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Pineapple Street.txt

certainly Amy could, too. I said, “We won’t have a chance to name Denny Bloch, then.” “I know, I know,” she said. “But at this point, I think it dilutes the case.” She sounded so careful, so conciliatory. Not for the first time, I worried Amy thought I was hung up on my own agenda. I said, “Can I come watch the proceedings, then?” I already knew the answer: I’d be a distraction there, too. What she said, though, was “You’re still on our list; nothing’s definite. If you can stay in town that’s great, and you’re still sequestered.” “Right.” “We’ll probably rest late Monday or early Tuesday, and then you can go.” I calculated that I could use the next few days as a writing retreat. I was deep into my research on Marion Wong and the Mandarin Film company. I could lose myself in that all day. But writing time was a sorry consolation prize. All I wanted was to be on the stand. Your name had been sitting in my throat for four years, waiting to get out. I’d been waiting four years to see Omar, to look him in the eyes. I didn’t want or expect anything from him; I just wanted to see his face. I lay on the bed a long time, listening to the elevator let people off on other floors. 12 I sat on my cracked balcony chair in my coat that evening, staring out at the long, snowy lawn and the river it sloped to. A gazebo partway down, one that might have been used for weddings in summer, sat desolate—a place to break up with someone. The sun was setting, lending everything a golden glaze and a flimsy illusion of warmth. Jerome had texted to wish me luck tomorrow, and I didn’t know how to explain that I was out here for nothing. Yahav, following the case closely via Twitter and getting updates from Alder, didn’t need to be told; not long after I hung up with Amy, he’d texted, They might feel it’s a risk now to put you up there. Any word? I was thinking of going inside when a man came into view, pacing by the river and talking on his phone. I was fairly sure it was Geoff Richler, although this person strode confidently, with purpose, and didn’t slouch like the teenager I’d known. He wore a fleece, but his shoulders seemed built for a blazer. They were architectural supports that something expensive ought to hang from. When he returned the phone to his pocket, I called out and yes, it was Geoff; here he came leaping up the lawn. He jumped and tried to catch the lower rim of the balcony, which didn’t work the first time but worked the second—and then he was hauling himself up, getting his whole body not over the railing but outside of it, so he stood face-to-face with me, the railing between us. I put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed. He couldn’t hug me back without letting go of

Hound of the Baskervilles.txt

tell it sooner rather than later. Come, now! No lies! What were you doing at that window??' The fellow looked at us in a helpless way, and he wrung his hands together like one who is in the last extremity of doubt and misery. "I was doing no harm, sir. I was holding a candle to the window." "And why were you holding a candle to the window?" "Don't ask me, Sir Henry -- don't ask me! I give you my word, sir, that it is not my secret, and that I cannot tell it. If it concerned no one but myself I would not try to keep it from you." A sudden idea occurred to me, and I took the candle from the trembling hand of the butler. "He must have been holding it as a signal," said I. "Let us see if there is any answer." I held it as he had done, and stared out into the darkness of the night. Vaguely I could discern the black bank of the trees and the lighter expanse of the moor, for the moon was behind the clouds. And then I gave a cry of exultation, for a tiny pin-point of yellow light had suddenly transfixed the dark veil, and glowed steadily in the centre of the black square framed by the window. "There it is!" I cried. "No, no, sir, it is nothing -- nothing at all!" the butler broke in; "I assure you, sir --" "Move your light across the window, Watson!" cried the baronet. "See, the other moves also! Now, you rascal, do you deny that it is a signal? Come, speak up! Who is your confeder- ate out yonder, and what is this conspiracy that is going on?" The man's face became openly defiant. "It is my business, and not yours. I will not tell." "Then you leave my employment right away." "Very good, sir. If I must I must." "And you go in disgrace. By thunder, you may well be ashamed of yourself. Your family has lived with mine for over a hundred years under this roof, and here I find you deep in some dark plot against me." "No, no, sir; no, not against you!" It was a woman's voice, and Mrs. Barrymore, paler and more horror-struck than her husband, was standing at the door. Her bulky figure in a shawl and skirt might have been comic were it not for the intensity of feeling upon her face. "We have to go, Eliza. This is the end of it. You can pack our things," said the butler. "Oh, John, John, have I brought you to this? It is my doing, Sir Henry -- all mine. He has done nothing except for my sake and because I asked him." "Speak out, then! What does it mean?" "My unhappy brother is starving on the moor. We cannot let him perish at our very gates. The light is a signal to him that food is ready for him, and his light out yonder is to show the spot to

Love Theoretically.txt

him out the second time it happens. “Right,” Jack says, unruffled, and I spend the next two turns blushing and fidgeting in his lap, till his grip tightens on me and his words in my ear are a distracted “Be good.” Something scalding and liquid blooms inside me. Jack still wins. And I must get the hang of it, because I win mine, too. I win a practice match against George, who bought four types of cheese because Jack told her it’s all I eat. I win against Sunny. I win against another person whose name I don’t recall. I win against Andrea in just a handful of moves. “Easy to advance when you’re the only sober person in the room,” she mutters, some teeth behind it, but when I say “You’re not wrong,” she bursts into laughter and tips her glass at me, and I’m sure I imagined the hostility. There’s wine, beer, shots, academic horror stories, a whiteboard in front of George’s fireplace with the brackets written on it, and somewhere around midnight Blitz Go becomes my favorite thing in the world. I’m having fun. Genuinely having lots of fun. When Sunny announces the final match, her words are slurred. A frame with George’s wedding photo is poorly balanced on her head. “The two people who haven’t lost a game yet are . . . Jack, of course—fuck you, Jack, for making our lives so boring, you periodic-motion poster child—and, drumroll please . . . Elsie! Elsie, please, at least once in my life I want the opportunity to see this smug-ass face lose at something.” “I lost at number of urine sample jars on my desk,” he points out. The frame drops softly into the carpet. Sunny grasps my hand. “Avenge me, Elsie. Please.” I nod solemnly, taking a seat on the side of the black. Jack picks up a stone and leans back in the chair, eyes glued on me, the blue as bright as the sea, a small smile on his lips. “And so we meet again,” he says, loud enough for everyone, and I tune out the way his friends whistle and cheer for me, how they fall silent as we squeeze every last second from each turn. Whenever I look up, Jack’s already looking at me. I remember the first time we played, at Millicent’s house, and wonder if it was the first of many. Wonder if Jack owns a board. Wonder if he keeps it in his study. Wonder why, when he looks at me, I forget how scared I am to be seen. Wonder why when I win, he seems as happy as I feel. “Well played,” he says, ignoring the way everyone is ribbing him for breaking his eight-month streak. I nod. Suddenly, again, I’m all heartbeat. I duck inside the bathroom, high on victory. When I slip out, George is right there, scaring the shit out of me. “Jesus.” “I fully own that I followed you,” she says, leaning casually against the wall. “Were you listening to me pee?” “No. Well,

We-Could-Be-So Good.txt

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

Rachel-Lynn-Solomon-Business-or-Pleasure.txt

see what I sometimes refuse to show myself. “And you’ve had it figured out for so long.” “What other people think of me, maybe. But not who I really am.” As his face softens, he cracks a smile. “In fact, I think we wrote a whole book about that.” I don’t laugh. “That’s the whole point.” Because he is someone worthy of a memoir, and in my lowest moments, sometimes I feel like a blank page. I don’t want to squeeze myself into the nooks and crannies of someone else’s life. Have I been so wrapped up in the fantasy of him that I’ve forgotten how difficult this relationship will be? The past few days, we’ve just been playing house. Pretending that this is our real life, the same way we’ve been pretending the whole trip. Because now when I picture my relationship with Finn, I can see myself flying to LA every other weekend, feeling guilty if he paid for the flight and putting myself on a budget if not, the two of us arguing about what to watch that night or which new vegetarian restaurant to try. I can see him at benefits and events for his nonprofit, taking the occasional role in a holiday movie with a menorah hiding in the background. I’ll be the nameless person on his arm at premieres and events. The supportive girlfriend. I can fit into his life, sure. I can be in that relationship. But what about him fitting into mine? “I admire you so much,” I whisper, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze. “I just wish I felt the same way about myself.” Slowly, I stand up, retrieve my bag from the hallway. “And I think I need a little time to figure that out.” Finn gets to his feet, looking torn between going after me and giving me space. “You could stay,” he says. This time, he doesn’t sound at all like he did when he begged Meg Lawson not to leave him. His chin is wobbling, eyes wide and glassy. “We can keep talking about it. Please, Chandler. We could figure it out together.” If he really could categorize every expression my face makes, then he’d know I’m serious. Terrified of what might happen if I leave this house but serious nonetheless. I shake my head, adamant now. “I’m sorry. I think I have to do it alone.” And with trembling footsteps, I head for the door. chapter twenty-seven LOS ANGELES, CA In the backseat of an Uber, I try my best to act like I haven’t made the single stupidest decision of my life. This translates into some truly terrible small talk. “Some traffic, huh?” I ask the driver, who just rolls her eyes. I end up at the hotel the publisher originally booked for me, since they obviously weren’t planning on me shacking up with Finn. It’s in downtown LA, a gritty section of the city with none of the charm of Los Feliz. And then, because it’s my go-to coping mechanism, I call Noemie.

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

kept thinking of those people drinking brewed belladonna in the corner. In the scents of whirling dancers and strong perfume, there was also the scent of food. Lore’s stomach twisted in her too-tight bodice. “Any idea where the buffet is?” she asked Gabriel, pitching her voice to carry over music and laughter. “On the right side, I think,” he said, eyes shifting like prey in a predator’s den. Other courtiers had noticed them now, gazes flickering their direction and then away with practiced nonchalance. The ebb and flow of the party revealed a table set up before the golden depiction of a fox hunt, baying dogs and howling hunters chasing the ruby-encrusted animal across the wall. Two fountains in the center of the table flowed with wine, red and white, with crystal goblets set in precarious gleaming pyramids next to them. Bowls of bright fruit sat beside artfully stacked pastries, jewels on an expensive necklace. Her stomach rumbled. Lore stepped forward, ready to weave her way through to the table, but the parting crowd revealed the throne at the front of the room, and for the first time, she noticed someone was on it. One leg was tossed over the arm, booted foot swinging in the air, and an elbow was propped on the opposite side, head leaned against a clenched, ring-studded fist. Even in the decadent chaos of his own party, Bastian Arceneaux somehow managed to look bored. That sense of familiarity came again, looking at him. Almost like déjà vu. Like Bastian fit perfectly into a place in her head that she hadn’t even known was empty. “Gabriel?” The woman’s voice coming from behind them was light and musical. And from the way the Presque Mort froze beside Lore, it seemed he recognized it. “Gabriel Remaut?” A questioning lilt, a hint of nervousness. “I’m sorry, maybe I’m mistaken—” Lore tugged on Gabriel’s arm and turned him around to face the person speaking. A diminutive woman stood on the edge of the dance floor, with an anxious expression and hair the color of white marble in a cloud of airy curls. Pearlescent dust gleamed across warm copper-brown cheekbones scattered with freckles, sparkling like the wings attached to her white tulle gown, and her eyes matched the delicate dark-green embroidery across the sheer neckline. She looked like a flower fairy, straight from a children’s book, and the smile she broke into was nearly as bright as the rest of her. His arm somehow tenser than before beneath Lore’s palm, Gabriel inclined his head. “Alienor.” “It’s really you!” The sparkling woman laughed aloud, clapping her hands together. “Bastian told me you were coming back from the north for a while, to introduce your cousin to society, but I thought he had to be joking!” “Bastian is less than trustworthy at the best of times, true.” “Fourteen years of holy service and you still harbor the sin of jealousy.” Alienor mockingly shook her head, making glitter fall from her false wings. “I was never jealous of him, Alie.” “Of course you were; every time

Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt

the casserole in the fridge. “You know that, right?” “My lawyer said—” But she isn’t finished. “David and the other partners are consumed with the case. They’re meticulous and brilliant. And they’re ruthless. They will get the case dismissed, Hazel. It’s only a matter of when. You need to be ready.” Feeling unsteady on my feet, I slide onto a barstool. Vanessa takes a seat next to me. “You need your own lawyer.” “I have a lawyer. A victim’s rights attorney.” “Good. You’ll need a divorce lawyer, too.” She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Obviously you want to divorce him.” “O-obviously,” I stammer, though my thoughts have been on more pressing matters. Like the threat on my life. “And your prenup won’t hold up now. Not after he planned to kill you.” I’m impressed by Vanessa’s knowledge. Was she a lawyer once? A paralegal? Or has she gone through a divorce herself? I have never asked who she was before David Vega. “Do you still have your credit cards?” “Yes.” “Go to the bank and get cash advances. Benjamin will cancel your cards as soon as he gets a chance.” Her eyes drift around the open room. “There are a lot of valuable items in this house. The art. The sculptures. You should hire an asset advisor. I’ll send you a name.” “Thanks.” She turns to face me. “What about your LLC?” “My what?” “Benjamin makes a lot of money. I’m sure he filters some of it through a limited liability corporation in your name. Did you sign anything?” “I signed a lot of things. I signed whatever he asked me to.” “You need access to that account, Hazel.” She digs in a designer purse, extracts a matching wallet. From it, she presents a business card. “George Scofield is a forensic accountant. Call him.” I stare blankly at the card. “I… I don’t know what that is.” “George will find out what Benjamin earned during your marriage. I’m sure it’s hidden… in businesses, offshore accounts, creative investments. But George is great at finding out where the bodies are buried.” She realizes her mistake, pats my hand. “Not literally.” There is a weight on my chest, and I struggle to take a breath. I don’t know how to do this. To hire lawyers and accountants and to fight for what is rightfully mine. My vision blurs as tears well in my eyes. Vanessa rubs my back. “I know this is a lot to take in. But I couldn’t stand by and let Benjamin destroy you. Not like he did his first wife.” My head snaps up. “His first wife?” “He didn’t tell you about Karolina?” But it is obvious he didn’t. “Christ,” she mutters, shaking her head. “We were told not to mention her. That it was awkward and uncomfortable for Benjamin. And David said the marriage was a blip. A mistake. That Benjamin shouldn’t be haunted by a bad choice he made years ago.” Since I became Mrs. Laval, Vanessa has been the closest thing I’ve had to a real friend. But

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.txt

chorus of voices asked. `Why, SHE, of course,' said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused way, `Prizes! Prizes!' Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round. `But she must have a prize herself, you know,' said the Mouse. `Of course,' the Dodo replied very gravely. `What else have you got in your pocket?' he went on, turning to Alice. `Only a thimble,' said Alice sadly. `Hand it over here,' said the Dodo. Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented the thimble, saying `We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble'; and, when it had finished this short speech, they all cheered. Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could. The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more. `You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice, `and why it is you hate--C and D,' she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be offended again. `Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing. `It IS a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; `but why do you call it sad?' And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:-- `Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, "Let us both go to law: I will prosecute YOU. --Come, I'll take no denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I've nothing to do." Said the mouse to the cur, "Such a trial, dear Sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath." "I'll be judge, I'll be jury," Said cunning old Fury: "I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death."' `You are not attending!' said the Mouse to Alice severely. `What are you thinking of?' `I beg your pardon,' said Alice very humbly: `you had got to the fifth bend, I think?' `I had NOT!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily. `A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. `Oh, do let me help to undo it!' `I shall do nothing of the sort,' said

Anne of Green Gables.txt

time I ought to have put on my studies; and secondly, I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a history when it was a storybook instead. I had never realized until that moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was shocked. I cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I'd never do such a thing again; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn't require that, and she forgave me freely. So I think it wasn't very kind of her to come up here to you about it after all." "Miss Stacy never mentioned such a thing to me, Anne, and its only your guilty conscience that's the matter with you. You have no business to be taking storybooks to school. You read too many novels anyhow. When I was a girl I wasn't so much as allowed to look at a novel." "Oh, how can you call Ben Hur a novel when it's really such a religious book?" protested Anne. "Of course it's a little too exciting to be proper reading for Sunday, and I only read it on weekdays. And I never read ANY book now unless either Miss Stacy or Mrs. Allan thinks it is a proper book for a girl thirteen and three-quarters to read. Miss Stacy made me promise that. She found me reading a book one day called, The Lurid Mystery of the Haunted Hall. It was one Ruby Gillis had lent me, and, oh, Marilla, it was so fascinating and creepy. It just curdled the blood in my veins. But Miss Stacy said it was a very silly, unwholesome book, and she asked me not to read any more of it or any like it. I didn't mind promising not to read any more like it, but it was AGONIZING to give back that book without knowing how it turned out. But my love for Miss Stacy stood the test and I did. It's really wonderful, Marilla, what you can do when you're truly anxious to please a certain person." "Well, I guess I'll light the lamp and get to work," said Marilla. "I see plainly that you don't want to hear what Miss Stacy had to say. You're more interested in the sound of your own tongue than in anything else." "Oh, indeed, Marilla, I do want to hear it," cried Anne contritely. "I won't say another word-not one. I know I talk too much, but I am really trying to overcome it, and although I say far too much, yet if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit for it. Please tell me, Marilla." "Well, Miss Stacy wants to organize a class among her advanced students who mean to study for the entrance examination into Queen's. She intends to give them extra lessons

Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

to university.” “Do you ever go back to England?” “Of course,” I say. “I spend some Christmases there. I speak to my mother regularly. I’d planned to move back after I’d graduated uni, but life had other plans.” “And what about present day?” she asks. “Are you remarried? Out every night, living the hot single life?” I clear my throat, frowning as I adjust the napkin on my lap. “I—no. Neither,” I admit. “My daughter is still quite young. I only have her on weekends, and I work late most weeknights—so I haven’t. I don’t. That is, I don’t date much.” I hear the stumbling clutter of my words and squint past her, to stare at a flock of birds picking at something on the sand. “What’s her name?” I’m grateful that she’s letting me move on. “Stefania Elena Garcia Prince.” Fizzy bites back a smile and I laugh in understanding. “I know. My last name always sounds like the sad friend at the party. She’s a trip, though. Part princess, part evil mastermind.” “She sounds like my kind of girl.” “I genuinely fear the day you two meet. I think Nostradamus wrote about it.” When I look up at her, I register that she’s been studying me. Her dark eyes are wide and gently set on my face. “Anyway, we should be talking about you, not me.” She doesn’t look away as my gaze holds hers. It’s this, and the way her voice goes a little hoarse when she says, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” that make me suspect I am absolutely, irrevocably, and undeniably fucked. thirteen FIZZY I assume we all have the proverbial angel on one shoulder and devil on the other, but in my case, they’re very real, and the devil is a shouter. I know that it is stupid to flirt with Connor. I know how absurd it is to develop sexy desires for this man in particular, but it’s been so long since I’ve been attracted to anyone that I feel like a starving dog staring at a T-bone. Connor licks his lips, pulling them in between his teeth, and I realize he’s reacting to the weight of my stare. Blinking away, I focus my attention on the waves crashing into the smooth sand instead. I need to get my shit together. As much as I’m glad I’m a butterfly coming out of the cocoon of sexual stagnation, I probably shouldn’t fly directly to the first flower I see. Especially if that flower’s professional goal is finding me a soulmate. “Well,” he says after our odd, lengthy showdown, “let’s start easy.” I stretch, pretending to crack my neck. “Tell me what you look for in a guy.” Taking a deep breath, I look out at the waves in the distance, thinking. “Have you ever gone to the grocery store hungry?” Connor laughs in understanding. “Yes.” “Cheese plate, carrots, chips, salsa, Cocoa Pebbles, and sugar cookies. Whatever sounds good at the time.” “Right.” “I’d describe my dating energy a little like that. I don’t

Emma.txt

that you should think of such a thing." "My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want the match--I do not want to injure dear little Henry-- but the idea has been given me by circumstances; and if Mr. Knightley really wished to marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry's account, a boy of six years old, who knows nothing of the matter?" "Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted.-- Mr. Knightley marry!--No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women!" "Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well know." "But the imprudence of such a match!" "I am not speaking of its prudence; merely its probability." "I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than what you mention. His good-nature, his humanity, as I tell you, would be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfax-- and is always glad to shew them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to match-making. You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!--Oh! no, no;--every feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so mad a thing." "Imprudent, if you please--but not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune, and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable." "But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry?-- He is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of his brother's children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up his time or his heart." "My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so; but if he really loves Jane Fairfax--" "Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family; but--" "Well," said Mrs. Weston, laughing, "perhaps the greatest good he could do them, would be to give Jane such a respectable home." "If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself; a very shameful and degrading connexion. How would he bear to have Miss Bates belonging to him?--To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane?-- `So very kind and obliging!--But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!' And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old petticoat. `Not that it was such a very old petticoat either--for still it would last a great while--and, indeed, she must thankfully say that their petticoats were all very strong.'" "For shame,

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt

in de ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go 'way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time. 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er nine every skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over to de town en say you's killed. Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en genlmen a-goin' over for to see de place. Sometimes dey'd pull up at de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to know all 'bout de killin'. I 'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but I ain't no mo' now. "I laid dah under de shavin's all day. I 'uz hungry, but I warn't afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to de camp- meet'n' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to see me roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de evenin'. De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en take holiday soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way. "Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout two mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my mine 'bout what I's agwyne to do. You see, ef I kep' on tryin' to git away afoot, de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey'd miss dat skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de yuther side, en whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I's arter; it doan' MAKE no track. "I see a light a-comin' roun' de p'int bymeby, so I wade' in en shove' a log ahead o' me en swum more'n half way acrost de river, en got in 'mongst de drift- wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin de current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck a-holt. It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while. So I clumb up en laid down on de planks. De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de middle, whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz a- risin', en dey wuz a good current; so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de mawnin' I'd be twenty-five mile down de river, en den I'd slip in jis b'fo' daylight en swim asho', en take to de woods on de Illinois side. "But I didn' have no luck. When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de islan' a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn't no use fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan'. Well, I had a notion I could lan' mos' anywhers, but

Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt

Or Benjamin Laval’s security detail. Or anyone suspicious. But all seems quiet, normal. An Uber driver delivers a pizza to the building next door. A woman with a green helmet rides past on her bike. At the end of the block, a landlord in sweatpants waters a sad flower bed. Parking on a side street, I face the next hurdle. Getting inside. Last night, I’d opened the small office window as Jesse searched for my keys. If he hadn’t closed it, I will be able to climb through it. I slip down the side of the building, concealed by the heavy evergreens that border it. The office window is closed, but the kitchen window is open a few inches. I yank it fully open and hoist myself onto the ledge. Wriggling inside, I land on the kitchen counter, out of breath. With my feet on the parquet floor, I freeze, listening. The apartment is silent. The blinds are tightly closed over the barred windows, a single lamp burns in the living room, though it is daylight. Tentatively, I move through the space, peeking into the bedroom and bathroom, ensuring I am alone. That I am safe. At least for now. My throat clogs with nostalgia as I take in the familiar surroundings. The dark gray couch where we’d sat and kissed; chatted about his sister and his nieces; had coffee and muffins. The table where we’d eaten coq au vin and sipped red wine. The bedroom where he had held me and made love to me and made me feel like I was desirable. Like I was enough. And then the frantic, almost animal sex we’d had in the entryway, against the kitchen counter, on the parquet floor. Hazel’s warning runs through my mind. Jesse is not who you think he is. “Neither were you, Hazel,” I mutter to myself. I know I can’t trust her, but those words ring true. Something in this apartment will tell me who Jesse really was. And why he was murdered. I will find it, but I have to hurry. 39 I START IN THE BEDROOM. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I rummage through the closet and the dresser, lift the mattress and search beneath it. There is nothing unusual or incriminating. Just clothes, coins, a few dumbbells… The guitar case. I open it and find it empty. Did Jesse even play? I’d wanted to believe he had the soul of a poet, the body of a Greek god. I’d never asked him to play for me. Had I been a fool? In the bathroom, I dig under the sink but find only Band-Aids, a box of condoms, and sports tape. On the counter sits a hair-brush suited to a thick mane of hair, not Jesse’s short cut. In the shower, I note the vanilla-scented shampoo. They’re signs of a female presence that I had ignored, hadn’t wanted to see. Was that presence Hazel? Opening the medicine cabinet, I sift through bottles of over-the-counter pain meds, toothpaste, and sunscreen. I find Jesse’s expensive

The-One.txt

parking lot. While she’d known men like Brody Carr existed, she’d never been so close to such a monster before now. She locks her doors and leans her head against the headrest after he disappears around the side of the building. Maybe she was too quick to judge Crystal for cutting men out of their lives so often. Her boyfriends likely weren’t psychopaths like Brody Carr, but they probably weren’t saints either. Sloane closes her eyes, and for a second, wonders what her mother would do. If Brody keeps quiet about their affair, everything should be fine. Unless the FBI gets involved. Or Ethan finds a way to charge him with murder. Then, there would be nothing to keep Brody from confessing their affair and casting blame on her. She glances in the direction she last saw Brody before she throws her car into reverse. When the time comes, cutting ties with him is not going to be easy. If Brody could so easily kill his wife, and seemingly get away with it, what might he do to Sloane when he finds out she’s staying with Ethan? Chapter 33 Ethan fills his mug with his fourth cup of coffee in the homicide unit’s small breakroom. That morning, he found Jonah poring over the security footage from Carr’s mansion when he got to work. As Ethan slung his coat over his chair, he braced himself for his partner to tell him Sloane had been to the app founder’s house. Ethan prepared to feign ignorance—and shock—over his wife’s relationship with their murder suspect. Instead, Jonah was riled up: Carr had turned the cameras off on several occasions, almost always in the evenings. As soon as his partner refocused on his laptop screen, Ethan found the link to the footage and scrolled through the dates. He sank against the back of his chair when he saw that one of the gaps in the footage was the night of Sloane’s award gala. But he was only partially relieved. Carr going to such lengths to keep his affair with Sloane a secret didn’t mean she was innocent. Only that Carr was good at covering his tracks. When he had arrived home last night and saw the damage to Sloane’s car, he rushed inside, both surprised and relieved to find her reading in bed with a glass of wine, looking unscathed from the accident. He stopped in their bedroom doorway. “Are you okay? What happened to your car?” “I’m fine.” Sloane set down her novel. “A rock flew up and hit my windshield on I-5. I jerked the wheel when it happened and hit the concrete barrier on the side of the road.” She shrugged. “I’m fine though. It looks worse than it was.” She lifted her book, flipping to the place she’d left off as Ethan stared at her. She reclined against a pillow. How could she be so calm and collected after ramming into a barrier on the freeway and mangling the side of her precious Porsche? She’s lucky no one hit her. Or that she

