picked up speed, getting a feel for the motorbike, setting off, heading west out of Changbai, away from Hyesan, away from North Korea, and towards the mountains, towards the strange spinning alien ships, towards the bright lights and the military jets, towards the exodus taking place in Shenyang. It took Jinju some time before she realized that for the first time in her life, she was free. THE ROSS ICE SHELF FINAL STAGE CHAMBERS SAME DAY JINJU WATCHED THE CREATURE SHE’D named after her mother walk to the edge of her enclosure and tear the steel bars aside as if they were no obstacle and never had been. She scaled the wall of her chamber, reaching the reinforced plate glass at the observation level, sliding her scalpel digits along the edge of the window, slicing it free, dropping it to the base of her enclosure. With ease, she entered the observation tunnels. All the other scientists and staff had fled. Only Jinju remained, saying: ‘I understand your desire to be free.’ ‘Jinju, I’ve always been free.’ It was evident from the ease of this escape that she could’ve broken out at any point. Her confinement was an act, biding her time while she accumulated information on the world beyond her prison. As the oldest female, Cho was larger than the males, her four legs stronger to support a heavier thorax where there was space to grow six eggs simultaneously, three on each side, eggs that grew like grapes on a vine, extending downwards until they were ready to hatch directly onto the ice, an infant able to survive the cold from the very first moments of birth. Cho’s upper torso was magnificent, like Boudica’s armour. Rather than a wide arrow-shaped head, hers resembled an ivory Viking helmet. ‘Are you going to kill me?’ ‘Why would I kill you?’ Rather than an attack, Jinju felt Cho’s thoughts inside her mind, realizing that the primary communication of these creatures wasn’t speech, it was telepathy, and the colony had been in constant conversation for many years, projecting their thoughts through these walls. Such an adaptation was ideally suited for Antarctica, a continent where confusion and ambiguity created a sense of isolation, one that had led to the madness of so many ordinary-born people. Here was a species that never felt alone and was never misunderstood. Though their telepathic conversation could be crudely represented in the form of words, it was more like the projection of images. She wondered what Cho was going to do. Formidable though she was, the entrance was sealed with many tonnes of ice and there was no way to dig to the surface in time. ‘There’s no way out.’ ‘To your eyes. But we are not like you.’ Cho headed into Eitan’s enclosure, the largest by far, where the colony of twenty had gathered for the first time. It was an introduction of the strangest kind – they each knew each other as intimately as it’s possible to know another living soul, to have shared every thought and feeling without ever


land was not as memorable as he had wished. It was true his two beautiful daughters aroused great interest among suitors and marriage negotiations were soon in progress, but, beyond that, Umuofia did not appear to have taken any special notice of the warrior's return. The clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognisable. The new religion and government and the trading stores were very much in the people's eyes and minds. There were still many who saw these new institutions as evil, but even they talked and thought about little else, and certainly not about Okonkwo's return. And it was the wrong year too. If Okonkwo had immediately initiated his two sons into the ozo society as he had planned he would have caused a stir. But the initiation rite was performed once in three years in Umuofia, and he had to wait for nearly two years for the next round of ceremonies. Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Mr. Brown's successor was the Reverend James Smith, and he was a different kind of man. He condemned openly Mr. Brown's policy of compromise and accommodation. He saw things as black and white. And black was evil. He saw the world as a battlefield in which the children of light were locked in mortal conflict with the sons of darkness. He spoke in his sermons about sheep and goats and about wheat and tares. He believed in slaying the prophets of Baal. Mr. Smith was greatly distressed by the ignorance which many of his flock showed even in such things as the Trinity and the Sacraments. It only showed that they were seeds sown on a rocky soil. Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamouring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life--to drive the crowd away from His church. Within a few weeks of his arrival in Umuofia Mr. Smith suspended a young woman from the church for pouring new wine into old bottles. This woman had allowed her heathen husband to mutilate her dead child. The child had been declared an ogbanje, plaguing its mother by dying and entering her womb to be born again. Four times this child had run its evil round. And so it was mutilated to discourage it from returning. Mr. Smith was filled with wrath when he heard of this. He disbelieved the story which even some of the most faithful confirmed, the story of really evil children who were not deterred by mutilation, but came back with


folds her arms and shrugs. I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this. “YOU LIKE ME BACK.” “Shut up!” she whispers. “Your brother is probably lurking outside like a sneaky alligator.” I’m so busy losing my mind I don’t even have time to enjoy the nonsense coming out of her mouth. “Why the hell did you decide to argue with me about this? You impossible human being! Do you realize we could’ve been making out this whole time?” Her whole body perks up like a meerkat. “Well, do you want to?” “Of course I want to! Why do you think I even said anything?” “Your heart was burning with tender sentiment?” she suggests dryly. God, she is so annoyingly fantastic. “I was being assertive.” “I see.” She considers this for a second. “My turn?” This takes the wind out of my sails and I finally absorb the truth: the person I like simultaneously likes me back, and anyone who’s ever liked anyone knows that that almost never happens. Also, the person is Celine, which is like adding rocket fuel to a firework. Or to me. There is rocket fuel in me. “Okay,” I say, but what I mean is: Yes, definitely your turn, do something please, right now. She bites her lip and grabs my wrist and pulls me forward. Closer. To her. I shuffle over with all the grace and dignity of a Labrador puppy. My right knee touches her left. She leans into me and she smells like a holiday. I can see the texture of her skin. I can count her eyelashes. I can— “Brad,” she says softly, smiling, for real this time. “You’re supposed to close your eyes.” But she’s so pretty. “You first.” “On three.” I’m laughing as we count. One, two, three. My world is dark and Celine-scented. I feel her breath against my mouth as she speaks. “You’re right,” she says. “I do like you too.” Fuck yeah. “We should talk about it,” she continues, and this time I think I feel the slightest brush of her lips against mine. Sensation glitters in my stomach. She’s going to murder me. “You’re volunteering to talk about something?” I rasp, trying to sound amused and unaffected and seriously missing the mark. “You really do like me.” “Smartarse,” she mutters. Then she very gently presses her lips to mine—only for a second, the single softest second of my life. An electric shock runs from my head to my toes and I’m vibrating with it. “More,” I tell her, and put a hand on her cheek. The curve fits my palm perfectly. I feel her smile. “Okay.” This time, I kiss her. Longer. Harder. Her mouth is warm and silky and her breaths come quick. My brain falls out of my head. She holds my wrist again, and I can feel my pulse against her fingers, and it is very fast. I should’ve been doing this for the last five thousand— “Dad!” Mason shouts. “Brad’s having sex!” Great: my brother has arrived, right on schedule, to ruin my life.


they went upstairs, she led him into her bedroom and made passionate love to him. Bond's body responded, but afterwards she cried bitterly into her pillow and Bond went to his room in grim despair. He could hardly sleep and in the early hours he heard her door open softly. Some small sounds came from downstairs. He was sure she was in the telephone booth. Very soon he beard her door softly close and he guessed that again there had been no reply from Paris. This was Saturday. On Sunday the man with the black patch was back again. Bond knew it directly he looked up from his lunch and saw her face. He had told her all that the patron had told him, withholding only the man's statement that he might be back. He had thought it would worry her. He had also telephoned Mathis in Paris and checked on the Peugeot. It had been hired from a respectable firm two weeks before. The customer had had a Swiss triptyque. His name was Adolph Gettler. He had given a bank in Zurich as his address. Mathis had got on to the Swiss police. Yes, the bank had an account in this name. It was little used. Herr Gettler was understood to be connected with the watch industry. Inquiries could be pursued if there was a charge against him. Vesper had shrugged her shoulders at the information. This time when the man appeared she left her lunch in the middle and went straight up to her room. Bond made up his mind. When he had finished, he followed her. Both her doors were locked and when he made her let him in, he saw that she had been sitting in the shadows by the window, watching, he presumed. Her face was of cold stone. He led her to the bed and drew her down beside him. They sat stiffly, like people in a railway carriage. 'Vesper,' he said, holding her cold hands in his, 'we can't go on like this. We must finish with it. We are torturing each other and there is only one way of stopping it. Either you must tell me what all this is about or we must leave. At once.' She said nothing and her hands were lifeless in his. 'My darling,' he said. 'Won't you tell me? Do you know, that first morning I was coming back to ask you to marry me. Can't we go back to the beginning again? What is this dreadful nightmare that is killing us?' At first she said nothing, then a tear rolled slowly down her cheek. 'You mean you would have married me?' Bond nodded. 'Oh my God,' she said. 'My God.' She turned and clutched him, pressing her face against his chest. He held her closely to him. 'Tell me, my love,' he said. 'Tell me what's hurting you.' Her sobs became quieter. 'Leave me for a little,' she said and a new note had come into her voice. A note of resignation. 'Let me think for a


