each other. Hanging a rose is an ancient Roman custom. "Sub rosa," Langdon said. "The Romans hung a rose over meetings to indicate the meeting was confidential. Attendees understood that whatever was said under the rose- or sub rosa-had to remain a secret." Langdon quickly explained that the Rose's overtone of secrecy was not the only reason the Priory used it as a symbol for the Grail. Rosa rugosa, one of the oldest species of rose, had five petals and pentagonal symmetry, just like the guiding star of Venus, giving the Rose strong iconographic ties to womanhood. In addition, the Rose had close ties to the concept of "true direction" and navigating one's way. The Compass Rose helped travelers navigate, as did Rose Lines, the longitudinal lines on maps. For this reason, the Rose was a symbol that spoke of the Grail on many levels-secrecy, womanhood, and guidance-the feminine chalice and guiding star that led to secret truth. As Langdon finished his explanation, his expression seemed to tighten suddenly. "Robert? Are you okay?" His eyes were riveted to the rosewood box. "Sub... rosa," he choked, a fearful bewilderment sweeping across his face. "It can't be." "What?" Langdon slowly raised his eyes. "Under the sign of the Rose," he whispered. "This cryptex... I think I know what it is." 136 CHAPTER 48 Langdon could scarcely believe his own supposition, and yet, considering who had given this stone cylinder to them, how he had given it to them, and now, the inlaid Rose on the container, Langdon could formulate only one conclusion. I am holding the Priory keystone. The legend was specific. The keystone is an encoded stone that lies beneath the sign of the Rose. "Robert?" Sophie was watching him. "What's going on?" Langdon needed a moment to gather his thoughts. "Did your grandfather ever speak to you of something called la clef de vote?" "The key to the vault?" Sophie translated. "No, that's the literal translation. Clef de vote is a common architectural term. Vote refers not to a bank vault, but to a vault in an archway. Like a vaulted ceiling." "But vaulted ceilings don't have keys." "Actually they do. Every stone archway requires a central, wedge-shaped stone at the top which locks the pieces together and carries all the weight. This stone is, in an architectural sense, the key to the vault. In English we call it a keystone." Langdon watched her eyes for any spark of recognition. Sophie shrugged, glancing down at the cryptex. "But this obviously is not a keystone." Langdon didn't know where to begin. Keystones as a masonry technique for building stone archways had been one of the best-kept secrets of the early Masonic brotherhood. The Royal Arch Degree. Architecture. Keystones. It was all interconnected. The secret knowledge of how to use a wedged keystone to build a vaulted archway was part of the wisdom that had made the Masons such wealthy craftsmen, and it was a secret they guarded carefully. Keystones had always had a tradition of secrecy. And yet, the stone cylinder in the


thinks Andy might try to jump out of the moving taxi. But Andy gets home in one piece, even if the stairs take three times as long as usual and have him wondering if it would really be so bad to curl up on a landing and sleep. Or die. Either one, really. When he gets upstairs, he drops onto the sofa and falls asleep almost immediately. * * * Andy wakes to a cool hand on his forehead and the blurry sight of Nick looking down at him with undisguised concern. “I think you have a fever.” Nick disappears for a minute and comes back with a couple of aspirin and a glass of water. “You’re sicker than I thought.” Andy wants that worried look on Nick’s face to go away. “It’s nothing,” he says, sitting up and doing his best to look normal. “I probably just got warm while I was sleeping.” Nick gives him a long, skeptical look but drops the subject. “I’m making soup for dinner. You want the television on while I cook?” “No, I’ll just watch you, like a creep.” He attempts a leer, but ruins it with a sneeze. Nick rolls his eyes, then takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and throws it at Andy. Andy sits up and rests his chin on the back of the sofa. He lets his eyes unfocus and his mind wander. He watches as Nick puts a grocery sack on the table and takes out an onion, some garlic, a dozen eggs, a couple of cans, a lemon, and some cheese. Then Nick washes his hands and rolls up his sleeves. Andy closes his eyes and is left with the rhythmic thwack of the knife against the butcher’s block, the sizzle of onions hitting oil, Nick’s off-key humming. He must fall asleep, because when he opens his eyes, Nick is standing over him, brushing Andy’s hair off his forehead. “Come and eat something.” Andy gets to his feet and stumbles over to the table, where a bowl of yellow soup and a piece of toast wait for him. “Egg soup,” Nick says, sitting down across from Andy. “It’s good when you’re sick.” Andy would eat a bowl of motor oil if Nick put it in front of him and it’s completely insane that Nick doesn’t seem to already know this. He sits and takes a spoonful. “S’good,” he says. “Lemony.” He thinks he’d probably appreciate it better if his nose weren’t so stuffed up, but the lemon and steam cut through some of the more nightmarish things happening in his sinuses. “It’s what my mother made when we were sick,” Nick says. “I miss my mom,” Andy says. He’s pretty sure he hadn’t meant to say that, but he’s tired and his head hurts. He’s not even sure why he misses his mother now, of all times: God knows she never cooked soup or anything else in her entire life and was hardly the kind of person who could be described as nurturing. She would have shot anyone


Hope. Play. Which means the only logical source is Lenora, who’s been lying to me. Possibly about everything. Stop. Not necessarily. Maybe Lenora has no control over what her body can and cannot do. It sometimes happens in patients with paralysis. Sudden muscle spasms can occur like an electric shock to their system, moving muscles against their will, just like what happened when I checked her reflexes my first night here. Now that’s something that could have caused her to shut off the Walkman. My finger’s still on the stop button when I hear a noise. A heavy thud. Lenora, I think when I hear it a second time. She’s moving around. Again. I hurry through the adjoining door into Lenora’s room. Inside, it’s as still and silent as a tomb. Outside, waves gently lap at the base of the cliff. Lenora appears to be asleep. Eyes closed, flat on her back, blanket to her chin. I tiptoe to her bedside and listen to the steady sound of her breathing. All is well. Except for more noise. Footsteps this time, shushing over the carpet in the hallway. I go to Lenora’s bedroom door, open it a crack, and see Mrs. Baker passing by. A white-robed blur holding a— Is that a shotgun? My unspoken question gets an immediate answer when Mrs. Baker halts and does a half-turn in my direction. Clutched in her arms is a shotgun, its double barrel propped against her right shoulder. “They’re outside,” she says. “Who?” “Reporters. They’ve been loitering at the gate all day. It’s either them or boys from town who’ve hopped the wall and now they’re prowling the grounds.” When Mrs. Baker hurries off toward the service stairs, I follow, unsure who’s in bigger danger, us or the trespassers. If they’re teenage boys and anything like the ones I went to school with, then they’re mostly harmless. Mrs. Baker, on the other hand, is armed. From the kitchen, we move into the hallway, where I glimpse movement through the front-facing windows. A dark figure, streaking by. Then another. And another. In the foyer, Mrs. Baker throws open the front door and marches outside, shotgun barrel leading the charge. The night is foggy, with mist languidly curling over the lawn. In the haze, two more dark figures zip by, bringing the number of known trespassers to five. They all carry flashlights, the beams cutting through the dense fog like lasers. “You’ll leave right now if you know what’s good for you!” Mrs. Baker shouts at them. The trespassers scatter in all directions, footsteps squishing on the damp lawn and flashlights bobbing in panic. Once a safe distance from the house, one of them stops and turns, backlit by the moon-drenched fog. “It’s Lenora!” he yells. Then he calls out, “Killer!” That settles it. They definitely aren’t reporters. Another one joins him, shouting, “Killer!” before the others also start chiming in. Their voices ring out in the night, echoing through the fog. “Killer! Killer!” The trespasser who’d started the chant—the ringleader, apparently—keeps shouting it after the others


her direction. Seriously? You said you would get the night off. She’s about to hit Send when a figure appears behind her in the reflection of the freezer door. She whips around and steps aside, only to ram straight into the man’s well-toned chest. “Oh!” Her phone clamors to the floor. She brings her hand over her heart as she reaches for it, but the man scoops it up seconds before her. Her hand touches his. She pulls it away as they stand. “Sloane?” He holds out her phone. She studies the attractive man standing in front of her. “Brody?” He grins, exposing his movie-star-white teeth. The dating app founder looks nothing like the lanky, shy guy she remembers from college. But she saw enough from her recent Internet search to know that after his success and fame from creating The One, he had changed. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that.” She shakes her head. “It was my fault. I was…distracted.” He crosses his arms, making no effort to go his separate way. “Wow. You look…the same. In a good way.” Sloane feels herself smile. “I thought you lived in California now?” “I did.” She glances at the gold wedding band on his left hand, recalling from her search that he’d married an Australian model. “We did,” he corrects, flashing his perfect white teeth again. “Just purchased a home up here. It’s good to be back.” “Nice. In the city?” “Medina, actually.” Of course. Medina was home to some of the wealthiest people in the country. “What are you doing these days? Did you go on to medical school?” She nods, impressed at his recollection. “I did. Even though my lab partner bailed on me halfway through my first semester of chemistry.” He grins, catching the playfulness in her tone. “I’m an ER doctor now, at Bayside.” “Wow.” He folds his arms. “Although, I’m not surprised. You struck me as someone who would go on to great things.” “Thank you.” She smiles at the compliment, wondering if it was genuine or if he was just a smooth talker. “And you definitely didn’t need me as your lab partner. I was cheating off you the whole time.” “I didn’t notice.” He laughs. “Yes, you did.” “Okay, I did.” She can’t help but laugh, too. “You’ve done very well yourself. Did I read somewhere that your wife is a model?” His smile fades. “Former model, yeah.” He clears his throat. “I’d love to catch up sometime. If you want?” “Oh.” She nods. “Um…sure.” He motions toward her phone, still in her hand. “Do you mind? I’ll put my number in.” She unlocks her phone before handing it to him. After a few swift moves of his thumbs, he gives it back. “That was fast.” “I sent myself a text. You’ll see it in your messages.” “Oh.” She glances at her phone before dropping it into her purse. Was that what people did these days? “Okay.” “I’m really glad we bumped into each other. Let’s talk