Yellowface.txt

see what she’s getting at. “I am not Chinese,” I say curtly. “If that’s what you’re asking. It’s not ‘own voices,’ or whatever you want to call it. Is that a problem?” “No, no, not at all, we’re just covering our bases. And you’re not . . . anything else?” Emily winces the moment those words leave her mouth, like she knows she shouldn’t have said that. “I am white,” I clarify. “Are you saying we’ll get in trouble because I wrote this story and I’m white?” I immediately regret phrasing it like that. I’m being too blunt, too defensive; wearing my insecurities on my sleeve. Both Emily and Jessica begin blinking very quickly, glancing at each other as if hoping the other will speak first. “Of course not,” Emily says finally. “Of course, anyone should be able to tell any kind of story. We’re just thinking about how to position you so that readers trust the work.” “Well, they can trust the work,” I say. “They can trust the words on the page. The blood and sweat that went into telling the story.” “No, of course,” says Emily. “And we don’t mean to invalidate that.” “Of course not,” says Jessica. “Again, we think anyone should be able to tell any kind of story.” “We’re not censors. That’s not our culture here at Eden.” “Right.” Emily then shifts the conversation to where I’m based, where I might be up to travel, etc. The meeting fizzles out pretty quickly after that, before I’ve gotten a chance to get my bearings back. Emily and Jessica tell me again how excited they are about the book, how wonderful it was to meet me, and how they can’t wait to keep working with me. Then they’re gone, and I’m staring at an empty screen. I feel awful. I shoot off an email to Brett, airing out all my anxieties. He responds an hour later, assuring me not to worry. They just want to be clear, he says. On how exactly they can position me. As it turns out, they want to position me as “worldly.” Jessica and Emily send us a longer email detailing their plans the next Monday: We think June’s background is very interesting, so we want to make sure readers are aware of that. They highlight all the different places I lived when I was little—South America, Central Europe, a half-dozen cities in the US that were stops on my dad’s never-ending tour as a construction engineer. (Emily really likes the word “nomad.”) They highlight the year I spent in the Peace Corps in my newly written author biography, although I never went near Asia (I was in Mexico, making use of my high school Spanish, and I quit early because I got a debilitating stomach virus and had to be medically evacuated). And they suggest I publish under the name Juniper Song instead of June Hayward (“Your debut didn’t reach quite the same market we’re hoping for, and it’s better to have a clean start. And Juniper is so, so unique. What

Yellowface.txt

circumstances someone counts as a moral agent that deserves consideration. I didn’t understand much of his work, but his central argument was quite compelling: we owe nothing to the dead. Especially when the dead are thieves and liars, too. And fuck it, I’ll just say it: taking Athena’s manuscript felt like reparations, payback for the things that Athena took from me. Four PUBLISHING MOVES SLOWLY, UNTIL IT DOESN’T. THE TRULY EXCITING moments—going to auction, negotiating deals, fielding calls from potential editors, choosing a publisher—are a dizzying whirlwind, but the rest involves a lot of staring at your phone and waiting for updates. Most books are sold up to two years before they’re released. The big announcements we’re always seeing online (Book deal! Movie deal! TV deal! Awards nominations!) have been open secrets for weeks, if not months. All the excitement and surprise are feigned for social clout. The Last Front won’t come out until fifteen months after I sign my contract. Until then, there’s production. I receive my edit letter two months after the deal. My editor at Eden is Daniella Woodhouse, a deep-voiced, no-nonsense, fast-talking woman who both intimidated and intrigued me during our first phone call. I remembered she’d gotten into some kerfuffle at a conference last year when she called a fellow female panelist “pathetic” for arguing that sexism in the industry remained an obstacle, after which all sorts of online personalities labeled her an enemy of women and demanded she make a public apology, if not resign. (She did neither.) That doesn’t seem to have impacted her career. In the last year, she’s published three bestsellers: a novel about the interior lives of murderous and sexy housewives, a thriller about a classical pianist who makes a deal with the literal devil in exchange for a legendary career, and a memoir by a lesbian beekeeper. I was hesitant about signing with Eden Press at first, especially since it was an indie publisher instead of one of the Big Five—HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan. But Brett convinced me that at a midsize house, I’d be a big fish in a small pond; that I’d get all the care and attention I never felt at my first publisher. Sure enough, compared to Garrett, Daniella practically coddles me. She responds to all my emails within the day, often within the hour, and always in depth. She makes me feel like I matter. When she tells me this book will be a hit, I know that she means it. I like her editorial style, too. Most of her requested changes are simple clarifications. Are American audiences going to know what this phrase means? Should this flashback be placed in this early chapter when we haven’t met the character in the proper timeline yet? This dialogue exchange is artful, but how does it move the story along? Honestly, I’m relieved. Finally someone’s calling Athena out on her bullshit, on her deliberately confusing sentence structures and cultural allusions. Athena likes to make her audience “work for it.” On the topic

The Call of the Wild.txt

striving to enforce it, blind with weakness half the time and keeping the trail by the loom of it and by the dim feel of his feet. It was beautiful spring weather, but neither dogs nor humans were aware of it. Each day the sun rose earlier and set later. It was dawn by three in the morning, and twilight lingered till nine at night. The whole long day was a blaze of sunshine. The ghostly winter silence had given way to the great spring murmur of awakening life. This murmur arose from all the land, fraught with the joy of living. It came from the things that lived and moved again, things which had been as dead and which had not moved during the long months of frost. The sap was rising in the pines. The willows and aspens were bursting out in young buds. Shrubs and vines were putting on fresh garbs of green. Crickets sang in the nights, and in the days all manner of creeping, crawling things rustled forth into the sun. Partridges and woodpeckers were booming and knocking in the forest. Squirrels were chattering, birds singing, and overhead honked the wild-fowl driving up from the south in cunning wedges that split the air. From every hill slope came the trickle of running water, the music of unseen fountains. All things were thawing, bending, snapping. The Yukon was straining to break loose the ice that bound it down. It ate away from beneath; the sun ate from above. Air-holes formed, fissures sprang and spread apart, while thin sections of ice fell through bodily into the river. And amid all this bursting, rending, throbbing of awakening life, under the blazing sun and through the soft-sighing breezes, like wayfarers to death, staggered the two men, the woman, and the huskies. With the dogs falling, Mercedes weeping and riding, Hal swearing innocuously, and Charles's eyes wistfully watering, they staggered into John Thornton's camp at the mouth of White River. When they halted, the dogs dropped down as though they had all been struck dead. Mercedes dried her eyes and looked at John Thornton. Charles sat down on a log to rest. He sat down very slowly and painstakingly what of his great stiffness. Hal did the talking. John Thornton was whittling the last touches on an axe-handle he had made from a stick of birch. He whittled and listened, gave monosyllabic replies, and, when it was asked, terse advice. He knew the breed, and he gave his advice in the certainty that it would not be followed. "They told us up above that the bottom was dropping out of the trail and that the best thing for us to do was to lay over," Hal said in response to Thornton's warning to take no more chances on the rotten ice. "They told us we couldn't make White River, and here we are." This last with a sneering ring of triumph in it. "And they told you true," John Thornton answered. "The bottom's likely to drop out at any moment. Only fools,

Love Theoretically.txt

closes his eyes and takes a deep, undone breath. “Sorry.” His rhythm on my clit is picking up, and I’m fading fast, all shallow breathing and spotty vision. “Sorry?” “Just trying to get a grip.” “You don’t have to get a grip. You can take me upstairs and—” My channel contracts around him and we both groan. “You sure you don’t want two fingers, Elsie?” I let my shoulders fall back against the window. It’s wet with my sweat, not cold anymore. “We should try.” He watches himself this time. He stares at his index finger disappearing inside me alongside the middle, his other hand drawing calming patterns on my waist. I clench and gasp and twist on him, but he doesn’t let up, keeps pushing in slowly, and after some resistance, I’m taking him, arching involuntarily to make room, letting out a final little noise of gratitude and disbelief. “Jesus,” Jack says. “Fuck.” I’m getting used to it. This sense of being crammed with something hot and beautiful. I move experimentally. Squeeze around him till we both make sounds that belong to animals. “Good?” I nod. The edges of my vision are blurry. “Good.” His kisses are gentle pecks, almost chaste. Afterthoughts, punctuations to this lurid, soaking thing we’re doing. “So maybe you like to be full,” he says, voice husky. I nod. Maybe I do. “I will give you anything I have—anything you want, if you let me go down on you right now.” I lie back, enjoy the fullness, and try to decide in the mush that is my brain. “I’ve never done it,” I whisper, and Jack must find the situation unacceptable, because he drops to his knees in front of me and inhales deeply against the crease of my abdomen. It takes exactly two swipes of his tongue to send me to outer space. One around my opening, where he’s stretching me too wide, and I think I’m going to die of embarrassment, of heat, of the liquid pressure that grows with each of his guttural groans. Then he moves up to my clit, and I know—I know— that nothing has ever felt like this in my life, that good things come sparingly, that I should try to make this last, but it’s over before it starts. My body seizes and snaps and bursts into a bubble of simple, pure, physical pleasure that feels too intense to weather alone. My fingers pull Jack’s hair too tight, dig in his scalp, and he keeps on eating at me, even when I’m coming down. His fingers stay deep inside, as if to give me something to contract around while I ride it out, and it’s perfect, this. It’s explosive, crashing, nuclear. Somewhere in the universe antimatter is being produced, and it’s all because of this. Because of us. “I think I’m dying,” I say the second I can breathe, completely serious. My heels are digging into his back, and wet noises rise up from where he’s still running his tongue over me. “I think I want to do this

I-Have-Some-Questions-for-You.txt

however short this window in the pandemic might prove. It sounded like something the attorneys would object to, but I couldn’t think why. It was just a party, albeit one remarkably close to the scene of the crime. Three other kids had joined Fran’s boys—two boys and a girl—and their mother jumped gracefully in to swim a couple of laps. She was our age, irritatingly cellulite-free. Fran cleared her throat, looked meaningfully over my shoulder. I turned to see, across the pool, a man in blue swim trunks, his belly soft but his arms and legs muscled. I took in his face: This was Robbie Serenho. This was his lovely wife. These were his kids. He was blowing up a floatie. The wife emerged from the water, wrapped herself in a towel, grabbed a key card from him, and left. I spent a panicked moment wondering what to do—diving under the water and staying there seemed out of the question—before I remembered the choice had already been made for me. I wasn’t allowed to talk to him. At least not about the hearing, but that was excuse enough to stay planted. I raised a tentative palm from my leg as offering. He squinted, confused, at both of us. His hairline had receded dramatically. “I’ll go say hi,” Fran said, before I could even ask her to. She rounded the pool, pausing to tell Jacob not to splash water in Max’s eyes. Had I built Robbie up in the past few years into some towering, symbolic figure? Or had he lurked like that in my imagination since high school? Or was my blood pressure rocketing for other reasons: my guilt at upending his life, my fear that he hated me? There seemed to be no oxygen in the room, only gaseous chlorine. Fran was beside him now, her hands moving as she spoke. I couldn’t make out her words through the thick air. Robbie laughed at something, she laughed at something. One of Robbie’s boys clambered out of the water, dripping, stood whining. Robbie put a hand on the boy’s head, made him wait while he talked to Fran. I remembered that I could pretend to look at my phone, so I did that until Max, clinging to the gutter, lost his kickboard; I knelt and reached over the water and sent it sailing to him, then tossed him rings to dive for. Robbie’s voice grew loud, traveled across the pool. He’d turned in my direction. “I know I can’t talk to Bodie,” he half shouted, “but I hope you’ll tell her it’s good to see her.” Thank God. I laughed, shrugged, waved again. He said, to the middle of the room, “Please tell her I think she turned out pretty cool. No hard feelings. Tell her my wife’s a big fan!” He turned his attention to the younger boy, who looked about seven. As Fran walked back to me, he picked the boy up and swung him—a giggling sack of potatoes—into the water. Robbie backed up, ran to the pool edge himself,

Yellowface.txt

!” I don’t budge. “Just give it,” I pant. “Give it, and I’ll—” “You fucking bitch!” She bites my wrist. Pain shoots up my arm. I jerk back, shocked. She’s drawn blood—Jesus fucking Christ, it’s all over her teeth, all over my arm. Candice thrashes once more. My knees slip off her chest. She breaks loose, coils up, and kicks out at my stomach. Her foot lands with such force—so much more force than I thought possible from that tiny body. It doesn’t hurt so much as it stuns, knocks the air out of my lungs. I reel backward, arms windmilling for balance, but the ground I thought was behind me is not there. Just empty air. Twenty-Four THE DOCTORS LET ME LEAVE THE HOSPITAL AFTER FOUR DAYS, AFTER my clavicle and ankle have been set and I’ve proven I can hop my way into and out of a car without assistance. It doesn’t seem like I’ll need surgery, but they want me back in two weeks to check that my concussion has resolved itself. The whole thing costs me thousands of dollars even after insurance, though I suppose I should be grateful I got off this easy. No police were standing over my bedside when I woke up. No investigators, no journalists. I slipped on the ice while jogging, I’m told. An anonymous Good Samaritan found me and called the EMTs using the emergency feature on my phone, but they’d disappeared by the time the ambulance arrived. Candice has played this perfectly. Any accusation I make will appear utterly groundless. From the outside, we are near strangers to each other. Our last email interaction was years ago. I don’t have her number in my phone. There is no room to suspect foul play, for what motive could there be? It’s been storming for days now; the rain will have washed away all fingerprints, all proof of her cameras. Even if I can somehow prove Candice was at the steps that night, this only turns into a battle of verbal testimony that will cost us both thousands in legal fees. What’s more, I’m sure I’ve left bruises on Candice, too—bruises she’s no doubt embellished and documented by now. There’s no guarantee I’d win. No. Whatever plays out now will happen in the realm of popular narrative. I look up Candice’s name during the Uber ride back to my apartment, just as I’ve been doing every few hours since I woke up. It’s only a matter of time, I figured. I’d like to see the news the moment it drops. This time, the headline I’m awaiting tops the search results. An interview has just dropped from the New York Times: “Former Editor Candice Lee on Athena Liu, Juniper Song Hayward, and the Confession of a Lifetime.” I’m honestly impressed. Putting aside the fact that Candice has managed to retcon her job title from assistant to editor, it’s hard to get a New York Times piece published in just four days, especially one about a literary feud that passed out of the news cycle

Of Human Bondage.txt

unpaid for three weeks, explaining to his landlady that he would get money at the end of the month; she did not say anything, but pursed her lips and looked grim. When the end of the month came and she asked if it would be convenient for him to pay something on account, it made him feel very sick to say that he could not; he told her he would write to his uncle and was sure to be able to settle his bill on the following Saturday. "Well, I 'ope you will, Mr. Carey, because I 'ave my rent to pay, and I can't afford to let accounts run on." She did not speak with anger, but with determination that was rather frightening. She paused for a moment and then said: "If you don't pay next Saturday, I shall 'ave to complain to the secretary of the 'ospital." "Oh yes, that'll be all right." She looked at him for a little and glanced round the bare room. When she spoke it was without any emphasis, as though it were quite a natural thing to say. "I've got a nice 'ot joint downstairs, and if you like to come down to the kitchen you're welcome to a bit of dinner." Philip felt himself redden to the soles of his feet, and a sob caught at his throat. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Higgins, but I'm not at all hungry." "Very good, sir." When she left the room Philip threw himself on his bed. He had to clench his fists in order to prevent himself from crying. CHAPTER C SATURDAY. It was the day on which he had promised to pay his landlady. He had been expecting something to turn up all through the week. He had found no work. He had never been driven to extremities before, and he was so dazed that he did not know what to do. He had at the back of his mind a feeling that the whole thing was a preposterous joke. He had no more than a few coppers left, he had sold all the clothes he could do without; he had some books and one or two odds and ends upon which he might have got a shilling or two, but the landlady was keeping an eye on his comings and goings: he was afraid she would stop him if he took anything more from his room. The only thing was to tell her that he could not pay his bill. He had not the courage. It was the middle of June. The night was fine and warm. He made up his mind to stay out. He walked slowly along the Chelsea Embankment, because the river was restful and quiet, till he was tired, and then sat on a bench and dozed. He did not know how long he slept; he awoke with a start, dreaming that he was being shaken by a policeman and told to move on; but when he opened his eyes he found himself alone. He walked on, he did

The Da Vinci Code.txt

hunt was a test of character and merit, to ensure I earned my rewards. And the tests were never simple." Langdon eyed the device again, still looking skeptical. "But why not just pry it apart? Or smash it? The metal looks delicate, and marble is a soft rock." Sophie smiled. "Because Da Vinci is too smart for that. He designed the cryptex so that if you try to force it open in any way, the information self-destructs. Watch." Sophie reached into the box and carefully lifted out the cylinder. "Any information to be inserted is first written on a papyrus scroll." "Not vellum?" Sophie shook her head. "Papyrus. I know sheep's vellum was more durable and more common in those days, but it had to be papyrus. The thinner the better." "Okay." "Before the papyrus was inserted into the cryptex's compartment, it was rolled around a delicate glass vial." She tipped the cryptex, and the liquid inside gurgled. "A vial of liquid." "Liquid what?" Sophie smiled. "Vinegar." Langdon hesitated a moment and then began nodding. "Brilliant." Vinegar and papyrus, Sophie thought. If someone attempted to force open the cryptex, the glass vial would break, and the vinegar would quickly dissolve the papyrus. By the time anyone extracted the secret message, it would be a glob of meaningless pulp. "As you can see," Sophie told him, "the only way to access the information inside is to know the proper five-letter password. And with five dials, each with twenty-six letters, that's twenty-six to the fifth power." She quickly estimated the permutations. "Approximately twelve million possibilities." "If you say so," Langdon said, looking like he had approximately twelve million questions running through his head. "What information do you think is inside?" "Whatever it is, my grandfather obviously wanted very badly to keep it secret." She paused, closing the box lid and eyeing the five-petal Rose inlaid on it. Something was bothering her. "Did you say earlier that the Rose is a symbol for the Grail?" "Exactly. In Priory symbolism, the Rose and the Grail are synonymous." Sophie furrowed her brow. "That's strange, because my grandfather always told me the Rose meant secrecy. He used to hang a rose on his office door at home when he was having a confidential phone call and didn't want me to disturb him. He encouraged me to 135 do the same." Sweetie, her grandfather said, rather than lock each other out, we can each hang a rose-la fleur des secrets-on our door when we need privacy. This way we learn to respect and trust each other. Hanging a rose is an ancient Roman custom. "Sub rosa," Langdon said. "The Romans hung a rose over meetings to indicate the meeting was confidential. Attendees understood that whatever was said under the rose- or sub rosa-had to remain a secret." Langdon quickly explained that the Rose's overtone of secrecy was not the only reason the Priory used it as a symbol for the Grail. Rosa rugosa, one of the oldest species of rose, had five petals and pentagonal symmetry, just like the

Costanza-Casati-Clytemnestra.txt

affection, some warmth, but his features are barren, like the earth in winter. “You have made Timandra a murderess,” Leda says. Her eyes are red—she must have been crying. “She is only fourteen.” She is a Spartan. If I have made her a murderess, then what of Father, who ordered her to break Chrysanthe’s face? What of the priestess, who cut her back with a whip? As if reading her mind, Tyndareus shifts on his throne. “Timandra is strong enough to bear the burden. But those slaves were following orders, Clytemnestra. Those lives weren’t yours to take.” A scream in her head is clawing to get out. She spits each word as if it were poison. “You sit there, telling me about lives that were wrongly taken, after you helped a monster murder your grandchild.” “Agamemnon and Menelaus are our guests.” Tyndareus’s voice is flat. “They must be treated with respect.” “They showed no respect to us,” replies Leda. She raises her eyes and meets her daughter’s. Clytemnestra tries to understand whose side Leda has taken. “Agamemnon has shown disrespect to a foreign man, not to us,” Tyndareus says. “He is Greek, and this makes him an ally.” “He slaughtered your grandson!” Clytemnestra shouts. Tyndareus looks down at his hands. When he speaks, his voice shakes slightly. “I wanted to keep the baby alive.” This, for Clytemnestra, is even worse than his coldness. Does he expect her to forgive him now? Did he expect the Atreidai to keep their word? “You are a king,” she says sharply. “If you want something, you demand it.” “You are young still,” Tyndareus says, “and do not understand that sometimes you have to compromise. It is my fault; I have failed to teach you this. I have always given you too much freedom.” “I do not need you to give me my freedom,” Clytemnestra says. “I am free. But you are not. You are Agamemnon’s puppet now, because you are weak.” “Your husband was weak,” Tyndareus replies coolly. “Tantalus was a good man, a kind man. But you can’t see that, because in your world, only the brutes can live, and they do so by tearing down everything else.” “That is how life is. The weak have to die so that the rest may survive.” “You disgust me,” she says. Tyndareus stands and slaps her face before she can back away. She feels her father’s scar on the back of his hand scratch her cheek. She looks up into Tyndareus’s eyes and sneers. “What kind of father are you?” She turns to her mother, seated in her chair with her head lowered. “And you do not fight him. You forgive him. You are no better.” “There are laws to be respected,” Leda says quietly. “You don’t seek vengeance because you have become a coward,” Clytemnestra says. Her hands are trembling, and she clutches them tightly. “But know this. I will have my justice. I swear it here and now. I swear it by the Furies and every other goddess who has known vengeance. I will stalk

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.txt

out in the park at five as usual,' she said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove away in different directions, and I went off to make my own arrangements." "Which are?" "Some cold beef and a glass of beer," he answered, ringing the bell. "I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to be busier still this evening. By the way, Doctor, I shall want your cooperation." "I shall be delighted." "You don't mind breaking the law?" "Not in the least." "Nor running a chance of arrest?" "Not in a good cause." "Oh, the cause is excellent!" "Then I am your man." "I was sure that I might rely on you." "But what is it you wish?" "When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to you. Now," he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that our landlady had provided, "I must discuss it while I eat, for I have not much time. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must be on the scene of action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns from her drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her." "And what then?" "You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to occur. There is only one point on which I must insist. You must not interfere, come what may. You understand?" "I am to be neutral?" "To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being conveyed into the house. Four or five minutes afterwards the sitting-room window will open. You are to station yourself close to that open window." "Yes." "You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you." "Yes." "And when I raise my hand--so--you will throw into the room what I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of fire. You quite follow me?" "Entirely." "It is nothing very formidable," he said, taking a long cigar- shaped roll from his pocket. "It is an ordinary plumber's smoke- rocket, fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then walk to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten minutes. I hope that I have made myself clear?" "I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, and at the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street." "Precisely." "Then you may entirely rely on me." "That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I prepare for the new role I have to play." He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist

Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt

Jesse wants me—I hear it in his panting breaths, feel it in the pressure of his erection against my thigh. His lips travel from my mouth, down my neck to my collarbone. Soon, his hands are fumbling with the button of my pants. “You make me so hot.” The ache in his voice, the need, renders me weak with desire. I grab at his belt, undoing it with trembling hands. This is a bad idea. Randy or Vincent or anyone could come out for a smoke at any moment. I’d be humiliated. I could be fired. But Jesse pushes me up against my car and I gasp as he enters me. I wrap my legs around him, bury my face in his neck as he moves inside me. Soon, he climaxes. “God, Lee.” His body collapses against me. “You do something to me.” I suppose it’s a compliment, but I’m not sure how to respond. “Thanks?” I mumble. “I’d better go.” He zips his pants and then smirks. “I told my sister I was running out to get milk.” “She’ll think you’ve gone searching for a cow.” He kisses my lips, a quick peck. “They’re leaving tomorrow morning. You can come over later, yeah?” “Sure,” I say. “I’ll cook for you.” But he doesn’t respond. He is already hurrying away. I button my pants with shaking hands. I feel strange, almost light-headed, unmoored. I didn’t come—it was too quick, too frenzied—but that’s not why I feel empty, dissatisfied. What I have loved about being with Jesse is the tenderness, the closeness, the normalcy. Fucking me up against my car in a parking lot, the scents of grease and garbage around us… it felt dirty. It felt demeaning. But this is my issue, not Jesse’s. He doesn’t know that I am broke, homeless, and running away from my past. He doesn’t know that I need tenderness, warmth, and care. “Hey.” I turn toward the voice. It’s Vincent, from the kitchen. Did he see what just happened? My face burns with humiliation. “Hey.” Farther down the alley, the Audi starts up. Vincent’s eyes follow the sound, but they give away nothing. Without a word, he turns and heads back inside. As the car drives off, I realize I forgot to get Jesse’s number. 19 THE SPA HAS GLEAMING WHITE walls lined with pine shelving, each one displaying an array of beautifully packaged products. The bright scent of citrus lingers in the air, melding with the ambient electronic music that plays softly in the background. It has a Scandinavian feel to it, clean and modern and luxurious. As I walk to the reception desk, I feel out of my element. I used to get waxed and buffed and polished. Not often, but I had personal grooming standards then. Such treatments are a luxury I could never even consider now. A young woman with dewy skin greets me with a smile. “I’m Lee Gulliver,” I say. “I have an appointment?” It comes out a question. Hazel had promised to book my treatments, but I haven’t had