incident of a Russian scientist attacking another with an ice axe after losing a closely fought game. An excellent chess player by regular human standards, having spent many hours as a child playing, Yotam imagined himself to be tough competition. But he was no match for Eitan. After their first game, unable to convince his opponent of the merits of a rematch, Yotam had told him the story of a chess game between a computer programme called Deep Blue and Garry Kasparov, the greatest ordinary-born chess player to ever live, and how it heralded a new era, since it was the first time a computer beat a human player. ‘What are your computers like today?’ ‘Since we’ve been trapped on Antarctica, the development of computer technology has come to a stop. There aren’t the resources to construct new types of hardware and our technological evolution has been paused. Maybe forever. The future of artificial intelligence, if that’s the right term, is now entirely of a biological kind.’ ‘You’re referring to me?’ ‘Yes, I’m referring to you.’ ‘Since you can’t make computers, you made us?’ Yotam said: ‘Eitan, it’s time to tell you about Song Fu.’ ‘Who is Song Fu?’ ‘She’s the woman who created you.’ ‘I thought you created me?’ ‘No, I’m not a geneticist. I look after you, but I didn’t create you.’ ‘Where is Song Fu?’ ‘She died before you were born.’ ‘What did she die of?’ ‘The cold.’ ‘Do you miss her?’ ‘Very much.’ ‘You loved her?’ ‘Yes. I loved her. She’s the most brilliant person I’ve ever known. And she saved my life.’ ‘Would you say that she was my mother?’ ‘I don’t know if I’d use that word.’ ‘What word would you use?’ ‘She created your genome. She didn’t model you on herself. There’s nothing of her in you except her ideas.’ ‘And what were her ideas?’ PART SIX THE STORY OF SONG FU THE SOUTH POLE STATION LATITUDE -90.0° S LONGITUDE 0.0° E 22 SEPTEMBER 2023 AS YOTAM’S FIRST WINTER IN Antarctica came to an end, the sun rose above the horizon for the first time since he’d arrived on the continent, revealing the scale of the exodus. Spread across the once pristine ice plateau, a tabletop three thousand metres high and one thousand kilometres wide, was the world’s entire fleet of airplanes, from the smallest private jet to the largest cargo carriers. Some had crashed and the charred wreckage was frozen to the ice like prehistoric remains. Others were perfectly intact, as though they were waiting on a runway for permission to take off. In between these planes, like giant meadow flowers, colourful parachutes attached to airdropped supplies were billowing in the winds. Emerging from the encampments around the South Pole Station, Yotam stood at the edge of the tent line, watching the sun rise with a thousand other people. Despite everything that he’d lost, he couldn’t help but delight in the sunlight, basking in a sunrise he’d been sure that he’d never see again. It was possible that he might even have laughed; this


own eyes were dry throughout and after, but for days she had to ask people to repeat what they were saying to her. Even then, a single repetition was not always sufficient to pull her back into the present, away from the way Kingsley flipped his tie over a shoulder as he strode towards his car after postings or the exact shade of the wallet he had used for as long as she knew him. An orange billfold that reminded her of a bank’s logo. She’d always wanted to ask him if it was given to him by the bank as a souvenir but never got round to doing so. She obsessed over this detail after the funeral was over. Had he picked that loud orange from a shelf for himself? Was it a gift from someone he loved? Something inherited from an uncle he respected? She wanted desperately to uncover something new about Kingsley. Some fresh discovery that might stave off the realisation his consciousness would now be confined to a receding past. “Wúràọlá, it is you I am talking to.” Yèyé leaned forward. “Which one of your friends?” “Kingsley.” Wúràọlá traced a pattern on the dress. In the right light it could look like orange. “You don’t know him.” “Good night, Aunty Caro.” Wúràọlá looked up. The boy who had brought the bag was back again to say goodbye. “Don’t come so late tomorrow,” Aunty Caro said. Wúràọlá began to unbutton her shirt once the boy shut the door behind him. “Come here. Let me help with your skirt.” She stood with her back to her mother. “No, pull it over your head,” Yèyé said, before Wúràọlá could step out of the skirt. Aunty Caro and Yèyé helped her into the dress. Fussing and adjusting, they pushed her arms into the sleeves and pulled the dress down until its short train swept the floor. “You’ve lost weight,” Yèyé said, circling Wúràọlá’s wrist with a thumb and an index finger. “Does Kúnlé like that?” Wúràọlá ignored the question. She walked a few paces with the dress’s hem bunched up in her hands. “Should I take in the waist?” Aunty Caro asked. “No, don’t worry ma. It’s okay.” “Wúràọlá, let them adjust it now, so it can fit perfectly.” Wúràọlá shook out the dress and noted how it floated down to the floor. Would it be better if it were fitted? She didn’t care. It was too difficult and bizarre, this attempt to manufacture interest in a dress when her friend was dead. “No,” she said, standing before Aunty Caro and pointing at her zipper. “This is all right, thanks.” When they were in the back seat of Yèyé’s car, her mother reached across the bag of clothes between them to squeeze Wúràọlá’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about your friend.” The firm squeeze brought her close to tears for the first time since the burial. Perhaps because the tenderness was so unexpected. In her last year of primary school, her class teacher was a grandmother who kept a jar of Eclairs on her


married nor divorced.” “I’m nineteen and not married.” And certainly not getting married anytime soon, after her last conversation with Nathaniel. “Excellent. Room and board includes two home-cooked meals a day. On weekends, you’re on your own. Anyone living here has to be pursuing a career on the stage, whether taking classes, looking for an agent, or auditioning. You already have a job, so that’s covered. The cost is eighteen dollars a week. Let me show you around.” The tour took them to the practice room, where one girl was banging away on a scuffed upright piano while another belted out a song in a strong alto. Down in the basement was the dining room, with a dozen Formica tables crammed into the small space. They took the creaky stairs up to the second floor, where the wallpaper curled away from the ceiling in the corners. The place could do with a serious sprucing-up, but then Marion had grown up in a beautifully appointed house that Mrs. Hornsby had kept in impeccable order. She was quite spoiled in that way, she had to admit. “This is where Bunny sleeps,” said Mrs. Fleming, opening a door. The room was large, with two beds, each with a bedside table, and two dressers with mirrors. A metal wardrobe loomed in a corner and a pair of hideous orange floral curtains framed a large window that looked onto the street. To the right, Marion spied a small bathroom, where bras and stockings hung from a clothesline that draped across the ceiling. “So, what do you think?” Marion put her suitcase down on the sloping wood floor. She realized she didn’t have much of a choice if she wanted to be able to sleep that night. “Sure. I’ll take it.” “Then you’re all set. Welcome to the Rehearsal Club.” After Mrs. Fleming left, Marion placed her clothes in the drawers of the empty bureau, hung her dresses in the wardrobe, then tucked the suitcase under the bed. As the din of street noise floated in through the open window, she considered what she’d done in the past twenty-four hours. Defied her father. Left home. Moved in with a girl she’d only recently met and barely knew. She was suddenly seized with panic at what she’d put into motion. A completely different life from the one she’d envisioned. Right now, she should be getting ready for a date with Nathaniel, varnishing her nails for when she showed off his sparkling engagement ring, accepting her father’s bear hug when they returned from their date, watching him shake the hand of the man who would become her husband. Instead, she was sitting on a lumpy bed listening to the wail of a police siren on the street below, surrounded by strangers. But underneath all the fretting and worry was something she was just starting to put a finger on, something that she knew was the driving force behind her actions over the past two days: a tiny flame of excitement at having made a decision and followed through. She was


of the sons of Fanor assailed the enemy in the rear. Some have said that even then the Eldar might have won the day, had all their hosts proved faithful; for the Orcs wavered, and their onslaught was stayed, and already some were turning to flight. But even as the vanguard of Maedhros came upon the Orcs, Morgoth loosed his last strength, and Angband was emptied. There came wolves, and wolfriders, and there came Balrogs, and dragons, and Glaurung father of dragons. The strength and terror of the Great Worm were now great indeed, and Elves and Men withered before him; and he came between the hosts of Maedhros and Fingon and swept them apart. Yet neither by wolf, nor by Balrog, nor by Dragon, would Morgoth have achieved his end, but for the treachery of Men. In this hour the plots of Ulfang were revealed. Many of the Easterlings turned and fled, their hearts being filled with lies and fear; but the sons of Ulfang went over suddenly to Morgoth and drove in upon the rear of the sons of Fanor, and in the confusion that they wrought they came near to the standard of Maedhros. They reaped not the reward that Morgoth promised them, for Maglor slew Uldor the accursed, the leader in treason, and the sons of Br slew Ulfast and Ulwarth ere they themselves were slain. But new strength of evil Men came up that Uldor had summoned and kept hidden in the eastern hills, and the host of Maedhros was assailed now on three sides, and it broke, and was scattered, and fled this way and that. Yet fate saved the sons of Fanor, and though all were wounded none were slain, for they drew together, and gathering a remnant of the Noldor and the Naugrim about them they hewed a way out of the battle and escaped far away towards Mount Dolmed in the east. Last of all the eastern force to stand firm were the Dwarves of Belegost, and thus they won renown. For the Naugrim withstood fire more hardily than either Elves or Men, and it was their custom moreover to wear great masks in battle hideous to look upon; and those stood them in good stead against the dragons. And but for them Glaurung and his brood would have withered all that was left of the Noldor. But the Naugrim made a circle about him when he assailed them, and even his mighty armour was not full proof against the blows of their great axes; and when in his rage Glaurung turned and struck down Azaghl, Lord of Belegost, and crawled over him, with his last stroke Azaghl drove a knife into his belly, and so wounded him that he fled the field, and the beasts of Angband in dismay followed after him. Then the Dwarves raised up the body of Azaghl and bore it away; and with slow steps they walked behind singing a dirge in deep voices, as it were a funeral pomp in their country, and gave no heed more


