen were basking in the sun. There was an air of a hundred years ago. "It seems a pity you wasted two years in Paris," said Hayward. "Waste? Look at the movement of that child, look at the pattern which the sun makes on the ground, shining through the trees, look at that sky--why, I should never have seen that sky if I hadn't been to Paris." Hayward thought that Philip choked a sob, and he looked at


room what I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You quite follow me?" "Entirely." "It is nothing very formidable," he said, taking a long cigar- shaped roll from his pocket. "It is an ordinary plumber's smoke- rocket, fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then walk to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have made myself clear?" "I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and at the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street." "Precisely." "Then you may entirely rely on me." "That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I prepare for the new role I have to play." He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist clergyman. His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have equalled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in crime. It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still wanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in Serpentine Avenue. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just being lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, waiting for the coming of its occupant. The house was just such as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes's succinct description, but the locality appeared to be less private than I expected. On the contrary, for a small street in a quiet neighborhood, it was remarkably animated. There was a group of shabbily dressed men smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with a nurse-girl, and several well-dressed young men who were lounging up and down with cigars in their mouths. "You see," remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of the house, "this marriage rather simplifies matters. The photograph becomes a double-edged weapon now. The chances are that she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey Norton, as our client is to its coming to the eyes of his princess. Now the question is, Where are we to find the photograph?" "Where, indeed?" "It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is cabinet size. Too large for easy concealment about a woman's dress. She knows that the King


wants to scan the doc box, but I flat palm his chest and walk right on by. I get into the elevator and don’t push a button. It moves anyway. Stefan is sitting at the enormous desk. He doesn’t get up. I walk across the room and put the doc box down beside him. “You’re an idiot,” I say, and Stefan nods. “You would feel that way. I’m sure you think I should have told you the whole story at the beginning.” “No.” He raises his eyebrows. “No?” “No. It’s private business. You could have saved me some time, but…whatever. Time doesn’t mean that much to you, does it? You’re an idiot because you saved him.” Dr. Lillian Antonin, a researcher at the Tonfamecasca company, was first treated with T7 at Demeter Mercy on September 9th. But on the same day, according to the company files, Dr. Peter Jens Antonin was admitted to a private room at Asclepius General and treated by an external team. He also received T7, which healed his broken bones, increased his physical mass, and left him screaming for day upon day until the regular staff broke in and anaesthetised him. Stefan shrugs. “He was a resource, Cal. He really did understand the drug in some special instinctive way. Had a knack for it. I wanted to keep the scientist and lose the man. I failed, of course. I got Roddy instead. We’ve done a lot of work on T7 amnesia since then; perhaps today he wouldn’t be such a patchwork of lost pieces and inventions. Although after she hit him with that steel, the bleed probably did a lot of the damage. And I rather enjoyed Roddy, over the years. He was so achingly persistent, so honest and determined. It was like my very own serial television show: the wronged drifter moving from town to town in search of evidence he will never find, doing good along the way. Falling in love, even, from time to time. And all that, with a delicious wash of irony that only I could see: compulsive viewing. Well, I suppose all things must end. Except me, of course. Is that his liver?” “No, I brought you steaks.” “Ah. Bathos. Very good, Cal. Well done.” “Did you kill him?” Stefan rumbles in his chest, and I realise it’s a chuckle. He’s keeping it in, because he’s in a good mood. “Don’t be absurd. Think of the algal perfusion or whatever it was, and the benefit to the lake ecosystem. Not to mention the entertainment value. No, no. I told you, Roddy was no problem for me.” “He was for Lillian.” “Peter was. He really did die that night. She really did kill him, and it really was self-defence. And Roddy wouldn’t have recognised her if he saw her, even if he could remember. That weird little doll Peter wanted so much, that he turned her into…she doesn’t exist now. Not for decades.” “And you’re not together any more.” “No. By our mutual choice. Good times, though.” I look at him looking at


guess.” “Hmm.” Sloane presses her lips together. “Knowing Ethan, I think he was just being thorough.” Evelyn uncrosses her arms as she appears to weigh Sloane’s words. “We’re happier than ever now,” Sloane adds. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Evelyn’s eyes drop to Sloane’s hand on her front pocket. Frozen still, Sloane resists the urge to follow her gaze. Just be cool. She can’t see it. The sides of Evelyn’s mouth lift into a smile when she looks up. “You are pregnant, aren’t you?” Sloane swallows, feeling herself nod. “Yes. Yes, I am.” Evelyn’s eyes widen with joy. “It’s still really early, so don’t say anything to any—” “Of course, I won’t!” Evelyn pulls Sloane into a hug before she can stop her. Sloane steps back, afraid Evelyn could feel the outline of the gun behind Sloane’s hand. “Shh!” She looks around, but they’re alone in the corridor. “Sorry,” Evelyn whispers, lifting her shoulders. “Congratulations!” “Thanks.” Sloane steps to the side, giving Evelyn a wide enough berth that she doesn’t go in for another hug as Sloane moves past. “I’m actually not feeling well. Can you stitch up the patient in treatment room seven while I run to the locker room?” “You got it.” Evelyn winks. “And your secret’s safe with me.” Sloane hurries down the hall, keeping a hand against the gun. What the hell am I doing? As she strides down the hallway, her eyes rest on treatment room six, the room where Chelsea died. In that moment, she knows the answer to her own question: She’s doing what has to be done. Chapter 43 “Dr. Marks!” Sloane turns. Logan is coming toward her with swift steps. “Your husband’s here.” Sloane presses her hand against the gun in her pocket. She hasn’t talked to Ethan since his brief appearance at the restaurant last night. “He’s in the waiting room. You want me to tell him to come back?” “That’s okay. I’ll go out there. She walks down the hall toward the waiting room and tries to look relaxed while keeping a firm hand against her front pocket. Sloane steps into the waiting room and spots Ethan maneuvering through the crowded space in her direction. “Hey.” He holds out a coffee from the Evergreen Café. “I got you a latte.” Behind him, a red-faced toddler cries hysterically atop his mother’s lap as she tries unsuccessfully to console him. Sitting next to them, an elderly man cradles his head in his hands. “Thanks.” Her fingers brush his when she takes the cup. After how he acted at the restaurant, his visit has to be more than to bring her coffee. “I didn’t hear you come home last night.” His eyes are red from lack of sleep. “It was after one. You were asleep.” She takes a sip, aware of the hard gun barrel pressing against her abdomen. Fortunately, Ethan hasn’t moved his pointed stare from her face. “I need to talk you,” he says. “Alone.” Sloane glances around the overfilled waiting area. “I’m not sure where we’ll find that here.” “How