A Day of Fallen Night.txt

enough?’ Esbar asked her in a strained voice. ‘Is our life enough for you now, Tuva?’ ‘It was always enough. I just wanted the truth.’ Esbar tightened her grasp. ‘I would not live another day without you by my side,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Be with me. Forgive me, and I will give you the same grace. Let us do what we were born to do.’ Tunuva leaned across to her, setting their brows together. There they sat, for a long time: breathing, staying. 82 East The sun rose cold and grim above Mount Ipyeda. Each day, more smoke was darkening the sky. ‘So you have all but declared war on the Kuposa,’ the Grand Empress said. ‘Well, granddaughter, I suppose that was one way to handle them. I expect the River Lord – the regent – will retaliate.’ She sat with Dumai and Unora in her quarters, just as they had all sat on the night Dumai learned who she was. Two years later, they were almost back to where they had begun. ‘He has what he wants. A meek child on the throne, and the regency. There is no reason for him to attack me,’ Dumai said. ‘The River Lord may be concerned with his own power, but even he must see now that the wyrms and the sickness are more important. I have seen the destruction they have already wreaked in the rest of the East. Even in the North.’ ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps he will now see you as the only real threat to his dominion. After all, a Noziken has never defied him so openly, nor established a rival court.’ The Grand Empress gazed towards the window. ‘Unora, what do you say to all this?’ ‘I am no child of the rainbow, Manai.’ ‘You bore one, and she will need you. Dumai has no knowledge of the provinces. You do,’ the Grand Empress said. ‘You know how to survive in times of scarcity. That will be useful.’ Dumai said, ‘I have your blessing, then?’ ‘My son wanted a shadow court. A rival court is . . . less subtle, perhaps, but this is no time for subtlety, and we are the rightful monarchs. We do not need to stoop to smiles and puppetry.’ The Grand Empress looked at Unora. ‘Prepare to leave. Help your daughter.’ Unora nodded and left, her face set in determination. Dumai knew her mother was angry with her for absconding to the North, but she also knew she was already forgiven. Her grandmother set a taper to the woodfall. ‘Osipa used to light this. I keep forgetting to do it myself,’ she said, with a thin smile. ‘She became my handmaiden when I was six, still the disregarded princess. Without her, I am having to learn new ways to live. I imagine you have these moments, too, when you trip on the spaces Kanifa filled.’ Dumai nodded. Being in the temple without him already hurt almost too much to bear. The Grand Empress returned to her stool. ‘Tell me your dreams, as you

Katherine-Center-Hello-Stranger.txt

and I never saw her again. I was left alone, as Picasso-faced person after Picasso-faced person came up to me and forced me to Sherlock Holmes one theory after another about who I was talking to. Looking back, I could have just left. I could have found Joe’s floppy hair and hipster glasses and steered him off to feed me that meal he’d promised. But he was lost in the faceless crowd, too—and all attempts to search for him got intercepted by faceless people hugging me, until I wound up making way-too-friendly chitchat with my ex-boyfriend for five solid minutes before realizing who he was. All to say, the situation snowballed. Before I even really saw it coming, I was having a panic attack out behind the utility room. At least I think it was a panic attack. Is it a panic attack when your entire body is utterly hijacked by … panic? And you get dizzy? And you sweat and have the chills at the same time? And your heart pounds and your chest hurts and your hands go cold? And you can’t catch your breath? And you feel like you’re dying? And you collapse to your knees in a dark corner and press your forehead to the concrete to try to make the world stop spinning? Is that a panic attack? ’Cause that was me. And I sure as hell wasn’t celebrating. I have no idea how long I’d been there, trying not to pass out, when I heard a voice say, “Are you having a panic attack?” So of course I said, “No.” “You look like you’re … not okay.” Not okay? That was just insulting. Okay was my whole thing. “I am always okay,” I said, to set the record straight. And then, when the person didn’t accept that and leave, I said, “I’m fine.” Then, my voice muffled against the concrete, I added, “I’m good.” “You don’t look good.” This wasn’t Parker, was it? She never missed a chance for an insult. But no—of course not. It was a man’s voice. One, as usual, I couldn’t recognize. “Identify yourself, please,” I said into the roof. A rustling beside me as whoever it was sat down. “It’s your pal, Joe,” the voice said, closer and softer now. “Hi, Joe.” For a second, knowing it was him made me feel palpably better. But then it occurred to me to wonder if he might be filming this moment for later blackmail, and I felt worse again. “I’m no psychiatrist,” Joe said then, “but I’ve seen a lot of panic attacks. And this kind of looks like that.” “I’m fine,” I insisted. I was always fine—whether I was fine or not. “Okay,” Joe said. “A friend of mine—who clearly had a totally different thing from you—used to find it helpful for me to pat her back in moments that were nothing at all like this.” “I’m not having a panic attack,” I said. “Great,” Joe said. “Neither am I.” “So I don’t need you to pat my back.” “Cool. You don’t

David Copperfield.txt

either on the starboard or the larboard quarter, objects of interest will be continually descried. In short,' said Mr. Micawber, with the old genteel air, 'the probability is, all will be found so exciting, alow and aloft, that when the lookout, stationed in the main-top, cries Land-oh! we shall be very considerably astonished!' With that he flourished off the contents of his little tin pot, as if he had made the voyage, and had passed a first-class examination before the highest naval authorities. ' What I chiefly hope, my dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'is, that in some branches of our family we may live again in the old country. Do not frown, Micawber! I do not now refer to my own family, but to our children's children. However vigorous the sapling,' said Mrs. Micawber, shaking her head, 'I cannot forget the parent-tree; and when our race attains to eminence and fortune, I own I should wish that fortune to flow into the coffers of Britannia.' 'My dear,' said Mr. Micawber, 'Britannia must take her chance. I am bound to say that she has never done much for me, and that I have no particular wish upon the subject.' 'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber, 'there, you are wrong. You are going out, Micawber, to this distant clime, to strengthen, not to weaken, the connexion between yourself and Albion.' 'The connexion in question, my love,' rejoined Mr. Micawber, 'has not laid me, I repeat, under that load of personal obligation, that I am at all sensitive as to the formation of another connexion.' 'Micawber,' returned Mrs. Micawber. 'There, I again say, you are wrong. You do not know your power, Micawber. It is that which will strengthen, even in this step you are about to take, the connexion between yourself and Albion.' Mr. Micawber sat in his elbow-chair, with his eyebrows raised; half receiving and half repudiating Mrs. Micawber's views as they were stated, but very sensible of their foresight. 'My dear Mr. Copperfield,' said Mrs. Micawber, 'I wish Mr. Micawber to feel his position. It appears to me highly important that Mr. Micawber should, from the hour of his embarkation, feel his position. Your old knowledge of me, my dear Mr. Copperfield, will have told you that I have not the sanguine disposition of Mr. Micawber. My disposition is, if I may say so, eminently practical. I know that this is a long voyage. I know that it will involve many privations and inconveniences. I cannot shut my eyes to those facts. But I also know what Mr. Micawber is. I know the latent power of Mr. Micawber. And therefore I consider it vitally important that Mr. Micawber should feel his position.' 'My love,' he observed, 'perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present moment.' 'I think not, Micawber,' she rejoined. 'Not fully. My dear Mr. Copperfield, Mr. Micawber's is not a common case. Mr. Micawber is going to a distant country expressly in order that he may be

Quietly-Hostile.txt

a slab of moist chocolate children’s birthday cake slathered with an inch of thick, tooth-disintegrating grocery store buttercream. But that’s a weird thing to show up with unless the guest of honor is a seven-year-old. My clothes will be ugly, allowing you to shine. I understand that as the host, you need to be the best-looking person in your apartment. So if you invite me to your party I will arrive early enough that you don’t panic about no one showing up, and I will be wearing some sort of shapeless black reaper-style garment that will easily fade into the background of every picture. “Who is that fat ghost?” your friends will ask as they swipe through the pictures you posted to prove to everyone that you know people and like to have a good time. Then they’ll immediately forget they saw me and swipe to you in your sequined celebration frock and sigh in contentment while witnessing your glory. And if you need someone to play tunes? I can do that. I know how to create a chill and sexy vibe, if that’s the kind of vibe you’re into, but I am also familiar with other vibes, and I pay for Spotify Premium. I don’t remember what payment method or email address it’s attached to, so I will never be free of it. All that to say you won’t have to worry about annoying commercials interrupting the flow. I can play fast songs for dancing or slow songs for smooching or oldies for old people, and I’m the kind of freak who’ll put twenty-seven hours’ worth of songs on a playlist, so if your party happens to go on for an entire day, you won’t have to listen to the same song twice. If it’s less of a “hey, let’s marvel at what good music taste I have” party, and more of a “passive-aggressive storytelling competition” party, I’d be great at that, too. I have so many good stories. I won’t say weird, off-putting, or challenging shit to casual acquaintances of yours, threatening to make your future relationships with them awkward as hell. I have a deep reservoir of jokes and funny anecdotes that’ll thaw even the chilliest of the coworkers you invited just to be nice. And I know how to land a fucking punch line! You also won’t have to worry about me posting all your business online. That’s right, you’re never gonna log on to be confronted by the ten worst pictures of you and/or your apartment you’ve ever seen in your whole fucking life, posted by me, not even with the decency to put a flattering filter on your mismatched furniture and trash. If my phone is out, it’s because I’m trying to find a meme to show someone, so I won’t be that person trying to explain a visual medium to a person who is already bored, not because I am taking shadowy pictures of all your stuff that I plan to post at three in the morning when I know you’re not going to see

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.txt

soul! here is her carriage at the door." He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her overpowering excitement and concern. "Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" she cried, glancing from one to the other of us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition, fastening upon my companion, "I am so glad that you have come. I have driven down to tell you so. I know that James didn't do it. I know it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it, too. Never let yourself doubt upon that point. We have known each other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no one else does; but he is too tenderhearted to hurt a fly. Such a charge is absurd to anyone who really knows him." "I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner," said Sherlock Holmes. "You may rely upon my doing all that I can." "But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion? Do you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself think that he is innocent?" "I think that it is very probable." "There, now!" she cried, throwing back her head and looking defiantly at Lestrade. "You hear! He gives me hopes." Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am afraid that my colleague has been a little quick in forming his conclusions," he said. "But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did it. And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the reason why he would not speak about it to the coroner was because I was concerned in it." "In what way?" asked Holmes. "It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had many disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that there should be a marriage between us. James and I have always loved each other as brother and sister; but of course he is young and has seen very little of life yet, and--and--well, he naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet. So there were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of them." "And your father?" asked Holmes. "Was he in favor of such a union?" "No, he was averse to it also. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in favor of it." A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as Holmes shot one of his keen, questioning glances at her. "Thank you for this information," said he. "May I see your father if I call to-morrow?" "I am afraid the doctor won't allow it." "The doctor?" "Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for years back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his

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

one she couldn’t see. Much easier, this time. Lore shot up from the too-soft bed, pressing her knuckles against her eyes until stars danced behind them. The mental barrier Gabriel had helped her make had finally failed, as if the strange nightmare even now fading from her memory had burned through her forest. She sensed Mortem in everything—the walls, the bedding, the furniture. It made her every limb feel leaden, made her head pound, the symptoms of suffocation even as she heaved lungfuls of air. The moment of death, crystallized and endless, all the pain with none of the peace. Lore stood on shaky legs, hissing against the throbbing in her head. Between her mad dash away from the Northwest Ward, being tied to a chair for all of one night, and nearly dancing through another, her body felt like the end of a fraying rope. With a lurch, she forced herself forward, through the bedroom door and into the shared sitting room. She nearly hit the wall, reeled back, gritted her teeth. Touching anything felt like a punch to her brain, and part of her wanted to claw off her perfectly tailored nightgown. She stayed her hand, but only just. Gabe would have to help her with this, and he wouldn’t be much assistance if his celibate heart gave out at the sight of her naked. The one-eyed monk was still half propped against the threshold that led to the hallway, like a human doorstop. She prodded his shoulder with her foot; her head hurt too much to crouch down, she’d probably be sick all over him if she tried. “Gabe. It’s back.” He went from sleep to wakefulness in an instant. Gabe sat up, his sheet slipping down to his waist, concern scrunching the skin around his eye patch—he slept in the thing, apparently, at least when he was guarding doors. His one blue eye flickered over her, took quick stock of the situation, thankfully knowing exactly what she spoke of without Lore having to explain. “Did you ground yourself before you fell asleep?” “Did I what?” “I’ll take that as a no.” “How the fuck would I have known to do that?” Pain made her sharp; Lore’s teeth were nearly bared. Gabe took it in stride. He shifted his position so he sat cross-legged on the floor, palms on his knees. A sweep of his hand indicated he wanted her to do the same. Lore did, slowly, hissing a string of curses. Her legs prickled with pins and needles; trying to move them felt like hauling sacks of unresponsive meat. “Grounding,” Gabe said when she was settled, “is visualizing your barrier, setting it in place. Making it as real as possible in your mind, so that you don’t have to be actively concentrating to keep it up.” “I haven’t concentrated on it all day, and it held up fine.” It’d only been a problem since her nightmare. Lore could still feel it tugging at the edges of her mind, at her heart, as if she hadn’t really woken up

Pineapple Street.txt

too. I found myself halfway down one of the two chapel aisles. A living room was set up on the stage—flowery sofa, a lamp with no cord, a coffee table with a lace throw—and I remembered the posters around campus for the one-act festival happening here. The sun was setting through the stained glass on the west wall. Everything smelled like warm, ancient wood. I said, “Would he really trade a drug charge for a murder charge?” There was a long pause, and a couple of times I heard him take a breath to start, but nothing came out. Finally he said, “A lot of my research touches on amnesty and human rights. And I’m seeing this case, and I feel like such a hypocrite. I contributed to this.” “Plenty of people contributed.” “Probably he did, but what do I know? It’s not up to me to decide, and teenage me shouldn’t have had a say either. Maybe we shouldn’t have let, you know, a bunch of kids hand someone to the police. What I mean is, the stuff they had on him—it came from us. Except the DNA, I guess. But none of us thought, hey, I’m personally framing this guy. And—very much off the record—maybe we did. We might have set up a guilty guy, but we set him up.” By that point I felt physically unsettled in a way that had nothing to do with speaking to someone I’d once found attractive. He didn’t mean to include me in his “we,” but he had. I walked back to the vestibule and headed into the bathroom, although I didn’t need it—bathrooms simply being the place you go when you feel sick, when you need to be alone. The door was old and swung in on two familiar decrepit stalls, a familiar sink, the warped mirror above it, the crank paper towel dispenser. I couldn’t have told you a thing about this bathroom five seconds earlier, and now I recognized every inch. There was a radiator under the tiny frosted window, and I leaned back against it, grilling my butt through my jeans. I said, “This is random, but do you remember if students were drinking backstage that night, at Camelot? Would Thalia have been drinking?” He puffed out air. “I mean, in general, sure. That night? Who knows. Why?” I explained, as best I could, my concerns about the timeline. He gave a noncommittal “Huh.” He said, “I just—God, this could be such a mess. I don’t trust my memory of what I ate last night. What do you think happens to memory over twenty years? Anyway, your students ask me to chat and this is what goes through my mind. I just feel like—it’s such a can of worms.” I couldn’t figure out if he was arguing against looking into the case. Surely not. But he sounded pained. “It’s only a student project,” I said, feebly. “So was Facebook.” He agreed, in the end, to talk to Britt and Alder about his memories of Thalia, at least; he’d see

We-Could-Be-So Good.txt

juice glasses—because of course Nick doesn’t have any vases, what was Andy thinking—Nick comes over to the table. “Thanks. I mean—thank you.” “It’s my pleasure.” The moment stretches too long, with Andy ineptly fiddling with daffodil stems and Nick watching him and something hanging in the air just out of sight, and if Andy keeps his eyes averted, maybe he won’t have to see it. * * * They’re well into the first bottle of wine when Linda knocks on the door. “I brought Sylvia and her brother, Charlie,” she says, indicating the model, who is now dressed, even if it’s only in what appears to be a silk robe over a pair of jeans, and a young man who wears a black turtleneck sweater and round horn-rimmed glasses. They both have light brown skin with dark brown freckles; they’re also both intensely gorgeous in a way that makes Andy hope he isn’t staring. “Catch up,” says Nick, handing the bottle of wine to Linda. Andy fetches two more juice glasses and an empty jam jar from the kitchen, because of course Nick doesn’t have wineglasses, either. “What happened to your face?” Linda asks Nick. “Kids,” Nick answers, kicking off a conversation about which of them’s been mugged and in what neighborhoods and how much money they lost. Andy hangs back at first, overwhelmed with a sort of social paralysis that hasn’t afflicted him since he was in school. He isn’t a born charmer, but he makes do. He knows how to make people like him. He might not have his father’s charisma or his mother’s force of personality, but he’s good at turning the tables and making people talk about themselves, which is all they usually want. But everyone else is charming and talkative and there isn’t much for Andy to do but listen and be amused. The conversation darts from Linda’s account of an art show she went to, to Sylvia’s stories about modeling, and Charlie’s relentless flirtation with Nick. Which is fine! And definitely doesn’t make Andy feel strange at all. “And then, just when I thought the plaster of paris was dry—” “It turns out nobody’s paid rent on that gallery on Tenth Street for months—” “She said she was doing a series of landscapes, but there I am, naked as a baby—” “Were you at Ed Wortman’s party—he’s the poet with all the screaming, you know—because I’m sure I recognize you from somewhere, darling—” Andy pours himself another glass of wine, and when the bottle is empty, he gets the corkscrew and opens another. Not wanting to return to the living room just yet, he lights the candles and turns out the flickering overhead light. The timer dings, so he pulls the lasagna—which weighs about as much as a small child—out of the oven, then puts together a plate for Mrs. Martelli. He’s about to take it down to her when he realizes that Nick is standing in the doorway. “I’m going to bring this downstairs,” Andy says when Nick makes no move to step aside. “I’ll

Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt

move into the Silts fifteen years ago when the bank foreclosed on their house. The same phrase was underlined in her public registry file, too: No known other-born affiliation. “It makes no sense.” The records had to be wrong. Io’s mind denied any other explanation on a fundamental level. Only moira-born could hold the threads of fate; it was a fact of life, as undeniable as the sun rising every morning and setting every evening. They were silent for a few minutes as they skimmed through other papers in the file: coroner reports, witness transcripts, background checks on family members and neighbors of both the victims and the murderers. “Wait,” Edei said. “We’ve seen this name before.” He took the file from her, thumbed through the papers, and pulled out two: a police testimony by Drina Savva’s husband, claiming his wife had been assaulted with the intention of kidnapping, and the records of the orphanage where Emmeline Segal and her brothers were raised, stating the girl had been kidnapped when she was eight. Suspected but not convicted were two men: one Horace Lark and one Holland Lowe. “I’ve heard of him. They’re the same man—aliases of a crook called Horatio Long,” Edei explained. “He has as many names as schemes.” “The attempted kidnappings are both dated the same day, twelve years ago.” Edei’s mouth was scrunched up to the side. “He’s known for setting up brutal fighting dens. Bianca banned him from her turf a few years ago, after he was accused of mistreating his fighters.” “Mistreating them how?” “I’ve heard some strange stories. Supposedly, he uses nefarious methods to increase their stamina and aggression. Our neighbor used to wrestle way back when—he says Horatio’s fighters were bloodthirsty, frenzied, like rabid dogs.” “Like the woman last night?” Io said. “So what, he tried to recruit Emmeline and Drina twelve years ago, failed, and now he’s returned to finish the job? But then why would they be out in the city, murdering people and talking of justice, instead of fighting in his matches?” “It’s worth checking out.” “I suppose it’s the only connection we have so far.” “You’re in here, too.” He had been skimming through the file and now handed her a witness report with her name typed in bold. “That makes sense, the officers called to the scene escorted me home last night.” She read through her own deposition, then through reports on investigations she had carried out for some of her more recent clients, a detailed account of her taxes, known addresses, and acquaintances. They’d been thorough. Attached to hers was a brief report on Ava, focusing mainly on her job at the Fortuna. And then: a file with a familiar name. Thais Ora. Io’s heart started beating fast. She pulled the spotless white folder out slowly, almost unwillingly. A black-and-white photo was clipped on the first page. Her sister gazed back at the photographer with pure hatred, her dark brows cast close over her eyes, her lips pursed in a severe line. Io remembered the day the photo was

Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt

choosy. “You can read all about it in The Truth of Alante tomorrow.” Gods, this guy was asking for a good punch to the face. Six years of school, one more of running into him during jobs, and it was a miracle she hadn’t obliged him yet. Quite frankly, it was owed to Rosa, who thought he wasn’t even worth the effort to raise her fists. “Another think piece on the dangers of unsupervised cutters?” she asked. “Have you ever considered how much trouble you’re raising for folks who’ve never done anything wrong besides being born with a power you can’t even begin to comprehend?” “I don’t raise trouble; I merely report on it.” He folded his notebook into his coat and gave her a putrid smirk. “But no, I won’t be writing about other-born at all. Much more important business here.” Involuntarily, Io scowled. The jab was directed at her, with the singular self-assurance of a man who knew more than you. What had Io missed and Xenophon caught? Oh. Oh. “You don’t think the women were other-born?” she guessed. Xenophon looked very satisfied with himself. “You assumed they were. Who’s prejudiced now, huh, Ora?” “She had to be. She held the thread in her hand—I saw it with my own eyes.” “What if I told you that the police have found the women’s names and are refusing to release them to the press?” “There are hundreds of other-born in Alante; we’ll find her tomorrow when the registry opens.” “Good luck with that,” Xenophon said in singsong; Io had to physically keep her fingers from balling up. “The day after the chernobog-born’s death, all other-born records were pulled from the public registry. Coincidence?” “But that’s illegal.” At the end of the month-long Kinship Treaty negotiations sixty years ago, the other-born delegation, led by the Agora of the horae-born, had conceded to a compromise: they would receive citizenship rights in all city-nations in exchange for several precautions, such as lower wages, special restrictions to rent and own property, as well as their private information made public. Their names, affiliations, and powers would be listed in public records for everyone to see. People had a right to protect themselves, authorities said. Bullshit, Thais always argued. It’s us that have had to protect ourselves from them. But other-born were tired of being emigrants, seeking shelter from city to city, and so they accepted. “No shit, detective,” said Xenophon. “But as of a week ago, Alante is the first city under the Kinship Treaty that made other-born records private. Guess who confiscated them.” Io waited, eyes hard, jaw set. This had a bad smell all about it. “Come on, Ora, don’t ruin it,” Xenophon whined. “Guess.” She truly hated the boy. And he was a boy, large as a boar, but more juvenile than a toddler. She would not indulge a child— “The Initiative,” Edei said, straightening from the dresser he had been going through. “Ding, ding, ding.” Xenophon mimicked ringing an invisible bell. “Edei Rhuna, is it? Witnesses say you were here yesterday. Got

Happy Place.txt

into his mouth at the sudden sensation of so much of him on so much of me. The bands of muscle across his stomach tighten. My lips part hungrily under his. His hands untie my bathing suit top, peel it away, and my heart pounds into his urgent touch. He whispers my name at the hinge of my jaw, the water spraying over his shoulders, wrapping us in its heat. He groans, palming me in slow, intense circles as my breath quickens. His mouth glides down my throat. “Are you sure about this?” he murmurs. I hold him tighter. He draws back to ask again, but I pull him close, my tongue slipping into his mouth, finding the bitter, bready taste of Corona and sharp tang of lime. I reach between us and thrill at the feeling of him in my hand. His head bows into my shoulder, one of his hands coming to grip the top of the wall behind me. “I didn’t bring condoms here,” he says, but neither of us has stopped moving, looking for more friction, for release. The muscles all down his back and stomach and arms and ass are rigid with tension as our hips roll together. His hands slide roughly behind my hips, canting them up to him. “We shouldn’t do this while you’re upset anyway,” he says. I move my hand down him. “I’ll be less upset once you’re inside me.” He wraps a hand over mine, holding me still for a second, our hearts slamming together, hot water racing down us. “We don’t have a condom,” he says again. Some kind of pathetic sound of dissent squeaks out of me, and he seems to forget what he was saying, pushes me back into the wall, our hips grinding together, nails skating over wet skin. He lifts me a half inch so he’s right against me now. It’s not enough. He grabs the top of the wall again for support as we move together. “Harriet,” he rasps against my ear. “You’re so fucking soft.” “Thanks,” I say, breathless, “I don’t work out.” “Don’t joke right now,” he says. “We can joke later. Right now, tell me what you want.” “I already told you,” I say. “We can’t,” he says. “I’ll find a way to get some while we’re out for dinner.” I laugh into his throat, catch a rivulet on my tongue. “Are you going to hang out in alleyways and wave twenties at strangers who look like they’re packing condoms?” “I was thinking I’d go to a drugstore,” he says, “but I like your way better.” He draws back, his hands slowing my descent until my feet meet the wet cedar planks. Everything in me rises in protest until he turns me, lifts my hands to the edge of the wall, and lets his own slide down the backs of my arms, down my sides. One slips around my hip and between my thighs as he presses in behind me. For a second, I can’t breathe. Even my organs are too busy wanting

The Age of Innocence.txt

larger hatbrim. "My dear Newland, I had no idea that you and May had arrived! You yourself came only yesterday, you say? Ah, business--business--professional duties . . . I understand. Many husbands, I know, find it impossible to join their wives here except for the week-end." She cocked her head on one side and languished at him through screwed-up eyes. "But marriage is one long sacrifice, as I used often to remind my Ellen--" Archer's heart stopped with the queer jerk which it had given once before, and which seemed suddenly to slam a door between himself and the outer world; but this break of continuity must have been of the briefest, for he presently heard Medora answering a question he had apparently found voice to put. "No, I am not staying here, but with the Blenkers, in their delicious solitude at Portsmouth. Beaufort was kind enough to send his famous trotters for me this morning, so that I might have at least a glimpse of one of Regina's garden-parties; but this evening I go back to rural life. The Blenkers, dear original beings, have hired a primitive old farm-house at Portsmouth where they gather about them representative people . . ." She drooped slightly beneath her protecting brim, and added with a faint blush: "This week Dr. Agathon Carver is holding a series of Inner Thought meetings there. A contrast indeed to this gay scene of worldly pleasure-- but then I have always lived on contrasts! To me the only death is monotony. I always say to Ellen: Beware of monotony; it's the mother of all the deadly sins. But my poor child is going through a phase of exaltation, of abhorrence of the world. You know, I suppose, that she has declined all invitations to stay at Newport, even with her grandmother Mingott? I could hardly persuade her to come with me to the Blenkers', if you will believe it! The life she leads is morbid, unnatural. Ah, if she had only listened to me when it was still possible . . . When the door was still open . . . But shall we go down and watch this absorbing match? I hear your May is one of the competitors." Strolling toward them from the tent Beaufort advanced over the lawn, tall, heavy, too tightly buttoned into a London frock-coat, with one of his own orchids in its buttonhole. Archer, who had not seen him for two or three months, was struck by the change in his appearance. In the hot summer light his floridness seemed heavy and bloated, and but for his erect square- shouldered walk he would have looked like an over-fed and over-dressed old man. There were all sorts of rumours afloat about Beaufort. In the spring he had gone off on a long cruise to the West Indies in his new steam-yacht, and it was reported that, at various points where he had touched, a lady resembling Miss Fanny Ring had been seen in his company. The steam-yacht, built in the Clyde, and fitted with