forget about that.” “You were nearly on your deathbed. Of course I wasn’t going to forget about it. What happened?” William was clearly reluctant to elaborate, glancing at the door again, as if considering the value of leaving before he got himself into more trouble, but then he sighed. “Marrying a girl without her father’s permission can stir some . . . unwelcome feelings. When we returned from Scotland, he wasn’t pleased.” Simon gritted his teeth. “Will, you idiot.” “I was smitten.” There was no point in trying to convince William he had made a mistake in getting married. The deed was already done. Simon would just have to move on and hope his brother did right by the girl. “Tell me about her.” “About Martine?” William’s eyebrows rose high, as if this was the last thing he had expected. And when Simon said nothing, he took a slow breath. “Oh. Well. She’s French.” “I know that part.” “And beautiful.” Simon knew that, too, but he wouldn’t admit that out loud. Just in case. Lucy had been sleeping late this morning, but there was always the chance she would appear and hear something she could misconstrue. William’s wife was far from homely, but no one would ever compare to Lucy. “She . . .” William waved a hand around. “There’s just something about her, isn’t there?” Simon had never heard anything more ridiculous in his life, and he had to fight a grin. “Do you know anything about your wife, Will?” “Of course I do!” But he didn’t exactly speak with confidence. “She is a divine dancer. And she . . . er . . . speaks two languages, possibly three, though perhaps that was only musical terms, not Italian . . .” While William struggled to describe the woman he had pledged his life to, Simon considered the one he hoped to wed. Lucy had grown up with little more than a loving father and a desire to be good. She was true to her word and often said things she shouldn’t, and she had an honest heart, even if she had been forced to lie. If he thought back on it, she really hadn’t lied at all. She simply hadn’t corrected others’ lies. In fact, she had even tried to do just that, but none of them had believed her. She understood business but knew the value of leisure as well, and she had the most stunning dark eyes that always seemed to be hiding something amusing just beneath the surface. She cared for the people around her, no matter their station. And she was the person who made Simon’s heart pound with renewed vigor. She made him want to be better, and she made him believe he was more than what he had been given. “I love her, Simon,” William said, breaking him out of his thoughts. “I’ve loved her from the moment I first laid eyes on her. Is that not enough?” Lucy had nothing to offer Simon. No title, no fortune, not a connection to speak of.


of your father’s death,” Echemus says as the room grows livelier with chatter. “My wife tells me you were his favorite.” My wife sounds funny in his mouth, as though he felt the need to clarify Timandra’s position. “I was, once,” Clytemnestra answers truthfully. “My envoys report that King Menelaus has organized one of the biggest funerals our lands have ever seen.” “How typical of Menelaus,” Timandra comments. Echemus ignores her. “And you will ride there tomorrow?” he asks. “Aren’t you tired?” “We will leave first thing tomorrow morning,” Clytemnestra says, looking at Timandra. “He’s been dead for four days already. The ceremony can’t wait.” Echemus nods, his expression suddenly grave, and Timandra turns to her right, smiling at the curly-haired woman. Clytemnestra follows her stare and freezes on the bench. Eyes clear as water springs, hair as dark as obsidian . . . Timandra is faster than her. Before Clytemnestra can speak, her sister’s features have tightened into a smile. “You remember Chrysanthe, sister?” Chrysanthe smiles, and her cheeks redden. Clytemnestra remembers how the girl had flushed when she had caught them kissing years ago on the terrace in Sparta. “How could I forget?” she says. Echemus clears his throat. He straightens in his chair and touches Timandra’s hand. Timandra looks down as if his finger were a worm but doesn’t draw away. “My wife brought Chrysanthe from Sparta as her companion,” Echemus says. “She has grown up in a large family and is often lonely here.” He speaks as though Clytemnestra didn’t know her sister, as though they hadn’t spent every day playing and wrestling together in Sparta. “How lucky you are that Chrysanthe keeps you company,” Clytemnestra remarks. “I am the lucky one,” Chrysanthe intervenes, “for I can serve my queen every day.” Timandra smiles and rips a piece of meat from the bone. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t need to. Clytemnestra can see that her sister holds the reins in this palace. She sips some wine from her cup and puts all the sincerity she can into her smile. “Although I am sure that you can manage loneliness, Timandra.” Timandra raises her eyebrows, but it is Echemus who speaks again. “My wife is very lively, always looking for new activities. It isn’t easy to tame her.” He sounds as if he was talking about a horse. “Impossible to tame her, I might say,” Clytemnestra adds. Timandra laughs, her voice echoing on the walls. “I take after you.” A few young men enter with flutes and lyres. When Echemus acknowledges their presence, they start playing, their music sweet, like ripe fruit. More wine is set in front of Clytemnestra, and she looks at the image on the amphora, two warriors fighting with spears, their armor beautifully refined. “Now Mycenae is called our mightiest kingdom,” Echemus says, eager to make conversation. “Mightier even than Troy.” “The City of Gold, they call it,” Chrysanthe intervenes. “Yes,” Clytemnestra says. “Though Babylon and Crete are mighty as well.” “Crete is not as rich as it used to be,” Echemus says dismissively. “King


Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

and dragged it out. It was an old bandanna handkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings’ bank. I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. I remembered that he never spoke but to answer; that though at intervals he had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen him reading—no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would stand looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house; while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went any where in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk, unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health. And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of pallid—how shall I call it?—of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austere reserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliance with his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do the slightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from his long-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must be standing in one of those dead-wall reveries of his. Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recently discovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place and home, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all these things, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity into repulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach. I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what


thought, even more impressive together than they were apart. It was time for them to attend to the serious business at hand – their escape. Jinju felt the ground tremble and turned to see the troop of snow gorillas descending into these chambers. Their silver coats were stained with red blood and blue. The blue blood was their own; some of them had been shot. Their skin and muscle weren’t armoured. The red blood on their jaws belonged to the security officers and scientists trapped under the ice and Jinju supposed that she was one of the last ordinary people left alive in these chambers. Behind the gorillas were the ice-adapted creatures from the Asylum, moving in their own peculiar ways according to their own individual adaptations, some on all fours, others upright on two legs, some slithering across the ceiling, others scampering on the walls, a platoon of cold creatures bred to colonize this continent and seeking to do exactly that. Mad with rage at the sight of her, the lead gorilla charged, raising his massive fist aloft, and Jinju closed her eyes, waiting for the fatal blow. Cho put a stop to the attack, climbing up from the enclosure, taking control of the new arrivals, asserting her dominance over this coalition of cold creatures. Under her telepathic instructions they left Jinju alone, with only the cold-adapted ice-white Troodon dinosaur circling her. Despite his orders he was barely able to control his hatred – his segmented bone tail swaying from side to side, ready to cut her to pieces. Looking into his eyes, Jinju saw a piercing intelligence, either underestimated by his creators or one that had been kept hidden from them. Cho examined one of the injured gorillas and with her bony digits, as sharp as surgical instruments, she tended to the wound, picking out the bullets, tossing them aside with contempt, crude and barbarous, stitching the wound with threads plucked from their own coat. One of the gorillas couldn’t be saved, maimed by explosives, the internal traumas too severe. She lay on the ice, her breathing slowing until finally it came to a stop. All the gorillas lowered their heads in grief, muttering a melodic chant as sombre as prayer. Leaving the dead in the observation tunnels, the new arrivals climbed down the ice into the enclosure. After all these years, the separate colonies were united, weaving between each other, a coalition of cold creatures filling the space as if they were dancers in an Antarctic ballroom. Suddenly, they broke apart, moving to the walls, clearing the space. Orders had been issued. Plans put into action. All the adults moved to the back of the enclosure, gathering up the tubular ice carvings that Eitan had made over the years, not sculpted from ice but spun from it, not fragile or brittle; the ice had been adapted, transformed into something stronger, something other than mere ice. Clasping these tools, the colony appeared armed and ready for combat. Jinju wondered what their escape plan could be. Despite being formidable warriors, there