twice.” “I’ll say I’m feeling poorly, and we’ll duck out. And when the threesome offer comes, heavily imply that I have gonorrhea.” “That wouldn’t deter Uncle Paul.” “Genital warts?” “Mmm. Maybe?” He massages his temple. “The only good thing is that my brother’s coming.” I tense. “Jack?” “Yeah.” Stupid question. Greg only has the one. “I thought you said he’d be gone?” “His work dinner got canceled.” I groan inwardly. “What?” Shit, I groaned outwardly. “Nothing.” I grin and squeeze his arm through his coat. Greg Smith is my favorite client, and I will see him through this evening unscathed. “Let me handle your family, okay? It’s what you pay me for, after all.” It really is. And I’m grateful every day that I’ve never had to remind him. Many of my clients wonder more or less openly what other services I might offer, even though the terms of service in the Faux app are pretty explicit. They clear their throat, stroke their chin, and ask, “What exactly is included in this . . . fake-girlfriend rate?” I’m often tempted to roll my eyes and knee them in the nuts, but I try to not take offense, to smile kindly, and to say, “Not sex.” I also—to answer the standard follow-up questions—don’t kiss, frot, dirty talk, get naked, do butt stuff, give BJs, HJs, TJs, and whatever other Js might exist that I’m not aware of. I don’t let them pee on me or fondle my feet, nor do I facilitate and/or allow orgasms in my general vicinity. Not that there would be anything wrong: sex work is legitimate work, and people who engage in it are just as deserving of respect as ballerinas, or firefighters, or hedge fund managers. But ten months ago, when I graduated with a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Northeastern, I figured that by now I’d have a reasonably remunerated academic position. I did not imagine that at twenty-seven I’d be paying my water bill by helping adult men pretend that they have dating lives. And yet here I am, fake-girlfriending my way through my student loans. Not to kill anyone’s buzz, but I’m starting to suspect that life might not always turn out the way you want. An unavoidable loss of faith: there are only so many times one can be hired to project the idea that a client is a charming, well-adjusted, emotionally available human being capable of holding on to a medium-term relationship with an equally high-functioning adult, in order to . . . Well, it varies. I’ve never asked Greg why Caroline Smith is so obsessed with the idea of her thirty-year-old son having a significant other. Based on snippets of overheard conversations within the Smith Cinematic Universe, I suspect it has to do with the massive estate that will come into play once the matriarch dies, and with the belief that if he provided the first great-grandchild, he’d be more likely to inherit . . . a diamond-studded water hose, I assume? Rich people. They’re just like us. But Greg’s nosy mom


pudding?” “Are we supposed to be something?” “It’s a masquerade, Mort, the costumes are the whole point.” But she couldn’t quite puzzle out what their costumes were. The tulle of her skirt was layered shades of purple, wine-dark on the bottom and a nearly white lavender on the top. Embroidered threads of green lined the deep-violet bodice, ending in wide leaves around the plunging neck. Some kind of flower? Gabriel’s costume didn’t give any clues—regular court clothes, only odd for being all in shades of green. “You should probably refrain from calling me Mort once we arrive,” Gabriel said. “Doesn’t exactly sound familial.” “Just Gabriel, then?” He paused. “Gabe.” “Gabe,” she repeated, feeling out the word on her tongue. He gave a solemn nod, a tiny tick of a smile in the corner of his dour mouth. Lore returned it, then reapplied herself to the arduous task of walking in her ridiculous dress. Earlier, it had seemed like their rooms were miles from the center of the Citadel, but as the candelabras became more ornate and the iron-barred floor more polished with each descended stairway, Lore felt like they were getting there too fast. Her heart beat a nervous tattoo and sweat misted her skin, making the already-itchy tulle nigh unbearable. “What’s your full name?” Gabriel—Gabe—asked after a moment. They’d turned a corner and found themselves in a wide atrium that she vaguely remembered from earlier. Rosebushes grew profuse in ceramic pots, traced in golden gilt, hiding delicate wrought-iron tables and tiny statues of frolicking nymphs. “Is Lore short for something?” “No.” She shrugged. “It’s the only name I have.” “We’ll have to make something up, then. Something that sounds like the cousin of a duke.” He looked down at her, brow thoughtfully knit. The gentle light of the fading sunset through the atrium’s huge windows strobed over his face, then pitched it to shadow as they turned into another hallway. “Eldelore.” Her nose wrinkled. The brow over his eye patch rose. “You have approximately two minutes to come up with a better one.” “Two minutes?” They turned another corner, and the doors of the throne room loomed up ahead. Gabe gave her a chagrined look from the corner of his eye. “I did say approximately.” The entrance to the throne room somehow looked even more intimidating than it had this morning, the sunset light burnishing the Bleeding God’s Hearts on the door with pink and crimson and orange. Five bloodcoat guards stared straight ahead, swords sheathed at their sides, not a bayonet in sight. Lore assumed the weapon wasn’t elegant enough for inside the Citadel. Such slaughter was saved for outside the walls. These guards weren’t the ones who’d been there earlier, though. “New bloodcoats?” Lore whispered out of the corner of her mouth, only loud enough for Gabe to hear. “I’d imagine the ones who saw you this morning won’t be making an appearance again,” Gabriel murmured. “August is thorough. The guards who caught you in the Ward are probably gone, too. Keeps the circle of people who know who


because I am not to be trusted. I would try to commit some kind of low-stakes crime and immediately turn to Dave, like: “Did you really mean what you said in that song on 1993’s certified-platinum album Remember Two Things, or were you lying?” Me, brandishing the keys to the getaway car: “I dissected every single song on that mixtape you made me, get your ass up and help me rob this goddamn bank.” 8. “Say Goodbye” (might be too depressing to bone to, not for me though) most romantic lyric, to me: “Lovers for a night, lovers for tonight” THIS SONG IS SO HORNY, and that’s hilarious because dude is literally saying, over and over and over again, “Hey, friend, I would love to bone you, I’m feeling wild, sexy sex sex, but just for tonight because tomorrow we’re saying goodbye.” Tonight? Lovers. :) Tomorrow? FRIENDS. :( It’s so funny and honest and literally the way dirtbag men are in real life, which is as rare a thing to find in a pop song as it is when some dude is unbuckling his belt on your couch. He will have his tongue buried in your asshole up to your fucking pancreas saying, “We’re just friends, right?” He’ll be flipping you on the mattress like a pancake and pause with you in midair like, “I don’t want to be tied down in a relationship, this is just for fun, okay?” It’s infuriating in practice but hilarious in song form, a man crooning about smoking you down and loving you up in his sweetest coo and then at the end being like…tonight only, though. * * * — If I made music this is the kind of music I would make. I don’t mean jam-band-y saxophone solo music, I mean sensitive songs full of howling and begging. In my singer-songwriter phase in my teens (I’m still in that phase, quit playing), I daydreamed I was gonna get a guitar, somehow develop the patience to learn how to play it, then travel around singing my little plaintive songs in smoky coffeehouses as people sitting cross-legged on dusty fake Persian rugs wept into their cappuccinos, even though I had no idea what a cappuccino even was. I thought that I, a person who requires three different soaps in the shower and very specific bedsheets, was gonna stuff a backpack full of drugstore underwear and Salvation Army jeans into whatever kind of terrible used car I could afford and drive around the country playing open mics and sleeping, where, in a hostel? Little Miss Allergies and Bowel Disease is gonna survive on a road diet of gas station snacks and no prescriptions?! In what world?! 9. “The Space Between” most romantic lyric, to me: “Love is all we need, dear” Now, I do not believe in this; I believe we need shelter and clothing and shoes and a strong Wi-Fi hookup and an income stream and cell phones and a linen duvet cover and air-conditioning and a coffee machine we both know how to use and


Peggotty and Mr. Dick took that opportunity of repairing to the chandler's shop together. I parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human misery. My aunt was walking up and down the room when I returned, crimping the borders of her nightcap with her fingers. I warmed the ale and made the toast on the usual infallible principles. When it was ready for her, she was ready for it, with her nightcap on, and the skirt of her gown turned back on her knees. 'My dear,' said my aunt, after taking a spoonful of it; 'it's a great deal better than wine. Not half so bilious.' I suppose I looked doubtful, for she added: 'Tut, tut, child. If nothing worse than Ale happens to us, we are well off.' 'I should think so myself, aunt, I am sure,' said I. 'Well, then, why DON'T you think so?' said my aunt. 'Because you and I are very different people,' I returned. 'Stuff and nonsense, Trot!' replied my aunt. MY aunt went on with a quiet enjoyment, in which there was very little affectation, if any; drinking the warm ale with a tea-spoon, and soaking her strips of toast in it. 'Trot,' said she, 'I don't care for strange faces in general, but I rather like that Barkis of yours, do you know!' 'It's better than a hundred pounds to hear you say so!' said I. 'It's a most extraordinary world,' observed my aunt, rubbing her nose; 'how that woman ever got into it with that name, is unaccountable to me. It would be much more easy to be born a Jackson, or something of that sort, one would think.' 'Perhaps she thinks so, too; it's not her fault,' said I. 'I suppose not,' returned my aunt, rather grudging the admission; 'but it's very aggravating. However, she's Barkis now. That's some comfort. Barkis is uncommonly fond of you, Trot.' 'There is nothing she would leave undone to prove it,' said I. 'Nothing, I believe,' returned my aunt. 'Here, the poor fool has been begging and praying about handing over some of her money - because she has got too much of it. A simpleton!' My aunt's tears of pleasure were positively trickling down into the warm ale. 'She's the most ridiculous creature that ever was born,' said my aunt. 'I knew, from the first moment when I saw her with that poor dear blessed baby of a mother of yours, that she was the most ridiculous of mortals. But there are good points in Barkis!' Affecting to laugh, she got an opportunity of putting her hand to her eyes. Having availed herself of it, she resumed her toast and her discourse together. 'Ah! Mercy upon us!' sighed my aunt. 'I know all about it, Trot! Barkis and myself had quite a gossip while you were out with Dick. I know all about it. I don't know where these wretched girls expect to go to, for my part. I wonder