was a vegetarian, thanks to him. I said, “I’d buy you a drink, but I wouldn’t know who to pay.” A sweet and flamboyant young English teacher named Ian convinced me to read more Shirley Jackson, but even after I was thoroughly convinced, he kept right on convincing me, splashing gin and tonic on my sweater. I typed my email into his phone so he could check in a month that I’d done my homework. A basketball game was ending—some purple blurs versus some yellow blurs—and the party crowd seemed split in their fandom. More people gathered, more drunkenly, around the TV as the clock ticked down. Two women whose names I’d missed—one was a lawyer, so I assumed they were faculty spouses—were onto the news story again. Mr. Levin joined them, and so did a man with a baby in his arms. The man said, “Did you see they have him on suicide watch?” Mr. Levin said, “Well, sure. They’d better make sure no one murders him, either. Before they can get his testimony.” The lawyer said, “I wouldn’t mind seeing him murdered. Sorry, but we’re talking about decades of—did you see how he controlled her credit cards?” The second woman said, “You know when they cover the body like that it’s personal; they’re showing shame.” Priscilla Mancio sidled into the conversation. She said, “It’s a miracle she survived.” Ian, the English teacher, said, “That thing with the sign language? On the security camera? Like, she’s sitting there spelling out the letters of the dude’s name. That’s—she knows she’s gonna die, and she has the wits to do that?” The lawyer said, “It’s always the husband.” “DC is like that,” Mr. Levin said. “They go through interns like tissues.” “And the children! I wonder what will happen to the children.” “I just can’t stop thinking about the mother. She locks the daughter out of the house, and how on earth would she know there was a predator? The world is usually safe. We can’t forget that.” “Those VHS tapes were in the floorboards for what, twenty years?” Priscilla Mancio said, “I just don’t understand how the girlfriend went along with it. She’s as bad as him, if you ask me.” “The thing about Hollywood,” Mr. Levin said, “is they’ll cover up anything in the name of money. Well, Bodie, you would know. Have you been following the case?” I didn’t manage an answer. The basketball fans were getting loud; and here came someone with, improbably, a tray of pudding shots, and we needed to help clear the counter. The second woman turned out not to be a faculty spouse but an art history teacher. On impulse, I asked, “Did you see that thing about Jerome Wager?” She said, “Who?” “The guy who did the Obama mural in West Hollywood, the one—” “Oh!” she said. “Yeah! I love him. Wait, what’s the thing?” “Nothing.” Utter relief. There was Twitter, and then there was the real world. Mr. Levin said, “Who made the pimiento cheese dip? This is delicious.” I agreed. I needed


as little fanfare as possible. Maoren, it is good to see you—” “I’m afraid, Prefectural Judge Tan, that you’ll find your trip was unnecessary,” Master Yang interrupts. “I’ve known Doctor Wong for many years. He has served our family well. To see him accused—” “Is no doubt a difficult situation,” my father finishes sympathetically. “No family wants to have a re-inquest either. Please be assured I will perform my duties according to the highest ideals of the Great Ming Code.” Master Yang is not placated, but as he opens his mouth to continue to object, Second Uncle quickly places a hand on his older brother’s shoulder, conveying the message that this battle cannot be won. Around us, servants offer cups of tea to the lesser members of the traveling party and grooms lead away the horses, giving Master Yang a moment to get his emotions further under control. “Under the circumstances,” he says at last, “I’m honored to have an official of such integrity here to preside over the proceedings. All the parties are present.” “Then we will begin at once,” my father says. Hearing this, Lady Kuo quickly steps forward. “Let me first show you to a room where you can refresh yourself from your journey,” she offers, to which my father nods his agreement. Although he had seemed in a hurry to get started, nearly an hour passes before Lady Kuo escorts my father to the same colonnade where the first inquest about Spinster Aunt took place. My mother-in-law’s bow is deep and respectful. He’s a dignitary and an honored guest, but I’ve never before seen her act so humbly. I’m further surprised when he touches her sleeve, leans toward her, and whispers a few words. She tightens her jaw, nods, and then backs away. My father takes his place at a table, where he’s flanked by his secretaries, each of whom has paper, brushes, and an inkstone before him. Spinster Aunt’s exhumed body lies on a table, covered with muslin. A diagram showing the front and back outlines of a body stands on an easel. Next to this is a small table with the tools required for an inquest on one end and brush and ink on the other end. Doctor Wong sits on one of two chairs placed between my father and his secretaries and Spinster Aunt’s body, facing the audience. He looks as he always has to me: handsome, with an air of superiority about him. While custom and law say that the entire family of the dead may attend, only thirty chairs have been set up. My father-in-law, Second Uncle, and Maoren are in the front row in the same positions they took at the first inquest. Most of the other chairs are filled by Yang men, but a few women, including Lady Kuo, are also seated. Miss Chen has been summoned. She’s in an alcove, with a gauze veil covering her face to hide her few scars. Next to her are other nonfamily women: Meiling, her mother, and Poppy. Meiling and I give each other