expression. “I thought I’d better tell you at once, Madam,” he said. “The lamp-boy caught Mrs. King entering the gentlemen’s quarters. We think she was planning an assignation.” Miss de Vries had dressed in deepest mourning, no jewels, her hair concealed beneath Chantilly lace. Entirely modest, virtuous. “Which footman?” she asked. He paused, just a half second. “William,” he said. “How disgusting,” Miss de Vries said, without emotion. “Do the other servants know?” “I fear they may, Madam.” “Then we need to set an example. She must leave today.” She could feel pleasure tingling in her veins. One by one, she thought. I’ll get them out one by one. Shepherd’s eyes flickered in their sockets. Ever since she’d left the schoolroom and Papa had given her charge of the housekeeping, Shepherd had been chasing her for decisions. Appointments, expenditures, complaints, approvals. He came through the door every hour, bringing cards, notes, tea, messages, deliveries. It was as if he had leashed himself to her leg, spying on her. Miss de Vries sometimes wondered what he would do if she lifted a hot poker from the hearth and pressed it to his skin. Would he sink to his knees, would he scream, would he beg her to do it again? These people, Papa’s people—Mrs. King, Mr. Shepherd, the lawyers, the rest—they simply wouldn’t do anymore. Of course Papa had done his best. Furnished her with nannies, ayahs, everything one could pay for. But that only took you so far in life. She wished to operate at the very top of the ladder, right up in the heavenly heights of society: among cabinet ministers, earls, dukes, princes. She just needed to leverage herself properly. Clear out the deadwood. Build on clean, fresh ground. Mrs. King was out of the house by breakfast time. Miss de Vries came down for luncheon at noon, studied the invitation list, making corrections. The lawyers arrived at two o’clock, per appointment. Mr. Lockwood led the pack, silver-haired and perfectly groomed, concise as always. She ordered him to stay for tea. “I’d like you to open negotiations for a marriage settlement,” she said, pouring the tea, playing mother. He took the saucer from her, eyes narrowing. “Mr. de Vries always headed off those discussions. I don’t know that we have any takers in mind.” That didn’t seem like a particularly agreeable response. “Perhaps we might set out some attractive terms,” said Miss de Vries. He considered this. “What is your objective?” She smiled, adjusted her voice down a notch. “Love,” she said. “What else?” What couldn’t she achieve, once she sold off Papa’s positions? A first-rate alliance, a title, installation at a house on Berkeley Square, or any address equal to it. She hated this place, the stench of motor oil, its shiny newness. She wanted to live somewhere ancient. Sink her roots into lovely old ground. Papa’s address book repulsed her. Steel merchants and newspaper proprietors and Americans. She was after eminent men. Blue blood. Mr. Lockwood had summarized their trading position. His assessment infuriated her. “Overextended,” he’d said.


class="s1">

() UR STAFF SENSED THE friction, read the press, and thus there was

frequent bickering around the office. Sides were taken. Team

Cambridge versus Team Sussex. Rivalry, jealousy, competing agendas—it

all poisoned the atmosphere.

It didn’t help that everyone was working around the clock. There were

so many demands from the press, such a constant stream of errors that

needed clearing up, and we didn’t have nearly enough people or resources.

At best we were able to address 10 percent of what was out there. Nerves

were shattering, people were sniping. In such a climate there was no such

thing as constructive criticism. All feedback was seen as an affront, an

insult.

More than once a staff member slumped across their desk and wept.

For all this, every bit of it, Willy blamed one person. Meg. He told me

so several times, and he got cross when I told him he was out of line. He

was just repeating the press narrative, spouting fake stories he’d read or

been told. The great irony, I told him, was that the real villains were the

people he’d imported into the office, people from government, who didn’t

seem impervious to this kind of strife—but addicted to it. They had a

knack for backstabbing, a talent for intrigue, and they were constantly

setting our two groups of staff against each other.

Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, Meg managed to remain calm.

Despite what certain people were saying about her, I never heard her speak

a bad word about anybody, or to anybody. On the contrary, I watched her

redouble her efforts to reach out, to spread kindness. She sent out

handwritten thank-you notes, checked on staff who were ill, sent baskets

of food or flowers or goodies to anyone struggling, depressed, off sick.

The office was often dark and cold, so she warmed it up with new lamps

and space heaters, all bought with her personal credit card. She brought

pizza and biscuits, hosted tea parties and ice-cream socials. She shared all

the freebies she received, clothes and perfumes and makeup, with all the

women in the office.

I stood back in awe at her ability, or determination, to


the moss grow on?" "North side." "If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with their heads pointed the same direction?" "The whole fifteen, mum." "Well, I reckon you HAVE lived in the country. I thought maybe you was trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now?" "George Peters, mum." "Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George Elexander when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it; that's the way a woman most always does, but a man always does t'other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she don't clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead. Why, I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I contrived the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your uncle, Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into trouble you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what I can to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one, and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon." I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up-stream far enough to make the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then. When I was about the middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens; the sound come faint over the water but clear -- eleven. When I struck the head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started a good fire there on a high and dry spot. Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our


a trick like that.” “How you know?” “Nobody has gear for that.” “Somebody does. You see that video? Man, it sucked.” “Could make a man go deaf and blind,” Aleem agrees. They are far enough away from their phones to hear “Macarena” playing elsewhere in the orchard. “Mockin’ us,” Kuba says. “We find who, I’ll give him a livin’ autopsy.” Aleem says, “Nina’s got to know who.” “Man, that music eats your soul,” Kuba says. “Could be worse.” “How?” “Could be Abba.” “Shit, it could be ‘Dancin’ Queen.’” “Didn’t I just say?” EN ROUTE Southbound at high speed in the Bentley, slaloming lane to lane through traffic that is fast-moving yet slower than he can tolerate, Michael Mace is muttering in frustration at the discrepancy between the astonishing mental powers of his life as a resurrectee and the very human physical limitations to which he remains subjected. When he wishes, he is able to perceive the billions of electromagnetic waves—carrier waves—of data that flow through the intricate webs of wires and glass fibers civilization has spun, that also course through the air from transmitter to transmitter, to receivers beyond counting, passing through buildings and people and trees without any effect, television programs and Zoom conferences that are invisible while in transit, streamed music and cell-phone conversations that cannot be heard until translated from digital code into audible tones. Every river of data will wash him quickly to a computer or a network of computers, most of which are sluiceways that will spill him into the internet. He can be in New York in a few seconds, in Washington or Paris or Beijing, or in a surveillance satellite in orbit above Earth. All the secrets that the world so jealously keeps are not hidden from him. However, to help Nina and John in that damn orchard, he needs to be there in the flesh. He wonders if that is true, if he could have—should have—done more from a distance than use the government’s secret kill switch to disable the engines of the four SUVs, more than turn the bad boys’ smartphones into Macarena locators that revealed them to Nina and prevented them from coordinating their search for her. A smartphone is a handheld computer. Hackable. If he can tap Spotify to stream whatever music he wants to their phones, amp up the volume of the speakers, and magnify the vibrator function, perhaps there is some way to feed a charge to a phone’s lithium battery that will rapidly overload it and cause it not merely to grow very hot but to explode, injuring whoever is carrying it. If that might be the case, he lacks the genius to see how it can be done. Those who have long predicted the Singularity have imagined that the physical integration of man and machine will lead to all manner of amazing powers, as well as to a radical enhancement of the human intellect, making human beings hundreds or thousands—or even millions—of times smarter than they currently are. The expectation of amazing powers seems to a limited


just seconds ago we were hauling your luggage.” “You always had heavy luggage, Carol,” I said. She laughed. “I have to bring all my suits with me wherever I go. I have to dress up to meet the future businessmen of America.” Just as it began to thunder, Dmitri Argyros limped into the room in a silk bathrobe, the liver spots on his head still visible in the compromised light. He was recovering from a recent stroke but refused to use a walker or a cane, so he was always a little off-balance, and his face was frozen in a permanent half grimace. Carol rushed to him, offering her arm for support. Dmitri looked at us in a way that could have been inquisitive or menacing—it was difficult to tell which. “Mitri, dearest, you remember Orson and Ezra, don’t you?” Dmitri grunted, ignoring his wife. “Who are you?” Orson stood and offered his hand. “Orson Ortman, sir,” he said. “I think we may have met once or twice before, from across the room.” Dmitri didn’t reciprocate the handshake. I stood up as well. “Ezra Green,” I said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Dmitri looked from us to Carol. “These are those boys with the fancy machine?” “The Bliss-Mini,” Carol said. “You remember.” He wheezed a laugh. “It’s not possible to make magic like that. You can’t make magic like that,” he said. “Not if I can’t.” He shifted more of his weight onto Carol’s arm and began to shuffle forward, toward the kitchen. Carol cast us an apologetic look as they disappeared through the doorway. “He’s jealous,” Orson whispered to me, and I felt his hand at the small of my back. “He’s the dinosaur and we’re the comet.” SIX THE UNFAIRNESS OF THE HEALTHY eye lies in its globelike smoothness, its agile perception, its chatty relationship with the optic nerve. A healthy eye is taken for granted—can be taken for granted—by the kind of person for whom the world appears unwarped and undisturbed. Undisturbing. I’ve seen thousands of people like this. They walk past me in the street and scan their periphery as they move, taking for granted the fact that they can see not only ahead of them but to their left and right, interpreting this information effortlessly, relying on absolutely nothing but their vision to move from point A to point B. Meanwhile I’m snatching brief and distorted snapshots of the murky steps down into the subway or I’m listening to the sounds of my feet, which are either accentuated by wood floors and pavement or dampened by rugs and grass. I want badly to be like them but it feels like there are tectonics happening in my eyes, like my retinas and corneas are constantly sliding into and out of place. Like my eyes themselves are shrinking and expanding: hyperopia, myopia. Everything is always in chaotic motion. All I want to do is see and I’ve been given junk. I woke up on the morning of our first day in Vegas and couldn’t see Orson next to me,