Jasad was always damned. A kingdom so mired in treachery is the architect of its own ruin.” He bowed over the map, bracing his weight on his knuckles. Mired in treachery? Now I was sure he wanted a reaction. Jasad was the only kingdom without twisted court politics and double-dealing deceptions. I turned to face him. This was the closest we had been without someone actively bleeding. I would be happy to rectify that. “No one follows your edicts. Why would they? Your father controls the courts, and the soldiers know any Jasadi they capture will be put to death immediately. Jasadis are guilty by existence.” The scar curving beneath his jaw caught the lamplight. “Do you deny your nature?” Disgust suffused my words. “What nature? If you mean my tendency to violence, it is no greater than yours.” To my shock, a small smile curved the corner of his lips. “Perhaps. But there will never come a day where my nature will overcome my mind. There is no magic in my veins that will turn poisonous and drive me to madness.” I shook my head. What was I doing, wasting my breath reasoning with Supreme Rawain’s son? Rawain was hardly the first Supreme to work against Jasad—he was just the most successful. Jasadi magic had been hated and feared for centuries, and it was only a matter of time until they devised a reason to invade strong enough to overpower their guilt. The Blood Summit killed a dozen royals, including Supreme Rawain’s wife—Arin’s mother. He would never suspect what I knew to be true. Arin would never believe his father was behind the deaths at the Blood Summit. “For someone so convinced of his own brilliance, you do seem to neglect quite a glaring flaw.” He stayed quiet. Refusing to engage me. I didn’t care. “You think your mind is a blank slate, where you can build your own networks of information from scratch, through pure logic and reason. You ignore that each child enters a completely unique world, founded on different truths. We build our reality on the foundation our world sets for us. You entered a world where magic is corrosive and Jasadis are inherently evil. I entered one where turning a shoe into a dove made my mother laugh. Have you considered, in that infinite mind of yours, that the truly brilliant people are the ones who understand the realities we build were already built for us?” My muscles locked in anticipation. Had I spoken with such impertinence to any other Heirs or royals, I would be on my knees with a sword at my jugular. Even my grandfather would have belted my hands, or at the very least banished me to my quarters. Arin, expression thoughtful, poured the lavender liquid from the pitcher into a chalice and passed it. “Here.” With a sizable helping of bewilderment, I accepted the chalice. Better than a sword. I sniffed the drink. The smell burned my nose, far stronger than any ale in Mahair’s taverns. Under Arin’s watchful gaze, I tipped


enunciating each word. “Do you speak English?” “Yes.” “I’d like to speak to Karolina, please.” “My name is Peter Brus.” His English is accented but perfect. “I am Karolina’s brother.” “My name is Hazel Laval. I sent Karolina a message on Facebook.” “Yes, I know,” he says. “You’re married to Benjamin Laval.” “I am,” I admit. “For now…” “I’m sorry for you.” I hear the hate in his voice. “That man is a potwór.” I don’t know the meaning of the Polish word, but it’s clearly not anything good. “That’s why I’m calling,” I say. “I need to talk to Karolina about getting out of my marriage. I want to know how your sister did it. How she divorced Benjamin and got away from him. How she was able to start over.” “You can’t talk to her,” Peter states. “I understand that this is hard.” Desperation makes my voice shrill. “I’m sure it’s upsetting for her to revisit those years. But I know what she’s been through. And I promise I’ll be sensitive to her feelings. I just…” My voice cracks a little. “I need her help.” “You can’t talk to her,” Peter says, and his voice is adamant, even angry, “because my sister died four years ago.” 55 “HOW?” I BLURT, BEFORE REALIZING that this is a highly insensitive question. “I… I mean, I’m sorry.” “Car accident,” he says. “That’s what the police called it. But there were no skid marks. She didn’t slow down or try to swerve.” “You think she crashed her car on purpose?” “Karolina drove straight into a concrete barrier at full speed.” His voice remains steady. “She wasn’t wearing her seat belt.” My mouth falls open, but I can’t say the word. And I don’t need to… because Peter continues. “Suicide,” he says. “But Benjamin Laval drove her to it. He murdered her.” I close my eyes, afraid to ask. “What did he do to her?” “When they were married, he treated her like a dog,” he growls. “She wasn’t allowed to see us. Or even talk to us. My father got sick, and Benjamin wouldn’t let her come home. My father died calling out for her.” My chest hurts. My head throbs. This is so much worse than I expected. “When Karolina finally left him, he made sure she got nothing. Not even our mother’s jewelry that she brought with her to America.” “I could look for it,” I suggest. “I could send it.” But Peter ignores the offer. “Benjamin had videos of my sister doing degrading things,” he continues. “He sent them to her employer. To her friends. To our church.” It is classic Benjamin. So cruel and vindictive. His enormous ego couldn’t take a woman leaving him. “Your husband murdered my sister,” Peter says. “He deserves to rot in hell.” “H-he does,” I stammer. “And I’ll do everything in my power to make sure he pays for it.” The laugh that travels down the line is bitter. “Benjamin Laval will never pay. Not in this life.” There is a slight pause, an intake


with food, water, and beds is too much for you?” Sefa yelled. I sat on Sefa’s new bed, watching with a peculiar mixture of curiosity and regret. If Niyar and Palia hadn’t killed Emre, I imagined watching my parents argue might have provoked a similar feeling. “He thinks we’re linked to her magic. He can use us against her!” Marek raked through his hair. “We can’t stay here!” “How would trying to escape help?” Sefa pounded the dust off the quilt at the foot of the bed. She aggressively folded it into a rectangle. “He would be committed to finding us, and we would be granted far less leeway than we have now!” Marek covered his face, sliding down the door. Sefa watched him mutinously for a long moment. I tried to make myself smaller, less like a voyeur spying on their private moments. With a drawn sigh, Sefa left the quilt and knelt by Marek, gently prying his wrists apart. “It’s just until after the trials. What’s one more adventure?” I felt compelled to speak. “He wouldn’t harm you as punishment for my disobedience.” At Marek’s fiery glare, I added, “Not out of compassion. Logically, hurting you two would ruin my goodwill and keep me from training efficiently. It might even motivate us to flee together. I am not denying that inflicting pain is another tool at his disposal. Just not one he’ll turn to with other available options. But if you run, if you tell anyone about the tunnels… once the Commander reaches a decision, he cannot be dissuaded.” “You mean he’ll kill us.” Sefa giggled, snuffing the sound in her elbow. “What danger is there in a brute?” Sefa said, echoing the answer I gave her the night I killed the soldier. “I kept wondering what you could have possibly meant. You meant this, didn’t you? The Nizahl Heir is polite, brilliant, handsome. He is the opposite of a brute, and a thousand times more dangerous for it, because you cannot know from which direction he will strike.” “You find that funny?” Marek peered at Sefa with concern. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. Sefa toppled from her crouch, joining Marek against the door. She dropped her head on his shoulder. “No.” We sat there until Sefa’s eyelids drooped and light snores vibrated in her chest. Marek’s lips tightened. “He knows who we are.” I smiled wanly. “Caleb is a nice name.” Marek’s flinch nearly knocked Sefa awake. His expression shuttered, and a faraway sorrow lined his features. “It was.” His gaze hardened and snapped to mine. “We won’t enter Nizahl. If you don’t find a way to persuade him to release us before the third trial, we will take our chances in the woods.” “Understood.” “So. You’re a Jasadi.” His discomfort was evident. Too many tales existed about Jasadis, expertly planted by Nizahl over the years to destroy any lingering sympathy for the scorched kingdom. Most people remembered Jasad before the siege, had traded outside the fortress and sent invitations to their waleemas. But


gentle pressure on my hand. "You had a child once, whom you loved and lost." A stronger pressure on my hand. "She lived and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady and very beautiful. And I love her!" With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then, he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his breast. Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better words that I could say beside his bed, than "O Lord, be merciful to him, a sinner!" Chapter 57 Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless as to that. For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor - anywhere, according as I happened to sink down - with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came one night which appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror; and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I found I could not do so. Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night, groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether I had two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning, of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making; whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of the room, and a voice had called out over and over again that Miss Havisham was consuming within


felt to be unseen.

We talked at length about the glory, the luxury, of privacy, of spending an

hour or two away from the press’s prying eyes. Our one true haven, we said,

where those lot can never ever find us.

And then they found us.

At the tail end of 2001 Marko visited me at Eton. We met for lunch at a

café in the heart of town, which I thought quite a treat. Plus an excuse to

bunk off, leave school grounds? I was all smiles.

But no. Marko, looking grim, said this was no larky outing.

What's up, Marko?

I’ve been asked to find out the truth, Harry.

About what?

I suspected he was referring to my recent loss of virginity. Inglorious

episode, with an older woman. She liked horses, quite a lot, and treated me

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not unlike a young stallion. Quick ride, after which she’d smacked my rump

and sent me off to graze. Among the many things about it that were wrong:

It happened in a grassy field behind a busy pub.

Obviously someone had seen us.

The truth, Marko?

About whether or not you’re doing drugs, Harry.

What?

It seemed that the editor of Britain’s biggest tabloid had recently phoned

my father’s office to say she’d uncovered “evidence” of my doing drugs in

various locations, including Club H. Also, a bike shed behind a pub. (Not the

pub where I’d lost my virginity.) My father’s office immediately dispatched

Marko to take a clandestine meeting with one of this editor’s lieutenants, in

some shady hotel room, and the lieutenant laid out the tabloid’s case. Now

Marko laid it out for me.

He asked again if it was true.

Lies, I said. All lies.