mere fact of not being the man on the table. He’d joined the members of Bones, and Scroll and Key, and maybe Lethe one fateful night. He’d walked the Gauntlet and seen … what? Unless Alex was very wrong about these merry wanderers of the night, they weren’t murderers. So where had they gone in hell? What corner of the underworld had they visited and what had they seen there? And what had they brought back with them when they returned? “There’s no record, is there?” Turner asked. “Of their little sojourn in hell? They scrubbed the books.” “They tried,” said Alex. But the library had known what Reiter was, probably because there had once been documentation of their attempt to use the Gauntlet. “We should look up the Lethe Days Diary of whoever was serving as Virgil when Reiter was a senior.” Turner leaned against the wall, keeping one eye on the demons below. “I want to make sure I understand you. If we don’t put these … things back where they came from, they’re going to become vampires?” “I think so,” Alex said. Vampires wearing their faces, fed on their souls. “They’re going to eat the heart out of us,” Tripp rasped. “Spenser was … He said…” “Hey,” Alex said. “He’s not Spenser.” Tripp’s head snapped up. “He is. Spenser was just like that. He knew … he always knew the meanest thing to say.” Alex didn’t need convincing. She remembered feeling frightened and helpless, knowing no one would believe that Spenser was a monster. It had been like being a little girl all over again, surrounded by Grays, alone without magic words or handsome knights or anyone at all to protect her. Alex sat down next to Tripp on the bed. She had pushed him into something he wasn’t equipped for, and he was feeling it worse than all of them. “Okay, so Spenser was pretty fucking bad. But you have to try to remember what those things down there feed off of. They’re trying to make you feel defeated before you even try. They want to make you feel hopeless and small.” “Yeah, well,” Tripp said, eyes on the carpet. “It worked.” “I know.” She looked around the room at the others, all of them tired and frightened. “Who else tangled with one of them?” “Carmichael showed up,” said Turner. “But he didn’t say much. Just scared the shit out of me in the squad room.” Dawes tucked her hands inside her sweatshirt. “I saw Blake.” “Did he talk?” Her chin dropped. Dawes doing her disappearing act. Her voice was low and thready. “He said plenty.” Alex wasn’t going to push on the details, not if Dawes didn’t want to give them up. “But all they did was talk?” “What else would they do?” Turner asked. Alex wasn’t sure how to reply to that. Why had Hellie attacked her when the other demons had stuck to words? Was it because Alex had chased her down? Or did Alex just have a gift for the worst possible outcome? “Hellie


various capacities to see and treat me that way, too. “It’s been hard,” I say with a shrug, when asked how I’m doing, “but I’m hanging in there.” One day, after we run into some friends in the neighborhood, my older child calls me out on my usual choice of words. “How come you always tell people that you’re ‘hanging in there’?” she asks. Well, I think, a bit defensively, because I am. Am I not still doing what needs to be done: getting up every morning and going to work, taking care of my family, saying yes to anything anyone asks me to do? I haven’t dropped a single ball at work. My publishing team has thanked me for my promptness in replying to their emails, for being so great to work with. I am an expert at grieving under capitalism. Watch and learn. All the while, I keep daydreaming about walking into traffic. From the moment the thought pushes its way into my grief-muddled brain, I know that I could never act on it. It’s not that I want to hurt myself—it’s that I cannot seem to work up any remorse when I think about no longer being alive. Nor does the thought frighten me, as it always did before. What if you didn’t have to feel this way anymore? my mind proposes, in moments that are deceptively calm, moments when I am not sobbing in the shower or screaming in my car because I cannot scream at home. What if the pain could just end? As a child, I knew that I was not permitted to indulge in the hyperbolic or sarcastic statements other kids made about wanting to die, because my father would erupt. Toward the end of sixth grade, my teacher had everyone in my class write a fake will; my most charitable reading is that the exercise might have been intended to help us identify the things that were most important to us as we moved from elementary into middle school, symbolically leaving our childhoods behind. Most of my classmates made light of the task—I hereby bequeath my Game Boy to my little brother, because he always steals it anyway—but I remember little of what I wrote in my will, only my father’s fury over the assignment. “You’re twelve years old!” he yelled. He threatened to call my teacher. And then all the fight went out of him, his voice numb as he told me about being twenty-one years old and witnessing the death of his favorite cousin. The two of them had shared an apartment in a Cleveland high-rise, and one night my father came home to find him about to jump from their window. He pleaded with him, tried to stop him, but his cousin leaped before he could reach him. Dad had always blamed himself. It takes me months, after his death, to realize that I am not fine, or hanging in there. I go to see my primary care doctor for a long-overdue physical and break down in the exam room, sobbing


and ask them?" "No." They waited. "Hello?" called out Ford. No answer. "That's odd." "Perhaps it's a trap." "They haven't the wit." "What were those thuds?" "Dunno." They waited for a few more seconds. "Right," said Ford, "I'm going to have a look." He glanced round at the others. "Is no one going to say, No you can't possibly, let me go instead?" They all shook their heads. "Oh well," he said, and stood up. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen. Ford peered through the thick smoke that was billowing out of the burning computer. Cautiously he stepped out into the open. Still nothing happened. Twenty yards away he could dimly see through the smoke the space-suited figure of one of the cops. He was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground. Twenty yards in the other direction lay the second man. No one else was anywhere to be seen. This struck Ford as being extremely odd. Slowly, nervously, he walked towards the first one. The body lay reassuringly still as he approached it, and continued to lie reassuringly still as he reached it and put his foot down on the Kill-O-Zap gun that still dangled from its limp fingers. He reached down and picked it up, meeting no resistance. The cop was quite clearly dead. A quick examination revealed him to be from Blagulon Kappa - he was a methane-breathing life form, dependent on his space suit for survival in the thin oxygen atmosphere of Magrathea. The tiny life-support system computer on his backpack appeared unexpectedly to have blown up. Ford poked around in it in considerable astonishment. These miniature suit computers usually had the full back-up of the main computer back on the ship, with which they were directly linked through the sub-etha. Such a system was fail-safe in all circumstances other than total feedback malfunction, which was unheard of. He hurried over to the other prone figure, and discovered that exactly the same impossible thing had happened to him, presumably simultaneously. He called the others over to look. They came, shared his astonishment, but not his curiosity. "Let's get shot out of this hole," said Zaphod. "If whatever I'm supposed to be looking for is here, I don't want it." He grabbed the second Kill-O-Zap gun, blasted a perfectly harmless accounting computer and rushed out into the corridor, followed by the others. He very nearly blasted hell out of an aircar that stood waiting for them a few yards away. The aircar was empty, but Arthur recognized it as belonging to Slartibartfast. It had a note from him pinned to part of its sparse instrument panel. The note had an arrow drawn on it, pointing at one of the controls. It said, This is probably the best button to press. ================================================================= Chapter 34 The aircar rocketed them at speeds in excess of R17 through the steel tunnels that lead out onto the appalling surface of the planet which was now in the grip of yet another drear morning twilight.