. . Unobservant lot, eh? . . . Yeah, I know they all get jittery around the cops, but someone saw something . . . Oh, yeah? Just left even though he’d paid in advance?” Her father stopped walking. “You got a name? . . . Crap, sounds like a phoney, but check it out and what? . . . A Harley? That he parked inside? What kind of a nutcase is he? Must have somethin’ to hide. Like a lot . . . Yeah, let’s find him. Who knows? He might be our guy.” Kristi listened to the conversation and her heart nearly stopped. Her mind was spinning as she remembered Cruz Montoya had looked like he’d just gotten off a motorcycle and she’d heard an engine fire up, though it was after her father and Montoya had arrived. And what about the time when he’d found Dave and brought the dog back to her—hadn’t she heard a big bike’s engine start? Was it a coincidence? Hell no. Because Cruz had come here looking for a place to stay. Because he couldn’t hide out at the motel any longer. So why didn’t she just blurt it out? Tell her father her suspicions? Because, damn it, he’d brought Dave to her. Because he’d been willing to tackle getting an angry water moccasin out of her trash bin. She was sure he hadn’t been playing her. Okay, pretty sure. But she wasn’t ready to give him up. Yet. Montoya tapped at the slider and she jumped. Again she thought of Cruz and how he resembled his brother. Same dark hair, same strong jaw, same attitude. She unlocked the door, letting him inside. “You okay?” Montoya asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” “Just still trying to settle my nerves,” she lied, and Montoya’s eyebrows drew downward. “I thought you’d, you know, gotten a hold of yourself.” “I did, but then . . . well, I’m fine now.” She drew in a long breath and told herself to be cool. “Find anything?” Bentz asked as he disconnected and pocketed his phone. “Nah.” “Just got a call from the motel where Stacy Parker was staying. No one saw anything, of course, but there are a few MIAs—one guy in particular. Left the day it all came down, didn’t return, and had prepaid in cash, of course. And get this, he drove a Harley and kept it in the room with him.” “Huh.” Montoya said, and Kristi saw that he, too, was digesting the info and probably wondering about his missing brother. Bentz went on, taking a seat at the island. “I called the lab. They’re picking up the garbage container and this.” Bentz pointed to the envelope and card with its damning rose drawing and Bible verse, tape still intact, now wrapped in a plastic bag. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe he left a fingerprint on the tape or the card.” “He hasn’t before,” Montoya pointed out. “Yeah, well, maybe this time he was careless.” Bentz scowled and Kristi saw that he didn’t believe


What a pity!" Their little boat reached land. The children leapt out into the shallow water and dragged it up to the beach. Tim pulled at the rope too, wagging his tail. He loved to join in anything that the children were doing. "Shall you take Tim to Alf?" asked Dick. George shook her head. "No," she said, "we haven't any time to waste. We must go and tell everything that has happened. I'll tie Tim up to the fence in the front garden." They made their way to Kirrin Cottage at top speed. Aunt Fanny was gardening there. She stared in surprise to see the hurrying children. "Why," she said, "I thought you were not coming back till tomorrow or the next day! Has anything happened? What's the matter with Dick's cheek?" "Nothing much," said Dick. The others chimed in. "Aunt Fanny, where's Uncle Quentin? We have something important to tell him!" "Mother, we've had such an adventure!" "Aunt Fanny, we've an awful lot to tell you! We really have!" Aunt Fanny looked at the untidy children in amazement. "Whatever has happened?" she said. Then she turned towards the house and called, "Quentin! Quentin! The children have something to tell us!" Uncle Quentin came out, looking rather cross, for he was in the middle of his work. "What's the matter?" he asked. "Uncle, it's about Kirrin Island," said Julian, eagerly. "Those men haven't bought it yet, have they?" "Well, it's practically sold," said his uncle. "I've signed my part, and they are to sign their part tomorrow. Why? What's that to do with you?" "Uncle, those men won't sign tomorrow," said Julian. "Do you know why they wanted to buy the island and the castle? Not because they really wanted to build an hotel or anything like that-but because they knew the lost gold was hidden there!" "What nonsense are you talking?" said his uncle. "It isn't nonsense, Father!" cried George indignantly. "It's all true. The map of the old castle was in that box you sold- and in the map was shown where the ingots were hidden by my great-great-great-grandfather!" George's father looked amazed and annoyed. He simply didn't believe a word! But his wife saw by the solemn and serious faces of the four children that something important really had happened. And then Anne suddenly burst into loud sobs! The excitement had been too much for her and she couldn't bear to think that her uncle wouldn't believe that everything was true. "Aunt Fanny, Aunt Fanny, it's all true!" she sobbed. "Uncle Quentin is horrid not to believe us. Oh, Aunt Fanny, the man had a revolver- and oh, he made Julian and George prisoners in the dungeons- and Dick had to climb down the well to rescue them. And George has smashed up their motor-boat to stop them escaping!" Her aunt and uncle couldn't make head or tail of this, but Uncle Quentin suddenly seemed to think that the matter was serious and worth looking into. "Smashed up a motor-boat!" he said. "Whatever for? Come indoors. I shall


to Orson, eyeing Emily eyeing him. “Is that who you were talking to?” he asked, nodding in the direction Amanda had run. I nodded. “She’s a physicist.” “Well, Emily’s an actress.” He cheated his chair out to include her in our conversation. She beamed at me. “I know,” I said, and then added lamely: “I liked you in Getting Even.” She laughed, nothing like the demure giggle she’d had on TV. It sounded more like crow’s feet in sand. “Wow, you’re bringing back memories.” “Am I?” “Um, yeah—” Another laugh, this one nervous. “Yeah, you are.” “Emily was just telling me about this tough divorce she’s going through,” Orson said. “My ex-husband Brady—it’s sad—he’s…” Orson looked at her encouragingly, like a therapist coaxing a confession from a client. “He’s addicted to meth,” she said. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “It’s very sad,” Orson said. The three of us sat in silence, Orson and Emily looking at each other and me looking at them both. “Well,” I said. “We should probably get to our table. It looks like dinner is going to start soon.” “Ez, this is our table.” Orson gestured to the placard in front of me, on which my name had been printed in calligraphic lettering. “That’s how Emily and I got to talking. She’s sitting next to us.” “Call it serendipity,” Emily said, grinning. The dinner was interminably long. We talked about nothing—in other words, about the things Emily was interested in: saving endangered species, eating clean, navigating her Hollywood social circle. Orson listened and I ate, wondering how her voice could be both soothing and grating at once. Eventually it became easier to pretend she wasn’t speaking at all and to just watch her mouth moving, to imagine it detached from her face and suspended in air. A mouth without a face was nothing. I could feel Orson warming with interest next to me, the way he’d warmed when I’d told him my boring life story at Last Chance. It was insane that he could find anything she was saying compelling. My hands went numb at the nightmarish thought that maybe this was just something he did, that he flitted from person to person with warm interest, abandoning the last for the next. But that was impossible. I had years of evidence to the contrary, proving that he was mine and I was his. At the end of the dinner, Emily got out her phone and asked Orson to type in his number, which he did obligingly. When he’d done this, she looked over at me, an afterthought. “Ez, did you want to give me your number too?” “Orson can text it to you,” I said. “Great!” she said, clearly relieved, and we all stood. “It was so nice to meet you both.” She kissed Orson on either cheek and then did the same to me, forcing us both to humor her stupid European affectation. “I’ll be out at the pool later.” When we were back in the room, I squirmed out of my jacket and shirt