Tarzan of the Apes.txt

chops to the club's CHEF because they were underdone, and when he had finished his repast he dipped his finger-ends into a silver bowl of scented water and dried them upon a piece of snowy damask. Chapter 9 50 All day Tarzan followed Kulonga, hovering above him in the trees like some malign spirit. Twice more he saw him hurl his arrows of destruction--once at Dango, the hyena, and again at Manu, the monkey. In each instance the animal died almost instantly, for Kulonga's poison was very fresh and very deadly. Tarzan thought much on this wondrous method of slaying as he swung slowly along at a safe distance behind his quarry. He knew that alone the tiny prick of the arrow could not so quickly dispatch these wild things of the jungle, who were often torn and scratched and gored in a frightful manner as they fought with their jungle neighbors, yet as often recovered as not. No, there was something mysterious connected with these tiny slivers of wood which could bring death by a mere scratch. He must look into the matter. That night Kulonga slept in the crotch of a mighty tree and far above him crouched Tarzan of the Apes. When Kulonga awoke he found that his bow and arrows had disappeared. The black warrior was furious and frightened, but more frightened than furious. He searched the ground below the tree, and he searched the tree above the ground; but there was no sign of either bow or arrows or of the nocturnal marauder. Kulonga was panic-stricken. His spear he had hurled at Kala and had not recovered; and, now that his bow and arrows were gone, he was defenseless except for a single knife. His only hope lay in reaching the village of Mbonga as quickly as his legs would carry him. That he was not far from home he was certain, so he took the trail at a rapid trot. From a great mass of impenetrable foliage a few yards away emerged Tarzan of the Apes to swing quietly in his wake. Kulonga's bow and arrows were securely tied high in the top of a giant tree from which a patch of bark had been removed by a sharp knife near to the ground, and a branch half cut through and left hanging about fifty feet higher up. Thus Tarzan blazed the forest trails and marked his caches. As Kulonga continued his journey Tarzan closed on him until he traveled almost over the black's head. His rope he now held coiled in his right hand; he was almost ready for the kill. The moment was delayed only because Tarzan was anxious to ascertain the black warrior's destination, and presently he was rewarded, for they came suddenly in view of a great clearing, at one end of which lay many strange lairs. Tarzan was directly over Kulonga, as he made the discovery. The forest ended abruptly and beyond lay two hundred yards of planted fields between the jungle and the village. Tarzan must act quickly or his

THE SCARLET LETTER.txt

fair examination in the New England Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms, although unacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity, which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough possession of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson's question, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door. Thesaurus borne: (adj) weak, wanting, spoony, disadvantageous, unfitting, unapt, unacquainted: (adj) unaware, soft, sappy, shallow, little, limited. unfortunate, untimely, untoward. unaccustomed, strange, oblivious, grandfatherly: (adj) kind. ANTONYMS: (adj) opportune, ignorant, unapprized, unapprised, immaturity: (n) immatureness, timely, appropriate, fortunate, unweeting, inexperienced, innocent, childhood, babyhood, adolescence, convenient, suitable. not learned. ANTONYMS: (adj) puerility, crudity, youth, juvenility, perversity: (n) perverseness, accustomed, knowledgeable, callowness, state, viridity. cussedness, evil, perversion, conscious, informed. ANTONYMS: (n) maturity, willfulness, unruliness, corruption, ungracious: (adj) discourteous, adulthood, experience. wilfulness, depravity; (adj) impolite, uncivil, surly, unkind, inopportune: (adj) inconvenient, contumacy, spinosity. unceremonious, churlish, inappropriate, improper, tenfold: (adj) decuple, decimal, tenth, disrespectful, unfriendly, graceless, inexpedient, awkward, containing ten. unpleasing. Nathaniel Hawthorne 105 This phantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of the Governor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window, together with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed in coming hither.% Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something in the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a change had come over his features--how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen-- since the days when she had familiarly known him. She met his eyes for an instant, but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now going forward. "This is awful!" cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the astonishment into which Pearl's response had thrown him. "Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further." Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death. "God gave me the child!" cried she. "He gave her in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness--she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life!

Their Eyes Were Watching God.txt

stairs with her lamp. The light in her hand was like a spark of sun-stuff washing her face in fire. Her shadow behind fell black and headlong down the stairs. Now, in her room, the place tasted fresh again. The wind through the open windows had broomed out all the fetid feeling of absence and nothingness. She closed in and sat down. Combing road-dust out of her hair. Thinking. The day of the gun, and the bloody body, and the court- house came and commenced to sing a sobbing sigh out of every corner in the room; out of each and every chair and thing. Commenced to sing, commenced to sob and sigh, singing and sobbing. Then Tea Cake came prancing around her where she was and the song of the sigh flew out of the window and lit in the top of the pine trees. Tea Cake, with the sun for a shawl. Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and think- ing. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see. Afterword Zora Neale Hurston: “A Negro Way of Saying” I. The Reverend Harry Middleton Hyatt, an Episcopal priest whose five-volume classic collection, Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Rootwork, more than amply returned an investment of forty years’ research, once asked me during an interview in 1977 what had become of another eccentric collector whom he admired. “I met her in the field in the thirties. I think,” he reflected for a few seconds, “that her first name was Zora.” It was an innocent question, made reasonable by the body of confused and often contradictory rumors that make Zora Neale Hurston’s own legend as richly curious and as dense as are the black myths she did so much to preserve in her classic anthropological works, Mules and Men and Tell My Horse, and in her fiction. A graduate of Barnard, where she studied under Franz Boas, Zora Neale Hurston published seven books—four novels, two books of folklore, and an autobiography—and more than fifty shorter works between the middle of the Harlem Renaissance and the end of the Korean War, when she was the dominant black woman writer in the United States. The dark obscurity into which her career then lapsed reflects her staunchly independent political stances rather than any deficiency of craft or vision. Virtually ignored after the early fifties, even by the Black Arts movement in the sixties, an otherwise noisy and intense spell of black image- and myth-making that rescued so many black writers from remaindered oblivion, Hurston embodied a more or less harmonious but nevertheless problematic unity of opposites. It is this complexity that refuses to lend itself to the glib categories of “radical” or “conservative,” “black” or “Negro,” “revolutionary” or

Kalynn-Bayron-Youre-Not-Supposed.txt

fills my nose. My eyes water and my throat feels tight. I hold still, hoping no one is here to notice our presence but also desperately praying that Porter is hiding somewhere inside. A half dozen rooms occupy the first floor of the massive lodge. We sweep through a maze of empty sitting rooms and linen closets, almost all of them bare except for dead leaves and mice. The long center hall opens into an expansive foyer. A broken chandelier hangs from a rusted chain, and portraits of various pompous-looking men in strange black robes hang on the walls. To the right of the double-spiral staircase that leads to the upper floors, there is a room whose intricately carved double doors sit slightly ajar. I push them the rest of the way open and find an office with a massive desk in the center. A taxidermic snow owl is perched on top of it. The room is ringed by built-in shelves, and they are all filled with moldering books. I run my hand along the spines and read some of the titles aloud. “Geological History of Upstate New York. Myths and Legends.” I glance at Bezi, who is standing in front of a large, framed photo hung on the wall. “Who the hell was living out here?” “The Owl Society,” Bezi says. “Who?” Her gaze doesn’t move from the photo, and I join her in front of it. Bezi runs her fingers across a dusty silver plaque set into the bottom of the framed photograph. “It says The Owl Society, 1840.” The black-and-white photo shows a bunch of men standing on a large platform. As I lean in and shine my flashlight on the picture, I realize that it’s set in the same location we’d just come from—the outdoor amphitheater in the grove. The photo is blurry, darker around the edges and lighter at the center. The men stand in three rows, but the faces of the ones in the back are unrecognizable. The owl carved into the oak looms over them, and a bright spot on the edge of the frame matches up to where the burning torch had been positioned. “This has to be what Ms. Keane was talking about,” I say. “She kept saying them. It’s gotta be this Owl Society, right?” Bezi nods as she circles the room. “It’s a secret society?” “Looks like it. But what are—were they doing?” It occurs to me in that moment that maybe this so-called Owl Society isn’t some relic of the long-forgotten past. Somebody hurt Tasha, and Porter and Paige are missing. On the wall next to the large photograph, there are smaller portraits in heavy brass and silver frames. Individuals in the same seated pose, all of them wearing black cloaks. The photos go from black-and-white to sepia to full color. Each portrait adorned with a small plaque. Henry Woodsworth Hayward Grand Owl, 1856 Johnathan Laurens Montevallo Grand Owl, 1867 Lawrence Ulrich Davis Grand Owl, 1872 More portraits ring the room, each of them featuring a man in the same

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt

stand on. It would sort itself out. God what a terrible hangover it had earned him though. He looked at himself in the wardrobe mirror. He stuck out his tongue. "Yellow," he thought. The word yellow wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with. Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path. Mr L Prosser was, as they say, only human. In other words he was a carbon-based bipedal life form descended from an ape. More specifically he was forty, fat and shabby and worked for the local council. Curiously enough, though he didn't know it, he was also a direct male-line descendant of Genghis Khan, though intervening generations and racial mixing had so juggled his genes that he had no discernible Mongoloid characteristics, and the only vestiges left in Mr L Prosser of his mighty ancestry were a pronounced stoutness about the tum and a predilection for little fur hats. He was by no means a great warrior: in fact he was a nervous worried man. Today he was particularly nervous and worried because something had gone seriously wrong with his job - which was to see that Arthur Dent's house got cleared out of the way before the day was out. "Come off it, Mr Dent,", he said, "you can't win you know. You can't lie in front of the bulldozer indefinitely." He tried to make his eyes blaze fiercely but they just wouldn't do it. Arthur lay in the mud and squelched at him. "I'm game," he said, "we'll see who rusts first." "I'm afraid you're going to have to accept it," said Mr Prosser gripping his fur hat and rolling it round the top of his head, "this bypass has got to be built and it's going to be built!" "First I've heard of it," said Arthur, "why's it going to be built?" Mr Prosser shook his finger at him for a bit, then stopped and put it away again. "What do you mean, why's it got to be built?" he said. "It's a bypass. You've got to build bypasses." Bypasses are devices which allow some people to drive from point A to point B very fast whilst other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people of point B are so keen to get there, and what's so great about point B that so many people of point A are so keen to get there. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. Mr Prosser wanted to be at point D. Point D wasn't anywhere in particular, it was just any convenient point a very long way from points A, B and C. He would have a nice little cottage at point D, with axes over the

Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey.txt

head sadly and closes his eyes. “I got lost in the moment,” he says unconvincingly. I frown at him, and he sighs. “Ana, orgasm denial is a standard tool in—You never—” He stops. I shift in his lap, and he winces. Oh. I flush. “Sorry,” I mutter. He rolls his eyes, then leans back suddenly, taking me with him, so that we’re both lying on the bed, me in his arms. My bra is uncomfortable, and I adjust it. “Need a hand?” he asks quietly. I shake my head. I don’t want him to touch my breasts. He shifts so he’s looking down at me, and tentatively raising his hand, he strokes his fingers gently down my face. Tears pool in my eyes again. How can he be so callous one minute and so tender the next? “Please don’t cry,” he whispers. I’m dazed and confused by this man. My anger has deserted me in my hour of need . . . I feel numb. I want to curl up in a ball and withdraw. I blink, trying to hold back my tears as I gaze into his harrowed eyes. I take a shuddering breath, my eyes not leaving his. What am I going to do with this controlling man? Learn to be controlled? I don’t think so . . . “I never what?” I ask “Do as you’re told. You changed your mind; you didn’t tell me where you were. Ana, I was in New York, powerless and livid. If I’d been in Seattle I’d have brought you home.” “So you are punishing me?” He swallows, then closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to answer, and I know that punishing me was his exact intention. “You have to stop doing this,” I murmur. His brow furrows. “For a start, you only end up feeling shittier about yourself.” He snorts. “That’s true,” he mutters. “I don’t like to see you like this.” “And I don’t like feeling like this. You said on the Fair Lady that you hadn’t married a submissive.” “I know. I know.” His voice is soft and raw. 242/551 “Well stop treating me like one. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I won’t be so selfish again. I know you worry about me.” He gazes at me, scrutinizing me closely, his eyes bleak and anxious. “Okay. Good,” he says eventually. He leans down, but pauses before his lips touch mine, silently asking if it’s allowed. I raise my face to his, and he kisses me tenderly. “Your lips are always so soft when you’ve been crying,” he murmurs. “I never promised to obey you, Christian,” I whisper. “I know.” “Deal with it, please. For both our sakes. And I will try and be more consid- erate of your . . . controlling tendencies.” He looks lost and vulnerable, completely at sea. “I’ll try,” he murmurs, his voice burning with sincerity. I sigh, a long shuddering sigh. “Please do. Besides, if I had been here . . .” “I know,” he says and blanches. Lying back, he puts his free

Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt

Nine, the only way to take vengeance on the Muses for their part in the fury-born genocide. They knew that Io would come for Bianca. That Io would find the mob queen threadless and try to save her by taking her to the Nine. They’d left Bianca locked in a cell because they knew Io. They knew her better, perhaps, than anybody else. Io took a breath that scraped down her lungs. “Do you want justice?” With animal speed, Bianca moved in Io’s direction. She stopped a few feet away, a finger raised straight in Io’s face. “You know who did this to me?” The greenhouse was empty now. Edei and the Muses were gone, hopefully somewhere safe, far away from here. Io and Bianca stood in a room of beautiful corpses. Io exhaled shakily. “If it’s justice you want, you need to do exactly what I tell you.” “And what is that?” A terrifying calm had descended on Io. “You’re going to help me get a confession out of them.” “So you do know,” snarled Bianca. “Who did this to me.” Yes, Io knew. Of course she did. It had been a trap, from the very beginning. A trap designed specifically for Io, relying on a single choice: that Io would find Bianca dying and choose to save her. That Io, a professional breaker of hearts, with all her guilt and her shame, couldn’t bear to hurt Ava again. Thais’s question echoed in the deathful night. You would do anything for Ava, wouldn’t you? CHAPTER XXXV ENDLESS SHADES OF GRAY IO SAT ALONE in the middle of a room full of death, pulling on the thread. Three short tugs, two long: the Ora sisters’ call to arms. Silver flowed through her fingers, casting a snowy iridescence against the furred bodies around her. Nightfall had arrived in Alante like a drape tonight, the heavy smog swallowing all light. The glass doors were all unlocked, exposing every side of the greenhouse. Chill air kissed her cheeks and billowed the curtains. The hair on the dead women’s heads stirred on the marble, like streams of ice water after the thaw. Bianca had disappeared to carry out the last of Io’s commands. They had undressed and redressed the bodies in the room, arranged the chimerini furs just right. Io’s left eye had swollen shut, her heart beat in her ears, but her focus was razor-sharp. Her mind was clear for the first time since she took on this case. She felt no terror, no sadness, no guilt. There was only resolution: to find the single piece missing from the puzzle. We are all the same, Muses and moira-born and grace-born. Whatever they may be, these women are of the gods. There is no god with powers like these. Even gods change. The gods are dead. Go on. Ask. How had the wraiths been made? Io gathered the thread slowly on her lap, like an old woman at a loom. She heard it first: footsteps on the gravel path, the whoosh of fine fabric, the jingle

I-Have-Some-Questions-for-You.txt

in the cold. Someone called out behind us and we waited for her to catch up. Good Lord: It was Priscilla Mancio, who was still teaching French. “Bodie Kane,” she said. “Unbelievable. I never would’ve recognized her,” she told Petra, “if they hadn’t run her picture in the magazine.” She was walking her bulldog, a delicious beast she introduced as Brigitte, and whom I squatted to scratch. Petra said, “You’ve changed since eighteen.” I find it hard to tell if people with German accents are asking questions. “Sure,” Madame Mancio said, “but—well, most alums, they either look the same, or worse. You know, it’s the boys. They go sloppy in the middle. But you look so much prettier, Bodie! Was your hair always that color?” I said, “Yep, this is my hair.” It was still dark—just no longer stringy and self-cut and ruined by cheap shampoo. “Well, I’ve listened to your podcast, and I suppose I was picturing your old face.” To Petra she said, “She had such a round little face!” Madame Mancio, meanwhile, looked shockingly unchanged. If she’d been thirty when I was at Granby, she was maybe in her early fifties now, but with the same androgynous haircut, the same tall, bony frame. She still dressed as if she might head off at any moment to hike the mountains. She said, “We were always so worried about her, especially at the end there. There are those students you just worry about. And look at her, turning out so successful, so put-together.” I was glad to be on Brigitte’s eye level rather than hers. The dog licked my face, and I marveled at the little pocket her wrinkles made between her eyes. You could stash a spare piece of kibble in there. We walked toward campus, the two of them discussing the lawsuit in the paper, the details of which I couldn’t grasp. Petra said to me, “Granby is always being sued. So is every other school in the country.” “For what?” “Oh God,” Madame Mancio said, “anything. Mostly it’s families threatening to sue. Suspensions, grades, negligence, the kid didn’t get into the right college, a coach didn’t put the kid on varsity. I wish I were kidding. All those lawyers the school pays? They’re busy.” I said, “I didn’t know.” Beneath the bridge, the Tigerwhip was surely frozen solid under its blanket of snow. I could see boot prints heading down the ravine slope and across the flat surface that was, now, only a suggestion of water. (We’d sat on those slopes during junior year bio, Ms. Ramos making us each sketch ten plants. I wore a sweater long enough to hide my backside, and it got ruined in the dirt.) Fifteen miles away, where the creek emptied into the Connecticut River, the ice would be looser, chunkier, yielding to slush and running water. “Has the campus changed much?” Petra asked me. Madame Mancio, whom I ought to be thinking of as Priscilla if I were to have any chance of a normal conversation with her, said, “Not as

Moby Dick; Or, The Whale.txt

with one hand holding a pike-head in the coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs, when captain ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last, Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the anvil --the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, some of which flew close to Ahab. Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth? they are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all; --look here, they burn; but thou--thou liv'st among them without a scorch. Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab, answered Perth, resting for a moment on his hammer; I am past scorching; not easily can'st thou scorch a scar. Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woful to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad? --What wert thou making there? Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it. And can'st thou make it all smooth, again, blacksmith, after such hard usage as it had? I think so, sir. And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith? Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one. .. <p 483 > Look ye here, then, cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning with both hands on Perth's shoulders; look ye here -- here --can ye smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith, sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow;;if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. Answer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam? Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one? aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the bone of my skull -- that is all wrinkles! But, away with child's play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here! jingling the leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. I, too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There's the stuff, flinging the pouch upon the anvil. Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses. Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work. I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me first, twelve rods

Riley-Sager-The-Only-One-Left.txt

other. Archie makes a similar decision. “I was saying goodnight.” “Since when do you say goodnight to Lenora?” “Ever since Miss Hope first took ill,” Archie says. “Every night, I make sure to stop by and see how she’s doing.” “Let’s walk,” I say. What I really mean is that I want to talk where Lenora can’t hear us. Archie nods and follows me into the hallway, where the tilt of the house is noticeably more pronounced. Just when I had gotten used to it, too. “Every night?” I say. “You told me you and Lenora were no longer close.” “I said it wasn’t like it used to be,” Archie says. “And that’s the truth. It’s evolved over the years. Just because I don’t make a show of it doesn’t mean I don’t care about Miss Hope. We’re both on the same side, Kit. We’re both here to watch over her. We just go about it in different ways.” “Why haven’t I seen you visit her before?” “Because it’s kind of our little secret. Something kept just between me and Miss Hope. I’m sure you understand.” Archie pauses, as if he now wants me to share one of my secrets. I decline. Because that movie about the cat burglars who decided to trust each other? It ends with one betraying the other. I’m not about to let the same thing happen to me. “How late do you visit?” “Usually a little after Miss Hope goes to bed and a little before I do the same.” We descend the service stairs slowly, our shoes crunching over bits of plaster that have fallen from the walls. “Ever visit her in the middle of the night?” “No,” Archie says. “An early riser like me can’t afford to stay up that late.” He sounds honest enough that I almost believe him. Then again, Archie also sounded honest when he lied about knowing Lenora had a baby. Right now, I suspect there’s a seventy-five percent chance he’s telling the truth. Using that math, I conclude that Archie was the gray blur I saw at Lenora’s window my first night here. I’m less sure about him causing the middle-of-the-night noises in Lenora’s room. Or the shadow I watched pass the adjoining door. Or the typewritten message Lenora blamed on Virginia. “Do you know if anyone else sneaks into Lenora’s room at night on a regular basis?” “I doubt it,” Archie says with a vagueness that drops the truth-o-meter to fifty percent. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” “And I’m certain it’s something.” I stop halfway down the steps. “What aren’t you telling me? When I told all of you Lenora said her sister—her dead sister—was in her room typing, you didn’t seem surprised. Why is that?” “Because it was outlandish,” Archie says. “Or maybe because something like that has happened before over the years.” Archie attempts to descend another step, but I block his way, standing with my arms outstretched and both palms against the stairwell’s cracked walls. “Was Lenora telling the truth?” I should feel ridiculous for even thinking

Confidence_-a-Novel.txt

chimed in. “Stifling independent thought. Prohibitive to freedom.” “But with the power of NuLife, you can be free anywhere,” Tyrell said, nodding to me. “You wake up every morning doubting yourselves and doubt yourselves until you go to sleep.” I began walking up and down the aisles, watching the inmates’ heads swivel to accommodate my movement. “You spend an inordinate amount of time living under the suspicion that you are frauds, undignified, unworthy of the special attentions and affections of others. On the outside, you labor in your jobs, assuming that if you make more money, you’ll be happier, and then of course you’re not happier. You deny yourselves bliss. You deny yourselves simple, beautiful, uncritical living. You hunger after betterness, and that hunger—even the betterness itself—makes for unhappiness.” This is when Tyrell played dumb. He let out a little laugh and pulled at the collar of his uniform. “So how’re you planning to solve the problem of betterness?” All eyes on me again, some bald heads gleaming with the ceiling’s fluorescence, some tattooed arms folded. It was incredible to have an audience like this, phone-less and understimulated, more rapt than any audience I could have had on the outside. This was my milieu. “Synthesis,” I said. A raised hand, this one from Al, who’d blown up a bar in which members of a rival gang were celebrating someone’s birthday. When I called on him, he slouched forward, forehead wrinkled thoughtfully, hands squeezed between his knees. “I was wondering—maybe I missed this—but what’s Synthesis?” “You didn’t miss anything, Al,” I said, and resumed my pacing. “It’s difficult to explain exactly what Synthesis is. I won’t even attempt to do it now. Suffice it to say that it rebuilds your memories and leaves you in a state of complete and uninhibited bliss. It gathers the shards of your self-worth up off the ground.” “My self-worth?” “See, you have to stop thinking on a big, macro scale,” I blazed ahead. “We all have traumas, right? But what are the specific moments that those traumas became most salient in our lives? You hate your dad? Okay great. But what was the one thing he did that made you hate him most? You’re scared of heights? Makes sense—so am I. Synthesis takes you back to the moment when you got stuck at the top of the Ferris wheel, or when you were peering over the cliff’s edge, or when you couldn’t climb down from that tree. It asks you to take sovereignty over those moments.” “Sovereignty,” Tyrell repeated slowly, like a schoolteacher. “Basically, like, ownership.” “You could say I’m the first beneficiary of Synthesis,” I said. “I’ve undergone it myself, and by now I’ve watched countless people undergo it, and believe me, it’s life-changing.” I didn’t tell them about Orson: the little crack in his morning voice, his eyes meeting mine as we woke up, his smile anticipating my own, his hair matted from sleep. I didn’t tell them about the Farm, about the hundreds of people sitting cross-legged awaiting his appearance, listening with rapt devotion

Hell Bent.txt

“What’s the treatment?” Mercy closed her book. “That’s less clear. Soup made from scratch and Bible verses were both suggested.” “Yes, please, and no, thank you.” Alex dragged herself out of bed and fumbled around in her dresser. She pulled a hoodie over her sweats. Was she even allowed to wear Lethe sweats anymore? Was she supposed to return them? She had no idea. She had a lot of questions she should have asked Anselm instead of flipping him off, but it had still been very satisfying. She found the tiny bottle of basso belladonna wedged against the back of the drawer and squeezed drops into both of her eyes. There was no way she was getting through this day without a little help. What’s stopping us? Mercy had asked. The answer was nothing. Alex didn’t want to go through hell again. But if they’d done it once, then they’d know what to expect the second time around. Dawes would have to choose a night of portent—assuming she and the others were willing to make a second run at the Gauntlet—and they wouldn’t have armor for Mercy, but they could load her up with other protections, figure out a way around the alarms if they couldn’t brew another tempest. Why not try again? What was there to lose? They’d come close enough that they had to take another shot. She checked her phone. There was a text from Dawes from the day before. All clear at Black Elm. No changes? she texted back. A long pause followed and then finally: He’s right where we left him. The circle doesn’t look right. Because it was getting weaker. They might not be able to wait for a night of portent. That was the other problem. Anselm had scolded them for putting Lethe and the campus in danger. But he didn’t really understand the game they were playing. He didn’t know Darlington was caught between worlds, that the creature sitting in the ballroom at Black Elm was both demon and man. And Alex wasn’t going to tell him. As soon as Anselm understood what they’d done, he’d find some spell to banish Darlington to hell forever rather than risk another use of the Gauntlet. “I’m sorry last night was such a shit show,” Alex said. “Are you kidding?” said Mercy. “It was great. I’m pretty sure I saw William Chester Minor. Honestly, I thought it would be a lot tougher.” You should have been fighting wolves with us. “I think I’m going to get kicked out of school,” Alex blurted. “Is that … a prediction or a plan?” Alex almost laughed. “A prediction.” “Then we have to get Darlington back. He can plead your case to Lethe. And maybe scare them with a lawsuit or something.” Maybe he could. Maybe he’d have more on his mind after a prolonged stay in hell. They wouldn’t know until they walked the Gauntlet again. But God, Alex was tired. The descent had been a beating and it wasn’t just her body that hurt. She texted their group chat:

THE SCARLET LETTER.txt

towards him, and something whispered me that I was betraying it in pledging myself to keep your counsel. Since that day no man is so near to him as you. You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart! Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death, and still he knows you not. In permitting this I have surely acted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to be true!" "What choice had you?" asked Roger Chillingworth. "My finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, thence, peradventure, to the gallows!" Thesaurus betraying: (adj) treacherous, revealing, extort: (v) exact, soak, compel, take, permitting: (adj) lenient, permitted. Judas. wring, force, extract, pry; (adj) bleed, pledging: (n) marriage. burrow: (adj, v) delve, dig, gouge, fleece, overcharge. pulpit: (n) platform, dais, ambo, mine; (n, v) tunnel, earth; (n) lair, den, misgivings: (n) anxiety, doubt, lectern, hustings, stump, rostrum, hole, cavity; (v) nestle. ANTONYMS: misgiving, apprehension, fear, forum, desk, stand, state. (v) fill, plant. suspicion, doubts, concern, thence: (adv) therefore, thus, clutch: (n, v) clasp, grip, clench, grasp, consternation, disbelief, foreboding. therefrom, thereof, consequently, hold, clinch, gripe; (v) grab, grapple, ANTONYM: (n) equanimity. then, so, thereafter, thenceforth, embrace; (adj, v) catch. ANTONYMS: peradventure: (adv) perchance, since, on account of. (n) loose; (v) release, unfasten. perhaps, possibly, mayhap, by weep: (v) wail, bawl, lament, sob, deriving: (n) etymologizing, ancestry, chance, haply, fortunately, gracefully, blubber, moan, howl, drip, greet, account, thought. felicitously; (n) chance; (conj) if. whimper; (n) tear. 162 The Scarlet Letter "It had been better so!" said Hester Prynne.% "What evil have I done the man?" asked Roger Chillingworth again. "I tell thee, Hester Prynne, the richest fee that ever physician earned from monarch could not have bought such care as I have wasted on this miserable priest! But for my aid his life would have burned away in torments within the first two years after the perpetration of his crime and thine. For, Hester, his spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter. Oh, I could reveal a goodly secret! But enough. What art can do, I have exhausted on him. That he now breathes and creeps about on earth is owing all to me!" "Better he had died at once!" said Hester Prynne. "Yea, woman, thou sayest truly!" cried old Roger Chillingworth, letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes. "Better had he died at once! Never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. And all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy! He has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence dwelling always upon him like a curse. He knew, by some spiritual sense--for the Creator never made another being so sensitive as this--he knew that no friendly hand was pulling at his heartstrings, and that an

Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt

weapon is gone. Hazel undoubtedly took it. Was Jesse stabbed with my knife? Am I going to be framed for his murder? A shopping cart crashes into a post, and I jump, my heart hammering in my throat. I need to get out of here. Someone could be looking for me right now. Righting myself, I fumble with the keys in the ignition and pull carefully out of the lot. As I drive toward Jesse’s apartment, I make a deal with myself. If the cops are there, I will ditch my car somewhere and go to the airport. I’ll pack a bag, turn my cash into Bitcoin, and start my life over. People do it all the time. I will become Kelly Wilcox. I will accept all the things I do not know, and I will let Jesse and Hazel go. His slack face, the punctures in his chest, the metallic scent of his blood revisit me and I feel queasy. But I push the images from my mind and keep driving until the blocky apartment building appears in the distance. I cruise past it, eyes darting around for any signs of police. Or Benjamin Laval’s security detail. Or anyone suspicious. But all seems quiet, normal. An Uber driver delivers a pizza to the building next door. A woman with a green helmet rides past on her bike. At the end of the block, a landlord in sweatpants waters a sad flower bed. Parking on a side street, I face the next hurdle. Getting inside. Last night, I’d opened the small office window as Jesse searched for my keys. If he hadn’t closed it, I will be able to climb through it. I slip down the side of the building, concealed by the heavy evergreens that border it. The office window is closed, but the kitchen window is open a few inches. I yank it fully open and hoist myself onto the ledge. Wriggling inside, I land on the kitchen counter, out of breath. With my feet on the parquet floor, I freeze, listening. The apartment is silent. The blinds are tightly closed over the barred windows, a single lamp burns in the living room, though it is daylight. Tentatively, I move through the space, peeking into the bedroom and bathroom, ensuring I am alone. That I am safe. At least for now. My throat clogs with nostalgia as I take in the familiar surroundings. The dark gray couch where we’d sat and kissed; chatted about his sister and his nieces; had coffee and muffins. The table where we’d eaten coq au vin and sipped red wine. The bedroom where he had held me and made love to me and made me feel like I was desirable. Like I was enough. And then the frantic, almost animal sex we’d had in the entryway, against the kitchen counter, on the parquet floor. Hazel’s warning runs through my mind. Jesse is not who you think he is. “Neither were you, Hazel,” I mutter to myself. I know I can’t trust her, but those words

Lord of the Flies.txt

the woods or down by the rocks. He turned and looked out to sea. Here, on the other side of the island, the view was utterly different. The filmy enchantments of mirage could not endure the cold ocean water and the horizon was hard, clipped blue. Ralph wandered down to the rocks. Down here, almost on a level with the sea, you could follow with your eye the ceaseless, bulging passage of the deep sea waves. They were miles wide, apparently not breakers or the banked ridges of shallow water. They traveled the length of the island with an air of disregarding it and being set on other business; they were less a progress than a momentous rise and fall of the whole ocean. Now the sea would suck down, making cascades and waterfalls of retreating water, would sink past the rocks and plaster down the seaweed like shining hair: then, pausing, gather and rise with a roar, irresistibly swelling over point and outcrop, climbing the little cliff, sending at last an arm of surf up a gully to end a yard or so from him in fingers of spray. Wave after wave, Ralph followed the rise and fall until something of the remoteness of the sea numbed his brain. Then gradually the almost infinite size of this water forced itself on his attention. This was the divider, the barrier. On the other side of the island, swathed at midday with mirage, defended by the shield of the quiet lagoon, one might dream of rescue; but here, faced by the brute obtuseness of the ocean, the miles of division, one was clamped down, one was helpless, one was condemned, one was-- Simon was speaking almost in his ear. Ralph found that he had rock painfully gripped in both hands, found his body arched, the muscles of his neck stiff, his mouth strained open. "You'll get back to where you came from." Simon nodded as he spoke. He was kneeling on one knee, looking down from a higher rock which he held with both hands; his other leg stretched down to Ralph's level. Ralph was puzzled and searched Simon's face for a clue. "It's so big, I mean--" Simon nodded. "All the same. You'll get back all right. I think so, anyway." Some of the strain had gone from Ralph's body. He glanced at the sea and then smiled bitterly at Simon. "Got a ship in your pocket?" Simon grinned and shook his head. "How do you know, then?" When Simon was still silent Ralph said curtly, "You're batty." Simon shook his head violently till the coarse black hair flew backwards and forwards across his face. "No, I'm not. I just _think you'll get back all right._" For a moment nothing more was said. And then they suddenly smiled at each other. Roger called from the coverts. "Come and see!" The ground was turned over near the pig-run and there were droppings that steamed. Jack bent down to them as though he loved them. "Ralph--we need meat even if we are hunting the

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt

in particular, stood in a spray of ferns and yellow flowers and next to it a stone sundial pedestal housed the main computer terminal. Cunningly deployed lighting and mirrors created the illusion of standing in a conservatory overlooking a wide stretch of exquisitely manicured garden. Around the periphery of the conservatory area stood marble-topped tables on intricately beautiful wrought-iron legs. As you gazed into the polished surface of the marble the vague forms of instruments became visible, and as you touched them the instruments materialized instantly under your hands. Looked at from the correct angles the mirrors appeared to reflect all the required data readouts, though it was far from clear where they were reflected from. It was in fact sensationally beautiful. Relaxing in a wickerwork sun chair, Zaphod Beeblebrox said, "What the hell happened?" "Well I was just saying," said Arthur lounging by a small fish pool, "there's this Improbability Drive switch over here ..." he waved at where it had been. There was a potted plant there now. "But where are we?" said Ford who was sitting on the spiral staircase, a nicely chilled Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster in his hand. "Exactly where we were, I think ..." said Trillian, as all about them the mirrors showed them an image of the blighted landscape of Magrathea which still scooted along beneath them. Zaphod leapt out of his seat. "Then what's happened to the missiles?" he said. A new and astounding image appeared in the mirrors. "They would appear," said Ford doubtfully, "to have turned into a bowl of petunias and a very surprised looking whale ..." "At an Improbability Factor," cut in Eddie, who hadn't changed a bit, "of eight million seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand one hundred and twenty-eight to one against." Zaphod stared at Arthur. "Did you think of that, Earthman?" he demanded. "Well," said Arthur, "all I did was ..." "That's very good thinking you know. Turn on the Improbability Drive for a second without first activating the proofing screens. Hey kid you just saved our lives, you know that?" "Oh," said Arthur, "well, it was nothing really ..." "Was it?" said Zaphod. "Oh well, forget it then. OK, computer, take us in to land." "But ..." "I said forget it." Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet. And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more. This is a complete record of its thoughts from the moment it began its life till the moment it ended it. Ah ... ! What's happening? it thought. Er, excuse me, who am I? Hello? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I? Calm down, get a grip now ... oh! this

Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt

his hermitage. It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasion nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me. Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my offices, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his screen, I sat down and said: “Bartleby, never mind then about revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as may be with the usages of this office. Say now you will help to examine papers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now that in a day or two you will begin to be a little reasonable:—say so, Bartleby.” “At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,” was his mildly cadaverous reply. Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemed suffering from an unusually bad night’s rest, induced by severer indigestion then common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby. “Prefer not, eh?” gritted Nippers—”I’d prefer him, if I were you, sir,” addressing me—”I’d prefer him; I’d give him preferences, the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he prefers not to do now?” Bartleby moved not a limb. “Mr. Nippers,” said I, “I’d prefer that you would withdraw for the present.” Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word “prefer” upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not been without efficacy in determining me to summary means. As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly and deferentially approached. “With submission, sir,” said he, “yesterday I was thinking about Bartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quart of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, and enabling him to assist in examining his papers.” “So you have got the word too,” said I, slightly excited. “With submission, what word, sir,” asked Turkey, respectfully crowding himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing, making me jostle the scrivener. “What word, sir?” “I would prefer to be left alone here,” said Bartleby, as if offended at being mobbed in his privacy. “That’s the word, Turkey,” said I—”that’s it.” “Oh, prefer? oh yes—queer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as I was saying, if he would but prefer—” “Turkey,” interrupted I, “you will please withdraw.” “Oh certainly,

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

and closed it quickly. "Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight. "He's not going," he said. Hagrid grunted. "I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said. "A what?" said Harry, interested. "A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like thern. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on." "We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!" "You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a -- a wizard?" "Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that -- that school -- and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years. "Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as -- as -- abnormal -- and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!" Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!" "CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!" "But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently. The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious. "I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh -- but someone's gotta -- yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'." He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys. "Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh -- mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it..." He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with -- with a person called -- but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows --

A-Living-Remedy.txt

ever remember seeing, Mom sighed and squeezed my hand. Quite a send-off. My father never feels closer or farther away than when I return to this place to find him gone. Now I’m walking a dog he never met, wondering if he knows what my mother is facing; what we are going through without him. I turn around, the mountains a reassuring wall at my back, and let Buster lead us home for lunch. 16 On the day after Christmas, I took my mother out to her favorite diner. My husband, kids, and I had flown to Oregon to spend the week with her, and my sister, Cindy, and her family made the trip down from Portland with a carful of Christmas decorations to deck the halls of our Airbnb. My mom didn’t have extra beds or space for guests, and we wanted her to be able to retreat to her own space and have privacy when she needed, so we had rented a house not far from hers. I drove over each morning to pick her up and bring her to the Airbnb and drove her back when she was ready to go to bed. That morning, I’d thrown on some clothes and stopped for doughnuts on the way to her place. While she dug into the sticky pink box, searching for a maple bar, I tidied up her living room and took Buster out to do his business. Mom had slipped and fractured her knee two days before our arrival; she was waiting to see an orthopedic surgeon, making do with a knee brace and a cane. We didn’t yet know that the break was the result of the cancer eating away at her tibia and femur, or that it would prove unmendable—as the surgeon would put it, There’s not enough healthy bone left to repair. We didn’t know that she would never walk unassisted again. We wouldn’t get her latest scan results until after New Year’s, and so we were still able to tell ourselves that we might get what her oncologist called more quality time—a phrase implying that the quality of her time would slowly leech away as her cancer advanced, until it no longer made sense to continue treatment. After I unhooked Buster’s leash and washed my hands at the kitchen sink, I asked Mom what she wanted for lunch. She thought for a moment, then named her wish: a Reuben sandwich from the diner one town over. We set off in the rental car, and I found myself wishing we had farther to go. It was an afternoon of cold, sunlit beauty in the mountains. I was still struggling to put myself back together after falling apart the night before. We all had a surprisingly good Christmas together, with a full house of family and friends. My brother-in-law deep-fried a turkey. My kids had gotten a mini Polaroid camera for Christmas, and the coffee table soon filled up with their tiny developing portraits. My mother, a largely stationary and therefore easy subject, materialized in shot after

The House of the Seven Gables.txt

that was capable of heaven. "Hepzibah," asked Clifford, after watching Phoebe to the corner, "do you never go to church?" "No, Clifford!" she replied,--"not these many, many years!" "Were I to be there," he rejoined, "it seems to me that I could pray once more, when so many human souls were praying all around me!" She looked into Clifford's face, and beheld there a soft natural effusion; for his heart gushed out, as it were, and ran over at his eyes, in delightful reverence for God, and kindly affection for his human brethren. The emotion communicated itself to Hepzibah. She yearned to take him by the hand, and go and kneel down, they two together,--both so long separate from the world, and, as she now recognized, scarcely friends with Him above,--to kneel down among the people, and be reconciled to God and man at once. "Dear brother," said she earnestly, "let us go! We belong nowhere. We have not a foot of space in any church to kneel upon; but let us go to some place of worship, even if we stand in the broad aisle. Poor and forsaken as we are, some pew-door will be opened to us!" So Hepzibah and her brother made themselves, ready--as ready as they could in the best of their old-fashioned garments, which had hung on pegs, or been laid away in trunks, so long that the dampness and mouldy smell of the past was on them,--made themselves ready, in their faded bettermost, to go to church. They descended the staircase together,--gaunt, sallow Hepzibah, and pale, emaciated, age-stricken Clifford! They pulled open the front door, and stepped across the threshold, and felt, both of them, as if they were standing in the presence of the whole world, and with mankind's great and terrible eye on them alone. The eye of their Father seemed to be withdrawn, and gave them no encouragement. The warm sunny air of the street made them shiver. Their hearts quaked within them at the idea of taking one step farther. "It cannot be, Hepzibah!--it is too late," said Clifford with deep sadness. "We are ghosts! We have no right among human beings,--no right anywhere but in this old house, which has a curse on it, and which, therefore, we are doomed to haunt! And, besides," he continued, with a fastidious sensibility, inalienably characteristic of the man," it would not be fit nor beautiful to go! It is an ugly thought that I should be frightful to my fellow-beings, and that children would cling to their mothers' gowns at sight of me!" They shrank back into the dusky passage-way, and closed the door. But, going up the staircase again, they found the whole interior of the house tenfold, more dismal, and the air closer and heavier, for the glimpse and breath of freedom which they had just snatched. They could not flee; their jailer had but left the door ajar in mockery, and stood behind it to watch them stealing out. At the threshold, they felt his pitiless gripe upon them. For, what

The-Silver-Ladies-Do-Lunch.txt

he and Albert fought over me first. Albert and Joyce didn’t last long, but Eddie and I were made for each other. Keepers, that’s the word they use nowadays.’ ‘So what happened?’ ‘Joyce happened. She drank too much one evening when Eddie and I and she were out together. He took me home first – he had a car – then he arranged to see her safely home, to make sure she was all right.’ ‘And?’ Cecily’s face was etched with sadness. ‘Eddie told me Joyce seduced him – she took off her clothes and he couldn’t help himself. Of course, that’s complete nonsense. If he’d loved me, he’d have kept his hands off her.’ ‘How did you find out?’ Cecily’s voice was quivering. ‘Joyce was pregnant and she told everyone that the baby was Eddie’s. Eddie had been a fool, but he was honest. He admitted it – they had slept together once, and that was it.’ ‘So, what did you do?’ ‘In those days, there was only one thing a man could do when he got a woman in the family way,’ Cecily said. ‘He did the decent thing and married her.’ ‘Oh, Cecily.’ ‘I told him to – I insisted on it.’ Cecily spoke firmly. ‘It was his duty. I gave Eddie his ring back and he and Joyce married in May.’ ‘That must have been hard for you.’ ‘I went to the church service.’ Cecily’s eyes glistened. ‘It broke my heart. But he was the baby’s father.’ Lin nodded slowly. ‘Then what happened?’ ‘Joyce had a baby girl. She called her Elizabeth Cecily and asked me to be the godmother. Of course, I refused. It wouldn’t have been appropriate.’ ‘So, what did you do?’ ‘Lin, I saw them together all the time and I couldn’t bear the way he still looked at me. I knew he still had strong feelings – I did too. He was a good man, despite everything. Eddie and I had always talked of having a child – it was heart-breaking to see the three of them, the little girl in his arms, the way Joyce looked at him as if he was her world.’ ‘And you still loved him?’ ‘Absolutely. I wanted to take him back in an instant. But I had to be strong.’ Cecily put a shaky finger to the corner of her eye. ‘So I made a decision and left. I couldn’t stay – Joyce was a happy mum, oblivious, and Eddie’s eyes were full of sadness every time he saw me. I wanted nothing more than to break all the rules and throw myself into his arms. I knew he wanted the same thing. I had to go.’ ‘And you became a teacher?’ ‘I couldn’t settle for anyone else, not after Eddie. He was my one true love. But…’ Cecily gazed into her empty glass. ‘I loved teaching; I loved my pupils and I dedicated my life to them. I’m not sorry I made that choice.’ ‘It seems such a shame.’ ‘It was,’ Cecily agreed. ‘Eddie didn’t love Joyce.

Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey.txt

more, and wisely makes no comment on my mother’s lack of maternal concern. I feel rather than hear the buzz of his BlackBerry. He doesn’t let me stand up but fishes it awk- wardly out of his pocket. “Andrea,” he snaps, businesslike again. I make another move to stand and he stops me, frowning and holding me tightly around my waist. I nestle back against his chest and listen to the one-sided conversation. “Good . . . ETA is what time? . . . And the other, um . . . packages?” Christian glances at his watch. “Does the Heathman have all the details? . . . Good . . . Yes. It can hold until Monday morning, but e-mail it just in case—I’ll print, sign, and scan it back to you . . . They can wait. Go home, Andrea . . . No, we’re good, thank you.” He hangs up. “Everything okay?” “Yes.” “Is this your Taiwan thing?” 363/551 “Yes.” He shifts beneath me. “Am I too heavy?” He snorts. “No, baby.” “Are you worried about the Taiwan thing?” “No.” “I thought it was important.” “It is. The shipyard here depends on it. There are lots of jobs at stake.” Oh! “We just have to sell it to the unions. That’s Sam and Ros’s job. But the way the economy’s heading, none of us have a lot of choice.” I yawn. “Am I boring you, Mrs. Grey?” He nuzzles my hair again, amused. “No! Never . . . I’m just very comfortable on your lap. I like hearing about your business.” “You do?” He sounds surprised. “Of course.” I lean back to gaze directly at him. “I like hearing any bit of in- formation you deign to share with me.” I smirk, and he regards me with amuse- ment and shakes his head. “Always hungry for more information, Mrs. Grey.” “Tell me.” I urge him as I snuggle up against his chest again. “Tell you what?” “Why you do it.” “Do what?” “Work the way you do.” “A guy’s got to earn a living.” He’s amused. “Christian, you earn more than a living.” My voice is full of irony. He frowns and is quiet for a moment. I think he’s not going to divulge any secrets, but he surprises me. “I don’t want to be poor,” he says, his voice low. “I’ve done that. I’m not go- ing back there again. Besides . . . it’s a game,” he murmurs. “It’s about winning. A game I’ve always found very easy.” “Unlike life,” I murmur to myself. Then I realize I said the words out loud. “Yes, I suppose.” He frowns. “Though it’s easier with you.” Easier with me? I hug him tightly. “It can’t all be a game. You’re very philanthropic.” 364/551 He shrugs, and I know he’s growing uncomfortable. “About some things, maybe,” he says quietly. “I love philanthropic Christian,” I murmur. “Just him?” “Oh, I love megalomaniac Christian, too, and control-freak Christian, sex- pertise Christian, kinky Christian, romantic Christian, shy Christian . . . the list is endless.”

Dracula.txt

persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily. But it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It was in a fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hair bristling out like a cat's tail when puss is on the war path. Finally the man too got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone the poor thing began to tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that she is of too super sensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble. She will be dreaming of this tonight, I am sure. The whole agglomeration of things, the ship steered into port by a dead man, his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads, the touching funeral, the dog, now furious and now in terror, will all afford material for her dreams. I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood's Bay and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleep-walking then. CHAPTER 8 MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL Same day, 11 o'clock P.M.--Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it tonight. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything, except of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital `severe tea' at Robin Hood's Bay in a sweet little old-fashioned inn, with a bow window right over the seaweed-covered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the `New Woman' with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. Lucy was really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as we could. The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay for supper. Lucy and I had

I-Have-Some-Questions-for-You.txt

Jasmine put on a month-long performance piece in Washington Square Park, during which she ate only the food people brought her and wore only the clothes people brought her. How this wasn’t just vagrancy and an insult to the homeless, I was unsure. It garnered enough attention that in January she was the subject of a lengthy feature in New York magazine. The article revisited her piece about Jerome, included new quotes from her about him, and featured a black-and-white photo of the two of them at a costume party in 2003 as Artemis and Zeus. There was no new revelation, just a bigger platform. Twitter was once again where the fallout happened. People tagged Jerome’s new gallery, telling them to drop him. They asked Jerome for a long-overdue public apology. (This, he’d been advised, was a trap: There was no apology they’d accept. And defending himself would be worse.) They tried to drag me into it again, asking how I could stand by him. Fortunately, they caught on soon enough to the divorce going through, and assumed Jasmine was the reason. I didn’t correct them. You might guess that I had come around on Jasmine Wilde. That I’d realized how wronged she was, how much a victim. Or maybe you’re hoping that I realized: If Jasmine had voluntarily dated Jerome, maybe the love between you and Thalia was just as simple. Absolutely not. I’d thought about it, how Thalia, at seventeen, had only been four years younger than Jasmine was when she dated Jerome. It seemed so little, but then four years is the difference between eleven and fifteen—ages no one could argue are the same. Four years was the length of my entire time at Granby: an entire education. It had been four years now since I’d returned there to teach and my life had changed. The good news was, I was not the arbiter of Jerome’s goodness. And the divorce made that official. I’d seen someone for a few months before the pandemic hit, and then, during that brief wave of postvaccine optimism in the summer of ’21, Yahav flew out to LA for a conference and we spent the weekend sleeping together, which threw me back into full-tilt longing and then into a pained equilibrium, an acceptance that Yahav’s place in my life would be two to forty-eight hours here and there for an unspecified number of years. Like a stomach bug that overtook me entirely for a weekend and then vanished. “By the way, funny thing,” Jerome said. “Somebody rang my cell yesterday looking for you. They were trying to figure out your address. I hung up.” “Yeesh,” I said. “Man? Woman?” “Sounded like a young woman, pretty nervous. I think, you know, an amateur sleuth.” I’d been so flooded with emails in the past three years that I’d put an autoreply on my account asking people with information about the case to contact the defense team. The thing was, no one ever had information about the case. They had theories. There was that one serial killer

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

still holding the dagger at Bastian’s neck and Bastian looking singularly unbothered by it. It came to Lore to break the silence, since Gabe and Bastian seemed able to sit in it for hours. She rounded on the Sun Prince. “Do you have someone following us?” “Of course not. I followed you.” With a flick of his eyes toward Gabe, Bastian reached up and pushed the dagger aside with one finger. Gabe’s knuckles whitened, but he lowered the blade. “Unlike my father,” Bastian continued, “I prefer to do my own spying.” A bead of sweat slid down Lore’s back. She’d been a fool to think they could outsmart this man, to think there was a way to stay here unharmed while Bastian knew she was a spy. August’s underestimation of his son was going to be the death of her, and of Gabe, too— But Bastian didn’t suddenly produce a sword or shackles, didn’t call for guards that would send her to the Burnt Isles before the sun came up. Instead he turned back toward the doorway that led into the Citadel proper, pinching out the flames in the alcoves as he went. He glanced at them over his shoulder, one curling black lock falling over his eye. “You two coming?” “Absolutely not.” Gabe spoke through clenched teeth. The carefully reined deference he’d shown the prince this afternoon was all gone now, nothing but cold rage in its place. “Pity.” Bastian shrugged. “And here I was going to get you into the vaults. After we take a detour, anyway.” He leaned a shoulder against the wall, pushed back his artfully mussed hair. The prince wasn’t dressed for bed or debauchery; instead he wore a loose white shirt and dark pants, boots that climbed to his knees. Similar to the clothes people wore out in the Wards. “Think of all the exciting things you’ll have to report to my father and uncle, afterward.” Lore swallowed. Gabe’s hands tightened to fists. Bastian grinned. “So, I ask again. You two coming?” A pause. Then Gabe gave a truncated nod. “Excellent.” Bastian turned to move down the dark hall, extinguishing the last of the candles as he passed. They fell into step behind the Sun Prince, Gabe fuming, anxiety chewing at Lore’s stomach. They were caught, decisively so, and she had no idea what Bastian would do with them now. Turn them over to Kirythea, if August’s suspicions were true? Blackmail them into reporting on August and Anton, playing both sides? She shot a look at Gabe. Going down by herself was bad enough; she hated dragging him along, too. Warm fingers caught hers. Gabe. He gave her hand a squeeze, gave her a laden look from the corner of his eye. It settled her nerves, squared her shoulders. Even if the body she’d raised had reanimated, like Horse, there was no one there to give an order. The child might be aware, insofar as something dead could be, but it’d be like he was sleeping, safe inside the vault. As much as she hated to

Dracula.txt

with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas, and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from every one except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything. Don't you think so, dear? And I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are. And women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them, but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightfordwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time, and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman's heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that If I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't help crying, and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at all a happy thing when you have