‘Minnie, Tina – it’s good to see you.’ Florence was next to them on a cushion, wearing a cardigan over a loose dress, and next to her Jack Lovejoy was strumming a guitar, his fringe covering deep-set eyes. Cecily smiled gleefully. ‘I asked Jack to come.’ Florence seemed a little uncomfortable, shifting position away from him as Jack launched into ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’. Cecily was the queen at the head of the table. She smiled towards Florence. ‘Poor Florence couldn’t be the only young one with all us Silver Ladies. Jack’s a very good musician.’ Jack smiled. ‘Cecily has a guitar – she plays a lot.’ ‘I do,’ Cecily admitted. ‘She used to sing to us when we were at school,’ Minnie added. ‘What did you sing?’ Jack asked. ‘“Wake Up, Little Susie”,’ Lin recalled. ‘“Jail House Rock”,’ Josie added. ‘We loved it – anything but “Shenandoah”…’ Minnie agreed. Tina took a breath. ‘When I was in Miss Hamilton’s class, we all sang “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.’ She laughed. ‘We thought it was dead racy.’ ‘Then let’s sing it now,’ Jack grinned, playing the chords. Josie was surprised he knew all the old songs – he had an incredible repertoire. They launched into the song together, Minnie swaying from side to side, Cecily conducting. Then, when they had finished, Cecily said, ‘We have so much food: lemonade, quiche, sandwiches, cake – dig in.’ ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ Jack said, winking at Florence as he reached for a plate of rolls. There was a rumbling sound in the distance, then a motorbike leaped over a mound on the horizon, racing towards them, a figure in leather passing by in a cloud of smoke. Florence shuddered. Tina pointed a thumb. ‘Bobby Ledbury rides that old bike everywhere. Did you hear him revving up?’ ‘Teenage angst,’ Lin suggested. ‘He was in the year above me in school,’ Jack explained. ‘That makes him twenty-three or twenty-four. Florence and I were in the same year.’ ‘I was.’ ‘He was a rebel, Bobby Ledbury. So badly behaved at school… the girls loved him.’ Jack munched the last morsel of his roll. ‘Did they?’ Cecily asked craftily as her eyes moved to Florence. Florence stared at the sausage roll in her hands; she’d eaten very little. Jack said. ‘I saw Natalie this afternoon. She was with her fiancé – they were walking in the woods, all loved up.’ ‘Oh, they are often down here,’ Tina explained. ‘I expect they must need a break from that big family in the farmhouse. Mind you…’ She elbowed Minnie. ‘I was always in the woods when I was younger, snogging some lad or another. It’s where everyone goes.’ Florence blushed and Minnie added, ‘Not everyone – I was always at home studying.’ ‘You were,’ Tina laughed. ‘Dad thought that there was something wrong with you, not going down to the woods with boys. At least he never minded when I was out.’ She sniffed. ‘Fat lot of good it did me.’ Cecily lifted


know what. The eyes were wide open, and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was expressive, I cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising again before my older judgement. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, and trustfulness - I see them all; and in them all, I see that horror of I don't know what. My entrance, and my saying what I wanted, roused her. It disturbed the Doctor too, for when I went back to replace the candle I had taken from the table, he was patting her head, in his fatherly way, and saying he was a merciless drone to let her tempt him into reading on; and he would have her go to bed. But she asked him, in a rapid, urgent manner, to let her stay - to let her feel assured (I heard her murmur some broken words to this effect) that she was in his confidence that night. And, as she turned again towards him, after glancing at me as I left the room and went out at the door, I saw her cross her hands upon his knee, and look up at him with the same face, something quieted, as he resumed his reading. It made a great impression on me, and I remembered it a long time afterwards; as I shall have occasion to narrate when the time comes. CHAPTER 17 SOMEBODY TURNS UP It has not occurred to me to mention Peggotty since I ran away; but, of course, I wrote her a letter almost as soon as I was housed at Dover, and another, and a longer letter, containing all particulars fully related, when my aunt took me formally under her protection. On my being settled at Doctor Strong's I wrote to her again, detailing my happy condition and prospects. I never could have derived anything like the pleasure from spending the money Mr. Dick had given me, that I felt in sending a gold half-guinea to Peggotty, per post, enclosed in this last letter, to discharge the sum I had borrowed of her: in which epistle, not before, I mentioned about the young man with the donkey-cart. To these communications Peggotty replied as promptly, if not as concisely, as a merchant's clerk. Her utmost powers of expression (which were certainly not great in ink) were exhausted in the attempt to write what she felt on the subject of my journey. Four sides of incoherent and interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots, were inadequate to afford her any relief. But the blots were more expressive to me than the best composition; for they showed me that Peggotty had been crying all over the paper, and what could I have desired more? I made out, without much difficulty, that she could not take quite kindly to my aunt yet. The notice was too short after