Biddy, plucking a black-currant leaf. "My dear Biddy, they do very well here--" "Oh! they do very well here?" interrupted Biddy, looking closely at the leaf in her hand. "Hear me out - but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would hardly do him justice." "And don't you think he knows that?" asked Biddy. It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most distant manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly, "Biddy, what do you mean?" Biddy having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands - and the smell of a black-currant bush has ever since recalled to me that evening in the little garden by the side of the lane - said, "Have you never considered that he may be proud?" "Proud?" I repeated, with disdainful emphasis. "Oh! there are many kinds of pride," said Biddy, looking full at me and shaking her head; "pride is not all of one kind--" "Well? What are you stopping for?" said I. "Not all of one kind," resumed Biddy. "He may be too proud to let any one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills well and with respect. To tell you the truth, I think he is: though it sounds bold in me to say so, for you must know him far better than I do." "Now, Biddy," said I, "I am very sorry to see this in you. I did not expect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can't help showing it." "If you have the heart to think so," returned Biddy, "say so. Say so over and over again, if you have the heart to think so." "If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy," said I, in a virtuous and superior tone; "don't put it off upon me. I am very sorry to see it, and it's a - it's a bad side of human nature. I did intend to ask you to use any little opportunities you might have after I was gone, of improving dear Joe. But after this, I ask you nothing. I am extremely sorry to see this in you, Biddy," I repeated. "It's a - it's a bad side of human nature." "Whether you scold me or approve of me," returned poor Biddy, "you may equally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power, here, at all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make no difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be unjust neither," said Biddy, turning away her head. I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in which sentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to think I was right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy,


as a restorative for her weakened frame. From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother's tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something better--their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion--remembering what she had suffered, and how she had been relieved--for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features. The peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated


gasping and crying, now thought again, I remember, I remember, I remember something else. What is it? Yes, yes, part of the Ecclesiastes and Revelation. Part of that book, part of it, quick now, quick, before it gets away, before the shock wears off, before the wind dies. Book of Ecclesiastes. Here. He said it over to himself silently, lying flat to the trembling earth, he said the words of it many times and they were perfect without trying and there was no Denham's Dentifrice anywhere, it was just the Preacher by himself, standing there in his mind, looking at him .... "There," said a voice. The men lay gasping like fish laid out on the grass. They held to the earth as children hold to familiar things, no matter how cold or dead, no matter what has happened or will happen, their fingers were clawed into the dirt, and they were all shouting to keep their eardrums from bursting, to keep their sanity from bursting, mouths open, Montag shouting with them, a protest against the wind that ripped their faces and tore at their lips, making their noses bleed. Montag watched the great dust settle and the great silence move down upon their world. And lying there it seemed that he saw every single grain of dust and every blade of grass and that he heard every cry and shout and whisper going up in the world now. Silence fell down in the sifting dust, and all the leisure they might need to look around, to gather the reality of this day into their senses. Montag looked at the river. We'll go on the river. He looked at the old railroad tracks. Or we'll go that way. Or we'll walk on the highways now, and we'll have time to put things into ourselves. And some day, after it sets in us a long time, it'll come out of our hands and our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will be right. We'll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And while none of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'll be me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me, out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it's finally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times ten thousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight some day. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning. The wind died. The other men lay a while, on the dawn edge of sleep, not yet ready to rise up and begin the day's obligations, its fires and foods, its thousand details of putting foot


your teacher in that way again," said Marilla sharply. "You don't go to school to criticize the master. I guess he can teach YOU something, and it's your business to learn. And I want you to understand right off that you are not to come home telling tales about him. That is something I won't encourage. I hope you were a good girl." "Indeed I was," said Anne comfortably. "It wasn't so hard as you might imagine, either. I sit with Diana. Our seat is right by the window and we can look down to the Lake of Shining Waters. There are a lot of nice girls in school and we had scrumptious fun playing at dinnertime. It's so nice to have a lot of little girls to play with. But of course I like Diana best and always will. I ADORE Diana. I'm dreadfully far behind the others. They're all in the fifth book and I'm only in the fourth. I feel that it's kind of a disgrace. But there's not one of them has such an imagination as I have and I soon found that out. We had reading and geography and Canadian history and dictation today. Mr. Phillips said my spelling was disgraceful and he held up my slate so that everybody could see it, all marked over. I felt so mortified, Marilla; he might have been politer to a stranger, I think. Ruby Gillis gave me an apple and Sophia Sloane lent me a lovely pink card with `May I see you home?' on it. I'm to give it back to her tomorrow. And Tillie Boulter let me wear her bead ring all the afternoon. Can I have some of those pearl beads off the old pincushion in the garret to make myself a ring? And oh, Marilla, Jane Andrews told me that Minnie MacPherson told her that she heard Prissy Andrews tell Sara Gillis that I had a very pretty nose. Marilla, that is the first compliment I have ever had in my life and you can't imagine what a strange feeling it gave me. Marilla, have I really a pretty nose? I know you'll tell me the truth." "Your nose is well enough," said Marilla shortly. Secretly she thought Anne's nose was a remarkable pretty one; but she had no intention of telling her so. That was three weeks ago and all had gone smoothly so far. And now, this crisp September morning, Anne and Diana were tripping blithely down the Birch Path, two of the happiest little girls in Avonlea. "I guess Gilbert Blythe will be in school today," said Diana. "He's been visiting his cousins over in New Brunswick all summer and he only came home Saturday night. He's AW'FLY handsome, Anne. And he teases the girls something terrible. He just torments our lives out." Diana's voice indicated that she rather liked having her life tormented out than not. "Gilbert Blythe?" said Anne. "Isn't his name that's written up on the porch wall with Julia Bell's and a big `Take Notice' over them?" "Yes,"


disengagement which would be all the easier because of their positions in the Service. If it was not easy, he could go off on an assignment abroad or, which was also in his mind, he could resign and travel to different parts of the world as he had always wanted. But somehow she had crept under his skin and over the last two weeks his feelings had gradually changed. He found her companionship easy and unexacting. There was something enigmatic about her which was a constant stimulus. She gave little of her real personality away and he felt that however long they were together there would always be a private room inside her which he could never invade. She was thoughtful and full of consideration without being slavish and without compromising her arrogant spirit. And now he knew that she was profoundly, excitingly sensual, but that the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape. Loving her physically would each time be a thrilling voyage without the anticlimax of arrival. She would surrender herself avidly, he thought, and greedily enjoy all the intimacies of the bed without ever allowing herself to be possessed. Naked, Bond lay and tried to push away the conclusions he read in the sky. He turned his head and looked down the beach and saw that the shadows of the headland were almost reaching for him. He stood up and brushed off as much of the sand as he could reach. He reflected that he would have a bath when he got in and he absent-mindedly picked up his trunks and started walking back along the beach. It was only when he reached his pyjama-coat and bent to pick it up that he realized he was still naked. Without bothering about the trunks, he slipped on the light coat and walked on to the hotel. At that moment his mind was made up. CHAPTER 24 - FRUIT D?FENDU When he got back to his room he was touched to find all his belongings put away and in the bathroom his toothbrush and shaving things neatly arranged at one end of the glass shelf over the wash-basin. At the other end was Vesper's toothbrush and one or two small bottles and a jar of face-cream. He glanced at the bottles and was surprised to see that one contained nembutal sleeping-pills. Perhaps her nerves had been more shaken by the events at the villa than he had imagined. The bath had been filled for him and there was a new flask of some expensive pine bath-essence on a chair beside it with his towel. 'Vesper,' he called. 'Yes?' 'You really are the limit. You make me feel like an expensive gigolo.' 'I was told to look after you. I'm only doing what I was told.' 'Darling, the bath's absolutely right. Will you marry me?' She snorted. 'You need a slave, not a wife.' 'I want you.' 'Well, I want my lobster and champagne, so hurry up.' 'All right,


his journey. If he’d stopped at this very spot and looked off into the forest and decided the trees were safer than the road. He doubted it, but there was a cold comfort to the thought. “Then we keep going,” he said, almost to himself. “We stay off the road, but we follow alongside it. If it leads to the city, we never let it out of our sight.” That night, hovering on the cusp of sleep, the pylons blinking through the trees, he would think about how Hap had known about what the road would do. CHAPTER 15 Rambo noticed it first. Vic was whittling the hunk of wood in his hands, the shape of it slowly forming. It wasn’t perfect—his hands would never be as steady as his father’s, no matter how hard he tried—but Vic was satisfied with the progress he was making. If anything, it could be temporary until Dad could fix it himself when they got him back. He was putting it in his pack once more when Rambo said, “Oh my god, look, look. Are those flags? Is that music?” Before anyone could stop him, Rambo raced ahead of them, leaves kicking up in a spray of autumnal hues. Hap grunted before running after him. “How he has survived this long, I will never know,” Nurse Ratched said. “Hap too. I do not understand—and now Victor is running, and I am here talking to myself.” Vic heard her engine rev as she followed them. Tree branches whipped against Vic’s helmet with a reverberating clang. He kept his face turned down to avoid getting scratched. The metal disguise attached to his body wasn’t as heavy as it’d been when they’d first started out. He was used to its weight now. He burst from the trees in time to see Hap scoop up Rambo, the vacuum’s wheels spinning in air, his metal arms waving. He caught up with them as Rambo told Hap to put him down. “Can’t you hear it?” he cried. “It’s music! I want to hear the music!” “Would you s-s-stop?” Hap snapped. “We d-don’t know who they are. You could g-get ow.” “But they can’t be bad guys,” Rambo said. “They’re playing music! No one bad likes music.” “What are you talking about?” Vic asked, his breaths short and quick. “What music? I don’t … hear…” He lost his words when he saw what lay ahead. The road continued on. The pylons—as uniform as they’d been when they first saw them—blinked, the air still filled with the humming current. But there, sitting off the other side of the road, was a house. It was unlike any house Vic had ever seen in Dad’s books. For one, it was floating a few feet above the ground, the air underneath shimmering just like the spaces between the pylons. The house itself was enormous, at least four stories tall, made of wood and brick painted a furious shade of red. White trim surrounded windows—some large and square, others small and circular, like portholes on a ship. Three