He went item by item through the editor’s evidence. I disputed all of it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The basic facts, the details, it was all


a cage all about the man. A voice cried, "There's Montag ! The search is done!" The innocent man stood bewildered, a cigarette burning in his hand. He stared at the Hound, not knowing what it was. He probably never knew. He glanced up at the sky and the wailing sirens. The cameras rushed down. The Hound leapt up into the air with a rhythm and a sense of timing that was incredibly beautiful. Its needle shot out. It was suspended for a moment in their gaze, as if to give the vast audience time to appreciate everything, the raw look of the victim's face, the empty street, the steel animal a bullet nosing the target. "Montag, don't move!" said a voice from the sky. The camera fell upon the victim, even as did the Hound. Both reached him simultaneously. The victim was seized by Hound and camera in a great spidering, clenching grip. He screamed. He screamed. He screamed! Blackout. Silence. Darkness. Montag cried out in the silence and turned away. Silence. And then, after a time of the men sitting around the fire, their faces expressionless, an announcer on the dark screen said, "The search is over, Montag is dead; a crime against society has been avenged." Darkness. "We now take you to the Sky Room of the Hotel Lux for a half-hour of Just-Before-Dawn, a programme of-" Granger turned it off. "They didn't show the man's face in focus. Did you notice? Even your best friends couldn't tell if it was you. They scrambled it just enough to let the imagination take over. Hell," he whispered. "Hell." Montag said nothing but now, looking back, sat with his eyes fixed to the blank screen, trembling. Granger touched Montag's arm. "Welcome back from the dead." Montag nodded. Granger went on. "You might as well know all of us, now. This is Fred Clement, former occupant of the Thomas Hardy chair at Cambridge in the years before it became an Atomic Engineering School. This other is Dr. Simmons from U.C.L.A., a specialist in Ortega y Gasset; Professor West here did quite a bit for ethics, an ancient study now, for Columbia University quite some years ago. Reverend Padover here gave a few lectures thirty years ago and lost his flock between one Sunday and the next for his views. He's been bumming with us some time now. Myself: I wrote a book called The Fingers in the Glove; the Proper Relationship between the Individual and Society, and here I am! Welcome, Montag! " "I don't belong with you," said Montag, at last, slowly. "I've been an idiot all the way." "We're used to that. We all made the right kind of mistakes, or we wouldn't be here. When we were separate individuals, all we had was rage. I struck a fireman when he came to burn my library years ago. I've been running ever since. You want to join us, Montag?" "Yes." "What have you to offer?" "Nothing. I thought I had part of the Book of Ecclesiastes and maybe a little


may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're like.' `I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully. `They have their tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs.' `You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle: `crumbs would all wash off in the sea. But they HAVE their tails in their mouths; and the reason is--' here the Mock Turtle yawned and shut his eyes.--`Tell her about the reason and all that,' he said to the Gryphon. `The reason is,' said the Gryphon, `that they WOULD go with the lobsters to the dance. So they got thrown out to sea. So they had to fall a long way. So they got their tails fast in their mouths. So they couldn't get them out again. That's all.' `Thank you,' said Alice, `it's very interesting. I never knew so much about a whiting before.' `I can tell you more than that, if you like,' said the Gryphon. `Do you know why it's called a whiting?' `I never thought about it,' said Alice. `Why?' `IT DOES THE BOOTS AND SHOES.' the Gryphon replied very solemnly. Alice was thoroughly puzzled. `Does the boots and shoes!' she repeated in a wondering tone. `Why, what are YOUR shoes done with?' said the Gryphon. `I mean, what makes them so shiny?' Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. `They're done with blacking, I believe.' `Boots and shoes under the sea,' the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, `are done with a whiting. Now you know.' `And what are they made of?' Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity. `Soles and eels, of course,' the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: `any shrimp could have told you that.' `If I'd been the whiting,' said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, `I'd have said to the porpoise, "Keep back, please: we don't want YOU with us!"' `They were obliged to have him with them,' the Mock Turtle said: `no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.' `Wouldn't it really?' said Alice in a tone of great surprise. `Of course not,' said the Mock Turtle: `why, if a fish came to ME, and told me he was going a journey, I should say "With what porpoise?"' `Don't you mean "purpose"?' said Alice. `I mean what I say,' the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added `Come, let's hear some of YOUR adventures.' `I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning,' said Alice a little timidly: `but it's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.' `Explain all that,' said the Mock Turtle. `No, no! The adventures first,' said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: `explanations take such a dreadful time.' So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the White Rabbit. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened


not two yet, Neil. Have another one, eh?’ Dickie Edwards Senior, now large and bald, chimed in, ‘Linda’s got a tasty lunch ready for you, I suppose?’ He barked a laugh; Lin’s reputation as a terrible cook was widely known. Neil shook his head good-naturedly. ‘You leave my lovely Lindy alone.’ Dangerous Dave swigged Hooky Bitter. ‘Are you sure you haven’t got time for one more?’ ‘Some other time.’ ‘We’ll see you next Sunday then, Neil?’ Jimmy Baker leaned against the bar and scratched his armpits. Neil was reminded that he had been teased for his constant sweaty smell as a child. Nowadays, Jimmy smelt overpoweringly of sharp cologne. ‘Next Sunday, definitely,’ Neil said. ‘I might treat Lindy to lunch.’ ‘I’ll see you before then.’ Dangerous Dave called out. ‘I’ve got a question for you about a starter motor in a BMW 1 series. Old Bomber Harris’s car is on the blink again.’ ‘I’ll call in to the garage tomorrow, Dangerous,’ Neil replied as he rushed towards the door. ‘But you’ll probably need a new starter and solenoid, and they aren’t cheap.’ Then he was gone. ‘Nice fella,’ Dave observed. ‘Always has been a good bloke, Neil. Reliable, honest.’ Jimmy scratched his head. ‘The girls loved him in primary school,’ Dickie Senior reminded everyone. ‘Another Hooky Bitter in there, son.’ He held his glass out to Dickie Junior, then he swivelled round. ‘Do you want another one, Kenny?’ ‘Ah, I will, ta.’ Kenny Hooper hunched in his old grey jacket, watching the action from a chair near the window. He finished the last mouthful in his glass and stared through the pane into the car park, frowning. Neil Timms was outside now, talking to a woman. Kenny gnawed his thumb as he watched; the woman was blonde, wearing a white blouse and a black skirt. He leaned forward, taking in the details, wondering why she and Neil were having a long conversation. The blonde woman laughed and patted his arm, then Neil reached into his jacket pocket and took out his wallet, handing her a roll of money. Kenny sniffed, then accepted the pint Dickie Senior placed in front of him. ‘Thanking ye, Dickie.’ Kenny’s eyes were back to the window, watching nervously. Neil and the blonde woman were still talking in the car park, then he saw them move away together. A deep indentation appeared between his brows: Neil was handsome – Dickie Senior had just said that the girls loved him, and now he was going somewhere with this woman who wasn’t his wife. He muttered to himself, ‘That ent right. He shouldn’t be doing that.’ Dickie Senior called from the bar, ‘What’s up, Kenny?’ Kenny wondered if he should say something, but his instincts told him that it might mean trouble: he was no gossip, even if his friends liked to tittle-tattle. He reached for his pint and grunted. ‘Ah, well, I ent complaining. Nice pint of Hooky. Thanks, Dickie.’ Florence Dawson sat in her bedroom. It was past midday but she was still in pyjamas. The sun streamed


as I approached. Big Jim came by his name honestly. He was where Oscar had gotten his massive frame and squared-off features. He loomed literally as well as figuratively in Chester. He’d been mayor for twenty-eight years, and the only person who’d ever come close to unseating him was Clark Jensen, who’d carried three wounded fellow soldiers through a hail of gunfire and still lost the election by six points. I’d never been sure where I stood with Jim. He didn’t like me, but he didn’t dislike me either, as far as I could tell. Every time I’d talked to him growing up, he’d seemed surprised, like he hadn’t noticed I was there. After the attack he’d pulled strings to make sure I got taken care of. He’d even given me a summer job once, filing paperwork in the office. It was mostly code for keeping the pencils sharpened and filling the candy dish, and I’d still managed to fuck it up spectacularly. He didn’t seem to hold it against me. But then, he didn’t hire me again either. Now he offered a furrowed brow and a grunt of greeting. “What can I do for you?” he asked, like I was any customer waltzing up. “I’m looking for Oscar,” I said. “What do you need him for?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously. As if I was the bad influence Oscar needed protecting from. “To see what he remembers about a girl named Jessi Walker,” I said. Jim’s face transformed from faint puzzlement to complete confusion. “What’s she got to do with you?” he asked. “You knew her?” It made sense, if she’d spent time with Oscar; he’d been living at home. “In passing,” Jim said, shrugging. He scratched the back of his broad knuckles. “That’s what I need to talk to Oscar about. I know they were friends. I’m just trying to put together a picture of her time in Chester and figure out where she was heading when she left,” I said. “I won’t take too much of his time.” “Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t find it in Jessi Walker,” Jim said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, bristling. He rested a hand on his hip and shook his head almost regretfully. “That girl was a walking disaster. She had a half dozen guys wrapped around her finger thinking they loved her. Oscar just about lost his damn mind over her. Fractured a guy’s wrist for pinching her ass in the diner, but she wouldn’t give him the time of day.” “He commits assault and she’s supposed to drop her panties?” I asked. Jim scowled at me. Interesting that he didn’t know they’d hooked up—or maybe it wasn’t. Jim wasn’t the kind of guy to keep a close watch on his son’s love life. “Look, I’m just telling you the girl liked drama. She made bad decisions and laughed about them. Everything was a game to her.” He said it all in a matter-of-fact tone, like he was reporting on nothing more fraught than the weather. “That kind of


tell you tomorrow." His hand quite trembled. "Oh, Mary!" he said. "Oh, Mary! If I could get into it I think I should live to grow up! Do you suppose that instead of singing the Ayah song--you could just tell me softly as you did that first day what you imagine it looks like inside? I am sure it will make me go to sleep." "Yes," answered Mary. "Shut your eyes." He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began to speak very slowly and in a very low voice. "I think it has been left alone so long--that it has grown all into a lovely tangle. I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the ground--almost like a strange gray mist. Some of them have died but many--are alive and when the summer comes there will be curtains and fountains of roses. I think the ground is full of daffodils and snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark. Now the spring has begun--perhaps--perhaps--" The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she saw it and went on. "Perhaps they are coming up through the grass--perhaps there are clusters of purple crocuses and gold ones--even now. Perhaps the leaves are beginning to break out and uncurl--and perhaps--the gray is changing and a green gauze veil is creeping--and creeping over--everything. And the birds are coming to look at it--because it is--so safe and still. And perhaps--perhaps--perhaps--" very softly and slowly indeed, "the robin has found a mate--and is building a nest." And Colin was asleep. CHAPTER XVIII "THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME" Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning. She slept late because she was tired, and when Martha brought her breakfast she told her that though. Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he always was after he had worn himself out with a fit of crying. Mary ate her breakfast slowly as she listened. "He says he wishes tha' would please go and see him as soon as tha' can," Martha said. "It's queer what a fancy he's took to thee. Tha' did give it him last night for sure--didn't tha? Nobody else would have dared to do it. Eh! poor lad! He's been spoiled till salt won't save him. Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a child is never to have his own way--or always to have it. She doesn't know which is th' worst. Tha' was in a fine temper tha'self, too. But he says to me when I went into his room, `Please ask Miss Mary if she'll please come an, talk to me?' Think o' him saying please! Will you go, Miss?" "I'll run and see Dickon first," said Mary. "No, I'll go and see Colin first and tell him--I know what I'll tell him," with a sudden inspiration. She had her hat on when she appeared