the door. A pause. No sounds from the house. Then again, thud thud thud. “New Haven PD!” Car bellowed. Nothing. No scramble of feet, no window sliding open above. Then Car kicked the door in. “New Haven PD!” he shouted again. Turner stared at Car through the window. The hell was he doing? They hadn’t actually been summoned here by a landlord. There was no reason for them to smash their way in. Car gestured for Turner to follow. “Fuck it,” said Turner. What else were they going to do this morning? King Tut was their only lead, and no way Big Car was getting jammed up on an illegal search. Turner drew his weapon, took a few steps back, then slammed his shoulder into the door, feeling it give way. Before he could even ask Car what they were doing, Car had a finger to his lips and was pointing up the stairs. “There’s someone up there. I heard it.” “Heard what?” Turner whispered. “Could have been a cat. Could have been a girl. Could have been nothing.” The prickle spread from the back of Turner’s neck. Not nothing. “Clear the ground floor,” said Car. “I’m going up.” Turner did as he was told, but there wasn’t much territory to cover. A living room with a stained mattress and dirty clothes heaped on top, a bare kitchen where nearly every cupboard was open, as if someone had searched it. Two empty bedrooms, a bathroom with a rotting floor where it looked like a pipe had burst. “Clear,” he shouted. “I’m coming up!” He had one foot on the bottom step when he heard Car shout. A shot rang out, then another. Turner sprinted up the steps, weapon drawn. He felt it squirm in his hand, looked down, and saw nothing but the hard black shadow of his sidearm. Fear was messing with his head. Not fear for himself. Fear for what he might do, who he might hurt, his brother’s voice in his head: You like that badge and gun. Turner always said the same prayer. Please, God. Don’t let it be a kid. Don’t let it be one of us. “Carmichael?” he called out. No answer came. No sound. The layout of the second floor was almost identical to the floor below. Turner spoke into his radio. “Detective Abel Turner. I am at 372 Orchard. Shots fired, request backup and medical.” He didn’t wait for the response, sweeping through the first bedroom, the bathroom. As he entered the second, he saw a body on the floor. Not Carmichael. His mind took a minute to understand. The man on the ground, a boy really, couldn’t be older than twenty, a hole in his chest, a hole in the floorboards beside him. Carmichael standing over him. Turner recognized Delan Tuttle from his file. King Tut. Bleeding out on the ground. “Shit,” said Turner kneeling beside the body. “You hit?” he asked Car, because that’s what he was supposed to say. But he knew Car wasn’t hit, the same way he knew this


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

him, flowers layered on top of one another, striations of rock and leaf, the new garden continuously grown atop the old. “How?” A gust of wind made a living rose bend her way, tiny thorns catching on her sleeve. Gently, Lore unhooked them, let the rose bob back upright. “I mean, I know how, but how did you make them… I mean…” “Carefully.” Gabe snorted. “We channel the Mortem into the barest surface of the thing. It doesn’t overwhelm the Spiritum, just… shrouds it. Puts it in stasis, somewhere between life and death.” He gestured to the garden, almost proudly, meandering down the path. “We could reverse this, if we needed to. Channel the Mortem through us again, put it back into something dead, and release the flowers to what they were before. It’s a kind of death, but it isn’t permanent.” Lore stared at the roses a moment longer, watching them wave back and forth in the sunlight. Then she caught up with Gabe, who was still ambling good-naturedly along the cobblestones. He walked like a different person here, like he carried less. She wondered if he looked like this all the time when he was just a monk, when he was able to exist without reminders of who he could’ve been in the eyes of every courtier. “Seems like cheating.” Lore couldn’t match his stride, but she did her best to keep up, two steps to one of his. “Going back and forth from death to life with no consequences.” “Consequences like what happens when you take poison?” Gabe shook his head. “Anyone who does that deserves what they get. Humans have been given the time they’re supposed to have; trying to cheat it isn’t part of Apollius’s plan.” Lore wondered if he’d noticed the smell of August’s flask. What he made of it. “Have you ever tried this with a person, then?” She waved her hand at the garden. He froze, a horrified light in his blue eye. “No one would do this to a person.” Her brow furrowed, and Lore stepped back, guilt teased to life by his stricken expression, resentment rising to meet it. “I’m not implying that you have. I’m just curious, Gabriel.” She swallowed. “You’ve had years to learn about this power, with someone actually teaching you. I’ve just been trying to survive it.” The monk looked at her for a moment that stretched, face inscrutable. Then he turned, started walking again, though it was stiffer than before. “No one knows how channeling Mortem this way into something souled would affect them,” he said finally, sidestepping the matter of Lore’s ignorance entirely. “The position of the Church is that it would send your soul to the Shining Realm—or one of the myriad hells, I suppose, depending on how you’d lived. Once you were brought back, it’d pull you out of your afterlife, with knowledge no mortal should have.” Raising a person from the dead didn’t bring back their soul, just their body—that’s why you had to give them direction. But an insatiable curiosity about the


you thought he was pulled back?" "He disappeared so suddenly." "He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the room?" "No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and the Lascar was at the foot of the stairs." "Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his ordinary clothes on?" "But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare throat." "Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?" "Never." "Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?" "Never." "Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day to-morrow." A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary after my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his data were insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now preparing for an all-night sitting. He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night. "Awake, Watson?" he asked. "Yes." "Game for a morning drive?" "Certainly." "Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the stable-boy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out." He chuckled to himself as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed a different man to the sombre thinker of the previous night. As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one was stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly finished when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was putting in the horse. "I want to test a little theory of mine,"