you?” “Jesus Christ.” “That’s not an answer.” “Yes.” “You always smell so good.” As Andy speaks, his lips brush against Nick’s throat, and Nick wants to groan. Andy’s mouth is moving now, up and over, toward Nick’s mouth. When he finally slides his lips over Nick’s, Nick involuntarily grips Andy’s shirt. “Hi, Nick,” Andy says, and Nick can feel the smile against his mouth. “Hi yourself,” Nick mumbles, and he pulls Andy closer. He feels the wiry muscles of Andy’s arms tighten around him at the same time Nick opens his mouth, just a little. Andy’s hands go up to cradle Nick’s face, cool against the flaming heat of Nick’s cheeks. They’re pressed together now, chest to chest, no space between them, but Nick wants more, so he backs Andy up against the wall and presses him there. “Oh shit,” Andy gasps. He’s hard now, too (Thank God, thank God, whispers the part of his brain that still needs reassurances), and Nick lets out a groan at the feel of him. “Stop?” “God no, don’t stop.” Andy twists them around so it’s Nick’s back against the wall, which is not a position he’s ever spent much time in, but with Andy it’s fine. Andy can shove him into however many walls he pleases. “You want this,” Nick says, his lips moving against Andy’s. “You really do.” Andy pulls back, just enough to give Nick a severely unimpressed look. “I told you.” “I know, I know. You know what—” Here, Nick swears that he means to say You know what you want, but what comes out is “You know what gets your dick hard.” “Nick,” Andy says, half laughing, but with this shuddering little rasp in his voice that makes Nick glad he has the wall to prop him up. Andy moves one hand so it’s braced on the wall beside Nick’s head and the other goes to Nick’s throat. He presses a kiss to the divot of Nick’s collarbone. “You have no idea,” Andy murmurs. Nick isn’t thinking clearly enough to understand what Andy’s talking about, so he dips his head for another kiss. He bites Andy’s lower lip and Andy makes a broken sound that goes like lightning through Nick’s body. He wants all these clothes gone. Clothes are such bullshit, it turns out. He untucks Andy’s shirt and pushes up his undershirt and gets a hand on his lower back, seeking out skin. “Wait,” Andy pants. “Hold up.” But he doesn’t move—he still has Nick pressed against the wall. Nick drops his hands. “You okay?” Andy leans back and looks at Nick, his cheeks flushed and his eyes a little wild. He looks slightly deranged, and all Nick can think is that at least he isn’t the only one. “Time out.” Nick can do that. He can do a time-out. He doesn’t know why they’d want to, but it doesn’t matter. “Okay,” he says. Tentatively, not sure if this is against whatever rules exist between them now, he puts a hand on Andy’s hip. Andy drops his head to Nick’s


She was a round, rosy, good-natured-looking creature, but she had a sturdy way which made Mistress Mary wonder if she might not even slap back--if the person who slapped her was only a little girl. "You are a strange servant," she said from her pillows, rather haughtily. Martha sat up on her heels, with her blackingbrush in her hand, and laughed, without seeming the least out of temper. "Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus at Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under house-maids. I might have been let to be scullerymaid but I'd never have been let upstairs. I'm too common an' I talk too much Yorkshire. But this is a funny house for all it's so grand. Seems like there's neither Master nor Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven, he won't be troubled about anythin' when he's here, an' he's nearly always away. Mrs. Medlock gave me th' place out o' kindness. She told me she could never have done it if Misselthwaite had been like other big houses." "Are you going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still in her imperious little Indian way. Martha began to rub her grate again. "I'm Mrs. Medlock's servant," she said stoutly. "An' she's Mr. Craven's--but I'm to do the housemaid's work up here an' wait on you a bit. But you won't need much waitin' on." "Who is going to dress me?" demanded Mary. Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad Yorkshire in her amazement. "Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said. "What do you mean? I don't understand your language," said Mary. "Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock told me I'd have to be careful or you wouldn't know what I was sayin'. I mean can't you put on your own clothes?" "No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My Ayah dressed me, of course." "Well," said Martha, evidently not in the least aware that she was impudent, "it's time tha' should learn. Tha' cannot begin younger. It'll do thee good to wait on thysen a bit. My mother always said she couldn't see why grand people's children didn't turn out fair fools--what with nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an' took out to walk as if they was puppies!" "It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could scarcely stand this. But Martha was not at all crushed. "Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I dare say it's because there's such a lot o' blacks there instead o' respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I thought you was a black too." Mary sat up in bed furious. "What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You--you daughter of a pig!" Martha stared and looked hot. "Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th' blacks. When you read


should just drop it. If it had been two years ago, she would have. Bowed and conceded in this duel of words. But there was something about this interaction that felt imperative. She had to stay and talk and prove herself. She could see things clearly for the first time: Thais on top, Ava in the middle, Io on the bottom. But this wasn’t how sisterhood was supposed to be. “What has that got to do with how you talked to Ava?” Io asked, voice rising. Because that was the gist of it, wasn’t it? Thais had tried to hurt both her and Ava by deflecting the conversation to their perceived flaws. “Or Bianca’s arrest, for that matter? Isn’t the issue here that you’re defending an opportunist that leaked information to the news to get himself elected Mayor?” In a cavalier fashion, Thais said, “All right then, Miss Brilliant Detective. If it’s answers you want, far be it from me to stand in your way. Go check that loose end you think you’ve missed. Then you’re welcome to take your findings to Luc, or even inter-rogate Bianca yourself if you like. Say your name at the City Plaza and they’ll let you right in—the proper way this time, ey? I already petitioned for you to receive an official job offer from the Initiative. Let’s see if you can get the results my opportunist fiancé couldn’t.” Thais’s punishments were always like that: subtle. Shaped as a surrender, dressed as assistance. In truth they were a challenge you would fail, again and again, until you learned to forfeit from the get-go. And that was your lesson: you were a coward. But Io was done with shame—done. She stood up, in her frizzy hair and mismatched socks and the horrid orange sweater that fell almost to her knees. She felt like a hero from the epics, the wind against her hair, the sun glittering on her armor, tall and strong on her white horse atop the hill. “You know what?” she said. “I think I will take you up on that.” Thais huffed through her nose like she was amused, and she looked amused, in a gentle, older-sisterly way. Her gaze was measuring Io up and down, as if she could read every grand thought of defiance in Io’s mind. “You do that,” Thais said, not unkindly. Io ignored her and turned to Edei. “Care to join me, partner?” CHAPTER XXXII YOUR PENANCE A HEAVY, ALMOST liquid smog had gripped Alante in a choke hold. The city was curtailed to the cobblestones beneath Io’s boots, the slithering bodies of streetlights and trolley support beams, the shadowed figures of passersby. The smog gobbled the sunlight and narrowed the roar of trolleys passing overhead. Io didn’t mind the rain and the wind, didn’t mind the horrid humidity of the summer, but she had always found this grayness downright asphyxiating. Before the dams were laid out in the surrounding plains, Alante was swathed in smog almost every single day, especially its lowest districts. Io didn’t know how people


of celibacy, and Mrs. Micawber had not yet been solicited to plight her faith at the Hymeneal altar.' 'He means, solicited by him, Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, archly. 'He cannot answer for others.' 'My dear,' returned Mr. Micawber with sudden seriousness, 'I have no desire to answer for others. I am too well aware that when, in the inscrutable decrees of Fate, you were reserved for me, it is possible you may have been reserved for one, destined, after a protracted struggle, at length to fall a victim to pecuniary involvements of a complicated nature. I understand your allusion, my love. I regret it, but I can bear it.' 'Micawber!' exclaimed Mrs. Micawber, in tears. 'Have I deserved this! I, who never have deserted you; who never WILL desert you, Micawber!' 'My love,' said Mr. Micawber, much affected, 'you will forgive, and our old and tried friend Copperfield will, I am sure, forgive, the momentary laceration of a wounded spirit, made sensitive by a recent collision with the Minion of Power - in other words, with a ribald Turncock attached to the water-works - and will pity, not condemn, its excesses.' Mr. Micawber then embraced Mrs. Micawber, and pressed my hand; leaving me to infer from this broken allusion that his domestic supply of water had been cut off that afternoon, in consequence of default in the payment of the company's rates. To divert his thoughts from this melancholy subject, I informed Mr. Micawber that I relied upon him for a bowl of punch, and led him to the lemons. His recent despondency, not to say despair, was gone in a moment. I never saw a man so thoroughly enjoy himself amid the fragrance of lemon-peel and sugar, the odour of burning rum, and the steam of boiling water, as Mr. Micawber did that afternoon. It was wonderful to see his face shining at us out of a thin cloud of these delicate fumes, as he stirred, and mixed, and tasted, and looked as if he were making, instead of punch, a fortune for his family down to the latest posterity. As to Mrs. Micawber, I don't know whether it was the effect of the cap, or the lavender-water, or the pins, or the fire, or the wax-candles, but she came out of my room, comparatively speaking, lovely. And the lark was never gayer than that excellent woman. I suppose - I never ventured to inquire, but I suppose - that Mrs. Crupp, after frying the soles, was taken ill. Because we broke down at that point. The leg of mutton came up very red within, and very pale without: besides having a foreign substance of a gritty nature sprinkled over it, as if if had had a fall into the ashes of that remarkable kitchen fireplace. But we were not in condition to judge of this fact from the appearance of the gravy, forasmuch as the 'young gal' had dropped it all upon the stairs - where it remained, by the by, in a long train, until it was worn