Happy Place.txt

has to be bred into you across centuries.” “I’m sure,” he says. “I’m not like that, by the way.” “Gently bred to laugh through your nose?” His chin tips, his gaze knowing. “The impression you have of me. I don’t play with people’s feelings. I have rules.” “Rules?” I say. “Such as?” “Such as, never tell the rules to someone you’ve just met.” “Oh, come on,” I say. “We’re stepfriends now. You might as well tell me.” “Well, for one thing, Parth and I made a pact to never date our friends. Or each other’s friends.” He casts me a sidelong glance. “As for stepfriends, I’m not sure what the policy is.” “Wait, wait, wait,” I say. “You don’t date your friends? Who do you date, Wyn? Enemies? Strangers? Malevolent spirits who died in your apartment building?” “It’s a good policy,” he says. “It keeps things from getting messy.” “It’s dating, Wyn, not an all-you-can-eat barbecue buffet,” I say. “Although, from what I’ve heard, maybe for you they’re the same thing.” He looks at me through his lashes and tuts. “Are you slut-shaming me, Harriet?” “Not at all,” I say. “I love sluts! Some of my best friends are sluts. I’ve dabbled in sluttery myself.” Another bar of moonlight briefly lights his eyes, paling them to smoky silver. “Didn’t suit you?” he guesses. “Never got the chance to find out,” I say. “Because you fell in love,” he says. “Because men never really picked me up.” He laughs. “Okay.” “I’m not being self-deprecating,” I say. “Once men get to know me, they’re sometimes interested, but I’m not the one their eyes go to first. I’ve made peace with it.” His gaze slides down me and back up. “So you’re saying you’re slow- release hot.” I nod. “That’s right. I’m slow-release hot.” He considers me for a moment. “You’re not what I expected.” “Three-dimensional and blue-haired,” I say. “Among other things,” he says. “I expected you to be Parth 2.0,” I admit. His eyes narrow. “You thought I’d be better dressed.” “Than a torn sweatshirt and jeans?” I say. “No such thing.” He doesn’t seem to hear me, instead studying me with a furrowed brow. “You’re not slow-release hot.” I look away, fumble the radio on as heat scintillates across my chest. “Yeah, well,” I say, “most people don’t start by seeing me naked before we’ve spoken.” “It’s not about that,” he says. I feel the moment his gaze lifts off me and returns to the windshield, but he’s left a mark: from now on, dark cliffs, wind racing through hair, cinnamon paired with clove and pine—all of it will only mean Wyn Connor to me. A door has opened, and I know I’ll never get it shut again. Regency era or not, in a lot of ways, he ruins me. 5 REAL LIFE Monday WE’RE TRAPPED IN the kitchen for the length of three more toasts to undying love before Wyn finally asks our friends to excuse us and pulls me away to “settle in.” Kimmy purrs throatily, and Parth high-fives her

Fahrenheit 451.txt

massive jolts of morphine or procaine. The pawn was then tossed in the incinerator. A new game began. Montag stayed upstairs most nights when this went on. There had been a time two years ago when he had bet with the best of them, and lost a week's salary and faced Mildred's insane anger, which showed itself in veins and blotches. But now at night he lay in his bunk, face turned to the wall, listening to whoops of laughter below and the piano-string scurry of rat feet, the violin squeaking of mice, and the great shadowing, motioned silence of the Hound leaping out like a moth in the raw light, finding, holding its victim, inserting the needle and going back to its kennel to die as if a switch had been turned. Montag touched the muzzle. . The Hound growled. Montag jumped back. The Hound half rose in its kennel and looked at him with green-blue neon light flickering in its suddenly activated eyebulbs. It growled again, a strange rasping combination of electrical sizzle, a frying sound, a scraping of metal, a turning of cogs that seemed rusty and ancient with suspicion. "No, no, boy," said Montag, his heart pounding. He saw the silver needle extended upon the air an inch, pull back, extend, pull back. The growl simmered in the beast and it looked at him. Montag backed up. The Hound took a step from its kennel. Montag grabbed the brass pole with one hand. The pole, reacting, slid upward, and took him through the ceiling, quietly. He stepped off in the half-lit deck of the upper level. He was trembling and his face was green-white. Below, the Hound had sunk back down upon its eight incredible insect legs and was humming to itself again, its multi-faceted eyes at peace. Montag stood, letting the fears pass, by the drop-hole. Behind him, four men at a card table under a green-lidded light in the corner glanced briefly but said nothing. Only the man with the Captain's hat and the sign of the Phoenix on his hat, at last, curious, his playing cards in his thin hand, talked across the long room. "Montag . . . ?" "It doesn't like me," said Montag. "What, the Hound?" The Captain studied his cards. "Come off it. It doesn't like or dislike. It just `functions.' It's like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide for it. It follows through. It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It's only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity." Montag swallowed. "Its calculators can be set to any combination, so many amino acids, so much sulphur, so much butterfat and alkaline. Right?" "We all know that." "All of those chemical balances and percentages on all of us here in the house are recorded in the master file downstairs. It would be easy for someone to set up a partial combination on the Hound's 'memory,' a touch of amino acids, perhaps. That would account for what the animal did just now. Reacted toward me." "Hell," said the

Of Human Bondage.txt

now that work was over, sauntered out of the garden. The women went back to the huts to clean up and prepare the supper, while a good many of the men strolled down the road to the public-house. A glass of beer was very pleasant after the day's work. The Athelnys' bin was the last to be dealt with. When the measurer came Mrs. Athelny, with a sigh of relief, stood up and stretched her arms: she had been sitting in the same position for many hours and was stiff. "Now, let's go to The Jolly Sailor," said Athelny. "The rites of the day must be duly performed, and there is none more sacred than that." "Take a jug with you, Athelny," said his wife, "and bring back a pint and a half for supper." She gave him the money, copper by copper. The bar-parlour was already well filled. It had a sanded floor, benches round it, and yellow pictures of Victorian prize-fighters on the walls. The licencee knew all his customers by name, and he leaned over his bar smiling benignly at two young men who were throwing rings on a stick that stood up from the floor: their failure was greeted with a good deal of hearty chaff from the rest of the company. Room was made for the new arrivals. Philip found himself sitting between an old labourer in corduroys, with string tied under his knees, and a shiny-faced lad of seventeen with a love-lock neatly plastered on his red forehead. Athelny insisted on trying his hand at the throwing of rings. He backed himself for half a pint and won it. As he drank the loser's health he said: "I would sooner have won this than won the Derby, my boy." He was an outlandish figure, with his wide-brimmed hat and pointed beard, among those country folk, and it was easy to see that they thought him very queer; but his spirits were so high, his enthusiasm so contagious, that it was impossible not to like him. Conversation went easily. A certain number of pleasantries were exchanged in the broad, slow accent of the Isle of Thanet, and there was uproarious laughter at the sallies of the local wag. A pleasant gathering! It would have been a hard-hearted person who did not feel a glow of satisfaction in his fellows. Philip's eyes wandered out of the window where it was bright and sunny still; there were little white curtains in it tied up with red ribbon like those of a cottage window, and on the sill were pots of geraniums. In due course one by one the idlers got up and sauntered back to the meadow where supper was cooking. "I expect you'll be ready for your bed," said Mrs. Athelny to Philip. "You're not used to getting up at five and staying in the open air all day." "You're coming to bathe with us, Uncle Phil, aren't you?" the boys cried. "Rather." He was tired and happy. After supper, balancing himself against the wall of the hut

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.txt

Tom's tooth with a loop and tied the other to the bedpost. Then she seized the chunk of fire and suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face. The tooth hung dangling by the bedpost, now. But all trials bring their compensations. As Tom wended to school after breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met because the gap in his upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new and admirable way. He gathered quite a following of lads interested in the exhibition; and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre of fascination and homage up to this time, now found himself suddenly without an adherent, and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, and he said with a disdain which he did not feel that it wasn't anything to spit like Tom Sawyer; but another boy said, "Sour grapes!" and he wandered away a dismantled hero. Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless and vulgar and bad -- and because all their children admired him so, and delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied Huckleberry his --------------------------------------------------------- -71- gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders not to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance. Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat, when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs dragged in the dirt when not rolled up. Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every harassed, hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. Tom hailed the romantic outcast: "Hello, Huckleberry!" "Hello yourself, and see how you like it." "What's that you got?" --------------------------------------------------------- -72- "Dead cat." "Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him ?"

Oliver Twist.txt

derivable from kicking an unoffending animal to allay them, is matter for argument and consideration. Whatever was the cause, the effect was a kick and a curse, bestowed upon the dog simultaneously. Dogs are not generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by their masters; but Mr. Sikes's dog, having faults of temper in common with his owner, and labouring, perhaps, at this moment, under a powerful sense of injury, made no more ado but at once fixed his teeth in one of the half-boots. Having given in a hearty shake, he retired, growling, under a form; just escaping the pewter measure which Mr. Sikes levelled at his head. 'You would, would you?' said Sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and deliberately opening with the other a large clasp-knife, which he drew from his pocket. 'Come here, you born devil! Come here! D'ye hear?' The dog no doubt heard; because Mr. Sikes spoke in the very harshest key of a very harsh voice; but, appearing to entertain some unaccountable objection to having his throat cut, he remained where he was, and growled more fiercely than before: at the same time grasping the end of the poker between his teeth, and biting at it like a wild beast. This resistance only infuriated Mr. Sikes the more; who, dropping on his knees, began to assail the animal most furiously. The dog jumped from right to left, and from left to right; snapping, growling, and barking; the man thrust and swore, and struck and blasphemed; and the struggle was reaching a most critical point for one or other; when, the door suddenly opening, the dog darted out: leaving Bill Sikes with the poker and the clasp-knife in his hands. There must always be two parties to a quarrel, says the old adage. Mr. Sikes, being disappointed of the dog's participation, at once transferred his share in the quarrel to the new comer. 'What the devil do you come in between me and my dog for?' said Sikes, with a fierce gesture. 'I didn't know, my dear, I didn't know,' replied Fagin, humbly; for the Jew was the new comer. 'Didn't know, you white-livered thief!' growled Sikes. 'Couldn't you hear the noise?' 'Not a sound of it, as I'm a living man, Bill,' replied the Jew. 'Oh no! You hear nothing, you don't,' retorted Sikes with a fierce sneer. 'Sneaking in and out, so as nobody hears how you come or go! I wish you had been the dog, Fagin, half a minute ago.' 'Why?' inquired the Jew with a forced smile. 'Cause the government, as cares for the lives of such men as you, as haven't half the pluck of curs, lets a man kill a dog how he likes,' replied Sikes, shutting up the knife with a very expressive look; 'that's why.' The Jew rubbed his hands; and, sitting down at the table, affected to laugh at the pleasantry of his friend. He was obviously very ill at ease, however. 'Grin away,' said Sikes, replacing the poker, and surveying him with savage

USS-Lincoln.txt

Hardy wore a too-small-for-his-size biker-style leather vest. Unfortunately, Iris was no more—had died while heroically fighting the Ziu. And while this Tina fairy had relentlessly tried to tell Hardy that she was actually Iris, inhabiting the Tina fairy form, Hardy had yet to accept her as … well, Iris. I told you it was a complicated situation. What can I say? At the moment, Hardy was refusing to look up at the still-circling Symbio fairy. Viv looked down at Sonya, offering up a crooked smile. “You seem to be doing fine. Slightly elevated temperature, but that’s to be expected.” “Good, then can I get out of here?” “Ha ha, no. Ask me again in a week.” “A week! Seriously? I have to stay in this closet of a room for a week?” “How about if we move you out to the general patient compartment sometime tomorrow? But only if you get some rest. And no more visitors.” Viv gave me a disapproving sideways glance. Sonya nodded, her eyes heavy-lidded. “I am getting a little tired.” “You heard her. Both of you, out!” Viv said, making a two-handed scoot gesture toward the exit. I stood and gave Sonya’s leg a couple of pats. “I’ll come see you tomorrow.” But the teenager was already asleep. I said to Hardy, “Head back to the bridge. I’ll be along shortly.” Hardy looked from me to Doc Viv and then back to me again. “Oh … you want to talk. Like without me here. Like, just the two of you—” “Go, Hardy,” I said, not in the mood for any of the robot’s antics. Once Hardy had tromped out of the compartment, I turned to Viv. Before I could say one word, she held up a palm. “I don’t have time for this, Quintos. I told you my decision; nothing’s changed.” She tucked blonde curls behind one ear while looking uncomfortable. “You’re just making things harder … Being here.” “You know, we may never find a way to leave this place, this realm.” “You’ll think of something. You always do. And when you do, I’m leaving. I can’t do this anymore. Look at me; I’m holding on by a thread. The constant stress and tension, the injuries … the death. I want to go home. I want to be back on Earth and have a normal life.” I tried to think of something to say. Something that would change her mind. Did she know how I felt about her? I wasn’t sure. Would it make a difference? I was certain it wouldn’t. I was losing her and there was nothing to stop that. She looked at me, the most beautiful, intelligent, compassionate woman I had ever met, and right now I was speechless. Just as my Jadoo ring started to vibrate, an overhead klaxon began wailing. Overhead, Sir Calvin’s British voice boomed: CAPTAIN QUINTOS, YOUR IMMEDIATE PRESENCE IS REQUIRED ON THE BRIDGE … CAPTAIN QUINTOS, YOUR IMMEDIATE PRESENCE IS REQUIRED ON THE BRIDGE … Chapter 3 Both Hardy and I quansported back to Deck 13 just outside

Maame.txt

into a small room with dimmed lights and candles in the corner. My hands start to shake, and I don’t know where to look. Then I see him and a helpless cry escapes before Ros even manages to close the door behind her. No. “Oh, Dad.” The coffin lid is propped up, resting against the wall. Waiting. That’s it. He really is gone. “No.” I shake my head. “No.” Mum rubs my back. “It’s okay, Maame.” “No! It’s not okay!” Mum pulls me to her, and I cry into her jumper until my throat is tight. I step away and roughly dry my eyes because I need to see him. This will be my last chance to see him. I turn my head and notice he looks … the same, except maybe his lips have thinned a little. He could be sleeping. I stare until I realize I’m waiting for his eyes to open. There’s no look of frustration or uncertainty on his face, the expressions I’d grown used to seeing. His forehead is smooth, and his hands, placed on his stomach, are still. He’s not in pain anymore. He has on his gray wedding suit, a white shirt underneath, and I press a hand to my mouth when I see he also wears his chunky silver bracelet, the bracelet he has on in the photograph I have of him, the bracelet that has been on his wrist through sickness and in health. Mum speaks to him in Twi. “May God bless you, Fiifi. Go with Him, okay? Go with God; see your parents again; they’re calling you and waiting for you. Have peace and have rest.” She’s crying harder than I’ve ever seen before. Tears are streaming from her eyes and she punctuates her sentences with hiccups. “You have suffered so much,” she says to him, “trapped, but now you are finally free. See? Look at you already? Your swollen foot is no more. You’re already free. Go with God and be free.” It’s comforting to hear, not so much the words, but my mother tongue. The language of my parents—they rarely spoke to each other in English. You really should learn to speak Twi. Before we leave, I look at his face one last time and say, “I love you, Dad. Very much, okay?” * * * An intense peace settles on me when I board the train, almost like I’ll never cry again. I know that isn’t true, but I’m happy to believe it for now. It was Nia’s idea to do something after so that I didn’t have to go straight home. She knew that before seeing Dad, I wouldn’t be able to stomach breakfast, so she suggested lunch. I said, sure, but so long as it was somewhere I haven’t tried before. Somewhere new. Nia picked a spot in London Bridge called Casa de Maria. A Portuguese restaurant she went to years ago with an old boyfriend. It’s lowly lit and the tables and chairs are wooden. There are plants in the corners and posters on the

The Turn of the Screw.txt

necessary) that if I'm to be reproached with having done nothing again about more school--" "Yes, miss--" my companion pressed me. "Well, there's that awful reason." There were now clearly so many of these for my poor colleague that she was excusable for being vague. "But--a-- which?" "Why, the letter from his old place." "You'll show it to the master?" "I ought to have done so on the instant." "Oh, no!" said Mrs. Grose with decision. "I'll put it before him," I went on inexorably, "that I can't undertake to work the question on behalf of a child who has been expelled--" "For we've never in the least known what!" Mrs. Grose declared. "For wickedness. For what else--when he's so clever and beautiful and perfect? Is he stupid? Is he untidy? Is he infirm? Is he ill-natured? He's exquisite--so it can be only THAT; and that would open up the whole thing. After all," I said, "it's their uncle's fault. If he left here such people--!" "He didn't really in the least know them. The fault's mine." She had turned quite pale. "Well, you shan't suffer," I answered. "The children shan't!" she emphatically returned. I was silent awhile; we looked at each other. "Then what am I to tell him?" "You needn't tell him anything. _I_'ll tell him." I measured this. "Do you mean you'll write--?" Remembering she couldn't, I caught myself up. "How do you communicate?" "I tell the bailiff. HE writes." "And should you like him to write our story?" My question had a sarcastic force that I had not fully intended, and it made her, after a moment, inconsequently break down. The tears were again in her eyes. "Ah, miss, YOU write!" "Well--tonight," I at last answered; and on this we separated. XVII I went so far, in the evening, as to make a beginning. The weather had changed back, a great wind was abroad, and beneath the lamp, in my room, with Flora at peace beside me, I sat for a long time before a blank sheet of paper and listened to the lash of the rain and the batter of the gusts. Finally I went out, taking a candle; I crossed the passage and listened a minute at Miles's door. What, under my endless obsession, I had been impelled to listen for was some betrayal of his not being at rest, and I presently caught one, but not in the form I had expected. His voice tinkled out. "I say, you there--come in." It was a gaiety in the gloom! I went in with my light and found him, in bed, very wide awake, but very much at his ease. "Well, what are YOU up to?" he asked with a grace of sociability in which it occurred to me that Mrs. Grose, had she been present, might have looked in vain for proof that anything was "out." I stood over him with my candle. "How did you know I was there?" "Why, of course I heard you. Did you fancy you made no noise? You're like a

The Hunger Games.txt

to the mutts, Peeta is sure to die with him. We’ve reached a stalemate. I can’t shoot Cato without killing Peeta, too. He can’t kill Peeta with- 330 out guaranteeing an arrow in his brain. We stand like statues, both of us seeking an out. My muscles are strained so tightly, they feel they might snap at any moment. My teeth clenched to the breaking point. The mutts go silent and the only thing I can hear is the blood pounding in my good ear. Peeta’s lips are turning blue. If I don’t do something quick- ly, he’ll die of asphyxiation and then I’ll have lost him and Cato will probably use his body as a weapon against me. In fact, I’m sure this is Cato’s plan because while he’s stopped laughing, his lips are set in a triumphant smile. As if in a last-ditch effort, Peeta raises his fingers, dripping with blood from his leg, up to Cato’s arm. Instead of trying to wrestle his way free, his forefinger veers off and makes a deli- berate X on the back of Cato’s hand. Cato realizes what it means exactly one second after I do. I can tell by the way the smile drops from his lips. But it’s one second too late because, by that time, my arrow is piercing his hand. He cries out and reflexively releases Peeta who slams back against him. For a horrible moment, I think they’re both going over. I dive for- ward just catching hold of Peeta as Cato loses his footing on the blood-slick horn and plummets to the ground. We hear him hit, the air leaving his body on impact, and then the mutts attack him. Peeta and I hold on to each other, waiting for the cannon, waiting for the competition to finish, waiting to be released. But it doesn’t happen. Not yet. Because this is the climax of the Hunger Games, and the audience ex- pects a show. 331 I don’t watch, but I can hear the snarls, the growls, the howls of pain from both human and beast as Cato takes on the mutt pack. I can’t understand how he can be surviving until I remember the body armor protecting him from ankle to neck and I realize what a long night this could be. Cato must have a knife or sword or something, too, something he had hidden in his clothes, because on occasion there’s the death scream of a mutt or the sound of metal on metal as the blade collides with the golden horn. The combat moves around the side of the Cornucopia, and I know Cato must be attempting the one ma- neuver that could save his life — to make his way back around to the tail of the horn and rejoin us. But in the end, despite his remarkable strength and skill, he is simply overpowered. I don’t know how long it has been, maybe an hour or so, when Cato hits the ground and we hear the mutts dragging him, dragging him back

The-One.txt

that what this is? You’re getting back at me?” She smiles. “I just wanted to have a nice weekend. And didn’t want to sit around the house all by myself.” “So, you went to the San Juans all by yourself?” “Yep.” He sets his jaw in the way he always does when he’s pissed. As he should be. Ethan sets his beer on the counter and steps toward her. “Didn’t you tell me once you went to college with Brody Carr?” She feigns confusion. “The guy from The One?” Ethan narrows his eyes. “Touchdown!” an announcer exclaims through the living room TV. His voice is quickly drowned out by the roar of the crowd. “We were in the same class together before he dropped out. I didn’t know him. Why?” “You said you were chemistry lab partners.” Ethan frowns. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to share?” Her mouth feels dry. She studies the look on his face. Ethan isn’t going to let this go tonight. He’s going to push until she confesses. It suddenly occurs to her this could be the end of them. It was a risk, her fling with Brody. It could be the final straw that pushes them over the edge of no return. Ethan could tell her it’s over. “I’m sure.” He comes another step closer. She braces herself for what could be coming next. She relaxes her shoulders, knowing if she hadn’t done it, their marriage was doomed. It was all or nothing. If this was the end, Brody would undoubtedly be happy to step in and take Ethan’s place. But as she looks at Ethan, the two-day stubble on his face reminding her of when they first met, she knows no one will ever make her feel like he does. He stops when their faces are only inches apart. “You know what I think?” He cocks his head to the side. “I think I’ll go take a couple days, too. This house suddenly feels too small for the two of us.” His shoulder bumps against hers when he brushes past her. Sloane lets out the breath she was holding when she hears Ethan storm upstairs. She sits at the kitchen table. Ten minutes later, Ethan returns with his gym bag slung over his shoulder. “You sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?” His voice is calm. But Sloane can tell by his flushed face that he’s fighting to control the rage boiling inside him. “I’m sure.” His expression goes cold. “Unbelievable,” he huffs, as he turns for the door. Seconds later, the door to the garage slams, rattling the kitchen cabinets behind her. She reaches for Ethan’s untouched beer and takes a swig as she hears his car peel out of their drive. The football game goes to commercial when she steps into the living room. Beer in hand, she sinks onto her couch. That could have gone a lot worse. He didn’t say he was leaving her for good. Even though he looked angry enough to. She’ll give him a few days.