to do a set at a comedy club; returned to wrestle, make bets, or pee in a trash can; then started writing. But these days, I knew of only one cast member who used hard drugs at work. Far more of my co-workers wore Fitbits, drank kale juice, and meditated in their off hours, or at least claimed to. It was Nigel himself who was clearly a natural-born night owl, and though the schedule he’d set in the beginning seemed objectively crazy, it was after all this time justified by an if-it-ain’t-broke logic. Many sketches that had found their way into the country’s collective consciousness and spawned beloved characters and catchphrases had indeed been written at one or three or four-thirty in the morning. And really, if you were lucky, Tuesday was just the beginning. If one or more of your sketches made it past the table read, you might stay up late on any or all of the remaining nights until Saturday, rewriting, rehearsing, or directing a shoot for a pre-tape. Then you’d probably stay up all night Saturday, too, commiserating or celebrating at the after-parties, because your sketch had been cut at the last minute and you felt despondent or because your sketch had made it to air but bombed and you felt despondent or because your sketch had aired and killed and you felt exhilarated. Prior to joining the show, I’d kept typical sleeping and waking hours, but TNO truly had rewired my biology, as if I were a third-shift factory worker except vastly better paid, or an ER doctor except not saving anyone’s life. It now seemed normal to me that most people arrived at the office around 5 p.m. on Tuesday, and we placed our orders for dinner around 9 p.m. I spent the hours before and after dinner working with cast members, most often Viv and Henrietta, on sketches they were developing. Around one or two, I lay on the couch in my office, set a T-shirt over my eyes and earplugs in my ears, and, except when I was awakened by chaos in the hall, I nodded off for about five hours, which was downright decadent by TNO standards. I’d set my phone alarm to go off at six or seven then brush my teeth in the women’s room. There was a shower in the private bathroom off Nigel’s office that some of my co-workers used after he went home, but I wouldn’t have had the nerve or the ambition and merely kept a toiletries bag in a desk drawer. After brushing my teeth, I’d have coffee and an energy bar and sit down again at my desk for revisions. At this point, plenty of people were still awake, never having slept at all, and usually emanating a half-dead exhaustion, though sometimes giving off a loopy camaraderie reminiscent of the kids who’d stayed up all night at an elementary school slumber party. I’d revise for a few hours, turn my sketches in at the last minute like everyone else, and go home for a few


with a tenderness made compunctious and uncritical by the sense of their exaggerated admiration, and by his secret satisfaction in it. After all, he thought it a good thing for a man to have his authority respected in his own house, even if his sense of humour sometimes made him question the force of his mandate. On this occasion the young man was very sure that Mr. Jackson would rather have had him dine out; but he had his own reasons for not doing so. Of course old Jackson wanted to talk about Ellen Olenska, and of course Mrs. Archer and Janey wanted to hear what he had to tell. All three would be slightly embarrassed by Newland's presence, now that his prospective relation to the Mingott clan had been made known; and the young man waited with an amused curiosity to see how they would turn the difficulty. They began, obliquely, by talking about Mrs. Lemuel Struthers. "It's a pity the Beauforts asked her," Mrs. Archer said gently. "But then Regina always does what he tells her; and BEAUFORT--" "Certain nuances escape Beaufort," said Mr. Jackson, cautiously inspecting the broiled shad, and wondering for the thousandth time why Mrs. Archer's cook always burnt the roe to a cinder. (Newland, who had long shared his wonder, could always detect it in the older man's expression of melancholy disapproval.) "Oh, necessarily; Beaufort is a vulgar man," said Mrs. Archer. "My grandfather Newland always used to say to my mother: `Whatever you do, don't let that fellow Beaufort be introduced to the girls.' But at least he's had the advantage of associating with gentlemen; in England too, they say. It's all very mysterious--" She glanced at Janey and paused. She and Janey knew every fold of the Beaufort mystery, but in public Mrs. Archer continued to assume that the subject was not one for the unmarried. "But this Mrs. Struthers," Mrs. Archer continued; "what did you say SHE was, Sillerton?" "Out of a mine: or rather out of the saloon at the head of the pit. Then with Living Wax-Works, touring New England. After the police broke THAT up, they say she lived--" Mr. Jackson in his turn glanced at Janey, whose eyes began to bulge from under her prominent lids. There were still hiatuses for her in Mrs. Struthers's past. "Then," Mr. Jackson continued (and Archer saw he was wondering why no one had told the butler never to slice cucumbers with a steel knife), "then Lemuel Struthers came along. They say his advertiser used the girl's head for the shoe-polish posters; her hair's intensely black, you know--the Egyptian style. Anyhow, he-- eventually--married her." There were volumes of innuendo in the way the "eventually" was spaced, and each syllable given its due stress. "Oh, well--at the pass we've come to nowadays, it doesn't matter," said Mrs. Archer indifferently. The ladies were not really interested in Mrs. Struthers just then; the subject of Ellen Olenska was too fresh and too absorbing to them. Indeed, Mrs. Struthers's name had been introduced by Mrs. Archer only