a huge city, with very dark houses, and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week; I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."     "Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.     I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madam Pierrot.     "I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents; I wonder if she remembers them?"     "Adle," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"     "I lived long ago with mamma; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mamma used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mamma, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and to sing to them; I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?"     She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gayety of her demeanor, how little his desertion has affected her.     This subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with a lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was; at least I thought so.     Adle sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the navet of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, "Now, mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry."     Assuming-an attitude, she beganLa Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine . She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed


the garage. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, white-knuckled. “It might be nothing.” “Then it’s nothing,” said Alex, pleased with how steady she sounded. “Stop trying to strangle the steering wheel and let’s go.” They both shut their car doors gently, and Alex realized it was because they were afraid to disturb what might be waiting upstairs. There was a chill in the air, the first hint of the end of summer and the autumn to come. There would be no more fireflies, no more drinks on the porch or sounds of tag played late into the night. Alex unlocked the kitchen door, and Dawes gasped as Cosmo sprang from behind the cupboards, screeching past them into the yard. Alex thought her heart might leap straight out of her rib cage. “For fuck’s sake, cat.” Dawes held her satchel to her chest as if it were some kind of talisman. “Did you see his fur?” One side of Cosmo’s white fur looked like it had been singed black. Alex wanted to make some kind of excuse. Cosmo was always getting into trouble, showing up with a new scar or covered in brambles, jaws clamped around a poor murdered mouse. But she couldn’t force her mouth to make the words. Before they’d left Il Bastone, they’d stopped in the Lethe armory for more salt, and they’d brought the silver chains. They seemed silly and useless, toys for children, old wives’ tales. Dawes hovered at the kitchen door as if it were the actual portal to hell. “We could call Michelle or…” “Anselm? If we summoned some kind of monster, do you really want to tell him?” “It’s pretty quiet for a monster.” “Maybe it’s a giant snake.” “Why did you have to say that?” “It’s not a snake,” Alex said. “It could still be nothing. Or … an electrical fire or something.” “I don’t smell smoke.” So what was making that dancing light? It didn’t matter. If Darlington were here, standing at this threshold, he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d be the knight. He’d be a lot better prepared, but he’d walk up those stairs. Protect your own. Pay your debts. “I’m going up, Dawes. You can stay here. I won’t hold it against you.” She meant it. But Dawes followed anyway. They plunged past the brightly lit kitchen and into the dark. Alex never explored Black Elm’s other rooms when she came to feed Cosmo or pick up the mail. They were too silent, too still. It felt like walking through a bombed-out church. Dawes paused at the bottom of the grand staircase. “Alex—” “I know.” Sulfur. Not as powerful as it had been at Scroll and Key but unmistakable. Alex felt a cold bead of sweat roll down her neck. They could turn back, try to arm themselves better, get help, call Michelle Alameddine and tell her they’d gone ahead and done something stupid. But Alex felt like she couldn’t stop herself. She was the cannonball. She was the bullet. And the gun had gone off when Dawes had told her there’d been


big, greedy fists and he wouldn’t even know he was doing it because he doesn’t know I love him. I can’t believe I love him. What the bloody hell am I playing at, loving him? Except I can’t quite bring myself to care about the danger of it all, not when Brad’s expression is front and center in my mind, looking like someone just yanked out his guts. That someone being me. Oh, God. It was me. My hands shake. My tongue feels sharp in my mouth. I take a deep breath and squeeze my prickly eyes shut. The sky is too bright a gray today, even with all these old, thick branches obscuring my view. The forest smells like fresh, green frost and slowly rotting bark. I press my palms to my thighs and bend forward and refuse to cry. I lied to Brad’s face just to save my own feelings. I didn’t even let him speak because— Because I’m scared of everything, I’m scared of loving him, I’m scared of being hurt— And so I hurt him instead. Is that the kind of love I have to give? My chest burns. I messed up. I’m messed up. I took my worst fear and did it to him. Take it back. I run. BRAD After approximately ten seconds of self-righteous storming I realize I’m being a dick. Whatever happened to friendship first? Celine never promised to want me back. In fact, she’s always said the exact opposite, but here I am throwing a hissy fit because my stupid heart is broken. Ugh, I’m that guy, aren’t I? Still, this hurts. It hurts like there’s a hole in me. I drag my glasses off my face and swipe angrily at my cheeks. Tears feel even hotter when it’s freezing. For God’s sake, who falls in love with their best friend? Doesn’t everyone know that’s a bad idea? Especially when said best friend is still working through 27,000 issues and has goals that have nothing to do with you and— Well, I guess everyone was right: I love Celine. I love her so much, I could throw up right now. Thank God I didn’t tell her. I would’ve told her, and then what? Did I really think I could just, what, teach her to want a relationship by sticking my tongue down her throat? How arrogant is that? Later, when I’m not literally splintering in two, I’m positive my brain will present me with a sixty-five-page annotated essay on what a douche bag I am. She didn’t want to change the rules; I did. I put down her bag and grasp my forearms, let my fingers dig into my flesh, but it doesn’t stop all the pieces of me drifting apart. Shit. There’s a rapid crunch sound coming up behind me, like fast footsteps against the stone, and my stomach drops. I can’t talk to anyone right now. “Brad?” I certainly can’t talk to Celine. She looks so pretty fresh out of the shower with no makeup on, those fine folds in her


comes," sighed Diana. "I can manage to write about the woods, but the one we're to hand in Monday is terrible. The idea of Miss Stacy telling us to write a story out of our own heads!" "Why. it's as easy as wink," said Anne. "It's easy for you because you have an imagination," retorted Diana, "but what would you do if you had been born without one? I suppose you have your composition all done?" Anne nodded, trying hard not to look virtuously complacent and failing miserably. "I wrote it last Monday evening. It's called `The Jealous Rival; or In Death Not Divided.' I read it to Marilla and she said it was stuff and nonsense. Then I read it to Matthew and he said it was fine. That is the kind of critic I like. It's a sad, sweet story. I just cried like a child while I was writing it. It's about two beautiful maidens called Cordelia Montmorency and Geraldine Seymour who lived in the same village and were devotedly attached to each other. Cordelia was a regal brunette with a coronet of midnight hair and duskly flashing eyes. Geraldine was a queenly blonde with hair like spun gold and velvety purple eyes." "I never saw anybody with purple eyes," said Diana dubiously. "Neither did I. I just imagined them. I wanted something out of the common. Geraldine had an alabaster brow too. I've found out what an alabaster brow is. That is one of the advantages of being thirteen. You know so much more than you did when you were only twelve." "Well, what became of Cordelia and Geraldine?" asked Diana, who was beginning to feel rather interested in their fate. "They grew in beauty side by side until they were sixteen. Then Bertram DeVere came to their native village and fell in love with the fair Geraldine. He saved her life when her horse ran away with her in a carriage, and she fainted in his arms and he carried her home three miles; because, you understand, the carriage was all smashed up. I found it rather hard to imagine the proposal because I had no experience to go by. I asked Ruby Gillis if she knew anything about how men proposed because I thought she'd likely be an authority on the subject, having so many sisters married. Ruby told me she was hid in the hall pantry when Malcolm Andres proposed to her sister Susan. She said Malcolm told Susan that his dad had given him the farm in his own name and then said, `What do you say, darling pet, if we get hitched this fall?' And Susan said, `Yes-no-I don't know-let me see'-and there they were, engaged as quick as that. But I didn't think that sort of a proposal was a very romantic one, so in the end I had to imagine it out as well as I could. I made it very flowery and poetical and Bertram went on his knees, although Ruby Gillis says it isn't done nowadays. Geraldine accepted him


good because we drink mint tea after supper often, so it tricks my stomach into thinking eating time is over. Sort of. Dangling up in the tree, with the sun warming me, a mouth- ful of mint, my bow and arrows at hand . . . this is the most re- laxed I’ve been since I’ve entered the arena. If only Rue would show up, and we could clear out. As the shadows grow, so does my restlessness. By late afternoon, I’ve resolved to go looking for her. I can at least visit the spot where she set the third fire and see if there are any clues to her whereabouts. Before I go, I scatter a few mint leaves around our old campfire. Since we gathered these some distance away, Rue will understand I’ve been here, while they’ll mean nothing to the Careers. 227 In less than an hour, I’m at the place where we agreed to have the third fire and I know something has gone amiss. The wood has been neatly arranged, expertly interspersed with tinder, but it has never been lit. Rue set up the fire but never made it back here. Somewhere between the second column of smoke I spied before I blew up the supplies and this point, she ran into trouble. I have to remind myself she’s still alive. Or is she? Could the cannon shot announcing her death have come in the wee hours of the morning when even my good ear was too broken to pick it up? Will she appear in the sky tonight? No, I refuse to believe it. There could be a hundred other explanations. She could have lost her way. Run into a pack of predators or another tribute, like Thresh, and had to hide. Whatever hap- pened, I’m almost certain she’s stuck out there, somewhere between the second fire and the unlit one at my feet. Some- thing is keeping her up a tree. I think I’ll go hunt it down. It’s a relief to be doing something after sitting around all af- ternoon. I creep silently through the shadows, letting them conceal me. But nothing seems suspicious. There’s no sign of any kind of struggle, no disruption of the needles on the ground. I’ve stopped for just a moment when I hear it. I have to cock my head around to the side to be sure, but there it is again. Rue’s four-note tune coming out of a mockingjay’s mouth. The one that means she’s all right. I grin and move in the direction of the bird. Another just a short distance ahead, picks up on the handful of notes. Rue 228 has been singing to them, and recently. Otherwise they’d have taken up some other song. My eyes lift up into the trees, searching for a sign of her. I swallow and sing softly back, hop- ing she’ll know it’s safe to join me. A mockingjay repeats the melody to me. And that’s when I hear the scream. It’s a child’s scream, a young girl’s scream,