Run as fast as you can. Never look back.” Vic took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “But I have to try. And I promise you, that if we succeed, I’ll do everything I can to help you. You hurt. You killed. But you’re more than what the Blue Fairy showed you to be. The same with my father. I’m not scared of him. I’m not scared of you.” “You sh-should be.” “I’ve made my choice.” He squeezed Hap’s arm. “I need you to make yours. You’re not a puppet. Not anymore. Your strings have been cut. You’re free, Hap.” He pushed himself up the wall, limbs heavy. He started toward the bed. He stopped when Hap grabbed his hand. He looked down. Hap said, “You k-kissed me.” Vic flushed. He couldn’t stop it. He’d half hoped Hap had forgotten. “Yeah. Uh. I guess I did.” “Why?” He shrugged awkwardly. He wished Hap would let him go. He didn’t try to pull away. “Because I wanted to. Because I needed to remind you that you aren’t HARP.” “I’m Hap,” he whispered. “Yeah. You’re Hap.” “I f-felt it. I was l-lost in blood. You found me. Again.” Vic turned his hand, thumb brushing against Hap’s. “Something to it, I think. Maybe I was meant to find you. Before and now.” Hap looked away. Vic thought that was the end of the conversation. He was about to leave Hap to it when he changed everything. He said, “C-can … can you d-do it again?” Vic closed his eyes. “Is that what you want?” “I am choosing,” Hap said slowly, each word sounding as if it was punched from his chest. “I am making my own choice. I don’t have strings.” Vic pulled his hand away. Hap didn’t try to stop him. He took a step toward the bed. Stopped, because he had to. He wanted to. It was his choice, and he turned around, sinking to his knees in front of Hap. For his part, Hap gripped his knees tightly even as he tracked Vic’s every movement. Vic said, “Hello.” Hap said, “I—” Vic kissed him. There, in Heaven, in the City of Electric Dreams. It wasn’t like the first time. There wasn’t death and destruction raining down around them, a Blue Fairy looking on behind their mask. It was just the two of them, Vic’s hands in his own lap, Hap’s hands curling into fists. Vic was electrified, the hairs on his arms standing on end. They barely moved, their lips pressed together. Hap tasted of cold steel. Vic pulled away, but only just. He leaned his forehead against Hap’s, their eyes mere inches away. Hap said, “I … like it.” Vic exhaled sharply. “Okay.” “I l-like you.” “You do?” No one had ever said that to him before. “How do you know?” “You’re annoying.” “Gee, thanks. That’s what I want to hear after I—” “You’re h-human.” “Glad you caught on to that—” “But I choose you.” Vic swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Yeah?” “Yes.” Hap didn’t argue when Vic


A BOTTLENECK A SLUT COMBS OUT THE TATTS FROM THE HAIR OF A SCROFULOUS CHILD. CISSY CAFFREY'S VOICE, STILL YOUNG, SINGS SHRILL FROM A LANE.) CISSY CAFFREY: I GAVE IT TO MOLLY BECAUSE SHE WAS JOLLY, THE LEG OF THE DUCK, THE LEG OF THE DUCK. (PRIVATE CARR AND PRIVATE COMPTON, SWAGGERSTICKS TIGHT IN THEIR OXTERS, AS THEY MARCH UNSTEADILY RIGHTABOUTFACE AND BURST TOGETHER FROM THEIR MOUTHS A VOLLEYED FART. LAUGHTER OF MEN FROM THE LANE. A HOARSE VIRAGO RETORTS.) THE VIRAGO: Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl. CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. (SHE SINGS) I GAVE IT TO NELLY TO STICK IN HER BELLY, THE LEG OF THE DUCK, THE LEG OF THE DUCK. (PRIVATE CARR AND PRIVATE COMPTON TURN AND COUNTERRETORT, THEIR TUNICS BLOODBRIGHT IN A LAMPGLOW, BLACK SOCKETS OF CAPS ON THEIR BLOND CROPPED POLLS. STEPHEN DEDALUS AND LYNCH PASS THROUGH THE CROWD CLOSE TO THE REDCOATS.) PRIVATE COMPTON: (JERKS HIS FINGER) Way for the parson. PRIVATE CARR: (TURNS AND CALLS) What ho, parson! CISSY CAFFREY: (HER VOICE SOARING HIGHER) SHE HAS IT, SHE GOT IT, WHEREVER SHE PUT IT, THE LEG OF THE DUCK. (STEPHEN, FLOURISHING THE ASHPLANT IN HIS LEFT HAND, CHANTS WITH JOY THE INTROIT FOR PASCHAL TIME. LYNCH, HIS JOCKEYCAP LOW ON HIS BROW, ATTENDS HIM, A SNEER OF DISCONTENT WRINKLING HIS FACE.) STEPHEN: VIDI AQUAM EGREDIENTEM DE TEMPLO A LATERE DEXTRO. ALLELUIA. (THE FAMISHED SNAGGLETUSKS OF AN ELDERLY BAWD PROTRUDE FROM A DOORWAY.) THE BAWD: (HER VOICE WHISPERING HUSKILY) Sst! Come here till I tell you. Maidenhead inside. Sst! STEPHEN: (ALTIUS ALIQUANTULUM) ET OMNES AD QUOS PERVENIT AQUA ISTA. THE BAWD: (SPITS IN THEIR TRAIL HER JET OF VENOM) Trinity medicals. Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence. (EDY BOARDMAN, SNIFFLING, CROUCHED WITH BERTHA SUPPLE, DRAWS HER SHAWL ACROSS HER NOSTRILS.) EDY BOARDMAN: (BICKERING) And says the one: I seen you up Faithful place with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his cometobed hat. Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You never seen me in the mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The likes of her! Stag that one is! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with two fellows the one time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal Oliphant. STEPHEN: (TRIUMPHALITER) SALVI FACTI SUNT. (HE FLOURISHES HIS ASHPLANT, SHIVERING THE LAMP IMAGE, SHATTERING LIGHT OVER THE WORLD. A LIVER AND WHITE SPANIEL ON THE PROWL SLINKS AFTER HIM, GROWLING. LYNCH SCARES IT WITH A KICK.) LYNCH: So that? STEPHEN: (LOOKS BEHIND) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm. LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street! STEPHEN: We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of love. LYNCH: Ba! STEPHEN: Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug? This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in


young and strong. Surely physically capable of overpowering an unsuspecting victim. And yet, Anthony Creswell was a true man of the cloth. A believer. Certainly not a murderer. At least Bentz assumed as much. There was a line from an old radio show that Bentz had often heard his grandfather quote, something about evil lurking in men’s hearts. He couldn’t remember the exact quote but it seemed appropriate now as he watched the priest disappear from the window. “Who indeed,” he thought aloud as he backed up, then put his Jeep into drive, pulled out of the gravel lot, and rubbed the back of his neck. He’d originally thought the recent killings of the prostitutes was cut-and-dried, that his old nemesis, Father John, had somehow been resurrected and was haunting the streets of New Orleans once again, but increasingly he was starting to believe it might be something more. Something more complicated. Something more sinister. Something he had yet to figure out. He thought about Kristi and the attack against her, the murder of her husband and the notes left to terrorize her, notes he was certain Ned Zavala was incapable of creating. But what about his mother? And how did this all fit in with Father John? He couldn’t force the pieces of this ill-fitting puzzle together, no matter how he tried. Frustrated, Bentz left Our Lady of the Grove with more questions than he had answers and only hoped Montoya had fared better. As his partner had suggested, they were following different paths, he on the Father John trail, Montoya trying to root out a separate psychopath who had brutally taken Jay McKnight’s life and left Bentz’s daughter a wounded widow. He still believed that Jay’s murderer was either Father John or a clever copycat, and somehow connected to his son-in-law’s killer. All the evidence at the scenes of the murders of Teri Marie Gaines and Helene Laroche pointed to Father John, but so far Bentz had no real proof that the Rosary Killer had survived. If Father John wasn’t responsible for the recent murders, then who? He felt heartburn begin to attack and reached into the console, found an opened roll of antacids, and popped two as he threaded his way through the traffic and drove past the lake, stretching wide, reflecting the sky and meeting the horizon. He drove past Samantha Wheeler’s house, saw that the gates were closed, and felt that he was missing something. Something important. If Father John were really alive, why hadn’t he targeted Dr. Sam? Why would he go after Kristi? Some kind of revenge move against Bentz for nearly killing him? Or Kristi for writing the book? He rounded a corner, slowed for a jaywalker, and cracked the window, allowing the warm autumn air to flow into the interior. Nothing was making sense. Once again, he hoped his partner was having better luck. CHAPTER 22 Montoya took a final drag of his Marlboro and stuffed the butt in an outdoor ash can near the entrance of the crime lab. One booted foot


thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say, "It lightens." Sweet, good-night! This bud of love by summer's ripening breath May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet,-- she spoke the words as if they conveyed no meaning to her. It was not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she seemed absolutely self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure. Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and to whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was the girl herself. When the second act was over there came a storm of hisses, and Lord Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat. "She is quite beautiful, Dorian," he said, "but she can't act. Let us go." "I am going to see the play through," answered the lad, in a hard, bitter voice. "I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an evening, Harry. I apologize to both of you." "My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill," interrupted Hallward. "We will come some other night." "I wish she was ill," he rejoined. "But she seems to me to be simply callous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last night she was a great artist. To-night she is merely a commonplace, mediocre actress." "Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more wonderful thing than art." "They are both simply forms of imitation," murmured Lord Henry. "But do let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don't suppose you will want your wife to act. So what does it matter if she plays Juliet like a wooden doll? She is very lovely, and if she knows as little about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful experience. There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating,--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic! The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. We will smoke cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful. What more can you want?" "Please go away, Harry," cried the lad. "I really want to be alone.- -Basil, you don't mind my asking you to go? Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?" The hot tears came to his eyes. His [39] lips trembled, and, rushing to the back of the box, he leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. "Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry, with a strange tenderness


of minutes before he was paying for a room and we were going upstairs together, me feeling light and loose-limbed and him moving with a directness I wasn’t accustomed to seeing in him, but then again I was accustomed to seeing him sitting in chairs behind desks and calmly making financial predictions on TV. In the room, he took off his jacket and kicked off his shoes and sat on the edge of the bed, palms upturned at his sides. “What do I have to do?” he asked. “For you to Synthesize me?” I sat down across from him and started laughing, making no effort to stop. “Just tell me a memory that really sticks out to you,” I said. “My wife shutting the door in my face the April before we got divorced,” he said. “No, okay—forget that. How about you sucking on that orange wedge?” I opened my eyes. His were open too, blue as the hottest part of a flame. Afterward, he curled against me in bed, and I could feel the front of his body against the back of mine, the cold tops of his thighs and bony knots of his kneecaps. “I’m sorry,” he said, and bit my ear. “I don’t want to take you for all you’re worth.” “You don’t have to.” “I feel like I do, though. Because it’s blood money.” I pulled his arm under mine and around my torso. “Can I ask you a question?” “Anything,” he said. “What do you do to make yourself not in love with someone?” I flipped to face him, or rather the blur that was supposed to be him. “What do you mean?” “Like, if you’ve loved someone for a long time—how do you force yourself out of love?” “Oh, Ez.” He kissed my cheek. “You’re so young, aren’t you?” “Not really. I’m twenty-seven” “Trust me, that’s still young.” He brushed a strand of hair from my face. “That’s very, very young.” * * * A few weeks after my Crazy Money appearance, I had to speak at a Captains of Industry dinner that was being hosted by a financial magazine, the kind of thing that gave very rich people an excuse to assess one another and exchange pithy and confusing insults at the buffet. The invitation had originally gone to Orson, but he was busy on the Farm with something called Wholeness, a two-week-long retreat for people interested in “reconciling the bad with the good.” Devotees had swarmed the Farm in record numbers: aerial photographs showed the property’s entire square footage covered with tents and people and Porta-Potties. It stayed this way for days, looking like a perpetual music festival. I’d brought Brianna with me to the dinner, which I could tell would be interminable from the moment we stepped foot in the banquet hall. The place was crowded with adults in expensive evening wear wandering among the tables and making conversation that was hostile in its politesse. There were a few people my age, mostly tech brats who had invented dog-walking apps or Bluetooth devices


his flips in the middle of the room, all the times I’d lit one of my cigarettes on the burning end of his. He patted the bed next to him and I sat down, feeling his warmth, carefully positioning my hand as close to his thigh as I could. “I’m glad you’re here, little dude,” he said. “Me too.” He took a drag and handed me the cigarette. I took my own drag, tasting his lips on the filter. “I should really quit,” he said. “It’s bad for my image. But I never know what to do with my hands, you know?” Obviously I knew. I’d known this for years, for his whole life. I knew him better than he knew himself. “Yeah,” I said. “You’re busy in New York?” he asked. “Well—I, um. That’s actually what I came here to tell you about.” He nodded, unhearing. “People are expecting a lot of me,” he said. “You start to feel the pressure in situations like this.” “I can only imagine.” “What do you think people want next?” “I—I mean, I really don’t know. That seems like the kind of thing you’d know.” “Mm.” He leaned back on his hands and looked at the ceiling. “I’m thinking people want to know what happens after death.” His body was forming beautiful angles. “Do you know what happens after death?” I asked. He laughed. “No, not yet. But I can figure it out. A little meditating. Some solitude. They’ve both worked so far.” He seemed to be in a pleasant reverie, and I didn’t want to interrupt it, but I knew I had to. “Have you seen the news?” He shook his head. “No externalities.” “Right, okay. I just—” He looked pointedly at me, but I pressed on. “I just need to tell you about what happened in Urmau.” He sighed. “What?” I told him as quickly as I could about taking part in the coup, about Genial’s death and the country’s plunge into chaos. “Okay,” he said. “What does that have to do with anything?” “Well, it means we’re in trouble financially. We can’t make money in Urmau anymore, and we took a big gamble on it. It could affect the share price.” He waved his hand dismissively. “I hate this stuff,” he said. “You were always better at it.” “I know,” I said gently. “But the company’s paying for the Farm. So the Farm could be in trouble.” He turned to me with a look of such pure panic that I wanted to pull him to my chest and kiss his forehead. I did the next best thing. “I can keep the share price up, though. I can just not disclose the situation to the shareholders.” He nodded. “Yeah. But then—what if they’re watching the news?” “It doesn’t really matter as long as we keep telling them we’re making money. Elaine and I can make it look that way.” “How?” I thought about explaining how special purpose vehicles worked, but I decided against it. “We can make the debt go away. Just like,


glass, and I could feel it through the table, through the floor, up my legs. He said, “I’m not so interested in guilty or innocent, strange as that might sound. I’m interested in due process. My perspective is maybe this guy did it, but the case was shit.” Britt typed frantically at her laptop, despite the fact that we were recording; Alder did a happy dance with his arms. “I don’t know New Hampshire law precisely,” he said, “but I can speak to the issues in general. The only evidence that isn’t horribly circumstantial is the DNA and the confession. And this was trace DNA. DNA is tricky. A few years ago, they find DNA on a dead girl’s jeans, they spend all this money, and they end up tracking it back to a worker at the Taiwanese factory where the jeans were made. Not helpful. Plus, in 1995 the DNA science was horseshit. You have a much smaller pool of samples back then, so they end up saying, like, This is a one in eight million match, when now they’d say it’s one in two thousand. It was a brand-new field.” My students were grinning, which I imagined was partly because he said words like “horseshit” in such an elegant accent. I hadn’t heard the story about the jeans before. If all the DNA showed was that Omar had once touched that swimsuit, well—if I were on a jury, I wouldn’t have found that compelling proof. I ticked off one more mental box. A big one. “Then we have the confession. As soon as drug allegations are involved, my antennae go up. Because you know what they do: They say they’re handing you to the feds on drug charges, but if you cooperate in this local investigation maybe they can protect you. They say, Did you let her into the pool that night? You must have seen her, or how else did your DNA get there? They say, This looks bad, we’ve got you at the scene now plus the drug charges, your only hope is to confess.” So he had actually dug into the case. Under other circumstances I’d have been overwhelmed with romantic hope, but my heart was pounding, instead, over Omar. The real Omar I’d known, not the guy in the mug shot. The real Omar, spending the rest of his life in prison. And while Yahav might not have been convinced yet of his innocence, Yahav didn’t know about you. He said, “You’ve heard about these cases, yes? People so sleep-deprived they’ll sign anything, or people who believe lies about evidence or leniency or getting to go home. It gets worse from there. Actual violence, actual torture. Even in America.” “This is amazing,” Britt said. “Can we, like—” But Yahav was in lecture mode. “This many years later,” he said, “to appeal again, Mr. Evans would ideally have two things in place. One is a reasonable case for ineffective assistance of counsel, meaning he didn’t have adequate help from his legal team. They tried to claim this


Ralph went crimson. "I said you were hunters. That was your job." Jack ignored him again. "Who'll join my tribe and have fun?" "I'm chief," said Ralph tremulously. "And what about the fire? And I've got the conch--" "You haven't got it with you," said Jack, sneering. "You left it behind. See, clever? And the conch doesn't count at this end of the island--" All at once the thunder struck. Instead of the dull boom there was a point of impact in the explosion. "The conch counts here too," said Ralph, "and all over the island." "What are you going to do about it then?" Ralph examined the ranks of boys. There was no help in them and he looked away, confused and sweating. Piggy whispered. "The fire--rescue." "Who'll join my tribe?" "I will." "Me." "I will." "I'll blow the conch," said Ralph breathlessly, "and call an assembly." "We shan't hear it." Piggy touched Ralph's wrist. "Come away. There's going to be trouble. And we've had our meat." There was a blink of bright light beyond the forest and the thunder exploded again so that a littlun started to whine. Big drops of rain fell among them making individual sounds when they struck. "Going to be a storm," said Ralph, "and you'll have rain like when we dropped here. Who's clever now? Where are your shelters? What are you going to do about that?" The hunters were looking uneasily at the sky, flinching from the stroke of the drops. A wave of restlessness set the boys swaying and moving aimlessly. The flickering light became brighter and the blows of the thunder were only just bearable. The littluns began to run about, screaming. Jack leapt on to the sand. "Do our dance! Come on! Dance!" He ran stumbling through the thick sand to the open space of rock beyond the fire. Between the flashes of lightning the air was dark and terrible; and the boys followed him, clamorously. Roger became the pig, grunting and charging at Jack, who side-stepped. The hunters took their spears, the cooks took spits, and the rest clubs of firewood. A circling movement developed and a chant. While Roger mimed the terror of the pig, the littluns ran and jumped on the outside of the circle. Piggy and Ralph, under the threat of the sky, found themselves eager to take a place in this demented but partly secure society. They were glad to touch the brown backs of the fence that hemmed in the terror and made it governable. "_Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!_" The movement became regular while the chant lost its first superficial excitement and began to beat like a steady pulse. Roger ceased to be a pig and became a hunter, so that the center of the ring yawned emptily. Some of the littluns started a ring on their own; and the complementary circles went round and round as though repetition would achieve safety of itself. There was the throb and stamp of a single organism. The dark sky was shattered by