this young wife of his was as deserving of the praise of King Lemuel as any other woman endowed with the same dislike of evil, her moral value having to be reckoned not by achievement but by tendency. Moreover, the figure near at hand suffers on such occasion, because it shows up its sorriness without shade; while vague figures afar off are honoured, in that their distance makes artistic virtues of their stains. In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire. XL At breakfast Brazil was the topic, and all endeavoured to take a hopeful view of Clare's proposed experiment with that country's soil, notwithstanding the discouraging reports of some farm-labourers who had emigrated thither and returned home within the twelve months. After breakfast Clare went into the little town to wind up such trifling matters as he was concerned with there, and to get from the local bank all the money he possessed. On his way back he encountered Miss Mercy Chant by the church, from whose walls she seemed to be a sort of emanation. She was carrying an armful of Bibles for her class, and such was her view of life that events which produced heartache in others wrought beatific smiles upon her--an enviable result, although, in the opinion of Angel, it was obtained by a curiously unnatural sacrifice of humanity to mysticism. She had learnt that he was about to leave England, and observed what an excellent and promising scheme it seemed to be. "Yes; it is a likely scheme enough in a commercial sense, no doubt," he replied. "But, my dear Mercy, it snaps the continuity of existence. Perhaps a cloister would be preferable." "A cloister! O, Angel Clare!" "Well?" "Why, you wicked man, a cloister implies a monk, and a monk Roman Catholicism." "And Roman Catholicism sin, and sin damnation. Thou are in a parlous state, Angel Clare." "I glory in my Protestantism!" she said severely. Then Clare, thrown by sheer misery into one of the demoniacal moods in which a man does despite to his true principles, called her close to him, and fiendishly whispered in her ear the most heterodox ideas he could think of. His momentary laughter at the horror which appeared on her fair face ceased when it merged in pain and anxiety for his welfare. "Dear Mercy," he said, "you must forgive me. I think I am going crazy!" She thought that he was; and thus the interview ended, and Clare re-entered the Vicarage. With the local banker he deposited the jewels till happier days should arise. He also paid into the bank thirty pounds--to be sent to Tess in a few months, as she might require; and wrote to her at her parents' home in Blackmoor Vale to inform her of what he had done. This amount, with the sum he had already placed in her hands--about fifty pounds--he hoped would be amply sufficient for her wants just at present, particularly as in an emergency she


resist asking. “I ran track at school, a few years back.” Iris tried to imagine that—him dashing around a circular track in very short trousers. She laughed, partly embarrassed by her train of thought, which drew his attention. “That’s hilarious to you?” he asked. “No, but I’m wondering why you’re going so slow for me when you could run laps around this town.” Roman checked his watch. She didn’t think he was going to respond until he said, “And now we walk.” He slowed, and she mirrored him. “I often run alone. But sometimes it’s nice to have company.” He looked at her. Iris quickly glanced away from him, distracting herself with details of the street. They fell into a dance side by side, running for one minute, walking for two. At first, it felt easy to her, until they reached the hilly side of the bluff, and she suddenly felt like she might expire. “Are you trying to kill me, Kitt?” she panted, struggling up the slope. “Now, that would be a bestselling headline,” he said cheerfully, not at all winded. “INKRIDDEN IRIS AND THE HILL THAT BESTED HER.” She smacked his arm, pressing a smile between her lips. “How much … longer … until we walk?” He checked his watch. “Forty more seconds.” And he wouldn’t be Roman Kitt if he didn’t show off. He turned to face her, running backward and slightly ahead, so he could keep his gaze on her as she labored up the hill. “That’s it. You’re doing great, Winnow.” “Shut up, Kitt.” “Absolutely. Whatever you want.” She glared at him—the flush of his cheeks, the mirth in his eyes. He was quite distracting, and she panted, “Are you trying … to tempt me to … press onward, like you’re some … metaphorical carrot?” He laughed. The sound went through her like static, down to her toes. “If only I were. Do we need to stop?” Yes. “No.” “Good. You have twenty more seconds. Deep breaths through your belly, Winnow. Not your chest.” She bared her teeth against the discomfort and strove to breathe as he had instructed. It was difficult when her lungs were heaving beyond her control. I am not doing this torture tomorrow, she thought over and over. A chant to carry her up the rest of the hill. I am not— “Tell me what you think of this place,” he said, not two seconds later. “Do you like Avalon Bluff?” “I can’t run and chat, Kitt!” “When I’m done training you, you’ll be able to.” “Who says … I’m doing this … tomorrow?” Gods, she felt like she was about to die. “This does,” he said, at last turning around to lead her the rest of the way up the hill. “Your backside?” she growled, helplessly studying it. “No, Winnow,” he tossed over his shoulder. “This view.” He came to a stop on the crest of the hill. Iris watched the sun gild his body. The light hit her two breaths later, when she reached the top at his side. Hands on


at all. * * * — When I’ve finished my coffee with Gratton I go up onto my rooftop and get the doc box, then walk it across town to Tonfamecasca Tower. Doublewide will be pissed as hell, but that’s too bad. This isn’t leverage on Stefan, and he can’t have it. I tell the security guy I want to see Stefan, and he laughs. “Not happening, my man.” “Sure,” I tell him. “I’ll wait.” Security guy is about to tell me I won’t, but that’s as long as it takes. The call comes through to let me up. He wants to scan the doc box, but I flat palm his chest and walk right on by. I get into the elevator and don’t push a button. It moves anyway. Stefan is sitting at the enormous desk. He doesn’t get up. I walk across the room and put the doc box down beside him. “You’re an idiot,” I say, and Stefan nods. “You would feel that way. I’m sure you think I should have told you the whole story at the beginning.” “No.” He raises his eyebrows. “No?” “No. It’s private business. You could have saved me some time, but…whatever. Time doesn’t mean that much to you, does it? You’re an idiot because you saved him.” Dr. Lillian Antonin, a researcher at the Tonfamecasca company, was first treated with T7 at Demeter Mercy on September 9th. But on the same day, according to the company files, Dr. Peter Jens Antonin was admitted to a private room at Asclepius General and treated by an external team. He also received T7, which healed his broken bones, increased his physical mass, and left him screaming for day upon day until the regular staff broke in and anaesthetised him. Stefan shrugs. “He was a resource, Cal. He really did understand the drug in some special instinctive way. Had a knack for it. I wanted to keep the scientist and lose the man. I failed, of course. I got Roddy instead. We’ve done a lot of work on T7 amnesia since then; perhaps today he wouldn’t be such a patchwork of lost pieces and inventions. Although after she hit him with that steel, the bleed probably did a lot of the damage. And I rather enjoyed Roddy, over the years. He was so achingly persistent, so honest and determined. It was like my very own serial television show: the wronged drifter moving from town to town in search of evidence he will never find, doing good along the way. Falling in love, even, from time to time. And all that, with a delicious wash of irony that only I could see: compulsive viewing. Well, I suppose all things must end. Except me, of course. Is that his liver?” “No, I brought you steaks.” “Ah. Bathos. Very good, Cal. Well done.” “Did you kill him?” Stefan rumbles in his chest, and I realise it’s a chuckle. He’s keeping it in, because he’s in a good mood. “Don’t be absurd. Think of the algal perfusion or whatever it was,