The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

Huxter's door opened and Huxter appeared, eyes staring with excitement, arms gesticulating. "Yap!" cried Huxter. "Stop thief!" and he ran obliquely across the oblong towards the yard gates, and vanished. Simultaneously came a tumult from the parlour, and a sound of windows being closed. Hall, Henfrey, and the human contents of the Tap rushed out at once pell-mell into the street. They saw some one whisk round the corner towards the down road, and Mr. Huxter executing a complicated leap in the air that ended on his face and shoulder. Down the street people were standing astonished or running towards them. Mr. Huxter was stunned. Henfrey stopped to discover this, but Hall and the two labourers from the Tap rushed at once to the corner, shouting incoherent things, and saw Mr. Marvel vanishing by the corner of the church wall. They appear to have jumped to the impossible conclusion that this was the Invisible Man suddenly become visible, and set off at once along the lane in pursuit. But Hall had hardly run a dozen yards before he gave a loud shout of astonishment and went flying headlong sideways, clutching one of the labourers and bringing him to the ground. He had been charged just as one charges a man at football. The second labourer came round in a circle, stared, and conceiving that Hall had tumbled over of his own accord, turned to resume the pursuit, only to be tripped by the ankle just as Huxter had been. Then, as the first labourer struggled to his feet, he was kicked sideways by a blow that might have felled an ox. As he went down, the rush from the direction of the village green came round the corner. The first to appear was the proprietor of the cocoanut shy, a burly man in a blue jersey. He was astonished to see the lane empty save for three men sprawling absurdly on the ground. And then something happened to his rear-most foot, and he went headlong and rolled sideways just in time to graze the feet of his brother and partner, following headlong. The two were then kicked, knelt on, fallen over, and cursed by quite a number of over- hasty people. Now when Hall and Henfrey and the labourers ran out of the house, Mrs. Hall, who had been disciplined by years of experience, remained in the bar next the till. And suddenly the parlour door was opened, and Mr. Cuss appeared, and without glancing at her rushed at once down the steps towards the corner. "Hold him!" he cried. "Don't let him drop that parcel! You can see him so long as he holds the parcel." He knew nothing of the existence of Marvel. For the Invisible Man had handed over the books and bundle in the yard. The face of Mr. Cuss was angry and resolute, but his costume was defective, a sort of limp white kilt that could only have passed muster in Greece. "Hold him!" he bawled. "He's got my trousers! And every stitch of the Vicar's clothes!


of course." "He is a very lucky fellow." "How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this--for this--I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!" "You would hardly care for that arrangement, Basil," cried Lord Henry, laughing. "It would be rather hard lines on you." "I should object very strongly, Harry." Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. "I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say." Hallward stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like that. What had happened? He seemed almost angry. His face was flushed and his cheeks burning. "Yes," he continued, "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I will kill myself." Hallward turned pale, and caught his hand. "Dorian! Dorian!" he cried, "don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things, are you?" "I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me, and gives something to it. Oh, if it was only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day,--mock me horribly!" The hot tears welled into his eyes; he tore his hand away, and, flinging himself on the divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as if he was praying. "This is your doing, Harry," said Hallward, bitterly. [20] "My doing?" "Yes, yours, and you know it." Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian Gray,-- that is all," he answered. "It is not." "If it is not, what have I to do with it?" "You should have gone away when I asked you." "I stayed when you asked me." "Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever done, and


me! What do you take me for? You've a bastard of your own, I've seen him. Who was the mother, I wonder? Some Dornish peasant you raped while her holdfast burned? A whore? Or was it the grieving sister, the Lady Ashara? She threw herself into the sea, I'm told. Why was that? For the brother you slew, or the child you stole? Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?" "For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children. You would do well to listen, my lady. I shall say this only once. When the king returns from his hunt, I intend to lay the truth before him. You must be gone by then. You and your children, all three, and not to Casterly Rock. If I were you, I should take ship for the Free Cities, or even farther, to the Summer Isles or the Port of Ibben. As far as the winds blow." "Exile," she said. "A bitter cup to drink from." "A sweeter cup than your father served Rhaegar's children," Ned said, "and kinder than you deserve. Your father and your brothers would do well to go with you. Lord Tywin's gold will buy you comfort A GAME OF THRONES 429 and hire swords to keep you safe. You shall need them. I promise you, no matter where you flee, Robert's wrath will follow you, to the back of beyond if need be." The queen stood. "And what of my wrath, Lord Stark?" she asked softly. Her eyes searched his face. "You should have taken the realm for yourself. It was there for the taking. Jaime told me how you found him on the Iron Throne the day King's Landing fell, and made him yield it up. That was your moment. All you needed to do was climb those steps, and sit. Such a sad mistake." "I have made more mistakes than you can possibly imagine," Ned said, "but that was not one of them." "Oh, but it was, my lord," Cersei insisted. "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground." She turned up her hood to hide her swollen face and left him there in the dark beneath the oak, amidst the quiet of the godswood, under a blue-black sky. The stars were coming out. DAENERYS The heart was steaming in the cool evening air when Khal Drogo set it before her, raw and bloody. His arms were red to the elbow. Behind him, his bloodriders knelt on the sand beside the corpse of the wild stallion, stone knives in their hands. The stallion's blood looked black in the flickering orange glare of the torches that ringed the high chalk walls of the pit. Dany touched the soft swell of her belly. Sweat beaded her skin and trickled down her brow. She could feel the old women watching her, the ancient crones of Vaes Dothrak, with eyes that shone dark as polished flint in their wrinkled faces. She


the woman said over her shoulder. “You have killed,” Io pressed, feeling horrible for the dark memories she was bringing up for the poor woman. “In the Riots. But that was your only crime, yes?” The woman paused on the staircase, her eyes snapping to Io’s face, wisps of white-blond hair falling like streaming starlight around her face. “How do you know about the Riots?” Io ignored the question—it was irrelevant right now, and it was costing her precious time. “Nina, this is important. In the Riots, who did you kill?” The woman’s lips pressed tight. “You know I can’t tell you that.” Yes, right, Roosters’ Silence. Bianca’s entire battalion, who should be lauded as heroes, were instead sworn to secrecy and threatened with a horrible death if they ever spoke a word about the Riots. Why? Why bother to protect the rogue gang, who were either dead or runaways? Why bother—unless the truth was so horrible it would condemn the entire Silts. “There was never a rogue gang, was there?” Io asked, high on adrenaline. “The day the Riots ended, there was a woman on the bridge, the rogue gang leader that tried to stop you from attacking. She said, This is your penance.” Justice, vengeance, penance—again and again, Io had heard these words. “It was the Furies,” Io said breathlessly. “She was a Fury. The fury-born attacked the Silts for seven days—and on the eighth, Bianca Rossi ordered you to kill them all.” The woman answered only with silence. “An entire line of other-born . . .” Io choked. An entire line, dead. Not just a slaughter. A genocide. Nina’s voice came out a whisper. “You don’t know what it was like. They were sent to put an end to some gang fight that had broken out in the Silts—turf wars were so common back then. But they went into this frenzy. They tracked every other-born involved in illegal work, and executed them on the spot, no trial, no conviction.” Her eyes rose to Io’s, hard and unapologetic. “We did what we had to. The Furies would have killed us all.” We did what we had to. There it was again. Violence in the name of survival. Io glanced over her shoulder; Edei’s mouth was agape, his fingers going white around the brass knuckles on his right hand. “One after another, all the other-born involved in the Riots were killed for their crimes,” Io told him. “Fyodorov, Minos, Jarl, Horatio. Only the other-born, Edei. Not Nina, not Fyodorov’s family, none of the nonpowered humans that assisted in the Riots. And they were all strangled by severed threads that the wraiths used like whips. The wraiths are taking vengeance for the genocide of their line, Edei.” His voice was small, barely a whisper. “The wraiths are fury-born.” Io nodded. That was her theory, now dreadfully confirmed. “But, Io—they haven’t all been punished.” Edei paused and closed his eyes, as though to collect himself. “Bianca.” Not the puppeteer. A victim. Bianca Rossi was a victim. CHAPTER XXXIII GODS-DAMNED RECKONING IO WAS PANICKING.