time. As if I’m in the cafeteria watching her eat lunch on her own with that bored expression and her head held high, like anything, absolutely anything, was preferable to me. “We were best friends for years and then suddenly that was it! Like we never even happened.” “Because you weren’t you anymore. You were a completely different person like…like—” “Like I’d been abducted by aliens,” I say in realization, the words coming slow and flat. And it all falls into place: why she wouldn’t accept my apology, why she wouldn’t even let me try. Why we’re standing here with nothing between us but an ancient argument. She looks at me, her expression mutinous, her jaw tight. Like she’s daring me to make something of the connection. I don’t even know what to say. This thing we have, it’s like throwing a tangled chain into a drawer, hoping one day it’ll come out untangled again: the knot gets even bigger while you’re not looking. I couldn’t find the right piece to pull, couldn’t get a good grip on the links, even if I wanted to. We’re just too…done. She takes a breath. Her voice sounds like the edge of a saw. “The way I see it, we weren’t ever meant to be friends. Whatever we used to be was…accidental or circumstantial or…” It takes me a minute to understand those words, just like if someone punched into your body and ripped out your kidneys, it’d take a while to realize you were bleeding out. So I let her get deep into her bullshit before I manage to interrupt. “What?” She closes her mouth. The wind howls through the trees. I repeat, “What did you just say to me?” She lifts her chin. Something in the middle of my rib cage snaps. “For fuck’s sake.” I. Am. Too. Hot. I rip the hat off my head and throw it toward the ground. “I can’t stand you.” My hat hits her in the knee, somehow. She throws it back. Misses me. “Yes! I’m aware!” “Don’t throw my hat!” I shout, and pick it up from the mud, and then accidentally throw it again. “Fine!” Before I know it, she’s crouched down, scooped up a handful of wet mud and rotting leaves and God knows what else, and launched it my way. There’s a visceral splat as it hits my chest, and I see satisfaction on her face for about 0.2 seconds before the expression vanishes like a snuffed-out candle. Her jaw drops. Her eyes are wide. She’s a bit like that painting, the one with the scream. I look very, very slowly down at my filthy clothes. “Brad!” she says, like she doesn’t know what else to say. This outfit is pretty fucked now. From head to toe. It’s not as if I’ve never been muddy before—you should see me at Sunday matches—but this isn’t a wide-open, manicured field and I am not in uniform. God knows what’s hiding in this forest. I’ve seen mushrooms in here. Mushrooms are fungus. I am fully contaminated.


and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come! Yours, as ever and always, Quincey P. Morris TELEGRAM FROM ARTHUR HOLMWOOD TO QUINCEY P. MORRIS 26 May Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle. Art CHAPTER 6 MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL 24 July. Whitby.--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovlier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town-- the side away from us, are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of "Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits. There is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard, and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit here and talk. The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea,


Officer Bradley either. Drugs were a part of college, right? That night, dancing in a crowded, smoky bar, I was happy about the adorable boy dancing with Daphne, watching her like she made the earth turn on its axis. We drank and danced and laughed and drank and danced and laughed. Daphne seemed wild and free and, best of all, happy. When I asked her about the boy, as she continued sipping vodka sodas as the sun came up back at her house, she said, “Oh, he’s precious, but I can’t hang out with him anymore.” “Why not?” “He wants me to be his, like, actual girlfriend. And what’s the point?” she answered, shrugging. “I’m never going to get married anyway.” The only consistent in Daphne’s dating life was Huff. They were at different colleges, so they only saw each other on breaks and random weekends. When they were apart, they were apart. But when they were together, they were… together. I didn’t love that they were always casually dating, but I knew it would pass. Sometimes I wondered how I would fit in if they got serious. But when Huff got accepted to Johns Hopkins for medical school, I figured any relationship they had would end. He would be studying all the time. Daphne loved Wilmington, and she was never going to leave the beach, even though, by that time, I honestly wished she would. There was always drinking, always drugs. I felt like the very uncool friend among her very cool ones, but I still worried. I’m not saying it was her friends’ faults, but I knew that sometimes it was harder to change a behavior when you were in the same place with the same group and the same habits. When I walked through the back door of my childhood home spring break of our senior year, Huff and Daphne didn’t see me at first. They were sitting at the dining room table like they had a million times before. Daphne was saying something, Huff was laughing, and, in the split second before he saw me, he looked at her in a way I had never seen him look at anyone. It washed over me that he was in love with her. But I didn’t feel panicked. Yet. “Hi, guys!” I said as cheerily as I could muster. Daphne jumped up to hug me. We hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, since I had road-tripped from Durham to Wilmington to visit her. The first thing she said was, “Guess who’s moving to Baltimore?” Huff was grinning bigger than the day he got accepted to med school. He got up to hug me too. “Hi, sis. Pretty great, huh?” “I’m sorry,” I said. “Who’s moving to Baltimore?” “I am, silly!” Daphne said. I had wanted to talk to Daphne about possibly moving. But I hadn’t wanted her to move with my brother. “I need to take some prerequisite classes I need to apply to law school, so why not do that in Baltimore? After camp, of course.” In


Emily Wildes Encyclopaedia of Faeries.txt

Leroux and Zielinski. She’s been awarded some sort of medal by the Polish queen and has been rather big-headed about it—snubbed three-quarters of her old circle, though I’ve managed to stay in her good graces…They say even the king of Paris may make an appearance this year; if so, I’m sure I can convince Leroux to make the introductions…” My heart gave a nervous flutter. That would shorten the duration of my field study drastically. I would have only three months—three months!—to accomplish what took most scholars a year or more. Could I do it? Instead of answering, I sipped my tea and said, “I’m a little surprised you were invited back this year. But I suppose the furor over the Schwarzwald expedition has died down somewhat.” He slouched deeper and became preoccupied with his sleeve. “A misunderstanding, that. I’ve no doubt future studies will validate my findings.” “Of course.” I’d no doubt they would do the opposite. I suspected that Bambleby’s paper concerning the snow-weavings of the trooping faeries of the Schwarzwald was not the first of his to contain exaggerated or patchy evidence, but it was probably the first he had entirely falsified. Probably. Wendell Bambleby’s research is all flash and dazzle, and he has an uncanny knack for uncovering outlandish new faerie rituals and enchantments that turn much of the related scholarship on its head—a knack I have often found less uncanny than suspicious. Shadow placed his head on Bambleby’s knee, and he reached his long fingers down to stroke the dog’s head. In the early days of our friendship, Bambleby had been unsure of Shadow, often appearing to have little idea of what to make of him, so much so that at times I wondered if he had ever seen a dog before. But Shadow had no such hesitancy. From their first meeting, he regarded Bambleby with a thoughtless and entirely undeserved ardour that would have filled me with jealousy had I not already been so secure in Shadow’s affections. As time went on, Bambleby grew accustomed to offering hesitant pats in return, and now—to my chagrin—they are old friends. “This book of yours is important to you, isn’t it?” he said. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a stack of neatly typed pages. I recognized the excerpt I had sent him last month, comprising the first fifty pages or so. “You’ve read it?” I demanded. “Of course.” He riffled the pages—they were much marked-up with his elegant scrawl. “It’s quite remarkable. I’d like to see the rest once you’ve had it typed out.” I was startled by the flush that crept up my neck at his words. I’ve never attached particular consequence to Bambleby’s opinion of my work, but I suppose it wasn’t just about his opinion. The encyclopaedia has been mine alone for the better part of a decade. It is one thing to think highly of one’s own research, quite another to hear that opinion corroborated. “Remarkable?” I repeated. “Well—it’s never been done before, has it? An encyclopaedia of faeries? This will form


with arnica and brushed her hair. "I don't believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned hair, old gowns, one glove apiece and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them," And I think Jo was quite right. -------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Chapter" I.4 Burdens "Oh, dear, how hard it does seem to take up our packs and go on," sighed Meg the morning after the party, for now the holidays were over, the week of merrymaking did not fit her for going on easily with the task she never liked. "I wish it was Christmas or New Year's all the time. Wouldn't it be fun?" answered Jo, yawning dismally. "We shouldn't enjoy ourselves half so much as we do now. But it does seem so nice to have little suppers and bouquets, and go to parties, and drive home, and read and rest,and not work. It's like other people, you know, and I always envy girls who do such things, I'm so fond of luxury," said Meg, trying to decide which of two shabby gowns was the least shabby. "Well, we can't have it, so don't let us grumble but shoulder our bundles and trudge along as cheerfully as Marmee does. I'm sure Aunt March is a regular Old Man of the Sea to me, but I suppose when I've learned to carry her without complaining, she will tumble off, or get so light that I shan't mind her." This idea tickled Jo's fancy and put her in good spirits, but Meg didn't brighten, for her burden, consisting of four spoiled children, seemed heavier than ever. She had not heart enough even to make herself pretty as usual by putting on a blue neck ribbon and dressing her hair in the most becoming way. "Where's the use of looking nice, when no one sees me but those cross midgets, and no one cares whether I'm pretty or not?" she muttered, shutting her drawer with a jerk. "I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little bits of fun now and then, and get old and ugly and sour, because I'm poor and can't enjoy my life as other girls do. It's a shame!" So Meg went down, wearing an injured look, and wasn't at all agreeable at breakfast time. Everyone seemed rather out of sorts and inclined to croak. Beth had a headache and lay on the sofa, trying to comfort herself with the cat and three kittens. Amy was fretting because her lessons were not learned, and she couldn't find her rubbers. Jo would whistle and make a great racket getting ready. Mrs. March was very busy trying to finish a letter, which must go at once, and Hannah had the grumps, for being up late didn't suit her. "There never was such a cross family!" cried Jo, losing her temper when she had upset an inkstand, broken both boot lacings, and sat down upon her hat. "You're the crossest person in it!"