he was rewarded with a position as a gardener. Having no botanical background, he taught himself the ways of plants through reading and experimentation. He spent every moment of freedom in the greenhouse and gardens. Guards brought him the seeds and bulbs he requested from San Francisco. He left bouquets on the dock for families visiting prisoners. After twenty-nine years, Alcatraz shut down. In 1969, it was occupied by Indians of All Tribes, who offered the U.S. government $24 for the land, based on the selling price of Manhattan Island. After the occupation, the island joined the National Park System. And for decades, the gardens disappeared in a thicket of weeds. Two months after her trip to Nevada, Maud joined the restoration effort. She worked five days a week, all day, on the slope below the cellblock, trimming and planting, a break from the constant worry about money, the relentlessness of Ella’s resentment, the concern for Louise, and the emptiness of her weeks without the girls. She’d hoped to stay at the Presidio, but there had been no full-time position available, and she needed health insurance. On Alcatraz, she wasn’t in charge, and she didn’t care. She’d have to earn her stripes again with a new group of people. She clung to the rock, to the ferry, to the salary that came every two weeks. She tended the seedlings, cleared blackberry canes from the rose garden, and spent long afternoons in the archives, looking for clues to plants long dead. At five o’clock, she returned to the apartment that she rented in Corte Madera, with a view of a parking lot and carpeting that smelled of dog. Her life was no longer full of crises and secrets, but it was lonely. Whenever the girls were with Peter, she was so haunted by their vacant beds in their vacant room that she kept the door closed. A homework paper left behind by Louise on the kitchen table could send her spirits plummeting. The girls shifted between Peter’s house and her apartment according to the custody agreement of one week on and one week off. This wasn’t what Maud had wanted. She and Peter had gone around and around in mediation. She’d proposed splitting the week, two days then five days, but Peter found that too convoluted and disruptive. When Maud broke into sobs during one of those sessions, he said she could visit the girls when he had them. So, on Wednesday nights during his weeks, she rang the doorbell for a good-night hug on the deck. Ella’s anger retreated, regathered, and rose. Just when it seemed she had worked through the trauma of keeping her secret for so long and her anger over being kept in the dark about the separation, she started to resent her parents for what had come before: “I was depressed for months. You and Dad didn’t notice.” We did notice, Maud thought. What do you mean? We were worried about you. She bit the inside of her lip to keep herself from talking, the pressure of her


"Henry always enjoys seeing you, dear Adeline; and he will wish to congratulate Newland." The double doors had solemnly reopened and between them appeared Mr. Henry van der Luyden, tall, spare and frock-coated, with faded fair hair, a straight nose like his wife's and the same look of frozen gentleness in eyes that were merely pale grey instead of pale blue. Mr. van der Luyden greeted Mrs. Archer with cousinly affability, proffered to Newland low-voiced congratulations couched in the same language as his wife's, and seated himself in one of the brocade armchairs with the simplicity of a reigning sovereign. "I had just finished reading the Times," he said, laying his long finger-tips together. "In town my mornings are so much occupied that I find it more convenient to read the newspapers after luncheon." "Ah, there's a great deal to be said for that plan-- indeed I think my uncle Egmont used to say he found it less agitating not to read the morning papers till after dinner," said Mrs. Archer responsively. "Yes: my good father abhorred hurry. But now we live in a constant rush," said Mr. van der Luyden in measured tones, looking with pleasant deliberation about the large shrouded room which to Archer was so complete an image of its owners. "But I hope you HAD finished your reading, Henry?" his wife interposed. "Quite--quite," he reassured her. "Then I should like Adeline to tell you--" "Oh, it's really Newland's story," said his mother smiling; and proceeded to rehearse once more the monstrous tale of the affront inflicted on Mrs. Lovell Mingott. "Of course," she ended, "Augusta Welland and Mary Mingott both felt that, especially in view of Newland's engagement, you and Henry OUGHT TO KNOW." "Ah--" said Mr. van der Luyden, drawing a deep breath. There was a silence during which the tick of the monumental ormolu clock on the white marble mantelpiece grew as loud as the boom of a minute-gun. Archer contemplated with awe the two slender faded figures, seated side by side in a kind of viceregal rigidity, mouthpieces of some remote ancestral authority which fate compelled them to wield, when they would so much rather have lived in simplicity and seclusion, digging invisible weeds out of the perfect lawns of Skuytercliff, and playing Patience together in the evenings. Mr. van der Luyden was the first to speak. "You really think this is due to some--some intentional interference of Lawrence Lefferts's?" he enquired, turning to Archer. "I'm certain of it, sir. Larry has been going it rather harder than usual lately--if cousin Louisa won't mind my mentioning it--having rather a stiff affair with the postmaster's wife in their village, or some one of that sort; and whenever poor Gertrude Lefferts begins to suspect anything, and he's afraid of trouble, he gets up a fuss of this kind, to show how awfully moral he is, and talks at the top of his voice about the impertinence of inviting his wife to meet people he doesn't wish her to know. He's simply using Madame Olenska as a lightning-rod;


armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause. 30 July.--Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set. Retired worn out, slept soundly, awakened by mate telling me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship. 1 August.--Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are Russian, he Roumanian. 2 August, midnight.--Woke up from few minutes sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and ran against mate. Tells me he heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us, and God seems to have deserted us. 3 August.--At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel and when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate. After a few seconds, he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear. "It is here. I know it now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave it my knife, but the knife went through It, empty as the air." And as he spoke he took the knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on, "But It is here, and I'll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I'll unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm." And with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a tool chest and lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it's no use my trying to stop him. He can't