A Day of Fallen Night.txt

before she passed. He shook his head and returned to his needlework. Siyu lay on top of the covers, one arm tucked under her head, hair swept over her face. Tunuva sat beside her and brushed a few dark strands behind her ear. She had slept this way since she was a child. Stirring, she opened her eyes and blinked up at Tunuva. ‘Oh, Tuva.’ She sat up and embraced her at once. ‘Tuva, Imin says I must stay in here for a week. And that I may not go beyond the valley at all, for a whole month. Is it true?’ ‘Yes,’ Tunuva said, feeling her back heave with sobs. ‘Hush, sunray, hush. Imin will make sure the men keep you busy. It will feel as if no time is passing.’ ‘But I can’t stay here,’ Siyu said, frantic. ‘Please. Will you ask the Prioress to forgive me?’ ‘She will, in time.’ Tunuva drew back and frowned at her tearstained face. Her skin was a deeper brown, her hair still black all the way through, but otherwise she was the picture of Esbar. ‘Siyu, you must know this punishment is lighter than it could have been. The men do good work, important work. Is it so bad to help them for a few weeks?’ Siyu met her gaze. Something flickered in those thick-lashed eyes. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I just hate to be trapped inside. And I’m ashamed.’ She drew a scuffed knee to her chest. ‘I suppose Esbar didn’t want you to see me. She told me I disgraced you both.’ ‘Esbar loves you with her soul, as we all do.’ ‘She loves the Mother more.’ ‘As we all must – but Siyu, I was there when Esbar gave birth to you. You have made her so proud over the years. This mistake is a small part of your life. It does not define it.’ Swallowing, Siyu managed a nod. Tunuva reached into her overskirt and took out the pouch. ‘For you. So you can smell the forest, at least.’ Siyu undid the tie. When she saw the delicate blue petals in the pouch, she drew out the bloom and held it to her cheek, tears running again. She had always loved dayflowers. ‘Thank you.’ She sank against Tunuva. ‘You’re always so good to me, Tuva. Even when I’m a fool.’ Tunuva kissed the top of her head. Even as she did, she remembered that Esbar could never be so tender with Siyu. She and Imsurin did not have that freedom. ‘I would like something in exchange,’ Tunuva said. ‘I would like you to tell me a story.’ ‘What story?’ ‘The one that matters most.’ Tunuva stroked her hair. ‘Come. The way Imin used to tell it to you.’ With a tiny smile, Siyu shifted across the bed, so Tunuva could lean into the bolsters. ‘Will you do the fire?’ Siyu asked her. ‘Of course.’ Siyu wiped her face once more, nestling close. ‘There is a Womb of Fire that roils beneath the world,’ she began. ‘Centuries ago, the molten flame

Tessa-Bailey-Unfortunately-Yours.txt

League photos? His mother would have had Natalie on her couch in the den for a week methodically going through each year of his life on film, and Natalie deserved that same consideration. To Corinne’s credit, the lack of photographic evidence of what must have been a beautifully impish daughter seemed to give her pause. “There has to be more,” said his mother-in-law, attempting to refill Ingram’s wine for the third time since dinner ended. To put it bluntly, the guy was soused. They’d won him over before the main course and he’d let his guard down, but the closer they got to the end of the evening, the more August’s guard went in the opposite direction. When Ingram refused the refill and stood up, slapping the straw hat back on his head, everyone stood with him. Everyone but August. “Tonight was a pleasure, as always,” he said, shaking Julian’s hand. Kissing Corinne’s. “The only thing that could have made it better was Dalton’s presence. St. Helena surely misses that man. I hold out hope that we’ll lure him back from Italy sooner or later.” Corinne maintained her smile at the mention of her ex-husband. Meanwhile, Natalie sent August an eye roll, and he loved that. He loved that they were sitting beside each other on the couch, his arm around her shoulders, and now she was gifting him little nuggets of exasperation. Still, his dread remained and a moment later, he knew why. “I’m quite satisfied that this is a strong match between two upstanding young people. I only wish Dalton were here to see it for himself,” Ingram said, tipping his hat. “I’ll file the necessary paperwork in the morning to release Natalie’s trust fund.” August expected Natalie to thank him. To stand up and cheer. Something. Instead, her chest seemed to be cranking up and down. “And . . . a meeting with August to speak about the small business loan? Could that be arranged, as well?” “Yes, of course,” Ingram replied, having no idea that August didn’t require a loan any longer. No, the investment from his CO had arrived in full that very morning, hadn’t it? “Though my calendar is jam-packed this week. I’ll take a look at my schedule when I arrive at the bank tomorrow morning.” Finally, Natalie exhaled. “Thank you.” August’s throat was on goddamn fire. Their plan had worked. Natalie was going to get her money. That was what he wanted. But it put her one step closer to no longer needing him. When Natalie blinked up at him and said his name softly, August realized he was staring into space, imagining the desolate world he’d be living in when she left. She’d get her trust fund and forget his name within a year or two, while he was still hung up on the real one who got away. Unless. Unless he could find a way to convince her they were great together before Friday. Before she left for New York. Because once she had that investor in her pocket, it would be

What-Dreams-May-Come.txt

sending blazing heat into her cheeks, told Lucy that Simon Calloway had no idea what to make of her, and she rather liked that. Mr. Granger had always acted as though he understood everything she could possibly want, and the fact that Simon had to work to know her and was still trying made her like him all the more. “You want to skip stones?” he asked, a measure of incredulity in his voice. “That is what I said.” She thought he would deny her attempt at distraction and return to the house, but then he shrugged and rose to his feet before offering his hand to help her up. “I thought everyone learned to skip stones as a child,” he said. “Not everyone grows up in a life of leisure,” she replied. “Our lands struggled too much to give us an adequate income, so I worked alongside my father from the day I was old enough to use a needle and thread, using any free time I had to study everything I needed to know to be a proper lady should I catch the eye of a suitor later in life. And I didn’t have a pond to practice skipping stones on. But I heard other children talk about it, and it sounded amusing.” Though he winced with appreciated sympathy and apology for forgetting their very different positions in life, Lucy hadn’t intended to make him pity her. They were out here to help him, so she bent down and picked up the roundest pebble she could find. “Not that one,” Simon said immediately, and he wrapped his hand around hers, holding onto her while he searched for a better rock. When he found one, he replaced the one in her palm with an exceptionally flat one. “The thinner the stone, the easier it skims the water.” Grabbing a similar stone, he turned with his left side facing the pond and tossed the rock across the water. It skipped three times before it slid beneath the surface. Well, that didn’t look so difficult. Mimicking his stance, Lucy did the same motion and threw her own rock, only hers went straight into the water with a plunk. Simon chuckled as he picked up another stone. “Hold it like this,” he said, demonstrating the way he curled his finger around the edge. “Use your wrist and throw it as flat as you can.” Her second attempt was worse than the first, and she couldn’t help but laugh. “Perhaps I am not meant to skip them,” she said with a grin. “Try one more time.” This time, instead of demonstrating, he stepped behind her and put a hand on her elbow. “Get a little closer to the water.” He guided her directly to the edge of the water, and though it was a bit muddy in that spot, he didn’t seem to mind in the least. She would have expected him to at least grimace at the state of his boots, but he didn’t give them a passing glance. The differences between him and

Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey.txt

And I shall behave. I mean how much trouble can I get into with Kate? Anastasia Grey Commissioning Editor, SIP I hit send and sip my latte, courtesy of Hannah. Who knew I’d grow to love cof- fee? Despite the fact that I’m going out this evening with Kate, I feel like a chunk of me is missing. At the moment, it’s thirty-five thousand feet somewhere above the Midwest en route to New York. I didn’t know I would feel this unsettled and anxious just because Christian’s away. Surely over time I won’t feel this loss and uncertainty, will I? I let out a heavy sigh and continue with my work. Around lunchtime, I start manically checking my e-mail and my BlackBerry for a text. Where is he? Has he landed safely? Hannah asks if I want lunch, but 195/551 I’m too apprehensive and wave her away. I know it’s irrational, but I need to be sure he’s arrived safely. My office phone rings, startling me. “Ana St—Grey.” “Hi.” Christian’s voice is warm with a trace of amusement. Relief floods through me. “Hi.” I’m grinning from ear to ear. “How was your flight?” “Long. What are you doing with Kate?” Oh no. “We’re just going out for a quiet drink.” Christian says nothing. “Sawyer and the new woman—Prescott—are coming to watch over us,” I of- fer, trying to placate him. “I thought Kate was coming to the apartment.” “She is after a quick drink.” Please let me go out! Christian sighs heavily. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he says quietly. Too quietly. I mentally kick myself. “Christian, we’ll be fine. I have Ryan, Sawyer, and Prescott here. It’s only a quick drink.” Christian remains resolutely silent, and I know he’s not happy. “I’ve only seen her a few times since you and I met. Please. She’s my best friend.” “Ana, I don’t want to keep you from your friends. But I thought she was coming back to the apartment.” “Okay,” I acquiesce. “We’ll stay in.” “Only while this lunatic is out there. Please.” “I’ve said okay,” I mutter in exasperation, rolling my eyes. Christian snorts softly down the phone. “I always know when you’re rolling your eyes at me.” I scowl at the receiver. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’ll tell Kate.” “Good,” he breathes, his relief evident. I feel guilty for worrying him. “Where are you?” “On the tarmac at JFK.” “Oh, so you just landed.” “Yes. You asked me to call the moment I landed.” I smile. My subconscious glares at me. See? He does what he says he’s going to do. 196/551 “Well, Mr. Grey, I’m glad one of us is punctilious.” He laughs. “Mrs. Grey, your gift for hyperbole knows no bounds. What am I going to do with you?” “I am sure you’ll think of something imaginative. You usually do.” “Are you flirting with me?” “Yes.” I sense his grin. “I’d better go. Ana, do as you’re told, please. The security team knows what they’re doing.” “Yes, Christian, I will.” I sound exasperated

Yellowface.txt

and we’re expecting at least a few to run something positive. No, we’re probably not going to get a profile in the New Yorker, though perhaps a few books down the road we can talk. I have actual money now, so I hire a photographer to take a new set of author photos. My old set was done by my sister’s friend from college, an amateur photographer named Melinda who happened to be in the area and charged me a fraction of the rates I’d found elsewhere online. I contorted my face in a number of different ways, trying to evoke the sultry, mysterious, and serious vibes of the photos of Serious Famous Woman Writers. Channel Jennifer Egan. Channel Donna Tartt. Athena always looked like a model in hers: hair floating loose around her face, skin porcelain pale and glowing, full lips loose and slightly curled up at the edges as if she knew a joke that you weren’t in on, one eyebrow arched as if to say, Try me. It’s easy to sell books if you’re gorgeous. I made peace a long time ago with the fact that I’m only passably hot, and only from the right angles and lighting, so I tried for the next best thing, which is “tortured in a very deep and brilliant way.” It’s hard to transpose those thoughts to the camera, though, and the results horrified me when Melinda sent them in. I looked like I was trying to hold in a sneeze, or like I had to take a shit but was too afraid to tell anyone. I wanted to take them all again, this time with maybe a mirror in the background so I could see what the fuck I was doing, but I felt bad for wasting Melinda’s time, so I picked the one where I looked the most like a human being and the least like myself and paid her fifty bucks for her trouble. This time I drop half a grand on a professional photographer in DC named Cate. We shoot in her studio, where she employs all sorts of lighting equipment I’ve never seen before, and which I can only hope will wash out my acne scars. Cate is brisk, friendly, professional. Her instructions are clear and direct. “Chin up. Relax your face a bit. Now I’m going to tell a joke, and just react however you want, just don’t pay attention to the lens. Lovely. Oh, that’s lovely.” She sends me a selection of watermarked photos a few days later. I’m amazed by how good I look, especially in the photos we took outside. During golden hour I come off as nicely tanned, which makes me look sort of racially ambiguous. My eyes are cast demurely to the side, my mind full of profound and cryptic thoughts. I look like someone who could write a book about Chinese laborers in World War I and do it justice. I look like a Juniper Song. At Emily’s suggestion, I start cultivating a social media presence. Until now, I’ve only tweeted

Rachel-Lynn-Solomon-Business-or-Pleasure.txt

rehydrate me at this point. “This feels like the opposite of what we were saying last night.” I try to laugh, but there isn’t enough air in my lungs. Maybe even in the whole state of Oregon. “I want to learn.” He pushes a wayward strand of hair back into place, but it’s no match for the wind. “I was up half the night googling, but it all started to blur together after a while. And I’m only a little scared of the targeted ads I’m going to get now.” I let out a deep, shaky breath, my heart turning wild in my chest. Because maybe the scariest thing about this conversation is that I want to tell him. The thrill racing up my spine is a foreign, delicious thing, impossible to ignore. Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve already seen each other naked that makes talking about this easier. Maybe it’s that I went on this walk thinking I was about to get fired, and any other outcome has me feeling like I’ve just cheated death. Whatever it is, I run right toward it. “Hypothetically . . . you’d want to start slowly.” My voice takes on a huskiness that feels wholly out of place in a public setting, and when I get quieter, Finn leans in closer. “The more aroused she gets, the more likely she is to orgasm. It’s crucial to spend time building up that tension, figuring out what she likes. Ask her. She might prefer your hands, or your mouth. She might have a specific way she likes being touched. Or, even better—have her show you.” At that, his mouth slides open, accompanied by the smallest hitch in his breath. I almost don’t catch it, but that slight hint this conversation is as exciting for him as it is for me sends a shock straight to my core. “You’ve done that?” he says. “Shown someone?” “Yes,” I say, as calmly as I can. “Masturbation doesn’t always have to be a solo act. What about you?” He shakes his head, that pesky lock of hair falling back across his forehead. “I’m usually fairly easy.” “I got that.” This earns me a soft jab of his elbow against my shoulder. “You have to listen. Communication is probably the most important part of it, more important than the physical.” Although I wouldn’t hate his physical elbow touching my physical shoulder again. “You can’t expect that what works for one person will work for everyone.” “I’m not asking about everyone.” His gaze clings to mine. “I’m asking about you.” Jesus. I have to break eye contact or else I’ll incinerate. “I like when someone’s clearly paying attention to my body,” I say, dragging my fingertips out along the railing, and then back. His eyes follow them. “My breaths. My slightest movements. The places where I might be tighter, and the places where I open up.” A nod. Another step closer, a few inches separating his chest from mine. “And I love when it’s obvious that he’s enjoying what he’s doing to

Tarzan of the Apes.txt

hear the conversation which followed. "Wait," cried Professor Porter, as Tarzan was about to follow. The professor had been stricken dumb with surprise by the rapid developments of the past few minutes. "Before we go further, sir, I should like an explanation of the events which have just transpired. By what right, sir, did you interfere between my daughter and Mr. Canler? I had promised him her hand, sir, and regardless of our personal likes or dislikes, sir, that promise must be kept." "I interfered, Professor Porter," replied Tarzan, "because your daughter does not love Mr. Canler--she does not wish to marry him. That is enough for me to know." "You do not know what you have done," said Professor Porter. "Now he will doubtless refuse to marry her." "He most certainly will," said Tarzan, emphatically. "And further," added Tarzan, "you need not fear that your pride will suffer, Professor Porter, for you will be able to pay the Canler person what you owe him the moment you reach home." "Tut, tut, sir!" exclaimed Professor Porter. "What do you mean, sir?" "Your treasure has been found," said Tarzan. "What--what is that you are saying?" cried the professor. "You are mad, man. It cannot be." "It is, though. It was I who stole it, not knowing either its value or to whom it belonged. I saw the sailors bury it, and, ape-like, I had to dig it up and bury it again elsewhere. When D'Arnot told me what it was and what it meant to you I returned to the jungle and recovered it. It had caused so much crime and suffering and sorrow that D'Arnot thought it best not to attempt to bring the treasure itself on here, as had been my intention, so I have brought a letter of credit instead. "Here it is, Professor Porter," and Tarzan drew an envelope from his pocket and handed it to the astonished professor, "two hundred and forty-one thousand dollars. The treasure was most carefully appraised by experts, but lest there should be any question in your mind, D'Arnot himself bought it and is holding it for you, should you prefer the treasure to the credit." "To the already great burden of the obligations we owe you, sir," said Professor Porter, with trembling voice, "is now added this greatest of all services. You have given me the means to save my honor." Clayton, who had left the room a moment after Canler, now returned. "Pardon me," he said. "I think we had better try to reach town before dark and take the first train out of this forest. A native just rode by from the north, who reports that the fire is moving slowly in this direction." This announcement broke up further conversation, and the entire party went out to the waiting automobiles. Chapter 28 165 Clayton, with Jane, the professor and Esmeralda occupied Clayton's car, while Tarzan took Mr. Philander in with him. "Bless me!" exclaimed Mr. Philander, as the car moved off after Clayton. "Who would ever have thought it possible! The

Wuthering Heights.txt

entering the house I looked about for some one to give informa- tion of Catherine. The place was filled with sunshine, and the door stood wide open, but nobody seemed at hand. As I hesitated whether to go off at once or return and seek my mistress, a slight cough drew my atten- tion to the hearth. Linton lay on the settle, sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and pursuing my move- ments with apathetic eyes. "Where is Miss Catherine?" I demanded sternly, supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence by catching him thus alone. He sucked on like an innocent, "Is she gone?" I said. "No," he replied; "she's upstairs. She's not to go; we won't let her." "You won't let her, little idiot!" I exclaimed. "Direct me to her room immediately, or I'll make you sing out sharply." "Papa would make you sing out if you attempted to get there," he answered. "He says I'm not to be soft with Catherine. She's my wife, and it's shameful that she should wish to leave me. He says she hates me and wants me to die, that she may have my money. But she shan't have it, and she shan't go home---she never shall! She may cry and be sick as much as she pleases!" He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids as if he meant to drop asleep. "Master Heathcliff," I resumed, "have you forgotten all Catherine's kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and when she brought you books and sang you songs, and came many a time through wind and snow to see you? She wept to miss one evening, because you would be disappointed; and you felt then that she was a hundred times too good to you, and now you believe the lies your father tells, though you know he detests you both. And you join him against her. That's fine gratitude, is it not?" The corner of Linton's mouth fell, and he took the sugar-candy from his lips. "Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?" I continued. "Think for yourself! As to your money, she does not even know that you will have any. And you say she's sick, and yet you leave her alone up there in a strange house--you who have felt what it is to be so neglected! You could pity your own suf- ferings, and she pitied them too, but you won't pity hers! I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you see---an el- derly woman, and a servant merely; and you, after pre- tending such affection and having reason to worship her almost, store every tear you have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease. Ah! you're a heartless, selfish boy!" "I can't stay with her," he answered crossly. "I'll not stay by myself. She cries so I can't bear it. And she won't give over, though I say I'll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began

A-Living-Remedy.txt

learned that if I acknowledge it instead, give it some of my attention, it may quiet, its warning delivered. It has taken time to understand the ways in which grief can interact with and feed my anxiety; sometimes, I think, I lean too far into it, let my mind run away with worrying and planning, so that grief is not all that I feel. When my thoughts are churning, trying to find some way to avert catastrophe and wish us into a different, better world, I don’t have to focus on the fact that I live in this one, where my heart is still broken. * * * I wasn’t thinking about my anxiety when we decided to get a dog; I was thinking about my family and the fact that we had never been more in need of comfort and a limitless source of uncomplicated love. More than once, I thought of what my mother said when she got Buster: He’s good for me. He gets me out of the house. No matter how I feel or what I want, I have to take him for his walk. I’m never alone anymore. In the last weeks of her life, Buster was always with her, curled up beside her in the hospital bed. My aunt takes care of him now, in the house he used to share with my mom, and I like to think that he remembers her as well as he can—the rooms may yet hold traces of her that a dog’s sharp nose can sniff out. I’m thankful that he was with her until the end. Now full grown at one year old, Peggy remains a puppy—curious, affectionate, high-energy, ready to greet and be devoted to anyone who crosses her path. Her name is forever bouncing off the walls of our house: an excited greeting when we come home to find her waiting, tail wagging; a grumble of irritation when she does something naughty; a murmur of appreciation when she curls up next to us to offer comfort. She isn’t allowed in my office, because I don’t know that I could trust her exuberant bulk or wide-swinging tail around the breakables there, and suspect she might also try to nose some of my books down from the shelves. Now I write at the kitchen table, with Peggy napping at my feet. Though I’m highly allergic to most dogs, no one has spent more time cuddling with her, ruffling her silky-soft fur and scratching her ears, than I have. I end most days on the couch or the floor, her head in my lap, and these moments never fail to slow my anxious thoughts and soothe my heart. I think she immediately recognized that I was broken and needed her, which could be why the two of us have such a deep soul bond. (Or it could be because she has learned that I have the freest hand with the dog biscuits, who can say.) I don’t want to say that she saved us from our grief, because neither loss

Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt

get excited about.” “Can’t argue with that,” he says with a grin. “But they’re writing you in anyway. Apparently, Daddy Prince, they love your deep voice and your sexy accent, and the way you and Fizzy banter.” He glances up at the sound of my stifled mortification. “Oh, come on, stop looking so horrified. ‘Daddy Prince’ is pretty tame compared to some of the other stuff here.” As he continues to scroll, his grin turns into a frown and he muses, “I didn’t realize ‘choke me’ was such a common phrase.” I ignore this. “What does that mean, ‘write in’? Can’t they only vote for the contestants?” “You wouldn’t know this because you’re a social media troglodyte, but no. The way your team has set it up, if the show is tagged, a tracking program considers it a vote and keeps a tally. It could be ‘#GiantAnacondaCock_TheTrueLoveExperiment’ and Giant Anaconda Cock gets a vote.” I stare at Ash. “What?” “Don’t worry. Most people use it the way you intended. They hashtag Colby or Isaac or whoever. It’s quite smart, really; lots of the big music award shows do it. I think the Oscars even started doing it for fan favorite and favorite movie moment. It’s a great way to get engagement because the tags are visible to everyone, you can tweet—aka vote—as many times as you want, which means tweeting and retweeting puts it in everyone’s feed. You can’t buy exposure like that. It’s all there on your pocket computer if you care to look.” This entire conversation has thrown me off-kilter now that it’s sinking in what Ash is telling me. Viewers are voting for me? Blaine doesn’t know as much as he’d like everyone to believe, and I have to assume that if he did know something about this—or, worse, about me and Fizzy—he would have mentioned it, right? Either way, I’ll need to be very, very careful over the next few weeks. “Of course, there are people writing in all kinds of names,” Ash says. “Lots of Your Mom and other random things. I think Captain America had a pretty decent number one week.” “Great,” I say dryly. “A flawless system.” “There will always be idiots,” Ash says, dismissing this as he pushes his plate aside and leans in. “So far, Isaac has the most votes every week. But you’re definitely gaining.” I lean back with a soft gusting exhale, feeling Ash’s attention on me while I process this. “For sure Brenna sees this. Why didn’t anyone tell me?” “Maybe they’re trying to ignore it.” He picks up his water glass and takes a sip. “I mean, it’s not like you can win this thing.” * * * These words bounce around in my head. It’s not like you can win this thing. He’s right, of course. I’m not even a contestant. Still, there’s a faint echo of pity party, too. I can’t win. I’m stuck in that tight mental squeeze where I have too many things on my mind and not enough time to devote to them. I

Kristy-Woodson-Harvey-The-Summer-of-Songbirds.txt

cross my arms. “Bryce, for most of my life I didn’t have anyone who cared whether I ate dinner, let alone became successful in business, so you aren’t going to out–sob story me.” “Okay, fine. But do you know how utterly humiliating it was to have to run to my mother, to have to beg her to save me because it was all smoke and mirrors? Because I lost it all?” I do feel the tiniest bit bad for him. “Do you know who will understand the need for personal success bringing out your worst colors?” He rolls his eyes. “Your fiancée. Because wanting to prove herself made her do some dumb things when she was younger. But you owe it to her to tell her. And even if you don’t think she deserves the truth, Cape Carolina is tiny. She will find out.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.” “Why in the hell not?” “Everyone has to sign an NDA before they get their first payment. And who wouldn’t want their money?” That was, I suspected, Bryce’s latest in a long line of incorrect thoughts. I was certain there was someone who would rather make him—or his family—pay. Local media made a lot of enemies. “Have they all signed?” He bit his lip. “No. But I’m hopeful they will.” So there were still a million reasons Bryce wasn’t in the clear. He had to know that all the vendors and subs were pretty tight in Cape Carolina; they would all be talking about this. “She deserves to know,” I say. “This is far from an airtight plan, and, trust me, she will find out. It will be a lot better coming from you than a stranger.” “Daphne, you’re being unreasonable. I’m not a bad guy. I got in over my head and got behind on some payments. It’s not that big a deal.” I nod. “Great. Then if it’s not that big a deal, tell her.” He shakes his head again. “You stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from people, Bryce. How can you sugarcoat that, even to yourself?” He put up his finger. “Not stole. Got behind on paying. This is basically in the past. Everyone has a past, Daphne. Even you, if you’ll recall.” It was kind of a low blow. It was also true. But my past was in the past. Bryce’s situation was unfolding in real time. “I want to be really clear,” I said. “If you don’t tell her, I will.” “You know you can’t do that,” he says. “And why not?” I know why not, but I wonder if he’s callous enough to actually say it to my face. “If you tell, I’ll turn you in to the bar, Daphne. I’m sorry. But I have to protect my family.” I want to slap him. His family? Protect his family? “I am Lanier’s family.” I pause. “Bryce, I am fully aware that telling her means breaking an oath, one I take seriously. If I tell her, I will absolutely turn myself in.” I start

Fahrenheit 451.txt

favourite subject, Myself."' He squinted at the wall. " `The favourite subject, Myself."' "I understand that one," said Mildred. "But Clarisse's favourite subject wasn't herself. It was everyone else, and me. She was the first person in a good many years I've really liked. She was the first person I can remember who looked straight at me as if I counted." He lifted the two books. "These men have been dead a long time, but I know their words point, one way or another, to Clansse." Outside the front door, in the rain, a faint scratching. Montag froze. He saw Mildred thrust herself back to the wall and gasp. "I shut it off." "Someone--the door--why doesn't the door-voice tell us--" Under the door-sill, a slow, probing sniff, an exhalation of electric steam. Mildred laughed. "It's only a dog, that's what! You want me to shoo him away?" "Stay where you are!" Silence. The cold rain falling. And the smell of blue electricity blowing under the locked door. "Let's get back to work," said Montag quietly. Mildred kicked at a book. "Books aren't people. You read and I look around, but there isn't anybody!" He stared at the parlour that was dead and grey as the waters of an ocean that might teem with life if they switched on the electronic sun. "Now," said Mildred, "my `family' is people. They tell me things; I laugh, they laugh! And the colours!" "Yes, I know." "And besides, if Captain Beatty knew about those books--" She thought about it. Her face grew amazed and then horrified. "He might come and bum the house and the `family.' That's awful! Think of our investment. Why should I read? What for?" "What for! Why!" said Montag. "I saw the damnedest snake in the world the other night. It was dead but it was alive. It could see but it couldn't see. You want to see that snake. It's at Emergency Hospital where they filed a report on all the junk the snake got out of you! Would you like to go and check their file? Maybe you'd look under Guy Montag or maybe under Fear or War. Would you like to go to that house that burnt last night? And rake ashes for the bones of the woman who set fire to her own house! What about Clarisse McClellan, where do we look for her? The morgue! Listen!" The bombers crossed the sky and crossed the sky over the house, gasping, murmuring, whistling like an immense, invisible fan, circling in emptiness. "Jesus God," said Montag. "Every hour so many damn things in the sky! How in hell did those bombers get up there every single second of our lives! Why doesn't someone want to talk about it? We've started and won two atomic wars since 1960. Is it because we're having so much fun at home we've forgotten the world? Is it because we're so rich and the rest of the world's so poor and we just don't care if they are? I've heard rumours; the world is starving,

Jane Eyre.txt

in my pencil. I pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed and soon forgot it. |Go to Contents | Chapter XXXIII WHEN Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down Marmion, and beginning Day sat on Norham's castled steep, And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep, And Cheviot mountains lone; The massive towers, the donjon keep, The flanking walls that round them sweep, In yellow luster shone. I soon forgot storm in music. I heard a noise; the wind I thought shook the door. No; it was St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane the howling darkness and stood before me, the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up vale that night. "Is there any ill news?" I demanded. "Has anything happened?" "No. How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his cloak and hanging it up against the door, toward which he again coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his boots. "I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must excuse me for once." Then he approached the fire. "I have had hard work to get here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame. "One drift took me up to the waist; but happily the snow is quite soft yet." "But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying. "Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask it, I answer, simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel." He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his was a very cool and collected insanity. I had never seen that handsome-featured face of

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.txt

the doorway; `and even if my head would go through,' thought poor Alice, `it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to begin.' For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible. There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters. It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry. `No, I'll look first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked `poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. However, this bottle was NOT marked `poison,' so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * `What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up like a telescope.' And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going though the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?' And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing. After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found he had forgotten the

Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt

and bulky, skin cross-stitched with wrinkles and nautical tattoos. Not much work for sailors nowadays; the seas grew rougher by the year, tidal waves upending boats into the dark waters. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “The lady wants to bet? You’re lucky—I got new ones today. Should be a real fight.” “How does it work?” Io asked, gesturing at the cages. “You get a good look at our contestants, place your bet, then watch them fight. If your fighter wins, you get your money back, plus some interest.” “How much do people bet?” Io reached into her jacket. “Is fifteen notes all right?” Nico, who was standing at her back, proceeded to theatrically choke. Fifteen notes was a ridiculous amount. Nico knew it, Horatio knew it, but daddy’s girl from Nanzy didn’t. “Let’s start with three,” Nico said carefully, “and see how it goes, yeah, love?” Io scrunched her eyebrows in fake confusion. “Sure.” “Adam!” Horatio called out to a boy across the fighting pit. “Let’s show these folks what they’re paying for.” A roar of excitement filled the air. The fence in front of Io shook from the force of two dozen spectators beating it with their fists. The boy pulled a fragile-looking rope, and the cloths covering the cages fell away to reveal . . . There was no other word to describe them but “chimeras.” The first, on Io’s right, was a cross between a hare and a crab. A furry snout caked with mud, long, twitching ears, four normal legs and four extra ones that sprouted from its spine and ended in curved, pointy pincers. Its crab legs shot through the bars, longer than Io had expected. The audience on that side of the fence jumped away, screaming ecstatically. The second, on the left, looked like a small crocodile but moved like a mouse, scurrying up and down the metal bars so fast Io’s eyes couldn’t follow. Its body was scaled and its tail spiked. But it was the last one, across from her, that inspired true terror: smaller than the others, with six spidery legs, a shiny, black shell, and three tails curving forward like a scorpion’s. It sat in its cage with the unnatural stillness of a true predator. “That one. Three notes on that one,” Io said, the awe in her voice genuine. Careful to hide her wallet from Horatio, as though she had quite a large amount in there, she produced three notes and placed them in his palm. “Good choice, pet,” Horatio replied. To the crowd, he roared, “All bets are placed?” Io and Nico must have been the last to arrive—the crowd shrieked in reply, stomping on the wood. Horatio nodded at the boy, and the bottom of the cages dropped open, spilling the malformed beasts into the muddy arena. Io stepped a little closer, holding her breath. The hare immediately took the lead, dashing across the pit and pinching the crocodile’s front leg. The latter retaliated by bringing its spiked tail down on the claw. It was sliced clean off;

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt

of which there appeared an image of himself, grown older and sadder, standing in a moonlit garden with Mercedes who had so many years before slighted his love, and with a sadly proud gesture of refusal, saying: --Madam, I never eat muscatel grapes. He became the ally of a boy named Aubrey Mills and founded with him a gang of adventurers in the avenue. Aubrey carried a whistle dangling from his buttonhole and a bicycle lamp attached to his belt while the others had short sticks thrust daggerwise through theirs. Stephen, who had read of Napoleon's plain style of dress, chose to remain unadorned and thereby heightened for himself the pleasure of taking counsel with his lieutenant before giving orders. The gang made forays into the gardens of old maids or went down to the castle and fought a battle on the shaggy weed-grown rocks, coming home after it weary stragglers with the stale odours of the foreshore in their nostrils and the rank oils of the seawrack upon their hands and in their hair. Aubrey and Stephen had a common milkman and often they drove out in the milk-car to Carrickmines where the cows were at grass. While the men were milking the boys would take turns in riding the tractable mare round the field. But when autumn came the cows were driven home from the grass: and the first sight of the filthy cowyard at Stradbrook with its foul green puddles and clots of liquid dung and steaming bran troughs, sickened Stephen's heart. The cattle which had seemed so beautiful in the country on sunny days revolted him and he could not even look at the milk they yielded. The coming of September did not trouble him this year for he was not to be sent back to Clongowes. The practice in the park came to an end when Mike Flynn went into hospital. Aubrey was at school and had only an hour or two free in the evening. The gang fell asunder and there were no more nightly forays or battles on the rocks. Stephen sometimes went round with the car which delivered the evening milk and these chilly drives blew away his memory of the filth of the cowyard and he felt no repugnance at seeing the cow hairs and hayseeds on the milkman's coat. Whenever the car drew up before a house he waited to catch a glimpse of a well scrubbed kitchen or of a softly lighted hall and to see how the servant would hold the jug and how she would close the door. He thought it should be a pleasant life enough, driving along the roads every evening to deliver milk, if he had warm gloves and a fat bag of gingernuts in his pocket to eat from. But the same foreknowledge which had sickened his heart and made his legs sag suddenly as he raced round the park, the same intuition which had made him glance with mistrust at his trainer's flabby stubble-covered face as it bent heavily over his long stained fingers,

The Mysteries of Udolpho.txt

his domestics. Emily seldom opposed her father's wishes by questions or remonstrances, or she would now have asked why he did not take a servant, and have represented that his infirm health made one almost necessary. But when, on the eve of their departure, she found that he had dismissed Jacques, Francis, and Mary, and detained only Theresa the old housekeeper, she was extremely surprised, and ventured to ask his reason for having done so. 'To save expences, my dear,' he replied--'we are going on an expensive excursion.' The physician had prescribed the air of Languedoc and Provence; and St. Aubert determined, therefore, to travel leisurely along the shores of the Mediterranean, towards Provence. They retired early to their chamber on the night before their departure; but Emily had a few books and other things to collect, and the clock had struck twelve before she had finished, or had remembered that some of her drawing instruments, which she meant to take with her, were in the parlour below. As she went to fetch these, she passed her father's room, and, perceiving the door half open, concluded that he was in his study--for, since the death of Madame St. Aubert, it had been frequently his custom to rise from his restless bed, and go thither to compose his mind. When she was below stairs she looked into this room, but without finding him; and as she returned to her chamber, she tapped at his door, and receiving no answer, stepped softly in, to be certain whether he was there. The room was dark, but a light glimmered through some panes of glass that were placed in the upper part of a closet-door. Emily believed her father to be in the closet, and, surprised that he was up at so late an hour, apprehended he was unwell, and was going to enquire; but, considering that her sudden appearance at this hour might alarm him, she removed her light to the stair-case, and then stepped softly to the closet. On looking through the panes of glass, she saw him seated at a small table, with papers before him, some of which he was reading with deep attention and interest, during which he often wept and sobbed aloud. Emily, who had come to the door to learn whether her father was ill, was now detained there by a mixture of curiosity and tenderness. She could not witness his sorrow, without being anxious to know the subject of; and she therefore continued to observe him in silence, concluding that those papers were letters of her late mother. Presently he knelt down, and with a look so solemn as she had seldom seen him assume, and which was mingled with a certain wild expression, that partook more of horror than of any other character, he prayed silently for a considerable time. When he rose, a ghastly paleness was on his countenance. Emily was hastily retiring; but she saw him turn again to the papers, and she stopped. He took from among them a small case, and from thence

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt

took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was shining, and out- side of the shadows it made it most as light as day. I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying the night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and brung her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the leaves. I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two to listen. But I hadn't no luck somehow; I couldn't seem to find the place. But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It most give me the fantods. He had a blanket around his head, and his head was nearly in the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes in about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says: "Hello, Jim!" and skipped out. He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees, and puts his hands together and says: "Doan' hurt me -- don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in de river agin, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz awluz yo' fren'." Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so glad to see Jim. I warn't lone- some now. I told him I warn't afraid of HIM telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he only set there and looked at me; never said nothing. Then I says: "It's good daylight. Le's get breakfast. Make up your camp fire good." "What's de use er makin' up de camp fire to cook strawbries en sich truck? But you got a gun, hain't you? Den we kin git sumfn better den strawbries." "Strawberries and such truck," I says. "Is that what you live on?" "I couldn' git nuffn else,"

The-Scorched-Throne-1-Sara-Hashe.txt

open the wardrobe doors, searching for any hidden jewelry chests. “Why would it?” Sefa moved to the opposite bedside table. “Just because I have no interest in such affairs does not mean I expect the same from Marek.” My curiosity chose this inopportune moment to demand satisfaction. I flipped the cushions on Vaida’s chairs, digging into the corners of the divan. “Was there ever a time when Marek wanted more than friendship?” Sefa pursed her lips before groping under the pillows piled on Vaida’s cavern of a bed. “Yes, and then that time passed. I have encouraged him to find someone in Mahair, to build a life with a partner who welcomes his passion and devotion.” She crawled under the bed, and I went through the washroom. When we emerged, she continued. “He refuses.” “Where you go, he will follow. A relationship with another person will falter under his commitment to you,” I pointed out. Sefa heaved a sigh, opening the doors to the second wardrobe adjacent to the bed. A dozen ivory gowns hung inside. “We have depended on each other for too long. He thinks letting himself love someone will break his attachment to me. I don’t know how to prove to him he doesn’t owe me his life.” Sefa admired the stitching on the hem of a delicate silk gown. She glanced over as I slit open a cushion and stuffed my arm inside. “Are these questions new to you?” I flipped the cushion to its good side and shoved it back to the seat. “It was not my place to ask before.” “But it is now?” Sefa asked, smiling. She parsed the items on Vaida’s beauty table, knocking perfumes and powders together. “If it means anything, it has always been your place to ask.” I stopped slashing Vaida’s cushions. Sefa always did this. Casually offered her heart to me. I had thought it was a personal failing, the ease with which she gave it away. But Sefa—Sefa was stingy with her confidences. She simply chose to trust me, in particular, over and over again. “Sylvia? What is it?” Sefa abandoned the table, perching on the divan beside me. Essiya, Hanim warned. I swallowed past my dry throat. “You were right.” “Right about what?” Sefa frowned. She scrutinized my downcast gaze. Understanding flashed across her features, and her jaw dropped. “Oh, Sylvia, no.” The words spilled with the force of blood bursting from a severed artery. “The Heir—he enrages me, Sefa. I have never encountered a more paranoid man in my life. He lives from one theory to the next, manipulating people with utter detachment, and I can never guess what horrors his mind will concoct. Did you know he eats with his right hand when he is in a good mood and his left when he isn’t? Why do I even remember that? And if he touches me, it does not—I don’t—” I shoved the dagger into the cushion, tearing a diagonal line across the velvet surface. I could not bear to look at Sefa. “He is Nizahl’s

The Hunger Games.txt

fills my mouth. Nervousness seeps into terror as I anticipate what is to come. I could be dead, flat-out dead, in an hour. Not even. My fingers obsessively trace the hard little lump on my forearm where the woman injected the tracking device. I press on it, even though it hurts, I press on it so hard a small bruise be- gins to form. “Do you want to talk, Katniss?” Cinna asks. I shake my head but after a moment hold out my hand to him. Cinna encloses it in both of his. And this is how we sit un- til a pleasant female voice announces it’s time to prepare for launch. Still clenching one of Cinna’s hands, I walk over and stand on the circular metal plate. “Remember what Haymitch said. Run, find water. The rest will follow,” he says. I nod. “And re- member this. I’m not allowed to bet, but if I could, my money would be on you.” “Truly?” I whisper. “Truly,” says Cinna. He leans down and kisses me on the forehead. “Good luck, girl on fire.” And then a glass cylinder is lowering around me, breaking our handhold, cutting him off from me. He taps his fingers under his chin. Head high. I lift my chin and stand as straight as I can. The cylinder be- gins to rise. For maybe fifteen seconds, I’m in darkness and 145 then I can feel the metal plate pushing me out of the cylinder, into the open air. For a moment, my eyes are dazzled by the bright sunlight and I’m conscious only of a strong wind with the hopeful smell of pine trees. Then I hear the legendary announcer, Claudius Temples- mith, as his voice booms all around me. “Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!” 146 Sixty seconds. That’s how long we’re required to stand on our metal circles before the sound of a gong releases us. Step off before the minute is up, and land mines blow your legs off. Sixty seconds to take in the ring of tributes all equidistant from the Cornucopia, a giant golden horn shaped like a cone with a curved tail, the mouth of which is at least twenty feet high, spilling over with the things that will give us life here in the arena. Food, containers of water, weapons, medicine, gar- ments, fire starters. Strewn around the Cornucopia are other supplies, their value decreasing the farther they are from the horn. For instance, only a few steps from my feet lays a three- foot square of plastic. Certainly it could be of some use in a downpour. But there in the mouth, I can see a tent pack that would protect from almost any sort of weather. If I had the guts to go in and fight for it against the other twenty-three tri- butes. Which I have been instructed not to do. We’re on a flat, open stretch of ground. A plain of hard- packed dirt. Behind the tributes across from me, I can see nothing, indicating

The Invisible Man- A Grotesque Romance.txt

and despairing at his intolerable fate, and sheltering at last, heated and weary, amid the thickets of Hintondean, to piece together again his shattered schemes against his species. That seems the most probable refuge for him, for there it was he re-asserted himself in a grimly tragical manner about two in the afternoon. One wonders what his state of mind may have been during that time, and what plans he devised. No doubt he was almost ecstatically exasperated by Kemp's treachery, and though we may be able to understand the motives that led to that deceit, we may still imagine and even sympathise a little with the fury the attempted surprise must have occasioned. Perhaps something of the stunned astonishment of his Oxford Street experiences may have returned to him, for evidently he had counted on Kemp's co-operation in his brutal dream of a terrorised world. At any rate he vanished from human ken about midday, and no living witness can tell what he did until about half-past two. It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, for humanity, but for him it was a fatal inaction. During that time a growing multitude of men scattered over the countryside were busy. In the morning he had still been simply a legend, a terror; in the afternoon, by virtue chiefly of Kemp's drily worded proclamation, he was presented as a tangible antagonist, to be wounded, captured, or overcome, and the countryside began organising itself with inconceivable rapidity. By two o'clock even he might still have removed himself out of the district by getting aboard a train, but after two that became impossible. Every passenger train along the lines on a great parallelogram between Southampton, Manchester, Brighton, and Horsham, travelled with locked doors, and the goods traffic was almost entirely suspended. And in a great circle of twenty miles round Port Burdock, men armed with guns and bludgeons were presently setting out in groups of three and four, with dogs, to beat the roads and fields. Mounted policemen rode along the country lanes, stopping at every cottage and warning the people to lock up their houses, and keep indoors unless they were armed, and all the elementary schools had broken up by three o'clock, and the children, scared and keeping together in groups, were hurrying home. Kemp's proclamation--signed indeed by Adye--was posted over almost the whole district by four or five o'clock in the afternoon. It gave briefly but clearly all the conditions of the struggle, the necessity of keeping the Invisible Man from food and sleep, the necessity for incessant watchfulness and for a prompt attention to any evidence of his movements. And so swift and decided was the action of the authorities, so prompt and universal was the belief in this strange being, that before nightfall an area of several hundred square miles was in a stringent state of siege. And before nightfall, too, a thrill of horror went through the whole watching nervous countryside. Going from whispering mouth to mouth, swift and certain over the length and breadth of the county, passed the

A Day of Fallen Night.txt

a gentle press, testing its depth. ‘I must have stumbled.’ ‘But why would you go out in the dark, without anything to keep you warm?’ ‘I was foolish.’ She sounded tired. ‘I panicked, Dumai. I remembered the storm that froze your fingers, how many died on the mountain that night. I didn’t want to lose anyone else.’ ‘There are rules for survival,’ Dumai said, her voice straining. ‘You taught me that.’ ‘I know.’ Unora drew her breath. ‘Dumai, how would you feel if we moved to a different temple?’ Dumai frowned. ‘What?’ ‘The South Mountains have beautiful temples. Or we could go west, to the coast,’ Unora said, almost feverishly. ‘Would you not like that, my kite, to swim in the sea – to see more of the world?’ ‘Our home is enough.’ Dumai was unnerved. ‘Mama, you’re tired and hurt. You don’t mean this.’ She stopped when Kanifa slid the door open, sweat on his brow. ‘The Kuposa lady is gone.’ Unora stared at him, her face bloodless. ‘She, too?’ She sat up with trembling arms. ‘When did she leave?’ ‘Tirotu went to wake them at sunrise and found their footprints. I came as soon as—’ ‘Stop her,’ Unora barked, making Dumai flinch in surprise. ‘Follow their tracks.’ When Kanifa and Dumai exchanged a bewildered look, she spoke through clenched teeth: ‘Kanifa, you can overtake her. You’re faster and stronger than any of the others. No matter what her protests, bring that woman back. Do not let her reach Antuma.’ With little choice, Kanifa left. Dumai made to follow him, but her mother caught her arm, steel in her fingers. ‘Kanifa will manage,’ she said, quieter. ‘You stay here with me, Dumai.’ **** By evening, Kanifa had not returned, but Dumai knew he would have taken shelter in the mountain village. He would never be fool enough to try to climb back up the steps in darkness. While she waited, she looked after her mother, bringing her meals and icing her ankle. Unora moved little and said less. Each time the wind shook the shutters, or the temple gave one of its placid creaks, her eyes would snap open, her gaze darting to the corridor. After a time, she dozed off, her forehead crinkled even in sleep. When Tirotu came with hot wine, Dumai whispered, ‘Will you send word to the village tomorrow, to see if Kanifa arrived?’ ‘Of course,’ they said. ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Dumai. Don’t worry.’ ‘I’ll try.’ Tirotu slid the door shut, and Dumai lay close to her mother, wondering why Unora would ever want to bring a guest back to the temple by force – and how she meant to keep her there. **** The next day broke like ice, cold and clear. As Dumai walked to the sky platform, she noticed the snow had shallowed, and the frozen spines on the eaves were dripping. Strange in the darker half of the year. She watched the slopes for a long time. At the sight of the tiny figure in the snow, the tension in her chest

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt

a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Harry could read upside down: Dear Professor Dumbledore, Given Harry his letter. Taking him to buy his things tomorrow. Weather's horrible. Hope you're well. Hagrid Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone. Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly. "Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight. "He's not going," he said. Hagrid grunted. "I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said. "A what?" said Harry, interested. "A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like thern. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on." "We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!" "You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a -- a wizard?" "Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that -- that school -- and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!" She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years. "Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as -- as -- abnormal -- and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!" Harry had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, "Blown up? You told me they died in a car crash!" "CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry Potter not knowin' his own story when every kid in our world knows his name!" "But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently. The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious. "I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, I don' know if I'm

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt

to program it to say What? and I don't understand and Where's the tea? - who'd know the difference?" "What?" cried Arthur, backing away still further. "See what I mean?" said Zaphod and howled with pain because of something that Trillian did at that moment. "I'd notice the difference," said Arthur. "No you wouldn't," said Frankie mouse, "you'd be programmed not to." Ford made for the door. "Look, I'm sorry, mice old lads," he said. "I don't think we've got a deal." "I rather think we have to have a deal," said the mice in chorus, all the charm vanishing fro their piping little voices in an instant. With a tiny whining shriek their two glass transports lifted themselves off the table, and swung through the air towards Arthur, who stumbled further backwards into a blind corner, utterly unable to cope or think of anything. Trillian grabbed him desperately by the arm and tried to drag him towards the door, which Ford and Zaphod were struggling to open, but Arthur was dead weight - he seemed hypnotized by the airborne rodents swooping towards him. She screamed at him, but he just gaped. With one more yank, Ford and Zaphod got the door open. On the other side of it was a small pack of rather ugly men who they could only assume were the heavy mob of Magrathea. Not only were they ugly themselves, but the medical equipment they carried with them was also far from pretty. They charged. So - Arthur was about to have his head cut open, Trillian was unable to help him, and Ford and Zaphod were about to be set upon by several thugs a great deal heavier and more sharply armed than they were. All in all it was extremely fortunate that at that moment every alarm on the planet burst into an earsplitting din. ================================================================= Chapter 32 "Emergency! Emergency!" blared the klaxons throughout Magrathea. "Hostile ship has landed on planet. Armed intruders in section 8A. Defence stations, defence stations!" The two mice sniffed irritably round the fragments of their glass transports where they lay shattered on the floor. "Damnation," muttered Frankie mouse, "all that fuss over two pounds of Earthling brain." He scuttled round and about, his pink eyes flashing, his fine white coat bristling with static. "The only thing we can do now," said Benji, crouching and stroking his whiskers in thought, "is to try and fake a question, invent one that will sound plausible." "Difficult," said Frankie. He thought. "How about What's yellow and dangerous?" Benji considered this for a moment. "No, no good," he said. "Doesn't fit the answer." They sank into silence for a few seconds. "Alright," said Benji. "What do you get if you multiply six by seven?" "No, no, too literal, too factual," said Frankie, "wouldn't sustain the punters' interest." Again they thought. Then Frankie said: "Here's a thought. How many roads must a man walk down?" "Ah," said Benji. "Aha, now that does sound promising!" He rolled the phrase around a little. "Yes," he said, "that's excellent! Sounds

The-Housekeepers.txt

do what?” Hephzibah’s eyes darkened. “To—charm someone,” Winnie said, casting about for the right word. She couldn’t afford to be overheard. She wasn’t used to this sort of business at all. “Charm someone?” “Yes! The way only you could do it.” The silence was dreadful. Hephzibah took another cherry, examined it. “Not all actresses are tarts, you know,” she said. Winnie felt herself grow cold. “That’s not at all what I mean.” Hephzibah’s eyes flashed upward. “I don’t need money that badly. I’ve got money.” “Hephzibah...” “I’ve got any number of jobs coming.” Winnie sat forward in her chair. “Let me explain myself,” she said. Hephzibah snatched the program, held it up to the lamplight. “It’s a bad night tonight. Rough acts, top to bottom. You should’ve come on a Saturday. Then you’d see some talent. Not this rubbish.” “Hephzibah...” “If I ran this place, it would go like a dream. I’d write the bloody plays myself. I’ve got a great talent.” “I know.” “A rare talent. It deserves proper cultivation.” She sent another cherry stone bouncing into the bowl. Perfect aim. “It’s pretty rich, you marching in here, out of the blue. I haven’t heard from you for months.” Winnie opened her mouth. Closed it again. “I always write,” she said uneasily. “And I reply!” “Well,” said Winnie, not able to help herself, “you send me pictures of yourself.” Hephzibah shot her a look. “Picture postcards.” Winnie wilted. “Yes.” “Very fetching ones.” Sometimes the moment was presented to you, the window opened just a crack. Winnie forced herself not to be a coward. “Hephzibah. I’m so—” The words came in a rush. “I’m so enormously—sorry.” That face! Immaculate, the expression smoothing out, like the tide sweeping the sands. Hephzibah said nothing. Winnie remembered the day Hephzibah had left. Upped and vanished in the night, they said. Yet another runaway. It had infuriated everybody, Winnie included, who’d been left with the task of clearing out Hephzibah’s rubbish and sad, much-mended uniforms. Dinah King had laughed. “You know how she is,” she’d said. “She’s got dreams. She wants to be onstage.” They hadn’t asked any questions. Hephzibah crumpled the program in her hands, tossed it aside. Grabbed her glass of sherry, spilling a little over the brim. “If you weren’t so bloody pious,” she said, “and po-faced, then I shouldn’t get so annoyed with you. Honestly, it’s too bad. Every time you come plodding down to see me you just make me feel beastly. It brings everything up again. You do understand that, don’t you?” Winnie nodded. “I don’t mean to.” Hephzibah handed Winnie her own glass. “Here. Put some color in your cheeks. I can’t sit here and watch you sweating all night.” Winnie grasped it. “Thanks.” “So, tell me.” Winnie took a swig. “There’s something delicate we want you to do,” she said, feeling the burn in her throat. “We?” “Me and Dinah King.” Hephzibah’s eyes widened. Winnie raised a palm. “She doesn’t know, Hephzibah. On my honor, she doesn’t know a thing.” Hephzibah leaned back in her chair. “Lucky her.

Great Expectations.txt

opposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct personal affront. He now retorted in a coarse lumpish way, and Startop tried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made us all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything, Drummle, without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets, dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and would have flung it at his adversary's head, but for our entertainer's dexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised for that purpose. "Gentlemen," said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass, and hauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain, "I am exceedingly sorry to announce that it's half-past nine." On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street door, Startop was cheerily calling Drummle "old boy," as if nothing had happened. But the old boy was so far from responding, that he would not even walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way; so, Herbert and I, who remained in town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides; Startop leading, and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the houses, much as he was wont to follow in his boat. As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for a moment, and run up-stairs again to say a word to my guardian. I found him in his dressing-room surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard at it, washing his hands of us. I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame me much. "Pooh!" said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the water-drops; "it's nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though." He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head, and blowing, and towelling himself. "I am glad you like him, sir," said I - "but I don't." "No, no," my guardian assented; "don't have too much to do with him. Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is one of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-teller--" Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye. "But I am not a fortune-teller," he said, letting his head drop into a festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears. "You know what I am, don't you? Good-night, Pip." "Good-night, sir." In about a month after that, the Spider's time with Mr. Pocket was up for good, and, to the great relief of all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he went home to the family hole. Chapter 27 "MY DEAR MR PIP, "I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard's Hotel Tuesday morning 9 o'clock,

Riley-Sager-The-Only-One-Left.txt

because, just like Archie, I doubt Mrs. Baker will be honest about it. Also, I see no reason to make myself a target. If I’m not one already. Because her revelation that she’ll inherit Hope’s End makes me suspect there are secrets Mrs. Baker would do anything to keep. And that she had every reason in the world to kill Mary. Miss Baker made us tea and took me back to the sunroom for what she called “a nice chat.” As if nothing about our respective roles had changed. I was still the pupil and she the proper lady tasked with teaching me how to become the same. Only I seemed to see the ridiculousness of that. After all, I knew what she’d been doing with my father in that same sunroom minutes earlier. “What do we do now?” she said, addressing the situation as if we both had a say in the matter. She didn’t. “You can start by telling me why,” I said. “Why my father? Do you love him?” Miss Baker could barely hold back her laughter. “No, child. What we have is strictly transactional. I give him what he wants, and he rewards me with small tokens of appreciation.” Money, in other words. For all her talk of manners and propriety, Miss Baker was nothing but a high-class whore. My disgust with her must have shown in my expression, because she snapped, “Don’t you dare judge me, young lady. Someone like you, born into enormous wealth, has no idea what it’s like for the rest of us. The things we need to do to survive. Especially unmarried women like me. I’m simply looking out for my future.” “At what price?” I said. “The highest one I can get.” Miss Baker leaned back in her seat, daring me to say another critical word. “Is that what all this is about? You wanted to confront me? Try to shame me?” “No,” I said. “I wanted to show you this.” I stood, pulled the fabric of my dress tight against me, and turned so Miss Baker could see my growing stomach in profile. “Dear me,” she said as she set her teacup on its saucer. Her hands shook so much the teacup rattled the whole way to the table at her side. “How far along are you?” “Six months.” “And the father?” “I’m not going to tell you,” I said, unwilling to risk bringing Ricky into this. If Miss Baker knew, she might tell my father, who would surely fire him. Then there’d be no hope of Ricky and me scraping together enough money for the one thing I most desperately wanted to do--escape. “Did he force himself on you?” Miss Baker said. My face turned red as I shook my head and looked at the floor, too ashamed to face her. “I see.” Miss Baker paused to clear her throat. “Does he know about your . . . predicament?” “Yes.” “And what does he intend to do?” “Make an honest woman out of me,” I said, which prompted a rueful